I'm not a Mac user. I have never owned a Mac, and the only device in my possession that was manufactured by Apple was a present; an iPod Nano from my brother.

People constantly tell me that I should buy a Mac. They say the Mac is more stable than Windows. That it is more secure.

I say, yes. I completely agree. Macs very probably are more stable, and they very probably are more secure. I don't need to own a Mac to know that. It's simple statistics.

I've been reading through a selection of final year project assignments that have been set for software engineering students at a variety of universities in the UK and elsewhere.

Deary me. Dear, dear, dear me. Oh dear, indeed.

To give you an idea of the scale of the challenges being set for these students, imagine asking a final year undergraduate in Civil Engineering to build a barbeque.