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I used to own a Nokia *brick* bought at Radio Shack (late '80s/early '90s)

http://www.itp.net/584396-iconic-mobile-phones-from-the-80s-to-now?tab=photos&img=3

I'm pretty sure that thing didn't have a clock. But, It could be used as a defensive weapon, that thing probably weighed around 5 pounds :)

Activation, WGA/WPA! You know, the spyware that phones home and won't run if you don't allow it to do so. I don't know about you but I believe in innocence before being proven guilty, however MS wants you to constantly prove your innocence.

Corporate versions that are volume licensed don't have this "feature"

I am an individual not a corporation.

The last price comparison I saw had the Mac as a better value than the PC it was compared to which was a Dell.

Read what I wrote. This is only true if you take into account all of the features of the Mac that nobody cares about, like the integrated webcam or Firewire. Most PCs offer far better expandability than Macs, something many Mac advocates often ignore. There are also glaring weaknesses in Mac desktop configurations, the most important being the incredibly poor graphics capabilities of most Macs.

I did read what I replied to, but again:

Macs remain overpriced. Mac zealots like to point out that Mac systems often have lots of features not widely available (as far as I'm aware, there is no hardware feature unique to any Mac system) on Windows desktops. This is largely because there is little demand for those features, like Firewire, Wifi on desktops, remote controls, etc. This is especially true in the business world.

I still stand by what I said regarding direct comparisons. And as far as demand, there may not be much of a demand now but that doesn't mean there won't be a demand in the future. For instance there was no demand to edit photos on a computer until after Photoshop created the market, the demand was for darkrooms, which I loved working in. There was no demand for USB but now there is, apply that to Firewire. And yes, there is a demand for it now, especially amoung photographers who shoot digitally. Wifi? Have you ever tried to setup a wired network, and run cabling? My sister runs her own business and she frequently works at home, especially at this tyme of year as she's a CPA working on taxes, and she now uses one long cable she runs whereever she feels like working on her laptop. That's not a good idea as she has a two year old running around the house. Admittedly though she uses a laptop. Just think how much better using wifi would be for her. Now with the remote control, do you ever use one watching tv? Or maybe two or three, one for the tv, on for the tape/dvd player, and one for the stereo? Doesn't Vista have something like it?

I agree with you though on desktop configurations. Apple needs a desktop Mac that fits between the iMac and the Mac Pro, something that is expandable.

but can you name one app for Windows which Macs don't have an equivalent app?

AutoCAD, which is the first app everyone mentions when this comes up.

There are CAD programs for Macs. Actually there's communities of CAD users running Macs such as Architosh. Mac Googling "CAD" I get 1,690,000 results. Quite simply there are CAD programs for Macs.

This always irritates me. Dell makes cheap commodity crap. There used to be company called Packard Bell that also made crap computers that always broke down, they were bought by NEC and they NEC stopped making desktops. If you're going to compare Apple to a PC ventor you should compare them to another BOUTIQUE vendor, like Alienware.

And who owns Alienware? Dell, that's who. As for whether Dell is good or bad, I've heard people say both. SOme say it's good whereas others say it's bad.

The main advantage of Apple systems is their asthetics, which is far and away the major argument I've heard for putting them in business.

For me the main advantage of Macs over Windows PCs is they last longer. I've bought 4 b

'If Oracle can say "Yes, this will run" to their customers, and their customers try it out and it does actually run, then no one will care'

I think they are correct and should never certify Larry Ellisons stolen Linux code. Personally speaking I don't want to do business with a self confessed software thief.

"We can just take Red Hat's intellectual property and make it ours, they just don't have it."

was: I Hate Linux Distro Certification
(Score:4, who modded this up Insightful !!)

Apple's worldwide market share for DAPs was 23% in 2004 and 27% in 2005 according to this

The largest growth is in flash-based players. I expect mp3-player-cellphones will soon eat at the media player market.

If you include radios, boomboxes, car stereos, etc. the iPod's market share would be well under 1%.

It's ironic that a 'commercial' software house is being patent trolled especially after recent statements from Oracle regarding taking other peoples intellectual property.

"We can just take Red Hat's intellectual property and make it ours, they just don't have it."

Larry Ellison

Wikipedia says Red Hat has 1,200-1,300 employees. Of those, I suspect a few hundred are going to support.

Here's the rumor I've heard: (Can't name the source, sorry.)

If a single mega-company were to migrate to Linux and rely on Red Hat for support, it would completely consume all of Red Hat's support resources, and then some. The rumor goes that this is one of the main problems with large companies that want to move to Linux: the support capacity simply isn't there.

So, the reasoning goes, Red Hat is actually glad when projects like CentOS and Oracle support take off: Red Hat knows that it can't support everybody, it knows that it needs for it's platform to "win," it knows that there is incredible value in winning alone, and so: These developments are all good for Red Hat.

After a little research, I find this article that supports what I've heard.

A lot of us are thinking about these things in terms of home users. We don't give a damn for support- we just fix it ourselves, service it ourselves. It's part of owning a computer. But in the business, I understand they think about things differently: Support becomes a primary thing. It's not optional, even when you have internal IT people on staff.

MS could not do that. They'd have to release the MS-Linux (I feel icky just saying that) in the GPL, and that would just chafe them big time.

It would probably mean that manufacturers would say: Heck, leenooks people want drivers, microsoft wants drivers, let's just write linus drivers, since MS can use their MS-Linux.

That woul dbe the death of the current windows Codebase.

OT: Longhorn will not be released. Microsoft will have collapsed enough by then that they won't be able to support the core dev team.

Fine, don't believe me. Just remember that windows 2003 server is already 2 years old, it is an overkill already.

That, and if you want real enterprise-grade software, you go Linux (free as in Zero Dollars)

For those of you who have a hard time accespting the last statement:
Oracle is the de-facto enterprise database. See http://www.itp.net/news/details.php?id=13678&categ ory=

IBM's newest mainframe, the zSeries, supports Redhat, Suse, and Turbolinux. But no MS Windows. See http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/os/

Linux on cellphones:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1765103,00.as p?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Linux at Merryl Lynch, etc etc etc.

You can't kill linux. Even Linus can't kill Linux. If Linus decided he had had enough of the rat race and decided to spend all his time at home with his wife, Linux would go on withour missing a beat.
Microsoft can't kill linux for the very same reasons.