RUSH: Shawn in Houston, you’re next. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for takin’ my call.
RUSH: You bet, sir!
CALLER: It’s an honor to speak to you. I wish I had a profound political question to ask you, but since I’m a student I can answer most of those on my own. (chuckles) My question for you is I’ve been usin’ PCs and recently had one that broke and we’re lookin’ at maybe going to a Macintosh, and I was wonderin’ is it hard to make the transition to the operating system?
RUSH: No.
CALLER: Is it easy to use?
RUSH: Yes. It is easy to use. The Windows operating system is a copy of the Mac, so there are some differences. I run… Macintosh would allow you to run Windows, by the way, with a program called Parallels; and you can set up a desktop on a Macintosh. You can have multiple desktops and one of those desktops you can switch to any time you want and you can run Windows, if you want to.
CALLER: Oh, wow.
RUSH: I do, because I have a security program. The best security program I could find is actually a Windows program. It doesn’t require any input. It’s actually a display program, so I run Windows on one of my desktops. I know a lot of people have gone from PC to Mac with no trouble whatsoever.
CALLER: That’s good. I don’t know that I would necessarily want to use Windows. I’m not really happy with the latest versions of Windows, so that’s another reason why we were thinking of switching.
RUSH: There aren’t any “latest versions!”
CALLER: Well, Windows 7 is —
RUSH: There aren’t any new versions! That’s the whole point! Everything with Windows is “next year” or “next 18 months.”
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: Their version of the iPad is, “Just stick with us. It’s coming.”
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Look… You know, I’m an Apple evangel. What kind of Macintosh are you looking at getting? Have you researched it?
CALLER: No, not a whole lot of research. I was looking at the MacBook Pro, I believe it is.
RUSH: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’ll send you one. I have a prize closet here of Mac stuff.
CALLER: Oh wow. Thank you so much.
RUSH: Have you ever used…? I’m not going to give you one, don’t misunderstand. Have you ever used an iPad?
CALLER: No, I haven’t. My niece has an iPad and I’ve picked at it.
RUSH: Well, go play with it now and then and you’ll get a head start on the new Mac OS X Lion. They’ve incorporated a lot of what’s in the iOS into the latest desktop and laptop systems. Yeah, it’s cool. It’s gonna blow you away. The things you can do with the track pad on this thing? There’s no mouse any more.
CALLER: Wow.
RUSH: It’s all done on a track pad and you’ll love it. You’ll absolutely love it. You hang on here and Snerdley will get the address we need to send it to you. We’ll FedEx it out to you and you’ll have it tomorrow.
CALLER: Thank you so very much.
RUSH: What? (interruption) What do you mean “scammed”? (interruption) I don’t care if I was scammed! I love giving the stuff away. I couldn’t care less if I was scammed! Did you just scam us here, Shawn?
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: (interruption) What did he say? Shawn, are you there?
CALLER: No! It’s not a scam. I had a … a…
RUSH: You didn’t call here to try to trick me into giving you a computer?
CALLER: No, sir! I had an HP laptop that broke on me here a little while back and my wife and I were talking about upgrading to a Macintosh, that’s all. I just wanted to know about this software issue.
RUSH: All right. Snerdley thinks you’re taking advantage of my generosity. He’s very protective of me.
CALLER: Absolutely not. I would never do that. I wouldn’t dream of it.
RUSH: All right. Well, I don’t care. I don’t care if you are. This is Apple. I love sharing this stuff. I told you: I’m an evangel for this stuff! This way, this won’t cost you anything if you don’t like it. But I guarantee you you’re going to like it.
CALLER: Well, thank you.
RUSH: What size do you want, 15 or 17?
CALLER: (laughs) It doesn’t matter.
RUSH: Yes, it does!
CALLER: I’d be happy to get either one.
RUSH: Well, then, we’ll just throw a dart in there and wherever it lands —
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: — we’ll give you that one. I got a wall full of them.
CALLER: Okay. Well, thank you.
RUSH: I got a wall full of them. So hang on. Snerdley will get your address and we’ll FedEx it out. You’ll have it tomorrow.
CALLER: Thank you, sir.
RUSH: You’re more than welcome. (interruption) See, he sounded really excited! What do you mean “scammed”? (laughing)