My Dirty Little Secret

I’ve been a Mac user since early 2002 when I switched Mrsdave’s home computer to an iBook running OS X. I’m not sure exactly what it was that prompted me to buy it, I hadn’t used a Mac in years, but it didn’t take long for me to be hooked on it. Mac switchers are like ex-smokers, we’re incredibly annoying and condescending to anyone who hasn’t made the change for the better.

Sadly for me, a few months ago my much loved PowerBook G4 had a gravity related failure. I was able to restore a backup to a Mac Mini which I had not long borrowed from my little sister, which meant that I still had everything in the configuration that I’m used to, but it meant that I had to sacrifice portability.

The first thing I tried to do to free myself from my desk in the hut was to supplement the Mac Mini with Mrsdave’s old iBook. Although seven years old, the iBook is still in working order, however the rigours of web 2.0 just about kill it. I then dragged out my superseded work laptop, `a five year old Compaq, and installed Ubuntu on it. Ubuntu was fast and had all of the options that I wanted, but would not  connect to the wireless router in the house unless I downgraded the security settings. That was a deal breaker, so I begrudgingly installed Windows XP again.

I use XP at work, and even with a number of helper applications to fill in the gaps I still find using it a pain in comparison to OS X. I set about installing all of the utilities and software packages that I wanted on the old Compaq, but I had to find some extra ones to do things that my work laptop doesn’t get used for. On OS X I use a program called MarsEdit, which is an offline blogging editor, it’s much better than using the WordPress online editor, much like using a real mail client is always better than webmail. I’d never looked for a Windows equivalent to MarsEdit before as my work laptop is never used for personal stuff, but it didn’t take me long to find Windows Live Writer.

I love it. It’s a great piece of software. All of the things that take heaps of configuration to get working on MarsEdit work automatically on Live Writer, it has basic photo editing built in and a bunch of other nice little features too. I don’t know how on earth Microsoft managed to make a piece of software this good, I’m assuming that they bought out another developer, but I cannot find a bad thing to say about it. Apple needs to release a piece of software just like this.

I feel dirty. I think I need to take a shower.