Ben Davenport

It traded as high as $70 last week, and now it's $2. That must be some kind of record. http://finance.google.com/fina... - Paul Buchheit

yep. surreal. - j1m

Crazy. Is money invested in other firms safe? I'm starting to wonder what good investment strategies are for this environment. - Chris White

@Chris Euros under your mattress. I'm only slightly kidding. - Erica Baker

@Chris: or gold 12 months ago... *8-( - Tim Connors

Um, this past advice is really useful. Let me just crank up my time machine. :) - Chris White

so which bank is next after Bear? - Tim Connors

Perhaps LEH. They're very highly leveraged. I purchased puts on BSC and LEH on Thursday. Lucky timing... - Ben Davenport

Wow, way to go Ben! - Paul Buchheit

Oh, and I like the Air a lot. It's much easier to carry than any other 3 pound laptop -- because it's thin. And pretty boys and ravishing girls ask me if they can touch it. - Daniel Dulitz

Our home is a Mac laptop haven. I'm using my MB Pro right now. It also runs VMWare Fusion so I can attach to Outlook where I need to. If it's a choice between Windows, and Mac, then it's a clear choice. Windows should never have been an operating system. Instead, it should be an application. It's a fine place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. - Louis Gray

I've been using Mac notebooks for about 5 years now. My 15" 1.67 Powerbook still works fantastic after over 2 years. In fact, it's still my main computer. - Christopher Black

I have been working on Macs at college and work since 2001 and have enjoyed Mac OS X ever since. I was hesitant to get one for myself due to the IBM G4/G5 processors they'd been utilizing (couldn't resist a secondary Mac mini though). As soon as Apple switched to Intel's fast Core 2 Duo processors, I ordered a Macbook Pro and have been very happy with it. I haven't had a problem with it in the last eighteen months that I have owned it so far, despite heavy use. I even ripped it apart for the fun of it and it still works like a charm http://codesurgeonblog.com/200... :) - Mustafa K. Isik

I have been a happy MacBook owner for 2 years. If I had to do it over I probably would have gotten a 15" Pro for the bigger screen. I'm planning on upgrading to MB Pro 15" and max disk for it as soon as Apple refreshes the Pro, which should be soon. I also use Parallels which is great. - David Vasileff

Do you have a Mac work laptop? If you don't, try trading in your Thinkpad for a MBP for a while to try it out. - Tudor Bosman

Have they invented right-clicking on Mac laptops yet? I'm not being an ass, I'm legitimately curious. Last time I used one, the answer was no. (and I'll admit to being a little bit of an ass, ok). - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Don't let these Mac fanboys lead you to the Dark Side .. come quickly away .. run child run :) - Steven Hodson

I got a macbook pro when I started working at Facebook. 1 in 20 times it takes a while to start up but otherwise it is very reliable. I love the interface and find it so much more convenient than a windows machine. I will never go back to windows. - Pedram

my four year old ibook g4 hard drive just crashed yesterday roughly 12 hours after I backed up 16gb of pictures over 5 years. i'm going to get a new Mac soon, not sure which one, yet. @mark- option click is right click on Macs, you learn to use it right after so many accidental clicks. - rick

@Steven Hodson, there's a direct correlation between being a "Cranky old fart" and being a Windows addict. You'll note we Mac users have a happier lifestyle and are generally more pleasant overall. :-) - Louis Gray

@Louis: are you insinuating that I'm not pleasant?? <snicker> :) - Steven Hodson

I generally feel about Windows (especially since Vista) the same way I feel about the Republican Party. That is, not close to what I want, but the closest thing to it I'll ever get. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

we got a mac book for our living room about 3 months ago. it completely rocks and is now pretty much our main computer. it networks well with our clunky old pc and all those web apps work a treat. plus safari kicks firefox into touch (only complaint is that add ons are neither as intuitive or a s numerous. - Alex Gawley

bouuuu - SDASDSA

Is SDASDSA spam-in-the-making, trolling or being just a little inarticulate at this time of day? - Mustafa K. Isik

I've had a Macbook Pro since they were first released and it has been amazing. (I love OS X) I've had the hard drive replaced once by Apple and replaced it with a 250 gig drive myself. I've replaced my battery once and upgraded the memory. Overall, it's a great laptop and I'd recommend it to anyone. - Brandon Titus

It's great for me (I have a Macbook) because it's got the ease of use but still has the all powerful terminal. I do all of my work in a terminal (vim, screen, and irssi are all I need)...before the Macbook I was running Ubuntu but that meant sacrificing "fun" things like iPhoto/Safari/Aperture/etc so I could get real work done. The Mac lets me do both very easily (plus my work bought me it :P) - Benjamin Golub

