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MacSlash has a brief note how NASA's JPL has put together a cluster of 33 XServes that was able to achieve 1/5 teraflop

I think you meant:

MacSlash has a brief note how NASA's JPL has put together a cluster of 33 XServes that was able to achieve 1/5 teraflop. Apple.

Check out the first thread on this story.

- News For Turds

Our friends at Macslash have an article about Apple recently jumping to the #5 server vendor, behind Sun Microsystems.

In another MacSlash article, Why use Linux? there is quite a lot of discussion about the merits of both Linux and Mac OS X.

Both make rather interesting reading!

Our friends at Macslash have an article about Apple recently jumping to the #5 server vendor, behind Sun Microsystems.

In another MacSlash article, Why use Linux? there is quite a lot of discussion about the merits of both Linux and Mac OS X.

Both make rather interesting reading!

This story was originally posted on MacSlash, with a thread of opinions on this as well.

Biggest optimizations he missed: turning off Aqua! I kind of have to take this whole test with a grain of salt, you're not really doing justice to a spec test when you have two gui's running taking away performance from what your trying to test: the server.


Since for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to shut down the GUI environment of OS X, I configured a simple VGA X server for Linux and started KDE, just to have a fair basis for comparison.


Come on Moche, do a little research and login as "> console".

2) Moshe is not smart enough to boot Mac OS X into command line, "Since for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to shut down the GUI environment of OS X" -- Moshe "I can't use Google" Bar. Here's a tip Moshi, when the log on screen pops up, type ">console" in the user line.

3) MacSlash has already dealt with this.

....you should check out their comments.

air portugal would not let me play dvds or cds but would allow me to watch quicktime movies once i had explained that there was no cd or dvd playing, just the hard disk. apparently the laser/LED in the cd/dvd drive in some very rare circumstances can emit interference. I posted a query to MacSlash about this about a year ago and the various comments there confirmed that air italia, aer lingus, Iberian air and others also have this policy.

Granted, Cubase SX for OS X was announced a full six months before the release, but still...

[And yes, I know ProTools and Cubase are on entirely different levels... And there are probably people who would get miffed if I tried comparing Cubase to Digital Performer too, but it looks like Steinberg will get their music software to the OS X market before any of them. [OK, so Emagic got Logic out the door first, but Apple owns them, so I think they had help...]]

Some info on sharing printers is available at MacSlash.

1. Slashdot editors switch to Mac laptops
2. They discover OmniWeb, which underlines misspelled words in textarea boxes as you type
3. Slashdot readers suddenly begin complaining that the editors have "forgotten" how to spell "properly."

this is also being discussed on macslash.

the article can be found here

Try this one. Its old though:
Cringely's Pipe Dream: OS X on Intel

The newer slashdot post:
Apple Secretly Maintaining x86 Port Of Mac OS X

And a similar post at MacSlash (probably more pro-mac comments):
Marklar! Marklar!

Try this one. Its old though:
Cringely's Pipe Dream: OS X on Intel

The newer slashdot post:
Apple Secretly Maintaining x86 Port Of Mac OS X

And a similar post at MacSlash (probably more pro-mac comments):
Marklar! Marklar!

Steve said that "Apple is the number one supplier of Unix worldwide. Bigger than Sun, bigger than Linux..." If Steve said it, it must be true. Other than the fact that Linux is NOT Unix, but merely a clone. And since when was Linux a ,uhm, company supplying UNIX??

I own a Mac too, (G4, 640 Megs memory 2x 18G SCSI, Radeon 8500) but let's face it, Mac OS X is nothing more than FreeBSD 4.4 (pretty outdated by my standards) running Aqua as a window manager. Oh and by the way, it has a crap-load of Open Source goodies rebranded to sound like they came straight from Cupertino.

I'll give Apple one thing: If you think Apple hardware is fscking expensive, try buying a new Sun workstation! I could put a good down payment on a car for that much!

So, the question I have for Apple is: If you want the "average" Windows user to switch platforms, how are you going to convince them to pony up 3x more than a PC with less than a third of the available software? Keep in mind that the average computer user likes to swap out hardware quite a bit instead of buying a new machine every 9 months.

