Victor Cajiao may be the host of the Typical Mac User Podcast, but according to him, he’s, “never been a typical geek.”
“I’m a switcher. I actually started doing a podcast back in 2005, doing a ‘Typical PC User Podcast’ at that time. I had been working with PC’s all my life.”
But all of that changed in October of 2005 when he bought his first Mac, a Mac Mini. Cajiao was drawn to Macs, largely because of the community of users.
“I had never really quite found the PC community, so it was really attractive to me. So I said ‘Ok I’m going to buy one of these and kind of dip my toe in the water.'”
“Wow, there was just no looking back after that,” he said.
Soon he had purchased a 20″ iMac, and in January 2006 he started the Typical Mac User Podcast.
“I’m going to just start something that focuses on people like me, people that are new to the Mac,” Cajiao said about starting his podcast.
He had plenty of computer experience to bring to his latest project, even if he was new to Macs. Cajiao has been an IT professional for a Fortune 500 telecom company for about 20 years. He’s also worked as a professional saxophonist in the Los Angeles area.
“I’ve found the Mac to be a really good instrument to write music with. Specifically, I use a program called Reason by Propellerhead which is really kind of an all in one suite for writing music and it makes it very simple to do so,” he said.
In additional to his Typical Mac User Podcast and writing music on his Mac he also has another podcast called Immigration Tales that deals with immigration and people’s personal stories of immigration. Cajiao immigrated to the United States from Cuba when he was nine. His family is also what what got him into podcasting.
“The Typical PC User was based upon a 70 year old aunt of mine who I got to sit down in front of a computer and she loved horses and within three hours I was able to show her what the Internet was and that she could use that technological instrument to research her passion and I just saw this sparkle in her eye,” he said.
“I went: Wow, if I can do that for her, then you know there are probably 10 other people like her that are typical in that way,” Cajiao said of teaching his grandma.
He adds, “I think that pertains to the Mac as well. I think the Mac is so much more accessible to people like my wife. She was a PC user forever and I was forever having to be tech support for her.”
With a hint of jealousy he notes, “She actually got a Mac before me. I convinced her to buy a Mac before I ever had one.”
Surprised by the outcome, Cajiao describes a change in his household duties.
“All of a sudden, I saw her doing things on her own that I couldn’t believe. This is really cool. My support time has gone down 30 percent, she’s learning things and she just kind of experiments,” he said with relief.
But converting posed some challenges for Cajiao when he got his Mac also.
“I think at first the eye candy helped. I was definitely influenced by the whole iPod generation. When I got to the Mac, I had to learn how to think more simply. As a PC user I was over thinking a lot of things that on the Mac are just very intuitive,” he said.
“I had to have some shifts of approach into the OS and into the desktop and into the Finder. It was those little things that I had to kind of work through,” he said of his first interactions with the computer.
“But then, what I was getting back aesthetically, and literally gaining back in productivity was more than making up for any of those frustrations because I found myself with the time to be more creative,” he said.
Cajiao passionately describes the learning experience with Macs.
“I was able to explore the world from the eyes of a Mac user, and then I was hooked,” he said.
“That, plus the community. There was never a time, never, ever, ever, when I had an issue or a problem that I couldn’t reach out to the Mac community, whether it was in forums, or even my listeners, that was the beauty of it, is I never came into this as a know-it-all or a guru,” he said.
Most Mac users would probably agree that there is room for everyone from recent converts to seasoned experts within the Mac community.
Cajiao further describes the connection between Apple and its community of users by saying, “It’s really interesting to me that we have this entire body of people who are probably more hippies than not, that are willing to absolutely follow ‘The Man,’ when ‘The Man’ is Apple. It’s a really interesting relationship between corporation big business and the cult of Mac.”
But the cult of Mac is no longer just about computers, as Cajiao readily admits.
“Especially today with the iPhone being the next entry vehicle to Apple, with Leopard being the next entry vehicle, with the Apple TV being the next entry vehicle, that’s going to get people to come over (to Apple),” he said.
Cajiao adds that, “Vista has done wonders for Apple.”
He believes that the future looks bright for Apple.
“I think there are going to be many more typical Mac users coming (to Apple) than there probably have been anytime before this,” he said.
He hopes that the community won’t splinter into two groups, the old Mac users and the new converts, iPhone and Apple TV users, etc. Because after all, it was the community of users that ultimately turned Cajiao into a convert just a couple of years ago.
