Friday Morning Computer Musings

So I had a couple of interesting conversations this week with a computer tech. He spent some time in the Army and he's been tinkering with electronics longer'n I've been alive. Of course the old PC vs. Mac debate came up, and being the recent Mac convert I had to ask him what he thought, especially considering the fact that Microsoft recently rolled out the bug-riddled Vista operating system. He had nothing but good things to say about the Mac, and basically said Microsoft more or less conditioned the world to accept less than the best when it comes to operating systems with the way the company operated; the systems they put out would more or less run on any PC with the appropriate specs regardless of who made the individual parts, but they could get away with that because of the way they wrote the software, which of course is what leads to crashes, viruses and the like. This is in direct contrast, of course, to the Apple OS which will only run on the Apple computer. Not only that, the way some manufacturers put those PCs together leaves a lot to be desired, especially as it relates to memory. Just for an example, I went to see him again yesterday and he was working on a Compaq with Vista installed. As if Vista wasn't flawed enough, it took more than half the computer's memory just to start the damn thing up, let alone run it continuously, or its programs -- and this was with the memory that came from the factory. Then he showed me an error message he was getting, which showed that the computer was having problems with a printer port -- and that particular computer didn't even have that kind of printer port. He told me he would not recommend a person in the market for a new computer get a PC with Vista for at least another six months, after Microsoft rolled out the service packs for it. I don't know how well Vista is selling and don't really care, but I'd be willing to bet this particular example was not an isolated one. It was a bit serendipitous that I ran into this fella, as earlier this week I saw the picture below on another blog...


Some might think what I am about to say is just nit-picking, but I'll say it anyway. Used to it didn't bother me so much, but it burns my tail more and more when I see reliance on hardware or software that doesn't come from Microsoft cast as a defining characteristic of a lefty moonbat. (Note: I most emphatically DO NOT think Ron Paul is a moonbat even though I don't agree with some of his foreign policy ideas, but if you read most of the righty blogs you'll see that sentiment expressed.) If I were a betting man, I'd bet my next firearm that the vast majority of those who make fun of folks who rely on non-Microsoft products have never even used those products. (Mike Hendrix at Cold Fury came up with a dead-on term for the malady those people suffer -- Apple Derangement Syndrome.) I have to wonder what these people would say if they ever sat down and used an Apple, or Firefox for that matter.
Oh, yeah, and speaking of alternate web browsers -- I told this same computer tech about the nickname I've seen for the Microsoft browser, Internet Exploder. His response?
"Yeah, that's about right."