Hi, I am in India and my first laptop is a Macbook which I got last month. I learnt everything on windows, worked on Ubuntu but Mac beats everything hands down. Its totally worth it. Macbook AIR can wait. My suggestion would be to get a Macbook Pro 15" or The white Macbook, black no way. BTW, you can install Goobuntu in your mac. Hope it helps. - Dilip Patharachalam

The Apple Store is down right now. This is usually a sign of Apple either adding or changing something major to/in their product line. niniane you might be lucky and your wish to get a Mac laptop might coincide with an update. - Mustafa K. Isik

Yup, Macbooks got a speed bump and the Pros got multi touch - Benjamin Golub

Is multi touch on the trackpad worth waiting for to buy a Macbook? - Varun "Maverick" Pitale

borrow one from tech stop for a week before you decide? - ƃuɐʞ

Recommended, good value. RAM and HD are easily upgradeable. - Jason Kaneshiro

My experience has been positive... did have a HD crash about three months ago, but luckily I had just bought Leopard and was all Time Machine'd and they replaced for free. I'd suggest an iMac, though, unless you really need to be portable. - Jarred Taylor

I switched back to Macs in 2004, and have been happy about it since. In my experience, Macbook pro 15" is the way to go for a first machine, and Macbook air is great as a second machine. For example, if you worked somewhere and they gave you the option to have a Macbook pro 15" as a work machine :) I haven't found the hard disks to fail anymore frequently than PCs, and Firefox runs on Macs as well as PCs, so you can choose to use Safari or not. As has been said, you can use VMware Fusion to run obscure Windows apps side-by-side with Mac apps. Plus, Macs are just way cooler. ;) - Chris White

oh, warning. my best friend bought a macbook pro 17" and can barely lift it. and she's 5'9! get the 15" or smaller. - ƃuɐʞ

Yeah, I've had friends say the same thing. You can always dock it with a 23" Apple monitor. I keep one at work and at home. :) - Chris White

Mark: I believe you can configure it so putting two fingers on the trackpad and tapping the button equates to a right click. At any rate you can always control-click to the same end. - Kevin Fox

I've been running OS X on a Powerbook for almost 4 years (my first mac). It took a little while to get used to it, but it gets in my way less than any other OS I use (though Ubuntu might be close if I were to invest the time there). A week after I bought it, it came off the roof of my car, landing corner-down on the concrete - warped the sheetmetal, but the screen survived. It went in to the shop at the 3 year mark for a new hard drive. My preference for the non-mac laptops is the Thinkpad; I have one of those at work, but more stressfully. That said, macs aren't for everyone - rent one for a week or spend a few hours camping out at Frys, and see what you think, or, better yet, hit up one of your mac-loving friends to borrow an old one. - Scott Small

Kevin, how does that help? I mean, it's nice that this functionality is at least available somehow, I guess. Your point is that this is better than if to get right-click I had to start up X11 and enter something at the command line? - j1m

I just bought one myself - my 4th mac in a row after 15+ years of using only PCs - MG Siegler

4 macs in a row over what time period? If it's short, that could be a bad sign! - niniane

I own 3 mac laptops, a 12", a 15" and a 17"... all before the new Intel chips... they all work like magic! I don't want to necessarily know how they work. I just want em to work! And they always have. - Scott Paul Dunham

Over 4 years. I like to do the one a year thing. - MG Siegler

I bought a MacBook Pro 15" just after they came out early in 2006. It was my main machine until I joined Google when I got a work one. I've had no problems with either of them - the first one is now setup in the kitchen at home with a 23" monitor and used there. Best machines I've ever owned. When travelling to other offices I just hook up the MBP to a 30" monitor and continue working :-) - Steve Lacey

I bought a MBP a few months ago and I love it. I've now abandoned Windows pretty much completely. I use VMWare Fusion to run the few programs I still need to run on Windows. - Ben Davenport

I've had one for about 6 months; came from XP: Be prepared to reprogram your fingers for various keyboard shortcuts. I miss Picasa2. I think Firefox2 and Quicken look like crap; the UNIX and MacPort systems are absolutely great and so is the general integration between products (Mail, Calendar, Address, iChat, iPhoto). If you stare at code all day, get one with a bigger screen, or even just an external monitor. The trackpad gave me carpal, so I use an external mouse. Be prepared to pay for 3rd party software--for whatever reason, I bought more software for the Mac than the PC. HTH. - Marc Chung

So much more reliable. Now that there's bootcamp, there is no reason not to have a Mac - Neil

What is the advantage of using bootcamp over fusion? - Chris White

@Chris White: Bootcamp is not a virtualization environment. It facilitates dual booting, i.e. it supports a parallel and exclusive installation of Windows. The loss of flexibility (that is using Mac OS X apps simultaneously) is made up for by direct support of the hardware. You might need this for 3D accelerated games for instance or to have more RAM available in Windows. - Mustafa K. Isik