We The Free

If you think more than a handful is a waste, then this is why I think you’re an idiot. 

I’ve just stumbled across a review of the Mac Mini by a guy who really should not even be in the computer industry. While I have no issue with people reviewing a computer or OS and loving or hating it based on its appropriate merits and flaws, this example is superb of not just outright Mac hatred, but blatant disinformation and misunderstanding of the simplest of computer concepts. In this example I will show you how all Mac haters come across. Arrogant, unlearned, and completely unable to form their own coherent thoughts.

…I could get a Mac mini computer for $499 and have no keyboard or mouse, no serial ports, no way to connect a printer, no PS/2 ports, no floppy drive, no 5.25″ bays, no PCI slots, no speakers, and no Windows XP…

OK, first, the Mac Mini has USB ports. How many printers in the last few years have been made which don’t have USB ports? Not many. This guy should have said “No parallel port,” which would have made it sound redundant.

No PS/2 ports… because most keyboards and mice are also USB these days.

No floppy drive… Macs have not had floppy drives for years. Their capacity is nearly non-existant. CDs are the same price as blank floppy disks but can hold 600 times more.

No 5.25″ bays… say WHAT? What century are you in?

No PCI slots. well, duh, how many PC laptops have PCI slots? None. Because they don’t need them. They don’t have room for them. Non-argument.

No speakers. Most PCs I’ve bought, they’ve been an extra expense. Of $5.

No Windows XP. This, right here, says it all. The bias, and the cluelessness. This statement alone screams that this Microsoft Guru should not be opening his mouth.

In fact, it took our techs about fifteen minutes before we realized the unit itself was operating normally and it was the monitor that was not plugged in properly.

You have got to be kidding me. Why would you admit that? You’ve just told us that your techs are so incompetant that they can’t plug in a video cable. Is it because of this:

It turns out the Mini uses a weird kind of display connector on the back that requires a special adapter if you want to plug it into a PC monitor.

It’s called DVI. It’s not Mac specific. It’s a high bandwidth capable video data bus which can support things like HDTV. You’ll encounter it on more PCs in the future, so I suggest you take the initiative and learn about this technology.

The Mini boots up into a stripped-down operating system which Apple calls OS X, similar to the stripped-down WindowsCE OS found on many handhelds.

This is simply a false statement. I don’t want to make the assumption that the reviewer thought the OS was stripped down based on his inability to navigate it, but it’s the only logical conclusion I can think of. The other option is FUD.

The little things can add up to big frustration for someone who might accidentally buy a Mini expecting it to be just like Windows.

Maybe the light is finally dawning…

For example, there is no Outlook Express for email, but Apple includes a program called Mail, which is like a stripped-down email client that can’t execute scripts or open attachments without user intervention.

My mistake. This guy has a fetish for stripping things down. Mail is in no way a stripped down email client. It has the best spam and junk filtering I’ve ever seen built into an email client, better thank Outlook, better than Thunderbird.

And you can execute scripts. But you can’t execute VB scripts which is actually what he meant. Apple has their own proprietary scripting language called AppleScript in place of Microsoft’s proprietary scripting language called VBScript.

The fact that you’d want to open attachments without user intervention is exactly why your Windows world is flooded with spam, viruses, spyware and other nasties.

there is no antivirus program shipped with the Mac. In today’s climate of non-stop worms, trojans and viruses, releasing a computer with no virus removal software is irresponsible on the part of Apple.

Correct. Because Macs are more secure, malicious programs cannot run willy nilly with admin priviledges, spyware and viruses do not propogate, thus do not get written.

I’d also like to point out right now that Windows has also never, ever shipped with a virus scanner. Ever. Irresponsible Microsoft? No. They don’t write that kind of software. You have to buy a 3rd party product. This is changing and now viruses and spyware are so prolific on Windows platforms, that Microsoft has invested in cleaners for each.

So before you make brazen comments like that, make sure you’re not shitting in your own woods.

Again, absolute cluelessness.

essentials such as a defragmenter or a registry cleaner are notably absent.

What is notable is your lack of knowledge. OS X has a journalled file system. There is nothing to defragment as it does it automatically. This is a relatively new feature is OS X, but amateur operating systems such as Linux have had this available for years.

