[garyhope]

Since I got my laptop in late August 2003, I've dowloaded over 240 "updates" or "security" patches from MS.

Is that good or bad? My Mac based friends never stop trying to give me grief over this.

When I tell them that the 2 essential stock trading and charting programs that I use only run on Windows, they stare uncomprehendingly and become silent. I stil think PC's are faster than Mac's for what I'm doing.

And my friend's Mac's still crash or freeze just like PC's.

[HEY4QDEMS]

Macs freeze from time to time, I had a server running RedHat pro which also froze allot.

But to be fair, I won't declare that windows doesn't freeze as much, they're all about the same.

Perhaps your friends are not checking for updates regularly, the last place I worked had two Macs in the graphics dept and we downloaded and installed updates and patches weekly.

Linux also has patches released weekly, at least RedHat does. Windows, does tend to have more however. It's a price that MS must pay, they have the biggest market share, therefore they are the biggest target and need to be more diligent.

[HAL9000]

When I tell them that the 2 essential stock trading and charting programs that I use only run on Windows, they stare uncomprehendingly and become silent. I stil think PC's are faster than Mac's for what I'm doing.

Macs are PCs now. Apple has switched to Intel's top-of-the-line processors, and according to their television commercials, can run Windows along with Mac OS X.

And my friend's Mac's still crash or freeze just like PC's.

Maybe your friend is running the Mac OS 9? There are still a lot of people running that old operating system. Mac OS X is rock solid, and it's extremely rare that the whole computer would crash or freeze up.