iMac

"Thanks Abah", said my 12-year old son.  He was smiling from ear to ear. Who wouldn't ,after getting  a cool new iMac computer? It took almost a month for this machine to arrive at our house.I ordered it via Odasaja/Pos Malaysia.Many thanks to my friend who recommended me to buy this cool machine using my EPF money. He was of the opinion that I should take out as much money from my  EPF saving account  before someone decided again to use the fund to under-write some rotten shares again! I agreed 101%.

Immediately, my son asked me to set up the computer so that he could have a hotmail email account- to enable him to
send emails to his buddies. He appeared to be backward a bit when compared to his friends  who already have email addresses of their own. Compared to my kampung boys, my son may be light years ahead. When I went home to my
kampung last weeked, only my cousin has a computer with Internet connection.May be I can count with my fingers of the number of computers with Internet connection in the district of Bachok. The urban kids may not have the computers with
Internet in their homes but they can access them at their neighbourhood cybercafes.It appears that the digital divide
between kampung kids and urban kids is as wide as the Grand Canyon!! After a week of using email everyday, my son
asked me to install the irc software so that he can chat online.This worries me a bit; for he will spend hours chit-chating
online. Anyway, I have not found the right  irc software yet;-)

Nowadays,some kids are really lucky. The first time I used a computer was  when I was 21 years old; let alone the
Internet.For the record, I get connected to Internet on 24th July,1995- quite early by Malaysian standard!

A few months back, I heard the government had awarded a few contractors to build 1000 computer centres  for  our
schools.  Thank God for it. It is better late than never. I hope this, in time will narrow the digital divide and more kids
especially from the kampung aand the urban poor will  have access to computers and the Internet. Two months ago,
my son was appointed by his teacher to be the president of his school computer club, but in less than a week his teacher told him that the school decided to cancel the computer club. When I enquired the reason why, he told me that the school has only two out-dated pc's ! The hope and dream  of 75 kids in his computer club to learn about computers and computing were shattered and vanished into thin air. By the way, my son's school is only 3km away from KLCC,the tallest building in the world! What a great shame:-(( I think all of us can guess with 99.999% accuracy about the availability and usage of computers in the  schools in the rural areas.
 
 

This iMac reminds me of my first encounter with Apple 11e in early  80's.Those days, we had only a few applications. I
used it  as my personal computer to compute my engineering stuff and some datebase to monitor my project.When I
was the district engineer of JKR Kedah Utara in 1981, I  bought one Apple 11e for project monitoring. At that time I had
to programme the computer myself, not like nowadays when project management softwares are readily available.

To me, Apple is a creative company but sometimes I found it a bit arrogant. The first palm computer was Newton, but
sadly it failed. Now Palm and Visor are doing a roaring business selling palmtop organisers. When Steve Jobs left the
company, Apple got  lost in the corporate  jungle without its charismatic and visionary  leader. In fact, I wrote an email to Guy
Kawasaki (the Apple evangelist ) that Apple is not Apple anymore without Steve Jobs. In the case of Apple, the
company needed more than well known corporate CEO's- it needs leaders with vision and passion! When Steve Jobs
returned, Apple soared again to new height when its shares rose from $15 to more than $ 45 within two years! As they
used to say,the rest is history...

Personally, I have been using pc(Microsoft version)  for the past 15 years. It is just a tool to do my job,period. Now I almost forgot how to use a mac.  In those years, when I hear the word mac,it means the fast food at McDonald! In 1993, I bought a few macs for my staff to produce  some educational multimedia products   using authorware , but personally,I still stick to my pc. After getting this new iMac,I began to realise  why mac lovers stick to their machines, no matter what happens to Apple. These machines are a beauty in their own right and cool as well.( Now,I know the meaning of cool -;) IMHO, mac machines are designer's product. May be their motto "THINK DIFFERENT"  is the spirit behind their great products!

The next question is what I am going to do with it my new iMac? I think it is a waste having a cool machine to send email and surf the Internet.In fact I do not need a computer to send and receive email-I just use my Palm 111c and my Siemens S35 cellular phone. As a start, I have to unlearn and relearn the new OS and explore its many features.  First, I am going to compile and edit some 150 articles( ths is one of them)  and a few poems I have written over the past four years and use its  desktop publishing software to turn it into a CD and a book by the end of the year 2002 .  Next, thinking aloud and THINKING  DIFFERENT  for a change, I am going to create a multimedia poem where text, image and sound blended into one! Isn't that cool?

To  my youngest son, please hold on to my hand and let's walk together with  iMac.May be we are going to have some surprises and i-magic  along  the way. For all you know, our digital odyssey may take us to some foreign lands beyoung our imagination....