Mac versus PC - Yet Again...

Apparently I have offended Mac users again.

Let me put it this way - If I haven't offended you, stay tuned, your time will come. I gotta admit, I am not trying to piss anyone off in particular, I do find it truly unfortunate if you fall into one of the groups I may poke a little fun at from time to time. My intent is not to offend anyone, but to point out shortcomings in inferior products, services, companies and ultimately, in society itself.

To say something is 'so easy a Mac user could do it' is not a phrase that I invented. Again I have to admit I heard that one somewhere, and it rung so true I had to repeat it. Call it plagurism or whatever you want, but even you have to admit Mac users are either stupid, or lazy. Personally, because I am a Mac user, I fall into the lazy end of that spectrum. Now if I cannot poke a bit of fun at myself, then our society and its political correctness has truly come full circle and we are living in a communist country. I know this is not the case.

I use a Mac when I WANT to, and I suppose it really all boils down to choice. If you choose to use a Mac you are lazy. If you HAVE to use a Mac you are stupid. Simple, huh? Sometimes people point out to me the difference between stupidity and ignorance, and while I possibly have the definitions reversed in my mind, it still is a shame. Plain outright disgraceful. I have always said that I can understand stupidity, but there is no excuse for ignorance. Laziness is another story altogether, laziness is just genius disguized in arrogance.

There is nothing you can do on a Mac that cannot be done on a PC, the reverse holds true. This has been the case for quite some time now, at least since OS X 10.4.11. That is the version that will allow Active Directory 'binding'. Basically that means your Windows Domain can recognize a Mac and that your Domain account can 'pass through' the authentication necessary to gain Domain permissions. What does that mean in layman's terms? It means your Mac will finally work (somewhat) in the corporate business world where we all live and play. It has left the 'home' domain and entered the real world.

Does this mean I will abandon all my PC's and cross to the dark side of OS X? Not friggin' hardly. Same way I am not EVER gonna abandon my Nikons and join the Canon camp. While there are some who might state 'the best hardware for running Windows is made by Apple', there are also those who have risen above the Mac vs. PC war and instead of wasting time arguing about which is better, are actually using computers for their designed intent - as a tool to navigate the socio-political labrynth we must compete in on a daily basis.

I may use a Mac from time to time, same way I will probably use a PowerShot when I want to. To me it is all about choice. I do what I want, not because I have to but because I choose to. If that makes any sense... (read - psychobabble...) It is kinda like using the best tool for the job at hand. If you only have a Leatherman instead of a full toolbox, you use what you need to to get the job done. This is the pitfall many Mac users fall into. Instead of possibly using their money in the best possible fashion, they tend to waste most of it because of two reasons I have previously mentioned.

There are those who will say that Macs are less prone to viruses than PC's. There are hundreds of arguments in either direction, but suffice it to say there are more viruses and attacks written for the UNIX platform than anything else. And what is OS X written/based upon? UNIX. Try telling the poor lady whose Safari browser has been hijacked by Malware and has a million pop-ups telling her that her computer needs new virus detection software that Macs are better. Apparently, they look pretty much the same as a PC.

Again, place either platform in front of me and I will pretty much be able to do the things I need to do without too much trouble. I will bet right now you cannot tell if I have typed this blog post on a Mac or a PC. In the truest sense of the word it really doesn't matter, does it? Marshall McLuhan said it best when he described popular culture with the statement 'The Medium Is The Message...'.

Anyway, my point is, I choose to poke fun at stereotypical users, and I have very little tolerance for incompetence. Same way I will pick on the Goths, the Towel-Heads and the Wetbacks, it was not I that invented these racial slurs. Is it immature and evil to refer to people in this manner? Yes. Do you fit into one of those groups? If so, it really does suck being you. Same way I fall into the stereotypical white, overweight, Type A male model. It sux being me too.

It sucks being me because I have to deal with the Mac users and other general incompetence so prevalent in our society today. It is even more so here in the Upper Valley. I truly find it amazing and sometimes wonder as I try to fall asleep at night, how the majority of people around here got and actually keep their jobs. Don't get me wrong here, there are people who actually know how to maintain their computers and networks around here, but like anywhere else, they are few and far between.

This is the exact reason our society as a whole is shifting away from computers as we knew them in the '90's toward a more manageable 'personal device' model such as the cell phone and PDA. To pick up where McLuhan left off and to make the statement that PDA's will revolutionize how we learn, communicate and generally interface with others is a natural statement, but I fear that the technology that lead us to this point will generally be ignored, much like the industrial revolution, and lead to the downfall of American society as we currently acknowledge it.

More psychobabble, I know, but it is relevant. It is because we are lazy and stupid Mac users.