I hate being an Apple hater

It's based on my long history with PC's. Back when it was Apple IIc versus TRS-80's. Back when I could hack around with my Tandy 1000 and add more memory. Back when I ran a BBS. It was all about PC's. They were more flexible, expandable, prevalent.

Apple was a curious sidenote...more expensive and less configurable. There was no reason for me to like it. As time marched on, it got worse for Apple. If you were into gaming at all (and I was...still am), then Apple was not the camp for you.

All this added up to a deep hatred for a cocky company that felt it was doing things better, yet I had no proof of it. If it was truly better, than I would have been able to get one at a reasonable price, open it up and add 3rd party parts to improve it, and play all the cool games i wanted to on it. But that was not the case. So in my mind, Apple = Crapple.

Fast forward to now. Apple is gaining market share like crazy, and they are being heralded as the best thing to happen to the industry since the Internet. Why is this? Here is what makes them the golden child right now:

• Marketing: Brilliant ads that make it cool to like Apple, and nerdy to like Windows
• Simplicity: A perception that Apple products are just easier to use
• Functionality: Whiz-bang, flashy apps (cover flow, iPhone UI, etc)
• Security: How many times do I have to hear "there are no viruses for the Mac"
• Dependibility: Apple zealots are always telling me "it just works"

Some of these have merits. Others are hyped up. But in this day and age, it's really a user preference to go Apple vs. Microsoft. You can accomplish the same things with either, so pick your favorite.

Vista has been getting bad press (I actually like it better than XP, but whatever). So Microsoft's image to the unwashed masses is marred by good Apple marketing and bad general press (maybe because many writers have switched to Mac? hmmm...)

In any case, Steve Jobs is the new hero, Bill Gates is a nerdy geek, and Steve Ballmer is...well, a little out of his mind. All these things add up to Apple market share.

So do I still hate Apple? Yes. It's hard not to given my history. But do I like hating them? No, I really don't.

Apple has done some great things with user interfaces. The iPhone's multi-touch display is revolutionary (though NOT invented by Apple...but they definitely brought that technology to the public's consciousness). How they captured the MP3 player market with the iPod is historically significant.

I hate being an Apple hater because many of my friends and colleagues are fans of Apple (to varying degrees), and are always talking about this cool new feature, or that cool new device. I bring up that there are similar solutions outside of Apple, but they just look at me and and say things like "whatever, Apple hater!".

Am I missing out on the new direction in the industry? Should I swallow my pride and join the crowd? Well, I'm probably not to that point yet. The only Apple product I own is an iPod, and mostly because it's the industry standard. Try finding a Zune adapter for your car.

With this post I am trying to open up and become less of an Apple basher. This is hard for me. I hate the fanaticism that surrounds the company. I hate Steve Jobs' cult like status. I hate all the hype. I hate the smear campaigns. But I don't hate the technology. I don't hate the user interfaces. I don't hate what they are trying to do...reach out to the common man and bring technology to their reach. A noble cause no matter who is doing it.

Crapple by ecaggiani
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Vista better than OS X?

As you may or may not know, I am NOT an Apple fan. As a matter of fact, I have an irrational hatred for the company, which probably stems from some childhood trauma regarding a cracked monitor and a guy named Steve.

So I am probably not the right guy to write any sort of review of Apple's OS X since whenever I get near a Mac, my skin starts to burn and I inexplicably start vomiting pea soup.

But thanks to Meowcules, I can now read about how OS X is not all that...which is music to my ears after hearing nothing but brainwashed praise for Jobs and his minions.

Muy buena Vista!

I recently upgraded my Dell laptop to Windows Vista Ultimate and have been running it for the past 11 days. I have used the betas and release candidates in the past but always in a dual boot configuration. This time, I took the plunge and decided to make Vista my primary operating system.

After backing up my files to my home network, I put in the DVD and let Microsoft take over. The install was smooth and painless, and in within the hour I was up and running. I had to install a few updates, and that was it. A brand spanking new OS on my old Inspiron 8600.

Now, my laptop is a few years old, but when I got it, it was pretty sweet. I have now upgraded it to 2GB RAM, but the rest is the same...a Pentium M 1700Mhz, 60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive, and ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 with 128MB RAM. Not too shabby, but definitely not a power gaming machine. Vista rates my laptop a 3.5 on the Windows Experience Index, a scale from 1 to 5.9, where the lowest number your PC gets in any of the five categories (Processor, RAM, Graphics, Gaming Graphics, and Primary Hard Disk) becomes your overall score. In other words, it's not an average. It's a "long pole", or "bottleneck" rating. In any case, I think a 3.5 is not too bad for a laptop. It allows me to run all the bells and whistles, including the Aero UI.

I was concerned about ATI drivers that supported OpenGL properly, since none have been seen with any of the betas or release candidates, and I need to be able to run Second Life, an OpenGL application. I decided to take the leap anyway, since I could still login to SL with my desktop machine if I couldn't get it to work in Vista.

The good news is that ATI had upgraded drivers, and OpenGL support was part of the update, but the bad news is that they still caused SL to crash on startup. After searching a bit, I found VistaSL, a homebrew version of the SL client that had removed some of the offending OpenGL calls to get it to run in Vista. Works like a charm! Granted, this is a temporary solution, and updated ATI drivers and a proper SL client from Linden Labs would be best.

In any case, in the 11 days I've been running Vista, I've managed to do a few things:

• Get a working version of Second Life
• Install Virtual PC 2007
• Get Windows XP SP2 to run in a virtual machine
• Get Linux (Ubuntu v6.10) to run in a virtual machine
• Install a sidebar gadget called Vista Hot Corners that provides Exposé-like window shuffling
• Install Outlook, Photoshop, Firefox, VNC, SnagIt, Trillian, Notepad++, and TweakVI
• Burn a DVD (with Windows DVD Maker) of short video clips I had laying around, complete with animated menus and scene selections.

And so far, it's been a treat! Being able to run Windows XP is great since I can still have access to IE6 if I need to test any web pages. Also, it's fun to play with Ubuntu as well. Windows DVD Maker was drop dead simple, and the result was very professional looking.

It seems to me that everything is running just as well or better as with XP (with the exception of Second Life, which seems a bit choppier, but that may be the result of ATI's bad OpenGL support mixed with an unoptimized SL client).

All I have to say so far is that Vista is a definite step up from XP, but could benefit from better driver support from ATI. Hopefully that will come in time.

Bottom line: Muy buena Vista!

How much is that Vista in the Window?

C|NET News announced today that Microsoft has published its pricing for Windows Vista, and expands testing to over 5 million "tech enthusiasts".

Pricing for full retail versions of the software will be Windows Vista Ultimate, $399; Windows Vista Business, $299; Windows Vista Home Premium, $239; and Windows Vista Home Basic, $199. Start saving up now!

Get your Windows Vista today!

Windows Vista, Microsoft's next operating system, is still in beta. But Microsoft just announced that it has opened the beta to the public with its Windows Vista Customer Preview Program (CPP). Are you brave enough to try it?