In Mac OS, there is a misleading right-click option for "Burn to disc". But this option appears for any file and all it does is create a disc with that file as its contents. It does not create a disc based on the image file selected. To actually burn an image, as best as I've been able to find, you have to right-click, select "Open With", select "Disk Utility", click on the image file within Disk Utility, select "Burn", select the appropriate DVD/CD burner, and click to start the process.

What is a three or four click operation (depending on options selected) in Windows and Linux requires several more clicks in Mac OS and use of a separate application rather than anything integrated in with the desktop. And Disk Utility itself seems somewhat less than stable, randomly hanging without writing an data and, in some cases, requiring a reboot for it to start functioning again.

I realize that the majority of computer users will never in their lives need to burn an ISO, but seriously, Apple, how hard would it be to add this functionality in directly to the initial menu when right-clicking a disc image file?

But, having purchased a MacBook Pro several months ago and now considering replacing my desktop with one of the recently announced, 27", Intel i7 iMacs, I'm actually, and to my chagrin, finding myself defending Apple in a number of ways.

The revelation is perhaps summed up best by these two Penny Arcade comics and their associated news posts. You don't really recognize the questionable design in areas of Windows (or Linux, for that matter) until you can step away. And it's difficult to step away when you're proudly wearing the badge of honor of someone who's been wrestling with Windows machines since 3.0.

That's not to say I no longer find any fault with Mac OS. Their task bar is still inferior, especially when compared to that of Windows 7, though Snow Leopard's tweaks have left me close to fully satisfied (being able to browse folders within the task bar rather than opening them in Finder, and being able to click-hold an app in the task bar to bring up live previews of each open window were both big for me). I don't think I'll ever stop laughing at the program installers that require you to mount them on the desktop before they can be run (and that have to be "ejected" once complete). But I have slowly come to realize that most of my prior criticisms were either untrue to begin with, or have been addressed to varying degrees over time.

Are Macs expensive? Yes. Are they overpriced compared to comparable Windows PCs? It depends who you ask and what you consider "comparable". A MacBook Pro is more expensive than a lot of other laptops, but it's also made of aluminum that should hopefully prevent the overheating and chassis flexing that killed my previous, plastic-encased Dell. An iMac is more expensive than the collection of parts for a high-end PC, but includes a display far nicer than any they sell separately on NewEgg, and is priced lower than other all-in-ones that aren't nearly as outright sexy.

Are Macs really not upgradeable compared to their PC counterparts? The MacBook is no different from any other notebook -- the memory and disk can be swapped out fairly easily, but anything else is a no-go. That's just the nature of notebooks. As far as the iMac goes, it depends on how often you want to upgrade. I used to swap out video cards two or three times a year. I was deep into PC games, worked at a computer store, and the PC was more than accommodating for such frequent upgrades. But that was all of three or four years ago and my desktop is now essentially not upgradeable. Video cards have switched from AGP to PCIe, CPUs have switched socket types multiple times, RAM has gone from DDR to DDR2 to DDR3, hard drives are now SATA instead of IDE, and all these things require beefier power supplies with newer connectors than mine has. If I wanted to upgrade my current desktop, the only parts that would be of use would be the case and DVD drive -- two of the cheapest parts to replace. And nobody uses CRT monitors anymore, so that would need replacing too. Is this really any worse than an iMac? How many PC parts today will have compatible upgrades another three years down the road?

Upgradeability is one thing, but repairability is still an area of concern. If the power supply in a standard desktop dies, throw in a new one. If an iMac blows its power supply, it's off to Apple for repair. I admit this is a somewhat unfair comparison. The same issue would present itself if the PC were an all-in-one from Dell or HP rather than a standard desktop built from off-the-shelf parts. But, it's still an issue that must be considered since Apple has no other desktop machine between the underperforming Mac Mini and the far more expensive Mac Pro.

Are Macs lacking in the gaming arena? Definitely. Does that really matter? Obviously, it depends on the person. Spore and Quake III run natively on my MacBook Pro, and Half-Life 2 and its assorted cohorts play flawlessly within CrossOver (a highly customized, though sadly non-free version of Wine). But, yes, most new games are still Windows only. I haven't used Bootcamp personally, so I can't relate any experiences with installing Windows on my MacBook, but supposedly the process is mostly painless, if you don't mind having to restart your computer to play Windows games. Graphics-wise, Macs in general still leave something to be desired, but they're not nearly as bad as they used to be -- Spore runs just fine on the MacBook Pro, and there are plenty of demo videos on Youtube of people playing Crysis in high resolutions with high detail on their Radeon 4850-equipped iMacs. None of Apple's available graphics options are going to totally blow anyone's socks off, but they do have options now high above the cheesy video cards that used to reside in even their highest-end desktops, and that's really enough for me as someone who no longer has the time to be anything more than a casual gamer.

