k42

Mohammed, 21, Kuwait. I play videogames regularly, I watch movies casually and I drink coffee constantly. To extend upon this, my favorite game of all time is Super Metroid, my favorite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey (directed by Stanley Kubrick) and my favorite type of coffee is Nescafe. When I'm bored of life and games I'm usually reading in my bed, sipping through my own cup of misery. I work in a very dull environment surrounded by some very dangerous equipments that could blow the country to pieces. I dream of creating an 8-bit game with some interesting gameplay mechanics in which I already planned. But that's not gonna happen. That's why it's called a dream.

Feel free to contact me anytime regarding any subject; colorization [at] gmail [dot] com (this is to prevent spam).
Mar 25
Permalink

Mac

So… Mac! Finally, huh? For those who knows me (none who read this blog, actually), you may know how much I’ve been wanting a Mac. Since forever. No particular reason though; I just wanted to try it out. And since I’m into graphic designs, it’s a no brainer that Mac was under my radar.

My first “intercourse” with Apple was with the iPod. Way before it became a trend here in Kuwait; I got my iPod Video for about 180 KD in 2005, if my memory serves me right. It was pricey, but to me, well worth it. I loved every little thing about it, and even though some may argue that Windows users won’t be quite happy with it since iTunes is such a crapfest application on Windows machines, I didn’t care. It was then when I thought “you know what, I need a Mac.”

But I didn’t, until now.

I don’t hate Windows. Never did, never will, so back off. I’m an avid PC gamer, so hating Windows doesn’t even matter since I’m attached to it no matter what. I’m not one of those guys, who downloads tons and tons of movies, music, games everyday. Since my torrent usage is minimum, I don’t suffer from viruses, malware, etcetra. I don’t even use anti-viruses; they feed on a lot of RAM for no purpose whatsoever to me.

So the transition to Mac wasn’t because I hated Windows. It’s because; 1) I’m curious to try it out. 2) Universally acclaimed and highly recommended by both graphic designers and web publishers. 3) Solid operating system, 99% idiotic-free. There are some other reasons, but these rests on the top of the pyramid. I do a lot of graphic designing and web publishing, and even though I was doing great with Windows, I just wanted to see what the heck is Apple doing to the world, that almost every major designer I follow keeps on recommending it over and over again.

From my short experience; if anything is as awesome and streamlined as iWeb, then count me in. It is so good, so easy, 99% less cluttered than every other web app I have encountered, and just works so well. From the moment you open the application you’ll actually get inspired to design something right away. Anything. It’s that good. I’m not sure if it’s gonna replace my web apps that I use frequently (I really love Dreamweaver), but I’m definitely doing some real biz with it.

Another major improvement upon Windows is iTunes. Holy, freaking, moly. The difference is night and day. In Windows, iTunes was a glitchy, suckfest application that was so slow and eats a lot of RAM for no particular reason. In Mac, it’s the opposite. Just like iWeb, iPhoto, and every other out-of-the-box application; it FEELS like a solid part of the foundation, not just an afterthought or an app that you wanna remove (I’m looking at both of you, WMP & IE).

I’m not comfortable with the Arabic keyboard layout, at all. I know I can change it to PC, but that’s even worse, because you’ll get confused quickly since the printed letters aren’t gonna change for the setup (they’re printed after all, not laser-projected). I hope I will get used to this, and I’m sure I will. It’s just really irritating.

There’s not much to say except that I’m enjoying the Mac experience. I need more time with the system to discover its hidden beauty, but for this small amount of doodling and messing around with it, I’m quite impressed.