I'm a PC. I'm a Hack.

Mac on a PC? What kind of shenanigans are you playing, mister?

My entire computer "career" began with my desire to print to a printer on my girlfriend's printer in our apartment. This involved a lot of troubleshooting (several days' worth for what I can do now in 5 minutes), hard work, and an ethernet cable running strategically through the apartment (an implement now referred to by my now ex-girlfriend as the first 'nail in the coffin').

Now, the same type of drive to accomplish something really, really trivial had me working tirelessly to get the Macintosh operating system to work on my little Lenovo netbook. I'm now typing on this on my "Hackintosh," the term used to describe any computer running the Mac OS on hardware manufactured by someone other than Apple Inc.

Macs used to run on different hardware than PCs. In the 90s, Macs were actually better at doing some tasks than their Intel counterparts. This wasn't necesarily because they were faster, but because they could sometimes do the same amount of work with less instruction. This allowed Macs to run software that PCs weren't powerful enough at the time to run. Photoshop was released for Windows in the early days, but did not run very well, sort of a token release.

Bill Gates, posing in front of the very first Blue Screen of Death

Since Apple moved to Intel based hardware, the performance differences between Windows and Macs has dwindled. Now, it's more a personal preference of operating system. Sure, Macs don't typically get viruses, but that's primarily because no one really bothers making viruses for them.

Owning a Mac vs. a PC is analagous to owning a Mercedes vs. a Ford. The former, in both cases, is more elegant, is more expensive to service (but less likely to need service often) with its cost driven primarily by status more than functionality. However, either one will get you from point A to point B in a similar fashion.

Since Macs and PCs run on similar hardware now, hackers have created Mac distributions that you can install on non-Mac hardware. People wanting to circumvent the high price of Mac ownership can now have a Mac netbook (a form factor that Apple doesn't even provide) for around $350 (compared to about $1000 for Apple's least expensive notebook). The tradeoff is that depending on what you're installing the Mac OS on to, it's more or less difficult to get everything working. It's a trend that's catching on among the general computing community. I went onto Amazon.com and looked up the cost of a Dell Mini 10v (the most Mac-compatible PC being produced) and Amazon shows "People who bought this also bought the Mac OSX Snow Leopard operating system" offering to sell both for $343. When Amazon starts offering stuff to enable you to hack something, it just doesn't seem as cool. Like when your parents bought a Metallica CD. Leave it to Amazon and parents to rip something right out of the subculture.

It's a Mac. Otherwise, you guessed it, no relevance whatsoever.
So I did the stuff that computer guys do to get my machine to boot into either my existing Windows environment or my new Mac installation (sort of like a reverse Boot Camp, software that allows Mac users to boot into either Windows or Mac environments). My machine boots into and runs the Mac OS pretty well. I'm a Windows guy, but I like learning a new operating system and hopefully I'll start servicing Macs as a part of my computer fixing business. At least when I'm asked to work on customers' Macs, I'd like to have more of a look of confidence than scratching my head with a blank stare like I'm looking at a Rubik's Cube. Or a long division problem. I suck at both.

I have a new appreciation for the Mac OS. I'm greatly aware of its limitations with regards to corporate, or "real world" computing. It has a niche audience and at this point, I'm pretty sure at this point I could get a small office running with Macs and Snow Leopard Server (Apple's server software offering). That's more a testament to the Mac's intuitive interface and hardware-software fully tested compatibility. The same element that makes Windows environments relatively inexpensive is the same thing that makes it somewhat less reliable:  a lot of hardware vendors. By "monopolizing" hardware distribution, Apple can ensure that its operating system will work with its hardware. They can also control the price of the hardware which, by all accounts, is pretty similar to what's operating under the hood of most (less expensive) PCs.

Mac OS (like competition in any industry) is good for everyone because Microsoft Windows is certainly an example of what little competition can make a product: bloated, untested, and released with a "patch as it breaks" mentality (similar to, well, my own personal lifestyle). With Mac OS increasing in popularity and (hopefully) developing more enterprise level server offerings, Microsoft will actually have to start getting things right the first time and release software as if there's other options out there. Because there are definitely other options out there.

Don't get me started on Linux.