Whenever I try to explain why I’m now a Mac user and why I certainly don’t intend to buy anything different than a Mac (unless something really superior comes along) and even though you could probably get a super duper machine with cheaper parts, I always say that it’s all in the details, and they’re so many that I can’t really answer people which are.

The purpose of this post, is to keep track of those “a-ha” details as I come across them. I’ll update this post as more details come along on my day to day.

• The Power Adapter of the Mac is magnetically shielded. You can put it on top of your computer while it’s still on and you won’t be afraid of loosing data. Not IBM’s Thinkpad’s power adapters are magnetically shielded
• The Ethernet port on the Macbook PRO makes regular ethernet cables work like Cross-over ethernet cables. This really comes in handy if you have another computer next to you and there’s not an ethernet switch nearby. You can just connect directly to that machine, share your internet, transfer files, no need to ask anybody for a cross over cable. This has been this way for years (at least since 2006), I’m not sure if HP or other laptops have these super duper ethernet cards in them.
• Back-lit keyboard. A blessing when coding in the darkness for those of us that sometimes need to look down for a special key. Oh and it will light up when it’s actually dark, freaking awesome.
• Multi touch touchpad (way before many other laptops started implementing it). Double finger tap for right click? can’t live without it
• Awesome battery life, and this is a pretty known fact about macbooks
• I haven’t had my OS crash in … I can’t remember last time it crashed fully
• Very quiet fan
• The power adapter connector has that little magnet, people can trip over it and it won’t pull your laptop to the floor




• The power adapter is modular, basically you can decide whether or not to carry with you a long ass cable or keep the adapter with the smaller patch cord that goes to your computer. Also you can switch it’s connector to the European style connector which comes with the computer. It seems apple knows its user base might travel abroad sometime




• The power adapter has these two ears which can open and close. Their purpose is to let you wrap the thinner cable that goes to the computer. It’s great if you don’t want to have too much cable laying around or when you’re on the go and you need to wrap up things inside your bag. Kudos to the designers of the Power Adapter




• As for the OS goes, I consider it a Linux where everything works right off
• In Mac OSX everything just works as expected or better. Some good examples of things that work better than in other OSes are Wireless configuration, Internet Sharing, Multiple Display configuration is amazingly intuitive to set up
• My last Macbook PRO I’ve been using it for almost 3 years and there’s no real need to get a new one, it’s still pretty fast after 2 major Mac OSX upgrades
• The Sleep and Wake up functionality actually work, I can’t say the same for my Alienware and Vista, where sometimes it will never wake up, or it won’t really be sleeping and it’ll get all hot and kill the battery
• If you ever open the Macbook, it’s a like a “work of art” inside. The way they’ve arranged everything, changing a hardrive or the keyboard is very easy and quite fun
• The native tool for screen shots is really convenient, not only for all the different ways in which you can snap your screen, but it’s also a nice pixel measuring tool for web developers and graphic designers
• Having a console, which comes with all the standard linux tool makes you remember windows and it’s cmd.exe and laugh about how arcaic it is
• Being able to have the Automator to Visually Script things like Resizing a Bunch of Pictures and copying them somewhere else once you’ve downloaded big resolution images from your camera and you want to upload them to flickr… priceless
• /Applications/Utilities/Console.app – a debugging blessing to find out why things might be going wrong with a specific process. I should probably not brag about the software since that’s getting into Mac OSX realm and that’s a whole different subject of why you can’t go back, again Linux that works right off, or Linux for Dummies.
• Pressing Space bar over files on the Finder brings that super fast preview for Images, PDFs, Videos and even audio files
• Being able to Customize the Finder adding and removing buttons to simplify or specialize it (equivalent of Windows Explorer)
• Burning CD/DVDs is amazingly simple, no need for 3rd party software
• Typing on a Mac keyboard is addicting, feels really good on the finger tips, the sound of it is music to my ears
• No more viruses to fear, or antiviruses to slow you down

I said it in March 4th 2009, Twitter is a company with billion dollar capable business models behind it which is probably monetizing plenty already while making everybody believe they’re not even focusing on it.

