Close Your Mouth When You Talk

I Just Converted to Mac (sort of)

November 8th, 2008 at 10:37am Eloy Zuniga Jr.

The Mac Book Pro.  My new distraction, why didn’t someone tell me earlier!?  Ok.  I lie, everyone told me I just didn’t listen.  Apparently not listening is something I’ve always done, but it didn’t become obvious to me until just recently.  Trust me, I’ve been slapped w/ the obviousness of my short comings all too many times but it wasn’t until just lately that the swelling cheeks started to gain my attention.

Experiment: Maybe I should just tape my mouth shut for a week and see what I learn.

I have never really worked with a Mac and it goes without saying (then why are you saying it?), that I’ve never owned one.

My desktop and notebook (both Sony’s) have recently slowly faded away.  My desktop makes more noise than our air conditioning unit and my notebook plays digital peek-a-boo with fast-action startup and shutdown ninja skills.

Horrible comparison starting point, but I remember quite well how my 2 powerhouse PC’s performed.  I’ve announced my purchasing endeavor for a new computer to my closest of friends and they’ve been the best at giving me their advice.

It amazes me to see how passionate all mac users are and I’m beginning to see why.  There were a couple of PC (non mac) defendants though … but small in comparison to those who use Macs.

People who defend PC’s are super-computer savvy, they know the directory structure and live by it.  I’ll admit I’m having some difficulty letting go as well.  It’s not to say that the directory structure (the organized folders) doesn’t exist on macs, it’s just hidden as if they’re trying to protect you from the scariness.

People who defend Mac’s are somewhat-computer savvy.  Those who don’t believe they have to know computers in their entirety to get their work done.  They thoughtlessly understand that it’s a medium by which they travel to get their goals accomplished and don’t live in the system but rather simply use the system to get things done.

Great, a clear difference.  So which one am I?  For the purposes of this post I’ll call the majority of Mac users laymen.  An analogy would be the difference between driving a car and knowing how to fix it.  People who own great cars usually know how to fix them.  Well it’s the same w/ computers.  Those who work in the world of design and development need to know more about the technology in order to utilize it.

So I’m a PC.  Wrong.  Apparently Macs have a lot more to offer to developers than meets the eye.  Macs are used by people I admire such as Google and 37 Signals (experts in the field of web development).

Last year Schipul sent me to the Google Conference and I was amazed at the number of developers and presenters with macs.  37 Signals a company who ideas I believe in religiously, claims they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t use a mac.  Technology Prejudice?

Now I realize I’m jumping all over the place.  There are huge differences between application engineers and web developer (web engineers).  Google doesn’t seem to know the difference, the majority of their peeps are referred to as software engineers and treat it all in the same.  This probably explains why their web applications behave so much like desktop applications.

All in all it seems evident that Macs have something to offer to both developers and the rest of the world.  I’ve owned my brand new, first ever Macbook Pro for 4 days now and can’t remember the last time I was more satisfied w/ my purchase.

Ok I lie, my Bose computer speakers are amazing, they don’t just play music, they sing to me with sound clarity that could best be described as holy and spiritual.

This post was written on my MacBook pro and my fingers are loving this creation station.  This post is not to announce my resignation of PC usage, it’s merely to say that I’ve walked through the Mac doorway and all I can say so far is Wow.

For a detailed review, visit Paul Stamatiou
http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/11/08/review-253ghz-apple-macbook-pro

Entry Filed under: My World, New Gadgets