Resurgent Apple

Writing in the New York Times, David Pogue notes that Apple's Macintosh computers are enjoying new popularity and he asks his readers why now? The comments, especially from those who recently switched to a Mac from a Windows PC, are revealing. It might be tempting to dismiss the discussion as fanboy/girl-ism, but there seems to be more than anecdotal evidence for Apple's changing fortunes. More and more people, it seems, plan to purchase Macs as their next computers. Apple's latest operating system, MacOS X 10.5 Leopard, has been getting considerably more positive reviews than Vista.

There are many good reasons to consider a Mac as your next computer. Here's an excellent one: there is much less malware that affects Macs, compared with Windows. Exhibit A: SilentBanker, a trojan horse that invisibly monitors your online banking transactions, and then proceeds to rifle through your accounts. You can get your PC compromised by visiting an infected website (and these include legitimate sites you might normally visit, not only obviously dodgy ones). Thus far, SilentBanker affects only Windows systems, including Vista. Uh-oh, indeed.

New Year's Resolutions

I will try to write better. I will try to provide more potentially useful information. I will do more analysis before writing off-the-cuff. I will try not to neglect this blog even if no one is reading it — and if someone is actually reading it, why? It's not as though I'm saying anything that hasn't already been said in so many ways, and said better.

I promised myself that I wouldn't write my thoughts down unless I really wanted to leave behind something of myself that I wanted people to remember me by, and for a time I ended up posting to Usenet (those of you who've been on the internet since before the web was even invented, you can find some of my old posts by searching Google Groups).