No, Mr. Gates. It would not be OK for me to steal anything. That's why I never did. Did you catch the part where I mentioned mowing lawns to make money for blank floppies?
Damn you greedy people are dense. Does every one and zero look like a dollar sign to you? Is that the perception problem we're dealing with here?
Your reading comprehension would likely benefit if you would get your knee-jerk under control. It would also keep you from looking like a logical deficient. You're preaching to me about "reasoning" that "follows"?
I suspect I'm being trolled, but I never said I was trying to "legitimize anything." I'm not. I don't owe you or them or anybody else any explanation for anything I do, ever. I wasn't motivated by "greed for entertainment" and I never violated anyone's rights to anything.
You should be modded down for being irrational and for not reading far enough to read the conclusion of my story where everyone wins - me, the commercial software companies, OSS, the generation behind me - EVERYONE. Or, blinded by greed, stupidity and a desire to troll, did you just not care?
Do you already work for Microsoft or are you just trying to build a comment history for the interview?
My first computer was an Apple IIc. I came from a lower middle class family and it was a sacrifice for my mother to buy the machine for me second-hand. She did it because she recognized my passion and wanted me to have the opportunity to pursue it. But there was no way my family could afford to buy any software, really, much less games at $50 a pop.
Over the course of a couple of years I "acquired" two disk files full of software, much of it games. I paid for blank disks out of money I earned mowing lawns and such. I also accumulated a stack of magazines mostly donated by a teacher who took an interest in my interest and whose husband had an Apple II and a couple subscriptions.
Long story short, I'm running two IT-based businesses today and I'm grateful for a mother that cared, a teacher (and her husband) that cared and "pirate" software. No one lost anything from my "piracy" because there was absolutely ZERO chance that I ever would have been able to buy any of the software or half of the magazines that I had available to me back then.
All of that combined has defined the life I now lead and today I both give away software under OSS licenses and willingly pay for any commercial software that I use.
Virtually all of the sound recordings... are in the ".mp3" format for his and his wife's use..
RIAA Lawyer: Your honor, despite sharing a surname, bank account and residence, Plaintiff's exhibit 23A - a copy of a marriage license - will clearly show that Mr. Defendant and his so-called wife are, in fact, two completely separate people. Furthermore, these DNA samples, marked Plaintiff's exhibit 23B, also provide conclusive evidence that these two "married" people are most certainly two distinct persons.
Our license to this music clearly states that it is for personal use. Copyright law makes clear that this only grants license to one person and yet the Defendant plainly admits that he illegally shared our copyrighted content with his so-called wife, a clearly separate and unauthorized entity.
This is an outrageous, flagrant and willful disregard for the law! On that basis, I move for summary judgement.
I really am embarassed by this nickname now, and wish i could change it, but its used in SO many damn places, and its my main domainname, and its my email address everywhere, and its embarassing when people ask for my email address on the phone or whatever, like when i'm applying for jobs.... oh man.
What was I thinking back in 94??
I get where you're comin' from with the nickname. Don't sweat it too much.
I'm hiring and in that consideration I would place your Slashdot nickname in higher esteem than any degree from anywhere (except maybe MIT - and I can't afford them people). College degrees are bought with money and earned by being a sycophant. They mean nothing to me. More often than not, they'll count against you when interviewing with me. I'm interested in raw intelligence, hunger for constant learning and problem solving abilities.
Before I rant, let me get to my point: the world is a-changing. They'll get over it. I guess. They're gonna have to.
In high school, I had one really cool teacher. As one example, there was a time when a bunch of dopers were making fun of me, during class. He said, "Laugh it up, fools. Someday you'll work for him. If you don't, your kids will. Geeks will rule the world."
He was right. It's different now.
(I graduated HS in '88 - before anyone really knew who Gates was.)
You have to look on different sites (I still don't know which site i should use to get freeware for macs specifically), and google doesn't seem to work so well to get results.
In addition to Version Tracker and Mac Update that others have mentioned, I would recommend FreeMacWare.com. It's not a comprehensive database like the aforementioned two, more of "an app a day" highlighted sort of thing. But all of their archives for (a couple of?) years is on the main page by category and they also have a very nice random thing that is addictive like crack. (Every time you load a page it displays five random selections at the bottom... click on any of those and you've just loaded another page with... lather, rinse, multiply)
I track their RSS feed so I can see what the new FreeMacWare of the day is every day. I've found some really nice and very useful software that way.
