Give my Dad reasons NOT to get a Mac!

[cearny]

Just like the UAC in Windows Vista and Windows 7, right? Right

Not quite. Where UNIX/OSX/Linux (henceforth "*nix") is built around this type of privilege system, Windows and it's UAC is "tacked on", on top of a system that expects all applications to run with administrator access. Thus, UAC authentication is required for practically everything, want to change your wallpaper? UAC. Want to play a game? UAC. Want to download a file of the internet? UAC. Not to mention that where sudo requires authentication, UAC merely asks you if "you are certain you want to do ", which seems more like a deterrent for people who want to delete their win32 directory, rather than a security measure.

The 'it's tacked on' argument is bogus. Windows has had a more than decent ACL system since the NT days. The fact that, back in the olden Windows XP days, most applications were written with the presumption that the user will run them as Administrator does not mean that the entire OS was built with that idea in mind. There was always a HKEY_CURRENT_USER and a My Documents folder, the fact that game developers kept wanting to save their savegames in the Program Files folder isn't Microsoft's fault. I mostly blame the Windows 98 developers not giving a damn about access control and forcing users to run everything as administrators.

And since when is UAC required to change one's wallapaper or download a file LOL? I'm not debating guest user accounts here, but normal user accounts. And we could probably debate for hours on end whether asking for a password is really any better than simply prompting the user with a yes/no question and other such details.

But I think we're going way off-topic with this. Sorry 'bout that, OP.

Cracking the case does not violate the EULA. In fact they tell you how to do it. You can swap anything that doesn't have a "don't remove me" sticker without voiding your warranty (Inside a Macbook this is only the battery). This is a pretty common misconception actually.

What he said. Of course, upgrading a Mac Mini is nowhere near as easy as upgrading a normal PC. But there are good HOWTOS for that