Technobabble
My next computer is so going to be a Mac.

As a print designer and sometime graphic artist, my first 10 years or so of computer use was almost exclusively on a Macintosh. I worked on what a guy I know calls a Turtle Mac, a light-brown, self-contained unit with a 9-inch black-and-white screen. I advanced to a Mac IIsi, and also claimed as my work machine a Quadra 700, a Quadra 650, an 8500/180, a tan G3, a silver G4, and my current work-issued Mac, a Powerbook G4 laptop with all the toys.

I was at one time a give-me-Mac-or-give-me-death person. Oddly, however, I've never owned one.

I, in fact, did not have a computer at home until 1999, when we received the first of two hand-me-downs. When I finally had enough cash flow, thanks to my first web project, to purchase a brand-new, all-mine home computer, I had the choice of a well-loaded Windows XP machine or a low-end iMac.

I weighed the options: The Windows machine had bigger numbers (more processor, more RAM, greater expandability) in every category except the price. My wife had never used a Mac. I needed maximum compatibility with work machines (which by that time were primarily Windows-based) and maximum compatibility with my web customers (well, customer), who were Windows people.

I chose Windows. I chose wrong.

I've kept up with installing the near-daily Critical Security Updates, which lately have been accompanied by media reports confiriming what Mac users knew all along: that Windows is more porous than the Mexican border and more corrupt than the Nixon administration. I've muddied my way around the Windows XP interface, which is way superior to any previous Windows product but still not as intuitive as the Mac. I routinely run my anti-virus software in response to every news story about the latest virus, which always includes the boilerplate paragraph, "Mac users are not affected."

The final straw came today, when I was making some mix CDs for my wife's impending road trip to the National champion-dog show in northern Ohio. I tried to use Windows Media Player to do this, because I don't have third-party CD burning software. It was a monumental pain in the ass. I finally threw my hands up and pulled from its case my work-issued Mac. In clear violation of company policy, I booted it up for personal use. (Please don't tell anyone.) Having never used iTunes, I found it completely intuitive. In the hour it took me to make one CD on Windows, I made six with iTunes.

Of course, now I need an iPod. And a Mac of my own.