Confession of a conversion
by balint- Published:May 22nd, 2008
- Comments:9 Comments
- Category:hardware
My company laptop has gotten old and weary. So old that I could not even find a replacement battery and some memory for it. I could, but for half a price of a shiny new notebook that is three times stronger. I liked my old laptop, but not that much. So I went looking for a new one. I was hesitating between a Thinkpad and an ASUS since I was pretty content with both of them but the faint voice was already whispering into my ear: “get a Mac, get a Mac”.
I’ll admit the sysadmin side of things is not my favorite part of working with a computer. I have nothing against modifying configuration files, installing software from the command line and the like but I do feel like I am wasting my time when trying to get Skype voice to work for several hours to no avail, make my laptop “soft-hibernate” when I close the lid (I got that one, finally) or set up the wifi hotspot selector icon. I know it is just a matter of time and perseverance and I like the idea that you can get it to work if you finally understand what needs to be tweaked and how. (In fact, most of the time you don’t. You just find the answer by searching on Google, copy-paste something you don’t understand and eureka, it works.). It is just that my priorities lie elsewhere. It has been said a million times but it is still true: time is too precious to spend on anything but the most important things. For me, these are writing code, learning software, discovering new tools and technologies.
There was something more in favor of a Mac: its design. I don’t primarily mean the physical design of the laptop though in my opinion it is the best looking one there is but how everything works so ingeniously and smoothly. Everything is pre-installed so I basically only had to customize a few things like creating a user (it took me a while to realize who the guy on the default avatar picture was since I was not moving too much), setting the time zone and the default keyboard layout, etc. And the fonts. Yes, the fonts above all. I remember how refreshing it was when I switched to a Gnome desktop from Windows XP several years ago. I felt the same but even stronger when I opened Firefox the first time on my new Mac. My heart is filled with joy using iTerm with the Monaco font. I know font types and the look of fonts should probably be a detail for stone-hearted programmers but on the other hand beauty in details is so important. I spent some time thinking whether using nicer terminal fonts makes me a happier developer and it certainly does. I could do without the whizzing windows, sliding workspaces and flamboyant icons but I can not imagine using anything with less beautiful fonts. In three weeks I have become so fond of my precious little fonts I have a hard time imagining abandoning them.
But it is just me. What about you? What made you change to a Mac? What do you fancy most about it? Or if you are not a Mac owner, what do you like most about your Linux/Windows/etc. machine?
9 Comments
Get a Mac!
I have been on *very* good dell laptops for years (last time a dell latitude d820) with ubuntu and things were mostly ok (mostly = no mic (=no skype) for months; no wifi for months until a certain kernel arrived etc).
Then I bought a Mac in last december and I just can’t describe how much it kicks ass. Everything works, and I mean *everything* without installing or touching anything. WiFi out of the box, 2nd monitor - just plugin in, choose which one is on the left/right and that’s it, sound, everything. OS X is phenomenal - the software you get here (including TextMate of course) can’t be compared to linux or even win32(commercial) stuff.
I don’t see why one shouldn’t switch for other than monetary reasons. My MBP with 4GB RAM was something like 2600 EUR in Slovakia which is a lot. But it was worth every cent IMHO. Im never going back to the PC!
Yes, I saw everybody using TextMate, so I downloaded the trial version of and been trying to get up to speed with it (must walk with the crowd :) ). It works pretty well but for the time being it stops short of providing amazing productivity. Obviously I have a lot to learn yet. I’ve used emacs and I especially liked not to have to raise my fingers to reach any buttons (basically no Esc and no cursor buttons).
So I feel like I am missing the essential mindset of TextMate. Can you recommend any guides or tutorial videos that you used or that you think are great?
[…] parece que estamos sincronizados […]
Buci.. i have the same symptoms:
http://www.fernandoguillen.info/es/blog/2008/05/23/dios-mio-que-he-hecho/
:)
I don’t know of any ultimate guide to textmate. I hope someone chimes in with some some good resources.
The railscasts.com videos are useful though. You can see the key combos that he uses as he works in textmate. The videos are also brief and well done.
As far as macs go, I don’t know anything else. But sometimes I wish I had a big fat PC laptop with a loud fan and windows 98 under the hood. Just cause it would really blow everyone away. Id airbrush an eagle on the side of it even.
Hey Balint!
I’m glad you have a shiny new machine! I’m still working with a Thinkpad, 3 years old or so, with Ubuntu in it and I’m very happy with it. Everything works fine, gedit with the add-ons is great for ruby/rails and well… I have everything I need.
Anyway, my girlfriend has a MacBook and sometimes I can feel envy from her, they are really beautiful machines, almost completely silent and very powerful.
The day my thinkpad dies I’ll get a Mac. I say to myself I’ll format it and get Ubuntu installed instead os OSX -I’m a convinced free-software or nothing guy- but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it.
I’ll tell you when my thinkpad dies, if that ever comes to happen.
Long live your Thinkpad, Jaime! It is a very good machine, my first laptop was a Thinkpad R30 which I bought second hand and it still works very well, only the keyboard is playing tricks from time to time.
And yes, the switch to a paying-software world can be challenging although I have not yet had to spend a single cent but the philosophy is definitely different than that of the linux world.
Bronson, your noise-generator with the airbrushed eagle would be really nice :). Never mind the TextMate resources, in fact the official guide on their homepage is quite good, too, I was just interested to see if someone was fascinated about a certain tutorial/guide.
[…] recently wrote about me getting a Mac, the reasons I made the switch and how I really like it. I would now like to add nuances to this […]