Apple a day can't keep PC woes away
By: Paul Bowers
Posted: 8/29/07
Steve Jobs is having a hearty chuckle behind the wheel of his Lexus right now.
Why, you ask? Because I, like so many other unsuspecting Americans of late, just got a MacBook. By most measures I would probably be considered a rational person, but I must admit that the folks at Apple snagged me with their minimalist product design and insufferably cute logo. From day one I have found that my laptop is like an overpriced French dinner: all about presentation but low on useful content.
Having worked with Windows machines from age seven, I must admit I was partially motivated by the allure of a brand new computing experience. After all the frustrations I had experienced wandering in the PC desert, I could not resist the promised land of crash-proof, no-nonsense technology. The Mac, it seemed, was the computer for the computer-illiterate.
Ah, to be young and na've again. My actual experience with the Mac has been nothing like I so innocently expected. The all-too-sleek keyboard is sprinkled with the plucked hairs of my frustration, and my Mac has witnessed enough ranting through its built-in webcam to develop some sort of childhood trauma-induced complex. If that smug Mac guy from the commercials were in the room with me, I'd like to defragment his hard drive, if the reader will catch my gist.
Aside from the usual problems with head-scratching software logistics and obscure error messages, I have been discovering all sorts of fun features on my Pandora's box. For instance, the geniuses at Top Secret Apple Development Labs in California decided to omit the right-click button from the built-in mouse apparatus. On some plane of reality I am certain this exclusion makes sense, but here in reality, it's asinine.
I have also had my share of issues with those mythologized electronic entities known as "cookies." I cannot even begin to fathom what they are, but apparently there are three Internet settings for dealing with them on my Mac, none of which allow me to access sites that I need for my classes.
In short, my Mac experience has been rife with phantom e-mails, quirks and anxiety. As it would turn out, Mac computers are about as user-friendly as Mack trucks.
I hope that I am not misread as a PC snob. On the contrary, I believe that personal computing is one of the most counterproductive endeavors of the modern mind, whether on a clunky PC or a feminine Mac. Between the frustration of program malfunctions, and the futility of the technology zeitgeist, it is a wonder that we get any work done.
Much has been made of the superiority of, alternately, Macs and PCs, but I aim to take the high ground in this debate: I am buying a typewriter.