The mark of a newbie is he who dares to dive into endless forum conversations that have been going on since the dawn of time. Who is the best ISP, Is Nokia better then Ericsson, Is Mac better then Windows, Is Kde better then Gnome.. and so on and so on. Before you know it you are caught up in this black and white arguments that have no direct connection to reality. Somehow people want to stick by their opinion / brand / philosophy no matter what. And that is a pretty stupid way of arguing. Lets give you some examples.
The Sad line in front of the Apple store is probably the best example of the point i'm trying to make. These people sleep on the street like some hobo to be the first in line to get their hands on a a first generation, overprice, untested, un-reviewed, At&T owned Iphone. I mean : If Steve Jobs where to come up and crap in a box they would probably pay money for it too. Where is you sense of skeptical consumerism (is that word) I purposefully did NOT want to write about the Iphone this week because I think it has been so over hyped that it makes me wretch. Yes its a cool thing but .. 500 bucks for a pimped 8 gig video Ipod ? I own several Apple products and am pretty pleased with them AND the operating system they make. But what I do know is that I find them too expensive. I hope i'm still a skeptical consumer when I say Apple should clean up their act by chopping down their profit margins.
My troubles with Microsoft devotees is that they stick to MS like glue because 'its the biggest company' Sure MS makes some good things, but its not because they are the biggest that they are the best at everything. XP is probably a very good OS, but Vista is something they want to force down people's throats. (and that is where my anti Ms-anger lies) I use Xp at home from time to time but the bad thing is that they are SO targeted by mall-ware that I would rather have an unprotected foursome with 3 Nigerian hookers then surf a pornsite with IE explorer.
And as for the Linux boys : If i hear the following expression one more time I will scream : " Everything you can do with windows you can do with Linux. " For once and for all : NO THATS NOT THE CASE. Reality check people : You can do most things in a "similar fashion" when you are using linux as opposed to using Windows but its never 'the same thing" At some things Windows applications are just better because they are native to Windows and have been developed for years in the Windows environment. But in other fields Linux excels above and beyond what Windows could ever accomplish. Now i've been called a Windows Anti fanboy repeatedly during my hosting days on the Global Geek Podcast and I do want to point out once again, that I'm NOT an Apple zealot, nor a Linux fanatic. I use Windows 8 hours a day at work (good old W2k !) and make my bread and butter by fixing the flaws in Windows ( Thank you Bill ) so its not all black and white.
What point am I trying to make : Its good to be critical and set yourself in the center of attention when it comes to choosing your operating system / buying hardware or following a certain brand / philosophy / distribution. ALWAYS start with your own needs as the focal point of what you choose and never let people tell you what to and what not. As A slider I would like to show you my desktop as an example. You see a Vista wallpaper on the background (i LOVE that wallpaper) I run a Ubuntu system (Feisty) with Gnome. I use Gaim to chat to my Msn messenger contacts and Skype to Voip. I Google to get around. And to remind me of my Mac I put a cool Gdesklets toolbar below to launch my applications. In the background I even have a copy of XP running as a virtual machine. So you see : I don't follow some religious movement of 'this is better then that' I put my own desires in the center. What do I want out of a system and what helps me to get there. I don't care what the forum-flamers say.. I'm me