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Some thoughts on my story in yesterday’s Globe and Mail about how Macs are making inroads into business user.

I was a little skeptical when I was first pitched on it but the more I got into the research the more interesting it got. And the more you look at the Windows-Apple issue the more you realize it’s about so much hype!

Those I’m a Mac and I’m a PC ads really spell it out but behind that there’s a lot of spin.

Yes, Vista is a joke, as I’ve said and Mac OSX seems to be pretty cool. I haven’t worked on a Mac since I was at the Canadian Film Centre back in 2004 but I used a Mac when I was at the Toronto Sun and I must say I’ve always been a fan.

Tht said, XP works pretty well for me and I’m happy with it. Despite all the new features on either Vista or even Leopard, I’ve managed to add a lot of them on to my desktop.

The exception of course are the features Leopard has brought in from the iPhone and iTunes like being able to flip through images of your documents, movies and pictures. Some of the other things like Stacker and Back to my Mac are cool. I already use Net Magic on my machines with Net2Go giving me remote access when I’m on the road. I’m also looking forward to buying a Home Server when it comes out so I can automatically and incrementally back up my files centrally and access them all remotely.

So they’re both pretty good and functional…I’ve long ago got past the idea that Apple is “cooler” than Windows. At my age and for what I do, function is everything. That said, Windows could be improved a whole lot.

Active Sync, for instance, which links my smart phone to my PC and PIM is a pain. Why can’t they make it silky smooth like Nokia’s which works better with my Outlook than MS which wrote the program in the first place.

I also think Windows is a process pig. What I like about the Mac and what I’ve heard is that Leopard actually makes apps run faster on the same platform. That I like. I’ve had to strip down my start up and throw out some AV programs because they slowed performance down so much.

What’s more interesting is the cost. Steve Jobs likes to boast OSX upgrades like Leopard which comeout every 18 months cost $129 period or $199 for the family pack for up to five users. I like that since with the five users in our household it would cost me an arm and a leg to upgrade to Vista- which based on my experience so far isn’t going to happen.

But we should also point out that while Microsoft upgrades which come out every five years or so, usually late and usually buggy, and cost  $250 or more really don;t work out more expensive since during that five year time frame, you would have bought about three Apple upgrades at about $390.

So it’s all relative isn’t it?

Reflections on a weekend in which the temperature, this third week of October, hit 24c with glorious sunshine in abundance.

If this is global warming, bring it on. October is usually a bitter sweet month. Cooler temperatures make it fun to be outside and there’s often lots of sunshine and clear blue skies here in Toronto. The downside, though, is that there’s usually a chill in the air and the windows and doors remain closed.

This year the furnace isn’t even running. I spent Saturday afternoon down at BMO Field where Toronto FC played their last game. Striker Danny Dichio, who has been out since Aug 25 with injury - and was in and out of the squad for weeks before that with other ailments - came on for the last half and suddenly the team came alive.

From 2-0 down, Colin Samuel pounded in Marvell Wynn’s shot which had hit the post then ping ponged around the box. Then, on the last minute of extra time, Dichio, stretched with his foot for a ball on the edge of the box and managed to make contact, chipping it over the keeper and into the net. Tied at 2-2.

Dichio scored the first goal ever for TFC in their first ever win and pulled the first red card and scored the last goal of the season. Brilliant. We love fairy tales! Let’s hope MLSE, who own the TFC, put all the money they made from the 20,000 maniacs who came to the 15 home games back into the team for next year. Unlike the Leafs, the TFC’s sibling, we may actally have a chance at making the playoffs.

After the game we rushed onto the pitch and stood about like grinning fools chanting, singing and waving flags….it was all great fun and I think appropriate because the fans - us - have been as much a part of the spectacle at BMO this year as the team and so it’s only fair we got out moment at centre stage, as it were, to take a bow after the final curtain had dropped.

For a look back check out the photogallery on the main website. 

Sunday? I played soccer with the Scarborough Old Boys in all that glorious sunshine. Back to back days of footie - does it get any better?

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Yeah, but I told you so.

Sorry, John Tory, you’re probably too earnest and decent to make it as an elected politician. But let’s put this down to a harsh lesson: You blew it.

Personally, I wish you the best because you’re clearly an honest guy with lots of integrity but sometimes you have to listen to the people when you stand up and say you want to lead them. You can’t push the people; you have to let the people push you.

With that over, of course Stephen Harper wants to force an election federally. Sorry, Stevie lad: In Ontario at least you risk dealing with party supporters who already have a bad taste in their mouths after the provincial debacle. Many of us are also getting uncomfortable with the War in Afghanistan and even more of us just don’t like the kind of dictatorial leader you and your staff have morphed into.

You’re a control freak Stevie. Get over it. It’s a sign of insecurity. You know what they say, true control is only realized when you give up control.

It seems the rich are different.

Take Bill Gates, a rich guy if there ever was one. Bill, of Microsoft fame, of course, was fairly gushing over an 80Gb Zune personal media player his company is about to release the other day in a USA Today question and answer story.

Q: “What’s the coolest thing about the upgraded Zune?” asked interviewer Byron Acohido.

“Look at this thing! (holds up a Zune8) Three or four years ago there was nothing like this. This is cool as heck. I’m finding music I haven’t seen in 20 years. Hey, the Lovin’ Spoonful? They’re in this thing. I find one one of their songs. I send it to friends I had an apartment with, it was actually 30 years ago. I can send it out to them and say, “remember when we listened to this?” It’s amazing.”

Whoa….wait as second: “I can send it to friends?”

Whoops. Surely not Bill. Surely that would a) be an issue with Digital Rights Management and b) wouldn’t that be illegally sharing files?

Take poor  - and I mean poor as in not rich – Jammie Thomas, 30, of Duluth, Minnesota who was convicted Thursday by a jury of illegally downloading 24 songs and fined $220,000. I guess ol’ Bill is rich enough to pay the $9,250 for each song she was found to have pirated.

The record companies – now there’s an archetypical bad guy in this story – had originally alleged she had downloaded 1,702 songs in all.

In keeping with their fascist policy of intimidation – I think those execs should trade their corporate suits in for black shirts with red and silver death’s head trim given their tactics – they offered to let her off if she paid them a few thousands to settle out of court.

She chose to fight and I hope she finds enough supporters to help her fight on. Heck I may even send her a few loonies now our buck is over the greenback.

The jury convicted her even though there was no proof she downloaded the files to her own hard drive, nor was there proof she had a file sharing account like Kazaa. The record companies  - those guys in the black shirts with the red and silver death’s heads , remember them?  - have done this to 26,000 Americans starting, I believe, with a 12-year-old girl.

But then, it’s easy for corporate giants to take on the little guy. Just as writers and content creators like myself have guns held to our heads when we sell our work and must give up aspect of copyright we would rather not – and thus get paid less than if we retained the copyright – we’re the little guys getting screwed. We really don’t have the option of taking our work elsewere since concentration of media ownership means the big corporate media giants  - and there are really a handful of them in

So, I’m, sympathetic to the ironically named Jammie (jammy being an English term for lucky – as in you jammy bastard  = you lucky fellow). The reason why people download songs is because CDs are a rip off. The value proposition doesn’t work.

I think, though, given Bill Gates’ interest in file sharing  that she should contact him directly. Perhaps he can kick in a little to her defence fund, or at least contribute something towards the fine.

Because there but for the grace of god and a couple of billion dollars, goes Bill.

Nah….like I said, the rich are different and subject to different rules.

Me, I’m going to go download some songs, perhaps burn some copies of Microsoft Office for my friends.

Hey, if its good enough for Bill…..

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