Freebies everywhere
Most amazingly, WP has tons of FREE themes that you can use to make your site look professional as hell. I’m not sh!tting you folks! Some of the web’s best designers create free themes for WP because they want to help it gain world domination. In addition, they’re tons of free plugins that you can add to your WP install that’ll make it jump through hoops, fly to the moon, cook your dinner and make your website or blog do some amazing tricks. Good lords, I sound like a WordPress whore already. Gees, I’m sooo pathetic!

See you on the Net
In short, say goodbye to expensive web developers folks!! The web and open source software are a lethal one two punch when it comes to this sort of thing. Ditto for Linux, the powerful BSD Unix variants (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD), Python, KDE, Zope, Plone, Drupal, Eclipse, TrixBox, Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice, PostgreSQL, MySQL, FirebirdSQL, TinyERP, Care2X, OrangeHRM, SQL-Ledger ERP, ERP5, and a ton of other free software of exceptionally high quality. This is why I love the Internet, and why I’m such an Internet whore. Knowledge is power folks, and TV – aka the idiot box – just doesn’t do it for me. Sorry Hollywood.

Suffice to say, my days over here at Blogger are numbered. Then again, who knows? Google has billions of dollars in the bank and I’m sure they’ll improve things – eventually. However, I’m tired of seeing so many beautiful WordPress sites created by peeps who are way less techie than me. Heck, most of them can’t even write a program that prints “HELLO” on the screen. Enough is enough! I want in!

Installing on Mac OS X
Most of you already know that I’ve ditched Windows in the same manner that every hardliner Republican cronie has ditched president George “lame duck” Bush. Anyhow, if you want to install WP on OS X, then peek this link: Installing WordPress on Mac OS X Tiger. Personally, I prefer to use XAMPP for Mac OS X by Apache Friends as my LAMP stack on OS X instead of using the built in Apache server or configuring anything. Screw that! Besides, XAMPP ships with the latest PHP 5.x build since PHP 4.x is sooo passe.

On the other hand, you’re free to use this Google search string to get even better help results: Installing WordPress on OS X.

Happy virus-free Mac computing!

So, have any of you gravitated to 64-bit computing yet? You do know you can get 64-bit versions of Linux and FreeBSD for free, right?

Apple bytes into 64-bit computing…
Thank goodness the current version of Mac OS/X (aka Leopard) is fully 64-bit. And why shouldn’t it be? After all, it’s based on the rock solid BSD Unix and Mach architecture that’s legendary in research circles. Anyhow, I’m more interested in 64-bit open source server products like MySQL, PostgreSQL, FirebirdSQL, TrixBox, Exim, Postfix et al. Since you have more addressing memory in a 64-bit operating system, programmers have the ability to create some truly POWERFUL software applications that will usher in a new era of computing. Apps dealing with encryption, sound, graphics, video, or querying large data sets will fly through the roof. This is the exciting part. Here’s the kind of power Mac OS/X programmers are gonna have when developing native 64-bit apps using xcode 3.0:

• 64-bit addressing of up to 16 exabytes of virtual memory and 4 terabytes of physical memory
• Full 64-bit arithmetic
• 64-bit development tools
• 64-bit performance monitoring tools
• Seamless deployment
• LP64 data model
• Common source base support

Ah yes, I’m so glad to say goodbye to Windows. Looks like some sweet computing times are ahead in the Apple Mac realm. Heck, just look at all of these smashing hits: iPod, iTunes, iMac, OS/X, iBook, MacBook, and now iPhone 3G. Apple is indeed on a roll, and now she’s got more cash to do more and better things since the big kahuna (CEO Steve Jobs) returned to save the company from disaster a few years ago. Besides, Jobs’ credentials are waaay more impressive than Bill Gates.

Cheers!

It’s the little things…
Why did I break up with Windows? Well, she just didn’t pay any attention to me. For instance, I’m tired of catching all of her STDs (System Transmitted Diseases) when we’re together. Also, she has this insecure desire to be continually updated with the latest (bug) fixes in order to make me (and her) feel safe and secure about our “relationship.” There are times we’d be “together” and then she’d flip out on me, and get all blue in the face. Sometimes I’d insert my stick (USB) when we go on dates at the cyber cafe, and she’d give me a damn virus even though she’s supposed to have protection – considering she’s been around the block (Windows 95/98/ME/SE/XP) for so long now. You call that love?

In short, she was just a fussy gal that everybody wanted to take for a ride simply because she’s good at “playing games” and performing other unique hard/soft-ware tricks that no one else had an answer for. Plus, she was much cheaper to take home on dates compared to that red hot Apple gal. But I’ve learnt my lesson: You get what you pay for.

Viruses be gone…
All joking aside, I just can’t overemphasize to you all how “LIBERATING” (in more ways than one) it feels to go to a cyber cafe, connect my iBook to the network and not have to bloody worry about viruses. Heck, I’ve always been nervous as hell whenever I insert my USB stick into one of those sleazy Windows PCs at the cyber cafe, and then take it home to my “innocent” desktop PC. I’ve lost count of how many times that damn autorun file has started up upon connecting my USB stick to the home PC. Then, it proceeds to load a nasty virus, worm or trojan horse on my machine. You can see it just by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL and peeking your process list.

