I Believe!
Have you seen this article? True believers: The biggest cults in tech. IT and technology folks are very partial to thier toys. We latch onto computers, programming languages, operating systems, and are adamant about thier superiority. Reading this article brought back many memories of my various IT objects of worship.
I owned both a Commodore VIC-20 and C-64, worked in a computer store selling C-64s, C-128s, and Amigas. I lusted after the PET and the Amiga. And I made my first consulting fee writing software for the C-64. Even then I was starting my path in the cult of Pascal. First there was VAX-11 Pascal, then Kyan Pascal, MS QuickPascal, Turbo Pascal, and finally I entered the temple of Delphi. I’ve owned 5 different Palm handhelds. And, I just bought a new Ruby IDE (Ruby Mine) to go with that addiction. I also belong to the Linux, Mac, and Android cults.
Outside of IT, I’ve owned pretty much nothing but Canon cameras since my FTb-QL in 1977.
I think it is similar to the car guy who will own nothing but a Chevy or Ford. We all want to be right, and we hang out with those who agree.
So, what cults do you belong to?
No More Sad Mac!
Two and a half years ago I popped into the Apple store in Des Moines and walked out with a 1.5ghz G4 Mac Mini. It wasn’t a rash purchase. I had planned on buying that particular model. It took over desktop duties from my SUSE 9.x Linux box I had built a couple of years prior. I needed something that could run the photography software I wanted to run, and I wasn’t willing to go back to Windows. It has served me well for two years. It has been run hard and put away wet frequently. A memory upgrade to the max 1Gb in the first year gave it some breathing room, and two external Firewire drives provided backup and archive space. I had been weighing the idea of replacing the mini with a new Intel Mac for many months. I was torn between a MacBook Pro and a low-end Mac Pro. Finally, in December ’07 I purchased a 15.4″ 2.2Ghz MacBook Pro. Portability won out over raw power. The day after I brought the MBR home, my mini died. Unwilling or unable to boot up. I took it to the local Kansas City Apple store and they confirmed my worst-case scenario: dead logic board, $450. I couldn’t justify spending that much money to fix a $600 computer. So, I took it home, still dead, and starting looking for alternatives. I found a company, DT&T Computer Service, that advertised $225 logic board repairs. I boxed up the mini and off it went. Weeks passed. And finally, 5 weeks and $240 (with shipping) later, my mini is back and running! In over 26 years of owning a large variety of computers, this was the first time I have ever paid to have one of them repaired. That alone was a strange feeling. But, stranger still was how much I missed having my mini on my desk. I had backups of everything on it, so there was no danger of data loss. I had a new Mac that was faster, portable, and sleeker looking. I guess I just wasn’t quite ready to give up on the mini. Now it’s home, getting a Leopard upgrade, preparing to become my wife’s ‘new’ computer, replacing her worn out HP laptop. Hopefully, it will live a long life and serve as force for good against Windows.l