[Link]

Now then, that topic could be a little better, but basically I have a speech contest tomorrow, and the idea is a persuasion. In it, I can use between 2 and 5 points, and it has to be between 5 and 10 minutes (the teacher's rules are 7-9 and since I'm using this for class on Tuesday as well, I need to follow that one)...

In addition I'll have to use sources (testimony, statistics, studies, stories) -- those should be no problem, but if anyone really wants to see a few keyed up, feel free to suggest them!

So what I'm asking is what do you guys think would be some good main points? My ideas right now are to pull off security and MAYBE the whole "It just works" ideology, but that one would take a little guts and a lot of sources.. as it is, this speech has to be "very well proven"..

I'll be using keynote and have my powerbook accessible for this one as well, so if you guys have any suggestions for activities I can shove into my speech, or maybe even (if I have to), to go over a quick few myths and prove that wrong (but that starts to get a little too defensive)..

Anyway the idea is to really get these guys to walk out thinking "gee I want to try a mac", and that's going to be along my closing lines "The next time you hear about a new windows virus, or see a program acting wonky, remember that there are alternatives, and that doesn't have to be the way things are!"..

Any suggestions?

[olePigeon]

Can you use a laptop? Just show them Smart Folders and Burn Folders, then Smart Fodlers inside Burn Folders. That'll win 'em over. (Did for me. )

[olePigeon]

Just play 10 minutes of a Macworld Keynote, and let Steve's RDF do the rest.

[EdGein]

I know a lot of people that recently switched because of lack of spyware.

[budster101]

Show them

1. Spotlight.
2. How everything is actually at your fingertips.
3. OS X doesn't assume you are an idiot and tries to do everything for you.
4. Reall multitasking, no losing work from powerfailures
5. Show them programs like keynote and pages, and how easy and powerful they are
6. No spyware, malware, adware, viruses, trojans, hijacking of browsers, security
7. DOT MAC how integral it is and how easy backups are, the benefits
a. uploading photos and movies
b. e-mail account
c. publish calendar and addressbook
d. file sharing (public and protected)
e. online tutorials for your hardware and software
8. Do I need to go on?
9. Free classes to help you adjust to the switch

They just work, Do they have to consider a hardware or software failure when using a phone or stereo?
Why should they with a computer?

Windows assumes you are dumb, Macs assume you are intelligent enough to want to do your work.
It's logical.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by EdGein

I know a lot of people that recently switched because of lack of spyware.

Mention about Spyware, Popup ads, and Viruses.

[budster101]

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating...opc_switc.html

[EdGein]

Originally Posted by budster101

Windows assumes you are dumb, Macs assume you are intelligent enough to want to do your work.
It's logical.

I am not sure it's even that. I think MS wants certain things on and doesn't want the user to be able to turn it off. I think MS WANTS control.

That, and it takes too long to rip something off, make it yours, AND make it user friendly. So they just leave the last part out, and make you not able to configure it properly.

[mdc]

* lack of spyware
* lack of viruses
* ease of mac os X
* how all the iApps work so well, and so well with each other

start off talking about the first two points, go into a little detail of mac os. installing, unistalling applications. then end it off by asking what the point of it all is, unless all the applications that run on top of this amazing base work amazingly well together. and they do.
then show off iphoto, itunes, imovie, pages, keynote, and talk about the freeware/shareware out there, dashboard and spotlight.

that should take around 9 minutes.

good luck, tell us how it goes.

[Chuckit]

Exactly. That's what always makes people really go "wow." Just say, "I've had my computer connected to the Internet for five months with no virus protection and it's completely clean." You'll have to beat them off with sticks.

[budster101]

Olpigeon: Einstein was talking about the Nazis... it's why he came to America, to get away from that.

[Chuckit]

I think you just discovered olePigeon's point, budster.

[budster101]

Oh. Never mind. I do that on occassion.... must be the heat and the humidity....

[Hugi]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

I think you just discovered olePigeon's point, budster.

No, I think he hasn't. He might when he reads your post, though.

[EdGein]

And it's an moronic comparison.

Anyhow to get back on topic. Go to, say a porn site on both your mac, and a PC.

See how much crap your PC gets infected by. Now compare it with the Mac.

[jasonsRX7]

I don't know if it's the best route to take for a class but if you were really trying to get people to switch, you'd mention spyware and viruses like Zimp and others have said.

Windows users won't give two toots about Spotlight, Smart Folders, or iLife (until they actually get a mac). Everyone I've switched so far has switched because they were tired of their PC getting bogged down with popups.

Install Kazaa on the PC, and install your Mac P2P app of choice. Present the results.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by EdGein

And it's an moronic comparison.

Anyhow to get back on topic. Go to, say a porn site on both your mac, and a PC.

See how much crap your PC gets infected by. Now compare it with the Mac.

I know. Bring in an XP and OS X machine with a fresh install. Hook them up to the internet. Let them stay connected for 9 minutes. Then run a Spyware checker on the PC for 1 minute and count how many times it was infected during the previous 9 minutes.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by budster101

Olpigeon: Einstein was talking about the Nazis... it's why he came to America, to get away from that.

.

[budster101]

Rub it in. Rub it in....

[JoshuaZ]

No virus. No spyware. All the programs you need. Holds its value better. Plus is completely compatible with about 90% of the stuff you already use.

That usually does it for my peoples. That or they suffer horrible issues with windows and I make fun of them for the next 4 years of college. Thats how 3 of my friends 'switched.'

