…iWas blind but now iSee

There comes a time in all mens lives when they must consider their faithfullness and loyalty to their partner…especially when they find that their partner isn’t all they seem and is infact screwing them around. For me, I decided enough was enough. After years upon years of deriding Macs (and not all without good reason), I changed my tune and bought one. Why the change of heart you ask? Well, lets get some perspective first…

First off, I have been raised on computers since I old enough to type into a keyboard. While other toddlers inquisition led them to derobing their sisters Barbies or seeing what EVERYTHING in the garden tasted like, I was learning, without knowing it, how to operate the very fundamentals of what know as operating systems using a programming language that some of you more computer literate folk may know as BASIC. You see, unlike most of you, whose first experience was likely an IBM PC running Windows 95 (or later)…the first computer in our house was a BBC Micro.

Yes. That behemoth used to sit in a corner, first in our attic and then in my sisters bedroom. Technically it was for use by our church, of which my dad was an elder, but even from a young age, I caught the ICT bug, and was hooked. I was never much good at the games, but it wasn’t for want of trying. I spent hours upon hours at the machine, jumping along with the sprites on the screen, perhaps hoping that the extra effort I put into the motion in the real world might help them in their digital dimension. Sometimes a little too much effort went in…demonstrated best in broken SHIFT and RETURN keys…

So we fast forward a few years, and though I managed to have some interaction with Windows NT 3.1 (which was still running on some of the PC’s at my grammar school in the “noughties”), our first PC (as per the modern definition) came in the way of a Gateway 2000, 166Mhz, 32mb Ram, running Windows 95 with a hard drive of 1.92 Gb. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find mobile phones more powerful than that now aways, but back then, that was pretty much top of the pile. Naturally I was still inquisitive and spent many a day just wondering around windows explorer investigating what happened when you did this and that. The modern user in me wonders how I didn’t manage to cause the PC to combust spontaneously on any one of those occaisons but somehow it survived, even into the modern era running Win98 and 2000 before the ageing beast was so heavily fallen behind the pack that an upgrade was necessary. I was perhaps the loudest voice in the household demanding that we got a new PC, having fallen behind my peers in the gaming stakes…and in early 2000/01…my wish was granted.

Enter the Dell, a 2.4 Ghz monster that has seen so many upgrades, we nearly have the parts to build a new (or old PC, depending what way you’re looking at it) from what has been taken out of it. In its 7 year history (thus far) this PC has seen…

• Upgraded graphics cards…TWICE
• A second hard drive addition
• Upgrade of RAM to its maximum limit
• Replaced Power Supply (which involved taking some pliers to the back of the PC)
• Replaced CPU Cooling Fan (when one of these gives up the host…oh boy)

But heres the thing, all in all, despite the few occasional niggles, the Dell has done us well. Windows XP, despite its initial bad press, quickly pulled its socks up, sorted out its few minor bugs and matured into a DAMN good Operating System.

I know you all sense it coming, so here it is…
BUT…with the PhD offer, I realised that a laptop would be really useful for getting work done without having to skip over to the ICT suites, and whats more, I could carry on with my work and research at home without disrupting any work my dad occasionally might need the Dell for. The question was what laptop?

You see, Windows Vista may have inadvertently be the greatest advert for Mac or Linux the world will ever see. Microsoft HAD the market, all they needed to do was to ensure they produced a product that was capable of same stuff as XP, but could do it better, and with prettier effects…and maybe a few other bits and pieces on the side. Instead we get one of the most broken pieces of software, shot down by critics everywhere. Its handy that Bill Gates got out of M$ when he did…when the Titanic goes down, it sure sucks to be the Captain. The problem with Vista was that the early versions that appeared on early laptops and PCs were simply too buggy and too powerful. The fact is that for all the fancy graphics and add-ons that Vista brings, the OS uses a crippling amount of RAM running on its own…so much so that on one of the laptops I’m occasionally privy to use through my church, the laptop is incapable of running Powerpoint and Windows Media Player at the same time. A task that even Windows 98 can accomplish! This laptop wasn’t a hastily upgraded one either, VISTA SHIPPED with it. Such problems as I have experienced are but some of a sea of complaints about the OS…and how has Microsoft responded? By removing some of the bits and pieces of Vista for its latest versions. Thats right, new versions of Vista contain less than the original. You are essentially now purchasing Vista-lite, or Diet Vista, depending on your preferences. Sure, I have heard people tell me that Vista works fine if you turn background application A off, or if you turn security measure B off. But herein lies the question…why should you have to? Why couldn’t Microsoft launch a product that works from scratch? Even XP, with its tetchy beginnings never came close to press anywhere near as bad as this. Even the latest advert for Vista, entitled the Mojave experiment, conceeds the terrible press that Vista has recieved…then attempts to con consumers into buying their products by wowing the general public…in a CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT. Good grief microsoft, what are you trying to prove? Anyone with a bit of common sense realises you can make any product look good in a controlled environment, videogame gameplay in adverts being one of the biggest culprits. The Ad punchline? Try it for yourself. I did Microsoft, and it stinks.

