The flatscreens that you see in the photo are actually iMacs. As for the components that failed - I don't know, I'm not a hardware engineer. I was told by our maintenance contractor that it was not economic to have them repaired, and I was happy enough for them to be taken away. One of them was literally giving off blue smoke; the case was too hot to touch and an acrid smell of singed plastic filled the entire floor of the building. Never seen that before.

As for legal action - I hadn't even thought about it. They were out of warranty of course. Quite honestly I was only too happy to see them die, so that they could be replaced by what is, in my opinion, a considerably more effective and reliable platform (Linux on 64bit PCs).

In a sense, yes. For example if I were to send you a typical Windows virus as an email attachment and you received it on a Mac, you could potentially pass it onto a Windows user by emailing it to them, or if you saved it on your Mac's hard drive, you could potentially pass it onto a Windows user on a memory stick. But it would never become active and propagate from your Mac in the way that they are typically designed to. All I'm really saying here is that a virus can be stored on any computer, including a Mac.

Apocalypse Now
Alien
Last Night
Annie Hall
Stardust Memories
Get Carter
Dog Day Afternoon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
A Clockwork Orange
Quatermass And The Pit

By the way while comments on my photography there are welcome, I feel duty-bound to confess that I didn't take it using a Pentax

Yes, because that is real-life experience with Apple computers, whether it suits you or not. In the 2.5 years that I've supported them, I have seen about 9 of them die, out of a population of 25. I have a photo of a number of dead Macs in my office waiting to be taken away somewhere, let me see ..




In my time I've had several stacks of good Macs, as I've learned to think of them, taken away by our PC disposal team for recycling, after removing memory and hard drives. That was the merely the first.

Oh, and I'd forgotten until I dug out that photo - I've also had three PowerMac G5s fail, and disposed of.

In that time I've had two hardware faults with AMD 64 PCs (from a population of 8 growing to about 15), both rectified easily by the installation of a new power supply.

Depends what you mean by 'carrier'. Certainly a virus could be passed through a Mac in some circumstances, but not by a method which relies on the host becoming infected - unless it's a Mac virus, but then you wouldn't use the term "carrier" I guess.

My own experience is that Macs, or I should say PPC iMacs in particular, are dramatically more prone to breaking down, and not wanting to work. To be fair I think that particular product line was more prone to hardware failure than most Apple products, but it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in Apple that they let a product like that reach the general public.

As far as the OS goes, it's nice for general desktop use but I've found it to be mediocre and unreliable in a networked, professional computing environment where interaction with servers is important. [edit: disclaimer: I'm referring to Tiger here. I understand that Leopard is improved, but once again it was an Apple product that a lot of people bought, and many still use]

And Apple's filesystem, HFS+, was described by Linus Torvalds as "complete and utter crap" a while back, and I'm sorry to say that my own experience with it, especially on an Apple server that was unfortunately purchased before I started my current job, has tended to vindicate his position very handsomely indeed.

Yes, it is; that's a fair point.

I'm afraid I simply don't accept with what you say there. I only wish people did actually buy what was best for them (in general - some do, of course). The whole point is that often, they don't, and from my point of view it is you who can't, or won't see that.

They do look nicer than most PCs, yes, and for the sort of user who wants a desktop machine that will go nicely with the curtains and is prepared to pay well over the odds, they're not a bad bet until they break down.

I don't think it's a very good reason for an MP3 player or a phone, but whether it is or it isn't, the important point is not to confuse it with the usability or quality of the product.

No, I don't necessarily mean that. There are, for example, plenty of user-friendly and highly functional MP3 players, and smart phones.

Yes. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.