It seems I just can’t escape Microsoft, even after throwing every PC in my house and office in a dumpster or passing virus laden units on to family. (I know, nice, right?)

For some reason I thought the XBox 360 would be different. Maybe I thought, “It’s just a gaming console, how hard is it to mess that up?” And then last night I went to play a quick session of Vegas 6 before going to sleep and, zing…

The Red Rings of Death.

I suppose a Blue Screen of Death would have been too much of a throw back. (Does anyone else see a trend here?)

For all those wanting to hear from an expert exactly what’s happening to over 30% of all XBox 360s (ummm…that’s one out of every three units purchased), I thought I’d pass along this handy article. It really doesn’t help you do anything about your faulty unit, but it at last tells you like it is…which is pretty bleak. Instead of a poor operating system or a virus prone internet browser, now they just went cheap on everything from CPUs to soldering joints. Oh, and they never spent enough time designing a proper heat sync system to handle the units high output. Oh, and they–

–never mind. Just read the article.

In all fairness, my latest iMac just had to go in for repair (something my Senior Pastor got a kick out of; we have an ongoing PC vs. Mac battle of wits), proving nothing is sacred when it comes to electronics. But at least with Apple, they actually replaced my refurbished iMac with a brand spanking new one. For free. That’s way better than Microsoft’s $140 service charge (plus shipping both ways) to fix my 360. Despite all their flaws, this leaves me with only one conclusion:

You can’t compare Apples and…

…is there another computing platform?

CH