It might be a smart decision not to toss this Friday's copy of the Courier into the recycling bin when you’re done with it as there’s a possibility, albeit somewhat remote, that it could be worth a bit of money some day as a special collector’s item as the first edition created entirely using PCs.
Regular readers of K&K will know we occasionally bemoan the state of our steam-powered, Soviet-era computers. It turns out our ownership must have heard our pitiable cries.
There was lots of happy dancing that took place in the newsroom when we recently were told the good news that we would, at long last, be receiving new equipment to work on in order to continue producing the hard-hitting, award-winning news Vancouver residents expect from us.
The bad news, however, would be that said new equipment would not be Macs, the only type of computer most of us have ever used. (The editor is an exception, but who pays attention to editors anyway.)
The job of producing the graphic and editorial part of the majority of newspapers and magazines is, for whatever reason, produced on machines and software fostered by Steve Jobs rather than those birthed by Bill Gates/Michael Dell etc. We’re not sure why the decision was made to suddenly change to a Windows environment, but we’re told it has something to do with server architecture, OS file management, rack mounted drive bays, the time of year, climate change, and the use of a dart board. IT departments, not unlike the Lord, move in mysterious ways.
We don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth but it is hard not to be reminded of the classic Canadian short story The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier. If you haven’t read it or somehow missed the NFB animated short the CBC runs on heavy late-night rotation, it recalls Carrier’s traumatic childhood experience when, growing up in rural Quebec, he was given a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey to replace his worn-out beloved Habs sweater modelled on star player Maurice Richard’s that his mother cruelly refused to exchange. He promptly found himself a social outcast and the story ended with his praying to God to send a million moths to eat the despised blue and white sweater.
We’re more optimistic and feel confident that, once we figure out the many minor differences between the various programs we depend on, we will come to love the ways of Windows.
If nothing else, we’ve always been irritated by those Mac vs. PC ads that implied the PC guy, played by awesome Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, is a loser compared to the Mac guy, who is best known for being in a terrible Die Hard movie.
Plus we assume having more than one mouse button must somehow be better, just like extra blades are for shaving.
