The Week in You Words: Ballmer takes bite of Apple

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 20 Mar 2009 at 16:17

In a week that saw Steve Ballmer stomp all over Apple, Google post its holiday snaps and parents let their children loose on the internet, we take a look back to see what you've been saying.

Ballmer on Macs: why pay $500 more for a logo?

Steve Ballmer has many redeeming qualities: he's an excellent dancer, for example. His dinner companions will also never be stuck for a mirror thanks to his magnificently, shiny head. He's not, however, above a cheap pot-shot, as his recent rant against "overpriced" Macs proved.

Not that Big_D disagreed mind: "He does have a point. I bought my iMac ... because the first Intel ones were competitively priced, maybe about 10% more than a standard desktop PC with a similar specification. The problem is, Apple's prices have remained static, whilst, due to the component prices crashing, a standard desktop PC has plummeted in price."

bubbles15, on the other, is quite happy to continue throwing his pennies at the Jobs mob. "It's not the logo or the shiny hardware, it's the OS I want. I don't like what Windows does any more, and I find OS X better to use generally. So, Mr Ballmer, shove that up your bottom."

Ballmer's bottom... well, at least we'll have something to talk about with our therapist. Will somebody save us from our Stevedipus complex.

"I don't buy a computer to use the OS," argues the blessed JJW009. "I buy it to use applications and I choose the best value product with the specification those applications require. If I have to spend more than two seconds thinking about the OS, then it's getting in the way."

Google Street View hits UK maps

And so Google's attempt to stalk an entire country finally comes to an end. Thankfully, it's caught this great nation of ours at its best with various images of people throwing up, stealing, fighting and peeing on the street, posted on to Google Maps for us to enjoy after the novelty of seeing whether our house is on there fades. Not everybody was impressed by this almost dazzling waste of time, though.

"My Google boycott starts here," rants phakebrill. "In my opinion, Street View is an utter disgrace. Privacy? What privacy?"

He was joined in outrage by Grunthos. "Serious breach in privacy as far as I'm concerned, but then that's the problem: Google isn't remotely concerned about privacy. If Google had its way everything would be in the public domain."

Linux_User - who we suspect of being a Microsoft devotee - wasn't swayed by this line of argument: "Why is this a breach of privacy? If it was active tracking technology then I might agree with you, but they're static images. You can't see anything that you wouldn't be able to see by simply walking down the street."

We're not sure about that. The last time we walked down our street it wasn't pitch black with the words "this image is no longer available" hovering ghost like in the sky.

UK parents oblivious to children's internet habits

We love parents, we really do - a few of us have even dabbled with it ourselves. However, the news that most parents are basically blind to their children's browsing habits is about as surprising as a Chuck Norris film entitled "Chuck Norris kicks more men in the head".