Its that time of year again, bar-b-que galore, fun in the sun with friends and family and of course fireworks. Happy 4th of July to all. Have tons of fun, but let us not forget what the day is about, and above all be safe.

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Gadgets4nowt is having a contest for one luck person to win a free IPhone 3GS. So here is your chance to win the latest IPhone out on the market. So you might be wondering what the catch is to winning, honestly there is none. To enter all you have to do is fill out the contact information form so they know how to contact you in the event you’re the winner and answer one question and voila the process is complete. Be sure to read the rules as well. So stop hesitating and head on over to Gadgets4nowt to enter the contest.

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• Step away from the computer, and the TV. It’s not easy to turn off the tech, but you need to be calm to get a good night’s sleep. Late-night TV watching and surfing the web will stimulate you.

• Pick a bed time (and a wake up time) and stick to it. Going to sleep at different times every night—10:00 p.m. one night and 1:00 a.m. the next—disrupts optimal sleep. Try to go to sleep at around the same time every night, even on the weekends. And wake up around the same time every day (with not more than an hour’s difference on the weekends).

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2# Get ready, fire, and then aim. – “The idea isn’t to jump in headfirst without a shred of preparation. Rather, you: Make some sort of draft plan, execute it, adjust and improve and then re-execute. Before, I would sit in front of my laptop and wonder how exactly I was going to extract a stream of brilliance from my brain. As you can perhaps imagine, this led to absolutely nothing. I had no momentum, I was scared of writing crap, and I just kept sitting there plotting possible sentences in my mind with my fingers motionless on the keyboard. On the other hand, when I write regularly, I gradually learn what works and what doesn’t. I go back and edit, and I constantly try new things. But none of this can happen unless you spit it out. Whatever you’re creating, launching, or giving birth to, just make it and get it out there.” – via Essential Prose

3# Always be doing one thing. – “The trick to flowing with the stuck instead of fighting with the stuck is to make the process conscious. Every time you move from one room to the next, you can take something with you that needs to go somewhere else. Straighten one towel. Throw something (one thing) out. Doing that one thing keeps you in the process and makes it conscious. Plus, all those “one little things” add up and you actually get to see changes fairly quickly. When you catch yourself in procrastination, you want to always be doing one thing to make the unconscious conscious.” – via The Fluent Self

4# Make it crappy, but make it now! – “Pick a topic or idea – it doesn’t matter which one – and start doing something with it. If you’re a writer, commit to picking a topic and write 300 words about it. If you’re a designer, commit to free-handing the frame of the idea in your head. If you’re a painter, start the broad strokes on the canvas. If you’re a coder, define a problem or function and code the solution. Whatever you do, create something in the real world today, right now, for an hour. Make it crappy, but make it. You don’t have to keep it, love it, or share it, and you can undo anything that you’ve done. But you can’t undo or get back the time you’ve spent creating fictions for yourself.” – via Productive Flourishing

5# At first, just don’t add anything new to the pile. – “On their own, each is a pretty big project and perhaps Cat hasn’t been able to face finishing other projects in the past because the sheer size of projects overwhelms her. She could accept help organizing the office and maybe get the whole thing done in a day, but would anything change? Not likely because for Cat the challenge is dealing with projects that don’t begin and end right away. So, Cat’s going to take the office organizing slowly and the first (and only!) thing she’s going to do is not add to the pile. Each day at the end of the day she’ll look at her desk and ask herself if she has added to the disorder. And if she has, she will take the time to do something with what she’s added.” – via Someday Syndrome

6# Realize the long-term consequences of not doing it. – “Your time is now. Your spouse might briefly hate you if you go for it, but over the next 5 years she’ll come to resent you even more after you’ve become jaded, passionless, and have lost your way. There is no price too great for freedom. There is no price too great to pay for coming alive. And if you don’t do it now, you probably never will. You know the thing you’ve been putting off the longest? That thing you’ve been procrastinated for the last 10 years? That’s the thing you need to start doing today. That’s the thing you need to start before going to bed tonight. I can’t tell you it will be safe. But doing things you have to do because you’re afraid of the alternative, that’s the quickest way to lose respect, not just the respect of your spouse and children and everyone who believes in you or once belied in you – but also your self-respect.” – via Finance Your Freedom

