Whatever!!!'s Profile

Further to the above point 22, what evidence do you have that there are no switchers?

OK, but you don't have to YELL!

"And opposing an FM tuner because you just want your iPod to play music makes no sense. What do you suppose is coming over the FM airwaves?" Of course it makes sense. It's about me choosing what music I want to listen to, not what some FM radio playlist maker thinks I want to listen to. I hardly listen to FM radio for that very reason. Now with my iPod, I can listen to practically what I want. "I guess you could be referring to talk radio, but your iPod also plays Podcasts. Unless maybe you don’t think it should do that either." Again, it's about choice. If I want to listen to a podcast, such as a discussion as to whether Einstein's theroy of gravitation is true or not, then I can download it and listen at my convenience. If I listen to talk radio, I have to put up with whatever discussion is going on at the time, and usually it will be crap. I would rather listen to what I am interested in when it is convenient for me.

To quote Beeblebrox "To be honest, I’ve always been a little skeptical of Mac-fanatic reports of their experiences with XP. For some reason, Mac-fanatics seem to go through extreme problems with XP that no one else I know seems to have." I suggest that Beeblebrox read Winn Schwartau's 'Mad as Hell' rant regarding his experiences of Windows. He is clearly not happy with the amount of maintenance he has to do and the downtime he experiences with Windows and has switched to Mac as a result. Winn is certainly not a Mac fanatic, but he is regarded very highly in the IT industry. Therefore his experiences must be taken seriously. I agree that many Mac fanatics exaggerate the problems with Windows, but to say that Windows does not have many problems because (1) 'I don't experience any', and (2) 'I don't know anyone else who does either', is a weak argument. Maybe Beeblebrox knows many Windows users intimately, but there is plenty of anectodal evidence to suggest that many Windows users have issues with Windows' stability. These peoples' experiences may vary considerably, and what is the surpirse in that? Apart from the operating system, we all run very different PC's both from a hardware and software perspective. Furthermore, we all do very different things with our PC's. So when some people complain that their PC does this or that, it just isn't good enough to retort with a 'Well, mine doesn't do that, so you are wong'. In short, it is a logical fallacy to conclude that 'I don't know anyone that has these (ie Windows) problems, therefore they do not exist'. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. For the record, I am both a Windows and Mac user. I prefer Macs. It is my platform of choice. But I agree with sentiments above (from Beeblebrox too) that Windows OK. I use it many hours a day in my work as well as at home. For the tasks that I do at work, Windows is perfectly OK. I have owned my current Mac for only 3 months, prior to which I used PC's exclusively for 7 years. Before that I owned a Mac LCII and used many various Macs owned by others. I don't find that Windows crashes all that often and my Mac has crashed once so far. What do I do to crash Windows? I open too many applications at once, I insert my USB flash drive (which Windows refuses to recognise), or I try to shift between documents too quickly. My wife is good at crashing the PC. She is very impatient and clicks on this and that and when nothing happens, she clicks even more. Sometimes the PC survives, sometimes it does not. What made my Mac crash? I had just installed a new application and tried to open it. Upon opening the whole thing froze completely. I restarted the Mac and then the application worked fine. No crashes since. While Windows does not crash very often at home or at work, I still have to do a lot of 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete's' to close programs. This usually also requires the need for a restart as the PC's performace sometimes suffers after a 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete' is required. Sometimes when shutting down I have to click on 'end now' as some program is preventing the system from shutting down. All these little interupptions are frustrating and waste time and can lead to loss of data. On the Mac I have had to force quit a handful of times, and each time it occurs neatly, with no residual effects (ie no restarting required). Not as much time is wasted, and no data lost. Which would you prefer? I run AVG antivirus free, Adaware personal, and spybot on the PC. I also have Zonealarm (the basic one). I have to spend time updating these on the PC and running scans. I would rather spend my time of an evening doing something else. I have no need for these on the Mac (except for the firewall which is in the OS). Someone high up in Intel was quoted as saying that he had to spend an hour each weekend removing spyware from his daughter's PC. Is that a good use of time? In my opinion, no, but on a PC this maintenance must be done otherwise the whole system will break down. But these are only my experiences. I run basic apps, Word, excel, internet browsers, mail programs. At work I run software specific to my profession, but so what. A PC should be able to handle that. I usually have a couple of apps open at a time (4 at most). Similarly on my Mac. From my perspective I would rather spend time enjoying computing and using it for the taks I want to do, not in system upkeep etc as required on a PC. That is why I prefer to use a Mac. It does not waste my time as much as any PC I have used. From my Internet reading, there are many people who feel this way, and the number appears to be growing. That is my perspective. You all have your own. I also have a perspective on what I think regarding the future of Apple and Microsoft, but that is for another day.