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Morning Lineup – January 5

8 comments

For me, today is the real start for the New Year.  Schools are open again, the 9-to-5ers are back to work, and traffic settles down a bit.

Sometime during this morning’s hours, Firefighter Nation will be signing up Member #28,000.  That is a remarkable achievement, believe me.  They’ve also got a huge archive of photos and videos by now, too.  Congratulations, Guys.

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Two big trade shows open this week.  The International Consumer Electronics Show will be running in Las Vegas for the 41st year.  This one is always fun to watch because it’s the showcase for new products that are being tried out and we get to see some mighty imanginative gadgets and toys.  Tourism has been down in Las Vegas recently, so they are touting greatly-reduced hotel room rates for this week.

The other annual event is Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco.  The Mac fans were stunned the other day when Apple announced that this would be the final year for Macworld.  They feel that the expense isn’t justified compared to other means of reaching their customers.  There’s also speculation that Steve Jobs’ health is an issue, too.  He has been suffering from pancreatic cancer and will not be addressing the gathering this year.

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A friend of mine asked me the other day what I think about the idea of switching his computer habits from Windows to MacIntosh.  He’s undecided whether to stick with Win or to move over to the Mac.  This is no small decision to make because once you do it, you’re pretty well locked in with the system.

win2mac

Since I’ve never used a Mac, I can’t really offer any good advice on it, other than to say the the Mac users seem to be a lot more happy in their digital universe than the PC crowd is.  The Mac is definitely more stable  and a lot less vulnerable to virus attacks, which are both good features to consider.  But if you have a lot of ancillary programs to help you with various work or hobby projects, then you have to consider the expense and labor involved in replacing them.

If any of you have ever actually switched from Windows to Mac (or the other way around), would you please enter a Comment telling us about it?  Why did you do it?  Are you glad you did?  Would you recommend it?  You know me, I’m always interested in these things, too.  So I’d like to hear from you.

Ok, let’s start the new year right and get this equipment checked out.  We might have to make it last another year or two longer until revenues pick back up.  I’ll go start the coffee.  We’ll meet back in the day room in a little while.

Posted by on January 5, 2009 • Filed under: morning lineup
  • B Morgan

    MAC’s

    We live in a split house hold. My partner a teacher in a private school uses one and I and two teenaged kids have Windows systems, 3 seperate computers. Our Mac user does lots school stuff,
    house hold and family scheduling, and a pile of photo stuff on the MAC and she loves it had 2 of them for 12 years. Has had no problems with it or virus. Besides a bad power supply once it keeps humming away. Attempts to have her change sides have been met with, “you can sleep on the couch tonight”. People who use them love them and can’t see any reason to change like going from red to yellow on fire trucks.

    Since I started doing reports 35 years ago on manual typewritters I just can’t face a change from my windows laptop. The advantage of windows based units is most of the world works on them or a clone.

    B. Morgan

  • http://firegeezer B Morgan

    MAC’s

    We live in a split house hold. My partner a teacher in a private school uses one and I and two teenaged kids have Windows systems, 3 seperate computers. Our Mac user does lots school stuff,
    house hold and family scheduling, and a pile of photo stuff on the MAC and she loves it had 2 of them for 12 years. Has had no problems with it or virus. Besides a bad power supply once it keeps humming away. Attempts to have her change sides have been met with, “you can sleep on the couch tonight”. People who use them love them and can’t see any reason to change like going from red to yellow on fire trucks.

    Since I started doing reports 35 years ago on manual typewritters I just can’t face a change from my windows laptop. The advantage of windows based units is most of the world works on them or a clone.

    B. Morgan

  • FIREhat

    I use PC and haven’t owned a full Apple/Mac since the IIE in the 80′s. I do own an iPhone and I love Apple’s user interfaces and their overall design philosophy. My friends who use full size Macs swear they will never go back, but it does cause some problems occasionally.

    I don’t hate PC and it’s cheaper and more standard, so I am staying with my off-the-shelf Gateway laptop and my Dell work computer. If I had some extra cash for a new computer I might get a Mac laptop, but the extra price for great is not worth moving on from good (to me).

  • FIREhat

    I use PC and haven’t owned a full Apple/Mac since the IIE in the 80′s. I do own an iPhone and I love Apple’s user interfaces and their overall design philosophy. My friends who use full size Macs swear they will never go back, but it does cause some problems occasionally.

    I don’t hate PC and it’s cheaper and more standard, so I am staying with my off-the-shelf Gateway laptop and my Dell work computer. If I had some extra cash for a new computer I might get a Mac laptop, but the extra price for great is not worth moving on from good (to me).

  • http://offthecuff3251.blogspot.com/ CuffnStuff

    I was able to switch my family over to Mac when our last desktop died. I had used them in college and just couldn’t afford one then. They are user friendly, and with parallel software to run those few windows programs that just won’t convert to the Mac way. Gates doesn’t make Microsoft Office for Mac because he thinks it’s an inferior platform. The switch is painless and worth the hair gain that you stop pulling when your PC locks ups and crashes.

  • http://offthecuff3251.blogspot.com CuffnStuff

    I was able to switch my family over to Mac when our last desktop died. I had used them in college and just couldn’t afford one then. They are user friendly, and with parallel software to run those few windows programs that just won’t convert to the Mac way. Gates doesn’t make Microsoft Office for Mac because he thinks it’s an inferior platform. The switch is painless and worth the hair gain that you stop pulling when your PC locks ups and crashes.

  • Mark F.

    Don’t forget that the Mac’s have a duel core platform so you can run both the Mac OS as well as windows on the same computer. For those programs you really need that are only in the Windows platform you just boot up in the windows mode and your on a windows computer. Other then that, just boot up in the OS X platform and enjoy the experience! Once you switch you will wonder why you waited so long.

    Cheers

  • Mark F.

    Don’t forget that the Mac’s have a duel core platform so you can run both the Mac OS as well as windows on the same computer. For those programs you really need that are only in the Windows platform you just boot up in the windows mode and your on a windows computer. Other then that, just boot up in the OS X platform and enjoy the experience! Once you switch you will wonder why you waited so long.

    Cheers