Look, a talking Buddha!

If y'are thinking about trading your pain-in-the-arse Windoze PC for a Mac, make sure you research it first. To help you along, here's some clips from the Apple web-site illustrating the type of issues the users face:

"MacBook restarts when closing the lid", it's supposed to go to sleep. The guy took it back to the shop but it worked perfectly there. The advice, given by another user, was "re-load the OS, but you'll lose all your stuff". Sound familiar?

"The mouse gets stuck for a while... just frozen then after about 30 seconds it moves" but it's so shiny, how can it not work perfectly?

"DVD not playing in domestic machine", fairly straightforward, he loves the iMovie software but the finished DVD's don't play on his DVD player. So, it's just a frisbee maker then isn't it?

"Macbook not sleeping or wakes up with slightest movement - I am sleepless", there were a few like this, planning fifth trip to the shop in ten months. It doesn't seem to occur to him to leave the wretched thing outside the bedroom, never mind. Some of the "Mac Community" aren't terribly bright are they?

"Connecting to Airport". This lady was happily using her wireless internet at home when Apple sent her an update for Airport software. Goodbye internet connection, hello helpdesk. Curiously, one of the users also suggested "re-install OS but you'll lose all your stuff".

"Target Disk Mode, dragging files, can't do singular file, batches always -1". I suspect this user is not a complete novice. But still having problems.

"Orange light means charging but laptop is not charging". The advice given? Try unplugging it, try a new battery or re-install the O/S - this is light years ahead of Windows troubleshooting, I'm referring to Windows 3.1 obviously.

You can find these and other snippets on the official Apple Mac Support Site http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=218. It would be a cheap shot to say "well if the Apple is so fucking reliable why does it need a helpdesk?", it's clever marketing and shiny lids, that's what sells apples.

So in the end it doesn't matter how much you spend or what you spend it on. The important thing is not to get upset when it doesn't work. For you, "it" will never work.

The Buddha teaches that acceptance is the first step to enlightenment, he's right, it's a step forward, the two steps backwards are for arrogance (me) and the next one forward is humility (you at the typewriter shop), then two steps backwards again for merciless taunting, one step forward for punching an arrogant twat, both take two steps back for brawling in a typewriter shop and finally six steps forward for me for being right about everything all the time and ten steps backwards for you because I said so. I win again.

But that's not all the Buddha teaches, he is also attributed with these delightful pearls of wisdom which have become part of our world culture and heritage:

"You wanted a fucking dog, now take the bastard out for a walk!"
"I fuckin' hate peas"
"Jesus! If you knew the first one was runny why did you crack the second one idiot?" - talking about boiled eggs

oh wait, now that I think of it, it wasn't the Buddha, that was my dad talking. I still remember him sometimes. He isn't dead, but he will be eventually.

Giblets,

JJ