Monday, February 18, 2008

I need a Mac vaccine

My linux laptop is allergic to Macs

It didnt dawn on me until the hipsters with their snow white Macbooks got up and left the coffee shop. All of a sudden, my wifi connection that could not stay connected to the wifi access for more than 30 seconds started running fast free and reliable. No dropped packets, no time outs.

It stayed that way until 15 minutes later when another hipster came in and opened up his MacBook.

Gah.

I got up and moved as far away from him as possible, but somehow my laptop couldnt stay connected for more than 5 minutes this time. It was then I realized any public wifi access became unreliable when a Mac is in the area. Essentially, my connection is dropped at the router for sdome reason.

This sucks. Primarily because you cant swing a taco in San Francisco without hitting someone using a Mac.

Why this is I dont know, although the fault seems to lie primarily in the wireless apps linux uses. Still, it seems that there issomething with the Macs that is poisoning the air...

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Ive actually pissed people off stating that I am done using Macs and OSX.

The realization actually came to me at the last job, when I traced my frustration level in trying to get things done was directly proportional to the proprietory nature of Mac OSX. Ironically, the Mac OS is built upon open source software and yet is a very closed system. That brought back the nightmares of having to do things the Microsoft Way and one of the reasons why I got burned out on IT.

Even more ironically, to get anything useful done beyond the glossy interface, you HAVE to know Unix quite well.

Well shit, if I have to know Unix - why am I then ferking with OSX?

This is why Im starting fresh with Linux. It isnt a process for the faint hearted as it requires a willingness to go to the command line and get friendly with arcane commands. Im using Ubuntu because the package is fairly user friendly, but only goes so far.

Same thing with Apple's OSX, but they hide it well.

Unfortunately, it is showing again.

Now I need to find an allergy fix.
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And just when I started thinking I was being overly paranoid.. the guy with the mac logged off and walked out.

Lo, the connection is crispy again. Im surfing normally.

Definitely not a coincidence.

3 comments:

mcclint said...

Sometimes one must surround himself with darkness before he can see the light.

Don't worry, you will see the light soon enough.
:)

Joe Pennant said...

Heh, the entry fee for the cult is just too high.

Unknown said...

on the plus side, my laptop wouldn't do that to you. I'm a windows user.
I know windows sucks, but it takes less work than linux does for me.