Small Dog

I've bought computer stuff through Small Dog over the years. Their customer service is the very best. I subscribe to one of their e-newsletters Kibbles & Bytes. Here's a snippet for why to buy a Mac: Why Buy A Mac? By Ed@Smalldog.com Over the past couple of weeks, several people have asked me why they should buy a Mac when Macs seem more expensive than some advertised PCs. Well, here are my top five reasons why Macs easily justify their price: 1. Quality. Apple desktop and laptop computers are rated #1 by Consumer Reports for repair history, tech support, and consumer satisfaction. Apple leads all other reviewed computer manufactures, including Sony, Dell, and HP in all those categories. Any computer can have tech problems, but statistically Macs are much less likely to have them happen. 2. There are still no viruses for OS 10.4 in the wild, and there never have been. Of course, this could change, but Apple has proven it has built an extremely secure OS. Apple is committed to keeping the OS secure and up-to-date as well. 3. You can run multiple OS's on any Intel-based Mac. Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Linux, Unix etc. If you buy one Mac and install Windows, it's like owning two or more computers. Unix and X11 are already installed. Windows can be downloaded over the web. No PC can effectively run the Mac OS at all. For may people, especially web designers and scientists, this is a must-have feature. 4. Awesome multi-media architecture. Macs are ready to make high quality media projects out of the box with iLife and the extremely multimedia-friendly OS X. Macs are ready to run ultra high-end, cutting edge multimedia apps as well, such as Shake, Avid, etc. 5. High resale value. It's a pain if you want to buy a used Mac, but great if you are selling one. Macs retain the highest resale of any computer in the industry. This makes it somewhat easier to upgrade to a new Mac in the future. Macs retain high resale value because they tend to be extremely reliable. Of course, I am very biased. But I love using my MacBook Pro for writing, designing, communicating, and yes, even for dreaming. OS X, even with it's limitations, is really the best operating system on the planet. I also love the features, power and design of Macintosh computers, especially now that we have the power and flexibility of the Intel processors. I do wish every Mac came with more USB ports, though... I've been a Mac user for 20 years and own 20+ Macs. One thing I wish they would fix is their ability to handle audio in web sites. My new and old Macs don't handle audio well. I've had trouble with ESPN, MLB.com and Jefferson County Scanner among others. If I go to those same sites with the crummy PC I have laying around it handles the audio just fine.