Mac Pc

We hear it all the time. Or no, I don't guess we do, cause it mostly seems like a PC world to me.I was reluctant to ever get a computer, I just wanted to do things the old way and not set foot into this new world. People would over and over urge me to get one, especially after watching a movie I had made or seeing the television shows. I guess they knew what new worlds it would open up for me. But I just knew I was way too far behind to get caught up on all that technology. A few years back when Roanoke.com had first built the website and set up email and all...well, I didn't even know how to answer an email. Everything was done over the phone. The editor at Roanoke.com would call me, ask me what the latest news was from The Chicken Ranch, read me my emails then I would give my answers and she would type all that in. That's how far behind I was!

Soon, my freind and co-director Kenny Hicks, introduced me to the Sony VX 2000 digital camera.(I was shooting all my TV episodes on an outdated $300 VHS camcorder from Walmart). Yep, the kind you stick the whole VHS tape in (Probably the first 200 episodes were shot on that dinosaur)! I guess the introduction to the Sony VX 2000 camera was the start of my realizing that all this new technology had a lot to offer me.

Quite a few TV episodes later and two full length movies on that camera led to a public screening of my movie "The Dead Have Risen" at the Cinema Cafe in Roanoke. Among the patrons was my friend and cinematographer for "SuperBadass" and "Night of the Bums" Jerry Scheeler. After the screening, Jerry walked up and said "Charles, you really need a computer, a Mac". Now Jerry has always had a lot of influence on me, and this was the first time it started to sink in.

Hmmmm, plenty of PC dealers around here, but where does one find this animal called a Mac. Mac, Apple, oh the logo is an apple with a bite taken out of it. What does Mac stand for...Macintosh. Hey, wait a minute, I worked on an orchard as a teenager. We had apple trees called macintosh. It was all coming together. I get it, apple, macintosh...MAC!

So yeah, where do you get one? And that is what you begin to learn . Mac is very segregated. It's kind of like buying an auto. Do you buy the cheaper Hyundai that you know every Advance Auto is going to have parts for, and most all shops will work on it, or do you go for the BMW, knowing that when that thing breaks, you'll have to pay out the tail for it?

Here's one big difference though. A Hyundai is pretty reliable in the first place. A PC, well, you can count on that thing crashing on a regular basis! So, you might ask, "Why doesn't everyone buy a Mac?" Mac puts its money into creating a superior product. PC pours its money into massive ad campaigns. Plus, they got an early start on the computer market and have since then held a firm stranglehold on all other competition. It's amazing that Mac has come as far as they have, given that they are dealing with the Walmart of computer world.

I did come across a place that dealt in Macs. Computer Pros. They had a brand new G4 ,but considered it used.

Someone had purchased it and returned it about a week later. "Why did they return it" I asked. The manager explained to me that he felt it was a little more complex than what the customer had wanted. They offerred me a good price on it and said they all enjoyed my TV show. They also threw in a one year warranty and some strange spaceship looking subwoofer thing. I liked the guys a lot and came back a few weeks later to interview them for my show "Charles E. Cullen's Worst Educational Show Ever Made". It was a good interview. One of the questions I asked was "What's one of the strangest repairs you have ever had to do?" The answer was "removing a condom from the disc drive."

After buying the Mac and getting it home, I realized how fortunate I was to have Janet around. She grew up in a "Mac" family. So she was there to teach me how to use it. I would say it took a good solid year for me to really get around good on the thing.

I do, after owning a Mac for about three years now, feel that it is a much better engineered machine than a PC. It is

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