So sad... Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. A day late. I got the best present in the world for Christmas yesterday. A shiny, brand-spanking new, Apple PowerBook G4 (17" model, thank you very much). Just what I wanted, what I'd asked for, what I'd pleaded like a child to get. I love it. It's the coolest computer I've ever owned. Here's the bad part: it's probably going back. Why, you might ask? Because, despite my unbridled passion for it, despite its glorious 17" screen, despite its oh so satisfying keboard, and the fact that it runs everything I need it to, I can't use it. Not that it's not user-friendly. It's very user friendly. It's just that its version of user-friendlyness is different (better) than that of the four Windows computers I use every day between work and home. I spend way too much time using computers that don't work like this to learn to use it as efficiently as I run all my other computers. For instance, I'm married to the keyboard and rarely use a mouse. The PowerBook is the most most mouse-centric computer I've ever used (yeah, I know, duh!). I can't figure out a how to do many of the things that I do using the keyboard on Windows. It's not that they can't be done. I'm just too lazy to figure it out. The payoff of its power and elegance isn't sufficiently greater than the computers I'm used to to justify the time I'll spend learning how to use it. And that, unfortunately, is the problem Apple faces in getting customers to move from Windows to its platform.

Maybe I'm in the minority on this. Maybe this is only a problem for so-called "power users." But I don't think so. To me, it's just like the situation with alternate keyboard layouts. For instance, the Dvorak keyboard is definitely faster than the QWERTY keyboard, yet no one switches. Why? Same reason that I think I need to send this wonderful computer back. The benefits of switching simply don't outweigh the costs it entails. And for all of us, that's a real bummer. Especially me.   ¶ 8:38 AM