'In fact,' wrote Mingis, 'since my MacBook Pro has a Core Duo 2.16GHz processor inside, Windows practically flew. It runs faster than it does on his Vaio. It runs faster than it does on my Vaio...and installation, in true Apple form, was a snap.'

'I now have two computers in one and can run virtually any software out there...the next time a Windows user makes cooing noises about Mac OS X, or praises the design of my MacBook, I can'and I will'promptly fire up XP and suggest that they can have the best of both worlds.'

The 'best of both worlds'? Allowing a single vendor to supply both hardware and software is a double-edged sword.

But in the case of Apple, it can be a plus. When my G5's motherboard blew up last year (note: in my 19 years of owning Macs, this is the ONLY hardware failure I've had), I took it to Apple's Causeway Bay service center for warranty repair. They swapped out the motherboard and returned the machine in short order.

However, suppose I'd been using third-party software, like one of the freeware open-source applications engineered specifically for Mac OS X (note to our handful of Mac-using readers: Mozilla's Camino is a gem of a web-browser). Were Apple a hardware-only vendor, they could conceivably have disclaimed responsibility, saying software they didn't write caused datapanik and fried my G5.