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Apple's Response to Microsoft: Unix Ads?

flaneur writes "In light of Microsoft's recent anti-Unix ads and the end of the 5-year contract between Apple, it's pretty interesting that Apple is suddenly running print ads emphasizing the Unix core of Mac OS X. Under the headline 'Sends other UNIX boxes to /dev/null', the ads contain quotes from various journalists praising the OS. But the most interesting thing? There's no IE in the dock -- Netscape is shown instead! Hmmm..."

660 comments

  1. Best quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    After 2.5 years of Linux, I've finally find joy in a Unix operating system. (John Hummel Jr., the Gamers Press)

    I love it!!

    1. Re:Best quote by billnapier · · Score: 4, Funny
      After 2.5 years of Linux, I've finally find joy in a Unix operating system. (John Hummel Jr., the Gamers Press)

      Bill Joy?

    2. Re:Best quote by Stephen+VanDahm · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bill Joy?

      Since it takes about 2.5 years to learn to use vi, I would support this hypothesis.

      Steve

    3. Re:Best quote by Art+Deco · · Score: 1

      Actually, it only takes 20 minutes to learn all the vi you absolutely need. You can spend the rest of your life learning useful tricks with it. I recommend learning enough vi to get by in a pinch then investing the rest of your time learning emacs then install emacs on every UNIX or UNIX-like system you touch.

    4. Re:Best quote by fatphil · · Score: 1

      Recite after me:
      "escape colon, queue exclamation"

      That's all you ever need to learn in vi, and you can even press almost arbitrary keys before it to no ill effect. (quit without saving, you see.)

      I'm more of a
      "Control eggs, control sea"
      man myself, evidently.

      FP.

      (ignore the sig, the troller account's at cap too)

      --
      Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
    5. Re:Best quote by cpparm · · Score: 1

      escape colon, queue exclamation

      And there are no other three keys on the key board that are farther from each other

    6. Re:Best quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope.

      Emacs is a pig. You don't have to install vi on your UNIX and UNIX-like systems. It exists there already. It works quite well in a telnet session from just about any god-awful telnet client.

      At my last job I worked in a cross-platform environment, developing firmware for an embedded controller. The builds occured across OS/2, Win32, and Solaris platforms (yes, all three, networked together were needed- the emulator was Win32, the build environment was OS/2, and the C compiler was on a Solaris box.)

      It sucked to have to use Emacs. It was so much nicer just to shell around in telnet sessions and use vi.

      Emacs is a bloody aircraft carrier. Often that just isn't the tool needed.

    7. Re:Best quote by riffenator · · Score: 1

      wouldnt he have found Joy in solaris?

    8. Re:Best quote by spongman · · Score: 2

      good job we evolved with two hands then, eh?

    9. Re:Best quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pico's nice, for basic editing ...

      i use it for any and all config files, emacs for larger coding issues.

    10. Re:Best quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller

    11. Re:Best quote by Dave_bsr · · Score: 1

      And there are no other three keys on the key board that are farther from each other

      um.

      1. Esc.
      2. ":"
      3. "q"
      4. "!"

      (looks at keyboard. hmm...q, !, Esc.)

      ok so other than those three yeah they are farther apart.

      Sorry just couldn't stop myself from respoding in defense of vi : ) ...

      --


      Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
    12. Re:Best quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And it will take you just as long to learn vi (vim) while using MacOSX as Linux.
      On neither system is vi necessary to everyone.
      On both systems vi is very good for people who need a real text editor program.
      I kind of expect though that it will be on Linux that you find people using vi who know why rinky dink 'simpletext' and/or 'notepad' editors aren't worth learning in the first place.

    13. Re:Best quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Esc Meta Alt Ctrl Shift

    14. Re:Best quote by big_hairy_mama · · Score: 2

      Don't forget that you can't reach Esc from the home row and that you also have to press Shift for the "!". Pretty near impossible to type compared to C-x C-c (pinky on Control and two quick taps with ring and middle).

    15. Re:Best quote by Carlos+Laviola · · Score: 2

      ZZ will exit vim saving the open file, if it has been modified. If it hasn't, it won't even touch it. If you're going to argue over the number of keystrokes, my guess is that you've just lost your argument, sir.

    16. Re:Best quote by Z4rd0Z · · Score: 2
      Don't forget that you can't reach Esc from the home row...

      ...that is, until you figure out that Ctrl-[ does the same thing as Escape :-).

      --
      You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
    17. Re:Best quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I don't know what you are doing with your right hand while using vi (DON'T TELL ME!) but it's SUPPOSED to be on the keyboard too along with your left.

      ":q" or ":wq" is as simple to perform or EASIER than hitting two keys in combination down on the bottom - which in the case of a Mac forces some-times users to hit them both with fingers of the left hand (there being no option key on the right side of my Mac keyboard)

    18. Re:Best quote by marktwain · · Score: 1

      Actually you would both be better off to give up those 2 1/2 years worth of limited functionality and migrate to Mac OS X.

      I've got OSX/Classic, Darwin BSD, XWindows, and OS9 all running on the same machine. Added Photoshop 7 to that setup yesterday, which includes everything from EMACs and Apache (both built in, along with SSH and Telnet) to LaTEX, BBEdit, and Ghostwriter. For browsers I have Mozilla, Lynx and Opera.

      Retired GIMP and MacGIMP as have, in addition to Photoshop 6 and 7, Graphic Converter, Illustrator and a dozen other graphics applications or utilities.

      With five drives for a Mac G4 DP Tower I have more functionality for hardware that would sell for about $1500. on eBay (software not included) than any x86 box.

      Linux is great.....for servers only. For desktop and all round use MacOS X and assorted BSD OS there's a combo that Linux can/will never equal.

      As they say, the road goes ever onward.

      FWIW. :)

    19. Re:Best quote by cyclist1200 · · Score: 1

      "then install emacs on every UNIX or UNIX-like system you touch."

      geez...what did those UNIX systems ever do to you?

    20. Re:Best quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gee, you installed a bunch of stuff on your computer! You must be SMART!

      PLONK!

    21. Re:Best quote by aiabx · · Score: 1

      oops, I typed ":w".
      -aiabx

      --
      Just this guy, you know?
    22. Re:Best quote by big_hairy_mama · · Score: 1

      Then again, who cares?

      Not me! (really :->)

    23. Re:Best quote by Art+Deco · · Score: 1

      Emacs works just as well from a telnet session as vi; if you don't want it to open a new window on your desktop just use the "-nw" option. Even if your terminal emulation sucks the ^L that redraws your screen in vi does the same thing in emacs. For C programming the emacs cc-mode has nice touches like an indentation engine, brace matching, and commenting or uncommenting blocks. If you like you can add syntax shading or the capibility of automatically checking your work into RCS or CVS when you save. One of my best emacs stories was a time I had to answer 30,000 emails checking a particular box on the email and entering a password in a blank on each one. In emacs I entered VM (a mail program in (X)emacs) recorded my keystrokes into a macro whilest I answered the first one; then told emacs to do the same thing 29999 more times. When I came back from lunch it was all done; 30 seconds work. I could have written a program to do the same thing or used procmail or similar but the emacs solution was much easier. Every hour you spend learning emacs will save you many hours in the future through increased productivity. Vi is fine for changing a line here and there in a config file but for program development emacs is the only way to fly.

  2. no IE icon... by hub · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ... But there are 3 Microsoft Office icons.

    No kidding.

    --
    Hub
    1. Re:no IE icon... by mkoz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ofcourse... that is a major selling point. The power of Unix, but still able to open/write the *.doc files for mother/boss sends you.

      Works for me.

    2. Re:no IE icon... by rikki_t · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In Deed.

      Because lots and lots and lots of people use Office. So by showing that Office runs on OS X, Apple is showing you that even that will work.

      Besides, it supports the "MS should be making software, not OS'es" theory.

      Hell, Apple used to use Office X to promote OS X - they commented that Office X was more advanced and faster than Office 2000 on a PC.

      Mac OS is not synonymous with "No-microsoft."

      --
      Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
    3. Re:no IE icon... by flossie · · Score: 3

      OpenOffice: The power of Unix, but still able to open/write the *.doc files for mother/boss sends you.

    4. Re:no IE icon... by lamz · · Score: 1

      Microsoft's antics make me grimace.

      Apple's antics make me smile.

      --

      Mike van Lammeren
      It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.

    5. Re:no IE icon... by HeUnique · · Score: 2

      Hmm, this reminds me this question..

      How is Open Office with Mac OS X? I don't see any Mac binaries on openoffice.org, but there are instructions to build it..

      Does anyone test Open Office on OS X? how good, fast, bug free is it?

      --
      Hetz (Heunique)
    6. Re:no IE icon... by mestar · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Mac OS is not synonymous with "No-microsoft."

      but the enemy of my enemy is my friend.



      this is how an anti-unix ad gets to be a pro-unix add on slashodot. it says "put other *unix* boxes to /dev/null", now is this a response to microsoft's ads?

      people, this is an anti-linux ad.

    7. Re:no IE icon... by HeUnique · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes..

      Unfortunately, Explorer on Mac OS 9 and OS X cannot show languages like Hebrew, Arabic and some others, and the MS office suite doesn't support those languages at all. ;(

      --
      Hetz (Heunique)
    8. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if the terrorists would let people learn how to read english, there wouldn't be a problem, would there?

    9. Re:no IE icon... by madenosine · · Score: 1

      how good, fast, bug free is it?

      No.

    10. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's an anti-UNIX ad. GNU/Linux is not a UNIX.

    11. Re:no IE icon... by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 1

      but the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

      I think the US govenment would disagree. That policy is how we ended up with "friends" like Saddam Hussein, Ho Chi Minh and the Taliban...

      --
      0 1 - just my two bits
    12. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "In Deed."

      You have indeed thrown grammar to the winds ;-)

    13. Re:no IE icon... by scenic · · Score: 2
      it's not any of the above(it's not fast, bug free or good, because it isn't yet). The build status page still indicates that most things compile, but that doens't necessarily mean they're functional. It'll be a while before you see a functional open office for os x.

      Sujal

      --

      politics, food, music, life: FatMixx

    14. Re:no IE icon... by Suppafly · · Score: 2

      OpenOffice is good, but its no where near the Word/Office killer that people here make it out to be. If the .doc you want to use has anything other than plain text it doesn't open or render out well at all..

      Sure its the typical /. response to link to openoffice anytime someone comments about a word replacement.. but sadly OpenOffice just doesn't perform when you put it to the test.

    15. Re:no IE icon... by flossie · · Score: 3, Insightful
      OpenOffice's rendering of MS Office documents is not perfect and this becomes more noticeable with more complex documents. However, it is good enough that we are now able to use Linux machines at work (mainly technical) without having to go to a Windows machine or dual-boot into NT every time someone sends us a .doc, .xls or .ppt.

      We don't need a Word/Office killer. We need the ability to read documents that are sent to us while using a system that is appropriate to our needs.

    16. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and look at the arrangement of those Office icons. Curiously, they're arranged so that their icons form "WXP" in the dock.

      Windows XP anyone? I'm surprised that got by Apple's marketing group...

    17. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah!

      Fuck Israel! Fuck state terrorism!

    18. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      those are dead languages anyway - why dont you people learn English.

    19. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And they are ordered in such a way that they spell W X P! Certainly a Windows XP conspiracy. :P

    20. Re:no IE icon... by SlamMan · · Score: 2

      I still fin that odd, since OSX is build with unicode support, just MS didn't use it, they made thier own psudeo-linguistic support.

      --
      Mod point free since 2001
    21. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if everyone were as reasonable as you?

    22. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First let's finish with Chomsky.

      I think a little more lube is needed, he's still bent over and moaning.

    23. Re:no IE icon... by norwoodites · · Score: 2, Informative

      That is why I use OmniWeb it displays all those and more.

    24. Re:no IE icon... by rampant+mac · · Score: 0

      Actually, I think every Mac user probably has that setup, in that order... 1) Use it almost daily, but of course my Terminal, iTunes, Limewire, and Entourage icons come before it. ;) 2) eXcel next, since I use it for files I transfer from work, but not nearly as often as Word.
      3) Powerpoint, my Dock's redheaded stepchild. I opened it once, it worked, I closed it; now it just takes up space. I like the color of the icon though, so it stays.

      --
      I like big butts and I cannot lie.
    25. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if gnutella access is what you want, ditch that slow-ass Limewire, and use Aquisition (search versiontracker.com for it)

    26. Re:no IE icon... by andang · · Score: 1

      Ah, no OmniWeb (4.1 beta 2) icon, my favorite internet browser...

    27. Re:no IE icon... by HD+Webdev · · Score: 0

      No. We arm, train, and send other people after our enemies. Then, we are very surprised that those whom we create to be vicious turn on us when they are done with the job.

      --
      This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
    28. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On OS X just use AppleWorks.. it opens MS Office files

    29. Re:no IE icon... by Tony-A · · Score: 2

      "put other *unix* boxes to /dev/null"
      It's rather blatant flamage, but it changes the implicit question from "PC or Mac?" to "Which unix?".

    30. Re:no IE icon... by doggo · · Score: 1

      "Ofcourse... that is a major selling point. The power of Unix, but still able to open/write the *.doc files for mother/boss sends you."

      BAH! You don't need Office:Mac to open *.doc, or even *xls files. All you need is AppleWorks, and it comes with the machine. Not to mention you don't have to suffer though pages of poor written and presented help files to figure out how to do something simple.

      Office has become so damn bloated, it takes 2.5 years to learn how to use it too. The difference is, after 2.5 years learning vi, you can put your experience to use. In 2.5 years Office has bloated and mutated so much it's nearly unrecognizable.

      If Netscape hadn't pissed itself away. And any other decent browser was free, Apple wouldn't need MS for a damn thing.

    31. Re:no IE icon... by dadragon · · Score: 1

      On OS X just use AppleWorks.. it opens MS Office files

      Not very well it doesn't. If there is anything like complex tables or most things more complex than straight text, it doesn't work.

      I can't open the .xls files my chem prof puts on his page in AppleWorks, I can do it in OpenOffice in Windows, and I can reboot my iBook into Linux an run OpenOffice from there.

      --
      God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
    32. Re:no IE icon... by DavidRavenMoon · · Score: 1
      I still fin that odd, since OSX is build with unicode support, just MS didn't use it, they made thier own psudeo-linguistic support.

      I think because IE is carbon, and not cocoa?

      --
      -- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
    33. Re:no IE icon... by Raffaello · · Score: 1

      You have a very distorted view of the Macintosh user community if you think that most of them ever touch Excel.

      Apple's core market is graphics and desktop publishing. Their Docks (when they switch to OS X) will have Photoshop and/or Quark in them - what's that? They haven't shipped yet for OS X?

      That must be why the typical mac user is still running MacOS 9. And even when they switch, they won't be running Excel, or Powerpoint - those are business suit apps. Most mac users are graphics/design/publishing pros - not much call for spreadsheets or boring presentation slideshows.

      I moved to MacOS X a year ago, but that's because I *don't * use Photoshop for a living.

    34. Re:no IE icon... by killerface · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I totally agree I am sick of Other companies crapping on Linux. It makes me so angry like M$ get credit for buiding an Operating System Then when programmers around he werld !!unite!! to make a better OS the Big Companies get afraid and make it sound "scary" to users oh well I am done ranting I am going to hitchhike to Betleguese and live With For Prefect Arrrrrrrrrrrrrr

    35. Re:no IE icon... by stephung · · Score: 1

      Somehow I feel that those 3 Microsoft Office icons, W X P, sounds like Win XP instead of word excel powerpoint....

      Maybe this is not coincidence?

    36. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and Netscape icon, that is taking 50% of processor with no windows open... :-) I would prefer to see a OmniWeb icon there...

    37. Re:no IE icon... by benjamindees · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      That's just what we want. More computers that support Hebrew and Arabic. The Israelis would find a way to use it to oppress their neighbors. The Arabs would declare it the tool of Satan. These two fucking ignorant cultures would start killing each other, and the US and Europe would get to sort it out. Oh, wait.

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    38. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what? Can you actually read Hebrew, Arabic, whatever?

    39. Re:no IE icon... by sql*kitten · · Score: 4, Interesting

      ... But there are 3 Microsoft Office icons.

      Read the first quote in the ad. They're not competing with Microsoft, they're competing with Sun, SGI and Compaq (DEC AlphaStation). Most of the people quoted are people who've come to MacOS X from other Unix variants.

      I see the same thing on /. all the time, Linux people thinking they're competing with Microsoft. People use NT (particularly on workstations) because they've decided for whatever reason not to use Unix - Linux mostly competes (if that is the right word) with other Unixes.

    40. Re:no IE icon... by WalterSobchak · · Score: 1

      Microsoft and Apple go back a loooong way. I can remember Excel 1.0, on two 400k Floppies for a FatMac (Macintosh 512k). There was nothing like it for the PC, hell, there was not even windows.

      Just my 0.02

      Alex

      --
      Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
    41. Re:no IE icon... by fredrik70 · · Score: 1

      You probably didn't had Ho Chi Minh as a friend ever since he was the one you tried to bomb back to stone age in the vietnam war!

      --
      if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
    42. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My Dock has Photoshop sat in it right now.

