Our Sierra College Trustee President Aaron Klein is a geek who likes PCs, not Macs. In fact, he’s had some harsh words for Apple.
But Aaron’s blog points to an “awakening.”
“I wrote a few days ago about my big technology transition into a Mac + Gmail + Android world. I’m still absolutely loving it, and I had to write a post about the best computer I’ve ever owned, bar none,” he writes.
“I’ve had Toshiba, Dell, HP, Compaq and Sony VAIO laptops before. Nothing comes even close to the MacBook Air. It’s just amazing.
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure I was going to choose the Air at first. Once my VAIO started dying for the third time, I was assuming I’d get a MacBook Pro. But the more I looked at both choices, the more I realized the Air was the right option.”
“I can’t believe it took me this long to switch. I suppose I could go back to Windows 7 any time I needed to, but you can pry the elegant power of the MacBook Air out of my cold, dead fingers.”
PC habits die hard with certain people, even young ones. We can’t believe it took so long either.
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Congratulations to him!
Computers are like shovels, we use them to dig holes: all they are is tools. Getting all religious about whether one shovel has a shiny red handle, or another shovel has “special digging points” isn’t all that helpful.
You’ll notice that Aaron is using a mix of Google and Apple products, so we’re not talking about just one cult.
The real problem with current technology is that you have more legislated consumer protection when buying a toaster at Wal-Mart for $19.95 than you do spending thousands of dollars with any of the major vendors. And EULAS continue to assume that the end-user is an inconvenience and always the cause of the problem.
Kinda like the car business back in the 1920s, when drivers were to blame for everything instead of bad roads and unsafe cars. That’s where we are today in the technology world, and until tens of thousands of people get decapitated going through the windshield and the humans start to wake up, that is where we’ll stay.
Yep, spot on, Michael…the polarizing zealotry of years past seems to have faded a bit as folks learn to pick and choose tools for specific needs. Our family uses PCs for some things and Macs for others….behind the scenes, we have both Linux (ubuntu) and FreeBSD (for FreeNAS). It’s sort of like Jeff’s consistent take on Nevada County politics, I guess — we’re purple!
OT: Hey Sid, that was a great Farm Red Sox vs. Farm Giants game at Pioneer Park on Saturday, and thanks again for your idea of throwing some of your prime outfielders our way so at least we had some hope on your longball (-;
Yeah, all the unix variants will eventually take over the world. Windows is slowly but surely becoming nothing more than a desktop GUI. The unix filesystem, invented over 40 yrs. ago, continues to reverberate. It’s all about the engine.
Purple engines everyone! Rock on!!
http://www.wordesign.com/unix/chronology_of_the_unix_world.htm
@Michael — The longball was our only hope, given that the Farm Red Sox had an entire infield of Hoovers out there, vacuuming up every grounder that came their way. You guys looked sharp! Wish the season lasted all summer.
Agreed on the desktop arc for Windows, too, though even that may be in jeopardy with the huge strides the various Linux distros are making with their GUIs. Ubuntu is really slick — I’ve been impressed with the quality of the free software available for it, too.
Improve your passwords and keep all personal stuff on a HD or two or three that are only connected when needed. If your computer goes kerfluffle, your data can be accessed by any other computer that is handy.
Keachie, how does your data backup plan address yet another HP DV-series laptop failure due to overheating, which cost the purchaser about $1.5 K, is no longer covered by a warranty, and has not been recalled even though the exhaust design is intrinsically flawed? Or for that matter, taking note of another technology fail, a device whose battery has been soldered to its terminals?
HP laptops have a horrible reputation for reliability. I remember at a previous job, 10-15% came with some form of defect or was DOA. Way too high for my tastes.
And honestly, Keachie’s strategy works great for this scenario: when the affect laptop goes kaput, take it out and plug it into a SATA-USB bridge. Instant access to your data, given that it wasn’t encrypted.
Going to the original topic, I was a Mac user from 1994 to last year. I guess I did the reverse switch.
Golly, I’m not sure, which could be really bad, under the circumstances,as you see I am typing away on an H/P DV9700 Pavilion, in use for about 4 years. I did get an underlaptop fan assembly for it,and the fan broke, so I clipped the cord and still use it as an excellent cooler spacer, everywhere I go.
My suggestion would be cheap laptops or tablets for communications and casual writing,and a powerhorse desktop for graphics. As you know, since you installed it, I am planning on moving all internet communications over to a Linux partition on said laptop. After a friend’samazon account was hacked to the tune of $600,I changed my password there to 16 or so characters and numbers, up from the nine previous.
