i still kinda want this job, my high-ball salary quote was at the tail-end of their range. DUDE!

As a PC person (though not a design person), I suspect that people who use PCs assume there will be greater computer difficulties than people who use Macs do.

But I'm finding it hard to imagine exactly why they think you'd call them every two minutes to problem-shoot. Sounds like they had a bad experience in the past.

Heh. So... how much of that rant to say to them?

I don't honestly get all the concern on their end... People who work with computers can pretty much figure out the basic functions of another operating system; it's the software that you need to be familiar with.

Right? It seems odd to me.

It's harder to go from a PC to a mac IMHO. I think it's like song versions: whichever one [OS] you hear [learn] first you like best. Usually.

What I don't understand is how people who RUN their own businesses have no clue whatsoever how to create a simple spreadsheet, let alone use something like Quicken. Although I must say that for small business, I found Quicken to be an elephant gun for a mouse. YMMV.

^those same people also do not know how to cut & paste, or even to find their own files on their own desktop. THE DESKTOP. The thing that's right in front of you. They called me about 3 weeks ago wanting to know where the excel file I made for them about 8 weeks ago was on their computer. W.T.F.?

HA HA HA H AH AHAHAHA, ow.

disclaimer: Used PC's at work in 1996 and 1998, but never any other time. Despise Quark on any platform since day one - even forced cliens to switch to indesign "or else I'll walk!" sometimes had to walk due to big mouth.

Well, I can understand their concern in a way. Some people can have good skills in a very narrow area (eg being able to create masterpieces in a particular application, but be completely unable to solve even the smallest technical glitch) and I think Macs tend to have those little technical glitches much less often, so people who are Mac-only experienced may struggle more when they do happen.

I mean, everyone knows that Mac users are spoiled little namby-pambies who wouldn't know a real computer if they fell over it.

*ducks*

dg, while I don't disagree, then there are also those of us who've puttered, muttered and futzed with PCs since the DOS 2.0 era, and whom (faced with the fiasco that is Vista) finally threw up our hands in despair and bought an Intel Mac.

dabitch, Quark is, indeed, the most crapulous pile of bork-infested code I've ever had the displeasure of wrangling with. I don't blame you at all for refusing to deal with it. Wish I could say the same, however as a slave temp contractor with lots of desktop publishing background, I was frequently chained to that galley and told to suck it up and row.

Yeah, I know. I suspect, though, that they may have had a nasty experience with someone (or someones) who didn't have your geeky background and needed lots of hand-holding. I know I've been a "PC person" forever, but the lack of time to tinker and waning interest in learning work-arounds has had me eyeing of the Mac notebooks (and the big iMacs) for a while now. If only they weren't so damned expensive, compared to buying bits and assembling my own :-(

My version of a compromise will be switching to Linux in the near future, I think, because I'm just sick and tired of dealing with crappy, expensive software. Plus, I will then be able to fob off requests for help with PCs by saying "sorry, I don't use Windows, so I can't help you".

"If only they weren't so damned expensive, compared to buying bits and assembling my own"

enh. Yanno, the mister and I have been slowly discovering this truth: you either pays the money on the front end, or get it in the back end (hur hur hur). $1500 in one lump sum is painful, agreed, but for all intents it gets you a machine you really won't have to touch, update or add peripherals to for the next 3-5 years.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm sick of futtering around with cranky semi-working architecture and endlessly rummaging through the web for obscure drivers to software that may just then decide randomly to take a shit for some other, completely unrelated issue.

dude, I have been saying "Sorry I don't use Windows, so I can't help you..." to my PC-challenged mom for the past 2 years :).

Yeah, I used to enjoy playing around getting things working but, more and more, I just want to do stuff rather than spend my time trying to make things work. Much the same as the way I stopped doing my own car servicing and repairs a few years ago and now just drive the things and don't even look under the bonnet - a bit if extra expense is well worth the peace of mind and I can use the time saved in much more productive and/or enjoyable ways.

I think, though, that you can build a reliable, solid, windows box for a lot leas than the equivalent Mac is you choose carefully. I built my current machine about 3.5 years ago and it's still pretty current in terms of actual performance (if not the paper specs). I included all the cutting-edge bits of the day - SATA drives on a RAID array, good quality video card with TV tuner driving two 19" LCD screens, DVD burner, 2GB of RAM etc, so it's still a pretty good machine. To buy an equivalent Mac would be a lot more that $1500 here, but I could replace it with new components for way less than $1500. Plus, I would have to buy all the software, where I already have most of the Windows apps I will ever need and can download the rest for free. With a Mac, I would have to buy it all over again, which adds to the expense.

Really, the only thing (apart from inherent laziness) stopping me from switching to Linux/OpenOffice/Gimp/Firefox et al is the lack of driver support for the on-board RAID with my motherboard. Plus, I really don't want to go back to fiddling with this shit when I have my PC working pretty well and all set up the way I like.