Where have you been all my life?

My curiosity was sparked when Atty. Alfredo Tadiar once made a quip in one of those arbitration hearings I had with him a few years back. He was struggling with the laptop where he was typing the terms of reference of the case. He said we should pardon him, because he "was used to a mac." The techies among us in that hearing made a wry smile. While it was indeed an apology for the delay in the proceedings, it was also a snide remark to the others in the room who think that pcs are all there is to it in computing. For many years, I've been using the pc -- think 5 and 1/2 inch floppy disks and 640 kb ram. And while I've heard of macs before, I never gave them serious attention, because of the "incompatibility issue" with pc users who dominate the environment. Besides, there were very few times in my professional life that I could walk into a computer store, armed with serious mullah to take everything in sight. And even then, my serious mullah was not enough for the price of a mac. But Atty. Tadiar's quip made me think, " one of these days, I'd find out what's with this mac folks that make them proud."

Yesterday was one of those days. I was prepared to buy a mac mini just to give the mac format a try. If it didn't work out, I thought the kids could use it for their own needs. But blame it on the wife and the friends who talked to me before I walked into the Power Mac Center in Megamall, for when I walked out of it, I had with me instead an IMAC G5 17 inch, 2 ghz, 512 mb with 160 gigs of memory.

I tinkered with it for less than an hour, after which I told myself, I think I already know how it works. It's very much like windows without the hang times, the long boot, and the spyware. To deal with the compatibility issue, I also bought a Microsoft Office for mac. When I plugged in my USB drive (in the keyboard!), my docs were all accessed by the mac. So I can say now for sure that the compatibility issue is not an issue. It's a myth. I have not spent more than 24 hours with this beauty, and I'm already wondering where has it been all my life.

My kids love the nanosaur game that came bundled with the mac. The 17 inch screen has solid realistic and detailed rendering of images that could even be better than those in the latest playstation. The dinosaur animation is incomparable to anything I have seen. And in spite of stunning graphics, the mac doesn't slow down or hang. Pardon me, but I really feel liberated.

The best thing about this mac is -- it is a work of art. Everything is in the monitor. The display is the computer, as the Apple website says. "The iMac G5 hangs suspended from a graceful anodized aluminum stand and its widescreen display lets you retouch photos and surf the web while you chat with friends or scan email wirelessly, thanks to built-in AirPort technology, and see everything at the same time." This is not a sales pitch; it's the amazing truth. Computers can be like this.

One of these days, if I chance upon Atty. Tadiar, I'd tell him, shifting from a mac to a pc is indeed difficult, but shifting from pc to a mac is like discovering you can breathe.