What you first install on a new computer, I think, is very telling of how you work. My wife and I recently bought a mac book pro, my first mac. That alone swayed some of what I was able to install, but still the choices I made this time around, show a lot about how the way I work has changed from when I bought a new desktop pc in 2006. Back then, the first thing that I would have installed would have been FireFox (maybe Flock depending on how Web 2.0 I wanted to be that day), now I went for Chrome (which is not as nice on a mac) and eventually got around to downloading FireFox. Specific browser aside, the point is that the first thing that I always do is download a better browser than what’s natively included. Safari is actually not that bad, but still the first thing that I do is get a new browser. That, more than anything, seems to be a ringing endorsement for something like Chrome OS… if the browser is the most important piece of software, building around that seems to make a ton of sense.
After I got my browser, my next step was to get a word processor. This is also a big change from the past, but my big focus right now is writing, and not in the sense of writing code. If the word processor was less important, I would probably just use Google Docs (which I used in law school), but I need a more robust application (wait for the irony in my final choice) and so does my wife. So, my first choice was Open Office (which I used in my undergrad days) - which is good, but leaves a bit to be desired. Microsoft Office and iWork are both fine full featured choices and give us everything we need, and we will likely install one or the other eventually. However, somewhere along the way, I started to really get into the idea of full screen word processors, so, I’m now using WriteRoom which is far from feature rich, but a completely addicting way to write. WriteRoom seems to be a favorite for Macs for full screen editors, but I actually like a PC only version of a full screen writer better - Q10 - and it’s actually free… but has no mac version (even says that one will never be built). I’ve definitely noticed an immediate change in availability of free software when we switched to a mac. I think it’s easier to charge for mac software, because there’s less competition so it’s harder for mac users to find free alternatives… that’s probably been the worst thing about switching to a mac.
For code… I still love Aptana and I can get it free, even on a mac. And that’s really all I need at this point, and everything else for me will be done online or with some of Apple’s pre-installed, good enough, software.
Overall, I’m very happy with our mac, but it is a definite adjustment. There’s been a lot of talk recently about iPad and iPhone and support for flash, or support for how code is compiled (bizarre)… and there’s a general sense of outrage, but is it really anything new? As soon as you buy into Apple, you buy into the philosophy that things are going to be done a certain way, and that’s going to be dictated to you. I’ve always thought that it was strange how many of the people advocating an open web, were the same people advocating macs and iPhones. Now that I’m on the mac side of things, I can understand how easy it is to really enjoy working on a mac, the speed and aesthetics alone could win some over for sure. But aesthetics aside, I feel that much of what Apple stands for, in terms of forced approaches, goes completely against how I believe software should work. And maybe that’s just it… maybe the people that are advocating more for cloud computing, and open standards, are doing so, so that they can get around the stumbling blocks of working in an Apple world…












It’s Hawaiian shirt day, so today I attempt a little Musical critique. I recently acquired Beck’s newest album: 