Versus 
You what?
Ever since I was knee-high to a grass hopper I have been exposed to and playing around with computers. I had a Sinclair ZX81 computer when I was 14, and pretty soon after they became a must have for the discerning business man we had a PC in the home. My school back in Dublin was the first school in Ireland to have computers for the students to study (very large occupying one whole room for one computer with 10K memory). So I kind of got into it at an early stage. As we had an 80X86 based platform we were running windows, and although one of my friends at school was constantly singing the praises of Apple Computers, I remained true to the Microsoft tradition from then until now.
UNTIL NOW being the operative term. You know I have used Microsoft PC's for over ten years now in my home. I work on Unix servers at HP, but anything on a PC platform at work is also Microsoft based. And I have become increasingly frustrated with their lack of stability, and total lack o f security. Also the built in ability to relieve you of your hard earned cash (paying for hardware upgrades so you can move to the latest release of the software, or hefty licence charges for software which effectively poses no overhead per unit to the manufacturer as it has already been well developed)
So, getting to the point, in the middle of 2005 I went out and bought myself a second hand iMac G4 Flat Panel. Not only is this one of the most aesthetically beautiful creations I have ever had the pleasure of owning, but it also introduced me to a whole new world of computing for which I am sure I will be forever indebted. The MAC OS X operating system totally wipes the floor with Windows (in my opinion). Not only is it far more stable, its appearance is totaly unique, they make all the right choices in the right areas, it is so easy to do anything with it.... and there is a wealth of information on the net on how to use it.
It's the operating system of choice for the Media industry.... does that not speak volumes in itself?
So what am I exactly trying to say?
What I'm trying to say is this. For ten years I let myself be tied to the windows operating system, and it's dependant hardware platforms because I thought that I had invested so much into it, that it was too late to escape. BUT when I got to thinking about it I relaised that in fact I would probably save money by getting out of it. And I have!
So the discenters amongst you will say, "But what about all those microsoft word documents that are sent around on e-mail? I can't open them on a MAC!", and I say WRONG! With a copy of Open Office, which is a totally free open source software package you can open word, excel, powerpoint, and access data. You can even create data in those formats to send to your friends still running the Dinosaur that is Microsoft Office. And they are paying hundreds of pounds every few years to get the latest version! Microsoft is a self-fulfilling money making prophecy. They guarantee their income by creating upgrades you do not need and then charge you the world for it.
My advice: "Move Over To MAC!".
I hope this doesn't sound too bitter. It's not meant to. I am sure that all the programmers at Microsoft are lovely people. But I am just trying to advise you on a move which will improve your life.
Fact: MAC's first virus was discovered last week and all it does is self-copy. Nothing malicous at all
Fact: Last weekend I bought three, yes that's THREE new MACs for my house. One for every room. Not only do they perform excellently. But they also look great too!
Fact: The images section of this site is being serverd from a MAC in my house. Using the free inbuilt Apache web server. Try doing that for less that £200 on a Microsoft system.
