November 4th, 1983 – The day first I cried. From then on, I have been crying, also laughing and made others to cry, also laugh :) . I did not count how many times I cried, I laughed. Also I did not count how many others I made to cry and laugh. But surely one ‘thing’ made me to cry when I ‘grew up’. The same thing made me to laugh when I was ‘innocent’. Windows. That was Microsoft Windows!

Those were the days I could clearly make a difference between ‘Good’ and ‘evil’. Since my adolescence, things happened to me like many magazines and people say, “Microsoft Windows is a great Operating System, user-friendly, must-have on your computer, great user interface etc. etc.” I could understand only those immense proud feelings while they were ‘saying’. But I could never understand those jargons – ‘user-friendly’, ‘operating-system’ and ‘user-interface’ etc. etc. until I pushed my studies into engineering Computer Science. Of course I heard those terms as my elder sister – the best C programmer who tried her best but failed to make my stupid little brain to understand, how `printf` works in C-language, started her ‘communication’ with computers very early than me. She used to discuss with my dad about her classes and all. I used to be just so curious to add little – two or three words from my mouth to their conversation. But I had seldom doing that as I was illiterate in computers at that time. I used to admire my sister for her talking about computers.

I joined MS DOS summer course for 3 days that was offered for only just Rs.30.00 by a charity organization. The institute was just after some couple of blocks to my house. My first ever interaction with a computer. The instructor taught about computer fundamentals! He was just telling what ever my sister and dad were discussing! I answered all of his questions at the end of the session. Thanks to my sis and dad. Afternoon session… DOS commands. DIR, COPY, CHDIR, MKDIR… wow superb commands! My little stupid brain managed to understand them well! I realized the greatness of Microsoft. It was listing all the directories I created! My next leap after DOS was Windows!

September 15th, 2001 – the day first my computer cried. From then on, I have been crying, also laughing and made my system to cry, also laugh :) . I did not count how many times I cried, I laughed. Also I did not count how many times I made my system cry and laugh. But surely one ‘thing’ made me to cry when I ‘grew up’. The same thing made me to laugh when I was ‘innocent’. Windows. That was Microsoft Windows! The said date above had been the day – some historical agreement happened between Microsoft Windows and me without my knowledge. Unknowingly ‘we’ are on bet – who makes whom to cry more. As I have been having unmatched record in making others to cry I accepted for the bet still unknowingly. But at last Windows won! How it had won? The following …

‘Legal’ Note: This is the last time I use the word ‘Windows’ as it is. From now on, you are going to see the same word as Wind**s in this post.

As I told earlier, on a historical-dooms-day 15th September, 2001, one great machine entered into my life. Pentium I powered 128MB RAM machine running Wind**s ME. We got so much excited ‘cos of its blazing performance. My sister could do very bright Powerpoint presentations. She used amazing animations in every slide. At that time I was learning C-Language in the same institute. My sister became already a pro in C. She could easily resolve my doubts. My wind**s could help me playing Road Rash. It was like maneuvering an F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft. Practicing ‘C-Language on DOS’ with help of my sis! Great!

Everything was more than great just for only 7 days. On the 8th day I saw ‘blue-screen-of-death’ on the same monitor. I did not feel bad. I felt great on seeing that in fact, because the error report was so impressive that, it printed some register values with a high-level error message. I read the message fully. I understood nothing other than Press ‘Ctrl+Alt+Del’. I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del with a hope. Nothing happened! I did the same for 6 more times with the same unshaken hope! Nothing happened. I used all possible combinations with those three keys. Nothing happened! Surprise! “No, it should not be! My Wind**s, that too Millennium Edition cannot cheat me,” I thought. My last attempt was pressing restart button! Surprise! It worked. :) That was the day Wind**s made me ‘Cry’. At the same time some ‘whispering’ started in my ear. I could not understand what that was but it was a suggestion – I felt. I kept on hearing the same whispering every time when my ‘little ferrari’ wind**s ME committed suicide. I though they were invisible iVampires.

My wind**s just was not working but still I was in love with that. Those were the days still I could clearly make a difference between ‘Good’ and ‘evil’.

Time went on. Days went on. Months went on and hence years and my engineering semesters. One fine day I came to know C was conceived by AT&T’s greatest people who invented the ever-living monster UNIX. I learnt that, UNIX guarantees not only addiction but also more than that when you work-out C programs on the same monster. With the help of so called computer genius ‘Mallik Anna’, I got our system powered by SCO UNIX. I felt bad! Never worked on that, just login and log out. No buttons. No mouse. No menus! What a stupid operating system? How come they could provide only CLI unlike Wind**s. I wondered was it AT&T that designed UNIX and C? C was too good, not UNIX. I was slipping into deep love with Wind**s. Though, I felt bad for doing just login and logout from that terminal. It pushed me to do some research about UNIX machines. :) This was my learning – “UNIX is a rugged monster. It never stops working. It has a big family. It is a phenomenon. It is a theory. It is an addiction. It is everything! This monster gave birth to so many iVampires like Linux distributions, SunOS and Mac OS!” One thing slammed me hard, “It never stops working.” UNIX never stops working? How come it could never stop working man, when my ‘little-ferrari’ was struggling to come out of blue-screen?

I kept on hearing the same whispering. Neglected it. I was praying my God-OS – Wind**s.

Still, those were the days I could clearly make a difference between ‘Good’ and ‘evil’

Engineering over! Job hunt!

