As somebody with an even smaller user ID (see what I did there?), I still think you are jumping to conclusions.

http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019

There is always a tool for the job.

Yeah, the size may be, but anybody that has ever done a lick of hardware work on a Mac knows that these screws date all the way back to the original Macintosh. They were hexalobular, but at the time, it was just as hard to find the drivers for them. Apple has been pulling this kind of stuff for years. I used to turn a blind eye to it, but I have just gotten tired of the creeping amount of control they exert over every new iteration of their products. I honestly see them as the biggest threat to free and open computing out there, bigger than Microsoft ever was.

And because they do it, and I work from home on a semi-regular basis (using VPN and OWA), almost all of the ads I get are for the company I work for.

It makes me giggle that they are wasting their money.

Yes, it is made from "special" children.

I really don't see this as breaking news, I had a doctor use an EEG in the timeframe of 1988-1990 to diagnose me with ADD.

What, she is a girl so this will not be more than a phase? Great relationship you got going there.

On the technical end, you can build a pretty economical gaming rig on the cheap, and it is going to be worlds better than any shared solution.

I just set them up with a reliable AV program, and educate them on how viruses are transmitted. They generally prefer that than taking time out of their lives to learn even more IT type stuff that they weren't interested in in the first place to fit some ideology that they could care less about.

There is no all encompassing "Best" solution. Each user is unique. My mother loves her Macbook Pro. My dad is totally enamored with his EEE PC (running Linux). My brother cannot go without his Windows XP based Dell. What I install is based on what I need the system for. I need a server? Linux, in a heartbeat. Gaming system? Windows 7 is whatI am preferring. I would like a Mac for just day to day internet type stuff. Each OS has strengths and weaknesses, and each user prefers different things.

That being said, Unless Macs get cheaper or Linux gets more compatible and easy to use, Windows will continue to dominate the marketplace. Rarely does the technologically superior win, but the easy to use and best marketed.

I would add that when I tried installing Ubuntu a month or so ago on the same laptop, it said my wi-fi card was working, but it would not work. It also would not let me install the proprietary nVidia driver. When I ran the nVidia installer, it broke X.

It is funny you mention this. I brought up dual booting to my wife once. Her reply was "Why should I have to reboot to run my knitting software, that is stupid."

She would rather play "hunt the driver" to make windows work, and KNOW it will work with the software she wants it to work with, than have the hassle of launching a virtualized session or dual booting. I cannot say I blame her.

Funny, when I installed XP on a laptop last week, it automatically ran windows update on boot and downloaded enough drivers that everything worked.

Granted, they did not work as well as up to date drivers from the manufacturer, but they worked enough for the average person.

How far did his jaw drop?

My favorite is when they get even THAT wrong. "I am not very computer illiterate" meant I was going to spend the next hour doing tech support with somebody that had a level of technical understanding that was surpassed by the Amish.

Probably because you all speak English over there, not American ;-)

Not long before he died, my grandfather and I were able to bond over this.

Now, he did not know the first damn thing about computers. Given that he spent most of the first two decades of his life without electricity, I really could not blame him. However, he was a furniture salesman from the 50s through the 70s. I was relating to him some of the frustration of front line tech support, and he told me about some of the things he dealt with back then. Like people calling in because they bought ironing boards, and the ironing board was not ironing their clothes. Or those newfangled microwaves. People would buy them, put the food in, and not understand why the food was not cooking even though they had not turned any dials or pressed any buttons. We shared quite a few laughs over people misunderstanding technologies that are so elementary today a child can use them.