So far, I've deliberately avoided writing about computers & computing experience, mainly because my world was so wide and diverse enough to keep my focus on more useful things. But now, it's totally different; I spend most of my time in front of a computer and I believe computing deserves a place in my blog.
A remarkable thing happened in the month of December that resulted in a drastic change in the computing experience. I bought a 15" Macbook Pro and simultaneously, I smuggled the office imac on to my desk. Well, I certainly know imac is an overkill for a person whose work does not involve anything more than just typing in Microsoft Office. But it was previously being used as a Jukebox in the studio; unfortunately, they didn't realise how powerful it could have been in the hands of a good Art Director. So no one can really approach my desk and question me about it.
My Office Computer- the iMac
I cleaned up the mess, organised files, cleared caches, salvaged useable stuff and repaired disk permissions and font errors. Voila! The imac was ready to be used. On the other hand, it took more time to set everything in order in my laptop. I had almost 53 GB full of of photos, which I had to organise in iphoto library; 23Gb music that had to be classified in iTunes playlist and a lot of other data that can fill up around 110GB of my hard disk space; it may include movies, designs and webpages I had created, etc. The problem was, my data was scattered across 3 computers in two different geographical locations. I carefully copied every vital file on to the laptop through ethernet or USB memory devices. Then, I had to neatly stack that data in folders to make them more accessible. After completing all that, I had to configure one of the partitions in my external firewire hard disk with Time Machine for backup purposes.
My Macbook Pro
It was an easy transition, not just because Mac OS is a lot more intuitive, but also because I was shifting BACK to the mac platform. I was 5 years old, when I saw the first computer at my uncle's office; and It was a Macintosh SE(About Macintosh_SE). During those days, I was only allowed to move the mouse and click it once. After 6 years, I learnt designing there, during the summer holidays. By then, they had upgraded the systems to Power Macintosh(About Power Macintosh [Performa 5210 CD]), though the older ones were also functional. I still remember drawing a house and a really beautiful dog face in 'Aldus Freehand'. I learnt computing in Macintosh platform. Only in the later stages of my school life, I got introduced to the Windows platform. After more than a decade, I've migrated back to the Mac platform! The old charm of ejecting floppy disks automatically by dragging the disk icon into trash is not there(though CDs and DVDs are ejected the same way); i think it was unique to macs. The floppy drives have disappeared and I think the DVD drive is going to be extinct very soon, at least in the Macs, with App store eliminating the need for installation disks.
When I started using Macs after more than a decade, the first thing I ever noticed was the photographs I had shot suddenly looked 1000 times better in those beautiful high resolution monitors. The second thing that came to my notice was the features in the in-built software. There was not even one demo software that either needed to be updated or should be uninstalled instantly; everything worked out of the box. For in-built softwares they had great features. For example, I was surprised to see Microsoft word files & PDFs opening in the Preview software. I cannot do that in Windows, without installing Microsoft Word or an open-source equivalent and Adobe Reader. Every software that comes with it is equivalent to a paid prosumer version of software in Windows platform. There are feature-rich softwares for everything ranging from movie editing to photo editing and music creation! And they have a uniform design code that make them intuitive; the learning curve is quite flat. In fact I instantly felt home at iMovie and I never felt I was learning a new software. Same can be told about iTunes, iPhoto, Garageband, Mail, Address Book and other in-built software. However it took some time to understand how Time Machine worked.
Garageband
iMovie
iTunes
iPhoto
The first video was purely compiled in iMovie and the second one was done with Keynote and iMovie
The operating system's User Interface is very simple and it mostly takes 2-3 clicks less than it takes in windows to access anything; everything is direct. The icons/tiles themselves display the contents and I could play movie files without even opening them. I could adjust the size of the tiles in nanoseconds to have a better look at the contents (or the movie being played). The operating system itself has many merits. For instance it offers the most number of multi-touch gestures one can ever get. The gestures are fluidic in feel and look and the OS is rich in graphics. More importantly, my life is now free from software crashes viruses and loss of data these days. I don't see the necessity to buy anti-virus software, do disk defragmentation and routinely clear temporary files and folders. OS X IS ROCK SOLID, period.
My Macbook Pro and Our Lenovo C320 PC running Windows 7
After six months, I tried using Windows 7 at home. I suddenly realised the difference and was left wondering how I managed to live with such a horrible computing experience a few months back. I don't see going back to Windows platform anywhere in the future, though my laptop supports Dual OS.
