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You’d think those Mac people would just quit. We PC-owners outnumber them 19 to one. But still they persist, and worse, they insist that their computers are better than ours. That’s like saying a porterhouse steak is better than a fast food burger. Hey, wait a minute!

VISIT the SEACOAST MAC SUPPORT web site

That’s Mac logic for you, always twisting the truth into something that makes sense. You’ve seen the Macintosh commercials on TV, the ones where some really believable person is explaining how he or she finally kicked the PC habit. Macs are easier to use, they say. Macs are better built. Macs have better support. Macs get fewer viruses. Macs don’t crash. Okay, but what else can they do?

The bottom line is that most of us own PCs because --- well, because most of us own PCs. It’s the same kind of go-go American thinking that gives us dangerous gas-guzzling cars, public schools, lite beer, realty TV, disposable appliances, high fat dining and HMOs.

The truth is that most of us are addicted to PCs and to the Microsoft products that rule most of our lives. PCs are generally cheaper and there is tons more software available. Microsoft has the business world in a headlock with its proprietary Office Suite software, so most businesses use PCs, and therefore most schools teach with them. When they don’t work, which is agonizingly often, we toss them out and get another.

"I think a lot of it is what you became familiar with first," says computer consultant Ronald Gehrmann. "Or the intangible connection you make with something. I have just always found the Mac to be a seamless experience, plug and play. The stuff was all made to work together."

Gehrmann of Portsmouth has a better idea. Don’t get a new PC – convert. A former Unitarian minister, Gehrmann can get a tad evangelical about Macs. Now with his consulting service, Seacoast Mac Support, he’s taking his crusade to the street. Gehrmann now makes house calls to train and assist Mac users.

"The Mac was always hailed as the computer for creative types, people who were more intuitive and graphic learners," Gehrmann says. "I’ve always found it a very aesthetic computer. It’s beautiful in terms of both the interface and hardware."

Okay, they are prettier. The popular little iMac looks sculpted. The Powerbook, Gehrmann says, is considered "the ultimate lust object" among portable computer users. He uses the G4, but keeps a PC hidden under his desk.

"I hate to turn it on," he says. "But I fire it up when I do a new web site or when I do compatibility testing."

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We first met Ronald Gehrmann in this column as web developer for his design company Metaglyph (www.metaglyph.com). His web sites, and I’ve said this in print before, are among the most consistently clear and aesthetically pleasing of any designer I know. They are, for want of a better descriptor, as pretty and functional as a Mac. Now he is extending a helping hand to others in his subculture.

"I’ve always been a Mac guy," Gehrmann says. "To me they are more intuitive, easier to figure out. Mac has always been more about hiding as much of the grit and junk and leaving the nicest cleanest interface possible."

So why, if Macs are so darned perfect, do Mac users need any support at all? Because Macs tend to fit together like Leggos, Apple consultants don’t work "under the hood" like a lot of PC geeks. It’s a softer sort of assistance, more like being a guide, a coach or a personal trainer, Gehrmann says, than like being an auto mechanic.

"There’s always a learning curve, no matter how good the platform," he says. "I help with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, with application and operation software training."

His new web site is admittedly "brochureware". Visitors see a friendly face, get a few tips from the guru, read his Mac-friendly story and see a few testimonials from Mac-happy customers. For now, he is keeping his world as a web developer, print artist and photographer separate from his techie side. His clients come largely through referral.

Gehrmann officially signed on to the Mac support system last June. He paid his $500 fee and received the official Apple blessing. Among his first new referrals were Chris and Paul St. Jean of Kensington. I knew them both when we were all teachers at Exeter High. After 18 years working with PCs, the St. Jeans needed help converting to Mac. According to Chris, Gehrmann taught them the difference between the OS 9 and OS X systems. He talked them through email issues, use of command keys, installing a scanner, picking a word processor, steered them to the right web sites.

Apple was so happy with the St. Jean’s testimonial that the company featured Gehrmann on its own web site.

"I’ve always enjoyed working with the computer and with people," the consultant explains. "I love having the opportunity to be a bridge between the two. I’ve been self employed since 1993. This is my 10^th anniversary. I’ve been working out of my home office and I was eager to get out more."

THE UP SHOT

I have owned, in the last two decades, 13 PC-type computers and one Mac, for a total investment of around $25,000, not counting and equal investment in software and peripherals. My first PC was the best, an Epson QX-10 with huge 5 ¼ floppy drives and a special MS-DOS software system called "Val Docs" (for Valuable Documents). It was very Zen and Mac-like. The software and hardware were totally integrated, at least in the beginning. If you wanted bold type, you pressed the "Bold" button on the keyboard. If you wanted a spreadsheet, you hit the "Spreadsheet" button. Then the software company, Rising Star, had a fight with the hardware company, and the dream collapsed. My father still uses the QX-10 to run the track-switcher on his model railroad.

Truth be told, my PC history is a chronicle of horrors. Although I’ve never had a hard drive seize up and die, my computers have contracted every other known ailment. When I run my low-vision software, my scanner won’t work. When I plug in a game, the printer goes dumb. But my friends know PCs, and after a few hours under the hood, they can usually get me up and running. I once got so frustrated that I bought a $3,000 Mac desktop system, but I couldn’t make the leap. I was still thinking PC and back then the decision was all-or-nothing. Today, at least, Macs and PCs can exchange data. There are still compatibility issues, but the enemies can talk at last.

With the Internet speaking a common language, it seems likely that Mac will gain a few more converts, thanks to Bill Gates, the richest man around, and his Microsoft strategies.

"I find them truly scary," Gehrmann says of Microsoft. "They have a lot of power and they wield it arrogantly."

The latest versions of Microsoft Windows have me nervous too. Gehrmann uses the word "bloatware". The bigger my hard drive gets, the more of it the software consumes, and Lord only knows what stuff is hidden there. The new Microsoft Word has so many features and so much intuition that it practically types for me. I hate the constant intrusion and confusion and last week, I stripped off the new stuff and reinstalled my trusty old Word 97.

Microsoft, in its quest to make computers compatible, has gained the reputation of being monopolistic and authoritarian. Mac now uses the "open source" UNIX operating system so programmers around the world can work together to make it better. Since they didn’t win the Monopoly game, Mac users have evolved into friendly rebels. Gehrmann meets monthly at Rye Junior High School with the Seacoast Mac Users Group, a few dozen members who share information. That’s a little too touchy-feely for us PC users, but it does recall the good old MS-DOS days when all computer owners were part of a self-help club. Now we are lemmings.

Windows, if you’ve studied your computer history, was practically stolen from Apple founders by PC-master Bill Gates. But the Apple founders did some stealing of their own. So we are all looking at roughly the same screen. And under Windows XP the PC environment has become more crash-proof and stable, while Macintosh has grown increasingly complex.

"If you peel away the Mac surface you can see a lot of industrial strength stuff that wasn’t there before, Gehrmann says.

Complex, yet simple, it seems too good to be true. I’m going to stick to the hard painful PC road for now. Don’t ask me why.