I bought a Mac, an Apple- you know, the kind you can’t eat because they’re carved out of a solid block of aluminum (at least the cases are). This may come as a surprise to many of my friends who have sat through my anti-mac rants over the years. How did I end up changing my mind?

I’d like to tell you a story about building my first computer. I remember meticulously digging through pages and pages of hardware specification tables, websites dedicated to getting the best deals online, and reading through numerous build-it-yourself computer forums to find the best cost to performance ratio for every single piece of hardware in my soon to be new machine. Every component was like a new puzzle, each requiring it’s own formula, it’s own specific criteria, and of course a modest price to make it into my super machine. It took weeks of research to finally decide on the parts. The deals and specifications had to align perfectly, when they did I made my move. I was sure to buy a case with an internal light and a transparent side panel so I always had a window to view my masterpiece. I didn’t really think about it at the time, but that must have been the motive.

OK, I’m getting a little off track, but I needed to put into perspective my mentality at the time. The Apple computer was practically the antithesis of my creation. Buying one meant that you were locked into the mac operating system, there were only two or three machines to choose from, the components were already picked and couldn’t be hacked or upgraded. The prices were set, no deals to be had and only one vendor to “choose” from. How could anyone be interested in THAT when they could build their own computers?!

The benefits of building your own computer were obvious. You could save money on a faster machine, you weren’t locked into the apple OS, you had the freedom to upgrade individual components, and it was just fun!

So the question is, what changed?

I guess back then it actually paid off to do it yourself. You could build a better machine for the money than you could buy from HP or Dell. Unfortunately that isn’t the case anymore. If you want to build a computer yourself, it’s going to cost you much more than something comparable from one of the big named vendors. Of course you’ll still end up with a better machine if you build it, but I don’t think you’ll end up getting any deals. Scratch off saving money from the benefits list.

When I decided that I wanted to buy a new computer I knew I wanted a laptop. Laptops of course don’t even present the option of the build-it-yourself route. Most components on a laptop are built into the motherboard so upgrading isn’t usually an option (scratch that from the list too). I already submitted to that fact and was actually quite relieved. I definitely don’t get the same thrill out of spending hours of my free time trying to find the best deals on computer parts anymore (Uh oh, I guess I don’t think it’s fun anymore either).

Buying a mac wasn’t even on my radar when I started the search. If you would have talked to me 3 months ago and told me that I was going to be sitting in bed typing a blog post from my very own macbook pro I would have thought you were insane. Aside from the lack of clear benefits with my new perspective, there were a couple other things that finally tipped the scale in Apples favor.

Windows… do I really like windows? Were my anti-mac rants fueled by a vast burning love for clippy and the search dog? At the time, there were a LOT of applications that wouldn’t run on a mac. Now most of the applications I use do run on a mac, and if they don’t I can run them in Parallels or simply boot into windows (now possible since Apple moved to their intel based chipsets). Those factors combined with the proliferation of OS independent web applications make the choice of an operating system much less of an ordeal.

I also have come to appreciate simplicity in many forms, not least of which simplicity in the design of objects that I interact with on a daily basis. I think it’s safe to say that Apple beats 99.9% of the PCs in this area. If you want to hear my rant about PC laptop design trends, just ask. (the condensed version is that they are basing their designs on overly complicated airplane like boombox designs for apparnetly no reason).

I think the main factor in deciding to buy a mac though has to be how impressed I am with the iPod touch & iPhone. I think Apple nailed these products, and they are probably the two coolest tech gadgets around. My enjoyment of my new iPod definitely made me seriously consider the macbook. I’d love to tell you everything I love about my iPod, but I’m saving it for a different post. The bottom line is that my confidence in Apple skyrocketed after using the iPod.

Ok, I think that’s all I’ve got for now. Hopefully that was somewhat enjoyable to read, I think I got most of my points across about how it was possible for me to make the “switch.” I might expand on some of my favorite and least favorite aspects of OSX in a future post. Until then, I will be enjoying my new Macbook Pro!

I made a couple routes with bikely, my daily commute (one way) and my daily commute + extras (round trip with additional common stops).

Daily Commute
Daily Commute + Extras

http://lakeshorestatepark.com/

Is this a return to blogging? We’ll see, there may be a few things worth posting about that happened in the last year.

Click here to download from userscripts.org!

If you use digg, then go here and digg it.

Well, that’s the end of my rant, I hope you check out del.icio.us if you haven’t already.

Firefox users, be sure to grab the del.icio.us extension for incredibly seamless and easy bookmarking!
http://del.icio.us/help/firefox/extension

Can anyone tell what the hell he is mumbling about after he says “defeat that” ? (~1:55)