...like the "Bomb" or the "Unhappy face" aren't the most cryptic error messages of all? What's wrong? Someone set me up the bomb! Well THAT'S fricking helpful. If I google "bomb"...
That's why Steve Jobs invented OS X. Ever heard of it?
Seriously, you apparently haven't seen a Mac crash in the 21st century. That's not all that surprising. In the unlikely event that you do, go to/Applications/Utilities and open Console.app. In there you'll find fodder to Google 'til your heart's content.
Of course, that also assumes that the machine crashed so hard that you didn't get an application crash popup with a button that offers to allow you to view a detailed crash report (and send it to Apple if you like). While it's possible and occasionally happens, that's highly unlikely.
Thanks for the site recommendation. It is indeed quite amusing and not just the intro. Go on in and look around. The site is mostly in French but there are menu options on the main page for "Pschitt Yourself", "Pschitt Attitude" and "My Pschitt."
Surely those are intentionally done in English because of the obvious effect.
One way to find out might be to do a fresh install... then patch it until it breaks.
In a world without Microsoft that sentence would be funny. Thanks to Microsoft it's quite often a sad reality.
Re:Windows will continue to dominate
on
Leopard Vs. Vista
·
· Score: 1
I need reuters, bloomberg, and excel and an efficient way to never use the mouse. what macs really lack are the last two in this list.
If you'd bothered to check, you would know that you're very wrong on both counts. Not that you should have. You clearly have a lot invested in your Windows solution. You'll no doubt continue to invest in it because it's what you know.
But don't spread misinformation just because you're either too busy or too lazy to know what you're talking about.
Probably that too, now that you mention it. But what I was referencing is that I think you confused schg with uchg. The "u" in the "nouchg" you used is for "user immutable" while the "s" is for "system immutable." Once the schg flag is set not even "normal" root can remove the flag. It can only be removed by booting into single-user mode.
That's part of what prompted the (attempt at) humor in my original post - I had just recently read the documentation on these flags and thought the schg flag seemed rather ridiculous. I don't know in what circumstance it could possibly be deemed necessary (in preference over even the uchg flag). It seems quite extreme for any purpose, to me. If you feel the need to lock out root, you have problems that cannot be solved with a filesystem.
I have had hands on dealings with iPods. The ITunes+Ipod thing is a double-edged sword. I'm sure it's great if you want both things and use only those two things together and don't change a thing, but it sucks otherwise. I don't want to have to hack my iPod to have it function as a regular hard drive, and I don't want to use their bloated software package to organize my MP3s. Just about any other player on the market will function as a typical USB HD in addition to "media player mode", I know my archos does.
Maybe you should have had some "hands on dealings" with the documentation, troll. My iPod automatically pops up as a removable drive on my desktop every time I plug it in. Or is it that you so loathe iTunes that you consider checking a box in the preferences "hacking?" (For the average person, this is intuitive. For you, there are instructions included.)
If you and the people you know really are that stupid, I don't doubt they can't figure out how to use a click wheel and read a menu of choices but I challenge your implied assertion that some other player is easier to use.
Well, if you're foolish enough to give yourself privileges to your home directory, you deserve what you get. This is exactly why every file on my system is readable only by root.
Please tell me your files aren't writable by root, too. Talk about a security hole. All that's needed for malicious code to screw up your system is root access! I don't know about Linux or other insecure operating systems, but OS X can be properly secured with a simple: "sudo schg -R/"
I can't imagine why anyone would ever need to modify files outside of single-user mode anyway.
We represent Apple Computer, Inc. in intellectual property matters.
Apple recently learned of your attempt to coin a new idiomatic word, Apple-thetic, presumably an adjective meaning "having or showing little or no emotion with regards to Apple Computer, Inc."
As you may be aware, Apple has used its APPLE mark since at least as early as 1977. Since that time, the APPLE trademark has become quite famous. The APPLE mark indicates to consumers that goods and services bearing that mark and marks similar thereto originate from or are sponsored or endorsed by Apple.
Apple owns U.S. Trademark registration No. 2273661 for its Apple mark, as well as registrations covering more than fifty international jurisdictions. In sum, Apple has expended a great deal of time and money to build up worldwide recognition and goodwill in its APPLE mark.
We note that your new word, Apple-thetic, consists in substantial part of Apple's APPLE mark and contains Apple's APPLE mark in its entirety. Your word appears to have been chosen intentionally to capitalize on the fame and goodwill of Apple's mark. Moreover, your word is clearly an attempt at being clever to the point of insanely great, identical to the goods and services offered by Apple under the APPLE mark and covered by Apple's extreme and totally utter awesomeness. This clearly highlights the overlap with our client's goods and services. Consumers, therefore are likely to be confused and mistakenly believe your word is associated with Apple, infringing Apple's trademark rights.
