Of Macs and Men

I'm typing this post up while sitting on the couch, on the lovely, tactile, backlit keyboard of my new Macbook pro. If you follow me on twitter (though I'm not sure why you'd bother) you may have noticed me tweeting about this new machine. Perhaps. I've been rather subtle about it.

Now, a bit of backstory -

I've resisted getting a mac since, well, forever. It's been something of a point of pride. Everyone I know, everyone I'm related to, everyone in my life (or so it feels) are absolute Mac fanatics. You know the type - smug, slightly superior, knowing. People secure in the knowledge that their computers:

a) start quickly.

b) won't shut down for no apparent reason

c) won't get viruses

d) don't need 300 anti virus programs running in the background

e) don't have anything to do with windows vista

f) are nice to look at / touch / and just generally be around.

My wife has always used Macs. My brother in law is a mac genius. My parents are mac converts. My sister refuses to use anything else. I could go on, but I won't. You get the idea.

Now, the thing is, I'm a stubborn sort of bloke. On principle. And so the more people around me tried to convince me that macs were basically God's explanation for the meaning of life, the more stubbornly I stuck with my desktop PC. The POS acer we purchased from JB Hi Fi a couple of years ago when the nice people at 'Computer World' took our $1200 and then promptly went bankrupt, leaving us in the lurch in a big way. This particular Acer was one of those dinky desktop jobs - you know, the tiny little box with everything crammed inside so there's absolutely no chance of ever upgrading any aspect of it and which, for a bonus, came pre-loaded with Vista, so that within the first eight minutes of running, it slowed to glacial operating speed, had the computer equivalent of a total breakdown, and stayed there pretty much ever since. Often, at around 3.30am, the hard drive starts chattering for no reason at all, and makes enough noise to wake me up from my bed in the room next door, and send me down the hall with my maglight torch, all ready to knock a burglar on the head.

Then, last year, I got this job at the Uni of Canberra. It comes with a computer. You can probably see where this is heading...

So now I have my new Macbook Pro. It's lovely. And awesome. 8gig of memory. A 2.8 gig solid state hard drive, a 17" monitor, and lots of other really happy-making stuff. At the moment I have nine active windows open, am running seven different applications, and the computer isn't even hesitating. Not even a slight delay in switching between windows. My acer would have melted through the desk by now, set the carpet on fire, and then exploded in a nasty smelling cloud of acrid smoke.

Yes. I've gone over to the dark side.

And I love it here.

The funny thing is that I never particularly enjoyed writing on the Acer. In fact, for the most part, I didn't. I avoided it as much as possible. For the last couple of years I've done all my writing on my old work PC or on my wife's mac powerbook. But now I'm actively keen to start writing on this computer. I can't wait to start punching away at these perfectly spaced keys and pouring my stories out into this polished aluminum work of art. That, in and of itself, makes this purchase worthwhile.

So while I do feel a *little* guilty about turning away from the world of the PC, I have to admit that I'm not at all uncomfortable cosying up to my new Mac. Last night it slept beside my bed.

I really can't believe nobody told me how good these things are sometime before this...