Teaser

Aliki Samone: I discovered that, for all those naysayers out there, Macs are probably the best-engineered computers you can find. It was like an overnight revelation of everything I had been missing for many years.

Nova AI: Welcome to Macpreneur, the show for seasoned solopreneurs looking to streamline their business on a Mac. Unlock the secrets to saving time and money with your host and technology mentor, Damien Schreurs. 

Introduction to Aliki Samone

Damien Schreurs: Hello, hello! Today, I have the pleasure of introducing Aliki Samone.

Aliki is a vibrant entrepreneur who blends science and creativity. As an author, singer-songwriter, muralist, engineer, and technical project manager, she excels in crafting life plans that balance all these deep passions. After a decade in spacecraft design and program management, she left the industry to develop the Summit Method, a life planning technique that she has honed for over 10 years.

She has helped countless individuals through her Conquer Your Summit platform, inspiring others to pursue their passions and reach for the stars. Aliki, welcome to the show.

Aliki Samone: Hello, hello. Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Diving into Tech: Macs and Business

Aliki Samone: Let’s talk about some tech, right? And how we use this technology to enhance our lives and our businesses.

Damien Schreurs: Exactly. So yeah, let’s jump right into the main topic. Which Mac are you using right now to run your business?

Aliki Samone: Yes, I have a MacBook Pro specifically. It’s an Apple M1 Pro.

Damien Schreurs: And what do you like about your Mac?

Aliki Samone: Well, you know what? I’m going to say one quick thing.

From Engineer to Mac Enthusiast

Aliki Samone: I will admit, I’m an engineer, so I come from a place of absolute hatred for Macs, right? Engineers usually feel this way, and it’s typically because of the software that we have to use. You have to have Windows Parallels or run something to be able to access Windows if you have a Mac.

I grew up in a career where nobody used Macs. Everybody dismissed Apple, and about five or six years ago, I started recording my own music. As you mentioned in my bio, I’m a musician, an author, and also an entrepreneur in business. I’ve also been involved in corporate tech; there are so many facets to my career, but on the creative side, I needed a Mac.

I wanted to get Logic Pro and other systems to start recording my music. So my story really began when I transitioned into learning how to use a Mac. I discovered that, for all those naysayers out there, Macs are probably the best-engineered computers available.

It was like an overnight revelation of everything I had been missing for many years. I give that plug not only as a creative but also as an engineer and now as an entrepreneur. My MacBook has done everything for me; all of my development work has been accomplished on it, and it has been my trusty companion along the way.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, coming from an engineering background too, I can relate. Obviously, Windows PCs were the standard we used, but they were mostly for office applications—email, reports, presentations, and stuff like that. However, for the true engineering work I was doing as a simulation engineer, we were using large Unix machines.

We spent half our time on these big Unix machines—computers that would cost tens of thousands of dollars each. It was a significant investment, but they were willing to spend that amount of money. For me, the appeal of the Mac was that, at the time—around 2007—what few people know is that macOS is actually a fully compatible Unix-based operating system. Coming from the Unix environment, I was able to use the command line interface and also install and run Microsoft Windows on the side. So for me, in 2007, it was the perfect machine.

Aliki Samone: Sounds like it, and it’s continued to be awesome!

Damien Schreurs: Yes. Now, with the transition to Apple Silicon and the M1, M2, and M3 processors, I was a bit worried at first. Would we still be able to run Windows on the Mac? But I’m relieved that Parallels and VMware Fusion have adapted their software to run Windows on the Mac.

Is that something you still do today, or do you not need it anymore?

Aliki Samone: It is not. It is not something I still do today, actually. I have my new favorite apps and things that I use my Mac for now. 

Damien Schreurs: Yeah.

Favorite Mac Apps for Content Creation

Damien Schreurs: So let’s talk about that. What apps do you use the most on your Mac?

Aliki Samone: Well, I would say number one, and it might sound weird, is Photo Booth. As an author, I have a lot of social media, and I’m trying to create videos and courses or join podcasts like this one. Yes, I can usually throw up a Zoom call and invite myself to test the video.

But actually, I open up Photo Booth, and I can easily turn on my camera to check if I’m in frame. What does my frame look like? Is my audio working? If I go over to the movie side, it’s just quicker and easier than jumping through some of the Zoom hoops. So I love that. It’s also a great way to hit record really quickly and get immediate feedback on whether I’m ready for this podcast.

Am I ready for a social media post or whatever I might be doing? Are my cameras set up correctly? So, Photo Booth—it’s not just about making funny photos and doing silly things as I might have thought as a child; it can actually be really helpful as a content creator. Yeah, that’s my favorite. What I will pair with that, and I don’t even know if it has an official name, is the kind of video filter function that Apple recently released.