Is Mac OS for idiots who don't know how to use computers? Last time I checked, Windows didn't have a built-in, tabbed terminal application. In general, the more I've used my MacBook, the more I've found Apple's design philosophy isn't so much to not have advanced functionality as it is to hide the advanced functionality unless you really dig for it. I end up spending a lot of time Googling for how to accomplish X in Mac OS, and X usually ends up being possible, but hidden behind several layers of menus. This can make life frustrating, but I can also see the benefit in making it harder for novice users to completely hose their systems.

People still claim that Mac OS is more stable than Windows. In my experience, they're pretty much on par with each other nowadays. Windows XP, Vista, and now 7 have never given me any trouble that wasn't obviously my own doing. And Mac OS is not without its share of bugs.

In the end, I'm not a Mac devotee. I don't worship Steve Jobs. I won't have an Apple logo tattooed anywhere on my body. Mac OS is not some ultimately divine desktop operating system. But I appreciate what Apple has done over the last few years. It's sad in a way, since it was always so easy to hate Apple entirely, but they really have done a lot to address my, and a lot of people's past criticisms. Now, if they'd only give iTunes a directory browser and not force you to add everything you want to play to your library…

I'm still a little embarrassed about the one with the crotch mouth. Yes, I'm one of the most mature people you'll ever meet.

The only down-side, as with any iPhone app, is that you're at the mercy of AT&T's substandard network. But, if you're in an area with a good signal, then this is pretty neat. While I won't lose too much sleep over $10, it would be nice if they included the iPhone app when you pay ~$100 for MLB.tv.

Installing applications in Mac OS is just stupid. Instead of downloading, clicking, and installing a program, you have to download it, mount the downloaded file as a disk image (who knows why), run the installer from that mount point, then click and drag an icon off the application over an icon of your hard drive from within the installer. This is completely pointless and not at all intuitive if you've never used OS X before (or if you haven't used it in several years and have forgotten everything about it.

Adium is a reasonable substitute for Pidgin, but iChat (comes with the OS) is worthless and won't even connect to multiple IM accounts at once. There is a build of Pidgin available for Mac, but it's not supported. I don't like how Adium doesn't distinguish between a buddy being away and away+idle -- both display as a red icon and that's it.

Why are all the expansion ports on the left side of the laptop and the CD drive on the right? Do other people find that more convenient? Personally, I'd much rather have power and USB connectors on the right.

Even without the optional SSD, the MBP is almost silent -- way quieter than the Dell was. It's also impressively compact for a 15" notebook. Compared to my 12" Dell, the MBP is thinner, about 1.5" wider, and just about as deep (though that's due to the extended life battery sticking out the back of the Dell). The size difference is hardly even noticeable until I look at the screen itself and see how much more desktop space there is.

It definitely feels sturdy. The Dell had a noticeable flex to it. I don't know if this caused its video card to start dying, but constant bending of the motherboard certainly couldn't have helped. The unibody construction on the Mac is pretty damn impressive, and will hopefully lead to it lasting longer than the Dell.

I feel a lot better about the dock bar than I used to. My biggest complaint previously was the lack of any equivalent to the Windows start menu or Linux applications menu, where you can see all the applications you have installed. Adding the Applications folder to the dock as a stack (drag and drop the folder to the dock) fixes this.

I am having trouble finding a good music player for Mac OS. iTunes has no directory browser (all my music is organized by directory and a lot of the older stuff has no ID3 tags for iTunes to read) and, like most database-driven music players, crashes when trying to load my entire library. Songbird does run on the Mac, but the directory browser plugin is pretty sluggish.

3 Mb/sec * 3600 sec/hr * 3 hr appx game legnth = 32400 Mb/game

32400 Mb/game / 1024 mb/gb / 8 bits/byte = 3.95 GB/game

Jetbroadband's* fastest, highest-cap plan has a bandwidth cap of 100GB. Something is very wrong here.

I understand that ISPs don't want people downloading hundreds of gigabytes of torrents every month, but this is a perfectly legitimate and legal use of my bandwidth. I must just be a fringe case at this point, but it'll be interesting to see what happens when the collision hits for mainstream internet users between their bandwidth needs for always-improving online video and their bandwidth restrictions put in place by always-evil ISPs.