A registry cleaner is also absent because…. there’s no registry.

You were saying?

To see how much industry support the Mac platform has these days, I did a google to see if there were Mac versions of any of my favorite applications;

The brain cells are fleeting. I wonder if he tried sites like VersionTracker to look for similar software…

There is no Mac version of WeatherBug…[snip]…Or any equivalent of the DealHelper software I use to keep track of my passwords.

Obviously not. He thinks that Windows developers can all afford to port their software to a different platform.

My Office 2003 CD would not install, despite claims I had heard from Mac fanboys that OS X is compatible with Office.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. What planet does this work on? Basic Computer Lesson #1: A program written for Windows will only run on Windows. A program written for OS X will only run on OS X. A program written for a Commodore 64 will only run on a Commodore 64. They’re all different operating systems, the computers all have different CPUs.

You have to buy the Mac version of Office.

When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware–none of which are available for the Mac platform–it doesn’t make sense for me to “switch” to a Mac at this time.

That sounds like a contradiction to me. You don’t need to run defrag, scandisk, norton’s AV, and Ad-Aware. So you’ll be able to spend more time doing work.

But that is probably a scary concept to you.

I recommend:

- Learn about computers. You have all the basics wrong.
- Stop lying. Just because you’re too stupid to understand how to use a computer doesn’t mean that you should lie to attempt to cover that up. The rest of the population will pick holes in everything you say, as has been done today.

It could just be that this article is a hoax, but not a very well written one. The world doesn’t need sites like this which are just seen as more FUD. Too many PC weenies will take this as gospel.

Last Sunday, me and the missus drove up to Palmerston North to the Erotica Expo. I’ve never been to one of these before, because they’ve only ever been in Auckland. Seems that Palmy has had a couple, and this year I found out about it.

Overall it was pretty good. It wasn’t very big, but there were some interesting events — jelly wrestling, blowjob competitions, tattoo comps, strip shows (male and female), and loads of other things. A few American porn stars showed up such as RayVeness and Evan Stone.

Actually, Evan was really funny. At the start of the show, before the doors opened, the Salvation Army had their official god botherers spouting shit into a megaphone. Even Stone, who was probably a comedian in his last life, absolutely gave them shit. It was well worth it.

The show inside was not too shabby, but we only lasted a couple of hours. After wandering around a couple of times, you sort of run out of things to do. I bought a bunch of porn mags, a DVD of the making of NZX magazine, a few porn movies including the first NZ porn movie ever made – Sex Around the World: New Zealand.

All in all, a bloody good show. Oddly enough, it’s cheaper than Armageddon for a couple.

Sadly, I have no photos of the expo because you’re not allowed cameras or camera phones. Which is a real shame because this one chick who was showing off chainmail clothes had the fucking biggest natural tits I’ve ever seen in my life. I wanted to take her home, and I would have accepted a beating from the missus to do it.

*sigh* If you’re the big tittied chainmail wearing girl and you’re reading this, I lust you.

oops. I just drooled down my shirt.

I have to take my car in for a service tomorrow, and there are a couple of things that need to be looked at, so I’m worried about the bill.

The other thing is that I haven’t heard from anyone about them selling my magazine, nor about them putting in ads. Now, I cut everyone a deal. Ads would be free for the first issue. But not a single person has gotten back to me.

That doesn’t leave me with a lot of faith, but the problem is I have to wait until I get my car looked at before I can print any copies of the mag. Just in case. The car comes first cos it’s already booked.

I’ve taken some photos of my den. Well, my parents’ den. I live in a bedsit under their house, and my stuff is in the den. All my stuff except my fridge which I lent/gave to my brother, my bed which is in my room, my comfy chair which is in my grandmother’s room, and my dining table which is in my parents’ lounge.

My desk is a bit full.

The rest of the room’s no better.

Oh, and I bumped into an old friend of mine, Marc, who had moved over to the UK. He’s back for a week. Damn fluke. but drinking V paid off, because if I wasn’t falling asleep, I would never had seen him.

Frikkin’ great!

I might go take some better photos of my car and post them.

I just found a legendary online comic called Atland. It has ale, large breasts, violence, magic, death, and lycanthropes. Among other things.