ryan kennedy’s blog

I’ve been considering getting a Mac for a long time. I actually had one for a little while…call it my Excite@Home severance package (it has since moved on to a better place). This weekend I took the plunge and bought myself a MacBook Pro. There was a lot of thought and pondering put into the decision, it went something like this:

• Rational Ryan (RR): I already have a laptop, what do I need another one for?
• Compulsive Ryan (CR): It’s shiny.
• RR: My other laptop works just fine. I can browse the web, I can play my music, I can SSH into my development environments.
• CR: The MacBook can browse the web, can play some music, can SSH into your development environments…oh, and it’s shiny.
• RR: I’m supposed to be a responsible adult by now. That’s $2,500 I don’t need to be spending.
• CR: Try to think of it as doing some user research, you have no idea what the Mac population thinks of your software.
• RR: I write services, Mac users never see my software.
• CR: Neither do PC users and you own a couple of those, don’t you?
• RR: But I won’t be able to listen to my Yahoo! Music Unlimited tunes anymore!
• CR: Are you sure your name is “Rational Ryan” and not “I whine like a bitch Ryan”?

Anyway, I’ll save you the verbal assault that happened after that and sum it up by saying that the MacBook Pro is, indeed, shiny. It’s fast, faster than my desktop machine by far. It’s also hot as hell (I’m guessing, I’ve never been there). It does get uncomfortable in my lap unless I put something between the twins and what I’m guessing is the nuclear power supply running the thing.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to playing with it more. I’m hoping to actually write some software for this one. I had that aspiration with the Tablet PC as well and it didn’t work out. But I’m sure this time will be different. I’ve heard that Xcode is kind of a pain, but at least it’s free. Sure, MS is offering the express versions of their studio products for free now…but seriously, I hate them.

Anyway, if you’re a Mac user and have some recommendations for software that I should check out, let me know. I’m completely new to this, so I only know a couple of names of applications that I ought to be interested in. And if you’re interested, here’s a list of reasons why I finally switched:

• My Tablet PC is underpowered. The Pentium M in it just can’t hang and the GeForce doesn’t do WoW any justice. The MacBook Pro, on the other hand, has power to spare with a dual core Intel CPU and a PCI-Express video card.
• Windows consistently pisses me off. Little things like hanging on startup just because the router doesn’t seem to want to give out a DHCP lease have pushed my buttons one too many times (this has happened a few times in the past week).
• A true UNIX environment. I was considering installing Linux on my PC, but I’ve always felt like a 3rd class citizen on Linux with regard to my hardware. Nothing seems to work 100%. MacOS X has a true UNIX environment and all of the hardware in the system always works with the Mac.
• It just looks more fun. I see the things people do with their Macs and they just look to be having a more fun time. Contrast that with my aforementioned kicking and screaming with PCs.

And the things I’ll miss the most with my switch:

• Two button mice. We’ll see how much this actually ends up bothering me.
• The Yahoo! Music Engine. I think the Yahoo! subscription model for music is far superior to the iTunes per track/album model. I think this will be the largest void created by giving up Windows, but I hope to fill it with DRM-free replacements like free music streams and podcasts.

How sad, I only came up with 2 things I’ll miss and one (the mouse) I’ll probably forget about in a couple of days.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 4th, 2006 at 7:59 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.