If your computer is crashing "2 to 3 times per day" you should take it in to be repaired.
I don't remember the last time either Windows XP or MacOS X crashed.
But I do know my Mac is a lot flakier than Windows XP.
Let me give you concrate examples that are easily reproduceable:
1) On Windows XP, I can plug in a memory stick into the USB and it will instantly ask me if I want to play the songs that are on there if it sees MP3s. On the Mac, I have to wait until it shows up as a drive, click on it, find the MP3,s click on them and wait for iTunes to show up.
2) Try connecting to a printer on a LAN that is connected to a Windows machine from a Mac. Talk about a huge pain in the butt.
3) iMovie can't multitask. If you export your movie as a .MOV and switch to another program, the export pauses. So let's say you're saving a 40 gigabyte file, that's going to take hours to do. But you can't let it do it in the background because it'll never get done. Very annoying.
4) iTunes is fairly finicky about what MP3s it'll play. Some of my MP3s play, some abort half way. Other Mac MP3 players work fine on it.
5) Weird errors when copying files over the network or to removable drives. This is a well known issue where the "Work around" is to copy from the command line.
6) iMovie aborts importing movies when it hits a blank spot on the tape meaning you are stuck having to babysit the damn thing the whole way through.
7) If you're not working on a dual CPU Mac, multitasking is NOT smooth at all. If, for instance, you are using iDVD where it is processing your .MOV files in preparation to be burned to DVD, the system gets very sluggish and non responsive, even the dock.
8) The whole system is quite slow. My new iMac 800Mhz is much slower feeling than my ThinkPad 600mhz laptop even when I have the Thinkpad loaded up with every Object Desktop goodie imaginable.
9) There is no way to globally change icons on the Mac. I.e. no IconPackager type utility.
10) The folder views in OS X are pathetic. For example, let's say I have a folder full of pictures. On Windows, I just go to view->thumbnail. On the Mac, I have to mess around with the view options that are several steps and then wait as it glacially converts my pictures to thumbnails all the while the Finder is not responsive. Is it even multithreaded?
11) Did I mention how sluggish the Mac is?
I would love to know how your G4 runs "rings around" your AMD box. Frankly, you sound like a Mac zealot given the claim that your Windows box "crashes 4-5 times per day" nonsense. Here's a clue: MacOS, Linux, Windows 2000/XP don't hardly crash ever. We're all way beyond the Windows 9x and DOS days.
It's not that I don't think the Mac is a decent OS. It is. I could say a lot of nice things about it too. But Apple and its users tend to think they invented everything. I've had Mac users claim WE stole ideas for WindowFX from Apple even though WindowFX was developed long before OS X was released (or in beta). Same for DesktopX.
Frankly, I'm pretty tired of Mac users trying to act like everyone is stealing from Apple. Sure, there are lots of utilties inspired by the Mac. So what? There's tons of Mac software that came from the PC. The MacOS dock is similar to the Windows start bar which in turn was inspired loosely by Steve Job's own NeXT dock. It's gone back and forth for years.
I believe that innovators should protect their work. Apple has every right to patent some of its technologies. But the genie effect? Come on.
Imagine this, if WE were like Apple, we'd be sending cease and desist orders to Konfabulator. Did they borrow ideas from DesktopX? I don't think so. But in the Apple universe, Mac users seem to think that no one can come up with a cool idea independently.
That is what I and others object to.
