Despite the issues I'm in Camp Apple

Apple computers do have issues. For instance I have been using both an IBM Thinkpad T-42 (for work, company assigned) and a Apple Macbook (purchase for personal use at home) for roughly the same amount of time. The Thinkpad has worked FLAWLESSLY and still has 90% of the battery life it did when it was delivered new over three years ago. My Macbook does not. I believe the battery life (useful "use" time between charge) to be 50-55% of the original use time and I had to send the laptop back to Apple once after the internal hard drive died - and I lost all my data in the process!

Well, not exactly. After my wife's old Macbook died (she has since upgraded to a Macbook Pro) we purchaed an Apple Time Capsule (1 gb) and I was able to restore my laptop from stored backup after it was delived back to me with a new hard drive and fresh OS install.

What kind of failures has my Thinkpad expirenced in the same time frame? None. Zero. Zip. Engineering wise the Thinkpad seems surperior and I really like the LED ligth built into the laptop lid that illuminates the keyboard at night (alt-F11, I think, check it out of you have T42). Why am I still in Camp Apple?

I love OS X. I really do. I've been using UNIX ever since Sun OS 4.1.3, perhaps before that, I just don't remember the name of the OS itself, and I've loved and lived it from Day 1. OS X gives me the look and feel of a great, no, fantastic, excellent, nearly perfect OS built on top of some seriously powerful base software. In fact, quite a few times actually, I'll see someone who may fit the "stereotype" of a Mac user, a "GUI Man/Woman", who never taps into the power underneath the OS and I think to myself "you have no idea what you've got under your fingertips.. no idea at all.." and it's kind of a beautiful thought. No, they don't know. No, they don't have to know and they probably don't care.

And when Apple (finally) sees a glaring omission they'll do something about it.. after a while. Enter Time Machine. Time Machine rocks. If you aren't using Time Machine please tell me, how often are you backing up your home computers and are those backups automated? If I still did Government work I could leave to Korea again or somewhere new for months on end and NOT worry about what happens if someone drops their laptop in the hot tub. That's liberating!

So while the internal hardware may not stack up to the competitors I'll take Apple each and every day as the "Household CTO".

As for work I was recently informed that I would be "upgraded" to Dell something-or-another. After talking with Desktop Support I asked if I could keep my IBM rather than "upgrade". They said I could, but I would have to be upgraded if my hardware ever failed as there are no more T-42 "blanks" in inventory. From then on I've been giving the T-42 the white glove treatment. I want to keep that baby up and running for at least five more years.