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Saturday
Jul112009

What the Hell Does a Texan Know?

In September of 2007 I bought my first Mac.  After owning an iPod for 8 months I succumbed to its "halo" effect and ordered a 17" MacBook Pro.  After nearly twenty years as a software developer and IT manager dealing almost exclusively with Windows machines I discovered the wonderful world of Apple and OS X.  I now own three Macs and have converted all my daughters.  I've bought five Macs, two iPod Touches and an iPhone 3G in less than two years.  We have two PCs left in our house, one for my consulting work and another family machine containing all our finances and taxes that I'm too lazy to convert.

I may never be an OS X aficionado, at least not to the degree I am on the Windows side, but I (like most Texans I know) don't do anything half-assed and I've made it a point to be above fluent in the language of Cupertino.  In the past 20 months I've watched every instructional video and listened to or watched every podcast I could find pertaining to Apple.  I've read books on the history of Apple and OS X, learned to use AppleScript and Automator and studied the structure of Free BSD and the Mach kernel (the underpinnings of OS X).  I'm a paid member of the Apple Developer Connection and have written a few Objective C programs.  Nothing commercial yet, but I'm still plugging away.  I produce, announce and publish a weekly podcast for my church using my Mac(s) and I’ve put together a fairly nice home recording studio.

When I first began assimilating Apple-centric media, the podcast topics and questions were almost 100% fresh to me.  As I've grown with my Macs and other assorted Apple hardware, I find I'm learning much less from these same podcasts.  In fact, I often answer questions faster than the host(s) and somtimes disagree with their answers completely.  Either I'm becoming less ignorant or they are becoming more.  I doubt the latter.  Either way, my appetite for Apple news and how-tos hasn't diminished one bit.

MacTexan.com is a next logical step for me.  I want to try to give back some of the goodies the new media community has so graciously given (or sold to) me.  I like to think we Texans have a unique perspective on most topics and this Texan’s core competency happens to be technology.  We’re not all pickups and longhorns down here, Texas is also about NASA, Dell, HP and Texas Instruments to name a few.  Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.tv fame lives and operates her studio in Dallas, but beyond that Texas is underrepresented in the technorati. That’s why I’m throwing my hat into the ring.  That, and I’ve noticed I sometimes have a different take on things and often my contrarian view turns out to be correct.

Let’s put that to the test.  I’ll be experimenting with this Squarespace site, maybe recording a podcast or posting up some sound bites from AudioBoo.  I’ll go on record with my analysis and predictions to prove what a visionary (or fool) I am and explore the fantastic technology available to do all this fun stuff.  If anybody reads or listens to what I’m shoveling, it will be a bonus.  I’m in it mainly for the experience and fun.  Anyway, what the hell do I know?

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