7# Decide to make a decision. – “In short, it’s the decision to make a decision that is the primal force. This has been preached to us by go-getters from the very dawn of human history, I’m sure. Although I can only speak for myself, I think it’s overcoming the uncertainty of the task – that is, an unbounded and open question – that prevents me from feeling that it’s doable right now.” – via David Seah

8# Free-up some extra time. – “I won this ticket today, and when I told the people I knew about it, I got so many emails from people saying, ‘Seth Godin? Oh my God, I LOVE him! He always answers my emails, even the stupid ones.’ So I asked him: ‘You’ve got the blog and you’ve got Tribes and you’ve got book readers and you’ve got people just writing to ask for help. How do you find the time?’ His answer? He doesn’t watch TV and he doesn’t go to meetings. Frees up about six hours. He says he answers about 200 emails a day, which over the course of the year equals a little over 70,000 emails.” – via IttyBiz

9# Remove yourself into a place of loneliness. – “When it’s properly harnessed, loneliness can be good fodder for creativity. The creating of something meaningful (in my case, words) rarely comes naturally, but when you channel your energy into making it happen, loneliness fades into the background. The times when we successfully harness loneliness into creativity are almost always highly rewarding. Last fall I stayed up all night in Colombo, Sri Lanka, writing the manuscript for the Working for Yourself guide. At breakfast the following morning, I sat outside the Galle Face Hotel and edited the final draft while looking out at the ocean. Having overcome the lure of procrastination and the fatigue of travel, I had a good feeling when I finished. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it happens often enough that I know it’s worth trying for.” – via The Art of Nonconformity

10# Tell a large number of people you’ll do it. – “Trap yourself. If you’ve made a commitment to a lot of people then the shame of saying you didn’t try will outweigh the effort of doing it.” – via Copyblogger

11# Prioritize and then focus accordingly. – “Feeling overwhelmed is a horrible feeling and one we tend to try our utmost to avoid. The fact that a lot of people turn to their good friend Mr. Procrastination to deal with such feelings doesn’t help either, for obvious reasons. Probably the easiest way to deal with feeling overwhelmed for the majority of people is to chunk down. You have to ease the feelings that are brought on by having too much to do.” – via The Discomfort Zone

12# Maintain a weekly list of the things you didn’t do. – “I made a list of activities on which I have been procrastinating. I plan to take one off every week depending upon how much time this would take. Adding meta-tags, setting correct categories and tagging top the list. In order to ensure that this procrastination does not happen again, I plan to list out everything that I procrastinate on and add a star to everything that is a repeat in a weekly review. This way, those activities which are most procrastinated, will stand out and become high priority.” – via Blogging Without A Blog

13# Breathe. Center yourself. Then attack. – You will not accomplish much when you’re in a flustered state of mind. “Do you find yourself rushing a lot in your life? Juggling kids and domestic chores with clients and endless To-Do lists? Working on goals, assessing your ‘performance’, judging your life against some perfect blueprint for happiness rather than actually stopping to enjoy the happiness you have?” –

14# Use tools to simplify tasks and save time. – “I have used the MYOB computerized accounting system for a book selling business, even though I have to put in all the data. This is because it integrates inventory and accounting. This saves an enormous amount of time. Other than that I just use a small pocket diary – because more sophisticated PDA’s and such are just extra hassle (hassle both to keep up to date and use). I don’t need to keep track of lots of appointments so I don’t need anything more than a small diary. When I have something I have to remember (a bill to pay in a few weeks for instance) I put it in a prominent place on the pin board above my computer. It’s simple and it works.” – via wellbeingandhealth.net

15# Be conscious of what you want and why. – Sometimes we procrastinate because we don’t know what we want to do, or why we want to do it. “According to the Law of Attraction, a powerful intent made up of clear, pure and focused thoughts will start to attract the very essence of your desires. Hence, the clearer, more specific and untainted you are in your thoughts, the more likely you can be in bringing them into physical reality. However, what happens if you do not have a clear idea of what you really want yet?” – via Attraction Mind Map

