(this is not just about the iBook, but about all apple computers in general) there’s an old joke about what happens when microsoft decides to make cars: 1) the cars would just stop suddenly in the middle of the road - you’d have no choice but to restart it... 2) occassionally all the controls would freeze & won’t respond unless you fiddle with the horn, light & radio all simultaneously 3) your car would become obsolete every year & the garage will just advise you to get a new car & so on... but you get a fair idea of how the ’PC’ with the windows operating system works!!!! in the same joke, there’s also a mention about what if apple makes cars. to quote, ’’if apple made cars, they would run on solar power, would give 1500 miles on a single charge, they would never ever require servicing or repairs, but would unfortunately run only on 10% of all the roads’’ ...which very much summarised apple’s condition at that time. while the PC/windows reputation has maintained it’s status quo, I do suppose that apple/macOS no longer runs just ’’on 10% of all the roads’’. why? read on... 1) APPLES DON’T CRASH/FREEZE: that’s the kind of stability that you can expect from a mac. everyone here knows that Unix is for geeks. but then that’s the reason that geeks go for it, it’s DEPENDABLE. to put it in simpler words, no more messages that say, ’’this program has performed an illegal operation...etc etc’’ - geez! & I thought doing drugs was illegal!!!! no more applications ’’quitting suddenly’’. no more ’’death screens’’ (that dreaded blue curtain that drops over your screen). when macs work, they work, coz they’re meant to work!!! 2) NO MORE VIRUSES... that’s right. when was the last time you ever heard of a mac down with a virus? well, there are a few known mac viruses, but at the last count, there were a phenomenal 25 of them.... now compare that with the 25, 000 or so known PC viruses!!! now I don’t think i’ve to explain this any further!! 3) SOFTWARE? NO PROBLEMS!!! with every major vendor from adobe to microsoft (yes! even them!!!) getting mac versions of their software, why should you now worry about not getting compatible software?? 4) NETWORKING? PIECE OF CAKE... macs are all about networking!! macs can be easily intagrated into any network - even if it’s only 1 mac among 1000 PCs. it’s no wonder then that windowsNT derives inspiration so heavily from macs!! 5) WINDOWS’ FILES?? SO WHAT??? yeah! so what? macs can open majority of files created or saved in windows format.. there are a few exceptions, but it’s not that your life depends on them!!! besides you always have the option loading ’’Virtual PC’’ (a PC emulator program) & installing anything from DOS to WinXP (if you are so particular!!) & run windows in a mac environment! now, can PC/windows match that, likewise?? 6) APPLICATIONS DEVELOPER HTML / JAVA?, flash/shockwave?.... you name it, you can use the mac for it! besides with the amazing suite of developer software that comes bundled along with MacOS-X, there’s nowhere else you’l ever have to look for all your needs!! 7) SIMPLICITY if apple has a motto, it should be ’’keep it simple’’; right from the looks to the use. I never really understood how ’’simple’’ can come to mean ’’stunning’’ in terms of looks, until I first feasted my eyes on the mac. the system is probably the most intuitive in the world. right from installing software to configuring your mac for just about anything, getting around was never easier!! 8) PERFORMANCE the mac runs on apple’s propriety design processor which would put any pentium based processor to shame. the G5 dual processor based macs are the fastest home-computers in the world. & have I got news for you - it’s only getting faster!! 8) A BIT ABOUT MacOS-X MacOS-X has been almost ’’officially’’ declared as the world’s most advanced operating system. most of the reasons have been listed above, but the most fundamental one being the architecture of OS-X. as I have mentioned, it is built on the reliablility of the UNIX platform. it is no wonder, then that the Darwin micro-kernel, that everything in the mac runs on, is so versatile & stable. there are PCs, then there are the unbranded PCs & then there is THE Mac! if there’s one bad thing, it’s not about the mac, but with getting it in india at competitive rates. you can get 4 PCs for the price of a Mac, but a mac would outperform every one of them in every way. but then the biggest question that looms is, why pay more? hope that one day macs are as inexpensive in india as in the rest of thw world! finally, a mac is a mac. there is no comparison to the regular PC. for those of us who’re using it, we know!! if you’ve ever used a mac at any time, i’m sure you’ll agree!!!