I understand needing to accommodate her choices, but it's worth pointing out that there are no single-button mice or trackpads on Apple products anymore. The trackpad itself is the button, so two fingers is a right click. Same on the standard mice they distribute with desktops.

I've got a new laptop with Lion and bought a magic trackpad for desktop use, I'm really loving the gestures.

Carry on.

Um, basically anything you would run on OS X either has a Windows-style installer (in other words, utter shite) or as a drag-and-drop which is the way things USED to be more often in OS X. This also means delete the icon when you want to uninstall, and you're done. Sadly things are moving a bit more in the Windows installer direction, where you specifically need to run an UNinstaller to get rid of some applications.

Anything you need to build on the command line is likely something you simply cannot get in Windows (without dealing with Cygwin or some such hack), so it counts in favor of OS X, not against it.

I'm sure there are features that are missing from Outlook for the Mac, but 99.9% of users would never notice. I sure as hell don't know what's missing.

Microsoft Entourage was more hit-or-miss, but that's been around since at least 2004, and at least it let you sync with exchange.

Turbo Tax runs on OS X natively, and has for some time. I'm not sure if I'm misreading you here, and you're anti-Mac. But the fact that you mentioned other Mac/Linux compatible software leads me to believe you're open to OS X and just didn't realize TurboTax runs on it.

I'm sorry, how are WinSCP and Putty anything but the tools of absolute last resort? They're both, quite frankly, absolutely terrible. So is Cygwin. If you spend any time dealing with Unix, I don't see how a Mac isn't the better choice, unless you're also a corp IT person who needs to deal with Windows servers.

Because we like being paid for our skills, not for the skills of the average drone. Unionization is great if you're lazy and don't like working.

Last 2 jobs have bought me Macbook Pros. Most tech companies are Mac friendly these days. If they're not, you can usually still expense them. I'm not interested in being a sysadmin somewhere that things that Windows is an appropriate tool for the job of working with Unix systems -- it's simply not, it's a huge handicap.

I haven't used Windows for work since 2006 when I had an ill-fated attempt at working for an accounting firm.

At my current job, though, I have VMware Fusion with Windows 7, so that I can run one thing: VMware vSphere client. Funny that VMware is so intent on driving their customers into their competitor's arms (Microsoft).

I don't find it necessary to re-hash why using OS X is so nice for working with Unix systems, or why I choose closed-source over open-source. That ship has sailed, I used Linux on the desktop from 1995 to 2002. It's not worth the effort to me; the cost of the Mac hardware is fairly trivial, and I'm not interested in the ideological arguments.

As part of the public, I agree with this plan to not overspend to cover extremely rare contingencies.

This is why I don't have hotspare houses on 3 different continents.

no, it actually is, in fact, funny.

They were dead when Apple stopped shipping systems with them. And they merely shifted the burden to the user who had to buy a USB floppy drive. So it went from standard to optional. Note how when I word it that way it turns into the more graceful method you think PC makers used.

MAC address comes to mind, though of course it can be spoofed.

It's not a "rich guys pay lots of money to fight other rich guys to avoid paying taxes" issue.

It's an initiative created to implement, for the first time, a state income tax in a state that has fought hard many times against having one -- A state that has created alternate taxation schemes to make up for the 'lost' revenue over the years. But don't worry! It only applies to the rich! Bill Gates Senior would never tax 'normal' people! Unfortunately, 2 years after being implemented, the legislature can amend the tax rate any time they want with a simple majority vote.

oh, well in that case... .... grow up.

Because speed limits are retarded, have nothing to do with public safety, are never re-evaluated, the agents who enforce them have little accountability, and if everyone drove the speed limit we'd have MASSIVE knots in traffic.

You "just obey the speed law" types need to realize that about 1% of the population agrees with you and just move on. Or find an Apple thread to post the insightful "I don't like Apple products!#%" comment.

"Early 1990s," huh? IE wasn't even *released* until 1995.

Browser wars were more 97 on.

"The Road Ahead" (November 1995) was Bill Gates figuring out that this whole Internet thing might catch on.