Steve said himself that there are "over 1500 Mac OS X apps". Most of these are haxies or simply Linux software such as GCC or Samba that have been ported over. Or maybe the iApps that are so amazing. Obviously Photoshop wasn't the "killer app" that makes everbody want OS X... So, how about something useful that doesn't cost a kidney to own (Office X, cough, cough)

With all this in mind, I'm not the least bit surprised that Linux is outdoing the Mac. I am surprised that the margin between the two is so close. For one, I can build a box that outperforms even the newest dual 1.2 Gig G4s (Uh, people use more than just Photoshop, Apple. You also haven't benchmarked the Athlons, which beat the shit out of all but the fastest P4s...) and has the latest and greatest hardware for well under $1K. Also keep in mind that the average PC user doesn't throw his entire box away after seeing new product announcements just to have the latest and greatest. If it's that hard to get Motorola to build faster G4s, then you should look elsewhere. Add to that the fact that your typical Linux distro (I also ripped into Macslash.org for calling Mac OS X a "distro")has many thousands of apps and goodies and no DRM, spyware, or product activation bullshit like Windows, and I just plain fail to see why anybody would want to bother with Mac or Windows.

Steve, it's time to break out of the Reality Distortion Field(TM) and offer cheaper hardware to get better penetration in the Windows camp.

Bill, you can take your "Trusted Computing", DRM, WMP9, .NET, buying the U.S. government, BSA, incompatibilities, daily security "patches", Big Brother EULAs and shove them up your fat, money grubbing ass.

In the words of Chandler Bing: "Could I BE more sick of corporate bullshit?"

There are a lot (300+) user comments/reviews on MacSlash: http://www.macslash.org/articles/02/08/24/0410244. shtml

Orange

I'm sorry, what's that you say?

Couldn't hear you.

The article about the "Family" license allowing you to install one copy on up to five machines can be found here...

siri

Officially yes, but each partner has a different agenda. Apple wants desktops, IBM wants servers, Motorola wants embedded.

MacSlash had some very good points about this in their article: IBM's chip has "160+ vector instructions"; Motorola's Altivec has 162. IBM's chip has 6.4GB/s bandwidth; Apple is a founding member of HyperTransport, which is 6.4GB/s.

Hopefully the dots will connect and Apple will get out of the Motorola doldrums.

Correct, but the 3.1 gcc OS X compiler that will be included in the Jaguar developer tools is available from CVS now.

Ironically, there has been quite a bit of discussion within the Mac community about Apple moving to the x86-64 ISA, perhaps tacking on the AltiVec registers for extreme Quartz drawing. It would be a very interesting move, and I wrote a small conspiracy theory about it

However, I think it should be possible to do a FireWire PVR on a Mac with currently available hardware. See this post of mine.

This Slashdot thread is yet another example of how Mac-centric the "new" Slashdot has become.

My roommate bought a Windows-based USB Mpeg-1 TV tuner device back in 1999 for about $50 retail.

I recently purchased a Pinnacle PCI-based capture card for about $20 and use free software to do all of my recording.

So I completely fail to see why a similar device for Apple, arriving more than 3 years late, is this newsworthy! There is another forum much more suited to such banal news.

This same story appeared at Macslash... time: Monday July 15, @11:48AM. Check the time on this one.

Please Taco, who is trying to steal whose thunder now?

See this discussion on MacSlash from a few days ago.

Conclusion: Apple and Steve Jobs have given every indication in the past they don't like the idea of DRM. There is no indication they'd find Palladium acceptable.

Apple's customers HATE the idea of DRM, Apple's customers are not accustomed to doing what they're told, and it would be foolish of Apple to embrace Palladium. Just from looking at macslash it would appear Apple would have a major mutiny on their hands if they tried.

Besides this, supposedly the entire point of Palladium is to face the threat of spyware, malware, and viruses. These things are not a problem on Macintosh, so the "uh.. we're protecting you. you can turn it off" facade just doesn't hold up.

Besides which, isn't Palladium a technology which is tied to the usage of Intel microchips?

So? Apple can do what it likes. It runs the expo, and decides who gets the media passes.

It makes sense for them to not give special access passes out to those who they know are going to publish only the negative aspects of the expo. Obviously, they don't like bad press.

Really, they are just trying to get the media they allow special access to print more balanced reports. You can't say fairer than that!

There's currently a discussion on this very topic on MacSlash, but a few /. people may be interested in some Apple ramblings too:

Strategy: Buy Low, Sell High.
How low can the stock values of companies go? Since last fall, many in the tech sector have certainly been trying to find out. This is a great time to buy companies or technologies and lately Apple has been wisely acting when opportunities arise. Even if Emagic GmbH, Spruce Technologies, Nothing Real, and Zayante in the last year had all been privately held, they would have still been sold at a favourable price compared to buying them before the .bomb bubble burst.

