[ambrose]

ping.

[atomicpossum]

Some of the Mac-attitude reminds me of the new non-smoker or the crusading vegetarian-- "It's right for me and YOU TOO!"

Geez. Use what you want.

[Lee Heggy]

Love my Mac! I'm not evangelic about it though. Some folks like the PC environment and thats just fine with me.

[duckworth]

Yeah, well Macs suck. Just replaced mine with two Dells (actually three if you include the Pocket DJ). Much less panache. Much less cost. Much more usability. That's what I want. Thank you.

[Rodney King]

I'd buy a Mac, but I'm not gay.

[Question_Assumptions]

I think a lot of people miss a big reason why Mac users put down Windows and evangelize for Apple. It's akin to hearing people everywhere saying, "I keep sticking this pencil in my eye and it hurts!" After a while, you want to scream, "Then stop sticking that pencil in your eye!" We constantly constantly, "I keep having security/stability/whatever problems with Windows!" and eventually we want to scream, "Then buy a Mac! I'm not having those problems. You don't have to have those problems. The problem is Windows. Try something else." The same thing happens with Linux users.

[whd23]

Says it all:

[Hank Rearden]

Yo, MacMoonies! Already got a religion; don't need yours.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Title should read:

Apple Macs: Objects of intense frustration

If they were giving them away for free, I wouldn't take one. In fact, I'd like to throw mine out the window.

[spodefly]

I have always loved Macs. Back in my corporate days, I had every Mac from a Mac Plus, to the Mac IIci (a personal fav) to various Quadras and G3 and G4's.

These days, at the Vast Spodefly World Headquarters and Bunker Compound^TM, I have 6 computers, one of which is a Mac, and it is rarely used except for audio editing using Pro Tools. Unless you are in graphics or a/v editing, PC's are a better bet to get real work done.

[Poser]

They're down to $500 now. That's funny, I paid $300 for my last Dell (2004). I guess I'll have to wait a while longer. Macs are still 66% more expensive than PCs.

[Tempest]

Mac Fanatics scare almost as much as liberal Democrats.

[Tribune7]

Whatever is fashionable for the masses becomes unfashionable for the minority.

I'm a Mac user but these guys screw things up for the rest of us -- i.e when corporate decision makers ponder what computers to buy.

And using a Mac does not make you cool or superior.

[Restore]

I've been using PCs since the old 286 days. I immersed myself in every aspect that I could to keep these machines running as well as possible. Amongst friends and family, I became the "go-to guy" on DOS, then Windows machines.

25 months ago the frustration level with our Pentium Compaq machine became so great that I threw up my hands, collected the wife, the credit card, and headed to the Mac store.

I was less than pleased to do this for a few reasons:

1. I had invested so much time on the PC that learning even 50% more to be an advanced Mac user was a thought almost too much to bear.

2. The fear of not being being compatible with 90%+ of the world's computers was worrisome.

3. Those Apple machines were expensive.

The result:

-The Mac is so easy to use, I have since FORGOTTEN 50% of what I've learned about computers.
-There isn't any computer with which I have compatibility issues.
-A couple months went by, the credit card charges were paid off and forgotten.

Further, in the last two years there have been a grand total of ZERO crashes on the (TWO) machine(s). Every device that I have plugged into it has worked flawlessly and simply. I have no viruses (virii?). I have no spyware. There isn't anything that I can't do on the Mac that I can on a PC, but I can do much more than a PC will allow.

I suggested in a PC help thread here on FR that the user should switch to Mac. One Freeper jumped into my stuff suggesting that switching from "a Ford" to "a Chevy" was unhelpful, useless and cynical. My retort, should I have posted it, would have been that Chevys and Fords do indeed break down at similar intervals. The dirty truth is that PCs have serious, maddingly and unacceptably high failure rates and that the Mac is a true alternative. In other words, the Ford-to-Chevy and Apple-to-PC comparison is worthless.

In the past, I have been excited to get a new computer or OS, but that excitement usually wore off in a few weeks. Two years later I am STILL excited about what my Mac can do. As a footnote, I am not an Apple zealot, just a very satified customer.

Do yourself a HUGH favor and check out the new $499 Macs. You can still use your old keyboard, mouse, display and printer. All that you lose is the Advil.

[Lx]

Typical MAC user:

Just kidding...

When the rumor about the cheapie MAC came out I finally figured I would buy one but the damn thing doesn't look like you could add anything to it and where's the 360k drive?

If I could build an Apple like a clone PC, now that would be awesome. Yeah, a dual G5 clone, now that's the stuff. Until that happy day arrives I'll live in my PC world where I've NEVER had a virus, knock on wood, in over 20 years of using various DOS or Windows computers.

[Labrax]

Have been a life-long PC user (does my Commodore 64 count?) but recently had two straight duds from Dell. Switched to a beautiful but expensive Powerbook. Three months later I am still figuring out how to use the damn thing. Once I figure out how some feature works, however, it tends to work a hell of a lot better than my PC did. Might switch back to a PC if cost became a real issue (e.g. need to buy a half-dozen for an office) but I would make sure that I uninstalled IE on every single one of them. Mozilla rocks.

[jpl]

Steve Jobs is a John Kerry-advising liberal pansy. I refuse to even buy an I-Pod.

[Coastie]

Two words: "right click".

[Swordmaker]

Sorry I got this late, but I have been arguing with a Windows XP Professional IBM Thinkpad that was infected with 21 trojans, 158 Adwares, and 129 Spy-ware... as well as other issues. Got it all cleaned up and working perfectly. Then I made the major mistake of installing Service Pack 2, and had it fail on reboot for lack of BIOSINFO.INF and NTLDR... caused by @#$^@!$$ING Microsoft's Service Pack 2 installer.

Now it wants the original installation disk to do a "repair"... but the owner no longer HAS the original installation disk.

So this is a frustrated with Windows Swordmaker's PING for Macintosh article.

If you want on or off of the Mac Ping list, please Freepmail me.

[ladyinred]

I was a good girl obviously, since Santa brought me the new iMac for Christmas. It is just awesome, so trimline you wonder where the works are! I have only had iMacs, but this new flatscreen skinny model is just the best thing going!!!! Love it!!