Mac vs. PC

Alright, here it is. Let’s duke it out. I’m not really going to duke anything out on here. I just want to talk about a few things in dealing with this subject. First, let me preamble this argument that I’m about to make with my naked opinion. I think that a Mac is a superior pc, but a Windows pc is more economical and is my vehicle of choice in this Windows world we live in. I guess if the whole world shifted to Mac, then it would ideal for me to do the same. Now, the age old reasoning that in order for something to get changed it has to change 1 person at a time. Well, I don’t see that happening. I’ll jump on a band wagon when it is indeed the band wagon.

Secondly, I think Macophites or dedicated Mac users are a bit snooty to the Windows Pc world. They know their machine is better, and choose to make fun of Windows every chance they get. Well, I’m not convinced Mac could handle owning most of the PC market. This might actually give the real hackers in the world a real reason to bust up the “invincible” machine. A Mac is a nice package, but impenetrable?

I’ve been reading some Mac articles of late and have noticed a trend. The articles tend to be tweaked and construed to make something negative or unimpressive sound like ground breaking news. Why today, I read three articles on Digg that implemented this strategy I just described. “Apple Grew Faster than Any Other PC Maker in the US,” is an article I read today. Read into the article and you will see that they talk about Apple shooting up from 4% of the market to 5% as its shipments increased 30%. Well hum now hippity whatchamado. Watch my inner thigh tremble for Apple’s hostile take over. Is this the bandwagon? I think it’s more like a bum pushing a cart and playing the flute.

The next article I read was “Apple Security Patch Tackles Two Dozen Mac OS Vulnerabilities.” Ok, did I just read that right? Or did you just suckered into this mirage of words? This is a point I was trying to make to some friends about a very notable marketing scheme that banks use today. Basically this is how it works… Banks have monitoring software that scans consumer spending and when it catches some heavy spending it throws a flag. So say you went out and bought a few pricey items then you have just triggered this software. Here is where the scheme comes in. You get a phone call from your friendly bank representative wanting to make sure you are the one doing this spending. You either say “yes and thank you for your call” while in your head you are saying “man, I have a bank that really looks out for me and I wouldn’t change for the world,” or you say “no, that wasn’t me” and the bank just saved the day. At that point you still say to yourself that you have the best bank in the world. Now most of the time, the answer will be yes, but the value attained from that phone call is priceless to the bank. I would like to point out that you are probably flagged every time you do some heavy spending, but as long as you did receive a call, then no worries on the banks end. Where was I going with that? Apple likes to release news and brag about the fact that they have secured there “totally secure” OS every chance they get. You still say in your head, “man this company is proactive.” I believe this is the 3^rd Security patch update issued this year. Twenty – four vulnerabilities? Yeah, I know 2 dozen sounds less, but its 24…I think it was actually like 25. Impenetrable?

The last article I read was about a contest held in which hackers could come and see if they could hack the mac. It was a promotion called “pwn to own” or some nonsense. Pretty catchy title actually. Anyway, the Mac went a full day without getting hacked, but on the second day someone took advantage of a weakness in the Safari web browser that comes on a Mac. These Macs had all the latest Security updates prior to hacking, but I’m not sure they were behind a firewall of any kind. So I would say that was an impressive stand that the Mac made against “whoever” came to hack the mac. However, it did get hacked and what if Mac and Windows were to swap places in the market share? Would it stand against the world looking for a little hole in the Mac armor?

All in all…settle down Mac users. You do have something to be proud of, but bench players and fans can scrutinize the starters all they want. They aren’t in the game.