Just a quick note to memorialize a recent client visit during which my use of a MacBook was mocked no less than half a dozen times. The very few times that my regular use of Linux as a desktop operating system was mentioned, it was similarly ridiculed.

And then I was handed the corporate-issue Windows XP laptop. Hm.

I mention this only because I know that, at some point, I had similarly strong opinions on the choices people make about their computing platform. I may have even thrown out the off-handed jibe at others for those choices. To them, I apologize.

I’ve made it no secret that I don’t care for Windows– at least up to, and including, Vista. I’ve yet to indulge myself in Windows 7, which gets good reports, in general. Having paid for and experienced a lot of suffering at the hands of such winners as Windows ME and Windows Vista, I think it’s fair to say that my opinion is hard won.

That said, Linux is so flexible and open as to barely operate at times. I’ve documented some good times that I had when the decision was made by some member of the open-source anarchic syndicalist commune that two video cards of different manufacture shall not be supported– or my logs filled with indecipherable memory abstraction errors or multipath disk naming voodoo that defied translation.

Then there’s the Mac. Remember all those colorful generation-one iMacs making little flower shapes on the commercials? Let us summarize that experience with the phrase “frowny face monitor with Xs in its eyes.”

Right now, I run Linux on my desktop with Windows in VirtualBox, and I tote around a MacBook. I am pretty happy. They all do what I need in the appropriate context.

Is one better than the others? I don’t know. For what? Linux video editing is a joke. Mac’s open/closed schizophrenia and high cost are off-putting. And I can’t tell if Windows, itself, is spyware or just all the stuff that mysteriously installs itself at every turn.

On the other hand, my Linux machine allows me very complete control of about any conceivable option and is customized to my liking as a DesktopServerHybrid just how I need it. The MacBook has never crashed and is light, very well-built, and functional, particularly for multi-media applications. Lastly, there’s very few, if any, applications that I can’t get to run on Windows if all else fails.

My point is this: you like your Windows? Good for you. You don’t like Linux? Fair enough. Macs are for emo blogging wannabes? Maybe. Does any of it make any difference whatsoever to anyone? Not really.

Mocking another’s computer is as pathetic as mocking their sexual orientation or height. The more sure you are that I’m wrong, the more you likely need to take a Stuart Smalley look in the mirror and let yourself know that it’s OK for us all to be different. We’re good enough, we’re smart enough, and doggonit, people like us.  Yes, even people who use Macs.