Enjoy yourself reading Annick and watching “Bastian, le nouvel iBébé” and “Khina Private Editions”

Hello Annick, how are you? Where do you live? How old are you? Which is your professional activitie?
Hello . I’m fine, thank you. I hope you are, too, because I’m a very talkative woman ¡ I’m 29, I live in the south suburbs of Paris and I’m a nurse.

Let´s talk first about you mac affairs, please. When did you begin to use mac?
In 1997. I was at the nursing school and we had to write a study, which was supposed to be typed and good-looking. I’ve always been crazy about keyboards (writing machine and piano since the age of 5), so I took the opportunity to decide I needed a computer. I went to a store with my parents and a good mac commercial guy was there, fortunately. Furthermore, my mother found the “apple” kind of cute. Thank you, mum!

Which Macs have you used? Which ones do you have now?

This first one was a Performa 5400/160. I was so impressed by the many more things it did than what I had bought it for… I discovered the internet (at that time that meant hours waiting), internet friends taught me how to improve my machine and thanks to them I went to the Apple Expo, where I found my Romeo… another mac user.

Together we then bought a green iMac

(because two macmongers can’t live on a single Mac), then an iBook first generation for me, a Titanium for him, and the last was a present to me, the Alubook 17”.

Now we’re both too acustomed to portable machines to come back to desktop ones.
Surfing the internet wireless in bed is a must!

Tell us about your job. Have you used the Mac computer for working anytime or only like a hobby?
I’m working as a nurse in a very new hospital (it opened in 2000) where we do everything on computers. Doctors write their prescriptions down on the network, we read them on portables while distributing pills for example. It’s kind of fun… when it works.

Bugs and slowdowns are a plague. Unfortunately we work on Pcs and the physical network has been underestimated from the start. All good reasons for daily problems. I was one of the few “computer users” among the medical staff and I could have become a “computer referent” from the start but I wasn’t interested. I love using computers, but only when they work!

What is “Khina Private Editions” about? When did you begin this website?
It’s about an old dream of mine, becoming a free lance illustrator. I began the website when it turned out I had enough drawings to show a few of them. The worst part of the job was the “other languages” part. So many links to correct and it's still buggy I'm afraid.
Since the iBébé arrived, I kind of left it as it was... and my career dreams have been slightly postponed.

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Men in trouble… you have helped a man or two surely … but lets talk about men with computer troubles… do you remember a little history to tell us? (like a little joke )
My boyfriend’s brother bought an iBook and wanted to save his data to transfer it from his dying iMac. Though my home geek told him over the phone to wait for explanations because it was difficult to extract the HD and put it in the firewire case he had, his brother decided to give it a try on his own. So he took the HD out and found it easier than expected. He tought the operation could not be finished already, so he opened the HD box ¡!! Seeing the HD inside, juste like the “norton disk” icon, didn’t seem awkward to him… he then honestly and loudly wondered why the HD had become unreadable.

It wasn’t funny for him though, but it’s so typical of the newbie creativity we witness everyday…

The “Khina Private Editions” includes the geek corner section for Macmaniaqueries… a very funny space. Tell us, please, are you member of any Macintosh User Group?

Not anymore, by lack of time. Raising a child impones major cuts in the free time dealing. But I was a MacSoup reader… well, in fact I still am, but now I’m more on “fr.misc.enfants.bebes” than on “fr.comp.sys.mac”. I’m less of a typical example of the “macuserness” than I used to be, though I still spend, well… too much time on my Mac everyday. Now I’m more a lurker, and I lost interest in the “Mac kitchen side”. My boyfriend is in charge of that side, and only gives me the news when they have direct practical consequences (like updates, new software…). But we keep a lot of very good friends we met only thanks to the Mac. That’s a very nice community.

What software do you use?
I launch Safari, Mail, Ircle everyday (joining a small macuser channel where many friends keep connected all day long, including my boyfriend at work). For drawing I’m staying with Painter, for “web designing” I”m now using Golive. Appleworks for most desk jobs. iCal to store appointments and working days (which are kind of chaotic in my job). But also iPhoto (efficient but a little slow).

“Le nouvel iBébé” : iTete, iCaca, iPipi, iDodo… do you like iLife? :) how was born this funny “iStorie”?
I prepared this website in the last month before the actual iBébé’s birth. It seemed to be a funny way to introduce a newborn, and the only good one for geeks like us. It was a lot of fun doing it, because it gave that “outside look” feeling you can’t actually have, dealing with your first child. And it reflected all the internet research I had done during pregnancy, and the few good links I considered useful.

In fact, I’m preparing an update of this website for the iBébé’s 2nd birthday.

Links:
Annick Bigeault / Khina
iBebe
http://www.teaser.fr/~abigeault/khinaprivateditions.html
New iBebé website http://www.teaser.fr/~abigeault/imac/