I hate Macs

Saturday Apr 30th 2005

I figured I’d rattle off this rant before going to bed.

It seems that more and more I am seeing these profoundly pro-Apple users on the web. They seem to be pervading everywhere. They’re in chat rooms, message boards, newsgroups.. you just can’t seem to get rid of these idiots. And yes, they’re idiots.

I should say first off that I don’t hate Macs. What I do hate are these “internet hippie” Mac users on the internet that are always trying to convince everyone to switch to a Mac. I swear, they’re like those darned religous nuts that try to lure you into their cult. They all spew out the same nonsensical garbage, such as..

“Macs don’t crash”. Wrong. Every computer can crash. There is no computer on the face of the Earth that isn’t immune to a crash. I would say the only computer that has the least potential of crashing is a mainframe built by IBM. It is extremely rare that they crash because they’re just built so darn well. There are some who would say “Windows crashes all the time”. Well, that’s funny, my Windows XP Pro never crashes - ever. This is because I actually know what I’m doing when it comes to a computer. Put an idiot in front of a computer and they’ll find a way to crash it, guaranteed. It doesn’t matter what the operating system is.

“Windows sucks”. I don’t think so. Say what you will about Microsoft, call it the evil empire or whatever.. but the fact of the matter is that Windows is the #1 operating system sold in the world as we know it. The reason is advertising. In 1995, Microsoft pushed some major advertising dollars, got a great ad campaign going and it worked. Apple’s advertising campaigns on the other hand didn’t fare out as well. They tried and it just didn’t seem to “capture the magic” so to speak. Microsoft did really well. Why Microsoft won the marketing battle (so it would appear) and Apple didn’t is anyone’s guess - I don’t have the answer to that one.

Want to know why I use Windows? Here’s why:

As a teen around the year 1991-ish, the “big” computer at the time was the i486. Most people I knew who used Macs at the time had those god-awful “duffle bag” Macs, like the Mac SE or “Mac Classic”. It was a piece of shit 2-color (no grayscale) black and white tiny computer that wasn’t good for much except printing documents. It wasn’t too good at anything else. There basically was no online experience on a Mac. On the PC with DOS you could connect to local BBS’s - which was really cool and really awesome. Mac termial emulation software at the time really sucked ass. There were a few pathetic souls out there that tried their best to connect to ANSI based DOS BBS’s. It was just plain horrible. I unfortunately saw it in action (shudder..)

When I entered the Information Technologies field in 1996, this is what typically happened in the corporate environment: There was always one snotty bitch (or two or three), who obviously worked in marketing who had to have a Mac. The Mac was always a huge challenge to get working on the network properly. “Special” considerations always had to be made to accommodate her needs. The price of anything (be it hardware or software) she needed was usually double or triple the price of anything Windows based - and it usually had to be custom ordered because of course our vendor didn’t carry anything Mac based. If anything broke on the Mac - which happened all too often - it would take sometimes as long as 5 days to get repaired because you’d always have to call a “special” technician just to come and fix the darn thing. All other departments positively hated working with those “gotta have Mac” people because they did nothing but slow down the work environment. This is because what they used simply didn’t work with anything else, except themselves.

I learned from my I.T. experience that Macs are nothing but evil machines. In every single corporate envrionment I’ve ever worked in, everyone in the MIS department knows to stay far away from Mac users. Very far away. It is just a nightmare waiting to happen.

Why is it a nightmare? Well, consider this. Say you’re a tech in a corporate environment. It is 95% Windows environment, 5% (or less) Mac environment. A Mac user calls in a problem so you go to check it out. You instantly get a sharp pain in your back from the tension because you know this isn’t going to be easy. After all, all the Windows computers are set up in a nice “vanilla” format and all work the same. It is easy to support and fix should a problem present itself. The Mac on the other hand is completely customized. It doesn’t follow the corporate spec at all. You know if there’s a hardware problem it will have to be treated as a “custom” issue. If there’s a big problem, you can’t offer the user a loaner computer because there are none.. it’s a Mac. You pray to God that it’s just a simple software reinstall for whatever problem they have. You also pray that the user will actually listen to you if it’s a simple formatting issue, such as sending a Word document in a “backwards compatible” format so whoever they’re sending it to can read the darn thing properly.

Speaking of which.. I don’t know if this is just a Mac thing, but it seems that every time I (and I’m very cordial) give a specific instruction to a Mac user to get his/her document to “talk” properly, they get really really defensive about it…

“Why do I have to save a document like that? Why can’t they do something to read my documents?”

How I would love to say “It’s because you insisted on using a Mac, you dumb bitch. You wanted a computer that doesn’t talk properly with anything on our network. You use files that no one else can use except you, and now you expect the entire company to bow to your needs because of your almighty stupid Mac? FUCK OFF.” Of course, I didn’t say that - BUT I WAS THINKING IT.

So in the end, it is not the Mac itself I hate. It’s the sporadic cult-like people who try to convince me to use them. I see it this way: If you’re so darned in love with your computer that you want to stick your dick in it and make babies, I don’t need to hear it. Truly good computers and/or operating systems don’t need to be bragged about because they speak for themselves in a positive light. Ask any Linux user (as in true Linux like SuSE, KNOPPIX or Red Hat, pick your flavor).

I use Windows. I like Windows. There, I said it. I LIKE WINDOWS. Have I used Macs before? Yes, I have. Are they good computers? Yes, they are. Are they any better than PC’s with Windows? Whether they are or aren’t, I couldn’t care less how much you think a Mac is “better” than Windows. The typical response by a Mac user is “Well, try a Mac. You’ll love it.” I have. It didn’t convince me to switch - so stop trying to make me.

Thank you. Good night.

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