Weve seen the secret revolution coming for miles. Weve noticed countless numbers of our peers wearing white earpieces on the South Oval. Weve spotted large mysterious gray boxes quietly whizzing along in our classes. Stranger still, weve caught glimpses of lustrous fruit glowing erotically in the dark corners of even darker rooms. What is this hidden menace that is slowly edging its way into our consciousness? Who is the phantom forcing a round peg into a square hole?

In a world where Microsoft is the reigning Czar of the personal computing industry, Apple continues to be David fighting Goliath in a battle for supremacy. PCs have been losing a few inches lately, but that is certainly a somewhat recent development. Remember Apple in the early-to-middle nineties? Neither do I. It seems that after my elementary schools computer lab, they simply stopped existing until the iMac was announced. The iMac was the biggest thing for Apple since Oregon Trail. Now it seems you cant escape that adorable little fruit logo no matter where you turn.

I was in a car headed to Crested Butte over winter break, and four of the six people in the car owned an iPod! You cant walk from the Union to the Bursars Office without seeing at least one of these trendy Mp3 players. Now, in accordance with Apples manifesto, you can even buy different flavors of iPod. Theres the original, the colorful iPod mini, and the microscopic iPod shuffle, which weighs less than an ounce!

It seems that within even the last two years, Apple has gone from shameful to chic. When someone opens up a glistening Powerbook on campus, PC laptop users scoff and murmur some condescending jargon that sounds, to laypeople, like Flayvennnn, snicker-snicker software availability hwerrr Counterstrike and then slouch in their chairs to try and disassociate themselves with their clunky air-blasting behemoths.

PC users need to attempt to regard Mac users as equals, not as subservient inferiors. However, each side of this tug-of-war has different strengths and weaknesses, to be sure. Windows and Linux-based computers traditionally seem more effective for business, programming, and other number-crunching fields, while Macintosh computers are the industry standard for desktop publishing, graphic design, audio production, and video editing.

The computer labs on campus also seem to be slowly shifting towards Apple computers. They are, perhaps unjustly, stocking the labs with nearly top-of-the-line G5 Power Macs complete with beautiful Cinema Displays, while the aging PCs on the other side of the room seem to be rotting away. As a field commander in the battle for Apple supremacy, this doesnt bother me. But I actually can empathize with this frustration of feeling lower on the computing totem, because I was one of the suckers who stuck with Apple during the dismal nineties. I understand how it feels to be taunted and ridiculed.

Obviously, I dont predict this level of abysmal hopelessness anywhere in the near future of PCs. Theyre not going anywhere. I would rather see stuffy Windows users be humbled into admitting that both systems have worth.

The fact is that Apples are powerful and easy to use. You cant deny it. I hope Ive opened your eyes to a world of acceptance, a world of peace between brothers and a world of true nerdliness.

Jarrod Higgins is a journalism sophomore. The giant poster of Steve Jobs over his bed is the last thing he sees before falling asleep every night.
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