16# Get on track by asking yourself the right questions. – “What is the question that if you knew the answer, would set you free? A powerful question hangs in there with you when you feed it by continuing to ask it. By asking the right question and acting on the answers, we earn the clarity to see the right track. Success in business and life is primarily an inside game, because our inner feelings and thoughts determine our decisions and actions.” – via Delightful Work

17# If you really hate it, change it. – We will procrastinate ceaselessly if we absolutely hate what we do each day. “The good news is, if you really want to, you can get out while you still have some semblance of humanity. Of course, this would depend on your financial situation. If you have 3 kids in private school, a hefty mortgage and no savings, changing careers may not be the best idea. But if you have a little more freedom, you should know that changing careers IS a real possibility. I have done it. I am now a writer, and although I make a fraction of what I used to make as an attorney, my quality of life is so much better now, that it’s absolutely worth it.” – via MomGrind

18# Use past successes to fuel your motivation. – “Look at other successes you’ve had in life where you just got things done and received the results for doing so. Then, use this as your motivation. Last week I was putting off building a website in a niche that I knew was doing well online, but I just “couldn’t be bothered” to build a brand new website. Needless to say, I eventually got around to doing it, and in its first 11 days I’ve made $561, and the day isn’t even finished yet. Now, knowing I can do this in one niche, do you think I’m really going to procrastinate about building websites in other niches in the future? Definitely not.” – via Plugin ID

19# Review your long-term goals once a day. – “Be consistent. Think about it as much as you can throughout the day. Think about it daily. Write it on a card and carry it in your pocket, and refer to it in your free time.” – via Urban Monk

20# Focus all your energy on what you do know. – “Stop worrying about what you don’t know. Focus instead on what you already know. Because you never know what you can achieve with what you already know until you take actions.” – via The Big Dreamer

21# Use a 30-10 interval to cycle-in activities you enjoy. – “1. Find something that you cannot make it through the day without. For me that’s email, reading my blogs on Google Reader, or posting to this blog. 2. Set a timer for 30 minutes, and work for 30 minutes straight. Don’t stop until the timer goes off! I use Cool Timer. 3. When you’re done, you get to do the activity in No. 1 above. It’s your reward. Do it for 10 minutes only, and then go back to your timer.” – via Zen Habits

22# Set your clocks and deadlines ahead. – “Whatever the actual deadline for a project or assignment is, mentally bring it forward by a day or even a week. Be firm with yourself about finishing the project by this earlier date. Not only does this reduce your stress level, it usually results in better quality because you were not in a hurried and flustered state of mind when you did the work. This earlier deadline has to be as real in your mind as the actual one.” It can be if you make a habit of finishing things early. – via Joyful Days

23# Use visual reminders. – “I’ve found it helpful to have visual reminders to do something that’s important to me. One way to do this is writing on a piece of paper what you need to do, and in smaller text why you want to do it. Tape this paper somewhere you will see it: bathroom mirror, in front of your bed, on your keyboard. This doesn’t work if you have many reminders for different tasks, but for a couple of tasks, it can work magically.” – via Think Simple Now

24# Harness the power of teamwork to get it done. – “I heard a story about some horses that were in a competition to see which could pull the most weight. One horse pulled 3,000 lbs and another one pulled 4,000 lbs. Someone suggested the horses team together to see how much they could pull. Most guesses were in the 7,000 lb to 10,000 lb range but when those two horses worked together, they pulled an amazing 20,000 lbs. That’s the power of teamwork. Good teamwork can get a large project completed in an amazingly short amount of time compared to single individuals.” – via The Wisdom Journal

25# Establish specific times to handle recurring tasks. – “There are a lot of things we do that need to be repeated on a frequent basis. Checking and responding to email is a great example. Email should take up only a small portion of your day, maybe 30 minutes at most. But we get so absorbed in this ‘need to know’ mindset that we develop a mammoth time wasting habit. The same goes for filing, checking voice mail, updating our calendars, checking our calendars, checking stats on stocks or web traffic. We waste a lot of time simply switching from the mindset of one task to another, so it’s useful to set times for when we’ll do certain tasks. Now we can stop worrying about what our email status or shipping status is and focus on what is really important to us.” – via Illuminated Mind

