Free Your Creative Spirit: Get a Mac
What if? What if you never bought a Mac? How different would your life be today?
What if. What if I had never bought a Mac? What if I wasn’t even interested in Macs? Obviously, I wouldn’t be here today with my regular writing for Apple Matters. Some of you would probably be glad of that. 
My life would be very different. But what came first? Did the Mac make me? Or did I go looking for the Mac? Probably a bit of both.
This year I’m studying graphic arts. But you can bet your leftie I wouldn’t be if not for my Mac. That’s not to say I wasn’t into graphics before the Mac. I was a published cartoonist years before my first Mac, but owning and working with PCs seemed to keep me trapped into a working life of supporting them.
Where the Mac changed my life, and still does, is that it drew me away from the IT support. It showed me computers could be tools, not tools. Colloquially, the latter use of tools refers to something stupid and annoying. Recent experiences have reinforced that.
The Mac is just a computer. OS X is just an operating system. But the similarities end there. However, it’s easy to forget that “just” doesn’t only mean “just.”
I am demanding and cynical, which is no surprise to regular readers. It wouldn’t be surprising if folks at Apple have a picture of me on their dartboard—if they even bother to read my drivel. It also wouldn’t surprise me if many a reader hasn’t muttered, “so why the heck do you keep using Macs?!”
Because, of course, the Mac is the best.
I know there is no real alternative (Linux? Pfft! It’s either for the ubergeek or the Windows refugee who still wants Windows), but I had grown complacent about how bad the claimed alternative—Windows—is. For the last few days I’ve been constrained to a Windows XP environment and it all came flooding back like a dirty sock full of bricks. Actually, the whole laundry basket.
I do think Apple oversimplifies things. A few more options could be added here and there in OS X and no one would complain. Because compared to Windows…well, you’d think Windows was designed by the
Pointy-Haired Boss
(of Dilbert fame). Windows is like the meeting you have to form a committee to decide whether to have a meeting.Windows is a kick in the gonads of user friendliness. You will go cross-eyed with pain when hit with the 1,582 options to configure, say, the firewall. Or the 978 settings for configuring a printer. Or if you’re really feeling masochistic, go visit the Computer Management utility (Control Panel, Administrative Tools).
It staggers me how normal folks can use Windows and its layer upon layer of settings and messages. If cars were like Windows, you’d have to check five different gauges, press eight buttons, and put the hose in nine different places just to fill up with fuel.
And there’s the overall visual assault—which Vista has improved somewhat, but still looks like spit and polish on an Edsel.
If all that’s not bad enough, you’ve also got the constant worry of what if something gets into your system and feeds all your passwords and banking details to someone who is not doing a thesis on the password habits of PC users. When I use Windows, no matter what safeguards are in place, I can never be confident there are enough.
Not to say OS X is perfect, but seven years without any widespread security breach is comforting. And to fools who claim it’s because of the Mac’s small marketshare: if the Mac marketshare is so insignificant that it can’t attract the attention of hackers, why on earth do the likes of Adobe and Microsoft bother making software for Macs? They’ve got a lot more to lose than the hackers have.
Looking at it as a computer nerd, it’s easy to see how as long as I revolved in a Windows world, it would feed off my ability to solve problems. But by stepping out of that, it began to free my mind, which had developed quite a creative streak because of the extraordinary problems it sometimes encountered. With my mind creative, free, and now revolving in a Mac world, a new seed of more artistic creativity began to blossom.
Now I’m no artist of any persuasion. An average writer; quite ordinary at drawing; terrible at any of the other fine arts. But there are still some basics I can learn and take onwards into a creative role that is free of me having to waste my creative energy on solving computer problems.
And I guess this is one of the reasons Macs are so popular in the creative fields: the creative energy can be used for creating the work, rather than looking for creative solutions to the plethora of problems that plague the paned platform.
Whenever you start to question the PC’s reliability, you get the Mac-like argument “I’ve never had any trouble with viruses, et al.” And I don’t disagree with that, except I know from experience that keeping your PC running sweet and free of the plethora of problems still requires a lot more maintenance than it does on a Mac. And, what’s more, if you take just the littlest breather, disaster can strike. But wait, there’s more!
