apple

for a long time i've adored apple computers. goggled at the sweet stuff on apple.com. i once went to apple's online store and "window-shopped"...bought all the computers and ipods i could ever want. i think the pricetag on that shopping cart was somewhere areound $20,000. maybe one day i'll be able to satisfy that desire and actually pay for that many sexy gadgets.

so when i got back from my mission in romania, i figured it was a good chance to finally bite the bullet and buy a computer that i knew would bring as close to true computing happiness as possible, and i bought myself a macbook. the only thing i upgraded on it was the RAM, to 4 gigs (i couldn't help it).

it's been about a month now, and i can honestly say that i am very happy with it. today in one of my programming classes the kid behind me asked me what editor i use on my mac for programming. i think i use about 2 or 3 of the programs that came installed on it. the rest are things i've installed. i realized that i have customized my apple machine pretty extensively over the past month. without mucking around in obscure configuration files! fancy that, eh? well..i did do a little of that too..

it's pretty cool walking around campus and seeing how many people around here actually have macs these days. they're starting to take over! it's amazing. every single program that i've needed, wanted, craved or desired (or just had to install for a class) has a version for mac that works great. there are even sweet programs only for mac that are...well, sweet!

here's a list of my favorites...

1. firefox - safari is cool, but it crashes on me... a lot. well, not anymore because the first thing i did was replace it with firefox
   
2. aquamacs - native mac version of my favorite editor. it's a beauty
   
3. adium - chat program that can connect you to gmail, yahoo, msn, and even facebook chat
4. vlc - a nice player for videos quicktime won't play
5. MagiCal - puts a cool little calendar in the menu bar. a feature i missed from linux
6. visor - assign a keyboard shortcut and you've got a terminal window that hides and appears at your bidding
7. nocturne - switch the dislpay into night-vision mode to avoid blowing your eyes out all night. now i need a version for my linux machine...
   
8. quicksilver - spotlight-like tool for quickly searching and accessing things..all things

basically my mac and all macs are amazing machines that everyone should at some point treat themselves to the pleasure of. there are only 2 things that slightly bother me:

1. no focus-follows-mouse option like there is in linux. so, i can't keep firefox physically on top and type into another window by moving the mouse to hover over it. it means more clicking and interrupting my workflow, so it's a slight annoyance.
2. the keyboard doesn't always act like i expect/want. i.e. the command key isn't 'alt' in emacs or other programs, option is (it even has a little 'alt' label on it). i suppose that could be remapped, but i haven't gotten around to it yet.
   
3. i guess there are three things. command-tab and command-` do the same thing as alt-tab in windows/linux. so on mac it takes 2 key combinations and slightly more thinking as to which one you want to use...is that window i want to switch to from this same program or sould i switch programs? i mostly solve this problem by putting things on different spaces and switching using other shortcuts.
4. come to think of it #3 fits in with #2, so there are only 2 things that bother me...the keyboard and the mouse.

on the other hand...there are tons of things i love about both the keyboard and the mouse (the trackpad, that is..is amazing and sexy) and everything else. i'm constantly wishing my other keyboards were self-illuminated and i could scroll and click things as easily as with the trackpad on my mac. luckily i don't do much work on other computers, eh?

last thing to love about the mac...it's a story.

the other day i was working on homework without being plugged in. the battery was pretty low by the time i finished, but i just packed her up and went home. when i got home she wouldn't turn on! the battery was too low to start it. my heart sank as i realized everything i had had open (homework, programs, websites, etc...) would be lost. so i plugged her in and turned her on. guess what? everything was still there! i almost prayed thanks to the god of apple, i was so impressed.

well there you have it. get a mac!

facebookt

facebook is interesting. i sometimes feel like our generation is becoming more and more like the borg...a collective hive of people who don't really care. bad direction for humanity to be taking? yes! just watch a couple episodes of star trek, the next generation, would ya?

my birthday is during the summer, and i'd like to think most of my friends know that. now on facebook, i entered my birthday as the 1st of january, because in general i hesitate to make public personal information about myself. so on the 1st of january everyone sees that it's my birthday on facebook, and the say "happy birthday!". normal, no?

another example. i was recently joking with a good friend that we could get married. so we set our statuses on facebook as "engaged", but didn't mark it as engaged to each other. within the next day she gets a bunch of "congratulations!" comments on her wall...and me? i get nothing. i think it's funny..maybe because people realize i'm probably not really, and that she really could be for all they know.

the interesting part is that everyone just simply said "congrats" and left it at that. now...when you find out a friend is engaged...don't you want to find out everything? who is it? when's the wedding? how did they meet? and so on..? i guess not...not facebook friends.

another friend of mine (yes, a facebook friend, but above and before that a friend in real life) wrote a note (on facebook) about friendship, where she talked about the difference between knowing someone, and knowing about someone. people are in general friendly. in some places they can be even overly so..for example some people (probably from utah) seem to feel like they have to give you this awkward smile and half-nod when you walk past them. it weirds me out. anyway, the point is people want to be nice..but they're busy and have lots to do, so it's hard to make a real friend these days. especially when you can just add them on facebook and be facebook friends, right? it's easier that way. you just have to say happy birthday, congrats, and maybe hello now and then.

i would take elisa's idea a step further and say there's a huge difference between real friends and facebook friends. i believe it's possible to become good friends with someone over the internet, just writing or talking online. but..it takes more than an "add me", just like in real life it takes more than just a simple conversation about the weather :)

soo..next time you see a friend who facebook says is 96 years old...or who it says just got engaged...don't just say happy birthday, or congrats! that's like being just one more of the borg collective, plugged into your little facebook account and pretending to care about one of your many facebook friends (hundreds? how many do you have?). let's not become a collective hive of people who don't really care about each other, eh? ask that friend a question..learn something about them and what is happening in their life. if they're happy, be happy with them. if they're sad, offer them your shoulder to cry on, etc.

come on people! i still believe in humanity...just like picard! let's not be assimilated, ok? resistance is not futile!