I just cannot figure out what this "question" is all about? You *apparently* *might* be part of a *possibly* large group of OS X people who *might* want to go using Windows?
Well, I just might not feel like answering this. My experience is that this type of questions are apparently suggestive, and only meant to be so.

Starting off with the Google's Python Class, https://developers.google.com/edu/python/ , looking for "online course python programming" is the fastest and fun way to get a grip on what programming is.

For the serious and the bitten, a free and open course aimed at students with little or no prior programming experience:
Guttag, John. 6.00SC Introduction to Computer Science and Programming,Spring 2011. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu/ (Accessed 07 Feb, 2013). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

To go beyond syntax and algorithms, expose yourself to elegant open source python code and libraries

that this is not an invention, but an idea, or worse, a combination of several simple ideas. It's like a patent for a pianodeskbed, something that you can sleep in while playing the piano, sitting on a desk. Wow, are we clever at Microsoft. Are we quick at Apple?

Every time I leave home my phone reminds me to take it with me, based on location. Wait, no, sorry... I get back on that one.

The internet is the bare specification how computers can find eachother and exchange packages of information.
This limited scope was complicated enough.

It is amazing that the elegance in the solution for a couple of hundred computers still works for millions of devices.
Even the IPv4 to IPv6 transition shows the strenght of this elegance.

Once having this issue resolved, all the rest became possible.

Run your own protocol on top, if you wish.
No business plan, No patents, no royalties. That's why it did not flop.

Lately there has been a rumour that the Chinese were after Yahoo!

My guess is, "Yahoo!" is something is see Ballmer yell on stage, jumping around. "Bing!" is sounding like chinese to announce on stage.
They are just trading the names.

Just wait and Google.

Remember when we thought SQL was so much slower and not fit for the big work? Well it was'n SQL, it were the early implementations that were slow.
Now the Javascript specs are very powerfull. And the engines (implementations) are getting faster all the time. I see SproutCore and Objective-J pushing the envelope, amongst others. Javascript has only just arrived.

Anyways, that's only my impression.

It would be great if the confort that comes with that speed would also be for individually produced content, and not only for community consumed content.
Participation is what makes the internet great, let's keep it this way.

What percentage of online systems store their user's passwords one-way encrypted (let alone encrypted)?

Indeed, but it is not that transparent anymore.
Telenet recently lowered/raised the bandwidth cap to an unknown level.
Before that I could check the bandwidth day per day, to monitor my household (2 adults and 2 teenagers). Now they employ an opaque policy that says:

• green = on average (good customer)
• orange = above average (try to keep it down, customer!)
• red = way above average (we will throttle you down to 512Kb/s!)

Whatever average means, only Telenet knows. I asked to see my bandwith use, but they do not give this information anymore.
Telenet explains it this way:
In dutch or french (might get "session expired") - Follow dutch "Online Support > Internet > Internetdiensten > Vrij downloaden":
http://onlinesupport.telenet.be/eCustomer/iq/telenet/request.do?session=%7B6eba0150-ad10-11df-e0fe-000000000000%7D&event=1&view()=c%7B55394320-8a7f-11df-cb0d-000000000000%7D&varset()=pobj:%7Bcf80cb00-843d-11df-71a8-000000000000%7D/

this should be marked insightful. gdmnd.

Somehow, developers have to realize that the iPhone, iPad (and in a certain way an iMac too) are no longer meant to be computers with an operating system. They are devices with an API. As far as I see these API's are trying to protect the devices (and the company and the users).

Get over it.

Every now and then, some writer tosses up some words like "Cybercriminals have long targeted xyz products due to their popularity". They don't. Criminals are lazy. They attack weak and easy spots first. It has nothing to do with "popularity". If it were, apache http servers would be the most attacked server application of them all - and they aren't.

Normally, music, other peoples stupid jokes, shoulder taps, and office noise, they all annoy and distract me while I am analyzing a concept or a technical problem. I hate to put music between my ears when I'm thinking.

But once I know exactly what to code and how to code it, it is more fun and even more productive, to add a soundtrack to that "roller coaster" coding - until something breaks unexpectedly. Then the soundtrack stops again.

If my boss wants me to put away the headphones, I keep on nodding to the music in my head.

If.

He doesn't, because he knows me.

I hope your boss knows you too.