* Oliver Jones <oliver(a)deeper.co.nz> [2004-07-02 03:06]:
I completely agree. My stock answer to people who say they want a computer to surf and do email with I say "buy a Mac". Problem is they don't like the fact that a Mac is $1000 more expensive than a Windows box.
Tell them they will: ... spend hours fixing problems with their Windows box ... suffer mysterious crashes costing them the last few hours of work ... have to meticulously keep their antivirus software up to date, and their system scanned for spyware (and here in Germany, dialers) need to set the system up from scratch ... re-configure all apps every couple of months ... generally hate the computer ... live nightmares taming the computer if, lord forbit, they have a driver problem Or they can spend a few hundred bucks extra at the start. If they disregard your advice and then come crying to you, say "I told you so" and refuse to spend more than 10 minutes to fix the problem. I have become pretty uncompromising in that regard: I do not debug non-trivial Windows problems. It's wasted time -- you rarely learn anything valuable during the process and there is almost never a way to ensure the problem is fixed once and for all. You get nothing in return for your investment. Regards, -- Aristotle "If you can't laugh at yourself, you don't take life seriously enough."