I was at Costco in Tama-Sakai the other day and noticed that they’ve started selling eMachines for a fair price; they have a 2.8GHz Celeron with 256 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD and XP Home for ¥41,766 ($390), and a 3.06 GHz Celeron with 512 MB RAM, 160 GB HDD and XP Home for ¥57,516 ($535). Those are very low prices for Japan.

One problem: the copy of Windows XP Home is in Japanese for both machines. So if you prefer to compute in Japanese, this is for you; if you want English, however, you’re screwed: Windows Doesn’t Do Languages. I’ve looked into this, and from what I can find, there’s no way to switch from Japanese to English within the operating system you’re provided with; to get an English-language OS, you’d have to buy Windows XP English version straight out, which is going to set you back an additional $250.

Time to do some boasting about Macs: they do languages, and well. Macs come with 14 languages pre-installed (English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Portuguese, Chinese and Korean), 15 if you count both traditional and simplified Chinese. It’s free and easy. Switching the languages simply involves going to the International preference pane, moving the desired language to the top of the list, and logging off and back on. All menus, dialog boxes and other native system features are in the new language. Additionally, there are 61 languages (not counting variations and varied keyboard layouts within languages) for text input, also included in the original OS, no downloading of language packs. And they’re nicely integrated–the Japanese input I downloaded for Windows is clunky at best.

One reader pointed out to me several months ago that you can get the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) to change languages in Windows–but he was just slightly wrong on that one. Yes, there is a MUI pack, and yes, it can change languages–but it (a) is not free, (b) is not available retail, only specially through volume or OEM purchases, and (3) only works on top of English-language versions of Windows. And even then, it only mimics a localized version of the OS, and not completely. Pretty pathetic, if you ask me.

Since I’m on the topic of Macs and Wintel, there’s a story recently about how a nationally known technology security expert got fed up with Wintels and decided to switch his business over to Macs. His name is Winn Schwartau, and he and others maintain a blog on the subject. Schwartau has written:

This is my first column written on a Mac – ever. Maybe I should have done it a long time ago, but I never said I was smart, just obstinate. I was a PC bigot.

But now, I’ve had it. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. … the WinTel platform represents the greatest violation of the basic tenets of information security and has become a national economic security risk. I do not say this lightly, and I have never been a Microsoft basher, either. I never criticize a company without a fair bit of explanation, justification and supportive evidence.

He’s not alone in his frustration–Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, also believes that if you want better security, get a Mac.

A coworker of Schwartau’s commented:

I’ve known Winn for a few years now, and when he called me up and said “We’re switching to Mac’s”, I have to say, I didn’t believe him. While initially I argued that if he truly intended to go in this direction he should send me a Mac mini for testing before we commit to it. … Well, it’s been a few weeks now and all and all, I’d have to say I’m smitten. I look forward to using my Mac every day, and I can honestly say I’ve never felt that way about a Windows machine. Lets face it, it’s a sexy beast and it’s just been one pleasent surprise after another. I crashed the dock once and was able to shell out and use ps aux and kill to end the process.

Neat.

Not everyone is going to have the same experience. I’m experiencing a bit of instability in Tiger myself, though I can tell that a lot of it is due to my aging PowerBook and heat issues (reducing the processor speed in the Energy Saver prefs helped a lot) and new versions of the OS are usually shaky at first, Windows included. But overall, the Mac has a lot more to offer than Windows, and not just in security (though zero malware vs. 60,000 is impressive in itself).

I just did a presentation in my computer class to highlight what OS X can do (for students who have only known Windows), and there was a lot to talk about–the Dock, spring-loaded folders, interface control, graphics, languages, customizable keyboard shortcuts, plug-and-play with peripherals, access to non-standard characters, Exposé, Dashboard, Spotlight, Windows compatibility, and more (that’s just from the basic outline).

A few recent experiences as examples. On my Windows box, using XP, I was opening a variety of documents alternately in two diverse locations. I had one folder deep within my C: drive, another deep within my external F: drive, and had to open them from within a single application. When you get the “Open File” dialog box, it always opens to the last place you accessed. So to switch to the other folder, I’d have to go up to the drive level and work my way down through long lists of folders to get to where I’d want. Every time I needed to go to the alternate folder, I’d have to do that all over again. Huge pain in the neck. I tried to find some way to set “favorites” or “recent places” in the dialog box, but with no luck–only “My Recent Documents” was available, and though you could see folders in there, they were shortcuts, and did not allow the dialog box to open the folders and look inside. If there’s a way to do what I was looking for, Microsoft hid it well–I certainly couldn’t find it, despite multiple searches in the Help window.

On the Mac, the left side of any window or dialog box has a list of all drives and a customizable list of documents and/or folders. Just drag and drop a folder on the list, and there it is, one click away.

Another example: dealing with nested folders in regular file windows. Sometimes I want to clean out big files that are eating up space, and being able to see the size of each folder in list view, sorted by size, is invaluable to that end. On my Mac, that is, not in Windows–Windows will not display folder sizes in the list–instead you have to hold the cursor over each folder and wait a few seconds for a small info window to come up and show you the size (which, frustratingly, is difficult to get every time). On the Mac, you can set the Finder to calculate folder sizes (in all windows, or just select ones), then sort by size. Way easier. And then there’s threaded view in folder windows, where you can toggle folders to see see their contents in an indented list without opening the folder itself. This feature is only accessible in Windows when using Windows Explorer; you can’t do it in regular windows like you can in the Mac.

One more example. At my college, the main office just got a new Fuji-Xerox color copier, with network access from computers, so you can use it as a printer. Someone in the office with a Mac wanted to use it to print, but was told by office staff that it would be a week before the tech support people could come by with software to install the necessary drivers. But this person (not an expert user, by the way) knew he was using a Mac, so he just went to the Print Center and told his Mac to find printers on the network. The Mac found the copier and made its own driver, all in a few minute’s time. And it worked perfectly. I’d like to see a layman try that on Windows.