Mad as Hell, Switching to Mac

[gekko]

In my efforts to convert the world to Mac, I must direct you to fellow PC users who have seen the light. Today's lesson? Security.

There is a blog out, titled "Security Awareness for Ma, Pa, and the Corporate Clueless" which is run by a systems engineer working for a Security Awareness company. He has started a new Mad as Hell series, where he finally got pissed off with PCs, and bought a Mac. I'd recommend reading it. But I'll post some highlights.

http://securityawareness.blogspot.com/

The sheer amount of time I wasted was extraaordinary - to get a WinTel vendor to cop to the fact that HW does break, and all I needed was a HW fix - NOT reinstall XP Pro.

That was me. I like to think my time is valuable. So, if I spent 100 hours (conservatively) on this, how much is that worth?

The cost - the unacceptably immense financial premium that the WinTel world demands of its users - is going to be the straw that breaks the WinTel back! I could no longer afford WinTel.

OWNING WINTEL IS TOO DAMNED EXPENSIVE for anyone who cares one whit about their money or their profits... In this series, I am going to PROVE it.

Paul Otellini, the new CEO of Intel, confesses that not only does he spend an hour a week removing spyware from his daughter's Wintel PC, but that if users want a quick security fix, they should probably buy something other than a PC.

I'd just taken my wintel problems with a grain of apathy each time they surfaced. I just accepted that all of the problems, the viruses, malware, out-of-the-box insecurity and even the beloved BSOD were just part of the package. I ran a slew of third party programs to maintain my wintel pc and I had a backup routine that was full of fiber. Why didn't I just run Linux?... Linux is not an office desktop... yet, and we all know it.

Here is why I am annoyed:

1. I want my computer to function every time I turn it on. WinTel platforms don’t work anymore – at least not reliably.

2. I want my computer to not corrupt data when it does crash.

3. I use a handful of applications: Microsoft Office

4. I live on the Net. I do not want my browser to eat up all of my memory.

5. My MP3 and video clips and movies should operate every time I click on them, regardless of format.

6. I use FTP pretty regularly.

7. In the WinTel world I have a terrific assortment of 3rd party tools to try to keep my PC alive. That’s just crazy.

8. If I never install another operating system again… jeeez! A new O/S install is just a quaint way of saying, “Shut up, Customer. It’s as close as we can get without having to spend a lot of money to make it right.”

What would you do if you hadn't used a Mac since Logo on the Apple II and someone sent you a G5 and said "Have Fun"? A chance to explore something new? CM'on... Besides, I wanted to see if the stories the mac users told were true. The underlying BSD OS with a proven OS? Sensible security settings out of the box? Sounds like a fairytale wintel users tell to their children, so needless to say, I was an easy sell. Couple with that the proported security and the sheer lack of viruses?

Heck, I was eager.

Well, it's been a few weeks now and all and all, I'd have to say I'm smitten. I look forward to using my Mac every day, and I can honestly say I've never felt that way about a Windows machine. Lets face it, it's a sexy beast and it's just been one pleasent surprise after another. I crashed the dock once and was able to shell out and use ps aux and kill to end the process.

Neat.

http://www.apple.com/switch/