    43. Re:no IE icon... by prgammans · · Score: 1


      OpenOffice's rendering of MS Office documents is not perfect and this becomes more noticeable with more complex documents.


      Though i agree OpenOffice.org isn't perfect at rendering complex documents. Nor is MS Office it's self, just try taking a document produced on a Windows machine to a mac or visa-versa. This can cause the document text to be re-flowed, thus causeing changed in page breaks etc. This is probably because the fonts have changes slightly.

    44. Re:no IE icon... by Guspaz · · Score: 1

      My take is that Mac OS X is not based on Linux, so they can't say "Puts other Linux boxes to /dev/null". Also, people might not understand if they said "Puts other *nix boxes to /dev/null".

      Seems to me like they had little choice.

      Regards, Adam.

    45. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey people what ever OS we use thats ok good UNIX OS good MC OS Good MS Win, thats competition no good product without a good competition the bad things is some Unix or Linux programmer are the one who create Virus for MS product just to divert customers attention and thats unfair I'm a Mac User since apple 2 but my Linux friend show me a virus he created for MS product.

    46. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i moved to os x and i do use photoshop for a living.

      you are perpetuating the myth that OS x breaks OS 9 apps. my experience is that OS 9 apps work flawlessly on OS X.

    47. Re:no IE icon... by Gehenna_Gehenna · · Score: 2
      [sarcasm]

      I knew Ho Chi Minh

      Ho Chi Minh is a friend of mine.

      You, sir, are no Ho Chi Minh.

      [/sarcasm]

      --

    48. Re:no IE icon... by Gehenna_Gehenna · · Score: 2

      I dig Omniweb. It's just slower (by several seconds) than IE on my TiPowerbook. I'd like to use it more, but I have little patience. Sigh.

      --

    49. Re:no IE icon... by sensate_mass · · Score: 1
      AppleWorks comes with iMacs and iBooks, but not with G4 towers or G4 Powerbooks. $79 extra for them, I think.

      --
      --- Submission is feudal.
    50. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares? Linux is a great server but is STILL not a viable desktop for the average user. OS X is.

    51. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember that Apple has a new agreement with AOL/Time Warner (owners of Netscape) to make Netscape's home the default page on every current shipping Mac, no matter if it runs IE as its browser.

      However, to me this is not a sign of changes. Rather a sign for Unix users who are used to run Netscape in their current Unix box.

      BTW, OT but interesting: At this point, the best (promise) browser out there is not IE, NS, OW, iCab or Opera. It's Chimera/Navigator. The 0.2 release is amazing. The fastest _and_ best looking browser in OS X and any other platform hands down. Now they only need to get JavaScript support on board and we are in business.

    52. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      We don't need a Word/Office killer.

      Yes we do. We need to kill that sucker. It makes no sense to store your data in a proprietary undocumented format. You're basically saying, "Here Bill Gates, you look after my data. I trust you". Microsoft changes the format for Word documents every year. After a few years, who knows how many of your documents you will be able to read using the latest version of Office? Will you open all your old documents with every new version of Office to make sure you can still read them? Or will you just TRUST MICROSOFT?

      Spread the word people: don't store data in encrypted, proprietary, undocumented formats.

      NEWS FLASH: Microsoft revealed today that it has a patent on "Word" format computer files. Everybody using a "Word" format file will be required to pay Microsoft $0.20 for every use. Users will also have to pay MS $1.00 per day per program which can read or write MS Word format files.
    53. Re:no IE icon... by ScumBiker · · Score: 2

      You are correct. I think it kinda sux that I pay > $3000.00 for a new computer and don't get the same app bundle that a person paying $899 does. Oh well..

      I'm really glad to see Apple pushing the Unix side of Mac OS X though, the first day I got my new box I installed fink and XFree86. Bitchin!

      --
      --- Think of it as evolution in action ---
    54. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think Free Office for Mac OS X has just been released. $50, and compatible with Word and Excel. Open Office is still in development. There is also Hancom Office.

    55. Re:no IE icon... by unoengborg · · Score: 1

      Anti unix ad or not, by comparing to other unixes they
      legitimize them as somthing that is good.
      You have to say they are good we are better
      otherwise the ad is pointless.

      --
      God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
    56. Re:no IE icon... by stripes · · Score: 2
      You are correct. I think it kinda sux that I pay > $3000.00 for a new computer and don't get the same app bundle that a person paying $899 does. Oh well..

      Well you do get a handful of shareware apps with licenses which costs more then the $80 AppleWorks does...most of them are not all that great though (OmniWeb and GraphicConverter being the two I would pay for without the bundle...er, already did on my G3...).

      For the most part I would rather have AppleWorks, but I guess they figure most people that will buy a TiBook will buy Office and thus AppleWorks isn't useful to them.

    57. Re:no IE icon... by stripes · · Score: 2
      I think because IE is carbon, and not cocoa?

      No, contrary to popular opinion Carbon can do everything Cocoa can do with the possible exception of the services menu...however it is harder to work with Carbon. Carbon also frequently has multiple ways of dong things like drawing text (it attempts to support all the old APIs) while Cocoa has pretty much just one way, but the one way does all the stuff (anti-alias, kerning, alternate rendering).

    58. Re:no IE icon... by flossie · · Score: 2
      You're basically saying, "Here Bill Gates, you look after my data. I trust you".

      No I'm not. I'm saying that in the business world, it is unreasonable and unrealistic to think that I can make all my customers, partners and suppliers change their toolsets just because I have a very strong preference for non-proprietry data formats. It is not really that difficult to print a .doc to file and then run ps2pdf on the resulting .ps to create a world readable file that is immune to Microsoft's future innovations. The hardest bit is getting access to a tool that can read the .doc file in the first place
      Of course, PDF is not an ideal format for editing files, but then I use LaTeX for all documents that require more than a simple ascii text file. I've never had a complaint yet from someone who wasn't happy to receive a document as either PDF or HTML derived from LaTeX.

    59. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      whats so wrong with an anti-linux ad?

    60. Re:no IE icon... by norwoodites · · Score: 1

      no I cannot read Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic, Japanese, or Chinese.

    61. Re:no IE icon... by fredrik70 · · Score: 1

      I think that went over my head....

      --
      if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
    62. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever hear about the cat with no nuts?
      I beleive in calling a spayed a spayed...
      Linux is as much a flavour of unix as Solaris..
      Both more so than the mac..
      One question- forgive my ignorance- having only had breif contact with macs - can you run a non-fb cli?
      In Linux- there are times when I really need and use it. Mac always seemed the "nintendo" version of computers-dumbed down.

    63. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lets not forget- that to them this ad is pointless. /dev/null will mean nothing to them. The main reason linux is not a viable os is becouse it would need a lot of dumbing down and beautification to get there. MACs have a reputation with real computer users(not just 'casual takers')- programmers and techies as being dumbed down anyway.

    64. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing for dumbed-down- joe-user. Who only baught into computers in around '95-97. Except that it does furthar raise the MS empire - and lessen the chances of MS utilising fairer practices in a comptetive instead of monopolising stance.

    65. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sounds good to me.

      i'm sick of that linnex trash.

    66. Re:no IE icon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux is as much a flavour of unix as Solaris..
      Both more so than the mac..


      Sorry, you're flat out wrong.

      As claimed by the UNIX-trademark owner, OSX is UNIX, and linux is not. I'm not saying that means anything about quality/usability/stability/speed/whatever, but the fact is that OSX is unix and linux is not.

  3. They have always done this by madenosine · · Score: 2

    Apple has always stressed the Unix core to power users. They just stress that it is stable to less technical magazines.

    This is nothing new

    1. Re:They have always done this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, no, Apple haven't. That's terribly wrong. The Mac OS has only had a unix core for two years, and the better half of those years were covered by the OS X beta, which Apple did not market (not that it wasn't stable, hell, I ran theme mods and system tweaks on it...) at all. Good thesis, sounded good on paper, but nope.

  4. Mirror of ad by unformed · · Score: 4, Informative

    Since this site will probably die, and I wouldn't min seeing my site get more than two hits one day, I mirrored it here: http://stonedcow.com/unixad.jpg

    1. Re:Mirror of ad by flossie · · Score: 1

      Thank you. Oh, about the copyright on that ad ... ;o)

    2. Re:Mirror of ad by a_n_d_e_r_s · · Score: 1

      Actually since Apple are paying for people to display the ad I don't think that they will be very unhappy about people diplaying it for free!

      --
      Just saying it like it are.
    3. Re:Mirror of ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    4. Re:Mirror of ad by benh57 · · Score: 1

      Mirror slashdotted, too.

    5. Re:Mirror of ad by SlamMan · · Score: 2

      Off topic, but could you point me to a good tutorial on how create a mirror for a website? I could d/l the content manually, but mirroring's one I've never looked into.

      --
      Mod point free since 2001
    6. Re:Mirror of ad by c0nman · · Score: 2, Informative
    7. Re:Mirror of ad by questionlp · · Score: 2
      Not exactly a tutorial, but one of the tools that you can use to mirror a site is GNU wget. I use wget to make an internal mirror of Postfix.org as well as the Jargon File on a weekly basis. A quickie on how to use wget can be found here.

      HTH

  5. mmm microsoft... by Dw0rkin · · Score: 1

    Well thankfully microsoft's marketing department is too big to coordinate campaigns like that and while one part makes ads that say "unix sucks" they also promote their ties to apple... Either that, or they didnt realize that Mac OS X is Unix based...

  6. Good ad, but... by festers · · Score: 5, Funny

    If the ad had said "Sends other UNIX Boxen to /dev/null." I would have been sold.

    --


    -------
    "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
    1. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why's that? So it'd look incredibly stupid to anybody who read it?

    2. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, and "/dev/null" makes sense to everyone who reads it? I think Apple is appealing to geeks with an ad like that. And if that's the case, using "boxen" would be even geeker, hence the parent post. And it's called "humor", in case you haven't seen it before.

    3. Re:Good ad, but... by Lycestra · · Score: 3, Funny

      I disagree. Yeah, boxen is a unix admin term and seeing Apple use the jargon would be advantageous to get Unix geeks converted. But afair, 'boxen' is reserved for homogeneous systems that can be swapped, rearranged, and replaced with any other. 'Boxes' are each unique and have a personality, like your own personal system. Simply put, you name boxes, you number boxen. Macs come with a bit too much personality to be 'boxen' imho.

      But i might be off my rocker.

      --
      Lycestra
    4. Re:Good ad, but... by NerdSlayer · · Score: 4, Funny

      If the ad had said "Sends other UNIX Boxen to /dev/null." I would have been sold.

      And you wonder why you're a 27 year old virgin?

    5. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, what's his next post going to be:

      "If only I had a beowolf cluster of Natalie Portman pr0n."

      Why wasn't this guy beaten into the floor in gym class?

    6. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "If only I had a beowolf cluster of Natalie Portman pr0n."

      Please stop thinking out loud. In fact, stop thinking altogether.

    7. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh, good one. Too bad I'm a 25 year old getting married in July :P

    8. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why wasn't this guy beaten into the floor in gym class?

      That's because I was the guy kicking your pansy ass.

    9. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ah, so a 25 year old virgin, then.

    10. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Scot McNeely?

      When did you start reading slashdot?

      (McNeely is a jock, the kind of guy who slammed geeks up against the locker in HS)

    11. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Man, thanks for that. That was quality.

      You're worthy of your name.

    12. Re:Good ad, but... by NerdSlayer · · Score: 2, Troll

      Good use of AC. Now we'll never know who you are, masked virgin!

    13. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sound like one of those idiots from M.I.T.

    14. Re:Good ad, but... by Tony-A · · Score: 2

      Simply put, you name boxes, you number boxen.
      Ah, now it makes sense. Seems like boxen is a play on box like vaxen is (was) a play on vax, particularly a bunch of them.

    15. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As if anyone who actually had a sexlife would be disclosing it to someone named "NerdSlayer" on a website like Slashdot...

    16. Re:Good ad, but... by smnolde · · Score: 2

      Boxen is the plural form of "box" when spoken in Finnish, well, Finglish actually.

      The suffix -en denotes the plural form.

    17. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Boxen is the plural form of "box" when spoken in Finnish, well, Finglish actually.

      No, it isn't.

      The suffix -en denotes the plural form.

      Not in Finnish.

    18. Re:Good ad, but... by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 2

      Closer to a play on oxen being the plural to ox.

    19. Re:Good ad, but... by Tony-A · · Score: 2

      I was thinking of vixen being the plural to fox, but oxen as the plural of ox seems more apropos to the idea of boxen as the plural of box.

    20. Re:Good ad, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RTFJF (http://www.tuxedo.com/esr/jargon/)

  7. biggest gripe with the powerbook by pstreck · · Score: 1, Interesting

    my biggest gripe with the powerbook is only having one damn mouse button. I mean i get annoyed if i only have two yet alone one. On a plus though once you know all the keyboard shortcuts it's not as annoying. but for being so famous for it's graphics premise how would someone work in maya with only one mouse button?

    --

    Later,
    Phil
    1. Re:biggest gripe with the powerbook by cbrese · · Score: 0

      I have the same problem with the powerbook. I was looking at the other night at the Apple store. I was able to set the touchpad to accept taps as clicks. It would be cool if you could make the button just be a right mouse button.

    2. Re:biggest gripe with the powerbook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wholeheartedly agree. For much too long Apple has considered most computer users to be a disabled paraplegic like Steven Hawking.

      Yes, I know you can buy a mouse with more than button for the Mac, but I have a severe distaste for Apple's arrogance in thinking they "know" how people should use a computer. It's even stronger than Microsoft's arrogance.

      I suppose if Apple had designed a piano it would only have one key too!

    3. Re:biggest gripe with the powerbook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      jesus fucking christ - did you read that post back to yourself? what a fucking anal swab you must be

    4. Re:biggest gripe with the powerbook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how would someone work in maya with only one mouse button?

      Move mouse into view area, and hit space bar ...

  8. good for them by littlerubberfeet · · Score: 1

    Apple should begin a general phase-out of Microsoft apps......
    It would be very nice to see a continually more progressive anti MS Apple in the future, but that is not possible. When will Apple just win the PC war? I mean, they DO have the superior computer....at least among BSD gurus, and Graphics people.

    Please, this isn't a flame

    --
    Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
    1. Re:good for them by mkoz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apple should kill AppleWorks and start putting some people on OpenOffice. Think about it, a really nice native gui on OpenOffice... Apple could, and AppleWorks is never going to take over the world.

    2. Re:good for them by czardonic · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      When will Apple just win the PC war? I mean, they DO have the superior computer....at least among BSD gurus, and Graphics people.

      And what will the other 99.999% of PC users do with their overpriced, undersupported OS that can't open any of their documents?

      --
      Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
    3. Re:good for them by AcidDan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Apple should begin a general phase-out of Microsoft apps......

      You have to be a little careful (especially when considering businesses) - there are very few that don't use Microsoft Office. Office:mac is actually a very important selling point for people moving to mac because once they get there: "Hey, I still have Word, Excel Powerpoint etc... I feel at home"

      Of course there are alternatives, but Office is very very pervasive in businesses accross the globe.

      I mean, they DO have the superior computer....
      Yes, but Apple won't emphasise this. Because noone sells product being "Better" the sell product by being "different". Apple's excellent industrial design is probably the biggest factor in buying a mac when you're "Joe Average".

      To us, the innards are what we look for, but to the standard consumer - all they're seeing is perty lines and good looks.

      Enough of my ranting - suffice to say that this isn't a simple problem. I think more than anything, it's gonna be the politics (rather than tech issues) that will define the direction the mac platform will take with regards to Microsoft. Both groups will rattle thier sabres at each other for a while, but I think that for quite a while yet you will see IE and Office:mac versions...

      -- Dan =)
      (Firewall: Debain PC, Main PC: Athlon (using XP), Lappy: iBook 14" OSX)

    4. Re:good for them by hij · · Score: 1
      When will Apple just win the PC war? I mean, they DO have the superior computer.

      Not only that but they have the absolute bestest interface of all time because they don't have a command line! Oh 5h17... what's that icon in the middle of the toolbar?

      --
      Believe nothing -- Buddha
    5. Re:good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      And what will the other 99.999% of PC users do with their overpriced, undersupported OS that can't open any of their documents?

      G00D P01N7!!!1 7HA7 W4S A V3RY 7H0UGH7FUL C0MM3NT!!!!!!!!!11!1
    6. Re:good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When will Apple just win the PC war? I mean, they DO have the superior computer..

      Probably around the same time BMW wins the automobile war. I mean, they do have the superior car. At least, they're certainly better than anything Ford, Chrysler, or GM could put out but they can't touch their sales. Why is that? Because they're expensive!

    7. Re:good for them by starseeker · · Score: 2

      I agree that would be a good move, but remember AppleWorks isn't supposed to replace Office. It just provides basic functionality for a low price, and it is backed by Apple. That is enough for many needs, especially the iMac crowd. (Pre-G4 iMac, anyway...)

      I suspect Apple will not put effort into something they don't control.