26# Trash what you don’t need and organize your space. – Clutter distracts you from the things that truly matter. “The old saying goes, ‘Dig your well before you’re thirsty.’ Before you get overwhelmed with clutter and paperwork, take the time to create those folders I just listed. It will make life so much easier if you file your documents and you’re easily able to find them later. Make sure you label your folders with an accurate name so that when you attempt to retrieve the information, your labels make sense to you and to others who may need to access your files.” – via Frugal Dad

27# Create tangible measures and deliverables for your ideas. – “There’s no point in generating brilliant ideas or innovations if they’re going to end up in a generic “Ideas” folder that never sees the light of day. Make yourself accountable to your inspirations by choosing a few key deliverable or follow-up points. These can range from finding a market for your idea to researching a question that came up during the thought process. Whether you add these deliverable items to your online calendar or put them on index cards with a due date, give your ideas a fighting chance by breaking them into specific actions.” – via On Simplicity

28# Concentrate on one thing at a time. – “Let’s say you’re driving down the road, headed toward a specific destination. On the way you decide to take a detour to say hi to a friend. After leaving your friends house you realize how close you are to your favorite ice cream shop. So you stop in and get a sweet treat. A few minutes later, as you start to head back to the main road, you realize that a bathroom break is an absolute must. Now you’ve got to find the nearest gas station with a bathroom. Unfortunately it’s in the opposite direction of your original destination and you just realized the time; YOU’RE LATE! Often times when we veer off course, we risk failing to reach our destination. The attempt to multitask can easily end up this way. Without the super sharp focus of our target and clarity that only comes from a singular thought process, we’re libel to fall prey to this disastrous cycle of distraction.” – via Motivate Thyself

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Business is good for the restaurant industry. Americans now spend roughly half their food budget dining out, and restaurants expect revenue of more than $537 billion in 2007. That’s a 67% increase since 1997.

But it’s not just our collective avoidance of the kitchen that’s pumping profits: Restaurants work every angle these days, using marketing psychology to get you to spend more.

At legendary Aureole Las Vegas, spandex-clad “wine angels” retrieve bottles from a 42-foot-tall spirits tower. The thinking behind the spectacle: “Anything that gets patrons’ attention will get them to spend,” says restaurant designer Mark Stech-Novak.

Fast-food outlets use a high-stimulus environment to maximize the source of their profit: “It encourages faster turnover,” says Stephani Robson, a senior lecturer at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. “Specifically, the use of bright light, bright colors, upbeat music and seating that does not encourage lolling.”

Even menus are rigged. “We list the item that makes the most profit first so it catches your eye,” says restaurant consultant Linda Lipsky, “and bury the highest-cost item in the middle.”

2. “Eating here could make you sick.”

The 2006 E. coli outbreak that started at a New Jersey Taco Bell and sickened more than 60 people was traced to green onions. But food-borne illness isn’t the only cause for concern: In a separate December incident, 373 people in Indianapolis got sick after eating at an Olive Garden where three employees tested positive for the highly contagious norovirus.

“You don’t call out (sick) unless you’re on your deathbed,” says freelance chef Leah Grossman. Indeed, according to a recent study, 58% of salaried New York City restaurant workers reported going to work when sick; the number is even higher for those without benefits.

“A lot of poor, transient people work in restaurants,” says Peter Francis, a co-author of industry exposé “How to Burn Down the House.” “They’re not giving up the $100 they’d make in a shift because they’re sick.”

How can you protect yourself? Check inspection results, which are often posted online by local departments of public health. Or just visit the restroom; it “tells you everything you need to know about a restaurant,” Francis says.

3. “Our markups are ridiculous.”

It’s no secret that restaurants enjoy huge markups on certain items: Coffee, tea and sodas, for example, typically cost restaurants 15 to 20 cents per serving, and pasta, which costs pennies, can be dressed up with more expensive fare and sold for $25 a dish or more. At a fine-dining restaurant, the average cost of food is 38% to 42% of the menu price, says Kevin Moll, the CEO and president of National Food Service Advisors. In other words, most restaurants are making roughly 60% on anything they serve.

