My mother in law has not had a new (or even working) computer in about a decade, but has been hemming and hawing over getting one, for a couple of years (she's really busy). Naturally, I have been trying to convince her that a Mac is the best way to go, and she has often responded with concerns based on the typical anti-Mac BS people have told her. Well, I showed her some info on the new iMac G5, and told her she wouldn't have nearly the security concerns, with the Mac, that she would with a PC, and I believe she is sold. Thank God! I wasn't looking forward to being the on-call system tech for another Windows box, whenever it decided to misbehave.

Do what I do when relatives decide to buy a PC on the advice of another misinformed relative. Refuse to help them with their new PC. And let them know that will be the case before they buy it.

My wifes' poor grandmother reverted to my old mac that had been usurped by a new pc. The windos box needed constant maintenance, and she eventually got tired of calling India. I refuse to help those that won't help themselves.

I provide "support" for anyone in my family that buys a mac, and appoligize in advance to the ones who choose windows boxes for all the problems they will have. I usually receive one support call per family member/friend who goes the mac route and that is to ask how to eject the cd-rom drive.

I have had a 20" iMac iSight for about 2 weeks. I like it a lot, it is fast with a very bright monitor. FrontRow is "okay", it has a lot of potential and will probably become a real handy feature.

My only regret is that I didn't opt for the 500GB hard drive. I did order it with an extra GB of RAM.

... I tell friends and family that my Mac support is 24/7, windows don't call me!

The rate of problems on the mac are so minimal (and those that do crop up are easily dealt with) that I don't have to worry about making such a promise!

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Al Swearengen wrote:
I have had a 20" iMac iSight for about 2 weeks. I like it a lot, it is fast with a very bright monitor. FrontRow is "okay", it has a lot of potential and will probably become a real handy feature.

My only regret is that I didn't opt for the 500GB hard drive. I did order it with an extra GB of RAM.

I also bought the 20" iMac (my first iMac ever, but my 5th Mac), with the 250GB drive. Frankly, I think you'll be better off getting the 250GB and an external drive anyway. Sure, you'll sacrifice a little bit of desk space, but you can get good deals on external drives, and many of them have very quiet or no fans. You're not putting all your eggs (or files) in one basket, and you have something to backup on.

Oh, and I'm very happy with my new iMac. My previous purchases have been PowerMacs and PowerBooks, and I never thought I'd get an iMac, but this thing is great, quiet, and takes very little desk space compared to my retired G4 with 19" CRT.

I would rather be oncall for people's mac problems 24/7 for 100 users than be responsible for 5 new dells. Alot of it remains that Macs are frankly much more "idiot-proof" than PCs. Sure you can muck around more now with OSX than you ever could with 9, but Apple has done a really good job, particularly since Panther, of putting system config files within reach without making them as vulnerable to tampering, both malicious and accidental, as they are in Windows. At the same time so many of the features "just work" without the need to go through 15 setup dialogs.

Thats why the price argument has always been silly to me: even if my time were only worth minimum wage I still end up saving money on every mac I buy in manhours, versus what a similar PC would require for it to work as well.

For those who like the tinkering aspect of PCs (kinda like a half-rusted old muscle car) thats great, but please stop recommending them to your grandma and your clueless friends, who then complain endlessly to us poor, poor mac users

I like the big hard drive because it is handy for my stock photo, clip art, movie, and audio files. Things that are on CDs and DVDs, but not real convenient to search. But yeah, a smaller drive does force you to practice organization.

I mirror back to my external hard drive, some items also to another computer on the network, and a few real important files to .mac, defense i depth. Finished projects are also archived onto CDs or DVDs then placed in off-site storage.

The external hard drive is not on the desktop, the physical desktop, I have set down lower on a desk shelf. After the big "Cedar Fire" two years ago here in San Diego, I wanted to be able flee with my computer. I can replace the CPU, but the files would be a chore.

I too bought the iMac to replace a PowerMac G4. I would love to have had a new top end system with a 48" wide monitor, but with the new Intel based Macs just over the horizon I opted for the iMac. It is more than enough for my needs.

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Guest wrote:

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Al Swearengen wrote:
I have had a 20" iMac iSight for about 2 weeks. I like it a lot, it is fast with a very bright monitor. FrontRow is "okay", it has a lot of potential and will probably become a real handy feature.

My only regret is that I didn't opt for the 500GB hard drive. I did order it with an extra GB of RAM.

I also bought the 20" iMac (my first iMac ever, but my 5th Mac), with the 250GB drive. Frankly, I think you'll be better off getting the 250GB and an external drive anyway. Sure, you'll sacrifice a little bit of desk space, but you can get good deals on external drives, and many of them have very quiet or no fans. You're not putting all your eggs (or files) in one basket, and you have something to backup on.

Oh, and I'm very happy with my new iMac. My previous purchases have been PowerMacs and PowerBooks, and I never thought I'd get an iMac, but this thing is great, quiet, and takes very little desk space compared to my retired G4 with 19" CRT.

"Do what I do when relatives decide to buy a PC on the advice of another misinformed relative. Refuse to help them with their new PC. And let them know that will be the case before they buy it."

Exactly what I do. Sure, buy that PC, but don't come running to me when you need help.

I have only been a Mac user for the last year or so,
Why oh why did I listen to PC users for so long.

I have never been happier with my computer before, it does everything I can through at it without fault.and I mean everything.

Now all I have to put up with is Windows box peaple telling me how much I should hate my Mac...

Well, the end result is no more windows for me.

Regards, Ivan Hancock.

Not hard to get, and easy to upgrade (unlike your iMac) - and when you come to upgrade your computer, you just plug your drive into new one. It doesn't even need to be plugged in all the time - I just use mine for archiving anything I'm not currently working on.

Personally I'm looking at something like the Buffalo linkstation and similar products (basically a small server / hard-drive on your home network) although we have a mix of Mac and Windows machines around.
You can extend most of these products through adding a couple more HD via USB2 connections, which should be enough potential to keep me going to the end of the decade.

Hey all,

Why not take grandma's old PC, throw a drive or two in it and make a server out of it using SME Server (contribs.org). It's FREE, goof-proof, sets up in a matter of minutes, powerful, shares wonderfully with OSX (even 10.4.x) and all Windows variants (as well as linux and unix clients), runs headless and can be easily administered via a web browser. And, since it's based on CentOS (linux) it's rock solid. I know the thought of linux scares some people but trust me it's totally simple. All you do is download the software from their site, burn it to cd, put the burned CD in the CD drive of the PC and boot from it, then follow the prompts that come up on the screen. You'll be up in minutes!

Oh, and just in case you're not convinced let me also say that I'm the MacIT manager for a $75,000,000/yr company and this is the product I use for my server at home! Trust me... it's good stuff. Give it a look!