Leander Kahney writes in a Wired Cult of Mac column:
… there seems to be a widespread re-evaluation of Apple going on, a cultural shift that’s changing the way people think about the company. It’s been building for a while but it has reached a tipping point in the last couple of months.
The bullet points in his column that he goes on to explain include:
- Macs will save you money
- Macs are good for business
- Less is more
- Closed is good
- Apple is the darling of Wall Street
- Macs can run more applications
Naturally, the red, green, yellow and blue birds came out to poo-poo the writer’s story. If you’ve read Ramblin’ Prose for any length of time, you know we’re a die-hard Mac family. I use PCs ’cause the people that pay my checks tell me I have to. I even bought a PC once. For school.
But I don’t get drunk on the the Apple juice. When people ask my advice about buying a computer, I generally ask them two things: 1. What are you going to use it for? 2. How much do you want to spend? Those questions, and the vibe I get from them about which way they’re leaning, generally help me steer them to a machine that suits their needs.
And that’s what it’s all about isn’t it?
I do get on my soapbox sometimes when I’m asked about setting up a printer or using the right button on a mouse or why all the error messages or why a piece of software won’t work or why the spam program broke every other piece of software and the computer is still ate up with spam … I do drop the line “You probably should’ve bought a Mac.”
But, believe me, I take no satisfaction in that.
4 Comments
Amen! You are right on target. I use both, also…the PC at work and the Mac at home.
yeah, it’s true….people talk about the viruses and the spam and all that stuff and I usually respond “yeah, that sucks…I don’t know…I have a mac, my computer doesn’t really have that problem.”
I am looking for a notebook to use through college. I will mainly use it for typing papers and homework. It will also be used for the internet, and probably burning/watching DVD’s. Which would be better to get to fit my needs?
Taylor,
The questions you should ask are:
How much can I spend?
What does my university support best?
What software will I need or want and can that be bought (at a discount) through the university?
I would think that a university would have a PC purchase program that you could take advantage of.
Once you determine what you can afford, buy the best machine you can find. Max out on RAM and get the best processor and screen you can find.
I’m a Mac person, but a realist in that not everybody is like me. You want your biggest bang for the buck.
For what you describe you’ll need it for, a PC might do the trick. Both PCs and Macs will run iTunes, although, Macs do it better of course.
If you’re a music, graphics arts, audio/video or English major, you might consider a Mac because some of the programs that can help you. Business, engineering, computer science, etc., probably a PC.
Good luck!