1.5 hours later...

I figured out a workaround for my Yahoo! avatar (to the right, there) image. I think that sometimes programmers, in a well-intentioned effort to help the less-savvy consumer (or blogger, in this case) have a more streamlined experience in techno-communication. Thus, the new blogger templates with "widgets." Call me old-fashioned, and nerdy, but I found the classic HTML templates much easier to use, since I could actually see the code I needed to fix or change. I wasn't great at it, but at least I could figure out the location of the issue.

This question, of course, brings me to an issue in the personal computer war that I have spent much time considering: Macs vs. PCs for people-friendly interfaces. Here's the thing: PCs represent (or used to, anyway) a sort of technology designed around the geeks of the world: those users that were versed in regedit and dos (do you remember Tandy's first "desktop" program?! So. Cool. I spent hours playing with those settings.../sigh. The old days) or at least those users adventurous enough to just dive in and figure it out. Macs, on the other hand, were specialized, right from the beginning. I remember when "Apples for Education" was all the rage and the cute rainbow symbol was a marketing tool for less expensive, less powerful, less geek-cool Apple computer. Now, that same Apple logo is translucent, or white, a representation of the graphic friendly, architecturally clean Mac.

The PC is powerful, cheap(er), ubiquitous, and generally easier to "figure out" for even mildly competent users. For instance, if I want to make sure that a program has been completely cleaned from my system, I can easily access the registry and search for log files to delete, etc.

The Mac, also powerful, costs a whole lot more, and I have yet to figure out how to fix my darn machine if anything goes wrong. Interestingly, however, I've had my laptop since 2003, and it has NEVER crashed. Ever. Not a blip. I have had problems, however, on a more hardware level. First, the ultra-cool battery adapter that came with the system had an overly thin cord that wore through in less than a year, since I had to wrap it to keep it in my laptop case. On the Apple website, a new one cost nearly $100. On Mac Mall, I got an off-brand for under $40. It's still working. Second, my screen is doing this weird thing, as if the inner wires are not connecting properly unless I set it exactly perfectly. Thank goodness for PeachMac.

But it's so pretty... and I will insist that the Expose feature, along with amazing overall stability and incredible graphic/video capability (and the pretty), make the Mac a special kind of machine. I just hate that I can't fix it myself if I wanted to.

It's kind of like owning a Volkswagen. Oh, wait...



I guess I'm a sucker for pretty.

Have a Happy New Year's Eve!