Turning My Coat

[mishalak]

To be a turncoat is to leave a side for strategic reasons of not wanting to die. It first appeared in the written English language midway though the 16th century. The story (probably apocryphal) told for the exact origins was of a nameless Duke of Saxony located in the unfortunate position of being near the boarder of the waring Saxons and French. (This must have been centuries before the phrase entered into English because France did not have a boarder with the Electorate of Saxony in the 16th Century) He had the innovative idea of having a coat made up with one side in Saxon white and the other in French blue so that he could quickly change his display of allegiance when the siltation called for it. This was enormously innovative since reversible coats as a commonly available garment did not appear until the beginning of the 18th century and if he'd just been able to avoid the politics and warfare this duke could have had a future in high fashion.

So in what way am I turning my coat? Back in the day I was a loud proponent of the lower cost PC running whatever software was best rather than the OS/Computer with no user serviceable parts. At that time there were actually options besides Microsoft and I happened to use one of them as an interface over MS-DOS. And even after windows came along I still liked the PC better because I could do things getting inside the guts of the OS to make things work exactly how I wanted them to. Maybe I'm just old but I am no longer as happy about that. Or maybe I've been seduced by the shiny Mac and PC ads with that wonderful phrase that "Macs just work".

Now I am realistic. Most products don't actually work as advertised. But I am looking for an improvement over what I do right now. Which is to be semi-constantly worried about my PC being infected with only Plato knows what. And I don't like feeling like a hapless tech support guy from IT who cannot ever seem to actually fix problems without creating more. Plus in looking at the costs of Macs they don't seem that bad anymore. So sometime in August I'll probably buy a Mac Mini or a iMac. Then you'll get the treat of me complaining all the new things I have to learn for a month or two after that. Hopefully in an entertaining way.

Comments

[ckd]

Ever since Mac OS X shipped, I've seen more and more Mac laptops at high-end technical conferences. Most of the old Unixheads seem to have picked that as their platform of choice.

And hey, if you have questions to ask about Mac stuff, I'll do my best to answer them.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Neat! I also have two friends who are only semi-on livejournal and another I don't get to hang out with enough in real life who is on livejournal. I know they're all on macs and they're in Denver as well. Between LJ and RL I think I'll have enough knowledge base to handle it.

I do have a bit of a question for you though. Do you or anyone you know use their iMac, Mini Mac, or Mac Pro as a reduced sized home entertainment system? See I don't actually own a television at this point.

[ckd]

I've used my older G4 laptop as a portable DVD player many many times, and sometimes watch DVDs on the G5 tower. Neither of these supports the Apple IR remote or the Front Row software as the newer iMacs, Mac minis, and laptops do. (The Mac Pro doesn't.)

At work, I will sometimes take my ergonomics break in the Comfy Chair in the corner of my office, and use the remote to cue up some music in iTunes. That works great. Next time I get to go to a conference, I'll probably pack along some DVDs and the remote so I can watch a movie I want to watch without paying the hotel's insane on-demand charges.

[spudicus.livejournal.com]

Hey Mishalak!

I thought I'd chime in. :)

New macs come with a remote and a basic media interface called Front Row. It is a simple and functional full screen interface to iTunes, iPhoto, Quicktime and the DVD player. No keyboard interaction is needed so you can easily sit accross the room. There are free add-ons to Quicktime that will allow it to play most any video codec you can find online, including WMV files. With a set of external speakers you will have a nice all purpose stereo/video/dvd player.

If you get a iMac you have a nice flat panel screen that will work well for watching movies. If you get a Mini you have all kinds of screen options since it outputs a high quality digital video signal. Flat panel monitors are getting cheap and will look really good. We have an older mini hooked up to our TV. We use it for watching DVDs and various video we've downloaded.

You can also get an external drive and hook it up to your computer to store video and music. Storage is getting crazy cheap. Microcenter recently had 500 GB drives on sale for $110.00.

me too

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

I don't often make this offer, but feel free to ping me via email any time you need help after you switch. I would like to think that I am as much of a Mac guru as it is possible to be without also being a programmer who REALLY knows the guts of the operating system.

note: there are people in Microsoft at all levels of management who run Macs including quite a few engineers and scientists. I don't get that luxury but apparently some do, because I see them around. They probably have them set up to dual-boot both Windows and Mac OS, since there is currently no way for MacOS to authenticate to our Windows-centric corporate network.

[sraun]

I sympathize. I'm going to be giving Linspire/Freespire a try on our home PC's first (a couple of laptops - maybe the two desktops, not the server - it's cheerfully plugging away running Debian), but there is a non-zero chance that I'll be jumping to Macs for home use. I'm guessing a couple of years down the line for that if we go that way.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I think I'll be going to Linux the next time I need a new major part or Vista is required, whichever comes first.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I've never really used anything other than a Mac, but gather that you could expect to find OS X about as satisfactory as Windows or anything else, and not significantly different.

As it happens, OS X is a bit too ostentatious and glitzy for my taste (you'll probably like it), so I've stuck with the OS 9 emulation because I know that all the software I'm comfortable with works in it without conflict, but the browser is increasingly incompatible with modern websites and I'm soon going to have to switch over, even though the new iMac won't permit the use of Microsoft Word v. 5.1a (the last decent version of Word). *sigh*

My guess is that the Learning Curve will be as nothing, for you.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Learning curves are quite hard on me. I just cannot admit it because I have reputation as being not only highly intelligent, but also very, very smart.

[heck1701.livejournal.com]

Here! Here! ;)

I use pretty much everything... but there's a reason I have a Mac both at home & work; they "just" work for the most part, even when I'm completely screwing it up with all kinds of tweaks. Now, for the ultimate in tweaking, it's definitely Linux... but to run any M$ product, Windows is still the only way to go (see the machead who's a Windows sysadmin by day ;) )

One comment on the choice... I gather Mac Mini's are fading to the background in favor of the AppleTV... a sad thing IMHO, as they needed something "business-esque", but without the high end costs of the MacPro. Also, supposedly towards the end of summer they're releasing an update to the iMac. (both rumors from www.appleinsider.com)

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Why would I want to run a windows product? I mean besides at work where I am required to do so? And if I can determine that the file formats are the same why wouldn't I just buy Quickbooks for my Mac?