What really drove me up the wall using Windows recently was the constant little yellow bubble messages, warning me and advising me. How can anyone get any creative flow going with them interrupting all the time?
And then, at my in-laws’ yesterday, I spent a couple of hours (partially successfully) trying to get printing to work on all machines on their peer-to-peer XP network.
Occasionally—occasionally—I do have times where I waste an afternoon trying to get something to work on my Mac. However, those times are quite rare. As I like to remind readers, my brother rang me once a month for help when he had a PC, but barely does so yearly since he’s had a Mac.
Last week I attended AG Ideas, a design conference for design students. We heard from designers from many fields: fashion, automotive, furniture, building, graphic, and so on. Listening to one of the speakers—one of the many speakers who used a Mac—a thought struck me. Most of the speakers mentioned tight deadlines, and I realized that, considering the extra labor required to use and maintain a PC, you could imagine the collective thought of the Mac users in the creative world would be:
“We don’t have time to use PCs.”
When I think about it now, I should have taken to my PC years ago—with a sock full of bricks. If you’re reading this and still a Windows user who’s been thinking of switching, maybe you should too. You’ll be glad you did.
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Comments
5 things
1. I got into work today and one of my bosses called me over to set up Bluetooth file transfer between his (fast) XP laptop & phone. Inexplicably, his laptop was incredibly slow. I got the thing done, but as he said “it’s dog slow today”. WHY! We can but guess.
2. The XP desktop I use almost exclusively for spreadsheets at work has been kept up to scratch with Updates, has enterprise antivirus & malware, and apart from that has office and very little else on it. It is as close to the cleanest computer that is still useful as I have ever known. But over the past few weeks it has got gradually, inexplicably, significantly slower. WHY! This is not even normal use! What treachery is this! It is at this point severely irritating to use. Furthermore, it has started randomly disconnecting network drives, being unable to access the network, and refuses to download updates. From time to time the XP UI has severe glitches. If you wait a couple of minutes, it reverts almost to normality. I can vouch that this computer has seen nothing even remotely challenging, let alone suspicious.
3. For everything except spreadsheets, where its screen is unworkably small, I use my Powerbook G4 1.33GHz 12”. This computer is [cue coconutBattery] 32 months old, and has certainly 1/3 or less of the processing power that the above dual-core windows desktop has. It is far faster, far more responsive, in normal use, than that computer. Without any significant maintenance in the past almost 3 years whatsoever.
4. After switching my family to an iMac, I now pretty much never have to do any tech support for them at all. Compared to the amount I used to do, this is quite a big deal for me.
5. The macintosh, and the mac universe, has inspired me to:
program
take web design to a serious level
learn web programming
learn my way around photoshop
play with the unix side of things
play with linux
I am about to quite my job, move to london and take web programming courses as I’ve found my motivation to learn from text books has its limits. There is no way I’d be doing this if it wasn’t for my move to the mac 3 years ago and how it’s impressed me with its elegantly system architecture that, for christ’s sake, keeps getting better!! There is so much that is great in the mac, and so much to look forward to in Leopard, and, I am sure, so much more than that beyond in the dim & distant future. My powerbook, I’m slightly ashamed to say, since it is after all just a computer, has changed my life. But that it is, in fact, just a computer and therefore analogous to any other object that is also a computer does not in any way undermine the fact that it has qualities that are impressive, and that have impressed me and shown me what things can, if a computer company only focuses on what matters more than manipulation of the marketplace, be like.
Great article* by the way, Chris.
*band aid?
Next up: Did the Sears philips-head screwdriver make me the mechanic I am today?
@Ben Hall
Check your fan exhausts. Sounds like heat to me. That and if it’s a work machine, and it’s anything like around here… the thing probably gets restarted once every two weeks at best. Improper ventilation can easily cause every single one of those issues.
@ Author
I would rather have the option to change something then be told “This is how it is, suck it up.”
The problem isn’t the PC. Or Windows. It’s the people in front of it. The people in front of it who, 4 times out of 5, think they know more then they do. That is how things get broken. But I suppose I don’t have to make that point to the guy who deleted /USR, AMIRITE?
Macs are for creative people, because in general creative people aren’t technical. Not that it’s a bad thing. It just means you’d rather be editing videos or writing then squeezing 10% better performance out of your machine. That’s fine. But there are plenty of people who enjoy that.
