I’m a technology whore
and I’m proud of it
When I was a kid I used to play in my good old Power Macintosh 6100/66. “Pathways into darkness” was the shit and it scared the shit out of me, too.
God knows I loved that mac!
It had word processing, games and the coolest flying toasters screensaver you've ever seen. It crashed at least once a day and I could spend hours poking around, trying to get that weird “internet” thing to work or simply wondering why my friends’ computers were so different.
As a costa rican in the mid 90's I never realized that Macs weren't common until I first attended to a public school. “Why is it there TWO buttons in this mouse?” — I screamed while staring at that weird 2-buttoned thing.
Then the love started. All that software. All those possibilities. It even had Mario Bros installed! I quickly became a PC fan boy. Then I acquired my first PC, “customized for your needs” — the salesman said, proudly.
I bought an Nvidia FX 5200 graphic card -128M dedicated solely to run Unreal Tournament 99' (GOTY, of course), Age of Empires II, Dune 2000, Call of Duty and so on. We added a Pentium 4 processor (with Hyper-Threading) and an outstanding GB of ram and the set up was complete. To sum it up, my PC was da real shiz!
I used that PC for a long time -it’s still in the family- and after that I customized a new computer. I needed it as I was starting my degree in Computer Science. Netbeans and Visual Studio required a lot of computing power, and those new games required heavy graphics processing. Over the years I discovered Linux and fell in love with Ubuntu and Fedora. At last I ended up using three operating systems in my PC, switching between them as I needed to.
Using a Mac?
That didn't cross my mind for a long time until I started to work and my client required me to use one. Damn! That OS changed over the years, sure it did!
At first I hated it. Couldn't control shit! Everything was nicely packed for dummies -and it seemed that only a dummy could stand to use it for more than a couple of hours. It seemed that every task I needed to achieve required tons of work. Customizing? Not a chance! Productivity? I could bet it dropped at least 25%.
Then I started to work with web technologies and everything changed. MacOS ended up being exactly what I needed. The best of both Linux and Windows. UNIX was just a command + t of distance and not allowing me to customize stuff saved me tons of time. Apparently there were brains beneath that pretty face. My productivity went up and I was loving it. I even bought a MacBook Pro for myself.
I became an apple fan boy.
The next step, of course, was buying an iPhone. And an iPad. And an iPod. But I didn't.
I worked with apple devices on daily basis and they sucked. Big time. I mean, they did what they were designed to. But it felt like they were missing something.
As strange as it may seem , those devices couldn't deliver what my 27" Mac did. They were similar. All of them integrated seamlessly between each other and even the interface and UX was designed to be homogeneous through all the devices, but I simply couldn't make it work for me.
I needed an Android device, and my first choice was the Galaxy S2. It rocked! I loved every aspect of it: the design, the camera, the screen, the storage …
Then my S3 came and, despite the fact that I liked the S2 design better, I loved those blazing-fast, buttery-smooth transitions. Everything was faster, better, stronger … well, you get the idea.
Then I got and S3 mini -don’t ask, lets just say Samsung devices are not meant to stay with me more than 6 months- and finally I got my brand new HTC One. Gorgeous phone. Great specs. Amazing performance.
Some friends can’t stand watching me work with my MacBook Pro and answering my whatsapp messages on an android based device. Their argument is that I should stick with one or another. They consider that connecting that filthy HTC to my Mac’s USB port should be punished. I should probably burn at the stake. On the other hand I have a whole bunch of friends that consider a bit less than a crime to pay for anything that can be obtained for free. They can’t understand why do I use and Open Sourced OS for my smartphone but invested nearly US$2k in a computer that works over a completely restrictive platform.
I have one simple argument for them:
I use whatever I believe fits me best. I think that working with a Mac raises my productivity and helps me to focus on what’s important. On the other hand, I think that my smartphone should offer more than apple devices can provide. I choose an open platform in which I get access to lots of great apps at a great price (often for free), develop and prototype great ideas with minimum investment and fully customize my experience.
I guess that, at the end of the day, what really matters about technology is the way it can help you to live better and do more with less effort. That way you can focus on what really matters to you: family, side projects, party, school; you name it. Don’t be afraid of being a technology whore. I am one and i’m loving it!
Disclaimer: I’m not a native English speaker, so feel free to point out grammatical and/or syntactical errors. Every respectful comment is deeply appreciated.
