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• Wednesday, November 7, 2007 05:31 AM

  No, actually, that's not the reason I'm not buying a Mac.

  I have a stack of what is at this point probably more than a thousand dollars worth of computer games which I do still sort through, re-install and play on a regular basis. None of them will work on a Mac. I also have a Big Fish Games membership... which doesn't apply to Mac games. I already paid for Microsoft Office '03, and have no reason to upgrade again anytime soon; I'd have to buy Office all over again for a Mac or learn a new program when I rather like this one.

  So for all practical purposes, a new Mac is going to cost me a *lot* more than a new PC, because none of my old stuff will work on it. Then let's add in the fact that most of us don't get new PCs every year, and a significant number of people that I know just use them until they die, which means I know people who still haven't upgraded to Windows XP. (And, of course, I've been the one to do repairs on their machines... which I don't think anybody could have done for a Mac.) A dead machine of either brand has no resale value.

  I don't have a spyware problem. I haven't had a virus for about ten years at this point, and the last one was a result of my own stupidity in the days before my family realized we needed a (free) antivirus program. I've doubled the memory in my desktop since I got it, and while the processor is a little sluggish these days, I could upgrade that, too, if I had the cash. Considering the articles I've read on just how much pollution is caused by continually buying new computers instead of upgrading, that's important to me.

  And now let's throw in that I've used OSX and I don't like it. It is definitely not as multitasking-friendly as Windows or Linux. It's gorgeous, but I don't need my operating system to be gorgeous. (The only reason I finally switched to XP style is because for some reason on Classic, a two-high taskbar tells me the time and the *day* but not the date, and that annoys the piss out of me. In XP it does both.) 'Form', in this case, does not trump 'function'.

  So, yeah, why should I bother again?

  —ThoughtsofSusan Read ThoughtsofSusan's other letters
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