Macintosh

The media generally portrays hacker as criminals going after law-abiding computer users, but one Dutch hacker has turned his sights on more fertile prey: other less-skilled, or even aspirational hackers. Like a digital stickup boy, he has remotely kidnapped illegally (according to Apple) jailbroken iPhones in the Netherlands, holding them hostage for five Euros.

The very first Macintosh Plus is up for auction, but that's not all: serial number 0001 was a gift from Apple Computer to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in January 1986. Bidding on the system -- with its 1MB of RAM -- will start at $800 (original sticker was $2,600) through auctioneer Profiles in History in October.

Making the switch from a Windows PC to a Mac isn´t nearly as daunting as it might seem. Most of your files, including photos, music and Microsoft Office documents, will open on your Mac without any conversion (although you will need to buy the Mac version of Microsoft Office). And Mac OS X´s interface is pretty intuitive (just remember: Finder is the Mac equivalent to Window´s Explorer).