As we are sure you can appreciate, Apple, as a trademark owner and nearly exclusive purveyor of cool, has a duty to protect its valuable intellectual property. While Apple, of course, has no general objection to proper use of the term "Apple" in references to veritable perfection and completely insane greatness, it cannot allow words that indicate indifference to such supremacy as the company provides. Based on the likelihood of confusion and dilution, therefore, we must insist that you limit all future use of the mark to those that would indicate the indisputable spectacularity of everything Apple related.
Apple hopes that this matter can be resolved amicably and expeditiously. We ask that you contact us by October 5, 2006 to let us know whether you will comply with Apple's requests. Apple notes that an alternative definition of your word could be "not interested or concerned; indifferent or unresponsive towards Apple" and sincerely hopes that you don't even go there, girl! Of course, nothing in this letter should be construed as limiting Apple's rights or remedies, because IAAL and I assure you, we can see to it that you have some passion of some kind about Apple before this is done, if ya get my meaning.
Very truly yours,
TOWNSEND AND TOWNSEND AND YET ANOTHER TOWNSEND AND OUR CREW, LLP
What, exactly, does this provide that email does not, save a place to throw money away and a vector for fraud and identity theft? How is this not the worst business model since the:CueCat?
This is an interesting comment if only in light of the dydns link in its header.
I agree. Call me a sucker. Maybe I am. But most of the criticism of this idea in this thread is clearly coming from people who don't understand it.
I think this is useful now and will be even more useful if/when it gains wide acceptance. I think there's a good chance that it will eventually.
It would be interesting to follow up on this thread in 12 or 24 months and see how many of these 3733t naysayers have an iname.
If I'm wrong, I'm out $5. Whether I am or not, I still have control of a concise, easily remembered point of contact for any data I want to be available. And if I'm right, it will also be quite valuable. It could be, and in many ways it already is, better than a TLD name.
I'm not dumping a bunch of money into speculation here, but I'm willing to risk $5 on it. There are quite a few domain names that I wish I had had the forethought to register in 1996. I can see the real possibility that ten years from now my (now eight year old) daughter's friends, kylie5467 and sara98743, might envy her for having her first name as her iname.
Good point. Parallels wasn't ready for prime time yet when they originally switched. I recently pointed out to them just what you said. The reasoning for not trying Parallels now is interesting: "We would have to install Windows again on Parallels and Windows is too much of a pain to install and configure. We can't justify the time necessary to try Parallels now. Let's just wait and see what Leopard offers first."
My mother found it fascinating that when they set up her new Mac, everything worked out of the box and she was up and running on OS X in an hour with everything working just like her old XP machine. Getting everything working on the fresh XP install, like it had on her old XP machine, took hours of driver downloads, configuring and multiple reboots.
It's amazing but frequently true, that switching to OS X is easier than switching from one XP install to another.
I can tell you both from the maintenance and user perspectives, dual-booting will never make anyone a "switcher."... Boot camp is nothing more than a proof-of-concept idea and a marketing ploy targetting the geeky community. Beyond that, adoption will be spotty at best...
You couldn't be more wrong. My evidence is anecdotal but so are your "perspectives."
My mother is far from "geeky" and is the office manager for a small but very successful telecom consulting company. They ordered her an Intel iMac the day Apple released Boot Camp. The only thing keeping them/her from "switching" was that their payroll is processed through a third party company that foolishly requires IE6/ActiveX for her to do data input for weekly payroll. Everything else she does in running this company's main office is easier for her and more secure on OS X.
So now she boots into Windows XP for a couple of hours once a week to do payroll and she is much, much happier and more efficient at her job using OS X. The company has since purchased a number of other Macs and is primarily operating on OS X across the company now.
At the very least, your statement, "dual-booting will never make anyone a 'switcher'" is absolutely and completely incorrect.
Some of the GUI's off the top of my head that were SIGNIFICANT advances during the 80s and 90s include: * Tandy Deskmate (once the #1 computer seller in America) * Apple IIgs interface (precursor to the Macintosh)...
Not quite. The Macintosh and the IIgs were developed and marketed in parallel. The IIgs was architecturally more akin to Windows/DOS. Meaning: the IIgs implemented a (rather nice) GUI layer on top of the existing Apple II ProDOS system. You were thinking of the Lisa maybe?
