Dearest Dave,

How can you say my "arguments against Windoze are dated?" What percentage of Windoze users do you think are using XP? Still pretty small, isn’t it? How many are still using 95 or 98, and how many do you think are still using that REAL POS Windoze ME?

How many businesses still either have full time PC support people or outsource someone to come in at least once a week? It’s just a given! I work for a small manufacturing company, only about 30 PC's, we have a guy that comes in EVERY FRICKIN WEDNESDAY... we have to, to keep them running. So how can my comments be "outdated" if this is still the standard???
At the same time, we also have 14 Macs, and we've had a guy come in ONCE, and I've brought a machine in to be serviced TWICE... in SIX YEARS.

Your comments about OS9 are WAY off. I run Mac OS9, I've been running it for years. It works great, it's stable, it's definitely NOT a “POS”. I've got two servers that are run 24/7 and have been restarted maybe twice in three years.

As for OSX, yeah, I'm not using OSX yet because Adobe hasn't released an OSX native Photoshop yet. Who cares? I'm perfectly happy with OS9. The only reason I’m really looking forward to the new Photoshop is the new tools... I could care less what OS it runs on. When I have used OSX, though, was NOT slow... to the contrary. Applications run under the OS9 shell seemed to run the same speed as they did under straight OS9... have you actually TRIED this, and timed it, or are you just listening to other people’s comments? And, I'm not talking the newest, fastest machines... I'm talking earlier G4's, so they're about 2 year old machines.

Macs DO have their place, and it's the same place that PC's belong... Doing everyday work, but doing it better. Yeah, there are some of us that ARE obsessed with correct color, correct font sizes, perfect print jobs. We have to be, it's our JOB. When I'm printing 120,000 snowboard catalogs, I want them to be perfect, and I want to get them done fast.
Don't get me wrong, if I wanted to run lab equipment and do D/A conversions and gather data, I'd run a PC... there's just way more support for that sort of thing available. But I don't do that. I make graphics, I make printed catalogs, web sites, I edit videos, and I do all the normal stuff, like email, spreadsheets, database, web surfing, etc.

You may be able to get a bare-bones PC (box, power supply, board) for what, $400? Give me that $400 and let me buy a bare-bones (used) Mac, and then let us buy all the same components, because all the hard drives, CDR’ s, RAM chips, PCI and AGP cards are exactly the f$$king same now, be it Mac or PC... and then let’s go head to head and see if you “run that Mac into the ground” In the end, I’ll be the one doing Freehand, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc., plus burning CD’s, editing videos (what percentage of PC’s have built-in FireWire, and BTW, who invented it?) does your PC come with iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, etc? And I bet I can install and set it up quicker, produce it quicker, make it look better, and have the system crash less than my PC counterpart.

So in the end, the real differences are:
1. How much you pay for the bare-bones machine.
2. How well the OS and software run, and how easy it is to install and maintain.
3. What can you do with the machine, and how productive can you be? ie. How easy is it to use, learn, and how much is it down?

By the way, the top-of-the-line Mac machines don't beat the top PC's "only in specially-scripted Photoshop filters"... you may be able to pawn that off on the rest of these guys, but think about it for a second, man. The top-of-the-line Mac today is a dual G4/1GHz... the G4 is a 128bit chip. Aren't the Pentium 4’s still 32bit chipsets? What's the fastest they're up to now? 2.2GHz? 2.4Ghz? Come’on.

Oh, and FYI Dave, I was an engineering major, not an art major.

Fishing content: Mid Channel Bank produced some nice blackmouth this past weekend.

Sorry, but you got me on a rant...

"Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form".

New York Times, November 26, 1991

-N.