This left me with either Apple, who I had been deriding for years, or Linux, the open-source nerd nirvana, and since I haven’t done any programming except that accomplished on a very basic level with BASIC, I decided to take a closer look at what the Macbook offered.

You see, in my opinion Apple have successfully managed to secure themselves that trendy-cool…*thing* about them. It goes beyond the I’m-a-Mac-I’m-a-PC adverts, even into the way that they present themselves at their press conferences, and how their software and hardware feels and operates. However, everyone knows people like “Mac” from the adverts in real life, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that person usually bugs the hell out of us. Its not that they’re a bad person, but they don’t half act smug about it. Perhaps this attack is a bit grasping at straws, but when your very advertisements set out to confirm this very same “cool and smug about it”, you can’t help but wish that once in a while, PC would win.

Exhibit A – And what everyone else is thinking when they see it.

Then there is the price. Yeah, I know with Apple you are buying brand quality, but the inflated asking price is still far too high, and nearly put me off. Theoretically, I could have bought a brand new laptop downgraded to XP (Vista is that bad) with the same specs as my mac for about £400-500 cheaper. But I didn’t want to feel like I was taking a step backwards. So a Mac it would have to be.
This brings me to my final criticism of Apple, and it comes in the form of one of its products.

Damn, this product makes me angry.

The Macbook Air screams to me about Apples inflated ego. Twice the price, half the product. No, really.

The mid-range macbook original that I have (i.e not macbook air or macbook pro) has the same memory, a more powerful processor, double the hard-drive capacity and, heres the kick in the nuts for the macbook air people…an optics drive (DVD-RW). Yeah, everything that the macbook air does is completed via wireless or the SINGULAR USB port on its side. Couple this with complaints about system crippling CPU overheating (especially in warmer climates) and suddenly the macbook air looks more like an expensive experiment in form alone. Also, ironic that they should call it Macbook Air, because thats what it disappears into.
However, I can’t criticise Apple without praising for what they have done right.

The one thing I’d heard from all Mac owners before I got my Macbook was that “it just works”. I never really understood that, because my Windows XP desktop works fine too. The meaning lies deeper within the actual daily use of the macintosh.

A prime example, take for example the deletion of a program from your windows system. You have to wade into your hefty Add/Remove Programs tab in your control panel, then scroll down to find your programme, click on delete to begin an uninstallation wizard, and sometimes need to manually delete some folders and other residue files from the system. With a Mac, you simply drag the program icon into the Trash Can. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it myself.

This is the short of it, the mac is simply designed to be as user friendly as possible. I’m quite sure Windows probably leads with the sheer amount of possible customisations you can do to everything on your system, however with that comes the added greivance of having to assign *most* if not all of the parameters involved. What Apple has done is to create a much more user friendly experience. As was described to me by someone showing me just some of the neat functions of the Mac, “whereas in Windows you think I want to do this, then have to look it up in the help, you just DO it on a Mac”.

The bottom line? Microsoft have taken a real battering from the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads from Apple, but have tried to answer back with THIS latest campaign.

All well in good, until you speak to the techies who have been able to identify what software compiled it…its not from Microsoft. How bad is your system when your adverts are even compiled with your rivals product?

Stay Classy Microsoft,

Ian