Overwhelmed by Windows viruses? This might be a good computer for you.

I was thinking about a friend who hasn't turned on her new Dell laptop for several months because of the rash of nasty viruses that started around August 2003. There probably are a lot of people who just don't feel confident tackling the endless stream of new viruses that seem to be coming out lately. This really is a shame; that after over 20 years of developing the desktop PC, it's still so frustrating to many people that they don't even want to use their computers.

Macs are much less vulnerable to viruses. In learning about the current line of Mac products, I came away with the definite feeling that Apple is a company that is really on your side. The Apple employees are consistently helpful, polite, not pushy. What's going on here? By comparison, using a Windows computer, it seems like you're on your own. After five years of trying to learn "safe computing" on a PC, I feel reasonably safe on the internet. But it shouldn't be that hard. I've gone through four PCs and quite a bit of money and time to get a Windows based computer that is reasonably stable and secure. But think of the millions of people from all walks of life that still haven't used a computer or gotten their own connection to the internet.  They may be in for a lot of frustration.

The current Mac operating system is based on Unix, so it's very stable. you should get very few system crashes with this. And for a variety of reasons, viruses are much less of a problem. You should still get antivirus software (I like Norton).

Using the iMac is fun. It responds smoothly. I found I quickly developed a confidence in it that I could push it hard, flipping between applications and nothing bad was going to happen. Applications lauch pretty quickly. Generally, stuff is pretty intuitive, but you might need to look up how do do a few things till you are used to it.

Compatibility

You can get Microsoft Office for Mac so you have compatibility there. If need be, you can run Windows on your Mac. VirtualPC makes software that installs on a Mac and lets you start up Windows from your Mac screen. It runs a little balky so it's not perfect for all the time use, but it's good for making a transition from Windows to Mac. It's also quite handy for seeing how a document such as a web page will look like on multiple platforms such as Windows and Mac.

Innovation

Apple seems to be on a roll. They have done well with the iMac, the iPod, the OSX operating system and the new iTunes music download service. So it's a pretty good bet that more new cool things will be coming along from Apple, and the iMac will be set to handle them. If you're not currently interested in editing home movies, archiving old home movies to DVD for more permanent storage, making your own custom music CDs and the like, you'll probably be in a good position to do these things in the future if you want. 

Help

If you live near an Apple store, you've got a great resource. They offer classes for adults and kids. And they always make you feel welcome to just putter around on the floor models to try them out. No locked computers that need a password only the employees know to use the computer. Just start playing. So if you feel intimidated by computers, this is  a great place to try them out.

Overall, if you've been burned by a computer virus in the past and don't feel confident in protecting yourself from viruses now, the iMac may be perfect for you. It's a very well designed product and a lot of fun.

© 2003 David Walls. All rights reserved. Permission is given to reprint this review in it's entirety, including this copyright information. Please include a link to findit-la.com