In the spring I did something that I haven’t done before. I bought an Apple computer. It is an iMac (the smaller one) and I confess I find it to be exactly what I hoped it would be. Beautiful, elegant, unobtrusive, simple.

A surprising amount of thinking and research went into that decision. Or rather, a lot of research went in to helping someone else arrive at the best possible decision for his next computer. And having convinced him that the right choice was an iMac, I found I had very little counter-argument when it came to purchasing a new home desktop machine.

My father-in-law turned 80 in April. For more than a year he had been struggling with a home computer that seemed to soak up all of his time, and my time whenever I visited, reclaiming lost files and resolving issues. In short, he was no longer having fun. Of course some people find their fun in constantly tinkering with the innards of their operating system. He is not that sort of person. He had attempted to upgrade a perfectly serviceable XP machine to Vista. That was a mistake. Despite adding extra RAM he was left with an extremely sluggish machine and a mess of documents, pictures and other files shifted to places he knew not where. His computer was now taking up increasing amounts of his time and he was becoming less and less productive. It was time for a change.

He decided that he would buy himself an 80th birthday present – a new computer that would liberate him from the morass his computing had fallen into. He began by exploring new Windows 7 machines and was, for a time, enchanted by the idea of a touch-screen HP desktop. However, before making a purchase he decided to ask my advice (which, regrettably, he had not done prior to his XP to Vista disaster). And so I set about exploring the options.

I decided to concentrate upon his computing experience. What did he most dislike? What did he most enjoy? One of the things he appreciates is elegant, functional design. A well-engineered machine can be in itself a beautiful object. Like a high-end BMW or Audi, a good computer (and operating system) should get out of the way of the experiences you hope to have using it. His computing needs, in effect, were simple: email, some Internet surfing, word processing, a handy collection of photos of his family, one or two solitary games, and possibly some VOIP (probably Skype) to keep in touch with distant family. There are lots of machines that could meet these computing needs. But what would transform his experience? What would, for him, make computing fun again?

I recommended the 21-inch Apple iMac.

He had not even considered a mac until then. He had successfully taught himself to use Windows computers from 3.1 to Vista and didn’t immediately see that he could step away from that paradigm at this point without a huge change cost. When he went to see his local Apple dealer, however, he fell in love with the iMac almost immediately.

And he has been delighted with it ever since.

Somewhat to my surprise I discovered that in convincing him that the iMac was right for his needs I also convinced myself that it was right for me. And I too have been delighted with it ever since we got it. So much so that it seems like it has always been here. Or maybe it is that, because it doesn’t require constant attention, I forget about the device and have simply got on with having fun again. And that seems like a good page to have turned.

Last night I witnessed David Lang’s elevated at our local new music festival. The composer spoke to the audience prior to the performance. He is a professor at Yale University and speaks with passion and authority about his musical explorations, his willingness to take risks, his desire to be emotionally expressive but not to constrain a listener’s emotional terrain. The performance itself revealed more. Along with the theoretical understanding of composition and the emotional commitment in each project, there is also the craft. There could be little doubt that David Lang is in full command of his craft. An honour to hear his music and his own thoughts about his music.

I admire master crafstmen, men and women who toil long in acquiring the skills they bring to bear in the accomplishment of some act. Amongst writers I find the mastery of the craft is almost as admirable as the product itself. For example, I find Ian McEwan’s novels to be troubling but his evident control over each sentence, each phrase, each word choice is exhilarating. Craft. I see it to varying degrees in all of the writers I appreciate. My recent finds include Michael Chabon, Richard B. Wright, Guy Vanderhaeghe, and Francine Prose. Learning the craft of writing, developing the skills, the habits, the understanding – this is my task.

I feel a change coming on. It is an odd sensation, or possibly just an odd expression. It’s not as though I have a trick knee that reacts to sudden shifts in barometric pressure. The change I have in mind has nothing to do with the weather. Nevertheless I’ve been having the impression for some time now that a change is coming.

It is more like a hunch than a direct sensation, something that has me looking at things out of the corner of my eye and wondering whether this is it. It generally isn’t. But it is hard to shake this feeling. I feel like I need to be ready for something, ready to react quickly or possibly to be the initiator, given the right conditions. I must be coming to a tipping point, something that will send me off in a new direction. I’m not there yet, but I appear to be readying myself, getting set to spring. What will trigger it? I don’t know. I just feel a change coming on.

