I’m a Mac user. It’s not a religious thing, I just like that they work. But I want to have that out in the open so you don’t think this is supposed to be a totally objective piece.
Now and then, I’m compelled to use a computer that runs Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7. Windows 7, like all of its predecessors, were all purported to be “The Mac Buster”. You hear it every few years, whenever Microsoft invests in buzz campaigns to get everyone hyped for the next big disappointment (Nate is a conspiracy theorist, and he thinks that Microsoft is doing it to inflate their stock so they can sell short after everyone realizes, for the umpteenth time, that Windows will always suck.) “Yeah, Millenium Edition sucked, but XP going to be The Mac Buster.” “XP was pretty good, but Vista is going to be The Mac Buster!” “Okay, Vista was a complete disaster, but 7 is going to be The Mac Buster.” Seriously, you hear it all the time. For readers who don’t get in to this sort of thing, “The Mac Buster” alludes to the mythical Microsoft operating system that’s going to be more reliable, user-friendly, and just plain cool than Apple’s triumphant OSX, which has totally dominated (and when I say “dominated”, I mean “gobbled up market share relative to prior standings”) the specialty computing world for the past decade.