my Coming Out

yup. That’s right this is my coming out. I’m 35 years old, live with my wife and two daughters to whom i ‘ve vowed honesty. I guess the time is just as right as any other moment of my life for this important announcement: contrary to what i pretended so hard to be, what i always thought i was, i’m not. Not anymore.

I ‘m not working on a Windows machine anymore.I ‘ve become a mac man, a mac fan.

I *hate* Steve Job’s permanent black turtleneck and that “i’m-a-cool-and-successful-and-easygoing-and-smart prick” look of his, and more than anything else, i loathe that worshipping tone every other mac user has when it comes to discussing ThatFruit products. But this is now official, and i’m relieved it is now out of my heart: mac Os X is a grand OS in terms of user experience. The hardware doesn’t fall short not either: after replacing various parts in Acer, Asus and then macbook computers more recently, it’s now obvious to me that an Apple product is blessed with intelligent, smart and creative thinking from the software that ships with it up to the very placement and design of its tiniest screw, the quality of the plastic, the amazing management of spatial assets in a thing as tiny as a macbook.

And now, dear wife, i owe you this honesty: I’m in love with my macbook. Especially with this 2x 2Gb 200-pin SODIMMs DDR2 SDRAM 667MHZ low-latency memory upgrade.

Hardware

Before that upgrade, it was 10x snappier than windows XP. After the upgrade, its 10x snappier than before, which makes it 10×10 times snappier than windows XP, with a less bragging hardware. That’s what intelligence brings you: lower specs, better perfs.

Software

According to the price tag, a Macbook is more expensive, than that Aye Sir computer with more powerful hardware. that’s marketing. The hardware integration more than makes up for it, and the software that’s delivered is worth more than the difference. The mac os X OS, based on Linux with a powerful graphical coating and sensible interaction design provide for a global user experience that turns your computer into a transparent part of your life. With Windows, feelings of confusion and frustration are your daily lot: the good side is that you get to learn about the internals. The bad side is that what you learn is not relevant to what you really want to do with your life. That’s what the Apple folks got right, at least with the OS: it does not get in the way. You stop working, close the laptop screen pane. Automatic, fast and silent hibernation. The screen backlight that lights the Apple logo on the back tells you “bye for now honey, i’m going for a nap while you’re away, i’ll be right there when you need me“. Hours later you go back to work and lift the pane, it just starts in less than a sec, readier than you to get on with doing things.

I think Apple achieved what was described in Sci-Fi books of the seventies and eigthies: a computer that turns into an extension of your body and thus becomes transparent, goes unnoticed making computing much like breathing, an unconscious activity, whereas Microsoft just made a computer like Chrysler, GM and the others did car: bloathed, inadapted, out of touch, in need of human care to remind it of who it is all the time.

If you are serious about getting things done, about quality in general over quantity, and if you believe your inner life should get more of your time than your computer’s internals, switch to mac. Trust me, i was an unbeliever for years. Oh, and this an unsponsored testimony, I just had to let it out. I feel better now, thank you for your attention.