Saturday, 29 June 2002

Proof: The Mac Is Cheaper. Anyone who has ever run both Macintosh computers and Windows boxes in the same environment at the same time knows from simply doing the figures that Macs are cheaper and always have been.       Research by various IT consultancies in the United States over the years has repeatedly confirmed that observation. Now, research at Melbourne Unversity has proved it yet again. According to The Australian IT columnist David Frith, “The study finds 4676 Macs cost the uni $14.1 million a year to run while the 5338 Windows-based machines cost $18.9 million. The uni spent an average $1953 a year on technical support for each Mac, compared with an average $2522 on Windows machines. This is actually a 22 per cent saving.”       A Big Lie about the cost of Mac ownership, that they are more expensive than Windows machines, has been in circulation for years. True, you can build yourself your own Windows box from unbranded components for a few hundred dollars, or get a suburban hole-in-the-wall whitebox assembler to do it for you, but experience shows you will pay through the nose to keep it running, if you can get it running well to begin with.       Better to buy a Macintosh computer for the same price or less than a mainstream brand-name Windows computer like Hewlett-Packard, IBM or Compaq, get yourself a copy of Norton SystemWorks, then run it once a month.       Doing that should keep your Macintosh problem-free. The reason Melbourne University has to spend even $1953 per year on each of their Macs is that students thrash the life out of the computers they use. 10:34:27 AM    Add a comment.

The Art Of The Big Lie. The Big Lie was an artform introduced and perfected by the Nazis, and was a large part of the reason why they were swept into power and kept it, despite being a minority party in the German parliament.       The art of the Big Lie is in telling one gigantic lie so repeatedly and with such total conviction that all anyone who hears it can do is simply believe it.       After the Nazis were defeated, the Big Lie was seized on by the business world as a marketing tool, and has been in constant use ever since. 9:12:02 AM    Add a comment.