And, for the record, if cars were like macs, It’d cost $500,000 for the entry level model, you could never replace or fix anything on it yourself (at least without being berated by a mechanic), would come with two speeds “fast” and “off”, and you’d only see them at pretentious coffee shops.
The next time Ben or vb_baysider or any of the other brainwashed Mac-tards whine and cry and pretend to be offended by “name-calling,” I get to point to this page and the other one about the guy who deleted his /usr folder as yet one more example of your absolutely moronic hypocrisy. I’ve already bookmarked it.
Beeb: Lol. I’ll have to get one of those screwdrivers.
Atma: lmao at your “if cars were like Macs”. Funny thing is, I think cars like that already exist.
Atma said: Macs are for creative people, because in general creative people aren’t technical. Not that it’s a bad thing. It just means you’d rather be editing videos or writing then squeezing 10% better performance out of your machine. That’s fine. But there are plenty of people who enjoy that.
Atma, you totally backed up my whole article with that one paragraph. It’s a dangerous statement though, as it implies that creative people are the only ones smart enough to realize they don’t have to spend time trying to squeeze 10% better performance out of their computer, instead of actually doing their job. And that performance mind you, is often linked to maintenance. i.e. keeping it finely tuned and free of junk and malware.
It’s not just creative people, I’m sure there’s lots of people who would like to do their computer-based job and not have waste brain time on performance or maintenance. (And yes, I agree, there are some who like doing that, but they are hardly even a significant minority.)
I think the whole thing missed by the “Macs are for creative types” is illustrated by the following analogy:
I use my tools like a mechanic uses tools. My FCP or Photoshop is like his hammer drill or hex key. Yes, there are better tools for some jobs than others, and yes some tools are much easier to use than others.
In this analogy, computers aren’t tools per se but tool BOXES. Some are bigger, some are smaller, some have bells and whistles, others don’t. Some brands are better than others and some brands are a matter of preference and even brand loyalty.
OS X is an appropriate tool box in many cases, depending on the kinds of tools you use every day. In my case, many of my tools will only fit in the OS X toolbox, making it a necessity based on my preference of tools.
But I doubt too many people who work with tools every day sit around discussing or admiring their particular brand of tool box. Okay, some do. There’s probably even a Tool Box Magazine somewhere.
But for most of us, it’s about the work itself. Better tools make the job easier, but what makes us creative isn’t the tool or the tool box, but our imaginations and talents.
Better tools make the job easier, but what makes us creative isn’t the tool or the tool box, but our imaginations and talents.
agreed totally, beeb. However, the core of my piece is that by using a Mac (which has not required the same level of support to maintain it) I’ve been able to focus my energy on being creative - rather than problem solving.
Likewise, a badly designed toolbox can also slow down a craftsman and interrupt the creative flow.
The Mac, from my experience, has less of these things that interrupt or even take me away from my creative flow. (And I don’t really need to use the phrase “creative flow”. You can feel free to replace it with “work flow” and thus apply it beyond creative pursuits.)
As the title says, the Mac frees your creative spirit (in my case, from being a PC troubleshooter)
I get what you’re saying, Chris and I don’t disagree necessarily. I’m just saying that in my experience, especially today, there’s not a whole lot of need to tweak out your computer - aside from more RAM maybe.
I think there’s a wonderful state of parity today in the computing world. Macs and PCs finally cost about the same and run about the same. The rest is mostly a matter of preference. That wasn’t always the case, and I’m glad it finally is.
@5
Learn to get what you give out, Beeblebrox. It didn’t start this way.
Ben, I’m not complaining about the name-calling. Call me whatever you want, I don’t care.
My issue is and always has been your blatant hypocrisy, on this and other issues. You guys complain about the “personal insults” when I call you a Mac-tard, but that other thread is literally FILLED with epithets directed at a critic of Apple, and I’ll bet it didn’t bother you one single bit. At least, not enough for you to mention it when you commented in the thread, despite your incessant whining and moaning when I do it.
