Happy 25th birthday, Windows. I just had a birthday too, I'm 34 now. DOS & Windows have been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. We've had a good run, but I'm moving on. I just sprung for a quad core 27" iMac and I'm as excited about getting it as can be.

When I was younger I really loved getting my hands dirty, building my own systems, getting under the hood of the OS, tweaking it, customizing it, learning its quirks and weaknesses and how to make it run smoothly. The flexibility of Windows and the control it allowed me was a huge part of its draw. Along with it being the most popular platform - where the action was happening.

But things have changed. The most popular platform is the web and the OS matters less now. And I've personally changed. My number one issue in my life these days is that I don't have enough time to do the things I want. And every time Windows wastes my time, or is unhelpful or counter-intuitive, I resent it and that resentment has finally boiled over. While I have issues with their lack of openness, my iPad and iPhone nearly always feel like they're on my side - they want to help me do what I want.

Here are some things I'm looking forward to:

• Being on Unix. Basically every other machine I interact with on a regular basis is running some flavor of Unix. Going back to DOS and not having all the usual tools available has become intolerable. Write a batch file? Ugh, go die.
• Worrying less about security. As on the ball and cautious as I generally am, even with better browser and OS security and multiple scanning apps, it's still impossible to avoid getting spyware. That of course sucks for performance and security issues but it's also just a huge waste of time.
• Easier backups. I'm excited about Time Machine. My backup situation right now works but is crazy and scattered.
• Higher quality applications. In my research looking around to see if there was any software I'd truly miss from Windows, nearly everything appeared to have a superior OSX counterpart. 
• All my iStuff working better. iTunes on Windows is a slow piece of shit. MediaMonkey is nice (but ugly) and syncing breaks regularly. My iPad and iPhone would rather deal with OSX, I'm sure.

We'll see though - after so long with DOS and Windows the transition will certainly be weird, but I'm looking forward to it.