Mac Attack

[the_gneech]

Back in October, when I was first making my transition to stay-at-home writer/artist dude, the always-awesome lythandra bought me a new laptop for my birthday/new career. The choice was entirely mine, and being an airhead, I naturally chose wrong.

Well, sorta. I got a Macbook Air, a lightweight and zippy laptop, on the reasonable assumption that I would only be using it to write, while the more heavy-duty machine that would be required for me to do comics on was 33% more expensive and I had a perfectly serviceable PC that I had been using for art for years.

Of course, once we were past the return period, my perfectly serviceable PC started to go south. ¬.¬ Strange hangups, DLLs getting lost, BSODs, etc. Malware and anti-virus programs helped, but did not fix the problem completely, and one of those BSODs created a recurring problem where Outlook crashes on startup and you spend the rest of the day being notified that it can't start Outlook every 10 minutes whether you asked it to or not. Productivity was dropping fast, and I was constantly paranoid that the machine would die on me while I was fighting a deadline.

So, yeah. Had I known that was coming, I would have gone with a Macbook Pro. -.- But the thing with the game of life is, you can only move forward, so I started looking at ways to finance a PC replacement. One idea that came to me was to add "Buy a Macbook" as a goal on my Patreon campaign. I have to admit, I never actually expected the goal to be reached.

It was reached within a day. O.o I nearly had (more) kittens.

So, Macbook Pro get. :) It's a "certified refurbished," which is sort of like going to the auto dealership and getting last year's model-- which in the case of a Macintosh, puts it at a comparable price to a similar PC. And it's a beefy little laptop! I spent last night and most of today getting it up and running, as well as figuring out how to avoid all the little traps along the way. ("Do you want to erase everything from your iPhone to sync with this computer?" "Hell no, what are you THINKING?") Hooking it up to the PC network was surprisingly painless, although completely nonintuitive.

The main lingering issue now is one of software. The copy of Manga Studio I have came with both PC and Mac versions, and that's my comic-creating workhorse, but there are still some things that Photoshop is just much easier for, especially when it comes to text and certain painty effects. But older (i.e., non-subscription) versions of Photoshop still go on eBay for $300+, so I'm going to have to either wince and put MORE on the credit card, or spend time hunting down a Photoshop-killer.

The other thing is cross-platform gotchas-- the scroll wheel on the trackball is reversed-axis from the PC, for instance, so I keep scrolling the wrong way. CTRL+uparrow might do anything, nothing, or several things, all dependent on the app-- there's no dedicated and consistent "Page Up/Page Down".

So, still some stuff to shake down, but I think that for this lappy and me, it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship. lythandra is going to take the Air as a replacement for her old never-really-liked-it PC and see how well that goes.

So, thank you, Patreon supporters! I'll make good use of it. :)

-The Gneech

Comments

[britishredfox.livejournal.com]

If you want to return to a more normal scrolling direction, go to System Preferences (from the Apple menu in the top-left), then choose Mouse, and untick "Scrolling direction: natural".

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, handy, thank you! I was looking under the trackball driver.

-TG

[hantamouse.livejournal.com]

So the choice is between "natural" and "normal"? Wait, this sounds like an Apple cultural thing.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

You're not suggesting Mac snobbery, are you? ;)

-TG

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

ROFLMEOW!

[hollyannvix.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing more and more people mentioning Patreon, and getting themselves an account there and stuff, and I have to say, I'm quite curious about it O.o The only thing is, if I ever got one myself, I'm not sure what kind of goals I'd put. Heck, lately it's a goal for me to just *draw* >.>

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Patreon gives you a "per month" vs. "per project" choice, so if your output is slow or spotty I'd definitely suggest the "per month" option. But it also kinda depends on you having an active and eager fandom, which is something only you can tell if you have-- and being willing to shamelessly promote, which is something only you can tell if you're willing to do. ;)

I'm sure the attention garnered by the new SJ is what made mine as successful as it's been.