      --
      "I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
    8. Re:good for them by TheAJofOZ · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Apple should kill AppleWorks and start putting some people on OpenOffice

      Wrong target market. AppleWorks is intended for people with simple word processing needs and that don't want to learn Word. AppleWorks is sensational in education, particularly K-7. Put a kid in front of AppleWorks and they get something done pretty quickly, put them in front of Word and for some reason they get quite confused, even when they're new to both apps. OpenOffice is just a clone of Word that doesn't work as well, other than being free it doesn't seem to have any real advantage.

      That's not to discourage the OpenOffice team, I was working on the project in it's very early stages, but it is definitely not an alternative to AppleWorks. With a lot of work it may well be a good alternative to MS Office, but since it doesn't run on OS X yet, that's an awful lot of work. Besides, MS Office on OS X is *really* nice.

    9. Re:good for them by d0n+quix0te · · Score: 1

      There is one reason for continuing AppleWorks. Is the de facto standard in K-12. What with AW documents being created since pre Mac, Apple ][ days!

      This is one of the most used Apps in schools...

    10. Re:good for them by deviator · · Score: 1

      I bought an iBook a few months back for most of the reasons listed in the ad... I was pretty skeptical of any bundled software, but I have to admit that "AppleWorks is actually pretty darned good." Switching between apps & getting basic things done seems just a tad easier with AppleWorks than with MS Office, probably making it a better package for most general-purpose needs.

      It has an amazingly devout user community, too.

    11. Re:good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Office:mac is actually a very important selling point for people moving to mac because once they get there: "Hey, I still have Word, Excel Powerpoint etc... I feel at home" Open(Smart)Office:LinuxPPC is not more different from M$Office:win32 than M$Office:win32 from M$Office:mac - mac is too foreign platform for M$Office. Same arguments about Mozilla and IE.

      All Apple needs is Open(Smart)Office:MacX. I guess Mozilla is already there.

      The last thing Apple need is to get rid from M$ as an owner of big stock shares of Apple. I heard that M$ virtually controls Apple on the board meetings. The history repeats istelf after M$ killed SCO Unix same way - through the vote influence on the board meetings of SCO.

    12. Re:good for them by usr122122121 · · Score: 1

      OpenOffice is free*. that's a much lower price than appleworks
      * not as in beer
      I think if apple put their efforts towards OpenOffice as an Appleworks replacement, things would be much better.
      With my B&W G3, I didn't get ANY word processing/office productivity tools... (other than simpletext)
      plus, it's not as though Apple hasn't done stuff like that before (BLAST).

      --

      -braxton
    13. Re:good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Apple should begin a general phase-out of Microsoft apps

      Then after that phase out photoshop, final cut pro, etc. and soon it will be just as good as Linux.

    14. Re:good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AppleWorks isn't meant to replace MS Office.

      It's the same equivalent to Microsoft Works, which is the low-cost alternative for the Windows crowd.

      More people should use it, BTW, as it's ridiculous for people to have to spend the big bucks for a personal copy of Office.

    15. Re:good for them by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      same things that they always do, read spam in Hotmail, play Quake and surf for porn

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    16. Re:good for them by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      you're completely wrong about MS being on the Apple board - they don't even have a holding. the biggest lever MS has on Apple is it's commitment to producing Office and IE for the Mac, both are extremely popular among Mac users and Office is EXTREMELY expensive.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    17. Re:good for them by MaxVlast · · Score: 1

      SCO Unix died because it was cancerous, old, and miserable. It didn't die one minute too soon.

      Microsoft isn't on Apple's board. I heard a rumor that you code in VB and say that the GPL isn't even good as toilet paper. You must really be a worthless person.

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    18. Re:good for them by CmdrTaco+(editor) · · Score: 1
      same things that they always do, read spam in Hotmail, play Quake and surf for porn

      Number one and number three in that list are kinda the same thing.

    19. Re:good for them by Aapje · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Apple's excellent industrial design is probably the biggest factor in buying a mac when you're "Joe Average". [...] but to the standard consumer - all they're seeing is perty lines and good looks.

      I think that usability sells Macs, not simply a nice-looking design. IMHO you severely underestimate Joe Mac Average. They have to fight against the notion that 'everybody' uses Windows and their decision is often well-considered (since they get hammered with stupid questions whenever they tell people they own a Mac).

      Some of the usability factors that make 'us' buy a Mac:
      - GUI
      - Great apps (including iTunes and iMovie).
      - Consistency between apps (How many different key-combo's for finding something are there in Windows? I think I've seen 5+ ways to do it.)
      - Great monitor-support for the new iMac, swing-open case of the G4, standard 802.11 support on all machines and other features of Apple's machines that actually make the machine more usable. Contrast this with some of the 'designs' by other companies that seem intent on making the machine less functional (and are usually butt ugly).
      - It works. Apple's OS and hardware have never failed me when I had work to do (or I could fix it easily).

      On the other hand I think that Joe Win Average usually focuses much more on Mhz and 'more' features, instead of looking at the things that they want to achieve. Somehow this is considered fully rational. Whatever.

      --

      The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
    20. Re:good for them by NiPNi · · Score: 1
      More people should use it, BTW, as it's ridiculous for people to have to spend the big bucks for a personal copy of Office.


      They don't. They spend a couple of bucks to pay for the CD-R's.

      Actually, that reminds me of one of the arguments I've heard for not buying a Mac: A friend of mine ordered an iBook a few days ago, and he was told by some of his friends that it was a bad move, as it's too difficult to get pirated software for a Mac.
    21. Re:good for them by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      au contraire :-]

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    22. Re:good for them by Gehenna_Gehenna · · Score: 2
      I agree.


      I recently pruchased a TiPowerbook w- apple works. I work as tech support (you have to start somewhere) and therefore no slouch when it comes to working around Word, Excel and the rest of office. I ust say I was pleasantly surprised by the elegant simpleness of Appleworks. It did what I neeeded it to, and away from work it is all I need to accomplish what I need from an office suite.

      --

  9. OS-X almost has me by aelfwyne · · Score: 0, Redundant

    but not quite yet.

    Until I can run it on the skeleton frame home-built computer sitting on my desk, without having to purchase a $1000 bubble, I won't be using it.

    What would I like to see? Obviously, AMD Hammer support - on standard hardware. I'd buy that.

    --
    -- If it ain't broke - overclock it more.
    1. Re:OS-X almost has me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Until I can run it on the skeleton frame home-built computer sitting on my desk, without having to purchase a $1000 bubble, I won't be using it.

      Alrighty, see you never.
    2. Re:OS-X almost has me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey congratulations, you aren't part of Apple's target market!

      Apple doesn't care about you! Deal with it! They appeal to people who want a solution, not an OS.

      They sell good hardware, combined with good software, and charge you a premium for it. The software is only there to get you to buy the hardware! That's because Apple is a: (long dramatic pause)

      Hardware Company!

      Jeez, get over it already. Software is a commodity, unless you control the platform it runs on.

    3. Re:OS-X almost has me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and until you're willing to pay $1000 for a bubble, Apple won't care about you. Sorry, but money talks.

    4. Re:OS-X almost has me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This ad is aimed at people who buy "Suns, AlphaStations, and SGIs" and buy Scientific American. Your trailerpark obviously ain't in that zipcode.

    5. Re:OS-X almost has me by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      Then Apple simply isn't targeting any significant part of the market.

      They can't hope to go it alone and the rest of the market is made up of professional variants of the sort of hobbiest you like to dismiss so casually.

      Pretending you are a BMW dealership makes some sense when your product actually accomplishes something remarkable. If you are just selling a Kludge Klone with the 386 replaced, such pretense simply doesn't work.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    6. Re:OS-X almost has me by jedidiah · · Score: 2

      Why bother? You can get a real Unix machine for that much.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    7. Re:OS-X almost has me by Art+Deco · · Score: 1

      I don't own any machine with OS X on it. I probably will in the future though. As far as running on "standard hardware" what you are really asking for is something that runs on the lowest common denomenator of computers. There are advantages to selling hardware and software together. I run Solaris 8 on both SPARC hardware and Intel (Compaq). On SPARC it runs flawlessly, on the Compaq you have to power cycle it every time you reboot or it won't come up and even then once in a while it "looses its mind" while boooting. The hardware support isn't as good; I can only use 8 bit color on the Compaq since it has a weird video adaptor. I don't get as good throughput from the 3com network card as the built in NIC on the sun. When you buy both the hardware and software from the same vendor there can be no finger pointing back and forth between vendors; it just plain has to work. When you can specify the hardware you don't have to worry about supporting thousands of different video, SCSI, and network cards, and motherboards. Buying hardware and software from the same vendor is more expensive but you usually end up with a much better integrated product with fewer suprises.

    8. Re:OS-X almost has me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You dipshits that refuse to buy anything but i386 hardware make no sense to me. My first exposure to computers were macs. When I heard someone talking about getting a new modem and spending two days to get it working I thought WTF, it takes 5 minutes to plug it in and load drivers on a mac. Turns out they had a state of the art 486. I didn't come to appreciate this ease until I started my computer career in helpdesk where I rebuilt and replaced parts in PC's. What a fuckin' nightmare. To this day give me Sparc or Apple any day over i380shit.

      So it cost a couple hundred more for a computer that works. Just because Linux is free doesn't mean you have to get cheap ass hardware too.

    9. Re:OS-X almost has me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Getting some clown to be quotable saying 'Suns, AlphaStations, and SGIs' isn't going to convince anybody who hasn't already been foolish enough to buy Apple hardware.

      Well, maybe a powerbook for portable use. Instead of a PalmPilot or whatnot.

      Why is it people don't realize this ad is an attack on Commercial UNIX, not on Microsoft?

    10. Re:OS-X almost has me by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      you're right! how on Earth Apple hasn't realised this over the last TWENTY FIVE YEARS of selling PCs amazes me. I guess this kind of insight is why you aren't a billionaire like Steve Jobs.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    11. Re:OS-X almost has me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And what's so remarkable about a BMW? Mostly, brand perception.

    12. Re:OS-X almost has me by MaxVlast · · Score: 2

      Does it run MS Office and Photoshop? Does it burn DVDs?

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    13. Re:OS-X almost has me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point of the ad is that Macs are better than real Unix machines.

    14. Re:OS-X almost has me by Melantha_Bacchae · · Score: 2

      An AC wrote:

      > Why is it people don't realize this ad is an attack on Commercial UNIX,

      Of course the ad is aimed at Commercial UNIX. Apple now sells UNIX machines, and is trumpeting its entry into that market.

      > not on Microsoft?

      In the December 3rd, 2001 issue of Time magazine, right inside the front cover, was an Apple ad that proudly proclaimed "The only thing we have a monopoly on is compliments." The ad was similar to the one this story is about, only the quotes were all from reviewers, praising OS X and damning Windows XP. After five years of quietly rebuilding itself, Apple was back in the fight for the desktop!

      On December 14, 1996, Mothra resurrected a charred Apple sapling ("Mosura" 1996).
      On December 14, 2001, Mothra returned to see its fruit ("Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Ghidora: Daikaiju Soukougeki").
      OS X: the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.

  10. The X icon. by Traser · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I thought the most interesting thing on the toolbar was the X icon. Can you run an X server on the mac? I guess so, as it is just a BSD core.

    The real question, why would Apple want to show a GUI on the mac that you could use instead of it's own?

    --
    Insanity is contagious. - Yossarian
    1. Re:The X icon. by easter1916 · · Score: 2, Informative
      The real question, why would Apple want to show a GUI on the mac that you could use instead of it's own?
      Because (speaking specifically to X Windows) you can then compile and run X Windows applications, using a window manager like OroborOSX to make them appear to be Aqua applications. This, along with the BSD base of OS X, opens up a lot of great applications that otherwise wouldn't be available.
    2. Re:The X icon. by madenosine · · Score: 1

      It appeals to power users; you dont think they would have an add mentioning /dev/null if it werent in a technical magazine, do you?

      Besides, if you look, on another page of the magazine is an article about game programming.

      And yes, you can run the x server on os x

    3. Re:The X icon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, that's XDarwin

    4. Re:The X icon. by Doktor+Memory · · Score: 2

      Can you run an X server on the mac?

      Dude. Where have you been for the last year?

      --

      News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.

    5. Re:The X icon. by easter1916 · · Score: 1

      By running X in rootless mode, Aqua and X Windows applications can both display windows onscreen at the same time. It's both cool and useful.

    6. Re:The X icon. by bemis · · Score: 4, Informative

      (disclaim: my opinion)
      You can (relatively easilly) run an X-server on OSX ... although i personally think it's a little overly complicated (sorry ... i admit it, i'm used to getting a nice "preconfigured" (to some extent) Gnome+KDE+AfterStep+BlackBox+WindowMaker+etc ad infinitum X setup with my distro, regardless of which distro that is) ... While Quartz (Aqua?) gives me a nice GUI, it doesn't give me the flexability and ease of WM change that my normal *NIX-Alikes would out of box ... (i use RedHat, Mandrake, SlackWare, FreeBSD and OpenBSD) ...

      that having been said ... it is a very slick set up, and i'm completely in love with my ibook dual booting OS9.2/OSX(10.1) and installing the X-components that allow you to run X-apps over aqua it is nice to be able to run my normal (lots of them at least) apps under OSX instead of mucking around in LinuxPPC or one of the PPC ports of *BSD.

    7. Re:The X icon. by rjamestaylor · · Score: 1

      XDarwin rocks. Why hide a jewel, especially when only the geeks will know what the icon represents?

      --
      -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
    8. Re:The X icon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Learn to use a search engine, moron.

      http://www.osxgnu.org/software/Xwin/xfree86/

    9. Re:The X icon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This, along with the BSD base of OS X, opens up a lot of great applications that otherwise wouldn't be available.

      The Apple people might as well face it: The Apple machines will never be anything more than fancy X Terminals for running important engineering apps like simulators, schematic capture, FPGA tools, CAD applications, etc.

      Apple failed dismally in the high end workstation engineering market ages ago. The Mac is a distant third, far behind even Windows NT, in that sphere. Do they even bother to sell LabView on the Mac anymore??

    10. Re:The X icon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. I can do that with Exceed on my NT box, too!

      I can even buy Interix and run the X apps native in the POSIX subsystem on NT. It's quite amusing to open an Xterm from my NT box exported to the display on my Solaris box. Interix includes Motif and all the Motif development tools, at least the pre-Microsoft version that I bought does...

    11. Re:The X icon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can run an X-server/client "rootless" on MacOS X - you can have X-Windows applications running side by side with "regular" MacOSX applications. It's pretty slick. Actually, it's very similar to the way Classic applications appear.

    12. Re:The X icon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Ages ago" was before Mac OS had a Mach kernel and a Unix base, probably before Macs used G4 chips with those useful AltiVec extensions.

      I wouldn't be surprised if MacOS X, free Linux, and free BSD installations now far outnumbered all other Unix workstation seats put together.

    13. Re:The X icon. by slashclone · · Score: 1

      You mean non-geeks wouldnt be tempted to hit the BIG RED X button?

      --


      US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
    14. Re:The X icon. by ZigMonty · · Score: 2
      Can you run an X server on the mac?

      Yes, you can. Try XDarwin.

      The best thing is that, in rootless mode (X windows side by side with aqua windows), the X Windows inherit the drop shadows of aqua. Enlightenment running on OSX looks *far* better than Enlightenment running on linux.

    15. Re:The X icon. by rjamestaylor · · Score: 1

      Not unless they wanted to start a Family Feud.

      --
      -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
    16. Re:The X icon. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The real question, why would Apple want to show a GUI on the mac that you could use instead of it's own?

      A lot of comments seem to concentrate on 'instead' rather than 'and'.

      the point is that Mac OSX can do...
      ...X server AND Aqua
      ...IE AND Netscape and OmniWeb and...
      ...Office AND Appleworks...
      ...Virtual PC/Win2k/XP and Unix and cuddly Mac GUI...

      They should be more aggressive by showing all this stuff running and port OpenOffice too. Turing proved that any computer can theoretically run any programme. That idea manifests in both the choice you get on a Mac and the openness of the open source community. Apple still needs to dispel compatibility/propriety myths.

    17. Re:The X icon. by easter1916 · · Score: 1

      Did I ever dispute that you could do this? I was responding to a poster who asked why one would want to do this on OS X. NT was never part of the discussion.

  11. No big mystery here. . . by czardonic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Apple has always survived by soliciting the fringe crowd. They recognize that average users are not interested in changing OSs, and certainly not to make a political statement. Instead, they have targeted users who actually need an alternative OS, and would like a slick, not too costly option. So for Graphic Artists etc, there is MacOS. Now for the Unix crowd, there is OSX.

    Take not Linux advocates.

    --
    Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
    1. Re:No big mystery here. . . by Xerithane · · Score: 2

      They've sold me. Next hardware I get will probably be a G4. I'm planning on getting my graphic designer a new TiBook and I'll probably get one as well. They have the best screens, nice keyboards, and it runs Unix.

      I cannot ask for anything more. All I really care about doing is running gcc, nedit or a comporable editor, gdb and having a standard tcp stack. Anything else is optional. It wasn't because of their advertising or soliciting. It's because Apple is starting to kick major ass.

      If I couldn't buy one, I would give my left nut for one of their cinema displays.

