Sunday, May 31, 2009

Today I am a Mac.

In the past, my choice of PC vs. Mac was always dictated by external circumstances. In high school and college in the mid 80s we always used the splendid Apples, but later on both my former and current husband (husbands? the total is two) used PCs, so I made the switch. I never even had a computer of my own until after the turn of the century, and by then I was so entrenched in the ways of the PC that there wasn’t any question which way I would go. But now my current PC is acting even more depressed than I am (which is saying a lot!) and the decision has been looming as to what sort of computer is next for me.

We don’t have much in the way of disposable income (Disposable? As if we would just throw it away to make more room for our impressive vintage junk mail collection, circa 2007-2009), but my husband splurged on our anniversary last September and got iPhones for both of us. I could now have web access everywhere I went, at much greater speed than at work or at home, where we still only had molassesque dial-up. And the applications! I know the commercials can be grating to some, but for so many things, there *is* an app for that!

I've been stuck at home for most of the last four days with cold symptoms, fever, and nausea, which seems to me to be a case of the flu. According to the CDC website, eighty percent of current flu cases in the United States are due to the Novel H1N1 virus, popularly known as Swine Flu. (Pause so you can formulate your swine flu joke...and...resume.) So, with the season over for most of my favorite shows, what could I do with all that time and very little energy? Mess around with my iPhone apps!! In particular, I spent many a fine hour in my feverish state exploring the mysteries of an app called "Fish Tycoon," in which one breeds different species of fish together to get a non-sterile hybrid which often looks nothing like either parent, and sells them in a fish store to make money for more fish-rearing supplies, in search of the Seven Magic Fish of Isola. Normally, I would have a problem with the lack of consistency with scientific facts but, what the hell, it's just a game. And a very engaging one at that. By the time I figured out how to keep all my baby fish alive, had stumbled across 3 of the Magic Fish, discovered the game's logic in determining the appearance of the offspring, and began charting the details, my husband was flabbergasted by the amount of mental energy I would put into a silly game. But I was on the cusp of a revelation: I could do that! I could make interesting apps that people would pay 99 cents to $2.99 for!

Or at least I think I can. I studied the Basic, FORTRAN, and Pascal computer languages on the way to my B.S. in biology, and I was damn good. I was the only person I knew who actually *enjoyed* debugging code. I was so far ahead of the game, that at Christmastime in 1981 I pissed off whoever was in charge of e-mail (or whatever we called it back then) so badly that I almost got kicked off the Internet before it was even invented! (Okay it wasn't very technically difficult, but here's a tip: If you ever construct an elaborate message consisting mostly of asterisks to form a Christmas tree, with capital Os as ornaments, and other characters as needed, and get the opportunity to send it to "All Users"...just Don't.) My other studies pulled me away, but I could have been in on a very lucrative profession, practically at the ground floor!

Now all I have to do is this: A) learn the programming language called Objective-C. I went out and bought four books on the subject. (Don’t worry--I washed my hands, didn’t touch my face, and didn’t sneeze on anybody in the book store.) B) Join the iPhone app developers’ site. (Where did I put the Kleenex?) C) Write some damn fine code. (Is it getting hot in here?) Oh yeah, and: D) Come up with 2 or 3 thousand of the monetary units acceptable at the Apple store to get a machine compatible with all the requisite software for developing applications for the iPhone. (I think I should go take my temperature and lie down.) Not necessarily in that order.

Today, I am a Mac. Let’s see what I am after the fever breaks.