Cool Cherry Cream

My first experience with a Mac was two years ago, in grade 11 Communications class. At first I thought "hey, this isn't too bad. It's a computer, it's basically the same as a PC". And yeah, it is. But once you really start using a Mac, there are a lot of differences.

The most annoying one is the differences in the keyboard. I' constantly get disoriented, going from the Macs and school to my PC at home because the control and alt keys switch. On a PC, we have Ctrl and then Alt. On a Mac, it's Control and then Command. But Command does what the Ctrl key does and Control does what the Alt key does. Confusing? Very.

Macs don't have right click, something that took me a very long time to learn. It wasn't until this year that I found that you have to Control + click something to get a PC right click menu.

And the minimize, maximize, and close buttons in the top right on a PC? Those are in the top left on a Mac. This didn't give me too much trouble, except for a quick WTF moment when I first started, but I still constantly find myself showing clueless people how to close programs in Communications class.

And closing programs! The little red circle doesn't always do that. It often just hides it. I actually don't remember what the green and yellow buttons do, but I think the yellow one actually minimizes it like you would expect it to. You can never actually make something go full screen; programs have a maximum size that usually aren't the full screen. Anyway, to close a program, you have to actually go to the "File" menu, which is actually the name of the program, and choose Quit. Or Control + click on the program's icon on the program dock thingy. Also, I just recently found out that there are little white circles beside the programs that are open! Cool!

There are a ton of other things that Macs do that make all the Communications kids go WTF and I just shake my head and say "yeah, Macs are stupid like that". But I know they aren't stupid, I just say it to make them feel better.

After leaving grade 11 Communications, I was in love with Macs. Every time we went to a computer store, I would try to get to the Mac section and play with it, watch the icons get bigger and smaller as I moused over them — silly things like that.

But now that I've had a full year using them, I've found I'm not so keen on them anymore.

Macs beat PCs hands down in the looks department. Macs are beautiful and graceful and fun to look at. PCs… are not. Both the interface and hardware. Even with Vista, which attempted to look more like a Mac. The actual monitor/hard drive/everything-in-one on a Mac is nice and white and clean and sleek. PCs are clunky and boxy and off-white. Some PCs are nicer than others, but Macs are consistently pretty.

PCs beat Macs hands down in well, compatibility I guess would be the word. Most programs will work on both PCs and Macs or on a PC but not a Mac. There are some exceptions, but most programs are made for PCs because most people use PCs. Also, PCs are insanely cheaper.

I used to rather hate iMovie because I'm generally a Adobe Premiere person. iMovie is just so basic with few crappy effects and — get this — it won't even let you extend a clip to recover footage that you had previously deleted! But then I realized that hey, Premiere is not a Windows thing; Premiere is an Adobe thing, for both Macs and PCs. Windows Movie Maker is what I should be comparing iMovie to, but I've never used WMM, so I can't. And actually, it took me all year, but I finally figured out that you could in fact extend clips. You had to disable an option in one of the menus, but you can do it. Not quite as intuitive as Premiere, but at least it works.

Then we have PC's WordPad versus Mac's Text Edit. I rather hate Text Edit because the lists are screwy; it won't let me have a heading and then a list and then another heading and a list, with the headings not as part of the list. I think WordPad has a few more options than Text Edit, but really, both are pretty basic. Microsoft Office works fine for me, so I've never tried WordPerfect or StarOffice or whatever. And once again, use of Office is pretty widespread, so troubleshooting is easier.

Next comes Windows Media Player and iTunes. For a long time I was with WMP. WMP is also, quite surprisingly, much nicer looking than iTunes. But I like that iTunes sorts the library files automatically, plus the radio stations, plus you have access to a lot more of the file tag information, sorting it and all that. Also, the current version of WMP is serious fucking crap. If I had to use WMP, I would want version 9 or 10. The new one is just terrible with how you view the library and sorting and all that.

A rather obvious one that I forgot about: Safari and Internet Explorer. I'm a Firefox person, but really, anything has to be better than IE. So Safari wins this one.

I rather like Mac's chess game, especially suicide chess. Windows' solitaire and spider solitaire and free cell are cool as well, even if they are old school. This one's a tie.

Then Finder and Windows Explorer. I'd have to say Explorer, because there are so many more options. Finder is prettier, but it's too simple.

That's the thing about most Mac programs, they're too simple, and thus, I don't like them. Most people should really be using Macs, because they're more user friendly. Windows, not so much. Everything on a Mac is drag and drop, which is pretty straightforward and it makes sense. Non computer people should use Macs, but they won't because one, it costs too much, and two, most people don't use Macs.

I don't know about the whole "Macs don't get viruses" claim, but I'll give them that. But I think I've heard people say that Macs don't crash. Well, I have evidence to the contrary, I have crashed them quite a few times. And while yes, sometimes it was because I did something stupid, but other times, it happened for no reason at all, eg., I was trying to save a file in iMovie and it took a good ten minutes. I can't remember all of them, but iMovie has done a couple of lame things. GarageBand was also pretty messed up, with showing and not showing tracks for no reason.

And the whole thing about Macs being for art and PCs being for business? Don't get that, 'cause I have Photoshop on my PC. I tried using Photoshop Elements on a Mac and it was pretty strange. Maybe it was just 'cause it was Elements, but what was with the no background thing? Umm…?

Anyway, all in all, I'm a PC person, because that's what I have. I'm not going to pay double the money to get something that's easier to use because I don't need something that's easier to use. And while I would like something nicer to look at, that's just frosting and it's not needed.

But really, there's nothing about either one that would make me into an avid fanboi. Well, girl. I'm tempted to try Linux to compare, but the last time I tried that, I was confused by all the code. Granted, that was long ago when I didn't know how to install Wordpress by myself, so I'd probably do better now.

Even so, assuming Linux is just as crappy as the other ones, I know what I have to do. Make my own. That would be pretty damn awesome. I mean, for my own personal use, just to be able to say "I made my own operating system", but also to sell. I think I could do it. Yeah. That would be pretty sweet.