I came across a perfect example of the reality distortion field yesterday. I was so impressed I saved the comment for later use, I didn't think at the time to save the website it was posted on if anybody knows let me know and I'll add the URL (doesn't seem to be in Google's index yet). Anyway this was what was said:

John W - You might want to review your links before you post erroneous information. The Hack Contest had no winners on Day 1, it was only after the rules were fully relaxed did someone “break into a browser” on Vista and OSX. Gosh, when a hacker has full physical and password access to a Mac, they break in… wow, film at 11, how amazing!

This is in relation to the recent PWN to OWN contest, which I briefly wrote up about here.

He seems to be under the illusion that Windows Vista was also cracked on day two, along with OS X (which was cracked in 2 minutes). This is false.

Day one's rules were you could only remotely carry out an attack. No machines were compromised. On day two you could use user interaction on the machine, for example opening a specific website, or opening an e-mail attachment. At no point were the crackers given "full physical" access to the machine or passwords, the user on the machine could only open e-mails or web pages. Safari was compromised within 2 minutes. Windows Vista and Ubuntu both survived the day, in the end only compromised on day three with the help of 3rd party code, namely Adobe's Flash player.

Fact is, no Mac has ever been broken into from the outside, no viruses, no malware, etc. OSX is the most secure mainstream OS there is

False. I'd say it is the least secure mainstream operating system out there, all of Apple's software is plagued by security issues. Just last year a group of security researches exposed dozens of security issues in Mac OS, so many they were doing one a day for the whole month of the project.

and that’s just another reason why it’s so popular.

I wouldn't define "popular" as 2% market share. Alone it would be funny, but when there are thousands of these trolls running around its just sad.

So Apple announced 'The world's thinnest laptop' a couple of months ago now. After a few minutes on Google however it looks like it is only the third thinnest.

The Sony Vaio X505 released back in 2004 comes pretty close at 20.8mm which a lot of people used in comparisons with the Macbook Air, which comes in at 19.4mm.

However both of those are beaten out by the ten year old Pedion, built by Mitsiubishi and Hewlett-Packard which is only 18.4mm thick. Sharp however beat out the Pedion with their Actius PC-MM10, which is only 13.7mm thick. It wouldn't surprise me if there are a dozen other laptops out there that are thinner either.

What makes Apple think they can get away with such blatant false advertising?

But then of course Apple should put their efforts into creating a machine which weighs less and has better battery life, you know, work on the two most important features that a mobile computer needs to have, instead of wasting time trying to save a mm at the expense of functionality and then spinning off plenty of false advertising about it.

Well these guys couldn't of picked a better time to unleash their Mac mouth-foam session.

Their article opens up with:

Apple has given Microsoft a lesson in software development with the launch of its new Leopard operating system which is faster, slicker and packed with a lot more practical features compared with the slow, underperforming Windows Vista operating system that is prone to crashing or locking-up systems.

Well that's a lot of claims chucked into a small space. Gish gallop?

Leopard huh? Oh yeah that came out today didn't it, funny I haven't seen much about it on the news. On all the news sites I've read it's all been about Microsoft selling 88 million copies of Windows Vista, Microsoft's biggest quarter growth since 1999, and how they blew away Wall Street's expectations by over a billion dollars.

Faster and slicker? Hmmm not according to Wired's Cult of the Mac blog who installed Windows Vista on their Macintosh and reported the following:

Vista really flies on this beast, and feels like it's faster than OS X - it boots faster, folders burst open and apps launch instantly...I'm especially delighted with Vista's "glass" Aero interface, which works in all its glory on this machine...The OS is dark and handsome. It's really quite exciting...Vista's icons are big and colorful, and frankly, a lot more logical and easy to read than some of OS X's, like the intelligible iWeb icon.

The guy then pulls out the whole crashing and locking up systems line, yawn that is so Windows 95, get something new and fresh please. Windows doesn't crash anymore.

With Vista the "Gadgets" have to be stacked in a frame on the desktop. In the Leopard environment they can be placed anywhere.