Strategy: Niche Market Growth.
It's clear that Apple wants to defend the Macintosh strength as a music & audio creation tool in the long term. Since pro audio software has been lagging on the march to MacOS X, Apple is at least applying heat to developers if not exactly lighting a fire under them. Logic and associated software & hardware on the Mac will mean that Digidesign, Twelve Tone Systems(Cakewalk), MOTU and Steinberg will have to take the market segment more seriously (although MOTU & Digidesign have historically been great friends of the Mac already). The way it's looking is that a larger majority of pro audio will be done on the Mac. Can Steinberg, Twelve Tone et al. risk being caught with their pants around their ankles if this happens?

Strategy: Technology Cross-Pollination.
Now that Apple has a substantial video-production, streaming, compression, audio & other technologies, they may consider adding many good features from one to another and developing truly feature-rich packages. It dosen't take a dreamer to see the possibilities, from unheard-of professional solutions to trickle-down pro capabilities in new iSoftware (eg. look how technologies purchased from Marcromedia were crafted into Final Cut Pro & iMovie). This is one area that users, down the road, can really cash out with if Apple encourages the flow of technologies between it's new divisions.

Strategy: Sorry, Mac-Only.
One thing that is a bit sad about this, ironically enough, is the immediate cancellation of the Windows versions of some software (notably Shake & Logic) with this strategy. While perhaps more upfront than an MS-style purchase and feature-deprivation in non-Windows versions, Apple still isn't making any friends (and perhaps losing potentially loyal customers & money) by doing this. Still, one cannot say that it's not what happened to Mac users through the late 1990s (even now - look at Bungie) but it would be better karma to be more merciful once the shoe is on the other foot. Apple would be smart to mitigate the anger of Windows users by offering discounts on upgrades to the next Mac version.

Next Strategy: More Vertical Markets.
The Macintosh still has a real chance at gaining significant market share if it can be a strong alternative in enough vertical market segments. Apple is rightly building on it's strenghts, but should diversify enough so that the Macintosh is not pegged as only good for those niches (remember what happened to the Amiga? Games machine!)

A Holy Grail almost as worthy as dominating the business market for Apple is the scientific & engineering markets, often with high software margins all around. A purchase or substantial investment in Autodesk à la the MS $150M in Apple would make Apple a huge player in the professional engineering, architecture, and manufacturing industries overnight. Considering Autodesk is not the most expensive stock right now, with a market cap of approximately USD$1.4B, Apple could conceivably purchase the entire operations in cash and still have about $2B in the bank. Autodesk's Design Segment develops AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Mechanical Desktop, Autodesk Architectural Desktop, Architectural Studio, Autodesk Map, Lightscape, and Autodesk Land Desktop, to name a few (most industry-standard in their fields) and the Discreet Segment develops 3D Studio MAX, Animator Studio, flame, inferno, smoke, combustion, cinestream, plasma, cleaner, MPEG supercharger, Topper, and many others.

With a stable of industry-dominating software products as great as this, such a purchase (or even investment ensuring MacOS X compatibility) would send massive shockwaves across the engineering & architectural markets, and ripples in the scientific & pro graphics markets who are by now used to this. No immediate cancellation of the Windows version would be posible here, rather a years-long strategy to ensure first Mac versions and then Mac feature-parity. A purchase like this too rich for Apple's blood? Try something smaller like privatley-held ESRI (makers of ArcINFO, ArcView, ArcGIS & associated imaging systems), or continue to add strength in the crucial areas of coming scientific importance such as biotech and bioinformatics, in which Macs already have a growing following as you can see.

It was just yesterday macSlash posted an 'article' titled 'Will Apple Support It's Modern OS with Modern Security?' mostly slated to apple waits to long to release security patches and they will not acknowledge security problems until they provide a patch. an 'article' titled 'Will Apple Support It's Modern OS with Modern Security?' mostly slated to apple waits to long to release security patches and they will not acknowledge security problems until they provide a patch.

=Brian

Even more terrifying than that-- yesterday apple added support to mac os x for the 3d cards in the early G3s, like they've been promising they would for two years!

What is happening to the world?

I would have thought that dotster would have known that their email wasn't accepted by mac.com... I believe that a fairly significant chunk of folks use that address.

(also, I find it ironic that the guy from dotster says that he's getting a bunch of email about the problem. At least that email was written by actual people!)