Slashdot Mirror
No, Mr. Gates. It would not be OK for me to steal anything. That's why I never did. Did you catch the part where I mentioned mowing lawns to make money for blank floppies?
Damn you greedy people are dense. Does every one and zero look like a dollar sign to you? Is that the perception problem we're dealing with here?
Your reading comprehension would likely benefit if you would get your knee-jerk under control. It would also keep you from looking like a logical deficient. You're preaching to me about "reasoning" that "follows"?
I suspect I'm being trolled, but I never said I was trying to "legitimize anything." I'm not. I don't owe you or them or anybody else any explanation for anything I do, ever. I wasn't motivated by "greed for entertainment" and I never violated anyone's rights to anything.
You should be modded down for being irrational and for not reading far enough to read the conclusion of my story where everyone wins - me, the commercial software companies, OSS, the generation behind me - EVERYONE. Or, blinded by greed, stupidity and a desire to troll, did you just not care?
Do you already work for Microsoft or are you just trying to build a comment history for the interview?
My first computer was an Apple IIc. I came from a lower middle class family and it was a sacrifice for my mother to buy the machine for me second-hand. She did it because she recognized my passion and wanted me to have the opportunity to pursue it. But there was no way my family could afford to buy any software, really, much less games at $50 a pop.
Over the course of a couple of years I "acquired" two disk files full of software, much of it games. I paid for blank disks out of money I earned mowing lawns and such. I also accumulated a stack of magazines mostly donated by a teacher who took an interest in my interest and whose husband had an Apple II and a couple subscriptions.
Long story short, I'm running two IT-based businesses today and I'm grateful for a mother that cared, a teacher (and her husband) that cared and "pirate" software. No one lost anything from my "piracy" because there was absolutely ZERO chance that I ever would have been able to buy any of the software or half of the magazines that I had available to me back then.
All of that combined has defined the life I now lead and today I both give away software under OSS licenses and willingly pay for any commercial software that I use.
Virtually all of the sound recordings... are in the ".mp3" format for his and his wife's use..
RIAA Lawyer: Your honor, despite sharing a surname, bank account and residence, Plaintiff's exhibit 23A - a copy of a marriage license - will clearly show that Mr. Defendant and his so-called wife are, in fact, two completely separate people. Furthermore, these DNA samples, marked Plaintiff's exhibit 23B, also provide conclusive evidence that these two "married" people are most certainly two distinct persons.
Our license to this music clearly states that it is for personal use. Copyright law makes clear that this only grants license to one person and yet the Defendant plainly admits that he illegally shared our copyrighted content with his so-called wife, a clearly separate and unauthorized entity.
This is an outrageous, flagrant and willful disregard for the law! On that basis, I move for summary judgement.
I really am embarassed by this nickname now, and wish i could change it, but its used in SO many damn places, and its my main domainname, and its my email address everywhere, and its embarassing when people ask for my email address on the phone or whatever, like when i'm applying for jobs.... oh man.
What was I thinking back in 94??
I get where you're comin' from with the nickname. Don't sweat it too much.
I'm hiring and in that consideration I would place your Slashdot nickname in higher esteem than any degree from anywhere (except maybe MIT - and I can't afford them people). College degrees are bought with money and earned by being a sycophant. They mean nothing to me. More often than not, they'll count against you when interviewing with me. I'm interested in raw intelligence, hunger for constant learning and problem solving abilities.
Before I rant, let me get to my point: the world is a-changing. They'll get over it. I guess. They're gonna have to.
In high school, I had one really cool teacher. As one example, there was a time when a bunch of dopers were making fun of me, during class. He said, "Laugh it up, fools. Someday you'll work for him. If you don't, your kids will. Geeks will rule the world."
He was right. It's different now.
(I graduated HS in '88 - before anyone really knew who Gates was.)
You have to look on different sites (I still don't know which site i should use to get freeware for macs specifically), and google doesn't seem to work so well to get results.
In addition to Version Tracker and Mac Update that others have mentioned, I would recommend FreeMacWare.com. It's not a comprehensive database like the aforementioned two, more of "an app a day" highlighted sort of thing. But all of their archives for (a couple of?) years is on the main page by category and they also have a very nice random thing that is addictive like crack. (Every time you load a page it displays five random selections at the bottom... click on any of those and you've just loaded another page with... lather, rinse, multiply)
I track their RSS feed so I can see what the new FreeMacWare of the day is every day. I've found some really nice and very useful software that way.
That's why Steve Jobs invented OS X. Ever heard of it?
