Computing Happiness

The first computer I met was in my school's computer lab. It was the only room in our school that was air conditioned and we were not allowed to wear our shoes inside the lab for whatever reason. To be honest, I am unable to recall my exact feeling when we were introduced to the black & white command prompt and taught to write our first program in LOGO. But I do remember feeling excited to be in the room because the lab was off limits until we were in class 4 or something. It was quiet and we were allowed to talk only in hushed tones. For me, the air conditioning was probably a bigger draw than the computers themselves.

Starting there, these have been the highlights of my life with computers. Or rather, these are the things that I remember with fondness (Some of the timeline is probably not in order)

Prince of Persia

MS Paint

Netscape Navigator

Having a computer at home with internet

Microsoft Encarta, Lode Runner, Road Rash

Eliza

Porn

Kazaa

Lot of Freeware, Shareware, Abandonware

Windows ME

Windows XP

Piracy - VCD/DVD, MP3, Video games (Hitman, Commandos, Mortal Kombat)

Yahoo! messenger

Yahoo! mail

SUSE, Mandriva, Fedora

Compiz

Broadband

DivX, VLC

Orkut

Wikipedia, Blogs

Torrents

Hackintosh (OSX Tiger)

A list apart

HTML, CSS, JS, jQuery

Hacker news, Reddit

WhatsApp

Raspberry Pi

Macbook Air 2014

After 2014, the trail kind of runs cold and I cannot think of much. I don't know if it is the consumerisation of tech, but I stopped getting excited about the newest thing on the block. Until last week, when I got issued an M1 Macbook Air at work. It has been a joy to work with so far and I think it is worthy of going on my highlight reel after a long time. Everything feels snappy. I also realised there are a few apps I use all the time and rely on. I feel grateful for these apps. Some of these apps are quite old so I don't know if that is just me or the way software is built today.

Sublime Text

Sublime Merge

Postico

Jumpcut

Licecap

Keynote

I feel reluctant to include a few other apps that I like and use like Raycast, Noteplan and Arc browser (beta) because they do a lot and don't feel focussed. I should probably write a separate post about my experience using Arc because it is very interesting. I mean to try OnePassword and Fantastical sometime but I am a cheapskate and continue using Bitwarden and Apple calendar which serve the purpose for now. One more thing in my wish list is the Happy Hacking Keyboard.

I hope to add more to this list. I like the stability and curated features of these apps. The scroll performance on Sublime Text feels buttery smooth. I also got gifted an iPhone 11 by my lovely wife. Coming from a second hand iPhone 7, I really appreciate the longer battery life and ability to manage two phone numbers at the same time. I was hesitant to get a new phone but I am quite enjoying this. I just wanted to record this small moment in life where I have access to more computing power than ever before in my life. And it feels good.