No, I'm not becoming a Republican.
Last night, after nearly twenty years of supporting Windows on the PC platform, I finally had a come-to-Jesus moment and bought a Mac: a sleek, sexy MacBook Pro to be exact.
What caused this paradigm shift in my computing universe? To be honest, it was a combination of things. Until about a month or so ago I was extremely excited about the new version of Windows that officially went on sale a few days ago. I'd been running various iterations of it on my Dell Inspiron laptop since the first public beta was available, and my initial reaction was that Microsoft had finally gotten it right. But one Sunday afternoon, all of a sudden it simply stopped displaying my chosen wallpaper. An admittedly small issue, but it was nonetheless profoundly annoying. After extensive troubleshooting and finding no answers through the Google, I wiped the drive, pulled out the RC-1 installation CD and began reinstalling. Immediately after typing in my license number (taken directly from my email from Microsoft) it refused to proceed. "Invalid Registration Key" or some crap. I double-checked the number and typed it in again. Same thing.
Fuck me.
This was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. I turned to Ben and said, "This is bullshit. I've had enough. I'm getting a Mac!"
"Yay," he said! "My first convert!" (He's had a Macbook since 2008.)
My first impulse was to get an iMac to replace my rapidly aging Dell GX270 desktop unit, and after playing with a one of them at the Mac Store, I fell in love. (In the interest of complete disclosure, we were actually in the Mac Store because Ben had to take his MacBook for service because of a power problem.) But as the days drew on, the more I realized how foolish buying a desktop unit would be. 90% of my computing time was now happening wirelessly in the living room, and if I got a Mac desktop unit I'd be glued to it (and away from my Bubba) way more than I think either of us would like. So deciding on a laptop was a no-brainer.
I'm still getting rid of the GX270. It's way beyond its expiration date, and my laptop is a much better unit to keep around until I can figure out how to remote desktop from my work PC to the new Mac.
So what do I think of the new machine?
Love it. I know that Macs are not trouble-free, and when they crash they tend to crash spectacularly, but it's worth living with that risk for the sheer joy that has returned to my online life. It's sort of like how I viewed living in San Francisco near the major fault line in the United States for 16 years. The earth could shake at any moment, but until that time…damn what a ride.