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Harry, buy a Mac. You know you want to. Just do it. And, no it won't gather dust. My HP lappy is the one getting very little attention these days. I keep it updated and current, but that is about it. Wife uses it at home some. The Mac is much easier to carry around.

BTW, I edited and produced a 45 minute video the other day. First time for me. Simple and quick on the Mac. Well, quick as can be. Some processes just take time. But I have a DVD that has a menu, chapters, and all the whooha you need, including adding my slides in at appropriate locations.

We did a training on emergency prep last week, ran it on ITV so our folks in another town could see it, and recorded it, too. I grabbed the video, converted it to mpg4 from wmv and got into the iMovie product. Then exported to iDVD and was on a roll. I'll export it all back to a wmv so I can set up the share on our network, too.

Sooooooo much simpler and more robust than trying to do all that on the Windows system. Tools are very easy to use and capable. I set up a 10 minute video to DVD of some house hunting we did, and did the work on the home PC system. Had to go find about five different utilities on the net to sort out how to produce the DVD, settled on one and still wasn't all that happy with the quality of the final product.

My www.rapier57.com site is all iWeb produced and it is one of the easiest things I've done. I'll be doing more experimenting with all that. Talk about enabling technology!

Harry, just buy a mac - then ship it to me so I can use it for target practice.

Sorry, Mac carries a smug level that should require EPA sanctions...besides, you can't customize the bloody thing.

Eh? Not customizable? It's about as customizable as any *nix-based system.

Oh, yeah, you're talking about hardware. That is one of the drawbacks. And, Apple's pricing is a bit high. And, Apple has a tendency to orphan hardware at the drop of a hat.

But, this is the most sheer fun I've had with a computer in 20 years.

Truth to tell I've been eyeing up a macbook pro since all I ever use a lappy for is docs/graphics/movie watching - but they're still wanting lexus price for a typical chevy. Until they quit being so proud of their bloody machines, I'll stick with IBM compatibles.

Just out of sheer curiosity, have you *ever* even once in your life, met a certified Apple hardware technician outside of the Mac store?

That one issue is enough to make me want to stick with my old boxes - there's something reassuring about the ability to punch a screw-up tech in the nose if you so desire, not to mention getting your box back online much faster than having to ship it in or bring it to a Macshop and pay Macprice$.

I learned my lesson on laptops a while ago. Buy the extended warranty. I did for the second HP and did for the MacBook. That puts the device into a full service situation for the expected lifespan. After that, if it don't work anymore, it becomes a doorstop and gets replaced.

Except, in the MacBook's case, I'll have to think of another job. It ain't heavy enough for a doorstop.

I think I may "buy the wife one" for Christmans

Just bought and installed Snow Leopard. It freed up 12+ GB of disk space. How many OS's can say THAT! Plus it's faster, more streamlined and I LOVE the new app Expose...

Yeah, I'm quite happy with it too..

One annoying bug though. Applications can't seem to get exclusive access to the apple remote.
So VLC, XMBC and a few others pick up on the remote control but also the system itself.
It's been reported quite some time ago and there's still no fix for it