Sometimes things are so bad they could only get worse if someone was whining about it. You listening Joe Lieberman? ☁☂☠

MAC OR PC?

It's New Years Day 2010. I start this decade in a quandary. I'm a computer user, have been for 15 years, since I bought my IBM PS1 and learned to use a pirated copy of Powerpoint. I did a fax newsletter before we had the internet. I graduated through 3 PCs, became an internet junkie with 3 websites, dozens of YouTube videos and this blog. I have about 50 friends on Facebook, all I can keep up with on a daily basis.

Exactly 3½ years ago I listened to my son-in-law, made the big plunge and bought a Mac. A nice new iMac with that great intel dual-core drive and a Superdrive with iMovie and I was in the video editing business at last.

Everything I had been told about the Apple computers came true. Unfailing software that never crashed. Smooth, sleek hardware that operated flawlessly and all as user friendly as a TV. I thought I died and went to techno-heaven. I even talked my best friend, an artist, into buying an identical iMac 3 months after I did. We celebrated and exchanged emails with photos regularly.

All this hummed along smoothly until about three months ago when I noticed a vertical line near the center of my LCD screen. It wouldn't go away and when I called the geniuses at the Apple store they weren't much help. All that could be done would be to replace the entire screen at a cost of about $350. Or live with it. I decided I could live with it, work around it.

Then I found out that my friend the artist had a similar line on his screen. Oh no! A flaw. LCD screens that die after only 3 years! We were both really bummed out but, considering how well the computer worked... we both just overlooked it.

Then just a few weeks before Christmas two more lines appeared on my screen. At the same time my friend's iMac crashed and the geniuses said he needed a new hard drive. He opted for a local geek and paid $250. to get his hard drive replaced and all his data saved. I thought that wasn't so bad.

Then on Dec. 4, my superdrive malfunctioned and wouldn't eject a DVD I had burned. I called the geniuses at the Apple store and they said to bring it in. I did so the next day and left it overnight with the geniuses.

When I went back the next day they said they had gotten the DVD out but that my Superdrive was shot and it would cost $250. to replace it. Or I could go to Best-Buy and get an external drive for about $150.

I had to think about all this especially considering my LCD screen which now had 3 lines in it with perhaps worse to come. I brought my iMac home and bought, online, an external Super Writemaster DVD/CD burner by Kanguru. I can't get the iMac to recognize it or its software disc.

So I can't burn CDs or DVDs. I'm essentially out of business. All I can do is create videos and save them to memory sticks or post videos to YouTube.

This was something I feared would happen, having the monitor, computer and CD/DVD drive all together in one slick compact package like a laptop. If one thing dies your whole unit is out of commission.

My wonderful, infallible iMac is dying rapidly after only 3½ years. With all the extras and some added software I have invested about $2,000. in this computer and I don't know if I can afford another $2,000. every few years.

Then too I'm stuck trying to decide whether more reliable hardware with rather clumsy and very fallible software such as Windows whatever would be a better investment.

I guess I'm back to the original question; Mac or PC?

Any suggestions?