[Cadaver]

I have a happy switcher story (two, actually) I feel like sharing.

One of my neighbors is a single mom with two boys, 14 and 12. Her companion is also a woman with an 8 yr old son. When we moved in to the neighborhood a few years ago, they had mentioned to me how much trouble they were having with their computer (a Dell PC of some kind). I offered to help get it sorted out. Well, as it turns out, I would be helping for the next three years. Between pop-up ads that would randomly appear on the desktop (thanks to a non-firewalled direct cable modem connection) and the Kazaa software their kids kept installing, it was becoming a mess.

Anyway, after I firewalled, virus-imunized, service-packed and spyware-deinstalled, they were good for a while. But, for whatever reason, they just couldn't seem to keep their machine running.

As one of the mom's was taking some night classes (she was going for promotion to lieutenant in the city fire department), she bought herself a laptop she could take to school. She bought a Dell of some kind. Anyway, despite the fact that the kids had no access to this particular machine, again I would find myself performing frequent 'repairs' to various Windows crap that would occur, including spyware infiltration (and she swears she didn't purposefully install any of it).

Meanwhile, the whole time they see my Macs and see that I don't have similar problems; not even close.

So, flash back to about 3 months ago. The 14 year old wants his own computer, his birthday is coming, and he's a good kid with good grades. So, mom wants to get him a machine. She orders a Dell of some kind, but the order is screwed up and she can't understand the Indian call center person. She gets all pissed and says, "Fine, I'm buying my kid a Mac." She goes to the local Apple store and comes home with a 17" iMac G5 with a superdrive, and Airport card and basestation, not to mention a couple of arm loads worth of software.

Needless to say, its been running for these three months and I haven't had a single "service call" on it. The boy loves it and even requested a wireless keyboard and mouse for Christmas.

Ok, so, on to switcher # 2. So, this boy's mother's partner (the one with the Dell laptop; the lieutenant in the fire department) ends up with something infecting her computer. I don't know what she did to it, but the thing is a freaking mess. I'm very, very proficient in both Mac and Windows operating systems, and I can tell her machine is fed. Tons of registry corruption, deleted drivers, disabled McAfee anti-virus... the whole shebang. She swears she didn't install anything on purpose, but clearly something was installed (perhaps without her knowledge) - there are some suspicious IE "toolbars" in the regisry, and a McAfee scan found 30 spyware "hits." And this is despite running SP2 and an anti-virus program. Anyway, I tell her to copy all her important files off the machine and I would reinstall WindowsXP for her. She said she'd drop the machine off to me in the morning.

Well, the day she's supposed to give me the machine to work on (two days ago), she calls instead and says she's not going to bother, because she's playing with her new PowerBook G4! The Dell laptop was less than a year old.

Gotta love Bill Gates. His software is generating more Switchers than Apple's advertising ever did!

In three months, they went from a two PC household to a two Mac household. Hurray! And hurray for me - no more service housecalls!

[Sherwin]

[DarwinX]

Welcome to my day job (actual work), night job (phone calls from family) and weekend duties (phone calls from friends).

But wouldn't you know it, I never get any calls from those families or friends that use a Mac. What a concept!

Nice work on the switchers!

[euchomai]

I got our whole office to switch! It is really great, we were sitting in our staff meeting, I had my 17" powerbook up. All the PC people were using thier junk. One of the PC people made a slanderous remark to me about Apple Computers, I started to argue the point back. That's when the boss chimes in, I've seen how productive he is with his computer and my next one will be a Mac too. It was great, shut the whole room up. Now my office has 2 eMacs, an iMac (nice new one!) 3 iBooks and a 17" Powerbook.

My boss just had me go to his house yesterday to show him some tricks on his new personal 17" iMac. So, tons and tons of switchers here.

[V12]

i ocnverted my uncle...all it took was some frustration with his dell/windows os. So recently (early september) after fixing his dell he ask how my peecee is doing, i tell him fine but i said, you know just gotta keep up o the software and os updates, then i started telling him how i wanted a laptop and how it would help me with school and all, especially being a junior in HS this is a very important year(college soon). So i've been talking about macs with him every since i got my vaio 4/5 years ago (same peecee i meantioned before) I told him how the OS was basically flawless...espiceially compared to windows...so as a bithday.xmas gift he gets give me his cc and lets me get a powerbook12" and ipod and a new printer all in one. Now i bring my laptop to his house (a brownstone in brooklyn, one of the renters there let me go on his network, i show my uncle how great the wireless internet is with the extreme card, and how you cant get viruses, and such. After him playin around with it, he likes it a lot. Anyway his computer was really messed up at this point so he sends it into the shop which had to reinstall all his software. Early last week he calls me and tells me that over my christmas break he wants to go down to the soho store, try out an ibooks, and get one with a airport base and all. I think we are actually going the sunday after christmas.

[Lancer409]

congrats. not to you guys, but for the switchers themselves. =)

[Spheric Harlot]

Please note that the WW2 French defense system was called the Maginot Line.

This has been a public service announcement.

Carry on.