johnridley | Mac/PC - no longer relevant?

This is actually a pretty good point. The argument is largely meaningless anymore. You could add Linux to the mix as well.

dermot dobson - Ha! yes, good point indeed...
Inu no Taisho - I've known for some years that there is fundamentally little end-user difference between the two, even before browser apps took over. I'm happy to see the issue become moot at last.
John Ridley - Honestly, the only remaining reason I don't use Linux at this point is pretty much device drivers (I insist on Digital ICE film scanners, they save a ton of time, and Digital ICE is proprietary and will NEVER be available for Linux) and device insertion. By device insertion I mean that even though they've made great strides, I still have trouble when I just plug stuff in and want it to just work.

Also installation. If I want a program for Windows, I just download and run the installer and start using it. I don't have to figure out what distribution I'm running, what kernel version, whether I have the proper support packages installed, blah blah. Yes, there are package managers but they don't always work right, and not nearly every program is available in every package manager.

Linux can DO all the stuff I need, and it's nice enough to use once things are working, but it's a pain in the ass getting there. Does not "just work."
Ron Oakes - Oh, there are a couple that trip me up still when using my mac at home. The biggest one is that the "end" key on the mac behaves like the "CTRL-End" combination on PCs, and that many of the "CTRL-letter" shortcuts are replaced with "-letter" (which since I use a windows keyboard are actually "-letter."

At least I've gotten good at remembering which key I need to hit with my left pinky depending on which computer I'm on. Its only a real issue when I'm on my mac, using a remote desktop on my work windows machine.
John Ridley - Having never used one before, I'm only making assumptions that I could work just fine with a Mac, because of the fact that 95% of the time, maybe more, I'm in a browser, and it really doesn't matter what OS is underneath. In fact, given Google mail and docs and such, I'm finding that it doesn't even really matter what machine I'm on. I can be doing something at work, log off, go home and jump on either of my machines there and it doesn't matter. In a time when I can buy multiple cheap-assed but fully sufficient machines for the cost of one high end machine, this is nice because it really doesn't matter much to me if a $350 machine blows up and I have to just grab a new one. Usually even the junk machines last 4 or 5 years, and most people that I know who buy high end machines (for 3 or 4x that much) replace their machines more often than that. Granted they probably need that higher end machine, but I'm just as happy that I don't.
Jeffrey Haas - We just keep re-inventing the original excuses for multics and its descendants. Most of the time we need a few simple services, need them remotely accessible and really don't care if the "things" are locally present or not. When you're not CPU bound and your data follows you, who cares if you have a fast computer.

After that, it because a matter of UI preferences. I really prefer Mac UI for desktop. I really prefer Windows (technically IBM CUA) navigation.

These days, what I really want is to have a computer that Just Works without a lot of frelling with it. Windows had never been that for me and Linux wanted too much worship at the altar of the kernel high priests too often.