This is a pretty good article:
Gates speaks up over Apple commercials
I like what is written about four paragraphs down, it’s very true:
“There is little truth to the claims made by the most zealous of Mac users, and the educated Mac user often never attacks Windows, or PCs in general, because it isn’t about a system, it is personal choice, and what works best for them.”
Having used most operating systems – Windows, Linux and Mac – it is truly about personal choice. The most fascinating things that won me over with Mac are the applications that come with it for free, the iLife suite for example (iMovie, GarageBand, iPhoto & iDVD), and also the fact that it’s truly not required that I purchase and run a anti-virus program (in Windows, I am constantly annoyed that I have to install anti-virus because I know it’s required and yet I also know that it often bogs down the system performance). There really isn’t anything wrong with Windows, it doesn’t crash on me all the time, like most anti-Windows people state, and hasn’t since Windows 98. And, even if my Windows 2000 or Windows XP gave me a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), it’s not because of the operating system, it’s because of the crappy drivers that were written for Windows by the hardware manufacturer. But, it is true about the security of Windows, it is not as secure as Linux or Mac. Windows has many security flaws and vulnerabilities that are discovered almost everyday, especially in Internet Explorer (use Firefox people, it truly is for your own good), and is extremely prone to virus attacks. But, again, it’s not entirely Window’s fault, the world is out to get Microsoft. Mac, and even sometimes Linux, has security flaws that are discovered in their operating system too. I check for OS X updates almost once a week and find that there are security updates at least twice a month, not as many as Windows but they’re still there. For the most part, viruses are not written for OS X, only Windows, because, as mentioned, the world is out to get Microsoft.
I can tell you now that OS X still has problems and mistakes, it’s not a completely perfect operating system. Just yesterday I was editing a video in iMovie and the damn thing kept crashing on me. I’ve deducted the problem as being a corrupt project and I will have to delete it to start over again, which sucks because it’s a huge project with many edits and movie clips.
But, I will say, it is true what is stated about the differences between Mac and Windows. I still believe Windows is perfect for the business and Mac is perfect for the home user. Take that as you will as a personal and professional opinion. Also, even though Macs are a little more expensive than most manufactured PCs (which is changing fast due to the switch to Intel processors in Macs), I have found so many more applications that are free (most open source) that have been fantastic substitutes for software I would normally have to buy for Windows.
And, one final note, OS X is a faster, smoother operating system than Windows XP. I’m currently running only 512MB of RAM in my MacBook and it still runs and opens common applications rather fast. Whereas I have seen running 512MB in Windows XP is a mistake and most common applications do not open and run as fast. Although, I still plan to bump my MacBook up to 2GB as the extra memory will help me when editing videos in iMovie.
So, to end on what I started saying at the beginning of this post, there is no perfect operating system. In my personal, and professional, opinion, Mac is not better than Windows, and Windows is not better than Mac, and Linux is not better than Mac, and Windows is not better than Linux.
