[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIS6G-HvnkU[/youtube]

The recent M$ advertisement targeting the relative expense of Apple computers as being elitist has stirred much commotion. As many websites have commented, the “not cool enough to be a Mac” comment made in the ad has peeved the folks at Cupertino.

You can spin the Mac vs PC argument in any fashion, arguing for the simplistic Mac designs or eye candy of OSX. The premium you pay for a Mac is self-explanatory–you get a nicer looking system with some (arguably) nicer hardware. Whether you buy a Mac sort of depends on how much money you’re willing to spend or how vain you are. Equivalent software applications exist for nearly all products, and any differences are simply personal preference.  End of story.

However, what I can say is that I can extrapolate some interesting conclusions about hardware and operating system preferences based on my web server traffic. Nearly all of my traffic hits from Apple computers come from the United States and its adjacent islands.  About 45% of my web traffic also identifies as Mac OS X, which is much higher than the actual market share of Apple computers.

1) Are Apple computers generally too expensive for non-US folks? Maybe. I assume that most middle-class wages outside of the US are relatively lower, and for many people, it’s simply not practical to pay nearly twice as much for a nicer looking computer with similar specs. You tell me. Contact me if you live outside of the US and have a Mac.

2) Since most of my traffic comes from academia and medical centers, I’m not surprised that I get a skewed distribution of Mac users on my website. However, why does this demographic tend to use Macs more? Are we all snobby bastards? Does Mac software suit our needs better?

I can only speak for myself. I owned an iBook (circa 2004) while in medical school. It was smooth, white, and woke up from suspended mode incredibly efficiently. However, it had a 1.2ghz processor and 256mb ram. With multiple browser tabs open, the system crawled along. It would not even run emulation software. I hawked it off once its usb port died (high quality hardware, eh?). I now have an IBM Thinkpad T42 (circa 2003), with 1.5gb ram and 1.7ghz processor. It runs most programs like a dream, except video editing and graphics intense processes. I miss having a native unix shell, but these days, I don’t have time to be hacking scripts anyway.

computing tech

Last week G$$gle rebadged Grandcentral‘s phone service and added a few new toys, including SMS. For the last year or more after acquiring Grandcentral, G$$gle had been quiet about any developments. I had been using Grandcentral for the past three years, and for the most part, it worked well as an alternative catch-all number to forward all of my calls. The call screening option is useful, although I would have preferred to have a more transparent screening process without prompts.

After the makeover, GVoice still has the same call screening process. If enabled, unknown callers will be prompted to record their name before being able to continue further. On my caller id, I only see my telephone number, indicating that the caller used my GVoice number. There is no way of identifying a new caller’s telephone number AND knowing that they called using my GVoice number instead of my cell or home number. It would be ideal if new caller could be identified by a marker id in addition to their number like, “GV xxx-xxx-xxxx”. This identifier is important because most of my important contacts still dial through directly to my cellphone instead of through my GVoice number. I don’t want to have to pick up my phone unnecessarily while on rounds in the hospital.

The few welcome improvements over Grandcentral include SMS, outgoing calls, and a more sophisticated web interface. SMS is huge, because the point of having a catch-all number is for it to be as transparent as possible. While my occupation has balled me into adding an SMS package to my phone plan, Grandcentral was essentially useless for me without SMS. Outgoing calls are a huge perk, albeit complicated to navigate. With Grandcentral, I was not able to place outgoing calls on my home or cell phones without exposing my those numbers. This was confusing to my contacts who had my Grandcentral number. This outgoing call feature is now available with Google, and international calling at a reasonable rate is also available. I can also text international numbers through Google on a payment account linked through Google Voice instead of my cellular provider. The downside is that I have to dial into the phone service and navigate some menus before being able to dial out. I would like a speed dial option in the future, if that is possible.

Overall, I like the improvements that Google has made. The voicemail transcriptions are remarkably accurate, probably due to the data harvesting from their 411 service.  Great business initiative, I might ask. (And for you folks at Google, if you are thinking of branching more into the medical arena in addition to your EMR system, contact me. I have ideas!)

computing tech

Recently I have been bombarded by automated voicemail messages from assorted vendors attempting to hawk their services. I’ve realized that they all revolve around selling an abstract service, such as car insurance, health insurance, or theft insurance. Surprisingly, I never received any of this spam prior to signing up for web hosting on GoDaddy. The chronological correlation was disturbingly clear; I started receiving random automated calls on my phone about 12 hours after I purchased a domain from them. I had explicitly indicated on my subscription application that I did not want to be contacted by vendors. I haven’t given out my telephone to any other service since then either.

It’s frustrating, because I have been unable to link GoDaddy with spam vendors, although I have read some forums with similar complaints. I guess they need to supplement their $1.19 yearly domain registration charges with other means.

computing tech

When I was part of the residential networking team back in college, I always cringed at how people let their computers deteriorate.  “You have how many icons on your desktop? 2000? How is that possible?” Then you have the perennial file-sharers who have 3-4 different file sharing apps running at the same time while connected to 237 other computers. No wonder your computer is slow. I, on the other hand, have always maintained a well-tuned system until today. Read more…

computing rant, tech

While I had been a pure linux user up until medical school, I’ve migrated to WinXP mainly because the media (ppt) used in medical school made it impossible to use anything but M$ and Apple software. My Athlon 700mhz desktop at the time simply was inadequate for virtualization. My current Thinkpad T42 is showing its age, and I have no plans to replace it until absolutely necessary.  This left dual booting or Cygwin my only means to tweak scripts via CLI…that is, until I discovered Unixkit. It’s a little publicized compilation of unix executables for Windows that serves as a simple shell replacement without the overhead of Cygwin. Some of the files were obtained from the unixkit sourceforge site. Read more…

computing tech