I have been fighting with Windows PCs now for about 15 years and fighting is the right word for them.  Clearly, the Apple operating system is far superior but its limited market share just never made it a viable option.  So I struggled through Windows 3.1, Windows 95, skipped ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.  Now that Windows Vista is finally out and all of my computers are starting to age, it seemed like a good time to revisit the decision of what kind of computer to have around, especially since the word from my techie friends is that Vista is better but still leaves a lot to be desired.  Moreover, many of the leading edge techie people that I know have made the switch to Macs especially since they now run on Intel chips and can run many windows applications and interact with PCs on networks.

With all that history, I just recently bought a MacBook for my wife to use as her main computer.  She mostly uses a computer for Internet and email so she didn’t need the MacBook Pro.  However, we still had a Linksys wireless network with SRX.  SRX is Linksys’ attempt to extend the range on their 802.11g wireless router and, as we learned the hard way, it really only works with other SRX devices.  Non-SRX devices tend to crash the system which I had forgotten about when we got the MacBook.  The MacBook worked fine for a week or so but when we tried to start sharing drives and printers, the same problem that we used to have with a non-SRX laptop resurfaced and the network kept crashing.  Plus, the Mac was unable to connect to an HP printer that I had attached to one of my PCs.  I spent about five hours working on the whole thing this last weekend which culminated in a major decision: we were going to junk all of our PCs and our Linksys network and switch completely over to Apple gear.  I just was tired of the constant fighting with and crashing of our PCs and wireless network and, with Apple, it’s all designed to work together.  Given that we can run any application that we need on Macs, I decided that I would eventually buy a MacBook Pro for myself, ditch all the PCs and hook the printer up to an AirPort.

So, off to the Apple store I went.  The kid with all the piercings was very helpful (as my friend Andy correctly point out, however, it is impossible to distinguish workers as the Apple store as those with or without piercings) and a few hundred dollars later I had an AirPort Extreme base station and an AirPort Express (for the printer). 

Now, Apple goes out of their way to say that everything works out of the box and that is mostly true.  The MacBook had no major issue other than the problem with the Linksys network.  The Apple support line was very helpful; however, after an hour of trouble-shooting they told me to call Linksys and just mentioned in passing a power cycle reset which solved the problem.  This call was one big reason we decided to switch completely to Apple…I am sick and tired of one vendor’s equipment not working and being routed to India by one or another vendor.  With Apple, there is an 800 number and the people all know how all the stuff works which is, more than the equipment itself, the reason to switch to an Apple netowork.

The AirPort Extreme worked fine right out of the box and both PCs (I still have a PC laptop that I need to use until I bring myself to write the check for the MacBook Pro that I want) but the HP all-in-one printer that I have did not work.  It took several hours of sifting through Apple’s support forums and a call to the support line before Justin in the wireless networking department (of course his name was Justin) figured out the problem…there was a menu bar that was hidden and that I needed in order for the MacBook to see the printer on the network.  After that, it took me about 5 minutes to install Bonjour, Apple’s wireless networking sharing application on the PC so that it could print too.

Overall, I like the Apple stuff but I don’t think it is light years better than Windows.  It’s definitely better and better in just about every way but I would not agree that it is “Insanely Great”.  I like that everything is designed to work together and is designed for an easy user experience.  I like the look and feel of OS X and the equipment is very nice.  The problem, for me, is that they don’t make a smaller MacBook Pro.  And, because there is only one manufacturer, there are limits on options.  For example, if you want the MacBook with the largest hard drive, you have to get a black case.  If you want a MacBook Pro, the smallest case is 15″ which is too big and the 17″ is way too big.  Try to work on a 17″ MacBook while stuck in the middle aisle in steerage on a cross-country flight.  If the person in front of you puts their seat back, you are toast.  I would say, though, on average Apple offers a better product that is designed well to work with other Apple products.  The other side of that coin, however, is that you are totally reliant on Apple to continue to produce innovative products that you want (i.e., a smaller MacBook Pro) and that work with the products that you already have.

I decided years ago that I would just buy new equipment every three years.  I figured that a PC costs about $1,500 and that it just costs $500 per year to be in the game these days and, with the pace of innovation, you just replace the equipment every three years.  We are coming up on the end of the three year cycle for our PCs, so this was a good time to make the switch and use Apple gear for the next three year cycle, especially since Vista doesn’t really offer anything special.  We’ll see how it goes.  Check back in three years from now and I’ll let you know how it went.

It turns out, however, that as devoid of nutritional value as they might be, Pop Tarts actually have a use as a survival food.  It warmed my heart to hear that the guy who is trying to sail solo around the world and is stranded somewhere off the coast of Chile is waiting to be rescued and surviving off of, you guessed it, Pop Tarts (or so says CNN)!  I mean, how cool is that!  OK, so he’s also eating granola but it’s the Pop Tarts that are saving his life.  So, kids, the moral of the story is…if you want to live, pack Pop Tarts.

Now, Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby is the perfect example of a movie that was made for the Netflix list.  This movie was horrible.  We didn’t even make it past the first half-hour.  We did the same thing with Anchorman (and we have been told that we missed out on some funny stuff later in the movie, but it wasn’t worth waiting for to us).  Will Farrell is a very funny guy when he is contained by a decent script (e.g., Elf).  However, it seems to me that he and his cast of characters just moves from one movie to another trying to repeat the same formula, much like Christopher Guest does (except that Chrisopher Guest is successful at it).  The problem with this movie, much like Anchor Man, is that these scenes just go on forever and aren’t really that funny to begin with (a typical Saturday Night Live problem).  The scene with Will Farrell saying grace at dinner with his wife, kids, father-in-law and best friend is kinda funny for about 30 seconds but the scene just drags on and on and on.  It reminds me of a parody of SNL on The Simpsons where Krusty is the guest host and is involved in a skit where he has big ears and just keeps saying “look at my ears” while complaining under his breath that the skit is supposed to go on for 15 more minutes.  After about half an hour, we just looked at each other, decided the movie sucked, took it out and mailed it back to Netflix.