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2003-08-13 - 7:31 p.m. I've been using a Mac since 1984. And since I don't normally associate with windoze people, my friends are Mac people. The Mac section on Wired.com is called Cult of the Mac. And that's close to how it is. There are the true believers, and the others. I have a friend who has as close to a genius IQ as anyone I've known. And he's a brilliant computer guy with his own business and consulting business and a professorship in computer studies. A complete IT guy who could probably build a computer out of spare refrigerator parts and write the code to run it. He's also a windoze guy. His hardware and software is always the most up-to-date. And in the last ten years I've been going over to his place, something in his computer isn't working. This suits his personality because he loves hunting down and fixing problems. His ex-wife, a former girlfriend of mine (which is how I know him) is also breathlessly gifted intellectually. Last summer they tried a trial separation and she lived with me for about three weeks. Her mother-in-law writes popular technical windoze books. While my friend was here she was editing her mother-in-laws latest book. Well over 600 pages. My friend used a dial-up connection and that awful connect screeching was LOUD. I asked why she didn't mute it. She didn't know how and couldn't figure out how. So all of this is a head scratcher for a Mac user. Most Mac users don't bother to read manuals. The manuals are a joke anyway. When I got my iMac, the manual was two pages in 120 point type with large graphics. The set-up instruction went something like: remove from box; plug in keyboard, mouse, and computer; push on button. I saved that for a long time because I thought it was funny. Now there is a new worm in the windoze. I read that there hasn't been an incident is six months. Six months? I've never had a virus, worm or anything. And I download stuff from sketchy porn sites, open all my e-mail. I've never had a virus protection program in twenty years. Nobody I know who has a Mac has ever had a problem. PC people completely baffle me. I mean, Why? And especially why smart people? I read a revive of some Mac computer on CNET and one of their criticisms was not enough internal slots. Internal slots? What does that mean? It didn't tell me what I'm missing. Or what was to put into these not-enough slots. Such it is with windoze people. General comments like, "not as much software available." But they can never give me an example. Seems a lot of windoze software is necessary for operation. The Mac OS is fully complete. And so what if Mac makes up 10% or 5% of the market? So does BMW. I rather like BMW. Windoze has so many holes in it that the Government is switching to Linux. Linux systems are being carried by Wal-Mart (which is the coin of the realm. We started using bar codes because Wal-Mart wouldn't sell anybody's stuff that didn't have bar codes). So Linux computer systems are selling for about $300 bucks, as in three-hundred-dollars. And an excellent Mac system sells for about three thousand. Windoze is somewhere in the middle. The demise of Apple has been imment for as long as I've owned a Mac. And if Apple does shut it doors, doesn't mean anything to me. I live in L.A. and the only thing more popular than new cars are old cars. There are so many 50's and 60's restored cars around. American, because when you open the hood everything is right there. That's the way a Mac looks on the inside. The Mac computers I was using in the 80's are hugely popular in Japan. Apple made a Mac model called The Cube. It didn't catch on, but they still fetch a good price and the owners are fanatic about them. Web pages showing off their Cubes. How to do this and that to keep The Cube current. So the new Macs coming out this month or next are 64 bit. The first. Computers are now 32 bit. The inside of the box is stunning. Replacing a hard drive would take seconds. Adding RAM would take less time. Media players like Cd-R are likewise simple to change. They run faster than I'll ever know because there is nothing I can do to push the envelope. I'm just a graphics guy. I can't see how I'll ever need another computer after this purchase. I don't need to upgrade software because the OS is fully backward compatible. Which is where Micro$oft will screw you. No backward compatibility. Micro$oft has to regrettably sell new software. Apple released it's own browser a couple months back. Millions of downloads of the Beta version. Now at version 1.0. Super. Micro$oft has announce it will no longer release upgrades for it's Mac IE. What they don't say is that they can't upgrade the windoze IE. They're going to have to redesign from the ground up which is going to take a couple years. And build a 64 bit OS, also a couple years down the road. I don't think Micro$oft will go out of business like Apple might, because it is too ingrained, like the QWERTY keypad. The keypad is bizarre looking for a reason that was sensible when created. I had my typing class when I was 13. We used manual typewriters, not electric. There was a hammer type arm. Pushing the key manually moved the arm which had a key embossed on the hammer head which struck an inked ribbon which struck the paper after which one would release the pressure on the key and as the hammer came away another hammer key struck the ribbon onto the paper. There are a few interesting things about this. By applying pressure on the key one could make the hammer move toward the paper at any speed, or just wiggle it back and forth which many people did as a kind of fidgeting when trying to think of what to type next. The hammer had to strike the ribbon against the paper, not push it against the paper. In fact, if there was no ribbon, the key would leave an indentation on the paper deep enough that you could rub a pencil against to to see what was printed, or, just hold it at an angle against the light to see the engraving. One had to have rather strong fingers to make the correct impact. Here's where the original keypad came into came into being. At the beginning there were several designs but the QWERTY keypad won out as the standard for the following reason: it made one type slow. If two keys were struck too closely together, the hammers would stick and one would have to physically reach up and untangle. Beginning typist also did this because of indecision when keys were struck simultaneously, or close to it. Or, if you were a 13-year-old boy, by slamming your fist against the keyboard which gave a satisfying clog to all the keys. Long ago the need to type slow ended, but the keyboard remains standard. Micro$oft is a QWERTY keyboard. It ain't going nowhere, no matter how archaic. � 
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