Taking a Break

Well, right now I'm taking a break from making this video. I think this is the first time I've been so stressed about doing a video, especially since it wasn't just sit down for just an hour and work on it. This is the fourth day I've worked on it, and jeez is it tiring. On top of that I have a couple of 'team members' who are contributing their 'ideas', and I don't quite mean to be that sarcastic but it really is starting to give me a headache. Plus I'm totally worried about that final english paper that I have to finish, and I'm pretty worried I'm going to fail that class entirely. The teacher is kind of strict even though she was nice about extending the deadline for me on this paper. I am really bad about this procrastinating thing, especially when I'm tired and have an earache.

Other than all of that, I'm enjoying my MacBook a whole lot, especially how nice it is to use entirely. Everything just flows really well, and with most of the programs, especially the ones that are grouped together, there isn't much of a need to waste time rendering a video or whatever, I can just drag the file to the program and it will play it or render a preview in realtime. In the end that adds more time to render the whole thing, but it's all worth it, especially if I end up deleting it. The nicest one so far has been going from iPhoto to iMovie to iDVD. iMovie can access the iPhoto gallery directly, and then I can prepare a movie for iDVD in about five minutes, and then burn the project straight to a DVD. Some time soon I'm going to move to Adobe's software suite, since it's even more centralized, and I'm really looking forward to messing with After Effects and Premier Pro. I've already done a little thing of Nate having a lightsaber and then doing that whole thing of the fast run like you see in Smallville.

The other thing I've really liked about having this MacBook is that it acutally is a LAPTOP. I love being able to sit anywhere in the house, in front of the TV, or get comfy in my bed. And since I downloaded a fan controller and turned it on max to keep it cool, it doesn't actually get that hot--and I'd rather have a shorter life on my fan than on my processor (really, what were they thinking on that one?). Which brings me to the few issues I have with my Mac. The original problem I had with it was that they sent me one with a broken keyboard, but they sent me a new, better one for 'free'. Oh well, I didn't pay for it ;) The other thing I'm a little bit peeved about is how hot it gets. Not so much for when I'm doing something processor-intensive (the fans kick themselves on if I don't already have them on full blast), but for when it's charging. The changing of the lithium ion polymer battery makes the whole thing get really hot, and you'd think they would have made some sort of vent for that. Another thing I really don't like is where they put my USB ports. I use a Bluetooth mouse most of the time for when I want to do that--and really, the trackpad on this thing is NICE--but I kind of wanted to get a Mighty Mouse since they're laser, but the USB port is all the way on the left side of the Mac, and I'm right handed. Speaking of positioning, the place the power chord goes into isn't all that conveniently located either. It's located on the left corner as well, which really doesn't do any good when my chord is coming from the right. Alright, now I'm having some trouble finding things to complain about on this Mac. I would say that I don't like the fact that XGrid doesn't work with my Windows Server, but that's just a software issue, Windows doesn't have Cocoa libs xD