In Windows Vista they can be placed anywhere. Maybe if you actually bothered to use the thing you'd know that.

Unfortunately that's the trouble with these sort of people, like David Richards, they rubbish this and that without bothering to actually use them, they don't have a clue and their opinions are therefore worthless.

The bottom line is this, Mac OS X - whichever version is a 6 year old operating system, upgraded as often as Apple can with $130 upgrades, the sort of thing Microsoft do for free with Service Packs and applications on their website. Leopard introduces amazing new features that they copied from Windows 95, like the ability to backup your files, although on the Macintosh it is much more limiting requiring you to have a separate hard drive, you can also preview documents in the shell - like Windows XP. Oh dear, Leopard is a damp squid of a release, it’s a flop and a really late flop, Steve Jobs said this thing would ship before Windows Vista, well they're only a year behind at best, in many areas like Media Center and Tablet PC they haven't even started yet.

Mac OS X is a solid operating system and has been for the last couple of revisions, but I don't believe it is in the same league as Windows Vista. What these fanboys don't understand is that their foaming at the mouths and spending 80% of their time attacking Microsoft isn't winning anybody to their cause. Nor is preaching the lies that Steve Jobs come out with, just the other day he said that Windows Vista came 7 years after Windows XP. It is 5 years Steve, as you well know. I however believe that is a good thing. I'm sure the consumer would rather a big jump every 5 years at £120 a pop, than tiny little jumps every 18 months at £120.

I cannot believe what I just read; this goes far beyond Apple charging people money to use a song they already own as a ringtone on the iPhone. Or even beyond making people buy the Pro version of QuickTime just to support full screen video.

The free "beta" version of Boot Camp (a fancy marketing buzzword for a boot loader) has been pulled from Apple's website, and replaced by a not found page (very user-friendly).

People who are already using the beta version of Boot Camp, will have it expire when Apple release the next revision of Mac OS X.

The solution? Buy a slightly modified version of Mac OS X, called "Leopard", which has some new features like a backup program, yes, like Windows has had for a decade. Just so you can carry on using a boot loader.

$129 for a boot loader and a couple of extra basic features which have been commonplace on other operating systems for years. Pathetic.

I came across a recent blog entry by Nik Cubrilovic covering his recent switch from Mac OS to Windows Vista.

I have been running Vista for a little less than 24 hours and I can’t believe I didn’t switch back sooner, the main difference is that the interface is much much smoother and neater and despite popular belief performance is actually fantastic. I was used to waiting on Mac OS X while my standards apps would open up - Quicksilver, Firefox, Skype, etc. but Vista goes almost straight into the desktop and most apps boot very quickly.

I didn’t expect it to be like this, I didn’t want Vista to be this good - I was expecting to boot back into OS X and living happily ever after, but damn, this is one fast, slick and nice operating system. If you are a Mac user try it yourself, install boot camp and Vista and it will feel like you just added another CPU and doubled your RAM - I can’t see any evidence for any of the reports of Vista being slow or power-hungry.

He goes on to talk about Media Center, WMP, security and a few other topics. It's always good to get some feedback from somebody who has been out of the Windows world for a while.

Of course, the Apple fanatics were on station ready to respond:

Your claim about the advantages of Vista sounds like the generic MS BS we’ve been seeing for those same 20 years– no actual advantages that can be verified, just claims. (And as someone who has been forced to used every MS OS, this supposed improvement to the UI is something I’ve never experienced.) You’re not fooling me…. but you have lost me from your feed. Caio.

Talk about pathetic, but well you only need to read some of the comments on my blogs when I've touched on Apple to see how pathetic they really are. At least this guy didn't use "M$".

I saw over on Channel 9 a new ad Apple have been apparently e-mailing spamming people with. Here it is in all its glory:

Well I couldn't help myself. I mean its just too easy isn't it?

On a more serious not however, Apple need to grow up a bit more with their whole advertising campaign, putting down your competitors is extremely unprofessional and seriously puts me and I'm sure many other people off having anything to do with them. You don't see Microsoft spending half their marketing budget on telling people why everything else sucks.