What’s with all the Microsoft Hate?
It seems that everywhere you look these days, there’s a fresh new batch of Microsoft hate. “Oh, Microsoft Works is an oxymoron.” “Macs are WAY better than PCs.” “Vista is so crappy!” Just what has Microsoft done to deserve this, anyways?
Ok, I admit I’m a tiny bit biased. I was an early supporter of Vista, and I don’t like to admit when I’m wrong. But you know what? I don’t think I am. Vista hasn’t done me wrong in any way. That’s right, NO blue screen of death. NO easily exploited security weaknesses (at least none that can be detected by my NIS 2009). NO downtime, after 2 years of faithful service. Sure, the user account control is annoying at times, but there is a way to shut it off, and it’s quite easy. And yet, everywhere around me, the Microsoft hate (and by extension Mac love) continues. IMHO, there’s several reasons for this:
1. Right now, Apple is cool and Microsoft is uncool. And just like a high school, where no one wants to be nice to the uncool kid, Microsoft gets picked on unfairly. Every time Vista has any security issues, bugs, etc, there’s a huge deal of interest. On the contrary, whenever Leopard has any security issues (and it happens frequently), you never hear about it.
2. Vista is misunderstood. People say that Vista has “tonnes of viruses”. I run Vista on my computer. I use it heavily, and so do my parents, who use it to go to some of the most unsafe parts of the web – Chinese blogs. I use limewire, which everyone should know is loaded with viruses. And guess what – NO viruses. EVER. Why? Am I just lucky?
I don’t think so. It’s because I have enough common sense to get a reputable antivirus, update regularly, renew once it’s expired, and scan every once in a while. Which, surprisingly, many people just don’t bother to do, thinking that Vista will magically stop everything. (Actually, in a strange way, Apple’s lack of viruses is a testament to its small market share – the bad guys don’t want to waste time designing a virus for it.) If it’s slow, go out and get some more RAM. It’s dirt cheap, and really speeds up your system beyond what any OS can do. Also, if you keep complaining about UAC, just turn it off. Easy as that.
3. Microsoft is a scapegoat for people’s stupidity. If you accidentally delete all your photos, it’s NOT your computer’s fault. It’s your fault that you didn’t back it up on a CD, and it probably would have happened on a mac as well. If you download enough viruses to crash your system via limewire, it’s your fault. It would have happened on a mac. Just watch what you’re downloading better, or better yet, if you can afford to get a mac, buy your songs off iTunes. If your Word suddenly crashes, and you lose everything, it’s because you didn’t save. Save earlier, or just run one of the many available file-recovery programs. Or, even smarter, get OpenOffice.org, which is free and recovers all of your crashed text files. And guess what? It would have happened on a mac.
4. Everyone loves the Underdog. Everyone likes the story of David and Goliath, the one where the underdog kills the big bad guy. This time, Apple is the underdog, David, the one we all anoint to take care of the big bad Microsoft. Except that Microsoft isn’t all bad, and Apple definitely is not all good. For example, Apple recently made the battery on their Macbook Pro unchangeable. If this was a Microsoft product, it’d be news-bad news. But guess what, since Apple did it, the press was lauding it as a good thing. A battery that goes barely 4 hours, is irremovable, and is somehow a good thing? We’re really all brainwashed.
I’ll readily admit that Microsoft, and its products, has flaws. Their error reporting service is a disaster, Civilization 4 still makes a error message pop up every time I run it, and don’t even get me started on their red ring-of-death saga or the “Day the Zunes Stood Still”. But that bring me to my final point. I’ve learned to accept Microsoft’s quirks and screw-ups, and go forward, while recognizing two things:
• Everyone makes mistakes. If Microsoft doesn’t make mistakes, I’d be freaked out. My 3-week-old iPod touch has already crashed more times then my computer running Vista, which shows that Apple is as guilty of this as Microsoft is.
• You get what you pay for. I can get a top-of-the-line Dell 16” laptop with all the goodies for about $1500. A 15” Macbook Pro with a slower processor, less goodies, and the aforementioned unchangeable battery costs me about $2500, before taxes. If you can afford it, it’s your money. But if you can’t, then take it easy on the hate.