Apple Thoughts: A Brief Introduction to a Mac Convert

I'm a developer and web designer. I am also a recent Mac convert. My first computer was a TI 99/4a when I was eleven. The following year, I did odd jobs in order to make enough money to buy the Commodore 64. By the time I was fourteen, I had moved on to the Commodore Amiga 500. The Amiga was ahead of its time in a lot of ways. It's operating system was comparable to earlier editions of Mac OS. I'd like to say that from there I went on to Apple computers, but I didn't. I was taking computer classes in school, and my instructor led me towards a 286. He felt that for programmers there was no reason to have anything other than an Intel based machine. For the next eighteen years, I used Windows and Linux exclusively.

Two things brought me to the world of Apple. First was my frustration with Windows, and my dislike of Windows Vista, which at launch was less than ideal (it has since improved). Second was the purchase of an iPod touch, a device I instantly fell in love with. It was only a matter of a few months before I decided that I needed a new computer for development work, and I bought the MacBook. That was eight months ago, and I've never been happier with a computer in my life. It is definitely a developer's machine, and it has streamlined my development tremendously.

I'm currently living with my partner (who also switched to Mac the same time I did, with a MacBook Pro) in Honesdale, PA, where I am developing new web services.