Tough Love

Hi. My name is Adel Gabot, and I’ll be one of the people behind The After Mac.

I know. My first name sounds sooo like a girl’s, but I’m not. I’ve gotten my fair share of gender-based misunderstandings, but none too serious, save for one time I was booked with a girl to share a hotel room for a junket; I didn’t really mind but she did. Can’t win ‘em all.

Anyway. I just want to introduce myself so you know who’s writing the opinionated drivel in this blog. I’m 43 years old, and I’m based in Manila, The Philippines. My day job is Group Editor for a magazine company, and I’m a sometime journalist, fictionist and broadcaster. I handle and supervise six titles at the moment, three of them tech, including the Philippine editions of PC Magazine (!) and Electronic Gaming Monthly.

I’m also full-time editor-in-chief of a magazine called mPH, which stands for Mobile Philippines. mPH features mobile technology and the lifestyle that goes with it; that means laptops, cellphones, PDAs and other gadgets you can slip into a bag or your pocket. It’s a fun mag, and I have enormous fun editing it.

As far as Macs and Apple products are concerned, my age notwithstanding, I’m what you could call an old fogey. I started with an Apple ][ back in the day, and went my way through the various models and the first Macs. I even own a working Newton Messagepad. As of the moment I use a desktop G4 at home and a 12” Aluminum Powerbook G4 on the road, and lug around, predictably, an iPod.

I am one of the people behind the largest Mac User Group in the Philippines – PhilMUG. I’ve been with them since it was a small mailing list, and it now plays a major role in the Mac scene where I am. I just completed a two-year term as Chairman, and am Content Administrator for the online forum for the time being.

I’m a Mac evangelist wherever I go, but despite my fanaticism and residency in the Mac loony bin, I am still (oddly) cognizant of the shortcomings of our friends from One Infinite Loop. I love Macs, but I am aware there are a few things (precious few, but they’re still there) that other platforms are better at. After all this time with Apples and Macs, I have learned to step back and take a good look at what’s coming out from there and have some objectivity. I drink the kool-aid, but in moderation. I get as giddy as the next Machead over Keynote Addresses, but I still have the ability to slip out of the reality distortion field long enough to look at all things Mac with a critical eye. Sort of a tough love thing.

Which is part of the raison d’etre for this blog. Aside from covering, praising, reviewing, commenting, slobbering, sniping and poking fun at Macs and the Apple scene, we’d also like to have a sober, reasonable and sane attitude toward the platform we all love. Which means we’ll call spades spades here. The occasional voice of conscience, if you will. But more than anything, this blog will cover what has always been insanely great. Or insanely not.

That said, let’s have fun.

Welcome to The After Mac!