By Steven Fyffe

undermagnifyingglass@gmail.com

Instructor, speaker & informal consultant for my Mac friends

 

Life Role: Jared’s Papa, husband, father, & Deacon in local congregation

 

Real Occupation: Medical Technologist (ASCP), Infection Control Specialist

 

About Me

 

I am Jared’s Papa. This fact alone drew me down the path of digital photography and Apple gadgets, but I’ll explain that in a few minutes. My roots are in a rural area of central Ohio and I have not strayed far from the Buckeye state. I became interested in science at an early age and studied medical technology in a southern Ohio college. Working in a small hospital laboratory, not far from my home town, I started the Microbiology department and Infection Control program there. Now, almost forty years later, I am still instructing health care workers to practice the basics in infection prevention … “wash your hands” … “cover your mouth” … “clean up your room”.

 

I guess I’m the professional “mom” at a large metropolitan hospital in northern Ohio and still work part-time planting cultures in a small hospital Microbiology lab. These jobs pay the bills, but my life role and passion is my family and my church.

 

During the late ‘80s, I attended theological training in a local church and at a seminary in a small town in Indiana. I was an instructor in Biblical Greek for ministry students & publisher of a magazine for a group of churches. Now, my wife and I have many deacon duties in our small congregation.

 

I was care giver for my wife, while she was fighting cancer, but now, thanks to the Lord’s grace, she is in remission.

 

My most important role is being Papa to my six year old grandson, Jared.

 

Why Macs?

 

… simply because Jared and his Papa need a reliable, creative tool and fun toy when they play together.

 

The Apple II introduced me to the joy of personal computing and programming in the mid-70’s. Later, I thoroughly enjoyed my Commodore 64, while we were home schooling our girls.

 

As a theology student in the 80’s, I needed to use a DOS Greek grammar program, so I descended into the dark side and got my first PC. Although I had heard about the Macintosh, I had lost track of what Apple was doing in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Windows arrived and it became a necessary burden in my job and in teaching Greek to ministry students, but with the internet came spam, viruses, and that dreadful MSN, so my home PC was relegated to a lonely corner. Web TV brought me my internet surfing “infotainment”.

 

Then a great thing happened to me. I became a grandpa in 2002. Soon after Jared was born, my wife bought me my first digital camera and I brushed the dust off the PC.

 

As you might guess, if you had to experience the dark side, I started experiencing constant crashes from “that darn computer.” I started searching for a more stable operating system and was thrilled to discover that Macintosh was rock solid, being the GUI for UNIX. Soon after Jaguar was released, I bought my first Macintosh, an iBook.

 

I was fascinated how easy it was to make slide shows of Jared, which included music and transitions in iMovie. The bug had bitten, and a digital video camera soon followed. Of course, digital video required the powerful PowerMac G5 dual 2 with multiple displays and several external hard drives.

 

Several Macintoshes have now “materialized” in my home, including a new MacBook Pro and an eMac for Jared when he comes over.

 

 

Why am I writing ‘Under The Magnifying Glass’?

 

I hope to share my experiences as an ordinary user of the Macintosh computer and other Apple gadgets. When I was teaching my children in our home school and later teaching Biblical Greek, I found that my students mastered the topic best when I encouraged them to dive right into details of a topic, discover how they fit together to accomplish a task, and then to teach what they learned to others. As you read “Under the Magnifying Glass,” I hope you will feel like you stopped by for an informal chat with a friend, and then go out to share with others what we discussed together.