My Last Windows Machine

Once again I find myself apologizing to both of my faithful readers for the gap in my posting. My computer, a Hewlett Packard Laptop running Windows Vista. There is a motherboard failure of some kind. Without going into details, the Repair Service people told the NEX (Navy Exchange) people on thing about what the will do and how much they will charge, and then when I called for the telephone troubleshooting that I expected to do, they told me something entirely different. They had given an minimum estimate to the NEX. When I called them they gave me a minimum estimate $100 higher. In the course of my computer issues, by backups failed as well (I won't go into that now, but beware of Nero) so I have lost all of my data. The result of a perfect Windows data storm. The time is right for a switch.

So, that is the end of Windows machines for me. I know that this particular problem is (mostly) not a software problem, but I have had many of those as well. As for the hardware, it seems that manufacturers of Windows machines crank them out a a rate that does not allow for adequate quality control. Between my wife and I we have owned machines by (in chronological order) Flex, AST, Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu (the only one that never failed), Dell, Sony, Toshiba, and Hewlett Packard again (the laptop that is the subject of this post).

My wife has now owned a MacBook Pro for two years that has not so much as hiccuped.I work with engineers, two of whom own MacBooks and have had the same experience. Very nearly everyone I know that owns Windows machines tell me that the have problems at least once a year, and sometime more often than that. That is my experience as well.

So I'm through. When I have saved the money (approx 6 weeks - I pay cash for everything except houses and cars) I will buy the base MacBook. I don't need the Pro. The base one has all of the computing power that I need and a 7 hour battery. With a 13 inch screen (a little small, I admit) it will be truely portable - lasting long enough to be really useful on my long and now frequent flights to Japan. And, if I should be able to recover my data, Mac will process all of that as well. iWork handles all Microsoft Office file types.

Good.Bye.Windows.