Why I won't get a Mac

A lot of people I know use Macs. They carry their shiny Mac Book Pro like a badge of honor, a talisman which embodies the measure of their master-geekery. It is quite funny how unknowingly religious such an iconic piece of shiny technology can make these latter-day geeks, but without many exceptions they are all very religious about it. Many times I find myself being invited to their Church of the Mac. I suppose they wish to save me from the evils Microsoft and protect me from the effort it takes to run an open source OS such as Ubuntu or Fedora. But I'm not interested. I believe in the seperation of Church and Tech.

What I find particularly interesting about this following, at least amongst the people I know, is that they are most big FOSS (Free and open source software) supporters. I ask them why not use an open source solution to their OS needs? Linux afterall is Unix based (like Mac's OS) and it's FOSS!!! But apperantly these master craftsmen, these warriors against the Big Corporation Microsoft find that using Linux distribustions to be a bit taxing on their patience. And apperantly, similar to Microsoft's Windows, Mac's OS is made to be a bit more user friendly.

What is the usual hold-up for using a FOSS operating system? In my experience it's been hardware support. This is getting better with every kernel release and distro update, but admittedly getting Linux to work with your particular hardware configuration can leave you a bit befuzzled. I happen to enjoy tinkering when I have the time, but I do realize the turn-off it can be when you just can't seem to get your wireless card to connect to the Internet of all things.

But Apple takes the fuss all out of that. They've got their proprietary, Unix-based OS that is very much like it's distant cousin's in the Linux world, but one HUGE caveat: Apple manufactures their own pricey hardware. In fact, if you read the EULA (you do read those from time to time right?) for your favorite Mac OS you'll see in plain text that it is an infraction of the Mac OS license agreement to run the OS on any other hardware than that provided by the manufacturer. Now I understand that Apple has found a niche market, but this wreaks of non-compete, monopoly-esque, the kind of stuff Microsoft get's taken to court for all time business. (Jeff Atwood, of codinghorror.com fame, compares it to the dongles of old.)

Sure Microsoft's dominance in many areas has led to product stagnation and other negative side affects, but you can take their products and run them on pretty much any hardware, manufactured by any company and it's fine. At what point of company growth will Apple no longer be able to get away with this. I'm glad their are companies like Psystar that are trying to keep Apple honest, but even they seem to be on the losing side.

So in the end, I don't see Apple as a Microsoft competitor, but more of an equal to them in their philosophies and business model. Sure they're competing with Microsoft, but only in a niche market. But they resemble that competitor more than their proponents want to admit.

For now I'll keep tinkering with Ubuntu and using Windows as deemed necessary.
Until next time
Les

Happy New Year

As I type this there are parts of the globe already five and a half hours into the year 2009. It's just 9:26am here in the bible belt of the United States of America and I'm at work (blogging in my break of course).

I'm thinking about organizations and how they view success. Each organization is it's own ecosystem, and they all have their own forms of Darwinism. The key to survival of the fittest though is first to define what particular definition of fittest that particular system accepts. In some ecosystems in the business business world the fittest might be the achiever, while in many the case you see is that the achievers are the ones considered the weak, the ones that have to go. When the herd is moving toward a stable sense of mediocrity then the ones who get ahead will be the ones to find themselves victims of the hazards of that environment (typically some form of bureaucratic, executive management tyranny), and as in most any ecosystem, the individual weak or dumb enough to be outside the strength of the herd is the one that gets eaten by the puma.

Analogies aside, I wonder what it really takes to come into an organization and introduce true improvements and get the organization to see that those improvements are GOOD. Let's face it, it's not that you can convince people that what they're doing is WRONG, they've been doing it and it works (for lack of any other results that is). So the goal in my new year is to work on demonstrating the value of improvements, and make it show real value. Instead of trying to convince people that what they have is wrong, show them what life would be like with what they could have.

So if that can be summed up in a concrete resolution: As a software developer and business person I will find better ways to demonstrate value added practices, whether in code or business process, in order the introduce improvements into my work place.

It's right up there with my other resolutions:

• eat better (suggested by my loving wife who, for some reason, wants me to live a long life)
• use linux more
• write some software non-work related (open or closed, just write it)
  

until next time, HAPPEH NEW YER!1!!1!
Les

The necessity of a daily stand-up.

Latest post on Approaching Agile.

A daily stand-up would definitely make it easier to absorb and assimilate new developers to the team.

until next time
Les