As a side-effect of working in the corporate world and wishing to maximize compatibility and applicability of my computer skills, I have been a proud user and advocate of MS Windows. However, due to a recent (and questionable) change in my career path, I’ve had the opportunity to leave the comfort (and predictable blue-screens) of Microsoft and test the waters of the fabled land of Apple’s OS X.
Only two months ago, I thought Apple was a product for artists, homosexuals, hippies and spoiled adolescents needing to prove their “uniqueness.” Now, however, I’ve tasted the Apple Cool-Aid and found that there is another category of Apple users: people who simply want the best. In this case, OS X is simply the best, period.
It took me a month or so to get used to the mentality of Apple, learn the new shortcuts (no dedicated delete key!?) and accept the simplicity of installing applications. After some initial resistance, the design choices seem obvious and I’m frustrated that Microsoft hasn’t adopted some of these approaches for Windows. My main revelation has been that OS X is no longer a platform based solely on user-friendliness, but also on sheer power. Underneath the polished eye-candy is the incredibly flexible and powerful world of BSD (linux). If the gleaming GUI doesn’t offer you what you need, just open a terminal window and attack the problem from the command line. This isn’t the half-baked, wimpy command line from Windows, but rather a full-fledged powerhouse of non-reversible actions and lengthy man pages. A drunken, pimple-faced frat-boy versus a grey-haired, wiry Kung-Fu master!
Granted, not everything about Apple is great. I’m sure they want to buy my soul just as badly as Microsoft of Google, but at least they’ll give me some fantastic products to play with as part of the bargain!
According to this article, the online, collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia has actually managed to change the very fabric of reality. The story began when an editor changed the name of a German member of government on Wikipedia. The moderators of Wikipedia undid the change and asked the editor for proof to support the name change. The editor quickly found proof in the form of article posted by several reputable news agencies. Unfortunately, it turns out that those reputable news agencies had gotten the changed name from Wikipedia, before the change had been reverted.
