First, this month’s meeting of our local Mac user group, MMOOS (Maine Macintosh Owners & Operators Society) will be held next Tuesday, November 15th, at 7:00 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room, second floor around the back at Brunswick High School. Whether you’re new to the platform, or a seasoned MacHead, there’ll be something at MMOOS for you. See ‘ya there.

Speaking of new to the platform, according to a recent report, over one million Windows users bought Macs for the first time this year. If you’re “new to the fold”, welcome. If you’re teetering on the edge, come on in, the water’s fine. Analysts attribute this Mac migration to (and I quote a writer from Business Week) “the perception that Mac users suffer less from the daily irritants of viruses, spyware, and worms”.

Here, I have to take exception with the Business Week writer. It’s not perception. It’s fact. We Mac users don’t suffer less from those daily irritants. We don’t suffer at all. Period.

Go to your local computer superstore (or as close as you can find here in Maine). Sure, there are aisles of Windows software titles, but take a good close look at what they’re for. Network security. Internet security. Virus management. Spyware killers. Adware killers. Registry cleaners.

Sure, there are a dozen Windows word processors (and contact managers) there on the shelves. How many can you use at once? And, why would you use anything but Microsoft Word (and this coming from a Mac user) anyway? Need photo, video and DVD editing software on par with Apple’s installed-on-every-Mac iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD? That’ll be a hundred bucks each, please.

Now is it just me, or is Microsoft wanting to sell you the anti-virus and anti-malware software needed to continually protect the operating system it also sold you, just a bit, well, offensive? Rather than search for that next lucrative revenue stream, why doesn’t Microsoft just pour some of those gazillions (a technical term for a “whole bunch”) of dollars they have into fixing their operating system?

And do you trust Microsoft to police their own system? This from a company who has created an entire species of “Certified Microsoft Specialists” who train intensely to enter the lucrative career-field of keeping Windows computers computing. What a great scam. Create something that needs fixing, then train people to fix it, as well as recommend it. Talk about job security.

© 2005 Peter F. Zimowski