Apple: Expensive for a reason...

Well I can't speak for newer intel macs, but my macintosh has not failed me completely yet. As I am pricing new computers and wondering whether I will buy one outright or build a PC, I see that Apples are still so expensive for what they are. I know that you are paying for all that aluminum, but they are essentially PC's now running OSX. I have a powerbook G4 and I just got finished rendering a video file from HD to 960 x 540. That took approximately 8 hours. I am running 2 gigs of ram and have a 1.25ghz processor. I don't think any other laptops from that time period would be so successful. Of course I couldn't do a full on HD file since the video was almost an hour long. It kept getting to about 16gb of file and failing in some way (i/o error, disk full, etc.). But it did well enough, and all my skits that I do are usually under 5 minutes so I can do those in full HD no problem. The H.264 codec is another issue however.
Sooner or later I will get a new computer, but will it be an Apple? Probably not, I cannot afford a 3500 mac pro with a cinema display, and thats the only mac right now that appeals to me.

The Five Star Rating

I have noticed alot of stuff online, reviews, and such, are rated in 5 stars. Let me tell you why this is not good for you to base your decisions off of. I will trust a 2, 3, 4 star rating over a 1 or 5 star rating any day. #1) There is no such thing as a 5 star rating, I wouldn't trust a place with a 5 star rating. It means some manager or person went in there and made a fake review. I also wouldn't trust when all the ratings are 1's and 5's. That means some people got really crappy service or whatever(1's), and some managers went in there and tried to level it out by putting a bunch of 5's. Also one of my pet peeves is people rating things at their highest. Highest = perfect, and there is no such thing as perfect. I remember I used to go on Hot or Not all the time. And I would see all these chicks with 9.8's just because they are showing their cleavage. Here is the problem with rating at its highest. You go to a restaurant, and wow was the food good! The best you have ever had. You go home on Google and write an eloquent 5 star review, praising the wait staff etc. Then next week you go somewhere else, holy crap.....this place is even better. Now you want to write a review...wait... how can you put more than 5 stars? You can't put a 5+ on there. And you can't go back and DE rate that last review you did. Now you are stuck. Thus you should only be able to use a 5 star or 10 out of 10 rating ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, preferably on your deathbed to make sure you don't accidentally use one again. Off the soap box now.