Mad as Hell — Switching from PC to Mac

by Stephanie Rewis on May 29, 2005

You may be more up on newsy items than I, but just in case you're not — I really enjoyed an article I read today. It was about a security company that has recently switched from PCs to Macs (causing quit an uproar I guess). Now farbeitfrom me to start a flame war. That's not the point here. We have 1 PC and 3 Macs at our house. I have been quite amazed though at what it has taken to keep the PC cleaned up. I've never had to work that hard with my Macs (having used them for about 13 years).

I have two teenage boys that like to surf music and gaming sites. Because of this, we have a tendency to pick up hitchhikers (well, till I figured out how to block and clean them). Both my parents own PCs and neither can figure out how to do even the most basic maintenance. That alone should be a good reason for them to just buy a Mac and be done with it. But I guess they believe that since everyone else owns a PC, they should too.

Anyway, give this installment of the Mad As Hell series a read and see what you think… I liked it. :) Especially coming from a security company … and mirroring my experience of being a “Ma and Pa” user of the PC. They make some good points.

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Sheri May 30, 2005 at 1:46 pm

Interesting.

I teach in both PC and Mac labs. It always amazes me how much more maintenance is needed on the PCs. The Mac lab will go all year with little or no attention from the tech support people. The PC lab is under constant scrutiny.

Craig Hartel May 31, 2005 at 7:01 pm

No if only I could afford one of the damn things… :)

andrew June 18, 2005 at 12:49 am

Macs are great, no question there. It does bother me though that PCs are so often accused of being horrible disasters.

The real problem is that the average user is not qualified to use a computer in the first place. Macs allow very little room to screw things up- good for the average user.

Power users on the other hand have little room to stretch out. A PC in the hands of a pro is a far more flexible tool. There are PCs running XP,2000,Linux,BSD that have longer uptimes than any Mac and let’s be honest Macs don’t have the same computer power as top end PCs.

Just my tired thoughts.

Anonymous August 23, 2005 at 1:51 pm

Winn Schwartau just posted installment 12 in the Mad as Hell series.

Inside tip: I hear its closing with episode 16.

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