Tonights Video: Movie Quickie

First a warning. Bad language in this clip. The Bull@#%t word. But the music is funny.

Mac or PC?

First of all, the title of this is wrong... it's a myth as you will read in a moment. Nearly a year ago I bought my current laptop and almost bought a Mac, except the price was about $1000 more than what I wanted to spend.

My daughter Tiff has a Mac, she was required to have it for school a few years ago. If you are trying to decide between the two, read this from the DLM Blog:

7 Common Mac Myths Exposed

Posted: 03 Dec 2008 08:11 AM PST

You have heard them from friends, family members or even work colleagues. They are the stories you hear by people afraid to try something new and find comfort in their world of Windows-goodness.

I am not here to convince, I am here to educate and help you see through the clutter of misinformation. Let's look at some of the most common Mac myths to see whether they are justified or not.

• There isn't a lot of software that's compatible with Mac
  Now that is indeed a funny myth since Apple ships their Macs with everything you will ever need to perform common computer tasks. Out of the box you will receive:
  
  
  • Safari (browser)
  • Mail (email client)
  • TextEdit (word processor)
  • iLife (video and photo editing tools)
  • iWeb (web design application)
  • iDVD (DVD burner)
  • iTunes (for music and movie playback and shopping).
  
  What's even better is the fact that Apple produces their main software in house, meaning they know best what works and what doesn't when it comes to performance.
  
  Further, you also have the option to add dozens of office suites and applications to your Mac to further enhance its performance. Many of them are available free of charge, such as Open Office. In short, your Mac will come shipped with everything most users will need and plenty of options to expand for the more advanced Mac users out there.
  


• Macs are expensive
  This is one of the most common myths about Macs and initially I thought the same. Looking at performance stats and the fact that Windows often requires us to go and buy expensive software updates, Mac is the lower cost option. Mac is perfectly designed to go hand-in-hand with what's inside so you never have to worry about buying updates; they are free. Many Mac users who bought a computer 10 years ago can still use theirs without any issues.
  
  Windows users on the other hand cannot.
  


• Mac's can't run Windows
  While it's a mystery (to me) as to why you'd want to run Windows on a Mac, you can. In the event you come across an application that doesn't support Mac, it's possible to have a Windows operating system running on your Mac.
  
  They can do this either by way of virtualization or dual-booting.
  


• Macs cannot read many websites
  If you are a webmaster then you already know that your site should be coded according to web standards, meaning they get the tick of approval from W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium). If that is the case, Macs can read sites that are properly coded. If on the rare occasion they cannot, you can always use a Firefox browser instead (which is almost a must).
  


• Macs don't crash
  Yes they do, albeit a lot less than Windows computers. Macs are way more stable than Windows based computers and if they are properly maintained, they can carry you for weeks on end without a crash - often even longer. One thing you should know: always backup your data – even if you have a Mac.
  


• Macs are a designers' toy
  While Macs are indeed loved by designers, they have quietly moved more and more into the offices of home workers and business professionals who have nothing to do with design. A Mac is a statement for a user, much like driving a Rolls Royce down the local streets.
  
  Mac is a cult and rightly so.
  


• Macs are not PCs
  The abbreviation of PC stands for personal computer. Unless your Mac is used by the whole town, it is and stays a PC.
  

Let us know whether you are a Mac or Windows lover. If there are more myths that need to be covered let us know in the comments please.

Written on 12/03/2008 by Monika Mundell. Monika is a passionate freelance writer and pro-blogger. Her blog Freelance Writing helps new freelance writers to get started in this exciting industry. If you like to work with Monika, feel free to visit her Portfolio site.

Photo Credit: powerbooktrance

What about Blogs?

Earlier this year, I began a project that took time and gathered some attention and at the end was challenging.

I was on the search for local (Fort Wayne Area) Blogs and what began as an occasional posting, turned into a nightly feature.

I stopped when I hit 100. I was running out of good, quality blogs. See, there are over 1600 Blogs registered to Fort Wayne on Blogger, yet very few are active.

If you have one that you are no longer using, go ahead and get rid of it. Or better yet use it. Update it at least monthly.

However to start the new year, I am considering an even more ambitious project.

2009 has 366 days. So I am going to feature 366 local websites as an effort to spread the love, to promote what is going on locally, and to encourage us to expand our horizons on line, off line and and as a community.

My list of 366 will feature some of the original 100 that still meet my simple requirements:

• Active, posting at least once a month if it is a blog.
• Local, ties to Metro Fort Wayne.

I will include non-blog websites to keep it interesting. I will take suggestions from you and anyone. I will not limit it to any particluar ideology, but I will not promote hate. There is enough of that garbage on the internet.

You can send me a note if there are some sites you want me to consider to: scott@scloho.net.

And I'll wrap this up with an article from Seth Godin:

Death of the personal blog?

A quick look at the list of the 'top' blogs in the world will show you that almost all of them are written by teams of people. There isn't one in the top 10 that's personal.

The best way to increase your ranking as a blogger is to post very often and to have teams of people doing the work. If that’s your strategy, of course you can’t have it be a solo blog. The strategy for showing up on this list is to have lots and lots of posts, so your tactic needs to be to have a team of people doing the work.

Personal blogs aren't going anywhere, though. There’s a difference between a blog about YOU (I call this a cat blog) and a blog about the reader. Guy Kawasaki’s blog, and my blog for that matter, are not about us, about what we ate yesterday or how great we are. They are about you, the reader.

I guess there's an easy analogy:
Your blog could be like a newspaper (written by a staff)
or it could be like a book (written by an author)

9 times out of 10, newspapers outsell books. No surprise. But they’re different. And we need both.

Who cares that you're not writing a mass market newspaper? The point is not to show up on a list, the point is to start a conversation that spreads, to share ideas and to chronicle your thinking. That's the work of an author, and I think rather than kissing author blogs goodbye, someone should just start a new list.

Here's another article about blogging.