Being an Apple Mac user can be a lonely business. Round the watercooler at work, talk of the latest and greatest PC games probably passes you by - they always arrive a little later for Mac users, if at all.
Down the pub, earnest discussions about the speediest makes of processor probably turn you off - you've only one choice of chip, and one choice of manufacturer (and having picked a Mac in the first place, you probably aren't interested in all this mumbo-jumbo anyway).
Talk of right and left-clicking bemuses you, and wandering round Dixons is pretty unfulfilling too - Mac users have their own places of retail worship, most of them in warehouses accessed by catalogue, or Apple's own website at www.apple.com/uk. But then there are compensations.
Mac fans descending on the Business Design Centre in London over the next few days will get to ogle at easily the coolest looking hardware in all the computing universe - a shiny new Titanium PowerBook easily wins any train carriage laptop bragathon, both in looks and power. Macolytes know they can ram the point home by sticking the visually striking new OS X operating system, or the swirly psychedelic patterns of iTunes, on its broad screen. Even techies can be wowed by the complexity of the Unix heart beating under OS X's candy-coloured facade, although most Mac users never want to delve that deep.
And, of course, on the web any lonely Mac fan can find a vast community of other computer users who have chosen to confine themselves to this little pocket of the computing universe, and "Think Different", to quote the company's advertising slogan. Online, the Windows world can be forgotten, and Apple lovers can indulge in their cult-like obsession with what lies next up the sleeves of polo neck-wearing founder Steve Jobs.
My favourite haunt is As The Apple Turns, a weblog-style site that has faithfully followed the daily shifts in the Mac culture since 1997, pausing only earlier this year when its author got married, and went on honeymoon. AtAt does a pretty good job of sifting through the masses of Apple gossip that circulates - particularly ahead of the biannual MacExpos in the US - spotting which stories are likely to come good (a new iBook earlier this year) and which are red herrings (like the persistent rumours, complete with "photographs", of a new Palm-style handheld earlier in the autumn; Apple eventually announced its iPod MP3 player).
Another good source of gossip, and well-sourced sneak previews of new applications, is ThinkSecret which, like many Apple sites, takes its design cues from Apple's sleek new OS X interface. As well as the news, there is even a virtual water cooler for you to gather round with fellow Mac-heads.
Covering similar stuff, but with a post-then-comment system just like the famous Slashdot, is MacSlash. And, if those sites are all a little too much, Dan Hughes has been running a Macintosh weblog at www.webintosh.net since mid-October with some success.
Similarly, MyApple Menu ispenses with the bells, whistles and discussion, and gives you lots of news and links, condensed into a minimalist webpage. But when you want more than news - help with a problem, for instance - where can you turn?
Well, there's a strong Mac community in the UK as well. The Mac EvangeList, a long-running and incredibly popular Mac mailing list based in the US, has just grown a UK-only offshoot. As the name suggests, EvangeList provides useful ammunition, and practical advice, for those who use Macs at work, where they maybe have to sell the merits of their favourite computers versus those of Windows PCs.
There's another mailing list community for UK Mac users to which you can subscribe at www.lowendmac.com/lists/mac-uk.shtml. Even more specialised, if you look after Macs in an educational establishment - and education is one of Apple's strongholds - the Mac supporters mailing list at http://macsupporters.gold.ac.uk could be the place for you.
Again, the list is strong in dealing with technical issues, and there are also resources for those looking for cheap secondhand Mac kit. And those users living in the south-east can benefit from actually meeting fellow Mac users in the flesh. The London Mac User Group meets in a pub in central London each month, alongside various other events and a newsletter. Finally, no roundup of Mac fans' websites would be complete without mention of the Greatest Living Mac Fan, Steve Wozniak. For those not steeped in the history of the colourful machine perched on their desk, Wozniak - the Woz, to all - was the brains behind the first Applecomputer. Woz isn't with Apple anymore, and now enjoys the life of an eccentric millionaire in California.
But, despite clashes with his co-founder Steve Jobs, he still maintains a personal site largely devoted to the company his talents helped create, at www.woz.org.