* Yes, I switched back to Jetbroadband recently after suffering one too many outages at the hands of NRV Unwired. While their speeds are still erratic at best, they seem to have fixed their system to only dip down as low as ~1.5Mb/sec during peak hours instead of being consistently below 56k, where it was a year ago. Just FYI for anyone else in Christiansburg.

After the first week of nearly non-stop baseball, here are my thoughts on the good and bad thus far.

Play ball!

• I get all the baseball I could possibly want to watch, including almost all the Red Sox and Cubs games.
• The "HD-quality" feeds (which they call NexDef) aren't really HD in the sense of HDTV, but they're great quality for streaming video.
• It's all online, so I can always have a game playing in the background whether I'm at home or work. And I can continue living without cable/satellite TV (too much money for almost nothing worth watching).
• The splitscreen and picture-in-picture options are very cool for days when the Sox and Cubbies are playing at the same time.
• The home/away feed option is also neat. I can always watch games with the announcers from Boston/Chicago.

Game in rain delay

• Games are subject to blackout restrictions that make little sense. Despite being 300 miles away from them, I'm not allowed to watch any Nationals or Orioles games. They seem to base this on IP address, though, so you just need to proxy through a server outside the blacked out region.
• Also blacked out are *all* of the 4pm Saturday games each week. Apparently Fox owns exclusive rights to broadcasting them.
• A subscription only includes the regular season. The playoffs remain in the realm of regular old television.
• The NexDef feeds require a third-party plugin that only runs on Windows and MacOS. This did give me an excuse to try out the Windows 7 beta, but it's a shame they don't have a Linux version.
• The feeds (especially using NexDef) can thrash even the mightiest PC. This seems to have been resolved after the first few days, but it was unsettling to see a simple video stream eating up 100% of my CPU and half a gig of RAM.
• There have been other issues as well. For example, there have been a few occasions where my feed of choice has gone offline and I've had to revert to the other.
• It's all online, so the video quality is subject to your internet connection's speed and stability. My home internet connection always seems to hiccup during the most important pitches. The feed does automatically adjust its quality based on connection speed, but sudden stutters will still cause the video to pause momentarily.

Overall, now that they seem to have most of the kinks worked out, I'm pretty pleased. But give me a NexDef client for Linux, keep the feed outages to a minimum, and get my ISP to stabilize their service and I'll be ecstatic.

Is the extra $0.52 a convenience fee for having your donuts already boxed? I don't get it. I try to not think about it too hard lest my brain explode, but it bugs me any time I go in to get donut tastiness.

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Note: I don't think I'm stealing someone else's joke, but I'm sorry if this is one that somebody told me and I've since forgotten

This is far from an exhaustive study, but here's what I've tried since I started working out again last spring, ranked from worst to best.

Stock iPod earbuds
It doesn't get much worse than these. The sound isn't necessarily awful, but any randomly-chosen pair of $10 headphones would do just as well. The bigger problem is that they're just no good to run in, unless you want to be readjusting them every thirty seconds to keep them from falling out of your ears.

In general, any of the wrap-around-behind-your-head style headphones
I haven't personally done any running with a set of these, but I hear that they do stay put. They're problematic if part of your workout involves laying with your head against a Bowflex bench, so that's a no-go for me.

Philips SHS8000 hook-style headphones
Headphones that hook over the ear seemed like a good option. These Philips ones do stay put a lot better than basic earbuds, but still tend to wiggle loose from your ear every so often. While mine were working, the sound quality was admirable, but then the left headphone died after about three months.

Sennheiser MX75 "twist-to-fit"-style sport headphones
Finally, my current set and all-around favorite. The Sennheisers are a set of earbuds, but with an extra rubber nub on each earpiece so it can be wedged in with the nub pressing against your outer ear and not come loose. This system works great and the sound quality is fantastic for a small set of workout headphones. The only complaint I have so far is that they can make your outer ears slightly sore, but I only really notice it when removing them after having worn them for more than a couple hours, and the soreness goes away after just a minute or so.

The search will continue if the Sennheisers die an early death, but they're the best I've found so far. Results may vary as far as sore ears go, but I'm personally fine living with the very minor discomfort when they're otherwise perfect for what I need.

I've noticed there seem to be two types of McCain propaganda. One will say, "Obama is evil because he supports X and Y and Z," when X and Y and Z are all good things if you're a sensible human being. Alternately, some of them skip the specifics and go with over-the-top, out-of-context quotes like, "...the human race will be destroyed if he is elected."

Is the Obama campaign or the Democratic party sending stuff out to? I haven't received any pro-Obama material at all. If they're just spamming people other than me, well, I'm not exactly enamored with Mr. Lesser Evil either. But still, all the McCain crap gives me a good chuckle.