Veronica Belmont is the host of Mahalo Daily, a new video podcast about everything and anything. She is also a huge Mac fan. Although her love of gaming and all things geek goes back to childhood, her love affair with Macs didn’t begin until college.
“I’ve always been kind of a geek. I grew up playing tons of video games,” she said.
“I’m a Mac gamer, which is kind of a rare breed,” she said. She plays World of Warcraft, Civilization, Age of Empires, and games from Aspyr. But gaming isn’t the only thing she uses her MacBook Pro for.
While attending Emerson College and studying audio production and new media, it quickly became clear that she needed a Mac.
“I decided to make the switch finally after seeing all of my friends who were enjoying their Macs very much, so I went all out and got a top of the line G5,” Belmont said.
That first Mac she owned was a dual G5 tower, which she used throughout her time at Emerson where she was doing a lot of audio and video editing.
Soon, mobility became much more important so she traded in the tower for her current MacBook Pro.
“I can’t believe that I ever didn’t have a laptop. I can’t even fathom not being able to pick it up and take it with me. I go everywhere with it,” she said.
“I enjoy working on computers. I enjoy Internet culture,” she said. Which has made working in new media very natural for Belmont. Professionally, she began her career in new media at CNet in the Fall of 2004, after graduating from Emerson. She spent almost 3 years there, until recently, when she joined Mahalo.
“When I started working at Mahalo, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that they use Macs exclusively at the office.”
She keeps her Mac by her side at all times because, “It’s my main tool of communication, obviously.”
“I have anxiety dreams that I’ve gone to the airport and forgotten my laptop. You know how some people have those dreams where they’re in high school and they’re naked, mine, I’m at the airport with no laptop,” she jokes.
“I’m not a big phone talker, I’m really really attached to email at all times,” she said.
Currently, she uses it as her primary workspace, since she works remotely from her office. She’s in San Francisco, while Mahalo is in Santa Monica.
When it comes to software, she’s serious about what she likes.
“I’m constantly finding new stuff. I’m always deleting apps and adding new ones and trying new stuff,” she said.
“It’s hard to find the right combination for you,” she said of locating the perfect software applications for each individual. But for Belmont, she’s found the right combination for her. She’s a big fan of Colloquy, which she uses to chat in IRC. She uses Flock as her web browser, and for audio editing, she likes Audacity, but is trying out Sound Studio from Freeverse. Finally, for editing photos she uses Pixelmator, but she still uses iPhoto for organizing photos.
It’s not just the apps she likes, however.
“The ease of use and the interface. It suits my personality more than a PC does,” she said.
“I find Macs to be very whimsical, like the Dock and the genie effect. Little details like that make me happy,” she said.
And if ease of use, good looks, and whimsical details weren’t enough to spread the love of all things Mac, “They last a long time, they’re good,” she said.
She sold her G5 tower to a former coworker who is still using it for video editing.
“Especially since you can upgrade them so easily, give them more RAM and stuff, it lasts a long time,” she said.
Belmont isn’t the only Mac fan she knows.
“Yeah, almost all of my friends are Mac users actually, even my non-techie friends have Macs now,” she said.
Describing living in San Francisco she notes, “You go into the coffee shop and there’s 20 MacBook Pros, a couple MacBooks and the really depressed looking ThinkPad.”
Belmont adds, “Everyone I know professionally and even non-professionally are using Macs these days. I guess it’s just the crew I roll with.”
But her MacBook Pro isn’t the only Apple product Belmont owns and loves.
“I can’t imagine a time before my iPhone,” she said.
Although she’s not a big phone talker, she likes being connected to the world. After using smart phones in the past, she discovered that, “they just don’t work the way I want them to.”
Having survived smart phone trial and error, Belmont now says that “I know the iPhone isn’t the most heavily featured phone, but it does everything I need it to do, really, really well.”
Someday, she’d love it to be 3G, have GPS and do video recording, but for now she’s quite happy with what she has. For awhile she had an NES emulator and really got into Tap Tap Revolution. Belmont also really likes the new Google on iPhone and listens to some of her 20G of music in iTunes. When not talking, web browsing, or listening to music, she also takes movies and podcasts on the go.
“I’ve started enjoying using a cell phone since I have an iPhone.”
