Day: 19 June 2005

Macs, Macs, Everywhere

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As I sit on the plane (Airbus A320 if you cared) I have out my lovely 12″ Powerbook. As I look up I see the guy diagonally in front of me with the same Powerbook. A guy 2 rows in front of him also has a 12″ Powerbook. While I was waiting to bard the flight I spent some time on the free wifi (as I mention in another post) and as I sat there I sat next to two other people with 12″ Powerbooks. Then there was the guy nearby with the 15″ Powerbook. Oh and the guy by the window also has a 15″ but he isn’t using it today.

As it turns out a bunch of us were going to the same networking conference. Does it say something that a bunch of guys who know technology would all be using Mac’s when they account for less than 5% of all computers? I sure think so. Yet again I am on a Mac kick recently. I will not (unless it is too late) be “one of those guys” that says Macs or anything else is better for that matter, just because I like it. I am also inching towards Linux on my desktop. I believe every OS has its place. OS X’s place is on my main machine right now. On my dad’s and my sisters computers it is (and will be for the foreseeable future) is Windows XP. That also says something, to me at least!

Civilized Travel

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I don’t want to jinx my trip (i am currently in the air) but so far Jet Blue knows how to make air travel civilized. They had automated check in Kiosks. That isn’t new. Plenty of airlines have them. What was nice is that they have a ton of people around while you use them. Twice while I was at the machine I saw someone who could help me if I needed it. As I waited to hand in my checked luggage I saw 2 others who answered some quick questions for me. Total time at check in (including the line for handing my luggage) maybe 10 minutes. And I d mean maybe that long. Security was quick, but since I was there at 9AM on a sunday even the worst airline would be quick.

I found some breakfast, bought a book, a few magazines and some snacks and then went to the gate. As I read before I got there, they do have FREE WIFI. A big center area with power adapters and everything. I got a quick sync of my email done before I boarded. I also got the latest news feeds onto Netnewswire. It was nice. Like I said civilized. Well thought out. I am sitting here now writing on the powerbook, but I could be watching Superman on A&E, something interesting on SCIFI, MSNBC, or any other of a dozen channels. They did have some issues with the system at take off. A few resets seemed to fix it.

And no, I don’t work for the airline. I am just (finally) happy with an airline that thinks about its customers. This is a far cry from my last Delta experience.