Today Techcrunch posts how Twitter is closing a New Venture Round at $1 billion valuation.

- All traffic lights would have regressive timers to let drivers know when the light will switch from Green to Red and from Red to Green. No more guessing, and no more honking on people to move their clueless asses.

- Traffic lights would have sensors for about a mile before each on every direction, no need to have people sitting at red lights when there are no cars coming. Current sensors suck balls.

- All highways would have 50mph minimum speed limit, and optionally a 90mph speed limit.

- To get a driver license you’d have to complete an obstacle course at a speed of at least 60mph. People who can’t do this should not be allowed to drive.

- Cars would Jam Cellphones Signals as soon as they start moving. I’m sick of stupid people on zombie mode when driving, they’re damn dangerous for everyone around, not to mention the ones texting while driving, those probably deserve to have accidents and die or get a big scare as a process of natural selection, too bad that when it happens they kill innocent people along the way.

- If you waste 3 seconds to get your car moving when a light turns green, the traffic light will take a picture of your license plate and send you a ticket for wasting 3 seconds times the number of people you have behind you.

- Drawbridges would be disabled everywhere between 7-10am and between 4-7pm. It’s ridiculous how many man/years in productivity are wasted everyday when these things open up and hold up hundreds of cars so that one stupid boat can pass, specially at peak hours.

- In the future, if cars are to drive themselves, there’d be controlling computers at intersections making sure cars don’t have to ever stop, coordinating car speeds, making them go from all directions at the same time and trying to keep a minimum separation between them only by a few feet. It’d be pretty exciting to go through an intersection on a world like this. No more stupid traffic lights.

If I think of more I’ll keep updating this list.

Repost if you can. This ad is the first TV Ad ever to be run nationwide in Pro of Marijuana legalization. It started today, 4/20 “four twenty” a date that matches the pot-iconic number. It’s time it’s legalized, it’s not like they’re not smoking, you might as well tax it, create jobs, export it and explode a billion dollar industry. If America does it, the rest of the world will follow, and damn it, it’ll be cool as hell.

I’ve finally taken a week off from work, and I decided to go to one of the must-visit cities on my list while my wife does her Indian journey with her sister. I’m in London, and I must say I’m not that thrilled yet (I haven’t seen anything so far), maybe it’s cause I’m alone, maybe it’s the weather, maybe I’m tired, or maybe I’m too cheap for the freaking prices so far in this city. Here are some of the thoughts I’ve had so far during the trip:

• American Airlines for the first time had really good food during the flight. Also the movies on demand rocked, I could watch Valkyrie and Yes Man.
• As we started to descend I realized I would not see the sun again during the whole vacation. Anywhere from 10,000 meters to like 100mts from the ground there were layers and layeres of clouds and fog.
• Subway cars are tiny



• The subway system is a piece of cake
• Every thing is twice as expensive as in New York, and it pisses me off
• There’s a never ending drizzle
• At first I thought the whole place would sound like I was in a harry potter movie, so far I’ve only heard Polish, German, Portuguese, Italian, and very little English with British Accent
• Everything reminds me of my wife, traveling with her is 10 times more fun than traveling alone
• It’s been only a few hours, hopefully I’ll get used in a couple of days on how crossing the street works, even though there’s signs in most places “Look right!” “Look Left”, I still have to think hard to figure out where cars are coming from on some streets. It’s all so crazy, they should switch.



• I forgot my power adapter
• Everything is too expensive, 20 pounds for the internet connection on the hotel is not good at all, that’s like $30 usd. In 2 days I’d pay my monthly ISP with that amount of money back home
• I still think the US is the best fucking country in the world, no matter how much people hate it, I find everything in america so convenient it’s hard to change it for any other country, at least for me

Update
In the afternoon after I walked more then I got more excited after I went to a few landmarks like the London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and Picadilli Circus (below). I finally got some sleep, but I still feel that I’ve some jetlag on me, so I’ll take more of this sunday to sleep it off, that’s what vacation is for, resting.

The conclusion of the first day, most things in this country are backwards. I’ll try to make a list of them, it’s not only the driving. The bread toaster this morning was backwards, you’d get the bread down by pulling a lever up… wtf.