Once you leave the Family, you can never return...

[crabfoot]

As an old stereophile, I have a secret hoard of solder containing lead, which is now banned in solder in an effort to protect the environment. I'm pretty sure that a lot of modern equipment fails because the modern solder has a tendency to spontaneously crystallise (y, ok, I also used to work for a consultant metallurgists) although I don't have any proof of that. One thing I am pretty certain of is that the perceived problems with lead solder are just another fad, there's still toxic stuff in there and it is very hard to make non-toxic solder that works at the low temperatures generated by a soldering iron.

[Andy]

Never liked apple exactly because of their proprietary policies. One of the main things they do is keep prices sky high. As someone who has worked on both apple and ibm clones, I never saw any real difference in quality. Some tout that apple products are so "intuitive". Never saw that either. And somehow I've managed to do most anything I want on non-apple computers. Go figure.

About scripting, I'd say they are written by lawyers and admins along with other knotted panty-type people - not by sales folks and certainly not by marketers.

Andy

[Fish]

...a lot of modern equipment fails because the modern solder has a tendency to spontaneously crystallise.

Thanks. I'll have to use that line someday when i want to end a conversation

[leadegroot]

We're pretty much an Apple household - the kids have windows boxes to run the games they like, but those things break regularly.
Our business machines are either apple (desktop) or linux (servers) and we've really never had a problem.
My daughter is currently using the powerbook I bought in, umm, 2003? Its a bit slow and can't be upgraded to lion and she is looking froward to the new macbook air she has been promised for xmas, but it still works just fine (I used it for my daily checks when we went for a weeks holiday lasts week - bit slow to start up, but just fine otherwise)
iphone4 - 2.5 years and chugging along just fine
iPods left right and centre, no problem
A 2001 ibook lasted 7 years before we sadly saluted and watched it sink beneath the waves, (not really )
Can't complain. We were in the apple store a few months back speccing an iMac and the salesman asked if it was going to be our first.
We looked at each other, counted on our fingers and said, no, must be about our ninth... Hehe, made the salesman blink

But we don't use any services like MobileMe, never have and I can't imagine we will use iCloud - I don't see the point. We have terabytes of storage downstairs; why would we trust someone else with our business data?