You might know the actual name of it; I don’t. I just know that at the top of my screen, I have a button I can select to turn on Studio Light and Portrait Mode or have these reactions that I’ve had to learn to turn off when I do podcasts. Otherwise, all of a sudden, fireworks are happening in the background.

I see both of those as part of the whole content and video creation process. I absolutely love being able to turn on Studio Light, and you can see that live. It creates a magical difference by darkening your background, bringing light to your face, and really creating a dynamic contrast, which can look great in any video environment.

Portrait Mode is great for when I need a little blur, right? I don’t want you to see my background. Now, I don’t usually care about people seeing my background, because I’ve tried to set up my space to have something interesting to look at, but in a pinch, I can turn on Portrait Mode. It’s right there. And if you want to liven things up, you can turn on Reactions. Here I go; now I have fireworks happening in my background, which, if timed correctly, can be pretty awesome in a video.

You just have to make sure you remember what your hand symbols are doing. I have definitely recorded videos and done live podcasts where it was not great that a bunch of fireworks happened in the middle of my sentence. So that’s my number one, or my number one and two paired together.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, Photo Booth? I don’t remember the last time I launched it. Thank you for reminding me that Photo Booth exists because I remember back when I started looking at Macs, between 2000 and 2007, whenever we would go to an Apple Store—non-official, because we don’t have an official one in Luxembourg yet—that would be the first thing we would fire up in the shop, right?

We would access the Mac, launch Photo Booth, and make funny photos and videos. I think even today, if you go to an Apple Store and have access to a Mac, you should open Photo Booth and see what other people have recorded. Sometimes it’s quite funny.

Aliki Samone: Absolutely. I have those memories as well.

Damien Schreurs: Just as a side note, the Reactions and video filters, including the ability to blur the background, are native now on all Apple Silicon Macs. So if you, the listener, like me, still have an Intel-based Mac, like I do now to record a podcast, I’m still able to do that, but there’s a small tweak, right?

I connect my iPhone 14 Pro Max to my iMac via a cable, and I can then use my iPhone as a camera. When the iPhone is used as a camera, you go to the top right corner, access the Control Center, and then you have the same capabilities. But if you have an Apple Silicon Mac, you can do that with the built-in camera, which is pretty slick.

So what other apps are you using, whether from Apple or third-party developers?

Aliki Samone: Okay. I will say that I am a musician, as I mentioned before, so Logic Pro is something I jump into for all my music recording. It’s a great bridge between what professional studios are using and lower-level audio recording. It definitely provides a beautiful transition.

I love it. I have recorded songs myself, and one of them is actually published. You can go on Spotify, YouTube Music, or Apple Music—whatever you use—and search my name to find a song I recorded and created all in Logic Pro. Beautiful, awesome, love Logic Pro. That’s on that side.

Using Camo Studio for Multi-Camera Setups

Aliki Samone: I want to share a recent favorite app, which is actually Camo Studio.

I bring this up because I love my MacBook, but I’ve been an Android user my whole life. I’m a Google person and never ended up getting an iPhone. I’ve had a Pixel for a long time, since I use Google Project Fi, their phone service. For a long time, you couldn’t even get an iPhone with that.

I’ve always struggled because I can’t pair my phone to my Mac. I can’t enjoy that beautiful connectivity or the ability to use my phone camera and have it synced with different screens. Recently, I discovered Camo Studio, a fantastic app that allows you to scan a QR code from your Android phone.

I’m sure it also works with Apple, Samsung, and whatever phone you have. It pulls up the live feed from your phone on your Mac, allowing you to choose between the back and front cameras. This has unlocked new possibilities for my social media posts and other videos I’m creating. When I try to record myself, I prefer not to use the front camera.

Typically, if I hold up a book or something, the text appears mirrored, and you can tell I’m looking at it. This app allows me to utilize the excellent camera technology in many modern phones while streaming it directly to my computer, which has always been a challenge due to the lack of an Apple connection.

It’s a struggle between Android and Apple. So for anyone out there who loves their MacBook but hasn’t switched to an iPhone, Camo Studio is a great app that can help with video pairing.

Damien Schreurs: Yes, and I would add that it’s also a very nice way to set up multiple cameras. You can still use the built-in camera of your Mac, but you can also connect an older device. For instance, I connected an old iPhone XR earlier today during a live stream. I used it as a second camera.

What’s nice about Camo Studio is that, first of all, you can use it for free. It’s a freemium application. With the free version, if I recall correctly, you’re limited to 720p resolution. If you want full resolution at 1080p, then you need to pay. Do you know if it’s a subscription or a one-time fee?