What seems to have happened is the owners of macslash.com let their registration expire (the Dotster e-mail warning them of this was filtered out as spam on their mac.com e-mail account apparently), and Vicente Peiro Crespo of Valencia, Spain registered and paid for it legally at expiry. According to what he's said on the macslash.org thread about this, he does this with expired domains and redirects them through Commission Junction for a little extra money from ad revenue. Not exactly the most honorable thing for a moonlighting hobby, but perfectly legal.

However, he has said that when owners ask for their domains back (eg. when the domain is still in use) he gives it to them sans profit; and further he has stopped advertising on macslash.com as soon as he found out the domain was still near & dear to people's hearts and he's stopped advertising. He's also put up a link from macslash.com to macslash.org as of this posting, as you can see. This dosen't sound like the work of a beligerent opportunist nor is this a "hijacking" as the title of this thread implies. His first post on Macslash about it mentioned that he was willing to return the domain if the former owner contacted him. But now Vincente says that he, Dotster, and Commission Junction have recieved so many flames about this that they've cut off his account and he's no longer making any money off of anything.

Somehow this seems like a simple mistake (on both the part of Vincenete and Macslash's owners for letting it expire) that could have been easily corrected but now exacerbated by a lot of flamers. So stop sending nasty e-mails to everyone on the planet about this and maybe Vincente will give the domain back if he's still inclined. Otherwise MacSlash will have to get used to permanently being at MacSlash.org

What seems to have happened is the owners of macslash.com let their registration expire (the Dotster e-mail warning them of this was filtered out as spam on their mac.com e-mail account apparently), and Vicente Peiro Crespo of Valencia, Spain registered and paid for it legally at expiry. According to what he's said on the macslash.org thread about this, he does this with expired domains and redirects them through Commission Junction for a little extra money from ad revenue. Not exactly the most honorable thing for a moonlighting hobby, but perfectly legal.

However, he has said that when owners ask for their domains back (eg. when the domain is still in use) he gives it to them sans profit; and further he has stopped advertising on macslash.com as soon as he found out the domain was still near & dear to people's hearts and he's stopped advertising. He's also put up a link from macslash.com to macslash.org as of this posting, as you can see. This dosen't sound like the work of a beligerent opportunist nor is this a "hijacking" as the title of this thread implies. His first post on Macslash about it mentioned that he was willing to return the domain if the former owner contacted him. But now Vincente says that he, Dotster, and Commission Junction have recieved so many flames about this that they've cut off his account and he's no longer making any money off of anything.

Somehow this seems like a simple mistake (on both the part of Vincenete and Macslash's owners for letting it expire) that could have been easily corrected but now exacerbated by a lot of flamers. So stop sending nasty e-mails to everyone on the planet about this and maybe Vincente will give the domain back if he's still inclined. Otherwise MacSlash will have to get used to permanently being at MacSlash.org

yup, check out macslash.org

OK, two pieces of business.

macslash.net is not propagating properly, and since .org has already (thanks again to Charles Ruggerio for hooking us up), we are going ahead with macslash.org for now. We will be posting a story on the site later today breaking down the whole situation.

Secondly, a Mac/ user (samiam) has already posted a great explanation of the apparent redirection to MacMall, so I won't repeat the story.

Thanks much!

OK, two pieces of business.

macslash.net is not propagating properly, and since .org has already (thanks again to Charles Ruggerio for hooking us up), we are going ahead with macslash.org for now. We will be posting a story on the site later today breaking down the whole situation.

Secondly, a Mac/ user (samiam) has already posted a great explanation of the apparent redirection to MacMall, so I won't repeat the story.

Thanks much!

Competeing with macslash

"Janski writes "Looks like Slashdot.org now has an Apple section. It features a kind of ugly Aqua-inspired look, which makes things kind of hard to read. Check it out here." I dunno. The Green Aqua look is growing on me. I think they should call it algae. And, to everyone who's been submitting the "Oh my God! What will macSlash do? Slashdot is trying to kill you?" C'mon. There are already hundreds of Mac sites out there. One more isn't going to hurt us. In fact, I think it's a great opportunity, and I hope we can work with the Slashdot gang, like we've worked with others in the "Mac Web" before."

Somehow that sounds sinister. Like they're going to send some mac addicts with violin cases to Taco's wedding.

Check their comments.

apple.slashdot.org has been around for over a year. It is called MacSlash and it is run by actual Mac users.