      --
      Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
    2. Re:No big mystery here. . . by geekoid · · Score: 2

      I disagree. Why do you think they push the fact that you can get MSOffice for it in all the ads of late?

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    3. Re:No big mystery here. . . by agent+oranje · · Score: 1

      I just got my dual gigahertz beast... This is the first Apple I've ever owned, and I've never been happier. The only problem I'm currently having is that I feel as though I'm underutilizing it!

      It's a beautiful thing to be able to have an OS that is supported both by the open source community, and commercial developers alike. And the developers tools Apple includes are a dream come true.

      --
      -agent oranje.
    4. Re:No big mystery here. . . by daviddennis · · Score: 2

      Wait.

      The new Cinema HD Display is coming, and my guess is that you'd be willing to give even more for it.

      1920x1200 coming right up!

      $3,500.

      If you want a 3/4 scale Cinema Display, do what I did and get a SGI 1600SW. You can find them on eBay for about $1k. They're not as gorgeous, but they work extremely well for the money, and the 1600x1000 resolution is the same as the standard Cinema Display's.

      I already have a G4/450 dual processor and a G4/400 TiBook, both running MacOS X. You won't regret it. The classiest user experience around.

      If finances break more or less my way, I'm getting the latest G4 dual processor system with a Cinema Display HD around the middle of the year when the new PowerMacs are rumoured to come out.

      D

    5. Re:No big mystery here. . . by czardonic · · Score: 1

      Why do you think they push the fact that you can get MSOffice for it in all the ads of late?

      Because those expert graphics users don't tend to be sophisticated otherwise when it comes to computers. They still need user friendly apps that sync more or less seamlessly with the PC mainstream.

      --
      Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
    6. Re:No big mystery here. . . by soellman · · Score: 1

      oh man.. the only problem with the 1600SW screen is that if you don't have the $500 multilink adapter + a DVI ADC connector, you need a specific card to drive the 1600SW. And if you're in that boat, you've got a Formac Proformance3 card with an SGI daughtercard which gives you the SGI-specific interface (a la betamax, has about 3x the video bandwidth of the DVI standard, but limited and dwindling support). And the kicker - there is no accelerated video driver for the Proformance3 for OSX. Suck!

      I've been running that (rotten) combo for more than a year, and although it's fine for a boatload of terminal windows and some browsers, you won't be watching quicktime movies or playing games. Or screensavers. Forget about watching DVD's on it.

      But I LOVE my dual 450 and OSX.

    7. Re:No big mystery here. . . by daviddennis · · Score: 2

      I got the MultiLink with my 1600SW, and it works great with my dual 450. (Hey, same machine you have!)

      I'd say it's genuinely worth the money to get the MultiLink in your situation, since it will give you high-speed performance and a rock-solid display.

      Or you might just hook up another display to the card that was included with the 450, and use that for video stuff, leaving the 1600SW for terminal windows and the like.

      At least you don't have the problem I have at work - because I don't have a $500 obsolete video adapter with DVI, I can't get it to run at any more than 1280x1024 under Linux. Driver support for Linux is truly rotten, at least last time I checked. Oops :-(.

      D

    8. Re:No big mystery here. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I cannot ask for anything more. All I really care about doing is running gcc, nedit or a comporable editor, gdb and having a standard tcp stack. Anything else is optional.


      So why not just buy a much cheaper PC laptop running Windows XP professional, and run gcc, nedit, gdb on it's standard TCP stack? Oh right, it's Apple so it's cool.

    9. Re:No big mystery here. . . by Melantha_Bacchae · · Score: 2

      czardonic wrote:

      > Apple has always survived by soliciting the fringe crowd. They
      > recognize that average users are not interested in changing OSs, and
      > certainly not to make a political statement.

      Which of course explains why 40% of the poeple who have bought the new G4 iMac, the hottest selling computer in Amazon's history, are first time Mac buyers. Then again, the iMac has always been a consumer computer, aimed at ordinary people who might not be computer savvy, and who might have never owned a computer before.

      BTW, the G4 iMac may be the star, but the other Macs get their fair share over at Amazon. When the G4 iMac came out and shot up the charts, 10 of the top 25 selling computers at Amazon were Macs. Of course it is easy for the Macs to get high on the charts now. The PC industry has fallen on its collective nose, and the only computers with serious appeal (and an OS that is both beautiful and powerful) are Macs.

      Face it, Apple is back to stay. They are not going after the fringe, they are going after Microsoft's precious monopoly of the desktop PC market, and the commercial UNIX vendors to boot. They are telling the MPAA and the RIAA sharks where to go with their ridiculous schemes. They are empowering their users with great computers and the best that the Mac, NEXT, UNIX, Open Source, and Java worlds have to offer. They are even volunteering for an environmental impact study that the rest of the PC industry refused to do.

      In short, they are making Mothra one very, very happy and proud kaiju deity. ;)

      OS X: the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.

    10. Re:No big mystery here. . . by FireBreathingDog · · Score: 1

      >If I couldn't buy one, I would give my left nut for one of their cinema displays. Make it the right one and you've got yourself a deal...

    11. Re:No big mystery here. . . by stripes · · Score: 2
      BTW, the G4 iMac may be the star, but the other Macs get their fair share over at Amazon. When the G4 iMac came out and shot up the charts, 10 of the top 25 selling computers at Amazon were Macs. Of course it is easy for the Macs to get high on the charts now. The PC industry has fallen on its collective nose, and the only computers with serious appeal (and an OS that is both beautiful and powerful) are Macs.

      Well, also if you want a Mac there are only a few to pick from. So given only 4 models (and only a few options within the models) you get more sales per unit. If you want a PC there are so many choices that maybe Sony gets the pick because you want FireWire, or maybe Asus because you want it cheap, or maybe...

      (That said I really do like my Macs, they make great laptops)

    12. Re:No big mystery here. . . by Xerithane · · Score: 1

      The first clause negates the second. Sorry, man. :)

      --
      Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
  12. Even Apple is piling on ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... to the festering corpse of Sun.

    UNIX is dying. In fact it may already be dead. Soon, Microsoft's salesmen will be unimpeded on their way to the boardroom.

  13. Targetted ads? What a conspiracy! by alexhmit01 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You mean that an ad targetting Unix users isn't pushing IE but rather Netscape? It is showing the ability to run a full suite of software including Unix CLI, X11, Office, and other applications? They are showing 3 Microsoft products whose availability caters to everyone while also showing another company's icon... WOW! I'm shocked...

    Sometimes the rubish shown here is impressive...

  14. Dude, buy a two button mouse! by Microsift · · Score: 1

    And stop trolling while you're ati it!

    --
    My other sig is extremely clever...
    1. Re:Dude, buy a two button mouse! by David+Price · · Score: 1

      He said *PowerBook*. If I'm going to run X applications on my Mac laptop, three buttons would be nice - two is nearly absolutely necessary to avoid keypress contortions.

      Sure, I can buy a USB external mouse, but what am I going to mouse with when I'm sitting in my easy chair surfing wirelessly? It'd be nice if my portable included all of the features I need in its portable package - the whole idea is that I'm not always plugging and unplugging my mouse.

    2. Re:Dude, buy a two button mouse! by shobadobs · · Score: 1

      Ya know, just because an opinion is different from yours does not mean that it's a troll.

      Oh wait, this is Slashdot.

    3. Re:Dude, buy a two button mouse! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple should make a multi-button mouse a 'dockable' option on the powerbooks. I.e. you slide out the shitty one button module and slip in the three button module in the same space.

      Of course they will never do that, it would be admitting more than one button is useful, and that's against the old time mac religion.

      But if they seriously want people, and not just quoted 'people' in magazine ads, to use their system for X and Unix apps, they've gotta do it.

      No, it isn't acceptable to hold a damn external mouse with multiple buttons on your knee when you're using your Powerbook.

    4. Re:Dude, buy a two button mouse! by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      you could use your cock as a joystick if you'd just stop wanking for five minutes. do you even know what "life" means?

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    5. Re:Dude, buy a two button mouse! by MaxVlast · · Score: 2

      You're clearly new here. It's best to lurk for a while before you post and risk accidentally putting your foot in your mouth.

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
    6. Re:Dude, buy a two button mouse! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They could extend the touchpad and get rid of the button. Then you could use stickers to put as many "buttons" as you want on the extended area. This is actually what I thought they would do when Apple announced their new "buttonless" (tilting) mouse.

  15. Mozilla by billnapier · · Score: 1

    How dare Apple use Netscape in their ads when we all know they should be using Mozilla! Get with the program!

    1. Re:Mozilla by baturkey · · Score: 2, Funny

      The reason the computer is running Netscape is to show how bloated it is. Look at the output of `top`. 53 %CPU!

    2. Re:Mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ja i know or even better omiweb or opera !!!!!!!

  16. Hmmm by Slash+Veteran · · Score: 1
    Also conspicuously absent from this supposed "real" computer:

    pr0n
    kazaa running in the background, with a dozen downloads in progress

    1. Re:Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what do you think netscape was open for ?

  17. Doctored Image? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone?

    Maybe I'm just a bit too skeptical sometimes, but look at the right page -- doesn't it appear blurrier & darker than the left page? Perhaps it's the fault of the scanner...

    1. Re:Doctored Image? by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      I'd be looking more at the fact that the drive organisation seems to imply the thing was booted off an iPod and has no internal drive installed to be a better indicator of a "doctored image" (all of which is possible, but you'd have to wonder why they'd do it for an ad). Not that it really matters whether or not the image is "doctored".

    2. Re:Doctored Image? by benh57 · · Score: 1

      Sorry, wrong. :) On OS X you don't have to show hard drives on the desktop. With this option on, only removable drives will show on the desktop.

    3. Re:Doctored Image? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I read this comment on another Mac site, but couldn't respond because it required registration. Oh well.

      Anyway, if you look at the ad, a lot of desktop space is actually being covered by open windows. It's possible the hard drive icon was just moved behind one of those windows.

      Or maybe we're looking at a new feature of 10.2. =)

    4. Re:Doctored Image? by Phroggy · · Score: 2

      Maybe I'm just a bit too skeptical sometimes, but look at the right page -- doesn't it appear blurrier & darker than the left page? Perhaps it's the fault of the scanner...

      I'm sure it's the scanner. If Apple did doctor the image, there'd be no difference between the left and right sides - that's not what they'd doctor. If anything was doctored, it would be the stuff shown in "top", and maybe some other things - notice that perl is listed as a running process, but the only open terminal window is running top?

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    5. Re:Doctored Image? by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      It wouldn't be a new feature - there's nothing I mentioned that couldn't be done right now. I just have to wonder why they'd fiddle around with a standard setup just for an ad picture - it'd be far more likely that the ad was just put together from graphical elements in Photoshop or something similar (again, not that it really matters whether or not it is "doctored"...).

    6. Re:Doctored Image? by stux · · Score: 1

      As was said in MacNN before it got slashdotted ;)

      The ad if it was doctored, probably was doctored purely because its a print add... and print is higher resolution that screen :)

      Sooo you need to doctor it to avoid it looking like crap ;)

      Not sure if I buy that :)

      But anywho... the people complaining about no HDs on the desktop, and that making it a fake image, are just wrong :)

      --

      ---
      Live Long & Prosper \\//_
      CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
      Jedi & Last *-fytr
  18. Apple Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Before OS-X I had to put up with the Apple power users talking about how great OS8/9/whatever was. Now I have to put up with them thinking they are unix power users....dear god...

    1. Re:Apple Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen. I am sick of listening to rabid Mac lovers and their beloved OS. They're not unlike people who refuse to accept that Santa Claus and the Easter bunny aren't real - they hold onto misguided and dated ideas (like how an OS should operate). How about Protected Memory, and multi threading? They've taken the time to learn their overly simplistic operating system (wow, big feat, its a pretty shallow learning curve) and suddenly they're now computer literate enough to make expert assessments of other operating systems. Get a fucking clue.

      I feel OSX is a step in the right direction, but it still feels shaky and unsure of itself. It looks nice, but the only thing I truly like about it is the ability to open a shell, and the native ability to authenticate a user against LDAP is a good idea for corporate deployments. that s it. The damn Mac still crashes - but less than it crashed using OS 8.x or 9.x.

  19. ...none of the hassle...? by Sebastopol · · Score: 3, Insightful

    sorry, but that quote just smacks of icky marketing ectoplasm targeted at wannabes with lots of disposable income.

    and what up with the other guy: "...after two and a half years of linux, i've finally found joy in a unix operating system..." give me a break, this ad is so targeted at weenies.

    need more proof? last quote "...we're old hardcore UNIX hackers..."

    --
    https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
    1. Re:...none of the hassle...? by daeley · · Score: 2

      Erm, marketing ectoplasm is meant for those who actually approve purchasing, often non-hacker suits who know enough to get in trouble but who are in charge of the budget. Which makes this ad perfectly targeted.

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
    2. Re:...none of the hassle...? by antibryce · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Have you used OS X yet? Saying it's UNIX with "none of the hassle" is hardly icky marketing. In fact, it's probably one of the most honest ad claims in recent years.


      Of course after 7 years of Linux I finally found joy in a unix OS. I guess I'm just a weenie.

    3. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Sebastopol · · Score: 2

      Ok, you're probably not a weenie, but what was more "joyful":

      1. the first time you used any Unix?
      2. the first time you switched to Linux?
      3. the first time you used OS X?

      As a 7-year Linux user, what are the top 5 things you find superior in OS-X? And don't say GUI.

      --
      https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
    4. Re:...none of the hassle...? by spells · · Score: 1
      GUI GUI GUI GUI GUI GUI GUI

      Now, don't think about pink elephants

    5. Re:...none of the hassle...? by archen · · Score: 2, Funny

      yeah, if they were really old hardcore UNIX hackers, all the doc apps would be 'ed'....

    6. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Art+Tatum · · Score: 2

      The fact that NeXT lives! And that there's finally a chance of a more thriving Objective C and OpenStep (err, Cocoa) community again!

    7. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Sebastopol · · Score: 1

      ahhh--igg-it - blah! - damn, blah! - blah-igg-itt - damn!

      (if you've never seen greg the bunny that probably makes no sense.)

      --
      https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
    8. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a 7-year Linux user, what are the top 5 things you find superior in OS-X? And don't say GUI.

      1. GUI.
      2. GUI.
      3. GUI.
      4. Quartz.
      5. Commercial apps.

      C-X C-S

    9. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      need more proof? last quote "...we're old hardcore UNIX hackers..."

      You know, believe it or not, there's lots of people that used to use UNIX but no longer do. Maybe they've got a soft spot in their heart for it, but no longer have the budget for a Sun workstation, or just got sick of too many DOC files.

      UNIX has primarily been the reserve of rich corporations and universties. If you don't have disposible income, you probably haven't even heard of it.

    10. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Bake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      5 things:
      Word,
      Excel,
      Powerpoint,
      IE,
      Photosho p.

      There. That's 5 things I can get on OS-X but not Linux.

      Don't get me wrong, to me Linux is like heroin, I'm always looking for that nice, warm, fuzzy feeling I got when I installed Linux for the first time. The feeling I felt when I tried out OS-X the other day was the feeling closest to that very same warm fuzzy feeling I had 6 years back.

      I'm even for the first time in my life _seriously_ considering a Mac (if I would have known that 2-3 years ago I would have commited myself to a psychiatric hospital).

    11. Re:...none of the hassle...? by MidKnight · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Ok, you're probably not a weenie, but what was more "joyful":

      1. the first time you used any Unix?
      2. the first time you switched to Linux?
      3. the first time you used OS X?

      I'm not the original poster, but here's a related comment: possibly my most joyful moment in using OS X was when I switched from an Aqua application (running locally, obviously) to an X-Windows application (running remotely on a Solaris/SPARC box) without even noticing it. That's a spicy meatball.

      And, honestly, the experience of using UNIX for the very first time could never be described as joyful. Interesting? Yes. Powerful? Yes. But joyful? C'mon now....

      As for a top-five list, personally I think leaving out the GUI is, well, pretty stupid. Face it: a GUI is one of the most important facets of how usable a computer is. That said, here's my crack at it:

      1. Installation. It takes 10 minutes from "Insert CD" to "Play MP3's streaming from the Internet". I've got RedHat down to about 25 - 35 minutes, but it's a chore.
      2. Development. My professional job is developing software for Solaris/SPARC, and the Carbon/Cocoa API's take out a lot of the hassle. Plus, you get a full-featured IDE (ProjectBuilder) and scores of professional-grade development tools for free. Yes, they're based on the GNU compiler suite, but the stuff you get on top of that (packaging & UI-building tools in particular) are excellent.
      3. Laptop fanciness. I do my development (both for work and personal stuff) everywhere and anywhere that I can (network connection provided, that is). For 3 years I ran Linux on a laptop with varying levels of satisfaction. Getting it to do somewhat simple things (sleeping when I closed the lid, etc etc) was a challenge. Sometimes I enjoyed the challenge, but sometimes I just wanted the damn thing to work. Oh yeah, and the batteries last 5 hours per charge.
      4. Main-Stream programs. All hate-mongering aside, MS Office is useful (and necessary for some people). Adobe Acrobat (not just the reader) is great. I like being able to run Palm Desktop when I need complicated appointments, and 'cal' from the command line when I'm just looking for a date.OmniGraffle is quite possibly the best diagramming program to date. Using OS X (with its MacOS history of having strong graphical programs), I can produce documentation that blows the door off of anything I could create with StarOffice/KDE Office/Gimp. I'm not discounting the usefulness of these open-sourced (and very competent) apps -- the OS X ones are simply better. Yes, more expensive, but it's worth the cost to me.
      5. Top-end hardware support. Bluetooth, firewire, CD-RW, DVD, etc etc. It's all built in to a point that you don't even think about using it. You can burn a CD by drag-and-drop from the desktop for crissake.
      Those five things said, the UI is really the best accomplishment of OS X. My mother uses a Unix-based OS and doesn't even know (or care). She just likes the shiny buttons and the way the programs never crash each other.

