Nerd alert: I want a Mac more than ever, open source paint/photo program, and more

For the past year, I’ve been debating what to do when it’s time to replace my laptop, which is now 2 years old. One option would be to buy another PC-based laptop, probably from Dell (although, I’ve had good luck with my current Gateway laptop). However, I’ve always wanted a Mac, and have thought about a Mac laptop even at the extra cost. Well, yesterday, a co-worker REALLY made me want a Mac. Our VP of development showed me his new iMac, with 24-inch screen, 4 GB of RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive. Not only does it run MacOS, but it runs Windows and CentOS (a flavor of Linux) at the same speeds those operating systems would run on PCs. It cost more than your average computer ($2500) but it’s like getting three computers in one, without even one tower to sit awkwardly on or under your desk (the screen itself is the computer). With 500 GB storage, there’s plenty of room for each operating system’s files. Not to mention that the display is the best looking display I’ve ever seen. Wow. I really really want one.

However, being a mobile person, I actually wouldn’t choose the 24″ iMac, but rather a Mac laptop, probably a MacBook Pro with 15.4″ screen (they make them with 20″ screens but those are too big to fit into a standard backpack or laptop case). The top-of-the-line MacBooks come with only a 250 GB hard drive, but I could still probably find a way to make that work, given that I don’t do extensive video editing. My current laptop has a 100 GB hard drive and I’m not even close to running out of space. There are three options for running Windows on Macs, all three are available for MacBook Pros, and all three appear to give acceptable performance. I’d probably install Linux too, just for cross-browser, cross-OS testing of my websites.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying out more and more open-source and free software. I’m now of the opinion that people shouldn’t have to pay for any software products except operating systems and small niche products. There’s just too much good free stuff out there to pay. I’ve been using OpenOffice for a year now, especially the word processor OpenOffice Writer, which is not only as good as Microsoft Word, it’s BETTER. And free.

This weekend I downloaded The GIMP, an open-source image/photo-editing program that has been around for years. Due to all the collaboration in the open-source community, all the sharing of ideas, the GIMP is now on par with Photoshop in terms of capabilities. After downloading and installing, I fired it up, and was immediately like, “WTF?” I had no idea how to use it. I had heard The GIMP has something of a learning curve (Photoshop does too), but it’s worth it once you understand how to manipulate images. So I got on Amazon and ordered Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional. Once it arrives I’ll start learning The GIMP. I’d much rather spend $31 on a book to learn a program as good as Photoshop than to spend over $600 on Photoshop itself.

Hmmm… maybe I’ll do a page of the best open-source and free software.  I recommended Nvu to a friend the other day.  It’s a what-you-see-is-what-you-get web page editor that lets you design the page on screen (you don’t have to know HTML).  It does almost everything FrontPage can do, and it’s free.  There’s lots of software like that out there.  Yep, I think I’ll put an info page together.

Lunch break is over… I had crawfish enchiladas at Cafe 61, then stopped home to do this post.