On Being My Own I.T. Guy

So I got a new MacBook. I did this because I needed a machine that can run Windows. I generally hate Windows products. They have a single use - allowing Autodesk products to function. Aside from that they are no good at all. I don't understand them. They were counter-intuitive and hard to run before they decided they wanted to be like Apple products. Windows 8 in insane. It makes no sense at all - a computer system stripped of everything but buttons the size of a fist. There is a visible condescension in Microsoft's design; make everything large enough so a chip could hit it (except the parts that actually run the machine and those should be tiny).

I had a big enough struggle trying to get my internet hooked up on my Mac - trying to get it to work on the Windows system in an exercise in self-degradation. So, I thought to myself, why not just run a virtual machine. That way I get to do all the important stuff in Mac mode and just click (or flick or three-finger wave) at the Windows window when I need it. Unfortunately, I got a 13" Mac that is the perfect size for everything I use it for but causes terrible angst and woe for Windows - at least, the virtual version. It can't even run Chrome because the display resolution is too small.

Harrison Ford said he never bought a computer because, "It's just another fucking thing I have to pay someone to come to my house to fix!" I just dropped more than $2k to move backward technologically! I now need two computers (one running two operating systems) to awkwardly do what I could do with ease before I spent a dime.

Here's the idea for the perfect computer store: You call them up and they ask you for a precise list of what you want your computer to do. "I want to run these 12 programs on this operating system and it should be this big." Then, in a couple of days, someone brings it to your apartment, hooks it up to your internet for you and gives you a card with a home phone number on it. So if the work isn't done right - you can call the fuck at home, during dinner, and get it fixed. I would pay more for that.