      Wow... looks like I'd better get off of the soap box before it breaks from all my gushing.... Basically, in my mind, OS X is an phenomenal accomplishment. It makes my life easier, and it re-taught me to appreciate the beauty of Unix again.

      --Mid

    12. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Sebastopol · · Score: 2

      Good point (er, list).

      I must admit my interested is piqued.

      Here's a question:

      I spend 90% of my time running VNC (or Exceed) to connect to remote machines. I spent the other 10% of my time deleting spam from outlook and replying to urgent messages. I also spent that other 10% of the time surfing and running Excel and powerPoint. Also, my project management stuff is all done through IE and MSProject (ugh!).

      How hard would it be to plug a Mac Powerbook into my companies network and connect to:

      a) my Exchange Server (for mail),
      b) my NTFS drives (for profile stuff)
      c) my SAMBA drives (for unix access)
      d) an X client (so I can connect to my multiple compute servers cross-site)

      If I could do all of those, I could switch to a Mac and no one would ever notice. Is it possible?

      Honestly, is it really that easy to get OS-X up and running?

      Thx in advance.

      --
      https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
    13. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Basically, in my mind, OS X is an phenomenal accomplishment

      Well, OSX is just NeXTstep 6

      May I recall people that OPENSTEP 4.2 ran on PC hardware ? That it used the OpenStep^W Cocoa APIs ? That it ran X-windows ? That nobody cared ?

    14. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And, btw, OmniGraffle is basically NeXtstep Diagram! (exclamation point was part of the name). Sun bough LighthouseDesing http://www.lighthouse.com/, and buried it.

      Too bad.

    15. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Bake · · Score: 2

      Well, take this with a pinch of salt, but...

      I do believe you can use the new email client EntourageX for connecting to Exchange (if you can be without the scheduling and group calendar stuff, i.e. just for mail).

      If by "NTFS drives" you mean your network drives/shares then according to the OSX website you can connect seamlessly to windows shares on the network, same goes for Samba.

      Also as some have pointed out in replies to this article you can run a rootless X server to run your remote X apps.

      But like I said, take this with a grain of salt and try whatever suits you best, do a little of your own research, this is after all _your_ computer/environment.

    16. Re:...none of the hassle...? by antibryce · · Score: 2, Interesting
      As a 7-year Linux user, what are the top 5 things you find superior in OS-X? And don't say GUI.

      1.) Applications. Gimp is really amazing. But it's no Photoshop. Audio apps are pathetic with Linux. OS X has Cubase and Logic Audio on their way (hopefully soon.)
      2.) Development. Cocoa is pure poetry.
      3.) Everything is easy. Want to setup a webpage? Drop HTML files into your ~/Sites/ directory and start up Apache in "System Preferences." My mother could do it. Same goes for FTP and SSH.
      4.) System update.
      5.) Hardware support. Want to get that wireless card working? Plug it in, you're done. Meanwhile all your friends are busy recompiling their kernals and praying it works.

      I wouldn't describe anything I've ever done with unix as "joyful." "interesting" and "eyeopening" would be the words I'd use. Imagine if the next time you installed Linux everything Just Worked. That's how I feel when I use my iBook.

    17. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Tet · · Score: 2
      I do believe you can use the new email client EntourageX for connecting to Exchange

      Yeah, but sadly, Entourage is about as buggy as Outlook. Its MIME handling, in particular, sucks.

      --
      "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
    18. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Sri+Lumpa · · Score: 1
      possibly my most joyful moment in using OS X was when I switched from an Aqua application (running locally, obviously) to an X-Windows application (running remotely on a Solaris/SPARC box) without even noticing it.



      How could it have been so joyful if you didn't even notice it ;)???

      --
      "The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
    19. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A) Native version of Outlook is on it's way. Right now it's classic only. If you can live with IMAP only, there's Apple Mail, MS Entourage, others.

      B) You can't mount NTFS directly anywhere but NT, but it doesn't sound like that's what your are asking. Obviously your NT profile is useless (pile of registry settings). Are you talking about your NT home directory? They've got partial support working now for ActiveDirectory networks, more on the way.

      C) Works. No browsing until 10.2.
      D) Works. XDarwin.

    20. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Jaysyn · · Score: 1

      That was the way I felt when I installed Lycoris for the first time because all the hardware just worked. The software that came with was (almost)perfectly suited for a desktop.

      That being said. I'm sure OS X is even cooler, and I can't wait to try it out.

      Jaysyn

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    21. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do this sort of thing all day, and you don't have to buy any software.
      a) Outlook for mac
      http://microsoft.com/mac/products/outlook/out look_ default.asp
      b,c) samba client is built-in
      d) XDarwin( X server/client for OS X).
      www.xdarwin.org

    22. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Connector for evolution will let you connect to your Exchange server from a GNU/Linux system.

    23. Re:...none of the hassle...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I like being able to run Palm Desktop when I need complicated appointments, and 'cal' from the command line when I'm just looking for a date.

      There's a command for getting a date? Sounds like a good selling point to me, especially in the Unix crowd. If you'll excuse me, I have to go try this out now...

    24. Re:...none of the hassle...? by stux · · Score: 1

      Since I've had a similar experience I think I can answer that, after he'd finished doing what it was he needed to do, he probably realised that he'd just done what he needed to do, without realising what it was that was so special about what he was doing :)

      When I do this... I yell out... "GOD, I LOVE OSX!"

      :)

      "ITS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD"

      To which all my colleagues vocally agree....

      of course, work then stops...

      but anywho,

      its nice working in an OSX shop :)

      --

      ---
      Live Long & Prosper \\//_
      CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
      Jedi & Last *-fytr
    25. Re:...none of the hassle...? by FireBreathingDog · · Score: 1

      Don't know about Exchange, but I think one of the older (OS 9) variants of Outlook can hook into Exchange. If so, you can run it in OS X using the Classic environment.

      As for NTFS...share your drive in Windows and you can get to it using the built-in SMB client. Take the UNC name, such as:

      //mycomputer/myshare

      And access it in Finder using the SMB URL:

      smb://mycomputer/myshare

      And you can mount your NT drive. Same goes for any Samba share.

      Samba serving comes with OS X Server, but I successfully installed a Samba server on regular OS X (it's fairly easy, no compiles anymore, there are binaries with installers)

      So, you should be up and running pretty damn fast!

    26. Re:...none of the hassle...? by stripes · · Score: 2
      a) my Exchange Server (for mail),

      MS has not done an OSX version of, um, whatever their exchange client is. There are some third party ones that are not great. If you want to run the version for older MacOS that should work, but you will have to wait for OS9 to boot under OSX, and a lot of things will be totally different in the "OS9 box", like you will use the OS9 printer drivers... You could also use a PC emulator to run Windows, but that costs a fair bit of money and is not exactly fast.

      b) my NTFS drives (for profile stuff)

      Assuming these are "SMB shares" this works. The network browser kind of sucks, but in the finder you press Command-K (or click to "Connect To Server" in the "Go" menu), then ignore the browser part and type "smb://name-of-host/" and hit return, if needed it will prompt for user and password (defaulting user to your unix user name, and password to the empty string).

      c) my SAMBA drives (for unix access)

      See above (note OSX uses SAMBA, it is how it mounts the SMB shares above, and how it can be made to offer SMB shares out -- I don't think they give you a GUI for making SMB shares unless you buy OSX Server, but since you have edited the config files on your Unix box, you can fire up vi and do it again on the Mac...)

      d) an X client (so I can connect to my multiple compute servers cross-site)

      I'm pretty sure you mean "X Server", the thing that draws windows and stuff for you an "X client" would be "xclock", or "xterm". Whichever you mean though you can get free ones (XFree86 ports, or WierdX), or commercial ones. The XFree86 one works quite well, so I see no reason to do the commercial ones...

      Honestly, is it really that easy to get OS-X up and running?

      Open the box, turn it on, and it begs for a DHCP address right away :-)

      To be honest it took me a little time to figure out what programs I liked and didn't, to decide which ones will live on the dock, and which ones will live in what directories, to decide I actually kind of like Apple's mail program and to set up filters for it.

      It didn't require a whole lot of fiddling, but like anything, fiddling at least a little pays off.

  20. Odd? by Guitarzan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wonder why they used such a unixism (/dev/null) if this really is a response to the anti unix ads. It doesn't seem like one at all to me. Seems more like a "Unix is here to stay, so pick ours" ad. I guess as such a pro unix ad it can be seen as a response.

    1. Re:Odd? by czardonic · · Score: 1

      I wonder why they used such a unixism (/dev/null) if this really is a response to the anti unix ads.

      Probably because they are trying to sell computers, not a political agenda.

      --
      Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
    2. Re:Odd? by Guitarzan · · Score: 1

      As if business isn't all politics anyway :)

  21. targeted right at sysadmins by Schlemphfer · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    The first thing I noticed about the ad wasn't the contents of the dock or the advertising copy, it was the width of the page. I've never seen a commercial website require such a wide browser setting...and I'm sure that's because Apple knows that most Unix admins are using 21" CRTs.

    --
    I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
    1. Re:targeted right at sysadmins by rehannan · · Score: 3, Informative

      The link states Apple is suddenly running print ads emphasizing the Unix core of Mac OS X.

    2. Re:targeted right at sysadmins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a scanned-in two-page print ad, that's why.

    3. Re:targeted right at sysadmins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also the lanauge that is used is very techie type jargon. Most end users do not use the term "box" to describe a computer and do not know what the heck \dev\null means.

    4. Re:targeted right at sysadmins by wilburdg · · Score: 1

      and I'm sure that's because Apple knows that most Unix admins are using 21" CRTs.

      Or maybe it is because the person who scanned it from a magazine did so at a very high res...

      Does Apple know that most Unix admins like are using standard size mags?

    5. Re:targeted right at sysadmins by Webmonger · · Score: 1

      Actually, I think it's wide 'cause it's a scan of a magazine ad.

    6. Re:targeted right at sysadmins by Oestergaard · · Score: 2

      Please tell me, what the heck *does* \dev\null mean ?

      (*back*slash dev *back*slash null - 'nuff said ;)

    7. Re:targeted right at sysadmins by hayden · · Score: 1
      The link states Apple is suddenly running print ads emphasizing the Unix core of Mac OS X.

      Do these print ads require a browser upgrade or something?

      --
      Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
    8. Re:targeted right at sysadmins by rehannan · · Score: 1

      Do these print ads require a browser upgrade or something?

      Yep, you have to get a "tactile" browser with "page turning". The only problem with these print ads is the source of the ad has to be delived via snail mail or purchased from a local store.

  22. ARRGGGHHH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I WANT ONE!!

    But I can't afford one!!!

    Damn proprietary Hardware!

  23. Ouch by wilburdg · · Score: 2, Informative

    The only thing more cruel than linking to that image, is linking to it behind their load balancer... (www4.macnn.com)

    Beep...Beep...Beep..............

  24. I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by TellarHK · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's a pretty good ad, and I hadn't noticed the lack of an IE icon until someone pointed it out. I suspect that may have something to do with Apple/Netscape goodwill rather than ill will toward Microsoft, especially considering that Microsoft Office v.X is so well promoted by the image. Recently Apple switched it's start page default over to a Netscape server, so there's obviously some sort of arrangement between the two of them.

    The X icon is definitely a nice touch to push the BSD/Darwin underpinnings. I compiled and ran several X programs for my iBook a while ago, and with a rootless X server and the right windowmanager, it's a really nice combination.

    I was hoping this might be an Apple thread that'd stay away from the lame "It's too expensive for me, hmph!" whining people with no sense of TCO seem to cry out, that gets debunked every single time.

    1. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by overbom · · Score: 1

      Agreed with the TCO. At my school district, 3 of us support about 500 workstations (and the network, and the servers, and the TV station, and everything), with about 50/50 splits between Macs and Windows boxes.

      Two of us focus on PC support. We can maybe fix problems for two school sites in a day. Two of us, that is. The Mac guy can hit four sites in a day, no sweat, alone. From a support standpoint, our Macs have an insanely low TCO.

    2. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by don.g · · Score: 1

      > I was hoping this might be an Apple thread that'd stay away from the lame "It's too expensive for me, hmph!" whining people with no sense of TCO seem to cry out, that gets debunked every single time.

      *cough* If you're not a business (most people I know aren't), TCO doesn't matter - I can build a *much* faster, etc box from scratch for the same price as a Mac, but I can't run OS X on it. Therefore I'm not about to buy a Mac, just as I'm not about to buy one of those ugly HP Pavilions.

      --
      Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
    3. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Suppafly · · Score: 1, Troll

      Agreed with the TCO. At my school district, 3 of us support about 500 workstations (and the network, and the servers, and the TV station, and everything), with about 50/50 splits between Macs and Windows boxes.

      Two of us focus on PC support. We can maybe fix problems for two school sites in a day. Two of us, that is. The Mac guy can hit four sites in a day, no sweat, alone. From a support standpoint, our Macs have an insanely low TCO.


      The school where I work has ~25% Macs, and sure they require very little work.. but if you hang out in the labs, you realize why they need little work.. they get little use.. honestly.. the entire pc side of the lab will fill up before anyone will sit down at a mac.. and then they can't figure how use telnet and ftp and end up waiting in line to use a pc.. Its a shame the PC makers don't bribe schools to use PC's like Apple bribes schools to use Macs.

    4. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well what do you expect? Of course the macs get little use. K-12 doesn't even teach anything resembling computer tech, the most I've ever seen is a classroom full of sheep being taught to type in MS Office. (Who needs to learn to type, after about 40wpm my hunting and pecking started to look pretty slick). They get to play games on the PC, they get to surf around to porn sites on the PC. Think of it this way... go find a car lover, someone who knows every make and model, engine sizes... everything. Plop him down in a car lot full of different types and years of cars, and tell him to pick one. It's anyone's guess which one he'll drive home in right? And the poor guy will probably wish he could go back for a second car. Now find some 18 yr old who can barely drive, and knows nothing. You can easily guess which car it will be... automatic transmission, and new. They'll grab the easiest to drive (the only one they've ever been taught), and the one with the sportiest chassis (video games).

      Simply because they have no appreciation of cars at all, and can barely use one anyway.

      Find me a school that teaches assembly language, with a choice of 68k/PPC or x86, and I'll show you one where everyone drops x86 ASM after 1 semester, but every student graduates being a master at PPCasm.

    5. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Phroggy · · Score: 2

      Its a shame the PC makers don't bribe schools to use PC's like Apple bribes schools to use Macs.

      It's a shame schools don't bother to configure Macs to be usable machines. They usually have a minimal set of applications installed (only what is required for the classes that are taught on Macs), and some security software (FoolProof or similar) that prevents users from doing things like installing an ssh client. Hopefully once Mac OS X sees widespread adoption, this will begin to change; part of the problem is that classic Mac OS was never designed for a multi-user environment at all.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    6. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Suppafly · · Score: 1

      I said school.. I didn't say k-12..

    7. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by ZxCv · · Score: 2

      *cough* If you're not a business (most people I know aren't), TCO doesn't matter ....

      Riiiight, just like TCO doesn't matter on your new car. Or TCO doesn't matter on your new house. TCO matters to anyone that purchases something intending to get value from it. If you purchase something at a great "value", but end up forking out more and more in repairs or maintenance, is it really such a great value? It was a great value to start with, but its TCO is what made it a not-so-great value.

      --

      Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
    8. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pffft... I get more value by the faster machine I can purchase for less than the Mac price.

      You have to include "time saved while working" in your TCO. A faster machine means faster boot time, faster compile time, and faster VMware speed. I save a lot of time on my dual 1.9 Ghz Athlon system (1 gig memory) compared to a 800 Mhz slow-azz Mac which actually cost more than my machine. Hmmm, come to think of it, I've never had a single problem with my system. I can build just as good a computer as Apple because I know what the hell I'm doing. Apple doesn't even give me the choice other than "What color would you like?"

      I do own a Mac though, with OS X even. It's a pretty cool idea, I've always been a fan of the NeXT systems but the OS has always been on the slow side for various reasons like objective-c dynamic binding, objective-c has no really great compilers, display-postscript, OS layer upon OS layer (mach, BSD, and more) etc, etc...

    9. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 2

      Its a shame the PC makers don't bribe schools to use PC's like Apple bribes schools to use Macs.

      Other companies give discounts just as steep as Apple. Just because they were first in the door at schools doesn't mean they're still the only ones who figured out it's good business.

