bookmark_borderQuestions Answered #9

In a desperate effort to gain some weird form of validation, I stole an idea for a blog post and begged my readers to ask me a question. And they did. The buggers. Now I have to answer them.

Lesley asks “Why I will never be cool enough to own a Mac”. To which I can only answer, how the hell should I know? How cool ARE you Lesley? Ahh, but then I realised she trying to imply that *I* wasn’t cool enough to own a Mac… as if..

Why I will never be cool enough to own a Mac
I’m a liberal. I’m a free spirit. I believe in an open mind. I wear t-shirts, a lot. I don’t wear a suit. In my head I am still a carefree young man, who knows that cutting edge cool isn’t *cool*. I’m laidback, I care about design, I care about quality. I like the best of things.

But I’m most definitely NOT cool.

Cool is a state of mind (man), and I’m just a little TOO conservative, a little TOO “middle-class” (ohh you know what I mean), a little TOO snooty to be cool. I mean, yeah, I’m a great guy. I’m pretty sure if you met me you’d think “yeah, he’s alright”.

But you wouldn’t think “whoa, he’s cool” (possibly because you are NOT in a Bill and Ted movie and no-one really talks like that, um, do they?).

Of course owning a Mac, and let me just clarify at this point that we are discussing the ownership of an Apple Macintosh home computer, not a plastic garment that is usually yellow and comes with a matching hat… did anyone have one of these as a kid? Yeah, I’ve got the embarassing photos too.. that and sandals. SANDALS! Honestly mother, what WERE you thinking?

Where was I?

Apple have a series of adverts which pitch a ‘Mac’ against a ‘PC’. The Mac is represented by a young, trendy guy, the PC by the staid ‘office worker’ in a suit. The adverts are clever, witty, but are starting to grate. You see, I get the whole “iLife your life” pitch but I think these adverts are over playing things. Quite considerably. This is one of the reasons I don’t think I’m cool enough to own a Mac.

You see I ‘get’ that owning a Mac is largely down to the experience, ease of use, etc etc. That’s all good as far as I’m concerned, and without getting into ANOTHER Mac vs PC debate, let’s just leave it at that. Mac owners, I get it. I really really do.

But I can’t own a Mac because I’m not cool enough. I AM that PC guy, as much as I want to be that Mac guy. Well, I’m kinda halfway in-between, and that’s the problem. It’s not so much that I don’t think I’m cool ENOUGH to own a Mac, it’s more like I don’t think OTHER PEOPLE will think I’m cool enough, they’ll snigger under their breath, talk about me behind my back and it’ll be like that time in the sauna, all over again.

In a way I blame Apple for this, and I wonder if they’ll lose the sales of other ‘on the cusp of cool’ people through the message they use to promote their wares. Owning a Mac means joining a club, a clique, a culture. Not everyone wants that, nor would feel comfortable with that, but hey what do Apple care? iPod sales continue to be strong (owning an iPod is NOT cool) so they can afford to be picky, they can afford to be the COOL guy, but maybe they should worry a little about that guy near the end of the line, the one that is always picked second last. He knows he’s not cool, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be…

bookmark_borderPriorities

I subscribe to the langalist. It’s a very useful PC email newsletter by Fred Langa which offers lots of practical advice on PC maintenance, smart programs (not COOL programs but ones that are useful and you’ll use more than once), and a good variety of articles on various PC related topics. He’s saved my bacon on several occasions so I’d recomment subscribing (it’s free). Today’s newsletter includes an article on end of year maintenance.

This is the bit that most people, including myself, fail. Backups for example, when did you last do one? I can’t recall when, but I know it’s over three or four months ago, which got me thinking.

If, god forbid, my entire PC including both hard drives, failed spectacularly and nothing was recoverable, what would I miss?

I have about 60GB of music, most of which only requires re-ripping the CD. All those programs I’ve downloaded can be re-downloaded, as can all those visual styles, wallpapers and such like. In fact bar a few personal documents (which ARE backed up on my pen drive) there is only one large folder that I would miss. My photos.

In a digital age, there is no film backup, and the originals are all stored on my hard drive. I DID burn a couple of DVDs as backup a while back, but I’ve added to them since then, and I really like some of them. So one of my tasks in the week between Christmas and New Year, a week I have OFF work (joy, bliss, rapture!) is to burn some up-to-date DVDs.

But therein lies another issue – how long do DVDs last before they start to degrade? It’s a worry indeed.

Ultimately though, I know that if I DID lose everything, whilst it would be major blow, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. It’s all about priorities you see. It’s the same principle that governs the fact that I’ve yet to buy Louise presents. A few months ago we booked tickets to Spain in January. We decided then that that would be our Christmas present, and we’d only get each other a few things. The priority for us is being together at Christmas. That’s why I always look forward to Christmas.

OK, that’s enough mushy stuff for now.

bookmark_borderCustomise your PC

I never realised there were so many options available for altering and tinkering with your PC hardware. You could say this kind of thing is a bit geeky. And you’d be correct. But I have to admit the geek in me is saying “Whoooaaaa, COOL!” (in a surf-dude stylee).

Plenty of information to be found at “MetkuMods – Because you love your hardware.”