Die-hard Mac fans say its not the quantity but the quality i.e. it does not matter if there is a big variety, as long as the limited set of choices are quality software.

However, in the real world a big variety DOES breed quality - it opens up competition and comparisons, which helps improve software efficiently at lower costs (for example the amonut of quality freeware available to windows compared to mac).

This brings to another point, no matter which way you look at it, there IS a premium that you have to pay for a mac. I reckon for macs to really get more convertors they will have to change their business model and allow MUCH more freedom of licences for their software. That’s my 2 cents.

Krishna, just took a look at Super Duper. First off it’s not free, which throws it off my list, and secondly it, as you say, doesn’t automate. Those are show stoppers for me.

William, thanks for taking the time to respond. Sadly, Backup doesn’t serve my needs at all since the Apple site you directed me to says it needs a .Mac account which I won’t pay for. Ink if it requires an acessory is totally not going to work for me. The games I want to play aren’t ported to OS X.

Thanks for the tip of the Audiovox phone though. I just read on the box it supported WMA and MP3 and that was it. Though, I won’t pay for sync software and it also looks like OBEX will be too slow. A cursory search said it was designed for IrDA and Bluetooth, which are way too slow to transfer a gig of music every morning.

As for the music service, I understand it works for a lot of people. Just not me. The way I use it, I get way more bang for the same dollar. I’m going to have to slighly disagree with you on the value of the OS X release cycle. I know it’s faster and there are improvements, but in sum I don’t think they’re worth the extra money, which incedentally *is* more than a comparable one time $300 Windows license. Then again, for many people, these features are worth the difference. They might be in the future to me, but in my experience they haven’t been. Thankfully, my employer subsidised my previous upgrades.

Take care.

1) Mac OS X does have handwriting recognition. In fact, it’s even called Ink :-). You just plug in a tablet and you’re good to go. Granted, it’s not integrated, but I suppose it depends on how you take notes.

2) There are a fair amount of games ported over to Mac OS X, but if you really want to run games, then I’ll give that Windows seems to be better for that. I personally don’t find myself playing games/online poker, etc.

3) It’s actually pretty easy. There’s an application called Backup.app that lets you do it. (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/backup.html)

4) My Windows Mobile phone (SMT5600) plays AAC audio just fine. If you don’t mind paying for it, The Missing Sync will also synchronize music from iTunes directly to it as well. If you don’t like that, you can always mount the media from the phone or drag and drop onto it using OBEX file push, etc.

5) Mac OS X is also on much faster release cycles. If you do a retail price comparison for how much Windows XP Pro vs. Mac OS X 10.4 runs, it’s almost the same. I’ll agree that there doesn’t seem to be a subscription service equivalent to Yahoo’s on the Mac, but I personally don’t like subscription DRM’d music myself. It seems like too much of a tease.

That said, I keep a Windows Box around for a few things like that, though I generally bring the Powerbook around with me just because it’s lightweight, has good battery life and I like the formfactor.

Seems os x mail doesn’t play well with others even entourage.

Any advice would be appreciated.

First off, I’d take you a lot more seriously if you weren’t an AC. Nonetheless, I’ll bite your bait.

1. I have yet to find any good, easy, incremental *free* mature software for the Mac that’s easy to use. I could have written a script to use rsync, but that’s not what I’d call easy. I’m all ears as to what app does a good job of it, and an explanation about how easy it was to find. Compare it to the 10 minutes it takes to setup an automated incremental backup in Windows XP…

2. I prefer Picasa. Better tag support, better original image integrity, and better auto-find support.

3. What’s your alternative to Yahoo! Music? You say it’s a joke but you don’t back anything up at all. It’s a plain and simple fact that for the type of use I do day in and out with my music iTunes doesn’t even hold a candle to the value.

That said, I do think OSX is overrated, and Windows receives many more knocks than it deserves. Welcome back!