      --
      ± 29 dB
    10. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 1

      Going to the same school as Suppafly, I'll agree. The key reasons nobody uses the Macs:
      1) We all used Windows machines in high school.
      2) The campus Macs are fux0red. Insufficient RAM, poorly allocated RAM, out-of-date OS, and locked down to the point many apps don't work correctly.

      If the campus used NetBoot/Macintosh Manager and took care of it, life would be so much better.

      --
      ± 29 dB
    11. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by stripes · · Score: 2
      Hopefully once Mac OS X sees widespread adoption, this will begin to change; part of the problem is that classic Mac OS was never designed for a multi-user environment at all.

      Well it has been the default OS since the middleish of January so I would say it is seeing "widespread adoption".

    12. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Suppafly · · Score: 1

      the out of date OS rant doesn't apply.. they are running the OS they were shipped with.. sure pre OS X macos's don't multitask.. but thats apple's fault.

    13. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Phroggy · · Score: 1

      Well it has been the default OS since the middleish of January so I would say it is seeing "widespread adoption".

      The default OS on new machines, yes. Schools tend to buy new computers during the summer, and not necessarily every year. So, since OSX became the default OS in January, schools that buy new Macs this summer will be running OSX this fall. Schools that don't buy new Macs this summer may not switch to OSX until next fall. Of course some have already switched, but most have not, and many schools still use Macs that are too old to run OSX at all (or at least to run it well - a 266MHz Rev B iMac with 64MB RAM technically could run OSX, but it's probably not a great idea).

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    14. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Phroggy · · Score: 1

      sure pre OS X macos's don't multitask..

      Would somebody please explain to me what the hell this is about? I've heard lots of people say it over the last several years, and I'm beginning to wonder what everybody else means by "multitask", because what I mean by multitask, Mac OS has done since System 5 (or so I've heard - I haven't used 5, but it sounds pretty close to 6, and yes, you need to enable MultiFinder, so yes, multitasking before System 7 is a bit of a hack, but it's there).

      Applications can bring your system to a halt for a few seconds, particularly while launching, or while doing something else heavy-duty (such as exporting a movie, or compressing a large JPEG image, etc. On other OSes (including OSX and Windows and Linux) this doesn't happen. I can understand that if you're not used to it, it could bug the hell out of you, and make you think the OS is a piece of crap. If you're used to it, it really rarely bothers you at all, because usually when you're waiting for it, you're waiting for it, not switching to do something else - and (at least with well-behaved apps) if it's gonna take longer than a couple seconds, the app will relenquish control anyway. This is something that apps have gotten much better at over the last 10 years. It is, however, a shortcoming of the operating system, which is why Apple decided to abandon it.

      Is that what people are talking about when they say it doesn't multitask? If that's what you mean, I wish you would use a different word; you seem to imply that I can't have a dozen applications running simultaneously and jump back and forth between them, which is something I'm accustomed to doing regularly (when Windows users see me work this way on Windows, they're usually surprised at how much I have open at once).

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    15. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by stripes · · Score: 2
      The default OS on new machines, yes.

      I didn't think I had to mention that Apple didn't sneak into everyone's homes and forcably upgrade people.

      Schools tend to buy new computers during the summer, and not necessarily every year. So, since OSX became the default OS in January, schools that buy new Macs this summer will be running OSX this fall. Schools that don't buy new Macs this summer may not switch to OSX until next fall.

      "is seeing" is a process, not an event. It is being widely deployed, it isn't everywhere now, and I wouldn't expect it to be yet. Not all of OS9's apps are avialble yet (not even all of the big ones...even though they pretty much all run in the Clasic box).

      Some schools have lots of OSX machines, some have none at all.

      Of course some have already switched, but most have not, and many schools still use Macs that are too old to run OSX at all (or at least to run it well - a 266MHz Rev B iMac with 64MB RAM technically could run OSX, but it's probably not a great idea).

      I'm pretty sure any power Mac could run OSX if Apple really put some resources to it, NeXT ran Ok on the far far far slower 680x0 (x=4? 2?) at something like 20Mhz or 30Mhz or so. They would need another widget set that wasn't so hard to draw...

      Of corse I doubt Apple would break even on the attempt. It's the kind of thing on free software people would work on :-)

      It also wouldn't really make today's apps run all that well on old old hardware.

    16. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Suppafly · · Score: 2

      If you're used to it, it really rarely bothers you at all, because usually when you're waiting for it, you're waiting for it, not switching to do something else - and (at least with well-behaved apps) if it's gonna take longer than a couple seconds, the app will relenquish control anyway.

      Continuing to get further and further offtopic...

      But, yeh.. this is generally what people mean when they say macos can't multitask.. task switching is not multitasking..

      Mac people who are generally artists and secretaries and such aren't generally bothered by this, but people that are used to being a little more productive with computers are totally annoyed by this..

      Also, the cooperative multitasking model is generally consider by everyone to be a horrible model for multitasking because it leaves multitasking up to the programs. And most programs aren't good about giving up the resources they have accumulated. In every other commonly used os with the exception of the preX macos's the os takes care of assigning resources and unassigning them.. thats why several apps can run at once and actually run as opposed to macOS where basically only the app on top can be interacted with and used and it takes quite awhile upon switching before a new app becomes useful..

      Basically Apple, upon switching to the method that everyone else has used for years, has all but admitted that they were wrong and stupid for using the less productive method they've used for ever..

    17. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 2

      Doesn't apply? Fuck that.

      If you were running a machine with an un-patched and un-updated Windows 95, you deserve what you get. Same with running un-patched versions of Mac OS.

      What, you think just because it's a Mac it shouldn't get the required software updates?

      (Tell me what the hell RevRDist is for, again, anyway...)

      --
      ± 29 dB
    18. Re:I saw this ad in GameDeveloper... by Phroggy · · Score: 1

      Mac people who are generally artists and secretaries and such aren't generally bothered by this, but people that are used to being a little more productive with computers are totally annoyed by this..

      People who are used to being productive on other systems that work differently are totally annoyed by this when they start using a Mac. After using it for a few months, they can get used to it, learn how to work around it, etc. Cooperative multitasking is definitely inferior, but it's not as bad as it seems at first, and has improved quite a bit over the last decade.

      Basically Apple, upon switching to the method that everyone else has used for years, has all but admitted that they were wrong and stupid for using the less productive method they've used for ever..

      I was under the impression they'd basically admitted that years ago, when they started working on Copland, because this was one of the things Copland was supposed to fix. They couldn't make it work, and scrapped the project, at which point they began A) updating classic Mac OS in ways that were actually possible, B) shopping around for a new OS to start over with, because the core of classic Mac OS has gotten ugly and obnoxious and really can't be fixed.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  25. Wrong post title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ad doesn't mention anything about ditching microsoft. It doesn't even mention microsoft at all.

    If it's bashing anything, its the other *nix distributions and their desktops.

  26. Hmmm... another Intel lawsuit? by Maltese+Falcon · · Score: 2, Funny

    I also liked one of the quotes they chose for the add: "... Unix inside and Mac outside" In this context, I'd like to see Intel trying to drag Apple (or ZDnet) into court for infringing upon their "Intel Inside" generic tradmark. :)

  27. But what about the kiddie mouse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I liked the quote at the bottom right:

    "Everything you expect to be there is there, and it works right."

    What about the second mouse button? How about the wheel? Last time I checked, the tricked out Mac with crispy cinematic display at my local CompUSA still had a one-button mouse. I staggered as much by the impressive quality of the dislay as I was by the overt (egotistical?) omission of a multibutton wheel-mouse. Come to think of it, the mouse only had one button on every Mac I've ever had to use. I assume I am mistaken, and they do actually offer useful mice for Macs?

    1. Re:But what about the kiddie mouse? by welkin · · Score: 1

      please see http://xlr8.com/cgi-bin/cart-cc/cart.pl?db=stuff.d at&search=Point+Scroll+iceview

      I don't like the default Apple mouse, optical or traditional, any more than you, but the alternatives are widely available & easy to obtain. M$ recently released OSX drivers for their Intellimouse line, and according to www.insidemacgames.com Logitech just released their OSX mouse drivers, which presumably includes their multi-button mice.

      The Apple mouse complaint is possibly one of the most tired & old of the Apple computer complaints. There are many other nits one can pick re: Macintoshes.

    2. Re:But what about the kiddie mouse? by Geekboy(Wizard) · · Score: 2, Informative

      I've used a Logitech mouse with my OSX TiBook since late december, and I didn't have to install any drivers. True Plug-and-Play, not that Windows Plug-and-installdrivers-and-Play

    3. Re:But what about the kiddie mouse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I assume you're just a troll trying to bring up an idiotic, settled argument just to get a rise out of people correcting you, but just in case you are earnest:


      Mac OS X recognizes ordianary windows twobutton+scrollwheel mice. No drivers needed. You just plug it in, and OS X recognizes it, and the scrollwheel and second button work. I'm using one right now.


      If you're going to buy a $2000 apple studio display, is it that much of a hassle to throw in a $30 mouse?

  28. It's simple, really by greygent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apple realizes that it is converting UNIX engineers (like me) to the Mac platform with OS X. They're simply trying to get more UNIX folks to convert by placing ads in key technical publications

    It is odd that IE isn't in the Dock, but the Microsoft Office X suite is well-represented in the Dock.

    Apple has a valuable partnership with Microsoft. Sure, there's some rough edges, but for the most part it's a good team. Microsoft even formally announced that it will continue supporting the Mac, even after it's settlement contract expires.

    Microsoft apps for the Mac aren't much like their Windows counterparts. They're generally more sensibly written, and the MacBU team seems to pay closer attention to what the user actually wants, instead of what Microsoft thinks they want.

    A bigger question may be why they don't have any of the Omni Group's [goatse.cx] software in the Dock. In my humble opinion, Apple is paying too little attention to these people who've been around for years and years (think NeXT) developing great, solid applications.

    Not everything is a conspiracy.

    1. Re:It's simple, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      A bigger question may be why they don't have any of the Omni Group's [omnigroup.com] [goatse.cx] software in the Dock. In my humble opinion, Apple is paying too little attention to these people who've been around for years and years (think NeXT) developing great, solid applications.

      I agree that it would be nice if OmniWeb were bundled like IE, but, I believe they are now bundling both OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner with new PowerMacs.

    2. Re:It's simple, really by daviddennis · · Score: 2

      They are; so why don't they bundle OmniWeb while they're at it?

      It's the best argument for Cocoa I've seen yet; the better font readability is amazing.

      I did try the Mozilla-based product whose spelling I can't remember (Chimera? [1]) - it does render text well, but it won't let you change your font. It's way behind OW, although it is nice to see another browser with font rendering that doesn't make me wince.

      For some reason, Mozilla's font rendering looks better than IE's, but worse than OmniWeb's. Anyone know why?

      D

      (*) Marketing hint, guys: When you name a product, make it easy to spell :-(.

    3. Re:It's simple, really by jafac · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is not at all odd.
      By displaying a Netscape icon - they're visually telling the ad's target audience, the Unix person who may be thinking of migrating to OS X, that OS X does run alternative browsers - because most Unix-heads are pretty unhappy with Microsoft's offerings on other unix platforms (for instance, Solaris).

      By displaying the Office suite icons, they're visually telling the ad's target audience; here's your solution to the problem of not being able to read MS Office files on your Solaris/BSD/Linux/HPUX/AIX/SGI/etc. box.

      I agree with you 100% on your opinion of Omni Group's software - but on the other hand, on OS X, iCab is MUCH faster - even though it's rendering is often very quirky - and personally, my choice is Mozilla. Mozilla is much faster than OmniWeb, plus Mozilla has tabbed browsing.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    4. Re:It's simple, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Microsoft apps for the Mac aren't much like their Windows counterparts. "

      The popularity of Office for Windows has caused a huge problem for Microsoft -- they can't change the UI without corporations belching about their training investments.

      So, Office XP looks almost identical to Office 4.2, right down to the layout of the dialog boxes. Meanwhile, Office/Mac has evolved in a fairly nice way (pallettes, better dialogs, etc).

    5. Re:It's simple, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rumor has it that 10.2 will (automagically?) give Carbon applications the fancy fonts. IE and Office supposedly will benefit.

      OmniWeb has some nice user features, but lags bigtime on standards support (aka, it doesn't render many pages).

    6. Re:It's simple, really by daviddennis · · Score: 2

      If 10.2 does that, it will be an immense relief; font rendering in Microsoft Office is so bad it hurts my eyes even to think about it.

      The latest 2-3 versions of OmniWeb have helped a lot in terms of JavaScript support; some pages that would simply not work in older versions (i.e. the home type selection JavaScript of http://www.realtor.com/ ) work now.

      D

    7. Re:It's simple, really by analog_line · · Score: 2

      I've got the exact opposite experience with Mozilla versus Omniweb. On my G3/500 iBook with 384MB RAM, Mozilla is almost glacial, whereas OmniWeb is quite fast. However, Omniweb doesn't have nearly as many configuration options as Mozilla does (like the dissalowing pop-unders and the like) so I still use Mozilla as my main browser. I really wish I could be using OmniWeb or Chimera, 'cause they're both much much faster on my machine, but they just don't offer what I need.

    8. Re:It's simple, really by sjonke · · Score: 1

      Microsoft apps for the Mac aren't much like their Windows counterparts. They're generally more sensibly written

      I think you left out the words "relatively speaking". Perhaps IE removed them as a defensive action?

      --
      --- What?
    9. Re:It's simple, really by 90XDoubleSide · · Score: 2
      OmniWeb lets you disable all kinds of popping windows or just any window that tries to pop-up anytime other than in response to a link being clicked. Not as fine-tunable, but why would you want, for instance, pop-ups and not pop-unders?

      Also, make sure to pick up Chimera 0.2.1 if you haven't already done so. Not ready to be used daily by any means, but very encouraging progress.

      --
      "Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
    10. Re:It's simple, really by stux · · Score: 1

      Because IE works more often.

      I'm using OmniWeb SP67 right now.. (beta2 is just to crashprone)

      BUT, when I install OSX for ... my grandmother... etc I don't install OmniWeb, I let them be with IE.

      IE works most of the time, and if it doesn't work, its the website's fault. Whereas OmniWeb sometimes just doesn't work, and then I'd have to explain how you have to use IE for some websites (and I'm not talking about how websites check for IE, I'm talking about serious flaws in Omni's rendering)

      So for a normal user IE is just easier.

      And this is why Apple just ships IE with OSX.

      --

      ---
      Live Long & Prosper \\//_
      CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
      Jedi & Last *-fytr
    11. Re:It's simple, really by namespan · · Score: 2

      I'm using Chimera .12 to read and post this (.0.2.1 is out? Last I looked it was .13...) and I'm pretty happy with it. There are _definitely_ some holes -- no HTTP authentication, for example, and missing bookmark stuff -- but sweet holy crickets, it's fast, and good for most browsing.

      --
      Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
    12. Re:It's simple, really by stripes · · Score: 2
      They are; so why don't they bundle OmniWeb while they're at it?

      They do, as part of the "ProCreate" bundle with PowerBooks and (I think) PowerMacs you get licenses to a bunch of share ware things including OmniWeb.

    13. Re:It's simple, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For some reason, Mozilla's font rendering looks better than IE's, but worse than OmniWeb's. Anyone know why?


      IE is a Carbon app and as such does not have access to OS X's native text anti-aliasing. OW is a Cocoa app and does get the benefit of this feature. Mozilla is a Carbon app, but the Moz team put blood, sweat and tears into writing their own AA text engine to improve the look of their browser output.

      The irony of all this is that text AA for Carbon apps is now on the feature list for the next OS X rev (Jaguar). MS's apps will now "inherit" AA text from the OS "for free", while the OS X Mozilla developers must have all read that and emitted a resounding "Doh!" in unison.

  29. Process List by jwbozzy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Did anyone else notice the process list? Microsoft is listed as a process...

    --
    perl -e 'printf("mmm %x\n", 3735928559)'
    1. Re:Process List by moosesocks · · Score: 2

      Did anyone else notice the process list? Microsoft is listed as a process...

      Which gives you the advantage of being able to
      killall microsoft orang

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
  30. Damn... by Matrix12 · · Score: 0

    I didn't know so much karma could be whored from a single .jpg.

    1. Re:Damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An image == 1000 words

  31. Anyone notice ... by ProfMoriarty · · Score: 2, Funny
    that Netscape 6 takes 53% of the CPU on that G4?

    One word: Optimize.

    (now removing tongue from cheek)

    --
    Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
    1. Re:Anyone notice ... by d0n+quix0te · · Score: 1

      I thought the 53% of the CPU was a nice jab at the Mozilla project. It does much more on my Linux box..

    2. Re:Anyone notice ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      In my experience, the top program on OS X seems to report CPU usage in much more finely grained bursts than in other Unixes. It's not uncommon at all to see an application spike up one second and drop to nothing the next. Then again, I haven't run Netscape on OS X, so I can't comment on it specifically...

    3. Re:Anyone notice ... by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      that Netscape 6 takes 53% of the CPU on that G4?

      Yes, quite a few people did.

    4. Re:Anyone notice ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Netscape 4 used to take up 99% of my CPU on my Pentium 835

  32. a fine reply by xeno · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is a fine response to MS's recent "We have the way out" ad campaign (with a graphic that indicates you should jump out a window -- apt in many ways, but I digress).