And to suggest I started this is laughable. One of the reasons why I have no qualms whatever about calling you a Mac-tard is that the Mac-tards regularly call Windows users much worse and have ever since there were Mac fanatics. And you certainly weren’t there crying and whining about “name-calling” then. So you shouldn’t have any problem when it’s done to you. Unless of course you’re a blatant Mac-tard sycophantic hypocrite.
All’s fair in love and Apple Matters, then. What I was getting at I certainly tried to be civil to you in the first place though. I tried for a long time and hard. And it got me nowhere since your high and mighty disparagement of all those whose opinions differ from yours is not based only on rare occasions on rationality:
One of the reasons why I have no qualms whatever about calling you a Mac-tard is that the Mac-tards regularly call Windows users much worse and have ever since there were Mac fanatics.
You mean to say that one of the reasons you have no qualms about calling me a Mac-tard is because other people call windows users names? Those comments weren’t even about a windows user! So because I didn’t leap in to defend a mac user, I’m a windows user hater now? Christ.*
Find examples of me insulting windows users the way you regularly insult us beeblebrox-dissenters, and let’s talk. Unless of course you’re a blatant Beeb-tard conceited hypocrit. [Great descriptive language by the way.]
How about that podcast?
*I’ll add that I’m probably a more recent switcher than matthew, who says he has “familiarity from yore”, suggesting he’s switched back.
And it got me nowhere since your high and mighty disparagement of all those whose opinions differ from yours
You can stop right there. You and I both know this is not the case. I disagreed with Chris in this very thread and our discussion has been perfectly civil.
My issue, and you know this despite your fake protestations otherwise, is with blind hypocritical defense of any and all things Apple. Clearly that is what is meant by a “Mac-tard” or Mac fanatic or whatever the term-du-jour. You can try and paint me as fanatical and obtuse as you are, but reality suggests otherwise.
Find examples of me insulting windows users the way you regularly insult us beeblebrox-dissenters, and let’s talk.
Again, not the point. You accuse me of being uncivil, or calling names. You harp on it, in fact. But when you responded in that other thread, in which numerous other people have laid dozens of names and incivility upon that author, you rather STRANGELY did not comment at all about the name-calling or incivility.
I guess it’s okay to tar-and-feather a critic of Apple, eh? He deserves it. But not you. No, not you.
Beeblebrox,
In all my time here, I have never made a personal attack. I’ve said that debate point are meritless or without worth, but I’ve never called you a “tard” or any other personally disaparaging remark.
</i>You accuse me of being uncivil, or calling names. You harp on it, in fact. But when you responded in that other thread, in which numerous other people… </i>.
So *now* you are saying it’s OK to insult ME (or Chris or Ben or somebody) because SOMEONE ELSE insulted that person?
That’s bullshit. You are justifying name-calling me by saying “I’m going to call you names because those other guys are doing it” when I’ve done no such thing.
You specifically say “vb_baysider or any of the other brainwashed Mac-tards” when I made no such disaparaging remarks… and you’ve done it again and again all over the site.
Well, my civility ends today. You are an asshole. I’ve tried to stay above name-calling and keep my debate specific to the argument, not attacking posters personally, and only dissect lame and baseless statements, but you have continually insulted me when I have only stated my opinions without bile.
But I’m done with you. You are just another typical flame-baiting internet asshole who has nothing better to do but post insults to people who disagree with you. You insult people because you have no meaningful contribution to the debate and the only way for you to “win” or feel superior is to hurl insults.
Isn’t it about time you grew up?
By the way, I find the “Mac-tard” word offensive in the extreme. You are basically saying “Mac retard”. Using the word “retard” (and don’t try to claim you’re not) in such a way is highly offensive. It’s as bad as just about any ethnic slur.
So *now* you are saying it’s OK to insult ME (or Chris or Ben or somebody) because SOMEONE ELSE insulted that person?
No, I’m saying that if you’re okay with it when it’s hurled against someone who criticizes Apple, then why aren’t you okay with it when it’s hurled against an Apple defender including yourselves?
You guys are whining and crying about insults. And yet neither Ben nor you were bothered in the least by the insults or name-calling in that other thread. You both seemed to agree with it, especially Ben, but you certainly haven’t ranted and raved about it like you’ve done here.
I’m wondering why not. Perhaps I might take you seriously if you weren’t such obvious hypocrites about Mac defenders versus Mac detractors.