[Spirochete]

Plus Macs don't get this , then again neither have I.

No, Macs get this:

[swatbuznik]

Whatever happened to the “cute” little bomb?

[Star Traveler]

I’ve seen those, but they seem to be related to memory problems (perhaps you’ve got too many programs open or you do need more memory) — or — sometimes I’ve noticed a hard drive not having enough available space on it will cause that to happen. So, make sure you leave empty space on your hard drive and don’t run it down to 300 MB left on the hard drive... LOL..

When I’ve addressed those two problems, I don’t get that little spinning wheel.

[antiRepublicrat]

Not the equivalent. On Windows, when a program stops responding you can’t move the window and moving other windows over it causes its space to become a white square. That’s how Windows handles a program not responding, i.e., horribly. OS X gives you the spinning beach ball and still allows you to manipulate the program’s window because the program’s main thread isn’t tied to its responsiveness to the user interface.