Seriously, you apparently haven't seen a Mac crash in the 21st century. That's not all that surprising. In the unlikely event that you do, go to
Of course, that also assumes that the machine crashed so hard that you didn't get an application crash popup with a button that offers to allow you to view a detailed crash report (and send it to Apple if you like). While it's possible and occasionally happens, that's highly unlikely.
Thanks for the site recommendation. It is indeed quite amusing and not just the intro. Go on in and look around. The site is mostly in French but there are menu options on the main page for "Pschitt Yourself", "Pschitt Attitude" and "My Pschitt."
Surely those are intentionally done in English because of the obvious effect.
One way to find out might be to do a fresh install ... then patch it until it breaks.
In a world without Microsoft that sentence would be funny. Thanks to Microsoft it's quite often a sad reality.
I need reuters, bloomberg, and excel and an efficient way to never use the mouse. what macs really lack are the last two in this list.
If you'd bothered to check, you would know that you're very wrong on both counts. Not that you should have. You clearly have a lot invested in your Windows solution. You'll no doubt continue to invest in it because it's what you know.
But don't spread misinformation just because you're either too busy or too lazy to know what you're talking about.
Probably that too, now that you mention it. But what I was referencing is that I think you confused schg with uchg. The "u" in the "nouchg" you used is for "user immutable" while the "s" is for "system immutable." Once the schg flag is set not even "normal" root can remove the flag. It can only be removed by booting into single-user mode.
That's part of what prompted the (attempt at) humor in my original post - I had just recently read the documentation on these flags and thought the schg flag seemed rather ridiculous. I don't know in what circumstance it could possibly be deemed necessary (in preference over even the uchg flag). It seems quite extreme for any purpose, to me. If you feel the need to lock out root, you have problems that cannot be solved with a filesystem.
I have had hands on dealings with iPods. The ITunes+Ipod thing is a double-edged sword. I'm sure it's great if you want both things and use only those two things together and don't change a thing, but it sucks otherwise. I don't want to have to hack my iPod to have it function as a regular hard drive, and I don't want to use their bloated software package to organize my MP3s. Just about any other player on the market will function as a typical USB HD in addition to "media player mode", I know my archos does.
Maybe you should have had some "hands on dealings" with the documentation, troll. My iPod automatically pops up as a removable drive on my desktop every time I plug it in. Or is it that you so loathe iTunes that you consider checking a box in the preferences "hacking?" (For the average person, this is intuitive. For you, there are instructions included.)
If you and the people you know really are that stupid, I don't doubt they can't figure out how to use a click wheel and read a menu of choices but I challenge your implied assertion that some other player is easier to use.
I replied before I saw that you caught it yourself.
My apologies as well.
Your sense of humor is broken. I wouldn't reply just to point that out. In this case, you're also wrong.
Well, if you're foolish enough to give yourself privileges to your home directory, you deserve what you get. This is exactly why every file on my system is readable only by root.
/"
Please tell me your files aren't writable by root, too. Talk about a security hole. All that's needed for malicious code to screw up your system is root access! I don't know about Linux or other insecure operating systems, but OS X can be properly secured with a simple: "sudo schg -R
I can't imagine why anyone would ever need to modify files outside of single-user mode anyway.
Oh look at the shiny white thing...
Begging you pardon, this is a shiny silver thing.
Maybe they keep posting this stuff to try to get you to pay attention for a change.
"This new science is fascinating. Tell me again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes."
Not only that but it also comes with databasess (plural),...
Indeed! Very plural, apparently.
Dear Mr./Ms. ThomsonsPier:
We represent Apple Computer, Inc. in intellectual property matters.
Apple recently learned of your attempt to coin a new idiomatic word, Apple-thetic, presumably an adjective meaning "having or showing little or no emotion with regards to Apple Computer, Inc."
As you may be aware, Apple has used its APPLE mark since at least as early as 1977. Since that time, the APPLE trademark has become quite famous. The APPLE mark indicates to consumers that goods and services bearing that mark and marks similar thereto originate from or are sponsored or endorsed by Apple.
Apple owns U.S. Trademark registration No. 2273661 for its Apple mark, as well as registrations covering more than fifty international jurisdictions. In sum, Apple has expended a great deal of time and money to build up worldwide recognition and goodwill in its APPLE mark.