It’s not all gravy though. Restaurants keep only 4 cents of every dollar spent by a customer, says Hudson Riehle, the vice president of research and information services at the National Restaurant Association. The remainder of the money, he says, is divided among food and beverage purchases, payroll, occupancy and other overhead costs.

Given the slim profit margin, many restaurants rely on savvy pricing to create the illusion of value. Putting a chicken dish on the menu for $21 will make a $15 pasta dish, where the restaurant is making a big profit, seem like a bargain, says Gregg Rapp, the owner of consulting firm MenuTechnologies.net.

4. “Big Brother is watching you . . . eat.”

No one likes having their every move scrutinized, but that may be just what’s happening at your favorite restaurant. Cameras are popping up everywhere, from four-star eateries to the place where you grab your lunchtime sandwich.

At historic Randy’s Steakhouse in Frisco, Texas, where checks average $45 to $50, co-owner Don Burks has installed 12 cameras around the premises. Of those, two pick up activity in the dining rooms, and two are aimed at the bar.

“We’ve had customers stand on chairs to try to take out a camera,” Burks says. “But the cameras aren’t even pointed at them; they’re pointed at the wine rack.” Their primary purpose: deterring employee theft.

At some restaurants, however, the cameras are indeed trained on the tables. At New York City’s four-star Daniel, for example, four closed-circuit cameras monitor the dining rooms, offering a bird’s-eye view of every plate.

“It’s about maintaining a quality of service,” says Daniel spokeswoman Georgette Farkas. “With the cameras, the chef can tell when each course needs to be plated and served.” So much for that romantic dinner for two.

5. “There’s something fishy about our seafood.”

Even when you pay top dollar for a seafood dish, you might not get what you’re expecting. About 70% of the time, for example, those Maryland crab cakes on the menu weren’t made using crabs from Chesapeake Bay, says James Anderson, the chairman of the Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics at the University of Rhode Island. Because of high demand, crabs are often from other Eastern states or imported from Thailand and Vietnam. (Look closely at the menu: “Maryland-style” crab is the giveaway.)

There’s also the problem of outright substitution — inexpensive fish, such as pollack, getting passed off as something pricier, like cod. How widespread is the problem? In 2006 the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal sent fish samples to a lab to prove that four out of 10 local restaurants were pawning a cheaper fish as grouper. The same lab also checked seafood from 24 U.S. cities and found that, overall, consumers have less than a 50-50 shot at being served the fish they ordered.

What can you do? Ask where the fish comes from. “If they’re not sure if the fish is from Alaska or Asia, I order the beef,” Anderson says.

6. “Reservation? What reservation?”

When Timothy Dillon, 34, showed up at new Chicago trattoria Terragusto for his friend’s birthday, he wasn’t expecting a wait. He’d made a reservation for four, then called the day of to confirm and add one more. The restaurant told him no problem, but when the party showed up, they were met with a long wait.

“After almost an hour of standing by the bar being ignored, we ended up leaving for another restaurant,” Dillon says. Terragusto says it was its first week open: “We were probably working out a lot of glitches,” a spokesperson says.

As Dillon discovered, a reservation isn’t a guarantee. “Overbooking is almost a necessary evil,” says John Fischer, associate professor of table service at the Culinary Institute of America. Restaurants calculate their average no-show percentage for any given night, then overbook the restaurant by that much, hoping it will come out even.

How to avoid Dillon’s fate? It’s considered poor taste to offer a tip before you’re seated, Fischer says, so if it’s your first time, inquire politely after 15 minutes. But go ahead and slip the manager or maître d’ $10 or $20 on the way out; it should ensure you’re seated promptly next time.

7. “Our specials are anything but.”

“I’m very careful about ordering my food,” says Rick Manson, the owner of Chef Rick’s restaurant in Santa Maria, Calif. If he orders oysters, Manson says, he’ll offer multiple dishes on the menu that use oysters, “to make sure I use every one of them.” Nonetheless, countless variables can leave surplus ingredients at the end of the day — which often become tomorrow’s special.

“It could be the chef legitimately wants to try out something new,” says Stephen Zagor, the founder of consulting firm Hospitality & Culinary Resources. “But it could also be something nearing the end of its shelf life that needs to get out of the kitchen.”