[Link]

Well, I worked on it all night, dunno how I did it, but it's done. Unfortunately I was so screwed up after doing it that I had to just give up on the contest and wait till I do it in front of the class on Tuesday.

Extra credit (especially when you need it), is good.. but I'd have had to do this speech 3 times today... in front of like 7 judges.. which is not just silly, but extremely stressful. Doing a speech, then having to do it 40 mins later, then an hour later, etc... no! I think I prefer my sanity and health, lol. So I just took a nice long nap and decided not to worry about it.

Anyway, the speech stuff is on my powerbook -- I'm doing a "keynote" presentation behind the speech of course (as always) -- but so far it's nothing but everything existing -- black text on white background. Once I get the chance (or feel like it), I'll post the speech up for you guys to see and criticize

[mitchell_pgh]

- Consistent GUI
- First rate OS
- No Known Viruses
- High Quality Hardware
- Superior Customer Support

Those are why I use Apple.

[Link]

BTW, main points I covered were
1. About the hardware
2. out-of-the-box experience
3. Macs are extremely compatible
4. Server-Class OS
5. Growing Popularity of OS X

http://www.talesmud.com/mac_PS.rtf

Thanks for the suggestions, unfortunately both in my hurry and bad timing (I didn't find out that the contest was today until tuesday afternoon), I didn't get much time to work on it.

Pardon the *cough* messiness too, this is a transcript not necessarily something that everyone will see, so the formatting isn't that spectacular. Truth be told, I was trying to find a better way to do this as to *not* kill the "macs are more secure" main point that I had, but I thought that the compatibility one was necessary.

As for demonstrations, yeah I can definitely do those -- same way that Steve himself does them in the keynotes, but they'll have to be relatively quick and simple -- if you guys have some ideas, please don't hold em back

As it is, I have until Tuesday now, since that's when I'll be presenting this one for the class: Yes there is a mac skeptic or two, and I'd really love to just give people a handful of reasons why OS X is good -- the idea of course is for them to consider it for their next computer purchase

If you have suggestions, anything from as simple as rephrasing something to merging main points together and adding new ones (I can have up to 5 but have to have like at least 3 -- so there's no need to keep the same amount) -- well please let me know! I'll be glad to take them (and if you guys even want to do a little lay testimony, I'll likely post that too -- if it's wise!)

Thanks again so very much for your suggestions so far

[Link]

*friendly bump*

[Cubeoid]

Like...

[MacMan4000]

I like it...

The "server-class" section is the best in my mind. But I also think that no spyware/adware/popups/viruses/trojans/worms/sh|t argument could be very persuasive. I just had to re-format my cousins PC yesterday because all-of-the-above had rendered it 100% useless. You literally could not open/run anything on it. And the sad/funny thing is, the computer was only 1 year old. And for the last 6 months it has not been used because of its condition.

When i told my cousin that in the past 11 years (and several computers) my immediate family (all Mac users) had never once had any sort of malware or virus he flipped out. And to add insult to injury I had to point out that none of us have any sort of virus protection or 3rd party security software.

I 

[TheIceMan]

Good job. Nice little speech.

[HawgJawl]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

- Consistent GUI

I wouldn't go that far...

OS X needs to stick with one consistent GUI. Instead of 5.

[Link]

Thanks so much for your help everyone! The speech (as far as the class was concerned) -- was a HUGE success, the paper my teacher gave me on the other hand -- that didn't make any sense to me whatsoever; Apparently she was more concerned about the format of the speech than how persuading it actually was, and said that I didn't have enough sources (and when I did have them in the presentation there were cases when I didn't name out the link -- well duh it's a tinyurl at the bottom corner of the slides!)

Oh well, that's just fine -- I got my point through and the comments included things like this (we get comment cards from everyone, of course we have to do the same for everyone else lol) ---
"Wish I hadn't gotten a dell"
"Mac > Dell"
(lol)
"I want one now"

---- something like that... too lazy to get out the sheets now but there were a lot of positive responses

Oh yeah, and here's the one thing that DID get me, I had a feeling it'd happen too because well, let's see -- I'm doing a speech praising OS X in front of my class, so what better thing can my computer do to back this up then freeze when disengaging dashboard?

It was only a windowserver style freeze I could have broke out of, but I didn't happen to have another machine handy to ssh into the powerbook with lol.. and at that point I forgot the key combination to hard reset the PB so I just flipped it over and yanked the battery....

Went like this

"Anyway, now to show you spotlight... hrm why didn't that close? -- Looks like we've got a crash here!" *walks to grab bag, gets keys out of it, pops battery from PB and pops back in*

*hits power button* "sorry bout that, anyway that wasn't too bad, I've had this thing running for 18 days! *big convincing grin*' -- took that moment to answer a question (IIRC) --- thankfully OS X popped up as fast as it could (few seconds, that aimed a few positive comments too),... and right back to my demos of spotlight and whatnot.. all went smoothly

Surprisingly I pulled this all off under 8 minutes. --- and the responses were more than worth it

[mdc]

very nice work. unlucky about the dashboard lock up.

btw, you can hold down the power button on the powerbook for about 5 seconds and it turns it off.

[budster101]

You also showed them that it can happen (A crash) but you can recover fairly quickly from one.

For the time you took to give your speech, a typical Windows User would be still waiting for a reboot after a crash into safe mode, and then another 3 to 5 minutes for a good solid reboot into normal mode...

The lockup was a good thing. You recovered faster than most could on a Windows machine... impressive!