MS is vulnerable

Thu Jan 29 16:54:57 UTC 2004

On Jan 29, 2004, at 11:10 AM, Vivien M. wrote:

>>
Then yer mom should get a Mac.
>
> And if she's like my mom, she'll be in the aisle in the computer store
> (well, the big box electronics store, more realistically) and be like 
> "Why
> should I pay $2000 for this one when I can get 'a computer' for $500?" 
> [1]

Agreed.  That's where you educate your mom on why Macs are godly, PCs 
running windows are evil and  Linux is a little to complex still for 
the end user, and bluntly doesn't look as pretty out of the box.

If she squaks at the price, you tell her that you get what you pay for. 
  How many times has her printer stopped working or she's been unable to 
download her pics or watch some video or a dvd or something else that 
XP touts as super easy, and integrated?

Actually, since I got my first Mac last year,  I've been barking up and 
down about how amazing it is.  I told everyone I sold every PC I ever 
owned because I could do it all on my powerbook.  They are all jealous. 
  I had XP for my email, visio and word, *nix for my geek router & perl 
stuff, another PC for my audio production stuff.  All gone.  All I have 
now is a 17" Powerbook.  It's all I'll ever need.  Well, no -- it's 
not.  When I need something for music, I'll get a G5.  Plain and 
simple, I will never own a PC again.

It's funny, I went out of town for thanksgiving with my family.  When 
we got to where we were going, my mom was complaining that her digital 
camera flash was full and she didn't have another one.  I told her that 
I could download the pictures to my powerbook and email them to her 
later.  As I was connecting the camera, she asked "Well, don't you need 
to download and install the softw...." she stopped mid-sentence as the 
Mac found the PowerShot, opened iphoto and proceeded to download the 
pictures -- no software needed.  She looked Jealous.

When the last big MS virus/worm caused it's major shitstorm, my mom 
asked me if I ever get infected with viruses.  I said no, I run a Mac.  
They are immune to these viruses.  She looked jealous.

Needless to say, a year after she bought herself her Dell with her 19" 
flat panel monitor, in a couple months, she'll be picking up her new 
20" iMac.  Now I'm jealous.

I've got a couple other friends who are going to shitcan their PCs in 
favor of Macs.

I agree, price is a big thing and it will continue to be.  Until people 
can convince others to look beyond that, they are all going to be stuck 
in the MS world, plagued by all this badness wondering "Is there 
something else better out there?"  All this, while us non-MS folks sit 
back with a big satisfying grin.

> You can't expect people's mothers to actually know the differences 
> between
> the different platforms, just like I'm sure that when most people's 
> mothers
> shop for cars, they can't tell you the advantage of a particular 
> engine type
> over another. They just end up picking based on price and "ability to 
> meet
> need", and for most mothers old-enough-to-have-NANOG-posting-kids out 
> there,
> your $500 eMachines or whatever is more than enough. Expecting them to 
> spend
> additional money to address a problem they don't understand is an
> unrealistic expectation.

Of course you can't expect them to know.  That's where we come in; the 
free and the saved :)

It's all about educating the less fortunate :)  There is a very fine 
line between pay now, save later and save now, pay later.  The latter 
almost always works out to cost a hell of a lot more than the former 
ever would have.

(hypothetical) Buy the $12,000.00 (CDN) KIA with no snow tires, no ABS, 
no nothing.  Drive somewhere in a snow storm, get stuck going up a 
hill, try to back down the hill, get sideswiped by the guy in the 
Touareg because he can't see your tiny little $12,000.00 KIA soap box, 
get flung over the guardrail, down the hill and into the valley.  Pay 
the tow truck to come bail your ass out, pay your insurance deductible 
and the extra rates you are going to ensue because you just wrote off 
your car.  Add all that up and compare that to the price of a brand new 
Touareg over 10 years.  Guess what, your analogy just lost ground :)

> Vivien
> -- 
> Vivien M.
> vivienm at dyndns.org
> Assistant System Administrator
> Dynamic Network Services, Inc.
> http://www.dyndns.org/
>
>