A good friend called me up a couple weeks ago..
Friend:"Hey, remember how I was thinking about buying a new computer"?
Me: "Um, yea."
Friend:"Well, you know, the school year is about to start.." (did I mention that she's a teacher?) "and I figure, why not just go for it now?"
Me:"Um, okay."
Friend:"What do you think about a Mac?"
Me:??? (Thinks of PC vs. Mac commercials)
Hmmmmmm...
Let me preface this to say that I've been a PC fan since nineteen-ninety-something. My aunt bought me my first PC and I was immediately immersed as many people were at that time.
(Note: My dad will of course balk at this as he bought me my first.. okay I guess it was a PC.. Commodore 64 back in Nineteen-Eighty-Something. Remember those? Yeah. Those were fun.. But the real personal computer revolution/revelation.. for me anyway came much later.)
I mean there was the Internet (I had dial up like many others and thought.. Wow! How fast! Yeah right.) There was AOL and stupid games and chat rooms! I actually met my girlfriend at that time via a chat room. (What an effen nightmare!)
Anyways, since that time, I've been a big fan of the PC. Meaning Windows based, open source, crash every 3 minutes, virus infected, adware distressed PC's. I mean yea I used a Mac in college. It was cute. Great for writing papers.. But EVERYONE used a PC right? Well except for those artsey fartsey types.
But lately, I've grown tired of the Gates vs. Jobs thing.. grown tired of playing with the latest and greatest non-Apple devices such as MP3 players that do EVERYTHING an iPod didn't.. only to see the market for such a product dry up like a desert. I mean there are great Window's based PC's and there are gadgets from makers such as Creative and TrekStor that have really made the lives of Windows fans much easier.
But with every hour spent, removing some sort of venereal disease from my computer or fixing some stupid device driver run amok, or frustrated because I couldn't find a cool case for that hot little music player I bought just 6 months ago because although it had a lot goin' for it, it just didn't move the crowd, I grew so frustrated that I gave in.
I bought an Apple product.
Through some sort of miracle of the gods, I managed to get a better than great deal on a 30 gig iPod - Generation 5.5. I ended up paying about 5 dollars a gig for the thing which was too much of a good deal to let slide. I called up Apple and put in my order.
It arrived a few days later from the other coast.
This thing.. I mean it's beautiful. I mean, yea I had seen other people's iPod's of course, but this one was mine. It's so thin and... white.. and.. cute.. Big up's to Big Steve for some intelligent industrial design. He made an every man's/woman's gadget. Easy to use.. I mean the instructions virtually say.. 'Plug it in. Turn it on.' Done. No big headache. 24 hour technical support. Simple. Smooth. Apple.
Okay.. So now I got it. I understood why everyone loved this thing so much. It was like I was through resisting the attractions of the popular girl, just because she was popular. Now I understood why.
So I did a little bit of reading up and here's what I found.
1)Apple computers actually have a much less incidence of picking up virues and malware just because there aren't as many Macs as there are PC's on the market.
2)While a fully loaded Mac may cost more than a Windows (or Linux) computer, there's a lot of bang for your buck. Mac computers come loaded to the hilt.
3)Dispelling the myth, documents produced or created on a PC (i.e. Office documents, adobe acrobat files, music) WILL work on a Mac. (My freind's purchase would include Microsoft Office for Apple.)
4)Apple provides up to 3 years of support (and the advantage of on-site service and the accessibility of an Apple-authorized technician at an Apple store or other locations.
5)In store classes for tutorials.
6)No upgrade nightmares.
7)Macs can even run Windows now!
So after a few minutes of comparison shopping? I told my friend.
"Yea Um. Get the Mac. You won't regret it."
My recommendation:
(Note: My dad will of course balk at this as he bought me my first.. okay I guess it was a PC.. Commodore 64 back in Nineteen-Eighty-Something. Remember those? Yeah. Those were fun.. But the real personal computer revolution/revelation.. for me anyway came much later.)
I mean there was the Internet (I had dial up like many others and thought.. Wow! How fast! Yeah right.) There was AOL and stupid games and chat rooms! I actually met my girlfriend at that time via a chat room. (What an effen nightmare!)
Anyways, since that time, I've been a big fan of the PC. Meaning Windows based, open source, crash every 3 minutes, virus infected, adware distressed PC's. I mean yea I used a Mac in college. It was cute. Great for writing papers.. But EVERYONE used a PC right? Well except for those artsey fartsey types.
But lately, I've grown tired of the Gates vs. Jobs thing.. grown tired of playing with the latest and greatest non-Apple devices such as MP3 players that do EVERYTHING an iPod didn't.. only to see the market for such a product dry up like a desert. I mean there are great Window's based PC's and there are gadgets from makers such as Creative and TrekStor that have really made the lives of Windows fans much easier.
But with every hour spent, removing some sort of venereal disease from my computer or fixing some stupid device driver run amok, or frustrated because I couldn't find a cool case for that hot little music player I bought just 6 months ago because although it had a lot goin' for it, it just didn't move the crowd, I grew so frustrated that I gave in.
I bought an Apple product.
Through some sort of miracle of the gods, I managed to get a better than great deal on a 30 gig iPod - Generation 5.5. I ended up paying about 5 dollars a gig for the thing which was too much of a good deal to let slide. I called up Apple and put in my order.
It arrived a few days later from the other coast.
This thing.. I mean it's beautiful. I mean, yea I had seen other people's iPod's of course, but this one was mine. It's so thin and... white.. and.. cute.. Big up's to Big Steve for some intelligent industrial design. He made an every man's/woman's gadget. Easy to use.. I mean the instructions virtually say.. 'Plug it in. Turn it on.' Done. No big headache. 24 hour technical support. Simple. Smooth. Apple.
Okay.. So now I got it. I understood why everyone loved this thing so much. It was like I was through resisting the attractions of the popular girl, just because she was popular. Now I understood why.
So I did a little bit of reading up and here's what I found.
1)Apple computers actually have a much less incidence of picking up virues and malware just because there aren't as many Macs as there are PC's on the market.
2)While a fully loaded Mac may cost more than a Windows (or Linux) computer, there's a lot of bang for your buck. Mac computers come loaded to the hilt.
3)Dispelling the myth, documents produced or created on a PC (i.e. Office documents, adobe acrobat files, music) WILL work on a Mac. (My freind's purchase would include Microsoft Office for Apple.)
4)Apple provides up to 3 years of support (and the advantage of on-site service and the accessibility of an Apple-authorized technician at an Apple store or other locations.
5)In store classes for tutorials.
6)No upgrade nightmares.
7)Macs can even run Windows now!
So after a few minutes of comparison shopping? I told my friend.
"Yea Um. Get the Mac. You won't regret it."
My recommendation:
Apple Macbook
13.3-inch glossy display
2.0GHz or 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Up to 2GB memory
Up to 200GB hard drive
Apple Remote with Front Row
Built-in iSight camera
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Slot-loading optical drive
Built-in AirPort Extreme
FireWire 400 and two USB 2.0 ports
Gigabit Ethernet
Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html
Now don't get me wrong. I still love Windows PC's and NO I'm not an Apple shill. But judging by Apple sales as of late, PC's will now have a bit more competition to worry about.
Update: For more reasons to give a Mac a look-see, take a look at Steven Leigh's article on
8 Reasons Windows Users Don’t Switch via Applematters - http://www.applematters.com/index.php/section/comments/8-reasons-windows-users-dont-switch/
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