If you successfully avoided those questionable Black Friday PC deals, but you're still in the market for a new computer this holiday season, it's worth checking out Rob Pegoraro's no-nonsense "How to Choose a PC" column from the Washington Post -- which starts by breaking down the pros and cons of Macs and Windows PCs. His conclusion: Macs are technically superior, but the price means they're not for everyone.

"It's fair to call a Mac a luxury," he writes. "It's more affordable than many other luxuries, but see what your bank account has to say first."

If your bank account says it's a Mac, check out Macworld's latest Mac buying guide, explaining the features and differences among Apple notebooks and desktops. If you decide to go for a Windows 7 PC instead, see Microsoft's "PC Scout" online utility for some help narrowing down your many choices.

Speaking of Windows vs. Macs, the latest web traffic stats from online research firm Net Applications suggest that Microsoft's new operating system exceeded Macs in overall usage last weekend, at least temporarily, according to a ComputerWorld report. That's largely a function of Windows' larger market share, but the rapid rise is another sign that Windows 7 is doing well.

However, the traffic patterns also suggest that Windows 7 is being adopted more quickly by home users than by businesses, blogger John Lister notes. As industry analyst Roger Kay has noted, that's not as good for Microsoft, because business upgrades are mostly voluntary, driven by a desire for the new operating system, whereas consumer usage is largely a function of PCs preloaded with the new OS at retail.

Wired calls Windows 7 and Google's Chrome browser an "excellent" combination on netbooks. "The two together make pretty good use of a netbook’s most limited resources: screen size and processor power," writes Dylan Tweney for Wired.com's GadgetLab. "The result is a surprisingly pleasant combination for browsing, working in GMail and Google Docs, and other lightweight tasks." He notes that it's also a good sign for Google's plan to launch its own Chrome operating system next year, initially targeting netbooks.

Here's the type of headache Windows users were hoping to avoid this time around: Reports began to surface this week that Windows Vista machines with a specific type of Intel storage driver were unable to move to Windows 7 because of a problem in the upgrade process. See this Microsoft support document for a detailed description of the symptoms, and a temporary workaround for the problem. Glitches like this were widespread in early days of Windows Vista, but they've proven less common with Windows 7 -- so far.

Despite the best efforts of MacDailyNews and others, it appears that Microsoft successfully thwarted an attempt by Mac fans to take over the Windows 7-powered window displays at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. Microsoft had invited people to submit messages to display on screens in the window by using a #holidaywindows hash tag on Twitter. Hundreds of pro-Mac messages appeared in the raw Twitter feed, causing the Mac faithful to think they had hijacked the public displays. But Microsoft says it was filtering the messages all along and none of the Mac-oriented tweets showed up in the windows.