I'm a woman!

And you're wrong--it is simply not true that any file made on a Mac runs fine on a PC.

Of course the *method* you use for file transfer doesn't make any difference at all. Go ahead and transfer the file via jump drive if you want, that is not going to magically reformat the file so it runs fine in the PC version of the software.

The problem is that the application programs are not equivalent, so the files generated aren't fully compatible.

Microsoft Powerpoint files made on the Mac (which has only a very lame version of Powerpoint, BTW) just don't run right on a PC. There will be X's all over the place anywhere you put your graphics on your slides. Including where Excel graphs are embedded, so Excel obvs has some problems transferring too.

I use lots of graphs and microscopy images in my presentations and lectures since I'm a professor and a scientist, so this is a big problem. Yes, I could pdf it all and make a slideshow of the pdfs and then it would run on both software versions without garbling the graphics. But then I'd lose the animations and movies, which are kind of the point in many of my data slides. (Ironic, given the Mac's legendary graphics capabilities, but what can you do?)

I suppose if you are just making bulleted list powerpoint slides with just a couple of cliparts here and there, you might be able to transfer powerpoint files back and forth between PCs and Macs without having any problems. But I would never give a lecture that simple/boring.

And you're also wrong about my network at my institution. It runs on custom-designed software, and it only grudgingly accepts a Mac and then it only lets you use a limited amount of the network's servers and software once you're in.

And I didn't even mention this before---but much of the scientific instrument data analysis software that I use at work is only written for the PC.

So having a Mac really does = a big barrier in my work environment. I have some hopes that Mac's new Windows software might help with this basic incompatibility option, but I'm not holding my breath. Fortunately, the computers that I know will work well now (PC's) are much cheaper than Macs anyway.

"In the spring of 2006, for instance, you could have purchased a nice Dell laptop -- the Inspiron E1505, with a 1.66 GHz Core Duo processor, 1 GB of memory, and an 80 GB hard disk -- for $999 directly from Dell. At the time, Apple's roughly comparable entry-level MacBook -- 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 512 MB memory, a 60 GB disk -- went for $100 more, $1,099."

I am a Mac owner and enthusiast. No mere Johnny-come-lately am I, no. My first computer in life was an Apple IIGS, and from there I've owned and worked on several Macs, and, yes, several PCs. You have a point, though I'd like to point out a minor flaw the argument as presented above - 1GB of memory is NOT roughly equal to 512MB. And even now, in a time when I won't consider buying a new comp without 2GB of memory, the standard on new MacBooks is HALF THAT. Macs ARE more expensive - because at the end of the day you see a lot of them up for resale at the magical numbers you quote here, but very few of them will sell for that price. Macs magic itself is partly to blame - by building up so much market buzz, mainly by constantly releasing new versions of, or improving on, its products, it gluts the after market with older versions of itself. And Macs are less easily modular than PCs. Off brand PCs that are built to spec can at least be jacked up easily and relatively cheaply over their short life spans - macs require specialist work and parts available, largely, from only one company, for not cheap prices. Ever had to replace the battery on a (now hopelessly outmoded) G4 ibook? It's like 130$!!!

Anyway... I'm rambling. I remain commited to apple becuase it's what I'm used to and because I find them to be more reliable and durable machines - for which I am willing to pay a little more. And I do.

Jef, you made some excellent points, as others have, about reselling computers. Here's another one: even if you can resell your Mac after a year or two and end up with more money than you would have if you had done so with a PC, you also have no computer. And if you buy another Mac, you then may still have less money than you would have if you had bought a PC.

For example, if you bought a Mac for $1200, and then sold it a year later for $800, and then bought another Mac for $1200, you'd be down $1600. Whereas if you bought a PC for $900, sold it a year later for $400, and then bought a new one for $900, you're only down $1400.

I don't know if this is an accurate reflection of the type of price differences we're talking about, but it does point (again) to a flaw in Farhad's argument, namely that computers are appliances more than they are commodities, and no matter how much they're worth, you can't really treat them as an investment.

Asthetically I love Macs and I yearn to own one but I won't be and that's because they are not a gaming machine. So i'm not buying an iMac Pro I'm gonna buy a Vista based gaming notebook. There are no up and coming great PC games that are Leopard-only and yet there is the vice versa with Vista. Plenty of game studios have flat out said they have wanted to work with Apple to make them more accessible for gaming but Apple isn't particularly interested. Microsoft doesn't own PC gaming but they have a platform that allows game developers.

I can browse the internet on both type of machines, word processing, blahblahblah. Honestly I don't give a crud about the operating system as long as it runs the latest generation software I want to use.....on a new generation system with a duel core and 2GB of DDR Ram Vista is just fine, better than XP for me. (If you want to play PC games only on XP and/on install Vista on your 3 year old computer, then fine torture yourself, but stop whining to the rest of us when the basic solution is evident.)

As a PC gamer my main interest in games, and I don't want to have to take on a 2nd career installing emulators and other hacky-dacky software (that's you Bootcamp) to play games that Apple otherwise isn't interest in supporting. Its a big old stupid-ass flaw in their business plan because iMac Pros are pretty shiny apple gadgets and usually I love me some of those.