First off I want to admit that I don't know much about x86 or PPC instruction sets, or if x86 chips are designed for Windows or a whole bunch of operating systems. What I do know is that I've used every version of Windows since 3.1 and every version of Mac OS since system 7. I started studying information design and the teachings of Edward Tufte and came to realize that there is a way of dealing with information that is logical in all mediums. The Mac OS comes much closer to this logical way of dealing with information than Windows does. Maybe I'm windows bashing, but Windows deserves it, it is poorly designed and inefficient, The x86 chip seems to follow this way of thinking (handeling instruction sets?), in my experience, using XP straight out of the box on a 1 + gHz machine with 256 MB RAM seems slow when compared to my 500 mHz TiBook. How can that be? When I use a computer I don't think about how many applications I'm limited to opening (I haven't had to since os X) or how much processing the computer is capable of. I usually have 5 or so apps open and a lot of the time they are all doing something, When I use XP I am limited by the bad design, I bog down the computer when I try to use it the way I use my Mac, if iMovie is rendering a transition I go read my web sites, if iTunes is converting 300 AIFF's into 320 kbps mp3's then I go check my email, oh I can see by the progress bar in the dock that iMovie is almost done rendering, back to working on my movie. This way of working on a PC usually freezes Windows XP. Using a computer efficiently on os X is not the same as using a computer efficiently on XP, at least in my experience. I don't want to hear about the Sr. Unix SysAdmin or network administrator who went 300 clicks into Windows XP and changed a setting to make the computer more usable, that's not the real world. PC users probably feel that their machines are so fast because it takes 20 clicks to do something, freeing up the processor as it finishes up the last task. How do I turn off the computer? it's easy, just go to the start menu, where's the utility manager easy it's in the sub sub sub sub sub menu. DESIGN IS A GOOD IDEA! peace, Kevin