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Mac OS


The promise:
It's smoother, safer, and faster than competing operating systems (OS) such as Windows XP and Vista.

The reality: Okay, we know we're going to get a lot of flack for this, but the operating system (OS) that powers the Mac -- while certainly way better than the competing Windows XP or Vista -- is simply not all that. Now, by Mac OS, we're throwing in basically everything that happens on our Mac desktops that isn't hardware related. First of all, the peripherals and downloadable programs that work with it -- from chat and anti-virus to games-- are a fraction of what's available for PC.

But we've also just had a lot of problems with our Macs that no one seems to have been able to put back together, for some reason -- from iTunes not synching properly with our iPods and iPhones to our outgoing Mac Mail not working to the sudden mysterious disappearance of our Bluetooth modem. We're not alone in this. This was BEFORE we installed the Leopard upgrade, which has delivered its share of problems to an even wider bunch of folks. If you've had any other inexplicable problems, please list them in the comments below.

And sorry, the Mac OS is really no more secure than Windows for a couple of reasons. Part of it is security through obscurity -- people just don't go after the Mac OS the way they go after the Windows OS because fewer people still own Macs (and people seem to like Apple). But the other reason is that so many of today's Internet threats are platform/OS-agnostic, meaning it doesn't matter whether you have Windows or Mac if someone decides to phish your bank passwords and other personal information from you using classic flim-flam methods.

Bottom line: We still prefer our Macs and Mac OS because, frankly, they act up a lot less than our Windows-based PCs and are way faster.

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