Ryan James O'Sullivan

Get off my lawn…

It is hard to resist the siren call and sheer geek-sexy of the Mac platform.  When it was the Mac alone running it’s own OS, using it’s own hardware and living within its walled garden it was easy enough to ignore but times have changed.  The iPod happened.  OS X, Intel, and ATI/NVIDIA video happened.  Most recently the iPad changed so many games we’ll still be figuring out the impacts of the shock waves ten years from now.  The Apple ecosystem is now a viable, accessible and exciting landscape.  It’s time for me to get on board.

The number one driver for me is I really want to get back in to making things.  “Creating stuff” to borrow the phrase from Steve Jobs.  Growing up I learned to program, did a little game design with the emulator community, started a blog years before a blog was a blog and it goes on and on.  So much of my personal experience until my mid 20s was based on just tinkering away with things in the early hours of the morning using various technologies – and I miss the shit out of that.

So I look around and I see the Mac as a great platform, a great outlet for doing exactly what I want to do.  Even more appealing maybe is that it is the unknown.  A new platform for me to learn where on the other hand I’ve discovered much of what is to be discovered with the PC.

There are other reasons why the Mac platform interests me, in no particular order:

• iLife.  Managing photos and other media is made mind blowingly simple and engaging.
• Hardware sex appeal.  Now that the Mac is on Intel hardware and the playing field is level how can you resist the design of the iMac?  You pay a little more but you get awesome in return
• *Nix.  OS X is based on Unix.  There is a lot you can do as a tinkerer with that.
• Web development dream.  Again.  *Nix core.  Tools aplenty.
• 27 inch display.  Ok I’m getting the iMac and it has a 27 inch screen.  Any other questions?
• The iPone changed my life; maybe the Mac can to?  It is no exaggeration to say the iPhone changed my life.  I’ve never owned a device that has so substantially changed my “lifeflow”, I dare say not even the personal computer.

I could go on, but there are a few of the highlights.

Can’t wait for June when I pick it up!

A time honoured tradition in the blogosphere: the lame excuses for not posting…

Work, family, an upcoming election, etc, etc.  The usual.

Work has been quite busy.  We are working on building a new warehouse to support our growing online business, we are implementing SAP’s EWM and on a more personal note I’ve been promoted to director.  Things.have.been.busy.

The above has led to longer days which has cascaded down the line of how I spend my personal time.  When I get home I rush to catch up with Paige before she goes off to bed (some nights while making dinner) and once she’s in bed I’m either hanging out with Tammy (we’ve now had to schedule a night a week to just sit down and watch TV, etc) or with my buds.

Weekends have become insanely valuable and Paige dominates the agenda 90% of the time.

I’ve paid for all of this far too much with my creative side.  I haven’t created a thing of my own in months (I haven’t typed a line of PHP since the fall?) and I’m starting to really feel the itch.  I’ve got some ideas about how to fix this but I’ll have to juggle time to figure it all out.  One of the ideas is to switch my primary computer to a Mac, but more on that soon time

Election wise – not much to say at this point beyond I’m back in the game this time around and working as a campaign manager again…

The last six months in a nutshell, I hope you’ll accept my excuses…