geeks vs. computer users

[btoneill]

I'm a geek, through and through, you can tell by my lack of spelling skills And I fall into the group of recent converts, but there are reasons, and I don't whine (atleast much) about what the OS is lacking. Ofcourse, I've also come full circle with my computing...

1984: started programming Apple Basic on a IIe it rocked
1984: Got my first computer, 8088 XT clone, it was sweet! Had no more Apple Basic, was sad, but I had a ton of copied games
1990: Starting programming Pascal
1993: Finally got a new computer, 486dx2/66
1993: Started programming C, started playing with UNIX, installed linux 0.9x something
1994: Got first real job programming, in C/Perl on unix ofcourse
1994: Installed Win95 for the first time, the beta really sucked
1995: Switched from a programmer to a unix admin, became much happier
1995: Became network admin, I love cisco's
1995: Started playing with NT, still hate it
1997: Got first job I loved, got to play with lots of great hardware, all unix ofcourse, along with networks, firewalls, etc
2000: Got a job where I finally got to run the entire unix show, great fun hardware ofcourse, but still had to manage the NT crap as I did it better then the NT admins here
2001: Saw OS X for the first time in real use at LISA '01 conference, fell in love with it
2002: Bought mac, install OS X, lived happily ever after, got rid of all my other hardware, PC's, Sun's, SGI's, DEC's, etc. Power bill decreased around $1.30/day, wife became happy

Am I a recent convert, yup. Do I love the OS, yup. I played with all the various MacOS's before, and to be honest, it never did what I needed it too, I needed a command prompt. I had lots of friends who were mac faithful, ofcourse, most were just to not use MS or Intel based boxes. I had to keep my Windows boxes around no matter what my main platform was because I needed things like Office, Quicken, the ability to actually watch mpegs/quicktime/etc, and use a digital camera, etc. Ofcourse, now I don't, I have my nice pretty mac doing it all.

Ofcourse, being a geek, there are problems with OS X, alot of them infact. But, you know what, there are alot of problems in every single OS I've ever used. No OS is perfect, none ever will be. IF there was a perfect OS, you'd never have to upgrade again. True geeks know this. True geeks try to fix the problems they run into, and don't just whine about it.

Ofcourse, this will get me flamed, altho, not as much as Ed might, there are alot of people who think they are geeks because it's cool. They installed RedHat 7.x that they bought at Best Buy, so they must be geeks, they run linux. Hell, if they downloaded it from a website, they probably think they are uber geeks. The real geeks are the ones who dig under the hood, break things, fix it, and break it again. They bitch at themselves for breaking it too. In the process they also learn about every little detail they can, so they can fix the annoying things that they don't like in the OS. A whole lot of the OS can be changed by the user, you just have to know what you can/can't do. The real geeks also don't talk down to "users". Yeah, I can troubleshoot a problem faster then you can, but you can probably make some sweet image in photoshop, or a cool looking webpage, I make stick figures and webpages with just black text on a grey background. I wouldn't want you to make fun of me for my lack of artistic ability, or my lack of spelling and grammar. Hell, if everyone was a geek, I mean a real geek, I'd have no job, as I'd have no one to support, as they could all do it themselves. Also, what good is knowing anything at all if you can't share it with anyone who wants to know it. Hording knowledge and holding it over people goes against the things that made geeks into geeks. Ofcourse, if you've read this far, you're wondering "what the hell is your point, it better be good, i've spent 5 minutes reading this thing", well, my point is, geeks rock, users rock, folks who are mean, nasty, and annoying suck. I do have a problem with people (altho rightly so in many cases) seem to think that all geeks are know it alls (ok, so we are ), have egos, hate to help people, make fun of people who know less, and all that jazz. I guess I can sum it up by:
I'm a geek
I'm not a mac geek
I'm not a unix geek
I'm not a windows geek
I'm not a network geek
I'm not a programming geek
I'm just a computer geek
A computer geek who happens to love OS X at the moment because it does what other OS's have been trying to do for years, and failing miserably at. You could call me a fair weather fan, but you know, the old OS didn't allow me to do my job the way I needed it to, the new one does. Computers aren't a sporting team, if your favorite team keeps losing, you still can do you job and get paid so you can eat, if your computer and OS can't, you starve So, I'm a recent convert, and I love it. Just don't put labels on all converts as jumping on the bandwagon, as, if the wagon is going where you're going, it's just getting there faster, is it really wrong to switch wagons?

Brian

PS: hazmat, your unix geek boss could have been running A/UX on his old mac He would have had to be sick in the head, with severe brain damage, but he could have been

[Giaguara]

geezh ... i enojy the geeky places like this

[hazmat]

Originally posted by btoneill

PS: hazmat, your unix geek boss could have been running A/UX on his old mac He would have had to be sick in the head, with severe brain damage, but he could have been

No, it was Mac OS. But he did have a really nice SPARCstation at work, as well as a Sun laptop. Remember those?

Btw, nicely written, Brian. I think I'm in your boat. But I often will take the time to explain to a user how to do something so they don't bother me again about it.

[btoneill]

hazmat: what do you mean remember? http://hw.tadpole.com/html/products/...sparcbook6500/
They still make them

Brian

[hazmat]

Originally posted by btoneill
hazmat: what do you mean remember? http://hw.tadpole.com/html/products/...sparcbook6500/
They still make them

Huh. I thought that he had a real Sun one. Ray or something like that.

[TommyWillB]

Originally posted by Giaguara
...i have an apple (tattoo) in my .. low back....

Would that be the old style multi-colored Apple or one of the new solid ones?

[edX]

Brian i think your post did more to enlighten me than any so far. i could suddenly relate it to a past experience. back when i used to own an entertainment rag in cols, oh., i used to get backstage passes to lots of concerts. the bigger the names of the acts, the nicer they were. it was the snots on their way up that were often obnoxious, which was probably why most of them were one hit wonders.
everybody (my age) knows where they were when the space shuttle exploded. i was sitting in a motel room with Bo Diddley. We stopped our interview and turned the tube up and watched together. Then we sat and just talked and tried to deal with it together. he just talked to me about life in general. after an hour or more later, we finally finished the interview.
so your comparison of real geeks and wannabe's makes lots of sense. funny how the wannabe's are the ones who would benefit from a little humility the most.

[Giaguara]

Originally posted by TommyWillB
Would that be the old style multi-colored Apple or one of the new solid ones?

Of the new aquatic ones

see here

ok i have bigger resolution pics as well but didnt feel so comfortable putting thoe online ....