Watching movies in hostel on desktop. Wind**s blue-screen. Ctrl+Alt+Del. Restart.

Studying for interviews on desktop. Wind**s blue-screen. Ctrl+Alt+Del. Restart.

Applying for jobs in internet cafe. Wind**s blue-screen. Ctrl+Alt+Del. Restart.

I could find no reason, why the hell it was ending up with Blue-screen.

My God is not ‘functioning’ well. I doubted my lover wind**s.

Whatever the moment – it was just hanging. Every time it made me to cry, it was winning. I did not understand why ‘people’s Operating System’ (Praja OS like praja telephone) getting hang up like this. My iLife had tasted some sweeter moments and bitter moments. Whatever the moment – those iVampires whisper. First time I understood the whispering! Thanks to UNIX ‘language’. Thanks to the big ‘monster’. They are whispering – “Unique’s UNIX. Uniquely UNIX.” That was the day I started treating OS GOD Wind**s like a devil and my monster as God.

One fine day I got job. It took me more than 4 years to understand that all these days I was in love with a devil. I just showed my mid*le finger to Wind**s. I started calling it Vampire and UNIX as God.

Plenty of devils/bad things are just around us at reachable distance. Gods are at unbelievable distances. I see plenty of Wind**s machine around me, but UNIX servers in US/France. :) :) (Sorry for bad comparision, :) :) ) Thanks to my career, it always gave me opportunities to work with C/C++ on UNIX machines. I felt happy for ‘talking’ to my big ‘monster’ God through my UNIX console. I am feeling happy! It never stopped working. Much to surprise, I started hearing some weird whisperings again. Not –“Unique’s UNIX. Uniquely UNIX.” But, “Insanely Mac. Don’t be evil.”

Still, those were the days I could clearly make a difference between ‘Good’ and ‘evil’

iPod, iPhone, iMac, iLife, iWord and iCal. I heard that these were amazing products from Apple. I came to know GUI was first ‘invented’ for Macintosh machine by Apple. Great! I heard about similar kinds of industry inventions from Apple. Then, what wind**s did? People were going mad to their products. At the same people are going mad to the Apple’s products and their design. Then I came to know different types of madness. :) I am fully aware of those Apple products. I ‘learnt’ about Steve Jobs. I am impressed with his India visit with his head tonsured. Possibly I read all the pages on web about Steve Jobs. I started keeping his image on wind**s desktop, my mobile. Being aware of MacBook and having a plan to buy it, I bought a DELL Inspiron 1525 with amazing configuration (for me it is amazing) – 4GB RAM, 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 320 GB HDD and Wind**s Pasta. Sorry Wind**s Vista. :) :)

I started working on my Laptop. The only thing that is bothering me is Pasta (Vista man!). That Pasta is good. Amazing graphics. Amazing ‘wow’ effect. Amazing Icons. Amazing. Everything is amazing including my ‘Blue screen of death’. Amazing! I tried to install XP. It did not allow. I got somehow some SATA drivers. Made one bootable DVD of XP. Tried to install. Amazing. Again amazing Blue screen. I formatted my machine to install Redhat Linux. Amazing. Good. It was working fine. I could not compile some binaries and could not ‘create’ a good VLC player. Only sound I could hear. NO movie! Came back to Pasta again. (Vista man! Tendency of human, attracted to bad things! One example!) Watching movies. Everything is fine including my blue-screen.

But my friends are impressed with my selection of notebook – inspiron 1525. They asked my suggestions for buying a laptop and even invited me to come to the store for ordering. Lenovo, HP, DELL, Sony, Samsung, LG. You name a brand, you have a laptop ‘promoting’ Pasta. What? Appa Rao brand? Might be there man! Sure! But you have to search for it! You get Pasta Ultimate on that! :) We generally go to Staples. Staples is authorized dealer for Apple computers. After a long time I started hearing again those whispering. Same voice. Same slang. This time not “Insanely Mac. Don’t be evil.” This time I am hearing some reasons. Reasons why I can buy a Mac. It is good to have reasons why I can buy a Mac rather than why I cannot use a PC.

I decided to buy MacBook.

My friends shouted at me, how come MacBook?  No office suite compatibility.  You cannot play better games. Etc. etc.  The main thing, the cost.  I agreed with every point they raised.  I started to explain why should I have a Mac rather than scolding Wind**s.  Because, I got fed up with scolding Wind**s.  That’s all apart.  Let me just tell you why should I have a Mac?  Here it goes…

I don’t want to tell you the following amazing things of MacBook…

1. Mac OS X

2. Design

3. Long battery life (7 hrs) with 2.4 GHz processor and a ambient LED Display while WiFi is on.

4. Higher resolution displays.

5. Ambient light sensor to adjust to varying lighting conditions.

6. Magnetic latch/power connectors.

7. iLife.  (How many PCs include the full versions of useful software out of the box (unless you expressly paid for it), none.)

8. Backlit keyboard.

9. Wide variety of alternate application for what Microsoft is providing.

But, I want MacBook because it is not Wind**s.  I just need a little shift from Windows.  I wanna develop iPhone applications on that.  I wanna do something that I never dared to do on Wind**s.  I wanna work on a UNIX flavor that gives me pride!

To the last, I wanna work on a machine that ‘just works!’

These are the days I can clearly make a difference between ‘Good’ and ‘evil’.  But the problem is doing good ‘costs’ you more! :) And my sis is going to get me that! :)