Random Acts of Nerdness: An Apple a Day Keeps Production Away

That’s right, over the summer, I became a Mac owner.

I should point out that I’ve been a Mac owner since 1991. Since that point, I’ve always had a Macintosh computer in the house at some point, but I’d hazard to say I never used any of them for anything important. This didn’t stop me from picking up an old iMac from a garage sale last summer, however, for ten bucks. When I saw that transparent-green fufu computer, I knew I had to have it.

I should point out to my deeply concerned Windows-based brethren that I think Macs suck. Seriously, I’ve been forced to use them on a number of occasions, and I could never really get into them. Once I figured out how to use Windows, I never had a need for the over-simplistic-yet-vague Mac OS. This isn’t to say that Mac users are morons for using their beloved computers (well, I’m lying a little), I just don’t enjoy the experience myself.

So why did I buy a computer that I don’t really like? If I had to strip away all of the pretense, I bought the iMac just so I could play Crystal Quest. I doubt many of you have heard of this game. It’s an old Mac game that was some years ago floating around the computer lab of the college I work at (which was equipped with nothing but Macs at the time). When my mother would take me with her to work, one of the computer techs would let me play the game, and I loved it so much, I asked for a copy, which I got pretty quickly.

Crystal Quest was a basic space shooting game where you collected crystals to proceed to the next level. The game itself was pretty addicting, but the creators decided to spice it up by adding wacky sound effects that somehow fit the game. To this day, I still get a kick out of them.

You can only imagine how excited I was when I found out this game was in color. I discovered this when I played it on a newer Mac (defined as one with color), and I cursed my old Superdrive for denying me this experience, if it hasn’t been dead for years (big surprise).

Instead of having a clunky old Mac cluttering up the place, I could now play Crystal Quest on a sleeker iMac, which should have been able to easily handle it despite the fact it’s over ten years old. When a ten-year-old computer is tasked to handle a game that’s twenty-years-old, you would think the computer would not only run it with ease, but have plenty of memory left over to use its speech functions to continuously laugh at you for offering it such a pathetic challenge.

And yet the iMac somehow failed in this task. Due to the differences in the OS, while the iMac was running compared to what Crystal Quest was original created for, there was one crippling issue that destroys the entire game: THERE IS NO SOUND. While I could easily live with the lack of sound on most games, a mute Crystal Quest is a like a mute Brittney Spears: you’re not getting most of the craziness out of the game just by looking at it. No, actually, with Brittney, you are getting the lion’s share of craziness just by looking at her. You know what, bad example.

And before I get the standard e-bash from millions of Mac users, I’m well aware Windows-based systems have plenty of problems with older software running on newer systems. I conceded that most of the games did work fine. I’m just expressing my disappointment in a system I purchased for a specific purpose not doing what I wanted it to. Granted, it was an unresearched purchase for ten bucks at a garage sale, but that doesn’t change the fact I can’t play Crystal Quest with sound.

Transferring all of my games from one Mac to another was also a boatload of joy you can’t help but want to sink. Because Apple has been on the cutting edge of innovation for years, they saw that the floppy disk was an essentially worthless media that would be phased out in the future, so the iMac didn’t include a floppy disk drive. PC manufactures have only in recent years done this without too many problems, so it seems that’s another point for the Mac for being on the forefront of technology.

The only flaw in this plan was they eliminated the floppy disk drive before there was a practical replacement media widely available. Unless you had an internet connection, there was no feature out of the box to get your files off of the computer. I suppose you could convert your programs into source code, print that out, and scan it into another computer, but somehow this doesn’t seem all that practical.

Thankfully, I had a portal floppy drive, so I was able to stick it to Apple and use a floppy disk with their precious pastel-colored vehicle of the future. Sadly, because this iMac only has two USB ports, and Macs only accept USB mice and keyboards, and because I didn’t get one of those nifty Mac keyboards with the extra USB port on it, I had my choice between using two of the three peripherals at one time. Fortunately, I could do what I needed with just a mouse, but this presented a completely different problem: I had to use floppy disks.

If you haven’t guessed it, floppy disks were a media created by Satan to bring out the darkness in human souls. They don’t hold all that much data (especially when stacked up with today’s file sizes), they’re easy to break, and data can get corrupted on them if the disk so much as comes in contact with a stiff breeze. If you use a floppy disk for any length of time, you’re bound to run into one of these problems, and they cause nothing by pain and misery. I’ve had people actually cry over losing data to these infernal tools of agony.

The use of the floppy disks also frequently showcased one of the Mac OS’s greatest flaws: it doesn’t tell you what is wrong when an error pops up. In a failed effort to appear more user friendly and shield wide-eyed users from spooky error messages, Macs generally produce vague, useless, and ironically ominous system errors that don’t tell you what the hell just went wrong. Granted, there are tons of Windows messages that tell you things written in some space alien language that got garbled on the way down, but it’s possible for the experienced user to figure out the problem from these cryptic messages: computers are only as efficient as their creators, and what does that say?

So I kept getting some random system error as I was copying my files which I interpreted as meaning the Mac was too lazy to transfer my files to disk. The thing is, I would copy over the exact same files over, and they would work fine. I concede most of the problem was on the older Mac, but it should have been new enough to master the concept of copying files to its primary external device, but I’m not a Mac designer, so what do I know?

Days later (you think I’m joking), I got most of the games copied over, forcing myself to leave the larger files behind. For now, I have access to dozens of obscure and fun Mac games, which I have never played since I loaded them because the only thing I do my PC is look at pictures of naked people, and that is a task so personally fulfilling it doesn’t require me to have a second computer running just to play games for time killing purposes.