-TG

[hollyannvix.livejournal.com]

Well, I gotta say, it's got my interest.

One part of me is thinking that maybe, if I do something like this and get a Patreon account, it'll help keep me productive, maybe make themed days or something. Another part of me is worried about the times when I'm not able to be productive >.>

...and another part of me, deep, deep down inside, is saying "you could re-boot Mountain Poutine if you're getting "paid" to do it, couldn't you??" O.o Which...actually wouldn't make it quite so bad in doing it then.

I am so curious about it...I dunno. I'd have to really think it through.

Do you know if you can cancel your account if things aren't going the way you hope for? Like, if I just don't want to do it anymore, could I get rid of Patreon?

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there's some way to end a campaign, but I don't know the specifics.

Getting paid to restart Mountain Poutine would be a good theme to build around, tho!

-TG

[hollyannvix.livejournal.com]

*nods* One of the reasons why I ended it because it felt more tedious and just not worth my sanity >.< I basically did it for free, regardless of having a tip jar on my page and all, and yet people demanded more, More, MORE. I just couldn't keep up.

However, if I was actually receiving money to do it, with maybe some perks added in or something, it might be a way to give me a nudge to think about starting it back up again. I'm better at drawing since I last worked on it (although I'll admit, it's the colouring that really got to me), but I enjoyed the story plots I used to make and such.

Again though, I'll have to read up more about it (Patreon), and then think hard about this, and if it's something I'd want to do.

My hubby thinks that one of my greatest art mistakes I've made was ending Mountain Poutine, cuz I had a good following back in the day. But from the stress and anxiety it also gave me, and basically doing it for free all that time, I just couldn't pick it back up. I know it sounds awful to want to wish to be paid to do it, but it was a lot of work for me O.o;

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

It doesn't sound awful at all! I wouldn't be doing SJ again if it wasn't a paying gig. You invest your time and effort into creating something of value. Doing it for the love is great if your other needs are met, but if they aren't, you have to find what works for you.

Besides, getting paid is sometimes the thing you need to make a project "real". It's easy to fluff off something you're only doing for yourself, but knowing that someone has paid you to do the work can be a strong motivator.

-TG

[hollyannvix.livejournal.com]

Definitely! Especially since I haven't been taking much in the way of commissions for a good, long while. If I did this, it could be a great way of earning a steady income or something. I get monies, and people get art. It's a win-win situation! =D

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

My favorite kind!

-TG

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

I realize it's hard for Photoshop users to move to different software, but you might want to try out Pixelmator. I use it for my quick image editing jobs; it is quite flexible and seems to have a lot of features similar to PS.

Of course, your needs are far greater than mine, so it may not work for you, but it's definitely worth a try.

http://www.pixelmator.com/

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

My previous comment was marked as spam. Maybe because it has a URL in it? Hopefully you can see it.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Got it, unflagged it. :) Thanks!

-TG

[jayblanc.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should mention I used Pixelmator to do the SJ re-mastering work.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Congrats on your purchase!

I went for The GIMP when my 10-year-old bootleg of Photoshop wasn't supported by shiny new Mac.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

GIMP is ok.. I use it occasionally, but it's just enough different from PShop that the going is usually slow.
If you are used to PShop and don't need *everything* it does, go for the $75 Photoshop Elements.... that's what I do on most of my machines and it does at least if not more than 90% of what Standard Photochop does. Good Lux !

GIMP

[friday evening (from livejournal.com)]

I have used GIMP as a Photoshop replacement for several years with great success.

Any time you change to a new package, especially one as complex as a full featured graphics editor, there is going to be a learning curve. But that will be true regardless of what program you switch to.

I find the concepts pretty identical to Photoshop in GIMP, so the learning wasn't so much how to do something but where to find the proper tool or menu entry.

The price is right (free), and its available on Windows, Mac and Linux, so you future-proof yourself against any future platform change you might make.