At least you have a decent excuse, even if you do have an evil computer that will suck the soul right outta you.

I see that you - like so many smart, worthwhile people have finally come over to the Light-side.

Excellent!

From now on, repeat after me:
Windows are only good for two things: breaking and washing. Since I don't do either, and have a brain, I use a Mac. :-D

Enjoy your new MacBook Pro. It kicks the hell out of anything the PeeCee world can even dream of.

Well, this is exciting news. Will ATR now be replaced by your giant talking head? Because I can't see what other purpose the lidless eye could possibly serve than to allow us all to watch you.

Your post makes me wonder, would I rather be spied on by George Bush, or by Sauron? Sauron at least makes no pretense of "protecting" me from terror.

Try duct tape.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I am living in a totalitarian nightmare exactly like that of 1984.

Yes, but we knew that before you had these computer troubles. What's 1984 PLUS computer troubles?

J.S. -- O man, you sound like you are going through every blogger's nightmare! It is an odd thing, piling up so many words in a space that can disappear overnight. I hope you are getting some help from whatever host you are using.

I cannot possibly impress on you enough how excited I am by the prospect of an Update Update Update.

I want to see the lidless eye, wreathed in flame.

Sully: What's even better is while he's making those changes, he's updating the updated update. Updatingly?

Also... wtf... HAL9000 is a Macintosh? I could have sworn he'd be running on Linux!

Uhhhh....saurabh? New Macs DO have a rock-solid ass-kickin' Linux engine under the hood, these days.

But the UI is ALLLL Apple, baby.

It's like a fuel-cell/hybrid/hydrogen engine under the hood with 1200 horses, no emissions, and more miles to the gallon than any Texas oilman could imagine in their worst nightmare --
All while having a body shape so perfect, and ergonomics so keen, every exotic car maker and UI engineer in the world pees their pants just thinking about it.

And all the Redmond clones can do is say, "Uhhhhh, yeah. Me too! (Kinda... sorta....[BSOD] DAMN! Damn!!) Uhhhh... ours is just fine...[COMPLETE SYSTEM FAILURE] ... Shit.)

except bill gates donates more money to charity than God and Jobs is in the pocket of the RIAA/MPAA

great design only gets you so much positive karma.

I'm no OS geek. I've used Linux, habitually use windows, and now I use OS X for work. And I have to say, I am terribly disappointed. Every time I had computer trouble, for years and years, everyone went on and on about how I should use Apple, how I should use OS X. Well, guess what? It crashes just as much, often more. Just my experience. All the prosletyzing in the world won't change that.

Saheli, sorry to hear that.

Me, i could be one of those 'switcher' guys on the creepy ads. i was/am pretty good with windows, but i like the mac for one simple reason: expos-ay+hot corners. it makes multiple documents... fun!

Actually, OS-X is running a version of OpenBSD, not Linux.

To add to Saheli's statement using a Mac at this point in time is like bending over with your pants down. There are so many undocumented and unpatched security holes in OS X that you might as well advertise your internal writings on a billboard, OSX only has "fewer" reported security problems because fewer people are "officially" interested in it.

Seriously, Johnathan, if you use your computer to do things and that you think people unfriendly to you may have an interest in don't use Apple.

Linux can be stripped down and secured, and Windows can as well with a little more work. OS X remains a really great OS for using photoshop and doing light video editing.

FUD, pure and simple. Millions of us Mac users are having a great day every day, and we're doing a lot more than Photoshop and light video editing. Don't let these folks with an insane Mac phobia, which they have acquired for some reason or other, get you down.

We should turn this into an OS flamewar and compete to see who can come up with the most egregious FUD or the silliest characterization of different 'puter peeps.

No need for a flame war. Facts is facts, folks.

* Gates donates large amounts of money because he wife tells him to. His charity did not begin in earnest until his wife - in a oft-told story amongst geeks - pointed out that fact that even if he spent as much money as he could every day, for the rest of his life, he couldn't get rid of it all. Thats why, in part, the foundation is called the "Bill and MELINDA Gates foundation. (Emphasis added)
* Jobs isn't, and has not been the tool of the RIAA or the MPAA - EVER. They both hate his ass. And if you knew what you were talking about (the entertainment industry), that much would be obvious to you. almostinfamous. Instead, it's obvious to the rest of us that you don't know the history behind iTunes, or the arguments both the RIAA & the MPAA have had with Apple.
*Saheli, since you seem to have had the same kind of difficulty with both Windows and and the Mac, maybe you have a lifelong case of PEBKAC. Sorry, no OS ever invented will fix that one.
*Open BSD is a variant of Linux, using the same kernel, saurabh. That's like saying that "Red Hat Linux is the only true version, and everything else is not really Linux." Riiiiight. And specific versions of both Christianity and Islam are also considered the ONE TRUE RELIGION... We're not even going to go there.
* patience - What Redmond-brainwash farm did you just troll in from? Remind them next time to give them back your brain after they're done washing it. It's harder to get into a Mac than a Windows box over the Net- and this had been documented by people far more intelligent and code savvy than you or I, waaaay too many times to argue. Yes, Linux is the most secure OS, and why most of the backbone of the 'Net runs on it. However, for the average user, who just wants a machine that doesn't f-ing break, bog, screw itself blind, leave it's core wide open to the world within easy reach, NOT interact with multiple forms of media well, and require full wipes of the hard drive on a regular basis, just to rid itself of viruses, they're getting a Mac, like many, many intelligent people these days.