So the iMac remains silent on top of my desk, its trendy green casing a reminder of the weaknesses of style over substance. In my limited interactions with Macs over the last couple of years, I can’t find anything that has changed my opinion about them for the better. I personally don’t understand why people still use them.

Before I continue my Mac mashing, let me confess some of the things I like about Macs, specifically the newer designs. The latest round of Mac OSs look pretty cool, and they are easy to use and not as daunting for inexperienced users. People can certainly work effectively with them once they learn more about them.

Apple also knows how to create an attractive product. The latest iMacs are around two inches thick including the monitor, has an amazing looking screen that’s massive in a good way, sports some hefty processing power, and comes with a keyboard and mouse that complete with sleeker, modern look. It looks like a computer out of those movies set in the future, the kind of computer that looks nowhere near anything you’re using now.

But all of this comes at a price, and there are a lot of charges against Apple’s credit card. Apple has done a bit to reign in the price on their systems. The iMac I just described starts at $1200 as of this writing, which is comparable to a similar yet less impressive system that Dell is offering. However, savvy computer users can find a similar machine for a lower cost if they look around.

Apple especially irritates me because while they’re constantly striving to create cooler technology, they can’t seem to figure out how to have a second mouse button. I know there are two-button mice available for the Mac, and I know the right-click functions can be accessed by Alt-clicking, but what the hell is the point? Why not offer this right out of the pricey box?

I also can’t stand the lack of expandability found in Macs. What you buy is what you get for as long as you have it, and parts are usually more expensive than PCs. By comparison, hundreds of different PCs offer countless ways of expanding its power and functions. While this can be a scary task for newbies, once you get over that hill, you can keep most any PC in the technology race for quite a few years. I don’t claim to be a l33t c0m9u732 h4xor of any sort, but I do enjoy the freedom of being able to swap out a variety of parts on my own and get a system to work the way I want it to.

This is an area Apple has always had trouble with. They pretty much designed Macs for conformity. Ironic, considering the platform is stereotyped as a computer for artists. About the only good this does is it forces software authors to make sure all of their files go in the same place, which I’ll admit is handy.

It should go without saying I have a deep loathing for Apple’s “Mac versus PC” commercials, because they’re pathetic, misinformed, or deceitful. When your lone mainstream marketing campaign consists of touting your product’s superiority because it has a magnetic lock on the power cord to prevent the machine from falling if someone trips on the cord, you know you have no rock to stand on. And no, I’m not kidding.

One thing Apple seems to ignore is the fact PCs aren’t a brand. Windows-based computers are not manufactured by Microsoft, but rather a wide variety of companies. Microsoft only provides the software to use the system. While this can create confusion and shakes up the concept of having a computer standard, it also ensures costumers have a wide array of choice when it comes to computer options, and usually at a reduced price. Even if new users are overwhelmed with the choices, they can always just pick up an HP or a Dell with the options they need.

Macs are created exclusively by Apple Computers, meaning there is a standard, but you pay for it. In a sense, I liken Macs more to video game consoles, each with their own proprietary parts and operating systems. As I’ve tried to impress upon, there are both pros and cons to this method.

Even if you set aside all of the things Macs do wrong (and these are only my opinions), I’m dumbfounded that Macs are as forced on people as they are. The college in which I work shoves the Mac platform down the commercial arts students’ throats like organized religion, claiming it to be the “industry standard” (keep in mind this is from the same lot that claims Quark Express is the page layout industry standard, yet I’ve never encountered anyone who has heard of it). And yet whenever I look around, I see PCs, even in the digital media realm, because PCs have since surpassed Macs as a designer’s computer.

I’m not thrilled with the second and third hand stories I hear about questionable product quality and terrible customer service, but I’ve never experienced these first hand because I’ve never had a need for it, and there are plenty of PC manufacturers that have earned the ire of costumers.

I, as a PC user, don’t see much of a reason for Macs to exist, simply because computers are so integrated into our society it seems like multiple standards would create chaos. Then again, I acknowledge the right of choice and the benefits of competition.

I guess you can’t really write an article about Apple without mentioning the iPod. Personally, I have no use for the thing, because there are better MP3 players available for less, but because Apple created a standard, it’s easy for users to find accessories for their product for a good price. The only reason I would specifically want an iPod is so I can use it with one of those alarm clock/MP3 player docks and wake up to MP3s, a feature which won’t work in other players because they haven’t conformed to a standard. This doesn’t begin to mention all of the other things you can get for your iPod, so score one for Apple.

I’m not going into the iPhone, outside of saying I was able to do just about everything Apple boasted about with my Treo 650 before the iPhone came out.

It would be easy to conclude that I would pick a PC over a Mac any day of the week, but despite my devotion to Bill’s software, I realize it’s just a tool, and not a religion. I would never disrespect anyone simply because they use a Mac. Of course, there are folks who are religiously devoted to the Mac platform, and will deride those who use PCs, but you’ll have these type in just about any situation, like those who religiously hate Wal-Mart or will only date big-chested Mormon Filipino transvestites with blue hair and an anorexia problem. Some will be happier than others.

Meanwhile, I’ll be playing with my iMac, cursing at its flaws, but grinning with glee when I stumble on some obscure game I won’t be able to find anywhere else. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if I ended up buying another Apple product, such as the Mac Mini, which is just too cute to hate. Thus begins a slippery slope to becoming another Brent Sienna.