Oooooo! Pretty!

I'm writing this post from a new computer at work.

One of the things I work on is a Software Development Kit for Linux, UNIX and Mac. From that and the title, you can probably guess that the new computer is a Mac. It's an iMac to be specific.

I've always been of the opinion that Mac computers are good for something. They make great doorstops. The last Apple computer that I used was probably the Apple ][e that my dad bought when I was in Junior High. So to say that I've honestly given them a chance wouldn't be stretching the truth. It would be an outright lie.

But lately, Apple as done a couple of things that have piqued my interest:

1) They put Intel processors in them. Whether or not that is a GOOD thing is a religious issue. But I'm more familiar with Intel processors, so it's something that is a little more familiar to me.
2) They released OS X. For most people, it's just a pretty new front end, but for people like me that are doing development on Mac and that are used to doing development on other operating systems, this is huge. The non-pretty back end behind the scenes is a variation of UNIX developed by Berkeley Systems. So if I can do development on any UNIX or Linux system, the process is very similar, if not often identical, in OS X.

The bottom line: I believe that this shiny new iMac on my desk is 85% eye candy and 15% computer. But that's a 14.997% increase over the previous iMacs, as far as I'm concerned.