As for me? I switched to the Mac. No more grep, no more piping, no more
SED scripts. Just a simple, elegant life: “Your application has unexpect-
edly quit due to error number –1. OK?” by Donald A. Norman forword in the UnixHaters Handbook
The Past
To explain why the Mac changed my experience with personal computer; I have to begin my story in the 80s. In the past lies the answers to my present enjoyment with Macs. I ran through DOS 5.2, Windows 3.1, Windows95, RedHat Linux, Suse Linux, Windows2000, Storm Linux, BeOS, WindowsXP and finally Mac OS X.
The main point was that in the past I had plenty of time to tweak my PC and applications, upgrade test, fail, retry. With increasing experience I could get the most out of my machine. When I got my first job, I felt struggling with my configuration everyday. I was spending too much time configuring installing stuff instead of getting my work done.
The transition to Windows 3.1 went a lot smoother, and Windows 95 then RedHat Linux (very difficult thereat, only for booting from the cd), Windows 98, Linux Suse, Storm Linux, Linux From Scratch, Debian (short period), Windows 2000, Windows XP, Gentoo, NetBSD, Windows XP, Ubunto. The last two years before getting my first Mac I stuck to Ubunto; it was the operating system that came the closest to what I expected. Download, install configure and enjoy; that simple!
Why not
The first motivation to stick to PC was the lack of knowledge about Mac also the rumors that PC seamed to be cheaper. But, if you sum up the time spent for building together your own PC, installing, configuring, updating, testing, which component to use, which bit of software to install. That’s many zeros on a paycheck.
I thought to give Mac a try and bought an all inclusive Powerbook; all inclusive because at that time it had everything built in, bluetooth was an emerging technology it was built-in, top notch cd-burner, display, connectivity ports. The hardware was in the good average; what truly was/is bullet proof is the out of the box experience, it kicks you out of your seat! No installing, no downloading, no upgrading, no tweaking, no big configuring; you only have to enter the bare minimum information to get you up and running.
If you have no time left on tweaking your PC because you have a new day job than the bargain is huge! I could use Unix tools, gnu tools, open-source tools the whole FSF, OSS, GNU; if I wanted. Mac OS X leaves you plenty of room to make your own opinion and to chose the tools you want to get your job done. Ever tried to use Photoshop, MS Office natively on Linux? Or what about playing SimCity, CallOfDuty natively under Linux? You can’t. You have formidable application made for Mac some free, some not, but I felt I had a choice. If you are comfortable with MS Office you can, if you want to get rid of MS Stuff you can; use OpenOffice instead. If you like unix tools, gnu tools, OSS tools, FireFox, Opera, Safari; guess what, you can! Illustrator, Blender3d, Gimp, Photoshop; you can.
When the only argument against is that it comes from a Corporation whose purpose is the maximization of their profit , and has the full power over the decisions of which way their products are going; hey there are a lot of those company out there. For the following next 4 years I never got to regret spending 200 bucks more, for the peace of mind I got.
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