How can you tell a good special from a bad one? Watch out for “an expensive item used in a way that’s minimizing its flavor,” Zagor says, such as a lamb chop that’s been cut, braised and put into a dish where it’s a supporting player.

Pastas, stews and soups containing expensive meats are also suspect. “There’s an old saying in the restaurant industry,” says David A. Holmes, the vice president and director of Out East Restaurant Consultants. “‘Sauce and gravy cover up a lot of mistakes.’”

8. “There’s no such thing as too much butter.”

Think that salmon fillet you ordered for dinner is good for you? Think again. Restaurants load even their healthiest fare with butter and other calorie-heavy add-ons. Restaurant meals average 1,000 to 1,500 calories, says Milton Stokes, a registered dietitian and spokesman for the American Dietetic Association. That’s roughly two-thirds of the daily average calories recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And according to a recent study, women who eat out five times a week consume an average of 290 additional calories per day.

Though most Americans assume that fast food is the worst offender, similar fare at casual sit-down restaurants can be even more caloric. The classic burger at Ruby Tuesday, for example, has a whopping 1,013 calories and 71 grams of fat. The McDonald’s Big Mac, with its 540 calories and 29 grams of fat, seems downright diet-worthy by comparison.

“We butter our hamburger buns,” says Julie Reid, the vice president of culinary for Ruby Tuesday, “so we tell people if they’re looking to cut calories, they shouldn’t eat the bun.” If that sounds less than appetizing, try splitting an entrée with someone, or order an appetizer instead of a main dish.

9. “Nice tip — too bad your waiter won’t get it.”

Just because you tip your waitress 10 bucks, it doesn’t mean she’s going home with that money. More than likely, she’ll have to pass on some of it to the people who helped her serve you: The bartender might get $2, and the busboy $3 to $5. It’s called a tip pool, and it’s becoming standard practice in many restaurants. “It happens often that if someone leaves a voluntary tip (for their server), a significant portion of that money is going to other people,” Zagor says.

According to federal law, only employees who customarily receive tips — wait staff, hosts, bartenders and bussers — can participate in the tip pool. But sometimes management takes a cut. In 2006, waitstaff from the Hilltop Steak House in Saugus, Mass., won $2.5 million in damages after complaining that managers dipped into their tips.

Mandatory gratuities are also divvied up. At high-end restaurants such as New York City’s Per Se and Napa Valley’s French Laundry, both owned by chef Thomas Keller, the practice is called service compris.

“The 20% service charge is clearly stated on the menu, and it’s equally divided among the staff,” says a spokesperson for both restaurants. Though the tip pool is designed to foster a team environment among staff, for customers it means something else entirely: that your gratuity isn’t specifically rewarding the waiter or sommelier who provided you with exemplary service.

10. “Never go out to eat on a Monday.”

If you think that Monday, when restaurants tend not to be crowded, is a great time to eat out, think again. “You’re being served all of the weekend’s leftovers,” says Francis, the exposé co-author. Kitchens prepare food on a first-in, first-out basis, meaning whatever is oldest gets served first. It’s a way to ensure that everything on the menu is as fresh as possible.

The system works great most days, but it can run into a little glitch over the weekend. Distributors typically take Sunday off and make their last deliveries Saturday morning, which means that by Monday any food not used over the weekend is at least three to four days old. And it will be served before the same ingredients arriving in Monday’s delivery.

What to do if you wish to dine out on a Monday? Ignore your instincts and go to a place that’s perpetually crowded. “If you are open 24/7 and busy all the time,” says New York chef Lucia Calvete, “all your ingredients are fresh all the time.”

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The sun is warm,
The light touching my bare, cold feet.
I pull my blanket over my head,
Wanting to sleep for just a little longer.

It’s because I’m dreaming of you.

But my efforts to prolong my sleep are in vain,
As my rude alarm clock crys out at me,
As if it’s trying to say “Wake up,
The day is here! You can’t spend your life sleeping,
Or else you’ll sleep it all away!
Wake up, and enjoy the day!”

I rise, slowly from my slumber,
The springs in my bed quietly creaking underneath me.
I wipe the sand from my eyes and open them slowly,
To see the dimly lit world around me.

And so I start my day.

