“When you got nothing,…
…you got nothing to lose.” –Bob Dylan, “Like a Rolling Stone”
I watched, with a lot of amusement, the latest Microsoft ad that is discussed on CNET. The ad features a gentleman who buys a PC because he is “really picky.”
Maybe.
Or maybe he just doesn’t read. 
He says that Macs are about aesthetics more than they are about computing power.
I like aesthetics. I think that viruses and spyware are REALLY UGLY!
As for computing power (think “security,” “reliability,” and “scalability”), I think that just about any of the UNIX varieties (of which MacOS X, Solaris, and Linux are three) stand up very well indeed against Windows. Actually, it is Windows that does not stand up so well against THEM.
Of course, the gentleman in the ad may just be shopping for hardware to take home to run Linux, if he is as smart as he is “picky….”
Your choice of operating system is not about being “picky.” At this point in tech history, it is really an intelligence test.
(Note added April 12, 2009: An afterthought…. Notice that most corporations FAIL this intelligence test. )
Near the end of March, I sent information about Conficker.c to two friends of mine. One of them replied that she no longer has any working Windows PCs (she had several). (Note added April 20, 2009: Don’t get me wrong – she has a Ph.D. from a VERY prestigious school in a very tough scientific field, has worked with computers for MANY years, and is one of the smartest people I know [and I know LOTS of them].) The only machine that she has at home that runs is a MacBook Pro (last OS standing?) that she originally bought for her mother. Her company, a famous movie company, uses Linux.
No targets for Confiicker there…. She thanked me about the Conficker “April 1” warning, just the same. She also said that she “kind of misses the virus infections.”
Be picky, but also read.
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
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