Mac Zealots – A special breed

The other day, I was listening to the Daily Source Code and Adam Curry was talking about a problem that’s been plaguing his PowerBook. While he’s recording the podcast and is playing an MP3, sometimes the sound stops for a short time (.25 seconds) and then resumes. He blames it on his external LaCie hard drives. Adam often complains about what a bear Windows is to keep running, because Windows is the problem. I think it’s funny that when a Mac has a problem, it must be hardware, but when a Windows PC has problems, it must be the Operating System.

The fact is that Apple systems tend to be more reliable because there are less variables. One company makes Macintosh computers. One company designs them. One company sells them. One company supports them.

Windows PC’s are made by many major brands plus thousands and thousands of smaller manufacturers and everybody’s brother-in-law. Windows is a very stable operating system and has been for many years (at least ten). I have fixed tons of systems that people were ready to ‘throw out the window’ because they were unreliable.

You will have a more reliable system if you do the following:

1. Buy a system from a known and reliable vendor (I have a bottom of the line Dell Dimension)
2. Install service packs and hotfixes
3. Install and configure a firewall (I use ZoneAlarm)
4. Use Firefox as your browser (I have since it was called Phoenix v.4)
5. Install and configure a anti-virus program (I use AVG)
6. Only install programs you plan to use (I’m not a software collector)