Poem by

MorrieNymphalidae

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You can buy a portable Windows computer that weighs less than 1kg and slips in your pocket or one with a spectacular 18.4in display that stretches the definition of ‘portable’. Some Windows computers are lean and mean; others are loaded with features.

There are ones for hardcore gamers, for fashionistas, and for people who hate to type. In short, you can almost certainly find a Windows PC aimed at you – and usually a bunch of them competing for your money. By contrast, Apple has a grand total of nine different Mac models, none of which cater to specialised audiences.

2. The cost of admission is lower

The Windows world offers plenty of PCs at every price point, including the low ones that Apple ignores as a matter of principle. The cheapest Mac laptop, for instance, costs £719, but there are hundreds of Windows laptops that cost less than that.

3. Windows PCs have worthwhile features that Macs don’t

Apple has popularised more important hardware innovations than any other company, from the mouse to Wi-Fi. At the moment, though, it steers clear of multiple useful features that its Windows-based rivals have embraced.

With Windows systems, for instance, built-in memory-card readers are standard, and HDMI connectors for easy HDTV hookups are becoming so. Wireless broadband, built-in TV tuners, and Blu-ray are all reasonably affordable options. In Macland, you can get some of those features only through third-party add-ons. And others you simply must do without.

4. The more software the merrier

If you want to perform a task that computers are capable of helping you perform – from keeping track of your watch collection to managing a pet store – a Windows application will help you do it. Usually several of ‘em, including ones that cost little or no money in many cases.

That’s because most companies and individuals that write software choose to do so for the platform that offers them far more potential customers than any other. Third-party Mac programs are often terrific, but there are simply fewer of them, especially in exotic categories.

5. Windows users get preferential treatment

Again, it’s a matter of companies chasing after the biggest user base. For instance, Windows users have been enjoying Google’s Chrome browser for seven months now, while their Machead friends and neighbours wait for Google to wrap up work on its OS X version.

Then there’s Microsoft’s own Office, which – surprise! – is slicker, more powerful, and more comprehensive in its Windows version than on the Mac.

6. You get the chance to do it yourself

No computer is more perfectly tailored to your needs than one you assemble from scratch using hand-picked components. Building a handcrafted Windows machine is so simple that plenty of people wouldn’t dream of settling for a store-bought computer. But while home-made OS X systems exist, they’re closer to being science-fair projects than a viable alternative to buying a real Mac manufactured by Apple.

7. Who says Macs have more fun?

Apple may have released an ad suggesting that Windows computing doesn’t get any more scintillating than time sheets and pie charts. But serious computer gaming remains a seriously Windows-centric medium, with many major games making it to OS X only after much of the excitement has died down… or not to OS X at all.

And it’s Windows machines that are most at home in an entertainment centre, with features such as internal TV tuners, Microsoft’s Windows Media Center and HDMI output. (Apple wants you to put an Apple TV in your living room, not a Mac, and it still can’t do everything that Windows Media Center can.)

8. Windows-only corners of the web remain

Some websites still work properly only in Internet Explorer. In fact some are so archaic they still feature a ‘Download Internet Explorer 6.0 Now!’ button. Even Intuit, which sells Mac versions of QuickBooks, hasn’t gotten around to making QuickBooks Online run on anything other than Windows. As ridiculous as it all is, there are times when I’m glad – or at least relieved – that I’m able to fire up a Windows PC to get to a site that doesn’t seem to want the business of Mac users.

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But today we have someone who took the liberty to literally stab a macbook air. View the video below…

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I was so invisible
Unreasonable
I was lost and so scattered
And nothing really mattered
I was a face in the many
And you took my hand so gently
You told me

(Chorus)
I’ll be there
To pick you up
When you are down
To make you smile
With out a sound
To wipe the tears from your eyes
And help you finally realize
You are part of me you are pat of me

I always shine brighter
When your around
With out you I’m
Just another face in the crowd
I’m invisible
I’m unreasonable

But I remember what you told me

(Chorus)

After all you do for me
I just want you to see
I’ll be all I can be
I promise I’ll be true
I will always love you

(Chorus)

All of me
all of you
not matter what
we’ll make it through
I hope you see
I care
(Chorus) [X2]

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