JUST so we’re bookmarking the same website using the same browser (we were going to say "just so we’re all on the same page" but that sounds outmoded) - and now we think about it we probably should have mentioned an RSS feed.

Anyway, just so we’re consuming the same piece of text and/or multimedia content via the same method, let it be known that 2008 is the year for bashing Apple users.

They’ve had it far too good for far too long, what with their white headphones and that shrinky-poury thing a window does when you minimise it in OS X.

These people deserve a sharp kick in the iDisk. Apparently.

Of course, once was a time Apple was a dying company whose products were only used by a small group of passionate people about whom even PC users made personal hygiene jokes.

But then Steve Jobs came back, made jellybean computers and invented the iPod, and suddenly Apple made James Dean look like Urkel and its ads suggested that PCs were schlubby guys with a comb-over and a bad suit, while Macs were ultra-cool smug dudes.

Clearly, Apple users need a peg downgrading. The first line of attack was to hit the thing Mac users hold dear: viruslessness. PCs being the computing equivalent of a cheap motel in the bad part of town where the sheets move and turning the light on is not recommended because you are better off not seeing that many cockroaches, whereas Macs are like freshly washed sheets on the line in a laundry powder ad.

This year, however, a number of antivirus experts have claimed Macs are popular enough to make them a target for virus writers and users should wake up and smell the coffee.

And by "smell the coffee" they mean "buy our buggy Mac antivirus software". Since Defrag first read the Macs-equals-vulnerable story in 1996, we’ll wait until the experts say "and this time, we really mean it", before we listen.

When the virus warnings failed, Operation Bad Apple went into phase two: study Mac users and then mock them mercilessly.

According to a study by Mindset Media, they’re a bunch of snobs, probably because they have spiffy looking computers that don’t crash quite so much as their rivals. The study also concludes that they are perfectionists who drive station wagons, drink Starbucks and buy five pairs of sneakers a year.

Now Defrag, as a Mac owner, will cop some of those findings (it sounds cooler when you say sports wagon) but we take umbrage at the suggestion we will happily pay $4568 for a small cup of bad coffee, no matter how comfy the armchairs, and we’d only buy that many shoes annually if we had 10 feet.

Really, Defrag doesn’t know why the "researchers" are going to such lengths. If you really want to tick off Mac users, all you have to do is suggest that OS X is not as good as Vista and they’ll be so apoplectic they won’t know which pair of neatly stacked sneakers to put on to drive out for a grande caramel macchiato.