THEY HAD AN ARTICLE IN

they had an article in the new york times comparing the macintosh operating system to the sony beta max: better technology that ends up failing. i for one hope and pray that the macintosh operating system is not about to be destroyed. being a mac lover myself (obviously), i think the mac os is totally getting gypped. in an increasingly computer dependant society, more and more people are going to have to become computer literate, and lets face it, macs are just plain easier to use for beginners than wintel machines.

yes, i realize there are a lot of things that are cooler on wintel machines than on macs: the task bar, the lack of crashes, the over availability of software. but macs also have their good points: no need for drivers for mice or new drives, no having to deal with dos (a definite bonus for newbies who fear esoteric computer jargon), an excellent gui (the original gui), abiltity to handle both mac an wintel disks without hassel (with PC Exchange, which ships with most macs), also you can run windows from a mac if you have to (can’t run mac on a PC, even if you wanted to). Also, there are viruses galore for wintel machines, and i’ve never even heard of a mac virus. imagine being a computer neophyte, and your box gets a bug, and it crashes inexplicably. you spend hours on hold on a help line, hoping to get some answers, and then are told that you need to bring your computer to a specialist. that basically blows your faith in computers right out of the water. you begin to think that computers are frighteningly complex mechanisms that are impossible to understand, and the best way to make them work for you is explore as little as possible. (i’ve generally found that its easier to totally screw up a windows machine than it is a mac.)

this kind of attitude is eventually going to be destructive. it’ll breed a society where there’ll be an informed computer “upper class” and an ignorant computer “lower class”. this will create a dangerous imbalance of power. now, of course i’m not saying that if the mac dies a small group of computer gurus are going to enslave us all with their mechanical minions (as entertaining as that may sound). if the mac dies, maybe pcs will eventually become as user friendly. but why wait? we’ve got macs right here! they’re easy! they’re fun! they increase “computer self esteem”! with macs, more people will brave experimentation, and learn more and more about computers in general as the use their macs more. of course, like all stupid teenagers on tyrades, i don’t have any answers, just complaints. how to make the mac the base of the computer society again is the question here, and its a toughy. the mac has become almost a joke. people look at apple and see a dying company, not worth the money. i know squat about economics, so i’m not trying to help there. mainly, i’m trying to prove to all you wintel mac bashers that macs have value, and you should be supporting them , and telling all your friends who don’t know much about computers to buy macs. you’re not going to destroy microsofts market, not that anyone’s even concerned about that. its just that i’ve noticed that most of the mac bashers who actually have the facts are experienced pc users, not the kind of people that macs were really ever aimed at. they should realize that macs are important to our society, even if they aren’t directly important to them.

if you’re interested in more pro mac stuff (this time with real facts) check out www.macaddict.com. they’ve got the facts, the links, and all the good stuff. check out this part of their site for some more…er…aggresive stuff.