Tipping My Hat to Technology

I wanted to say something about my Macbook, and technology in general. I'm not an Apple convert who denounces Microsoft from my rooftop, but I would like to share an experience today which made me feel good about my purchase. 

I charged my laptop last night and popped it into my fabric-sleeve zip cover and took it to campus with me. I used it between classes for nearly 2 1/2 hours straight, then closed it and headed to my last lecture. There I opened it back up and used it for another 20 - 30 minutes to browse the internet and chat with a friend, then closed it again and left for home. There I put it on the backporch and streamed pandora radio while moving furniture and hitting some tennis balls for another hour or longer. I closed it up, took it inside and still had battery life left for anything that I wanted to do. 

This scenario isn't unique to today, but has become a repeating pattern in my day-to-day life. 

I know any laptop can do this, but I've just found it so simple with the Macbook that it's beginning to change how I do things. It comes back to life so quickly (literally 1 1/2 seconds) that I can pull it out to check things instead of having to find a computer or wait until later. I take it downtown and can check my email anywhere with wifi (which it connects to automatically), and I can keep in touch people and professional contacts now nearly instantly. 

One of the programs I'm involved with at my university focuses on the impact of technology and its effect on the way we do things on a daily basis, in both our professional and personal lives. It's really amazing to watch cell phones shift from strictly voice devices to mobile internet device (MIDs) which allow the streamlined functionality of a computer in a device the size of a pack of cigarettes or smaller. 

I plan on upgrading my current phone to an iphone when they come down in price so my ability to keep in contact will become even faster. Right now I just can't justify spending that kind of money plus a contract to do the same thing I can with my Macbook. Google's Android looks promising as well, so I may hold off simply to see what will happen. 

So, back to Apple. Are the company's products the end all of all computers? Do they "simply work" as Steve Jobs claims? I would say the answer is a definitive no. I'm still reliant on my vista desktop and XP based computers on campus for certain tasks, especially when I run into compatibility issues on my Mac. I yell at my class iMac on a daily basis for being slow and stupid, although that may be because of the way the lab computers are networked to the professor's computer. I still threaten to abuse my laptop when safari won't display certain pages correctly, or load media when it's supposed to. There're still a number of things which bug me and make me scratch my head in frustration. I still have issues. I still become mad. 

With that said, I realized today that I had only turned my desktop on roughly three times this entire month. The Macbook? I never turn it off; I simply close it and charge, open it and use.