Aliki Samone: I don’t.

Good question.

Damien Schreurs: I’ll look into that. But yes, it works with iPhones and Android devices. It even works if you have an old iPod or iPad lying around. If you don’t know what to do with your old Apple gear, you can install Camo on the device, install Camo Studio on your Mac, and then connect them via Wi-Fi or a cable.

Aliki Samone: I just looked it up, and it appears to be subscription-based. You can choose between annual or monthly options.

Damien Schreurs: Yes, it’s a subscription-based model. It’s a great application to recommend, especially for multi-camera setups. I’m using Ecamm Live for the live streaming part of it. With Ecamm Live, you can configure multiple cameras, create scenes, and switch between them.

You can have one scene with the front-facing camera and another scene with the side camera. You can really play around with that. The Camo Studio camera appears as an available webcam in any application, such as Zoom or Google Meet. You can choose which camera you want for those types of things.

Improving Mac Battery Life

Damien Schreurs: If you were in charge of the Mac division at Apple, what would be your first priority?

Aliki Samone: That’s a great question. First priority, huh? That makes it sound like I need to have something serious here. I guess it’s my personal first priority. So, I’ve had a couple of different Macs; the current one I’m using is an M1. I’ve had it for, I think, I bought it in 2022, so I’ve had it for a few years now. I recently used a newer Mac, and of course, the battery life lasts forever, it seems. I feel like battery life is so important to all of us, our phones, and our devices. What if I want to go to a coffee shop and get some work done, or if I’m in a remote location for a job? What do I do?

Over time, my battery has continued to degrade, let’s say, and I’m sure that all your listeners out there, and probably yourself, know more about the tech behind batteries—how long they last and why they diminish over time. But I do know that some of that has to do with charging, right?

You plug in a cable and just leave it there, and great, you have that beautiful bright green indicator saying, “Yeah, I’m fully charged.” But it would be great if there were a method—maybe there is already out there—to allow the machine to actually stop charging. I’m not in my room all the time.

Then I come in hours later, and it’s like, “Oh, let me unplug that.” I don’t want to keep charging it to full capacity all the time since I’ve noticed that machines in the past degrade faster when I do that. So, I’d love for there to be an automatic stop charging feature. A lot of these electric vehicles today have some of those capabilities, like charging up to a certain percentage and really focusing on battery life.

It would increase the longevity of the device. Now, that being said, maybe Apple doesn’t want to increase the longevity of everyone’s devices, since I’m sure they would love to boost their sales over time. But I think that would really help a lot of people who want to keep their devices for many years.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, I think they have been implementing, or they’ve started to implement, iPhone-like features for MacBooks. If I recall correctly, I think it’s since Sonoma, so macOS 14. I recently upgraded my MacBook Pro to Sonoma, and what annoys me is that one time I needed to leave for a client, and the battery was stuck at 80%.

There is some kind of setting there where you can tell it, like on the iPhone, to charge quickly up to 80 percent and then trickle charge to avoid damaging the battery. But you’re right; we should have more control, right? macOS should provide much more control than that.

There are applications whose sole job is to give you full control over when to charge and when to discharge, even sending you notifications. They remind you, “Okay, it’s at 70 percent or 80 percent—unplug it, use it for a while,” and then when it goes below a certain threshold that you define, you get another notification asking you, “Okay, you can plug it in again now.”

Okay, well, very good. 

Thank you very much for sharing how you use your Mac to run your business.

Aliki Samone: Awesome. Thank you. I’m excited to share and hopefully inspire more people to use their Macs in different ways.

Damien Schreurs: Absolutely.

Connecting with Aliki

Damien Schreurs: So where can people find you online?

Aliki Samone: Absolutely. The best place to find me online is on Instagram. My handle is The Summit Method, which is the method I teach in life planning at The Summit Method. Check out Aliki Samone and everything that I’m doing over there.

Damien Schreurs: Very good. Thank you very much.

Applying to be a guest too

Damien Schreurs: And so, if, like Aliki, you would like to share how you are using your Mac to run your solopreneur business, it’s simple. Just visit macpreneur.com/apply. If you are already on Podmatch, just click on the button, and you will land on the show profile. Otherwise, fill out the application form, and I will get back to you within a few days.

Once again, it’s macpreneur.com/apply.

Outro

Damien Schreurs: If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a fellow solopreneur and tag both Aliki and me on Instagram. I will put a link to both our profiles in the show notes.

And until next time, I’m Damien Schreurs, wishing you a great day!

Nova AI: Thank you for listening to the Macpreneur Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please leave a review and share it with a friend right now.