I already block Flash automatically, as it drags down performance and rarely adds any content.

There are a few cases in which useful content has been designed in Flash, but most of the time it is useless eye candy - and more often than not, just pure advertising. A great way to block most advertising that you do not want is to block Flash. Why would you not want to do that?

If you read the post a bit more slowly and carefully, it may become clearer that the latter part of the is about scientific computing in general.

As it happens, I work in a high performance computing center and use Linux all of the time. Beyond that, Macs account for about half of the personal desktops or laptops used here, with Windows and Linux also represented. What I like best about my OS X laptop is that I can do essentially anything I need to do from it, through it, or via scripts that share between the two.

That having been said, I agree with you that Linux dominates the bulk-computing environments found within high performance computing, despite serious attempts on the part of Microsoft to get traction into this space. To first order, scientific computing IS Linux, with personal machine environments connecting to these systems left to personal choice.

My point remains that Linux is essential for science and that someone going into science will surely be exposed to it and trained in its use. My personal choice for an individual laptop and desktop environment is OS X, and I note that a larger fraction of scientists make this choice than in other fields, as well.

Almost all high performance computing environments, as well as a great deal of scientific computing in general, is handled on Unix platforms, almost all of which are Linux or Mac OS X. If your daughter is interested in a career in science, she is sure to encounter Linux as part of her education in the sciences.

I also do extensive technical support for a not-for-profit. We recently switched most of our communication including mail, documents, calendar, and other communications and a significant part of our web presence to the Google Apps for Domain suite. We are really happy with this solution and are saving a ton of money. As a 501(c)(3), we are eligible for and have received this at no cost.

In terms of CRM, we see that Salesforce has what appears to be extremely good integration with Google Apps. We haven't tried this yet, and are somewhat concerned about costs, but may go that direction also as our usage of the Google Apps suite matures.

By the way, the new scripting tools for spreadsheets recently announced for early trial look very good, and may replace any need we have for other products.

Let me get this straight - you'll be traveling all over the world, exposed to who knows what networking and virus-prone environments, and don't already know that the Mac is your best starting point?

A Macbook Pro for anyone doing real work (viewing dailies, making storyboard or layout suggestions, doing any ancillary work actually associated with the film); smaller Macbooks for carrying around the set to do story work, check e-mail, etc., and a few minis should give you everything you need in the field. ANyone who needs to run another OS can do it via Parallels or VMWare, etc. (even VirtualBox for free if you want to). Film and Macs go together and this will produce the most comfortable, secure and performant working environment. (Plus, people will actually LIKE their machines and using them!)

f you want to spend your time debugging viruses picked up from hotel networks and doing IT support for obscure Windows problems while you should be working, that of course is your business...