For me, the single most amazing and influential man-made system I have ever seen is the Juke Box.  A robotic arm moves silently to the selected disc, extracts it from it’s vertical storage position, places it horizontally on a turn table and then perfectly positions the needle onto the first groove.  All of this, because I deposited a dime and pressed two buttons, one alpha, one numeric that corresponded to the tune I wanted and needed to hear.  IF I had put in a quarter, it would allow me to press two more alpha numeric sequences and it would REMEMBER not just the songs I wanted it to play but the order in which I selected them.  As others deposited and pressed, it had the wherewithall to hold everyones place in line.  Many of these devices contained sound systems so sophisticated that it was many times preferrable to listening to  the live music of the day.  We needed no training manuals, no Juke Box for Dummies books, people of all ages could work these things.  Installation?  The proprietor of the establishment just had to plug it in.  Maintenance?  Periodically your local mafia would send over a technician who would restock with some of the latest tunes and replace any worn out favorites.   I ALWAYS wondered what it would be like to have one of these in my house, stocked with my entire collection and ready to play any of my (or anyone elses’) SELECTIONS at the touch of two buttons.

I tell you this story because many of you have asked me to join a side in the MAC vs PC, or more approriatley Apple Operating System vs Microsoft Operating System battle and this is my answer.  Whichever tool comes closest to costing YOU a dime and allowing YOU to achieve YOUR desired result by pressing just two buttons is the one YOU should go with.

And remember the defintion of juke is “to make a move intended to deceive” so don’t let ANY of these New Media boxes fake you out!