We note that your new word, Apple-thetic, consists in substantial part of Apple's APPLE mark and contains Apple's APPLE mark in its entirety. Your word appears to have been chosen intentionally to capitalize on the fame and goodwill of Apple's mark. Moreover, your word is clearly an attempt at being clever to the point of insanely great, identical to the goods and services offered by Apple under the APPLE mark and covered by Apple's extreme and totally utter awesomeness. This clearly highlights the overlap with our client's goods and services. Consumers, therefore are likely to be confused and mistakenly believe your word is associated with Apple, infringing Apple's trademark rights.
As we are sure you can appreciate, Apple, as a trademark owner and nearly exclusive purveyor of cool, has a duty to protect its valuable intellectual property. While Apple, of course, has no general objection to proper use of the term "Apple" in references to veritable perfection and completely insane greatness, it cannot allow words that indicate indifference to such supremacy as the company provides. Based on the likelihood of confusion and dilution, therefore, we must insist that you limit all future use of the mark to those that would indicate the indisputable spectacularity of everything Apple related.
Apple hopes that this matter can be resolved amicably and expeditiously. We ask that you contact us by October 5, 2006 to let us know whether you will comply with Apple's requests. Apple notes that an alternative definition of your word could be "not interested or concerned; indifferent or unresponsive towards Apple" and sincerely hopes that you don't even go there, girl! Of course, nothing in this letter should be construed as limiting Apple's rights or remedies, because IAAL and I assure you, we can see to it that you have some passion of some kind about Apple before this is done, if ya get my meaning.
Very truly yours,
TOWNSEND AND TOWNSEND AND YET ANOTHER TOWNSEND AND OUR CREW, LLP
Yeah. OK. I'm sure there's no bias on this subject coming from a 93 Escort Wagon!
You'll excuse me if I look to a more objective source for facts concerning the luge capabilities of cheap, sub-compact cars.
This is an interesting comment if only in light of the dydns link in its header.
I agree. Call me a sucker. Maybe I am. But most of the criticism of this idea in this thread is clearly coming from people who don't understand it.
I think this is useful now and will be even more useful if/when it gains wide acceptance. I think there's a good chance that it will eventually.
It would be interesting to follow up on this thread in 12 or 24 months and see how many of these 3733t naysayers have an iname.
If I'm wrong, I'm out $5. Whether I am or not, I still have control of a concise, easily remembered point of contact for any data I want to be available. And if I'm right, it will also be quite valuable. It could be, and in many ways it already is, better than a TLD name.
I'm not dumping a bunch of money into speculation here, but I'm willing to risk $5 on it. There are quite a few domain names that I wish I had had the forethought to register in 1996. I can see the real possibility that ten years from now my (now eight year old) daughter's friends, kylie5467 and sara98743, might envy her for having her first name as her iname.
Again, if I'm wrong, it's only five bucks.
Good point. Parallels wasn't ready for prime time yet when they originally switched. I recently pointed out to them just what you said. The reasoning for not trying Parallels now is interesting: "We would have to install Windows again on Parallels and Windows is too much of a pain to install and configure. We can't justify the time necessary to try Parallels now. Let's just wait and see what Leopard offers first."
My mother found it fascinating that when they set up her new Mac, everything worked out of the box and she was up and running on OS X in an hour with everything working just like her old XP machine. Getting everything working on the fresh XP install, like it had on her old XP machine, took hours of driver downloads, configuring and multiple reboots.
It's amazing but frequently true, that switching to OS X is easier than switching from one XP install to another.
You couldn't be more wrong. My evidence is anecdotal but so are your "perspectives."
My mother is far from "geeky" and is the office manager for a small but very successful telecom consulting company. They ordered her an Intel iMac the day Apple released Boot Camp. The only thing keeping them/her from "switching" was that their payroll is processed through a third party company that foolishly requires IE6/ActiveX for her to do data input for weekly payroll. Everything else she does in running this company's main office is easier for her and more secure on OS X.
So now she boots into Windows XP for a couple of hours once a week to do payroll and she is much, much happier and more efficient at her job using OS X. The company has since purchased a number of other Macs and is primarily operating on OS X across the company now.
At the very least, your statement, "dual-booting will never make anyone a 'switcher'" is absolutely and completely incorrect.
Some of the GUI's off the top of my head that were SIGNIFICANT advances during the 80s and 90s include:
* Tandy Deskmate (once the #1 computer seller in America)
* Apple IIgs interface (precursor to the Macintosh)...
Not quite. The Macintosh and the IIgs were developed and marketed in parallel. The IIgs was architecturally more akin to Windows/DOS. Meaning: the IIgs implemented a (rather nice) GUI layer on top of the existing Apple II ProDOS system. You were thinking of the Lisa maybe?