Typically, in the face of uncertainty, I make lists. The transition to a new calendar year promotes this habit. I tend to look back at the year just passed and make a fresh assessment of its actions and events as a prelude to setting goals for the year ahead. That list of course, my list of goals for a year, is always an open-ended document. On the 2009 edition I note a few additions. One of those has to do with reacquainting myself with the classical piano repertoire; this because for the first time in more than 25 years I have a piano at my disposal. It is no small challenge for me to (re-)establish the habit of practising: the hours spent on technique just to get my fingers in to shape; the embarrassing forays into pieces I used to play all those years ago; the need for more realistic goals and scheduling and a more modest initial set of pieces to work on. And every time I touch the keys I hear both the echoes of my youth and the more mature re-sounding which informs me that I can now choose my new relationship with the keyboard, I am not bound by what I did or didn’t do years ago.

I am not bound by what I did or didn’t do years ago. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that realisation has sparked this feeling of a change coming on. Maybe it is part of the realisation that the conditions for change are in my hands now. I can choose my own direction. I’m ready for it.

I feel a change coming on. A change for the better.

Why do I have 20 GB of Ogg Vorbis files on my computer? Or perhaps the question is, why to I still have 20 GB of Ogg Vorbis files on my computer?

Ogg Vorbis is an audio compression format. Think MP3, but then think open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free. Oh, and also think quality. Now you are beginning to think about Ogg Vorbis.

I first started using Ogg Vorbis back in 2004. I wanted to purchase a personal music player for my wife for our anniversary. I was concerned about using a proprietary format such as MP3. Largely this was because I was working for OSS Watch at the time. I was learning so much about free and open source software and open standards that I wanted to put some of what I learned into practice in my personal life. Since Ogg Vorbis was the leader amongst the efforts to provide a high-quality non-proprietary codec I went with it. I was also delighted to find that iRiver, at least back in those days, had a substantial player, the iRiver H140, that supported Ogg Vorbis natively. Anniversary gift solved!

One thing leads to another and three years later I find myself with more than 20GB of Ogg Vorbis files on our main desktop computer at home. If I tell you that I generated all of these from cds we own, you will get some idea of the size of our cd collection. Music is important in our lives – all forms of music: folk, rock, jazz, classical, opera, instrumental and more. As soon as we buy a new cd, I rip and encode it as Ogg Vorbis files, for backup and for use on our various players.

For myself, I’m happy with a 1GB player on which I store a selection of my favourites suitable for running or for sitting on a bus. My wife does the same thing for running, but on the bus she likes to have everything available to her: absolutely everything. Hence the value of the 40GB iRiver player she has been using. I should say also that we have always been happy with the quality of the music we get out of our personal music devices. So no complaints there.

So, everything should be fine. Why then am I wondering about that decision I made a number of years ago?

Two things. First, I need to replace that iRiver player. Alas the hardware was not as reliable as the software. And there is no doubt that the cool gadgets for music these days are Apple’s iPods. Players, even the hard disc ones, have got much smaller and sleeker. I would like to get something cool for my wife. Second, I no longer work for OSS Watch. So I don’t have the same impedus, perhaps, to support so-called marginal codecs even if they are non-proprietary. Or do I?

I know that I could just buy an iPod and install Rockbox on it in order to play Ogg Vorbis files. But I just can’t convince myself that buying a new iPod and then immediately wiping its operating system is a clever move.

So what should I do? Should I abandon what I started some years ago and switch to the better supported MP3 format? Or another way of putting that: is there still a reason for me to be using Ogg Vorbis (now that I no longer work for OSS Watch)?

It’s that last question that has me thinking. In essence it amounts to a question about what the significance is of free and and open source software and open standards in an ordinary person’s life. By ordinary person, I just mean someone who isn’t directly connected to the business of free and open source software or open standards (of course those people are also ordinary folk, it’s just that they have special interests/reasons in this area). Is there a reason to choose an open standard or open source, even if it entails a bit of extra bother (like not being able to use the latest cool gadget, or needing to search around a bit to find compatible hardware, etc.)?

I think there is.

It is a question of principle and conviction, a question of deciding who you are and why. Curiously it is not a question of technology, except to the extent to which I want to be in charge of my technological choices rather than have the market decide for me.

Note that this is not the hypothetical question I often ask people. I usually ask, if two software products equally met technical and user requirements but one was proprietary and the other was open source, which would you choose? That question is about whether there are aspects of open source that might be decisive in an otherwise technologically neutral choice situation. The question above, however, is about whether even in a non-neutral situation, it might be rational to choose the open source or open standard option.

I think this is the point where, as we used to say when I was younger, the personal becomes political. My personal choices are political.

And that too has me thinking. Thinking about what kind of a political being I have become and where this will lead. But I also think this is a question I am going to be returning to again and again over the next few years. It seems to me that there is a good reason to use open source software or open non-proprietary standards even if that choice, in some cases, means I get marginalised.