All brands aside, Moore’s Law is still at work, and will be for many decades yet.
Welcome Aaron. I just came from 2 days working out of The Hub in San Francisco. Next steps are serious crowd sourcing, co-working, shared ownership platforms, and high level collaborative product and project design.
It’s a brave new world, and I love it!
Careful Steve, you’re starting to give the willies to those who are stuck in 1859!
I spent Wedenesday working with a group of people doing the economic analysis on an amazing idea. The idea: what if you took the SanFrancisco street grid and took automobile and truck traffic off roughly two thirds of it;, redesigned 1/3 to provide for a network of walking, bicycle, and mobile assisted devices (Segways, yike bikes, electric assisted bikes, moving sidewalks, etc); took the other 1/3 and designed it for rapid transit and delivery systems; provided 250,000 free bicycles and mobile assisted devices; and interspersed the saved space with a combination of urban open space, urban agriculture, shared work and gathering places, shared housing, and commercial development?
The economics are stunning. Once one factors in the current traffic congestion and productivity lost, the cost of road maintenance versus a significantly lower level of maintenance necessary for high quality trails, the health cost from air pollution, the increased value of real estate, the value of new land going from the public domain to private ownership, the energy efficiency benefits, the reduced cost of managing urban runoff, etc, (the list could go on and on) this project might not only ‘pencil’ it might actually be a huge savings for taxpayers.
The city/county of San Francisco has a $5.5 billion budget. This project could easily by phased to retrofit neighborhoods piece by piece, with revenue generated from cost savings and real estate sales in each neighborhood helping to finance the next piece. The financing mechanisms are already in place.
Imagine this: say I live in the east bay and work in the Presidio. I could get on BART, get off at the Civic Center station 20 minutes later, pick up a free Yike Bike and be in my office in the Presidio 10 minutes later. No parking, no driving, wasted productive time cut more than in half, pollution, GHG emissions cut by 90%. Bad weather or can’t get over that big hill? move over to the next street and hop light rail.
Or perhaps I don’t want to live in the east bay anymore, I would rather live near the Presidio and walk. I could pay into a shared housing environment, just like I can a car share through Zip Car. The new land freed up by redeveloping every third street creates enough housing that we can start to reconnect jobs and housing. Want to go to the city and work for a week, or even live in two locations, imagine shared housing as a network across the country; I can work for two weeks in San Francisco, one week in L.A. And one week in D.C.
Sound crazy? Don’t bet on it; it may be futuristic but many people believe that it would be WAY cheaper than what we are doing now.
Steve,
What is this idea called? I saw a presentation about something very similar a few years ago.
Supplanting the Pavement–this was a small thought group, really a discussion group.
Steve,
Enjoyed a great winemaker dinner at Cedar House/Stella in Truckee tonight. Hope to see you at the next one, Aug. 26. Cheers.
-Jeff
Hey Jeff lets plan on meeting for the winemaker dinner on August 26th. Who is the winemaker for the August event? I love the Cedar House.
It’s supposed to be Husch out of the Anderson Valley. My folks introduced me to their wine decades ago. These guys are old-school California. Their wine club get-togethers used to include fresh Abalone grilled on Weber kettles at the vineyards.
http://huschvineyards.com/ourstory.htm?from=navmenu
Sounds great, I like Husch, good Gewertz. and Sauv. Lets do it.
By the way Michael, I agree, the old schooler’s are gonna have a hard time with the new ways…..
I’m more agnostic in the PC vs. Apple competition. PCs tend to die a slow painful death. But I have had Apples (yes that’s plural) who just don’t boot up all at once. Like You Tube today, and then a blue screen tonight.
Apple tends to have pretty good service policies, but getting rid of the blue screen thing would be better. But then Apples also cost about twice as much as the same thing in Dell, or something similar. Competition is good for both platforms.
Steve, it doesn’t sound crazy. Sadly, before the quake (06 that is) there were alot of cable cars now there are just 4 lines. And you could take the train across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. We now have bart for that. And you could take a trolly down the El Camino. Up until a few years ago you could still see the tracks in some locations. But than again, the car was becoming king and transit was loosing money. Kind of like the Narrow Gauge RR here. Its not hard to get around if you have the time and inclination.
I saw maps of the San Francisco street car network this week. Very interesting. They had it down 100 years ago. The network used the topography effectively and can really in many ways be used as a blueprint for how SF could be redesigned for the 21st century.