First up, I’m most definitely a Linux fan – been using for 10 years now and only see it getting better. Personally I don’t see why, for an office job, people couldn’t use Linux on a daily basis – it handles email, internet and an office suite quite nicely. And you get to save a few pennies. I’m amazed at the number of old machines people just throw out which really only need a refresh of Windows – the hardware is perfectly fine.

Having said that, our church office runs mostly Windows, which is probably because that’s what the Pastor has always used. All the backend stuff runs Linux, because that’s my domain Smoothwall firewall keeps the internet in check (including a content filter) and we have a display box and fileserver/VPN server both running Ubuntu.

I moved jobs back in November to a company that is all Mac, which has been an interesting experience. I can’t particularly say I’m a convert, although I do appreciate why some people use them for everything – audio and video in particular. I guess it depends on your priorities – my finances have always been tight, and Macs never come cheap. Personally, for day-to-day office usage, I’m not convinced that a Mac is worth the additional money over even a mid-priced PC. You’re paying extra for the brand and the ‘shiny’, neither of which are really a consideration for a church office.

Recently, I just upgraded the RAM in our church’s main office computers. Two had 512 MB and one had, get this, 256 MB. All were running Windows XP Pro. I maxed the RAM on all systems, and the users are amazed at the difference. So for about $250 more (a few years after the fact, of course) I was able to increase their performance a bit.

In reality, security is only as good as it’s application.

I’m acting IT guy at my church (many hats) and there are a few of us on Macs… but the majority of our staff use PC’s. We’re starting to use more web-based applications (Google Apps, ACS OnDemand for our database). So the cross-platform issue is less and less of an issue.