    The tone of the "Way out" is a whiny "UNIX is too hard" that perfectly matches the designed-by-Smurfs interface they're pushing with XP. It's nice to see Apple having the collective cajones to ante up and reply "Yeah, UNIX can be hard, but (a) it's worth it, (b) we've done it, and (c) it just *works.*"

    Interestingly (to me) this is the software version of what I thought Apple was going to do before the iPod was announced. When Jobs said the new hardware item would be "revolutionary", I imagined an industrial 2-U rackmount dual-G4 server with an Apple logo laser-cut into a burly-he-man stainless steel faceplate. With remote Aqua/X admin tools. Now *that* would have been revolutionary for Apple. iPod... not so much. But here they're doing the equivalent serious production-geek-appeal with software. I especially like that X is shown in the dock. Now there's a finger in Bill's eye.

    Jon

    --
    I think not...(*poof*)
    1. Re:a fine reply by daviddennis · · Score: 2

      You can get one of those, you know. I think one was reviewed earlier in this section. They took the stock G4/1ghz dual processor, ripped open the case and put it in a spiffy metal case with lots more ports and better cooling.

      I was surprised - it didn't cost that much more than the dual 1ghz system, something like $3,200 versus $2,999. Might be worth looking into if that's your style, or you need more drive options and/or better cooling..

      D

    2. Re:a fine reply by wedg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I especially like that X is shown in the dock. Now there's a finger in Bill's eye.

      X is circa 1986. Microsoft Windows, at the *very* earliest, is 1989. Why can't people seem to grasp this concept? X has been around longer. It never was designed as an "alternative" to the Windows desktop. The two are completely different schemes for getting things done - and frankly, the X architecture is better than anything else out there. It's just the X window managers that're beginning to catch up with the aesthetic appeal of Microsoft Windows.

      If anything, the popularity of Microsoft Windows has been a big, pointy, naily finger in the eye of X for the past decade and a half.

      --
      Jake
      Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
    3. Re:a fine reply by AstralSeeker · · Score: 1

      You've obviously never programmed in X direclty! X is bad, but it's so prevalent in the unix world nobody has the guts to wipe it. Notice that Apple has chosen en entirely different windowing/rendering technology.

    4. Re:a fine reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are kidding right? X is a complete pile of horse dung - boated, overly complex, slow, buggy, outdated crap. The unix world would be doing a good thing if they retired that whole sub system.

    5. Re:a fine reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Your right X needs to be replaced, but the reasons are all wrong.

      Bloated: not really, it just looks that way in ps, actually its reaonably light, depending on whose your using.
      Overly complex: I'd actually say not complex enough, i'll get to that in a bit
      Slow: Kind of, the worst thing the mouse rate, which can make it feel slugish. Over a network it can be quite slow also.
      Buggy: Well this just depends on whose you are using, Xfree has its share of problems
      Outdated: This is one of the main problem

      What the actual problem with X is that while it is based as a network windowing system, it has outgrown its ability to do this properly. Its network primitives are too small, among other problems.
      The other problem is that it lacks certain features, and while this is improving, the standard is not moving along.

      I'm not saying that your wrong, but the arguments tend to be slashdot myths.

    6. Re:a fine reply by kz45 · · Score: 1

      the X architecture is better than anything else out there

      I think the X architecture is part of the *nix problem. Using unix domain sockets for all forms of internal communication is not my definition of something that's "better".

    7. Re:a fine reply by kidlinux · · Score: 1

      It's just the X window managers that're beginning to catch up with the aesthetic appeal of Microsoft Windows.

      Beginning? As far as I'm concerned most window managers available have surpassed the aesthetic appeal of Windows. That's why I use them. I find Windows a) ugly, and b) frustrating to use because of it's unintuitive interface.

      Thinking back, when I started using Linux (and X) in about '95/'96, I found the Window Managers then to be superior to Windows (3.x and Win 95). It really doesn't take much.

      Personally, I think Windows XP is step backwards for the Windows UI. The first time I had to use it was when helping a neighbour with some problems they'd been having. I thought the bloody thing was ugly as sin, and very messy. I couldn't stand using it, much less looking at it. I actually found it a little confusing - this coming from a long time Linux user. But wait, isn't Linux supposed to be arcane, confusing, and diffcult to use?

      Like I said, one of the main reasons I like running Linux and X is that the Window Managers available provide a much better UI. In terms of aesthetics, ergonomics, and intuitivity.

      To reply to your comment on aesthetics, just look at themes for example. All the major window managers are fully themeable and you can change the UI quite a bit. With Windows the most you can do (using the same effort it takes to apply a theme to a wm) is change some colours and add a background.

      --
      -kidlinux.
    8. Re:a fine reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hear! Hear! Programming for X (Xt intrinics, etc) is absolutely HORRIBLE.

      They (MIT et al) should have gone with a C++ interface, instead of setting the callback functions with such arcane and clumsy methods in "C".

      Luckily I switched to Windows, which is indeed far more extensible and powerful (with a PUSH, rather than a PULL methodology for handling user events.) But maybe Carbon/Cola/Cocca/Cocaine/NextStep, whatever they are calling it, makes it easier.

      I'm skeptical about OS X, because I keep reading reviews about how their machines lock up, device drivers, don't work, etc.

      What's with the one-button mouse? Apple, get with the program! I'm amused when Apple fanatics insist that they don't NEED a second mouse button, but in reality, to get pop-up menus, they have to click the mouse AND the "butterly" command key on the keyboard with the other hand!! So what M$Soft "weenies" accomplish with one hand, Apple "weenies" accomplish with TWO. That's progress.

    9. Re:a fine reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have Windows 98 (and WIndows 95), and there are all sorts of desktop themes (including one that emulates a Macintosh!).

      Am I a fan of Windows? Nope. But tbe last time I touched a Macintosh (1998), it crashed more often than Windows, and I could not believe it. Also the Windows Explorer is a very nice application, and it was a nightmare to locate anything on that Mac. And by the way, the first personal computer that my family owned was a Macintosh, purchased in 1985, so you would think my loyalty would lie there because I really cut my teeth on that.

      And what's with the one-button mouse? Apple folks have to click on the mouse AND a keyboard character (usually the "butterfly" command) in order to emulate the seond-button, so Apple users have to use TWO hands, not just one.

      From all the reviews I've read, the "Aqua" interface seems too many bells and whistles with a voracious appetite for CPU cycles -- it's overkill. And in general, the OS is STILL prone to crashing.

      And if M$oft is the "devil", I have to wonder about those executives at Apple who dropped the ball with MacWrite...namely Claris, the Apple spin-off. And what about the Newton fiasco? Or Steve Jobs ripping off Steve Wozniak so many times (including the time Wozniak created the "Breakout" game for Jobs)?

      Why the Apple mystique?

      Apple is the place where Gassee (who would found the bankrupt "Be") would insist that Apple computers speak to mainframes via a MODEM (rather than Ethernet); guess he wasn't aware of TCP/IP back then.

      Can you claim that Apple's computers had threads before Windows 95? I don't think so. M$oft started creating Windows NT based on a Unix OS (was it the Carnegie Mellon "Mach"?) long before Apple.

      Or compare the cost of Symantec C++ compiler for an Apple Mac versus a PC in the early 90's. If memory serves correctly, it was at least twice the price. And what about the famous Macintosh "Open Architecture" -- it wasn't in the good old days. You couldn't upgrade any of the components (such as the video card), and every Macintosh variant used a bloody different processor and peripheral set (some had RS 232-based serial ports, others didn't).

      I don't think the people who created the Apple clones are too enamored of Steve Jobs either; Jobs killed them off. So much for "Open" standards.

      "Windoze" may not be great, but to claim that Apple, its computers, and its culture are better than M$oft is simply to ignore the history.

    10. Re:a fine reply by spitzak · · Score: 2
      Um, Xt is gone. All the modern toolkits for X use Xlib (not that Xlib is that great, but it is not Xt).

      I don't have any idea what you are talking about with "PUSH" and "PULL". "PUSH" as in very early versions of Windows was a horrid mistake that allowed all kinds of programming mistakes to crash. They fixed this real quick (what the hell do you think the call GetMessage() does and why do you have to call it and then call DispatchMessage()? That's called "fix it but retain backward compatability").

      In fact one of the biggest annoyances and source of bugs in my code for Windows is that not every event is pulled. For instance mapping or unmapping a window will cause gdamm windows to call the event handler directly. This requires you to make sure the data is set up correctly to reflect the fact that the window has been deleted before you delete it (kind of a pain if that involves destroying structures of your own that contain the window id!). It is similar in difficulty to multithreaded programming, and there really is no reason, if they deferred it until I called GetMessage everything would be a lot easier!

      I agree with you about that multi-button mouse thing. Steve Jobs must have had a bad experience in childhood where he pressed the wrong button on a mouse. Two buttons on the mouse can't possibly "confuse" users as much as the keyboard that has over a HUNDRED buttons!

      I also worked on the NeXT which had a 2-button mouse and discovered that the control panel option that said "make right mouse button work" physically changed the event server, without it it was *impossible* for a program to distinguish the left and right mouse buttons. Every other control panel thing just set a variable that a program could ignore if it really wanted to, but this shows that Jobs has a real hostility toward multiple mouse buttons.

    11. Re:a fine reply by wedg · · Score: 2

      The difference is I said the X architecture, not the implementation. The idea, the design, is beautiful. As a programmer, you have to appreciate it. I'll admit that its implementation certianly could be better - but not too many people would like to tackle that task.

      But Windows as an architecture? Does it have an architecture? It suffers from "layered" (building on older versions) problems a thousand times worse than X. I'll concede the XP and 2000 have gone the distance to help fix them, but are by no means close to it.

      And remember, I'm not talking about all the Windows apps - I'm talking about Windows the Windowing system. Whether you use MFCs in C++ or Swing in Java (which is slow as hell on my box in Windows, better in Linux), it's that same shitty interface.

      --
      Jake
      Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
    12. Re:a fine reply by Docrates · · Score: 2

      It's nice to see Apple having the collective cajones to ante up and reply

      IT's Cojones god damn it, COJONES, not Cajones. Cojones is the spanish word for testicles, while cajones means "bix boxes".

      --

      There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
    13. Re:a fine reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Steve Jobs must have had a bad experience in childhood where he pressed the wrong button on a mouse." i hope that was a joke, and that you know there were no computer mice when steve jobs was a kid.

    14. Re:a fine reply by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      The Amiga was released in 1985, complete with gui. Are both the aforementioned systems rips of AmigaOS? certainly neither have managed to match the performance of amigaos yet.. You could argue that X is not an os, and is designed for different purposes. You could also argue that windows is not an os, and just an app for dos.. but who are we to doubt the marketting propoganda of microsoft.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    15. Re:a fine reply by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      I find that 3 buttons on a mouse is optimal, assuming i have my smallest finger and thumb resting either side of the mouse to move it sideways, and my palm on the back end of the mouse, that leaves 3 fingers resting over the buttons, atleast that`s how it works out with my Compaq (re-branded logitech mouseman) On other thinner mice it`s easier to use 2 buttons, partly due to the size of my hand, for example a logitech wheelmouse.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    16. Re:a fine reply by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Part of the reason for the seeming large memory footprint under top/ps is due to mapping the video memory - quite a lot in these days of 64mb video cards, and AFAIK apps will sharememory regions containing pixmap data etc, with X.. so these extra regions are added to the total mem usage for X.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    17. Re:a fine reply by AME · · Score: 2
      I think the X architecture is part of the *nix problem.

      That might just be true.

      Using unix domain sockets for all forms of internal communication is not my definition of something that's "better".

      But this communication you speak of is not necessarily internal. "Better" is relative -- maybe not better for high frame rate shoot-em-up style games, but much better making programs work seemlessly over a network.

      --
      "I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
    18. Re:a fine reply by xeno · · Score: 2

      Oops. I stand corrected. Although, there's a certain appeal to "You've got big boxes." (I'll say it to my female co-worker tomorrow with excitement in my voice, and see what the utterance-to-slappage quotient is for that phrase.)

      Also, doesn't the word "cajones" also mean "drawers" (as in underwear)? So big cojones necessitate big cajones, no? Just wondering.

      Either way you cut it, it's still on topic, because Apple displays big cojones, while Jobs displays big cajones (as in "big britches"/ego). And if you think that's a stretch... <G>

      --
      I think not...(*poof*)
    19. Re:a fine reply by captaineo · · Score: 2

      Bill, I think the "push vs pull" distinction he is talking about has to do with who dispatches events (i.e. where the huge switch(event_type) {...} statement is)... On Windows your own app does its own dispatching in the window procs. On GTK, Qt, etc, you set up event handlers using their API, and then the library does all the dispatching behind the scenes.

      I am undecided which approach I like better. The GTK/Qt event handling systems are certainly more elegaant than Win32, but I have to admit I really like the simplicity of window procedures (MS uses these everywhere - 1 function pointer that gets an event code and 2 word-length args - simples as pie)... I'm pretty sure a typical Win32 app will dispatch events faster; GTK (the X widget library I'm most familiar with) introduces a heck of a lot of of overhead between the underlying call to select/poll and your event handler. I also like how Win32 makes it easy to take some action on several different events, just by adding some more code to the big switch() statement. (rather than mucking with lots of event handler registrations)

    20. Re:a fine reply by spitzak · · Score: 2
      No you are confusing the toolkit with the underlying library.

      Windows originally "pushed" all events to the WndProc function that was registered with each window. They very quickly (before Windows 3) added the "GetMessage" and "DispatchMessage" calls that allowed a "sort-of" pull environment. The problem was that virtually any call to the system could cause WndProc to be called, requiring applications to make sure everything was in a consistent state and ready for any possible user event before every system call. This is practically impossible.

      Xlib has a call almost exactly like GetMessage except with the added insurance that every event goes through it (Windows still sends map/unmap events directly to WndProc, which has bitten me many many times). Your program is in an inconsistent state? Simple: don't call XGetNextEvent. Not so simple on Windows.

      The big case statement you talk about is virtually identical in Windows and Xlib. In Windows you have to put it in the WndProc callback, in Xlib you put it right after you get an event.

      Building a "push" system (like all toolkits including fltk and Qt) is pretty easy on top of a "pull" system. This is why the toolkits work on both X and Win32.

      The other way around, building a "pull" system atop a "push" one, *could* be done if the event callback put the events in a queue. But there are problems doing this on Windows with some events, as Windows seems very unhappy if you don't do the expected actions in response to events. The big one is WM_PAINT events, I really want to save these so that updates due to window exposures and updates due to user interaction can be done together, potentially saving half the redrawing. Unfortunately this has proved to be impossible, so I have to treat the PAINT events as a push system (though I draw user interface updates at that time so in most cases it is not less efficient).

      I think it would also be very difficult to build a different "push" system atop another "push" system. This is why toolkits atop toolkits (like WxWindows) are really flaky. Fortunately fltk (and probably others) do not need to push any events (like PAINT) that Windows handles strangely. I do push the map/unmap events and it certainly makes bugs show up in fltk code developed on X.

  33. 3 icons that say... by Ethelred+Unraed · · Score: 1
    ..."W XP". Is Apple trying to say something here? ;-)

    Cheers,

    Ethelred

    --
    Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
    1. Re:3 icons that say... by wbajzek · · Score: 1
      When Microsoft released Office v.X for MacOS X, the OS X page on apple's site showed the Excel, Powerpoint, Entourage, and Word icons together in this arrangement:

      XP
      EW

    2. Re:3 icons that say... by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not even that; W XP ON X

      What does that mean?

      If they had used Entourage instead of Excel, would it have said: WEPON X? Too bad Access isn't available on OS X.
      WEAPON X would have been hilarious

    3. Re:3 icons that say... by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      "Too bad Access isn't available on OS X."

      As an avid Filemaker spromoter, I'm going to pretend you didn't write that.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    4. Re:3 icons that say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy shit, dude, why are you linking to an Antioch College community page? WTF?!?

    5. Re:3 icons that say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go spromote your software somewhere else.

  34. /dev/null ads out for a while by psiflare · · Score: 1

    as i recall, i saw the "sends other unix boxes to /dev/null" ad for the powerbook inside the front cover in scientific american last month, so i wouldn't say they're that "new". so perhaps it was in anticipation of the end of the contract then, but not of the anti-unix campaign then.

    1. Re:/dev/null ads out for a while by rjamestaylor · · Score: 1

      > i saw the "sends other unix boxes to /dev/null" ad
      > for the powerbook inside the front cover in
      > scientific american last month

      but no one reads that smut-rag here.

      --
      -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
  35. My GOD! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Ok, so there is no IE ad, but not only are there three microsoft office applications on the dock and one running, but also, if you look at the output of top, you will see that Netscape is taking up 53% of the CPU!

  36. Woo hoo! by Guitarzan · · Score: 2, Funny

    Complete with Netscape taking up 53% of the CPU!

    Hehe, very nice :)

  37. CTHD by AdriaanT · · Score: 1

    And showing the DVD of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon". Nice! Also notice the featured laptop is running XDarwin, a sourceforge project, which Apple seemingly has embraced.

