ooo I knew this would eventually come around again if CFB came back.
(He probably knew I would come out of the woodwork as well!
).
This seems to be one of his HAIRBALLS:
people with Mac's who dont have anything loaded and are pretty sure they're still quite safe have a very bad surprise coming to them, sooner or later.
Sigh. Yes, my computer MIGHT get struck by lightning. But so what? It's only a computer.
I
might get a virus, but I have never had one and I won't get one tomorrow.
In the meantime, your PC will be reduced to a doorstop if you let your guard down and get off the computer-defense treadmill.
I have spent ZERO extra time and money on the issue, while you have spent lots...
Calculate every minute of your life that you have devoted to anti-viruses and firewalls and spyware and blue screens and so on and tally it up. What's your hourly rate? I will bet the farm that I could buy myself the top-of-the-line Mac Pro and their biggest cinema display with what you've 'invested' in wasted time in your PCs and still have money to burn.
I am thrilled beyond words to have had 20+ years of working with Macs. They have all performed excellently; the older ones would go out to pasture as print servers and are still going strong. One or two bum hard drives after years + years of hard daily use of multiple macs.. so what?
Macs just work*. I don't care if it's a "run" that might end. I'm Enjoying the Here and Now!!!
If you don't need a specialized program for work and you're not addicted to some particular game, you will avoid infinite headaches by just getting a Mac and a printer and plugging them in. 'Wa la'! as they say..
*Of course on a piece-by-piece basis there could be lemon machines, but I'm talking about the underlying concept and design that makes them people-centric and not making people run around like chickens with their heads cut off with not-ready-for-primetime software and hideous device-compatibility nightmares.
It's possible the all-in-one form factors have more issues. I prefer the idea of the separate box plus monitor. My almost-2-y.o. Mini is awesome, and so tiny! It's sitting next to my old G4 which is probably 20x the volume and 5x as loud.. and just yesterday I was working in Photoshop CS2, Quark 6.5, InDesign, Acrobat 7 Pro, and MSWord 2004 and Mail and Safari all chugging happily along simultaneously. In 6.5" x 6.5" x 2".
Maybe what bugs CFB is the emotional component.. that people are usually
happy with their Macs. I don't see a lot of people
happy with their PCs.. they use them and tolerate them. There is that emotional component for me, but it's not based on making the hippest, coolest purchase, it's based on actual experience. And as more people start trying Macs, the news will finally start to spread after 20 years of disdain and marginalization. Just look at the number of Mac-recommenders on this thread, compared with a thread I remember a while back here on this same forum-maybe a year or so ago?- where the majority was counseling PCs.. because that's all they knew and were familiar with. "The devil you know..", etc.
For those worrying about Safari.. In my experience I can only remember about two instances of flaky sites (and I do a LOT of surfing).. they're usually sites that are wedded to Microsoft's X-something or other for video or interactive content. F** 'em. One of them was NBC. I can live without NBC. That was over a year ago, and I've had zero surfing problems since then.