Tuesday, October 12, 1999

12 October 1999

I usually read all the journals that I read every day after I've written my journal entry, because otherwise I am tempted to talk about the things that I read about. And while that's not an intrinsically bad thing, after a while I start feeling like copycat and a leech and we get into this whole lack-of-creativity discussion again, and that's a bad thing.

But since I'm still in testing (four more days) and I decided this week not to try to write my journal article in a hurry every morning, I'm going to accept that sometimes it's OK, and talk about what Matt talked about. Sortof.

I mostly like the Macintosh operating system. Matt tells people that I don't like the fact that the menu bar for any given window is at the top, but that's actually just something that I bring up when Mac-fanatics insist that the Mac OS is completely intuitive, as an example of how it's actually sortof confusing occasionally.

There are actually a couple of things that I like better in Windows - the fact that you can resize a window from any edge of the frame, for instance. To explain why I like this, I'll give you an example from last night - I was using Matt's Mac to Hall. Now, when we're on the Hall, there's usually two channels open at any given time - the Hall itself, and a side channel where we talk out of character. When I'm Halling from my PC, I use mIRC, and generally tile the two windows side-by-side, with a space at the bottom for private messageboxes and notify lists and stuff like that. On the Mac, this is what I did - I dragged one channel over to the left, and one to the right (just like I do in mIRC), but they overlapped. In order to shrink the left-hand box, I had to resize it, and then re-drag it back all the way to the left - and then check to see if I'd resized enough. (For those of you who have never used a Mac, imagine you can only re-size windows by using the bottom left corner.)

Now, I know this is hardly an earth-shattering problem. But it's one example of something I actually like better in Windows, and since Mac-fans tend to be so fanatical about the Mac OS, I like to keep around a few examples of things I dislike about it to shut them up when they start proselytizing at me. (I also dislike the fact that I can't tell at a glance which window or application is currently active if I don't have the application's icons memorized, but Jeremy tells me that the new OS is going to at least tell which application is current opposite the menu.) And I like Windows' Tool Tips. Macintosh relies heavily on icons, and if you don't already know what application an icon belongs to, then the only way to figure it out is to run it - which may not be what you want to do! I'd rather be able to hover the mouse over it and see a text popup. And, I confess, I'm addicted to my wheel-mouse.

But as I said, I mostly like the Mac OS, and it's certainly more stable and better-written than Windows! And I've considered, on multiple occasions, switching to Mac for my next computer. I didn't with my latest computer because I thought I might be programming at home from time to time, and even the most loyal Mac fanatic will tell you that there's a huge world of difference between programming for Windows and programming for a Mac. But all I do with my home computer is Internet stuff (e-mail, surfing, posting my own page) and games and the occasional printout of a recipe card or letter or something. I use it to write and keep track of my finances. And I can do any of those things equally well on a Mac system, so I'm back to contemplating a Mac for my next computer.

I have plenty of time to contemplate; it'll be a couple of years at least before I need a new computer. (And "need" is pretty relative in any case.) There are some downsides to consider. Macs are traditionally much more expensive than PCs, though Mac-fanatics will insist that if you spend the same on a Mac as on a PC, you're getting the same performance, even if the flat numbers don't look as impressive. (I have yet to really believe this.) But the iMac has all the power I need for a home computer, and even after the peripherals I'd insist on (that keyboard badly wants replacing with a full-size board, and the mouse is sized for ten-year-olds) it's still priced favorably against PCs.

But there are some hidden costs. Forget about all the free software my friends gave me, as Matt suggests. I would still have to replace the software that I paid for already, whereas if I got another PC, I could just re-install it. And some of it can't be replaced. It took me five years to find a calendar program I really liked. It is, of course, not available for the Mac. mIRC, which is the best IRC program I've ever seen, is not available for the Mac. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty certain that the HTML editor I use (a text editor for HTML code, rather than a graphical editor, thankyouverymuch) is also PC-only. My printer is, I believe, not compatible with the Mac OS. Same thing with my scanner.

That's why I'm hesitating as I consider switching over. What pirated stuff do I have that I'd lose? (Well, I'm not telling you, but lemme think about it a bit...) Not all that much, really. Just a couple of shareware programs that haven't been registered because I think the registration fees are ridiculously high. (When I got a real job, I started registering all the shareware that I actually use.) But when I think about all the money that I spent on software that I'd have to spend again... That adds up, and fast.

A PC box with a Linux partition, though... Now that's tempting.


Okay, just so you don't think I'm copy-catting next week - KT says she's going to answer in her journal today the questions she asked me for our Metajournals interview. (Was that confusing? We're interviewing each other for Metajournals. She sent me a list of questions to answer, but she's going to answer them for herself as a journal entry.) I'd actually already had that idea for myself, but was going to save them until after the Metajournals article went up.

So even though it looks like it, I'm not copying KT! We just think alike a lot of the time. So there.

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