Artist Unknown, if it's yours let me know so I can credit you. (A friend had it on their Facebook wall)

When I wrote my Why I am a Mac user post yesterday it was hours before I heard that Steve Jobs had died. Jobs was a visionary and his contribution to the “tech industry” was, in my opinion, unparalleled.

His vision changed my life…

I remember starting college in the early 1980s having never touched a computer. After taking my first computer class I became fascinated with the fact that I could write words that would manipulate a computer. My second semester I changed my major from biology/chemistry to computer science and changed my destiny. While in college I learned to write programs in many different languages and used different computers. My sophomore year I worked in the computer lab and it was in that lab that I first used an Apple computer (the Apple IIe). It was easy to program, but unfortunately after college I didn’t have access to one and my “world” was all PCs.

In the mid-to-late 1990s I worked at Intel with an engineer who had worked at Apple. She didn’t own a PC, but was an Apple user. I was shocked… I mean Apple didn’t use Intel chips… it was “taboo”. I have since learned just how smart she was.

When I started getting into using Photoshop many people said “use a Mac”. All I knew was they were expensive… little did I know that they came with so much and although they can be more money they are worth it. I wish I’d jump to a Mac a long time ago.

When The Offspring’s Windows PC kept dying and was so terribly slow it was time to buy her a new one. Since her school used Macs, we opted to take the plunge.

I don’t plan on ever buying another Windows PC again. I have converted my immediate family, extended family members, friends and would love Ma to join us, too. I need to convince her that there is a way for her to run her Windows greeting card software on a Mac – without losing her in “techno-babble”.

We also dumped our MP3 players and Windows Mobile devices have iPods and I have an iPhone and iPod Touch and plan on buying an iPad when it works on 4G. I wouldn’t own any other mobile device.

All of this because of Jobs’ vision…

Steve, thank you for everything you did for all of us. You changed the world… I’d be lost without your legacy…