Remember those annoying AdobeR.exe entries? Well, no more worries folks! What’s good about OS X is the fact that it’s based on the rock-solid BSD Unix architecture that goes waaaay back to the 1970s at that great American institution of higher learning: The University of California – Berkeley. Oh, BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution.

Mac die hards, reveal yourselves…
Ya know, I’ve read a lot of reviews on a wide range of topics since I became an Internet whore around 1993. Never in this period have I read a review that’s as moving as this one. This dude’s passionate beliefs about Mac computing is truly moving. He’s sold me. See for yourself!

It took awhile for me to understand this article…then it hit me. You can’t write an article about why Vista is better than Mac without your tongue planted firmly in your cheek! Congratulations – you had me going for a bit

The essence of the article is that Microsoft makes broken software intentionally – a blatantly ludicrous concept. It is broken, that is for sure. It is broken because they don’t know how to do it right, don’t want to take the time to do it right, have such powerful marketing that they don’t need to bother…but certainly not because it is better that way. Nobody is customizing Windows XP or vista because it is easier with all the broken parts. They customize it in a huge, costly and never ending effort to compensate for it’s flaws – not to celebrate them. In the Windows World, the word “customize” is a euphemism for “fix.” They do it because they have to.

With the Mac, which just works right out of the box perfectly, there is nothing you need to fix, or “customize” for most people (some gamers and scientific apps aside). Anything you can do on XP/Vista to actually customize usability you can not only do easier on a Mac, but now you can do almost identically with VIsta, because they knock off the Mac OS. But why even bother – the Mac works just fine as is for most people and is easy to learn.

Microsoft has been knocking off the Mac’s usability features for years, and never more “transparently” so than now with the coming of Vista. The real customizations users need aren’t in the user interface anyway – they’re in the hardware – more memory, bigger hard disk,faster graphics – and these days the Mac can keep up with anyone there. A Mac APPEARS less customizable to XP/Vista users only because it doesn’t need to be fixed or customized, but they need a justification to “believe” in. Like many mindless fanatics, so called “believers,” it is a blind act of faith not founded in facts.

That also applies to the more software argument. Other than some very technical, scientific or business apps or some games, most users will never need anything that is not available, and working better, on the Mac. You don’t even need Parallels to switch to Windows, unless it just makes you feel better or saves you the cost of replacing some software you already have. I do audio & video editing, photography and retouching, Powerpoint, flow charts, web development, office apps, you name it – all on the Mac. And there are some things I do now on a Mac and never could do on a PC.

And then there is the experience of FREEDOM the Mac gives you, freedom to get your work done without worrying, freedom from hours every day fighting off viruses and malware, freedom to just love and enjoy your computing experience. There is no price for that, it is quite literally invaluable. So there goes your cheaper PC argument. If you value your time, your “cheap” PC is far more expensive than the highest priced Mac, far too expensive to even be in the running. At minimum wage, a PC user is probably spending over $1,000 a year as a premium or service charge – for the time they spend servicing their own PC. Bill Gates made his billions stepping over the dead bodies of million sof Windows users. Businesses that bought PC’s because they seemed cheaper have been spending untold billions on computer support, repair and maintenance. In terms of total cost of ownership, productivity, reliability and every other measure, Microsoft has stifled industry, crippled innovation and reduced productivity. In the long run, there is never anything really gained by using something cheap and low quality to substitute for a quality, well made and effective product. The short term gains are illusions.

Since its inception, Apple has been reinventing every market paradigm it touched, inspiring innovation and creating new opportunities. The Apple II virtually invented the modern personal computer. The Mac, inspired perhaps by Xerox, reinvented computing. The Laserwriter reinvented publishing and typesetting, with help from Pagemaker. The Newton, though not successful at the time, was a vision of the future of PDA’s and smart phones ultimately leading to the iPhone, which successful or not will reinvent the cell phone for everyone. The iPod reinvented the MP3 player and turned the music industry on its ear. The Intel Mac is just such an opportunity.

What has Microsoft given us – incremental improvements in an operating system that was and still is a bad knock off of the Mac/Xerox concept? Crushing innovation and competition to the point they were investigated by the Justice Dept.? An OS so full of holes that it can never be secure (perhaps intentionally- ever wonder what happened to the vigorous pursuit of MS by the Justice Dept., and why they suddenly didn’t feel a need to keep pushing the industry for a “back door” into all computers in the name of national security?). Office apps that basically just copied, bought out or scavenged, and destroyed other existing products that were actually less bloated and better in some ways? The Xbox? Well, ok, I’ll give them that one.

I have a Powerbook G5, which I will keep another few years since I have learned to love life without anything from Microsoft (I love using open source software). I wouldn’t exchange even this slightly older Mac for the latest high-end Vista notebook … though I would consider donations of a new MacBook

What about you? Are you now convinced that Mac computing is the greatest thing since sliced bread, Barrack Obama, Bal en Blanc, The Winter Music Conference, The World Electronic Music Festival, and House Music? I knew you’d see things my way.

——————-
Related links:

• Review: Mac OS X Shines In Comparison With Windows Vista
• Vista vs. OS X? We want to hear from readers
• Apples Tiger vs. Windows Vista: Who Comes Out Ahead?
• Windows Vista Beta: A lot like Mac OS X
• CrunchGear.com – Apple vs. The World: OS X or Vista?