Ask someone who's "switched". The most oft heard comment of praise for the Mac? "It just works." That's why Apple used that slogan in their initial "Switcher" ad campaign - and why it's kind of an internal joke amongst Mac-devoted professionals.

Mac users do most everything - ESPECIALLY multimedia - easier, better, more, faster, and, over time, at less cost than Win-blows users. True, Linux is still more powerful. But Mac users get a Mac in part because they want to spend their time doing what they do - not being a computer mechanic.

It's not to say there aren't plenty of Comp.Sci. folks using Macs, or that coders are just geeks who don't deserve respect. (They DO deserve respect, BTW. Lots of it.) It's just that, for the $, there isn't a more powerful, more easy to use, safer, more intuitive OS out there.

It's a similar concept to the way many SUV's are designed to drive and handle these days; put an object roughly 3/4 the size of an M1A1 on the road, and then make it drive and handle like a little Honda Civic.

Even though soccer Moms all over the country seem to prefer driving their "tanks" , instead of paying attention, and/or actually learning how to drive, this kind of design is a very BAD idea for the roadways.

When applied to computing, and specifically UI, this kind of idea is EXCELLENT - and is why the Mac is the ONLY kind of computer gaining market share during the last six years of Bush-o-nomic recession.

So, as I said before, Johnathan - nice move. Enjoy your Mac.

PEBKAC.? Not a flame war, huh? Wow, you're diplomatic and friendly. Another, minor, reason I don't want to switch to macs--b/c all the prosletyzers are so often self-superior. This is almost a textbook example of why prosletyizing doesn't work without either revelation or charismatic witnessing. My experience has not provided the former and you, good friend, have not provided the latter.

And actually, I typed that quickly, but given that this mac at work is a desktop, my windows machine is a very old, well-travelled and beaten up laptop, and my family desktop almost never ever crashes, I would say this is quite worse. Maybe it's work, I don't know. The fact is I haven't had time to keep a logbook of crashes, and since I like to back up my claims with hard evidence, I made as vague, narrow, personal and qualified a statement as possible. I find it incredibly amusing that some fuzzy superlatives and unquantified statistics should convince me above my own experience.

And no, I never had crash problems when I was coding on a Linux machine.

I said we should have a flamewar! Can we start in on it with the Linux people, huh, please? I've got some theories about them. Also, no one has pointed out that Jon got a first generation Mac model, made with the Chips of Evil produced by Intel. I think we all know what that means. Mmmm, hmmmm yes indeedy!

Silversmith, OS X's kernel is called Darwin. It's open source and while based on various BSDs (mostly NetBSD due to portability reasons), it can neither accurately be claimed as a Linux kernel or that of OpenBSD.

OpenBSD is not a variant or fork of the Linux kernel, either. Theirs was forked off of either Net or FreeBSD (can't remember exactly, think it was Net). While it is binary compatible with many *BSD and Linux executables, it's not the same kernel.

I don't agree with your "Linux is the most secure OS" statement either. While it can be hardened and tweaked so as to be as secure as the best of the rest, "out of the box" distros aren't any more secure than any of the BSDs; certainly not OpenBSD (which as its primary design objective is to be as secure as possible, all other considerations secondary).

I've used all kind of computers, for now nearly 30 years. Personally, I choose Apple products, and have so for almost all of that time. There's lots of misinformation in the industry, from all sides, and to most people it's difficult to sort the hype from fact. It's good to be enthusiastic about a product you use, but zealotry can turn people off bigtime -- I know, because I used to be the biggest one I knew. :)

Holy crap, no wonder some geeks never get around to truly fucking shit up. They're too busy jerking off into their latest issue of MacWorld. Or 2600, or whatever. The only flame war worth fighting is the one that burns down a bank. That might have to include a bank of servers.