After a stressful and full last half of 2007, I decided to go semi-offline in the last week. I have blissfully caught up on novel reading, walking, cooking, cleaning the house, blog reading, going out to see Royal Crown Revue on Friday and the Irish Brothers on Thursday, and otherwise vegging out. I had only one client meeting and I have completed very little of any “GTD” on my computer.
This has been good. But odd.
Before my little love – The Silver Princess – died an untimely death at the Philadelphia airport in late April, it was hard to pry me away from my 12″ Powerbook G4 computer. Then when the June Death of my Nokia N80, I found myself a bit soured on technology and machines as tools to create. Yes, I now have *supposedly* superior replacements in the 15″ MacBook Pro and the Nokia N95, but I have found my joy in using my machines has dissipated rapidly, esp. with the MacBook, as the months have worn on.
I don’t know why, but I don’t enjoy using the MacBook Pro as much as my beloved Powerbook. As a result, I don’t enjoy designing or coding as much as before. Odd how a tool can effect ones work and passion.
I am not the only one who loved their PowerBook, as Ian Lloyd has Tweeted about it and told me in person that he still loves his 12″ PowerBook even with the MacBook as his primary machine.
I don’t know what it was. Maybe the 12″ PowerBook was smaller yet chubbier and easier to fetishize. Or maybe the small toy-ness of the laptop fooled me into thinking that every activity was a game and fun. Maybe the small screen and heavy size were comforting, I don’t know what it was, but I have taken the dead Silver Princess to two different repair places this fall to see if someone can resurrect her, to no avail. And both times I was very upset to find out that nothing could be done. And then spent time on eBay wondering how I could justify the expense of a PowerBook logic board…
I don’t have any such affection towards my Chick-a-Poo the MacBook Pro. I wish I did, but I don’t. I don’t find each day to be a new adventure in computing with MacBook Pro, and thus, I have a hard time getting excited about working on a machine that leaves me relatively cold. This effects my output, trust me.
I love web design and development, but my love for the tool that helps me create and code is lacking. Lately, I have wished for a direct brain to server link, as I have been thinking up code and designs in my head, but have not wanted to open the MacBook to make it happen. When I do open the machine, I don’t want to work on it.
In 2003 and 2004, when I was having issues and productivity problems with my digital photography never making it online and my computer’s hard drive as a black hole, the introduction of a Nokia “smart” camera phone with an unlimited data plan made all the difference in my life. Instead of frustration at the process of getting my digital photos to the web, the lovely Nokia 7610 allowed me to snap a photo and send it directly to Flickr or a blog with no permanent stop at the black hole of my hard drive.
I am yearning for such a leap in my web design and dev life. A device that so entrances me with its design and its leap in process that I am once again in love with what I do, rather than in frustration and self-condemnation.
Apple, please make a lovely work / life machine that is delightful, possibly another 12″ laptop with all of the power and guts of the MacBook Pro but with the cute factor of the PowerBook G4. Add a revolutionary fully working voice recognition system so that I can move about hands free and talk my code to my machine. Help me to fall in love with my computer again. Thank you.