I'm sure that will work well with the VOIP I use the machine for.

So you mean 2 extra steps then? One to open the cover, and another step to close the default app when I want to use something else instead?

Try keeping Ubuntu up to date. The individual downloads aren't as big but they are every day.

ISPs are not a charity, they are a business. Business exists to make money. Deal with it. If your politicians are doing favours, it is your politicians that is where the evil lies.

This is 2013 and we live in the richest nation in the world

Actually you live in the most indebted nation in the history of the world. ergo, you do not live in the "richest nation in the world" despite what your politicians would have you believe.

... i foiled a global internet attack that would have caused routers the world over to explode. just prove i didn't, right?

Also Netapp, Juniper, Bluecoat...

Oh and of course. OS X, iOS.

Netapp, Juniper, Bluecoat, others.

Says the guy who can't configure IPSEC.

Ahaha. I'm sure he's at least somewhat misunderstood as text does not convey tone very well. But yes, description seems accurate.

I had similar concerns, bought a mac mini a few years back and have not looked back. I also think you under-estimate your parent's ability to adapt.

Yup, that too. But self support is fairly painless as well. It is also pretty impossible to fuck your Mac up by doing a boot-from-internet reinstall and time-capsule restore - there are no drivers to worry about, you need to go out of your way to wipe the disk, etc.

Time machine, for all it's faults (speed mainly) is some of the best software I have ever seen, in 30 years of using computers. It doesn't get in the way, doesn't require un-necessarily complicated set up and just works. It's pretty much seamless, almost "magic" to the end user.

This is a major gap in every other end user OS at the moment in my opinion. Most backup software just plain fucking sucks. Including massively expensive corporate backup software.

All the BSODs i have personally seen since Windows NT4 have been due to either broken hardware or dodgy third party drivers. Buy non-shit hardware (with proper drivers), and Windows is fairly stable. I'm not counting Windows 95/98/ME here - but the NT code-base as far as stability goes is fairly solid.

... and the whole backup thing? time machine/time capsule. set/forget. if they ever need to reinstall the machine themselves, hold option, network boot/install, restore from time machine backup when prompted. it's so easy, your grandmother could do it.