  38. Between? by sharkey · · Score: 2
    the end of the 5-year contract between Apple

    Apple had a contract with itself? Reminds me of a question posed by my high-school newspaper:
    • What is the difference between an orange?
    Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
    --

    --
    "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
    1. Re:Between? by autocracy · · Score: 2

      Well, I can answer that - to discover the difference between an orange, you must first split it in two.

      --
      SIG: HUP
    2. Re:Between? by mickwd · · Score: 2

      It's gains appeal when it loses a peel ?

    3. Re:Between? by ethereal · · Score: 1

      Orange you glad I didn't ask you another one?

      --

      Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

    4. Re:Between? by Craig+Maloney · · Score: 2

      Actually they were referring to the 5 year contract Apple had with Microsoft.

    5. Re:Between? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To get to the other side?

    6. Re:Between? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is the difference between an orange?

      I think everyone knows the answer to that. But, in case they don't:

      The difference between an orange is a bicycle, because a vest has no sleeves.

      Sheesh...

    7. Re:Between? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      one of its legs is both the same.

  39. Wrong direction by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd say that they're more aiming at other UNIX workstations; Sun boxes, mainly.

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    1. Re:Wrong direction by red5 · · Score: 1

      Who uses Sun boxes as workstations?
      SGI yes. but Sun?
      Hell even Sun doesn't use Sun on the workstation.

      --
      I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
    2. Re:Wrong direction by jerk · · Score: 1

      Hell even Sun doesn't use Sun on the workstation.

      Um....that's very wrong. We promote 'Sun on Sun'. It's rather discouraged to use anything else...even on our laptops. Sure, your sales guy might have a laptop running a Windows OS, but not much of anyone else does. Many of our customers use Sun workstations as well, mainly on the IT side, but they use them nonetheless.

    3. Re:Wrong direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sun Workstations are all over the place. Most of workstations in the college of engineering at my university are Suns, with HP being a close second. Almost all the electrical engineering and computer science workstations are Suns. I have a Sun workstation on my desk in my office. Just about everyone used a Sun workstation when I worked at Bell Labs. I've mostly seen SGIs at HPC/visualization places. Where do you think the W in "SUNW" came from?

  40. Uhhm, guys... by JordanH · · Score: 2

    It's a bit of a stretch that this is directed at the MS/Unisys "way out" ads. It's much more clearly directed at all other Unix's (including Linux) on the desktop.

  41. Booting off the iPod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nobody else has mentioned that the top hard drive icon is the iPod, followed by a firewire drive.

    1. Re:Booting off the iPod by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe that they have the Hard Drive set to not display on the desktop, but external drives to display.

    2. Re:Booting off the iPod by KillerKane · · Score: 1

      Or perhaps they're pointing out that you can load OSX on an iPod and boot from it, which you can.

      Load it with OSX and some utilities and mp3's and you have the perfect troubleshooting device.

      The mp3's are for listening to on the way to and from the client.

      I'm buying one for this exact purpose.

      --
      There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line. -- Oscar Levant
  42. Will it run a current version of GIMP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will it run a current version of GIMP? (Don't blame me, it's the dopey Cat got your tongue comment.)

    1. Re:Will it run a current version of GIMP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. www.openosx.com.

  43. Linux/UNIX/OpenSource is no platform for spyware! by northwind · · Score: 1

    M$ has for a long time been trying to get into the money/month department like AOL.

    Of cause they don't like Linux/UNIX. Spyware and total control goes badly with open-source. We will see a lot of the like in the near future.

    Apple on the other hand doesn't care. They are not really open-source. They have already a long outstanding record for smoking their developer base when ever it suits their purpose. Daystar comes to mind. Apple is always "almost" standard so of cause they want to ride the UNIX wave. Until it no longer suits their purpose.

    Linux/BSD/OpenSource is still the only truly clean and private solution for those who cares about where our future goes.

  44. And that's in the background! by PCM2 · · Score: 2

    I haven't looked at the online version, but I'm looking at a print copy right now, so maybe mine is more readable than yours. Scan down the list and peer through that translucent dock menu, though. Yep, that's right ... the next highest CPU usage is the Dock itself! Higher than top, even! Heh. I love my Mac...

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
    1. Re:And that's in the background! by rehannan · · Score: 2

      The dock is probably taking that much CPU time to draw that translucent menu over the updating "top" window...?

    2. Re:And that's in the background! by astrodawg · · Score: 1

      The dock also has the iTunes popup window popped up as if the user is about to start playing an mp3 while doing everything else.

    3. Re:And that's in the background! by stripes · · Score: 2
      The dock is probably taking that much CPU time to draw that translucent menu over the updating "top" window...?

      No the drawing is done in a dedicated process ("Window Server" I think, which is more like the X server then an X11 window manager). I think the dock shows a burst of CPU usage because the mouse is down there fiddling with stuff (there is a dock menu popped up for iTunes, right?)

  45. An ironic reply. by czardonic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The tone of the "Way out" is a whiny "UNIX is too hard" that perfectly matches the designed-by-Smurfs interface they're pushing with XP.

    When XP came out, people were falling all over themselves to point out how it was a rip off of OSX (and that Windows in general was a rip-off of MacOS. I take it that you think that OSX also fits in the designed-by-Smurfs category.

    It's nice to see Apple having the collective cajones to ante up and reply "Yeah, UNIX can be hard, but (a) it's worth it, (b) we've done it, and (c) it just *works.*"

    Their message is that UNIX is only usable with a designed-by-Smurfs UI tacked on to it.

    --
    Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
    1. Re:An ironic reply. by xeno · · Score: 2

      Not quite. I agree that *Aqua* also falls into the "designed-by-Smurfs" category, but not the whole of OS X. I think it makes all the difference in the world that you can have all the eye candy you want (or can stand), while the underpinnings of OS X are tried-and-true and architecturally flexible.

      You can make the argument that XP is also based on the tried-and-true NT-2000 code, but that lineage is pretty shallow and full of black sheep. Don't get me wrong, there are certain releases of NT/2K that I found quite dependable and useful, and I'm typing this now on a company-provided 2K laptop. But a monolithic and proprietary OS/app design that spans from the GUI to the kernel is -- in a word -- inelegant.

      I would disagree with your contention that "difficult for (some) to use" is the same as "only usable with a designed-by-Smurfs UI". Perhaps it's just a matter of degree, but imho the flexible implementation of eye candy on a solid yet relatively modular OS is the difference between hitting the nail on the head (OS X) and pounding a crooked one into the wood (XP). Both get the job done, but there's a little more finesse in the former.

      Jon

      --
      I think not...(*poof*)
    2. Re:An ironic reply. by jafac · · Score: 2

      I don't know about that. while XP *does* look to me to be a rip-off of Aqua, there's just a character to XP that Aqua does not have that's just. . . cartoony. Aqua may be too colorful, a bit frivolous, a bit "i have more CPU cycles than I know what to do with" - but it's not cartoony. It's very slick - from the translucency of the buttons and dock, to the drop shadows, and genie effect. XP doesn't even rate as a cheap rip-off.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
  46. btw... by rimdo · · Score: 2, Interesting


    The ad is on the front cover of the new Scientific American (May, 2002), and in the terminal on the OS X desktop, there is a "Microsoft" (and an "Adobe Photoshop") process running. It's possible that the IE button is trademarked and would require permission for use in an ad.

    How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury.
    -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs

    1. Re:btw... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, Apple has included the IE icon in several ads before this one.

    2. Re:btw... by spitzak · · Score: 2

      The IE button is shown in lots of other Apple ads, so I doubt the trademark/permission was a problem.

    3. Re:btw... by gobbo · · Score: 1
      You'll notice that PowerPoint is running but docked (thus hidden... untill you look at processes).

  47. Except by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that saying "boxen" isn't funny at all, you nitwit.

    1. Re:Except by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good God, you really are a humorless nerd. It's not the word "boxen" that's funny, it's the idea of Apple using a Slashdot geek-ism in an ad that's funny. But never mind, you must want to get back to reading your encyclopedia.

    2. Re:Except by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's wrong with reading my encyclopedia.

      It's better than reading crummy -1 comments on this site.

    3. Re:Except by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, sorry, Apple saying "boxen" isn't any more funny than you saying "boxen". Just kill yourself already so I don't have to listen to you anymore.

  48. no IE but.. by preggie_greggie · · Score: 1

    Icons for the Office v.X programs Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
    Not totally anti-Microsoft..

  49. Mod this up..... It's funny AND sad. by Dante · · Score: 1

    Mod this up..... It's funny AND sad.

    --
    "think of it as evolution in action"
    1. Re:Mod this up..... It's funny AND sad. by damiam · · Score: 1

      And many times redundant.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  50. Game Developer Magazine by Cryptosporidium · · Score: 1

    I have the ad sitting on my desk right now. The magazine is from GameDeveloper, a monthly magazine with topics on game development.

    I must say I was quite surprised when I first saw it too. Interesting choice of icons on the Dock, including the X Window System.

  51. Having Used IE 5.1 for Mac OS X by rjamestaylor · · Score: 1
    As a daily user of Mac OS X (10.1.3) I know why there is no IE icon, but several Office X icons: IE 5.1 for OS X sucks air. My first day with OS X (mid March) was the only day I used IE 5.1 as a primary browser. After struggling with the download mal-feature in IE (OMGeekness! Could an FTP client be THAT difficult to implement?) I quickly downloaded Mozilla 0.9.x and haven't regreted for a minute. Mozilla, with the tabs, is quick and stable. Since an early April nightly build multi-column display works correctly and the textarea scrollbars problem has at least been entered into Bugzilla (by me). And, if you've ever tried to establish an HTTPS connection using IE 5.1, good freakin' luck; especially if there's anything out of wack with the certificate vis a vis the URL you're using (hint: IE 5.1 won't let you continue if there's a problem).

    So, no anti-MS conspiracy here; it's just the desktop of an actual user.

    --
    -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
  52. No IE, but Netscape *is* using 56% CPU ... by Corporate+Drone · · Score: 1
    and, of course, they couldn't help but take a jab at Linux.

    on the other hand, though, I wonder if you have to renice M$ software down to get back to the performance Windoze users are used to...?

    so, what's the thought behing the ads here? diehard Mac addicts will think, "M$ hates Unix, therefore Unix is good, and therefore Mac is awesome since they embrace Unix..."?

    Or maybe, "Open Source is good, Linux is Open Source, OS X is better than Linux, therefore Mac rocks..."?

    --
    mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
    1. Re:No IE, but Netscape *is* using 56% CPU ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is EXACTLY what they think. This is why I run Linux where I don't have to worry about the BLOAT of their gui on the processor. I can run a pretty looking GUI on a 166 (Ximian GNOME). This makes me very happy.

  53. *Sigh* Re:Mirror of ad by jhesse · · Score: 1

    It's behind the front cover of the latest issue of 'Scientific American', people... Walk over to your local newsstand or library and get some sun (the big, bright thing in the sky) while your at it.

    --

    --
    "I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
  54. Simple by Llywelyn · · Score: 1

    "The real question, why would Apple want to show a GUI on the mac that you could use instead of it's own?"

    Run it in rootless and it runs side-by-side with Aqua.

    Here is why they would show it and I use it:

    I can ssh into our local Math/Comp Sci cluster, load up xemacs on my laptop, and work remotely using XWindows applications.

    Using OroborOSX I even get an Aqua appearance to the windows!

    --
    Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
  55. UNIX banners by Openadvocate · · Score: 1

    Well, the latest wave of junk got me started on a banner system for the right stuff. Have just begun working on it. Mostly for fun I must admit. (says the guy who thinks it's more fun to play with PHP than watching TV).
    Anyway isn't it the problem with most UNIX or open source stuff, if't it's not Linux, people will never hear of it in news etc. because "normal" people wouldn't understand. And the nature of it all with little or no money involved, advertising is not something you do. Most would think, why should we, it's a great product, we don't need it. But haven't we seen poor products win over good because of proper advertising. I mean when you say wordprocessing, everyone with a pc(/. crowd excluded) would think of "Microsoft Word" etc.
    oh and, please go easy on me, it is just all in good fun.:)

    --
    my sig
  56. rebus by megabulk3000 · · Score: 3, Funny

    the icons in the dock are spelling out "W XP ON X"

    1. Re:rebus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      scaaary =]

    2. Re:rebus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod this up >.

    3. Re:rebus by vtechpilot · · Score: 1

      Actually The First X is for Excel So logicially It Does Spell WEPONX, Seems like Steve is going Beserker attack ala Logan.

      --
      Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
    4. Re:rebus by CynicTheHedgehog · · Score: 1

      WE P ON X?

  57. What became of IE? by clem.dickey · · Score: 2

    I can only assume that Internet Explorer is now fully integrated with Finder. The existence of a separate IE in Mac was always a liability in the DOJ case. :-)

    1. Re:What became of IE? by pressman · · Score: 2

      IE is still included with OS X, but it is no way shape or form integrated into the finder. The current Mac OS finder is an evolutionary step in the NextStep file browser with some of the functionality of the OS 9 finder... though not nearly enough of it. Should be more in OS X.2 later this summer.

      Why would Apple use M$ technology as a core part of the Finder? Steve Jobs would never go for such a thing!

      --
      Pooty tweet
    2. Re:What became of IE? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thank you for your in-depth analysis, Mr. Humor-Impaired

    3. Re:What became of IE? by pressman · · Score: 2

      Uh, sorry man, but that post was seriosuly lacking in sarcasm, sincere irony or any overt sign of humor. It honestly sounded as if you might have thought that Apple had succumbed to M$ pressure and had woven IE into their system as well. I responded with a relatively thoughtful account as to why that would never happen and what actually did happen. Sorry to offend your sensitive sensibilities.

      Well, there's a couple of lost karma points!

      --
      Pooty tweet
  58. It's just a great system by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 5, Informative

    From my new Powerbook, over the weekend, I:

    Played more Icewind Dale
    Used Gimp to make a new banner (with Xdarwin)
    Used BBedit to edit a Perl script, then to write a review of Icewind Dale
    Ran an old OS 9 Groupwise program to connect to my Day Job mail.
    Used MS Word to view some work documents.
    Ran a perlscript to edit some 200 pictures with ImageMagick.
    Surfed the web/checked email with Mozilla.
    Wirelessly connected to my internal network and my Linux server/router and out to the Internet.
    Used SSH to tweak some setttings on some Linux boxes.
    Used Virtual PC to run Win98 so I could run my Sharkport program to save my Metal Gear Solid 2 saved games from the Playstation 2 to my Mac HDD.
    Got pictures of my daughter's birthday party from the camera to the Web for the fam'.
    Played music with iTunes (Final Fantasy Pray rocks.).

    And most of this was running at the same time, with all the stability of my old Linux box, easier than Windows - so simple that my wife, who hates computers, started messing with the laptop (after I gave her her own account so she wouldn't see my Tifa Lockheart porn).

    I've used Windows for over a decade, Linux for 3 years, and a Mac for 3 months. Out of them all, OS X is the best out of the lot.

    PS: Before you ask, Apple hasn't paid me $0.01 for this. Though I wish...Where's the game payola, guys ;).

    1. Re:It's just a great system by AnimeFreak · · Score: 1

      I am sure they didn't pay you a cent to do that. ;)

      So what did they pay you? $100? :P

    2. Re:It's just a great system by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 2

      Man, I wish...

      Ah, well. Maybe next lifetime.

    3. Re:It's just a great system by jspaleta · · Score: 2

      Now how much of your happy experince was directly related to Apples OS...or other companies support of Apple's OS?

      If the virtualPC people would support linux, if Asobe would support linux with apps and MS would write some apps for linux I dont think an Apple computer would be all that compeling over a linux pc. Does Apples OSX usability tweaks alone make it all that better? If office didnt exist on the macs...having an apple would be a major problem...no matter how snazzy Apples interface was.

      And once you get application support parity in Linux/Apple is it worth the cost of apple hardware?

      And the fact that apple laptops still refuse to have a servicable 3 button mouse like any good Unix system should leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This one button stuff irks me something fierce.

      If I didnt have to buy my own hardware and I could ask for any laptop/desktop system I wanted..I'd probably by apple with OSX at this point...but I can't bring myself to pay apple's hardware prices....for the luxury of having the chance to buy MS office for a unix based system If MS had Office out for linux I don't think i would even consider an Apple. That's the big Apple selling point for me, Office on a Unix styled OS. A nice tear-jerking anittrust breakup of MS into an OS and applications company would quickly solve that one little problem for me.

      -jef

    4. Re:It's just a great system by Dirtside · · Score: 2

      Pfttt, who needs payola? You were quoted in the ad. :)

      --
      "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
    5. Re:It's just a great system by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Get over it.

      You're essentially claiming that a user's experience is related to the software available to the user.

      Meaning your first choice may very well be Windows XP, followed by Windows 2000, followed by Windows 98, followed by Mac OS X, followed by Windows 95, followed by Mac Classic, followed by Linux, right?

      You're *wishing* for these companies to support Linux, when reality is that these companies really support *themselves*. If Linux enables them to do so, then that's the platform they would push. But Linux, as great as it is for you, doesn't seem to be all that great for the Microsofts, Adobes, and Macromedias of the world.

      The installed user base is one hurdle.
      The fixed, targeted, complete API is another Compare to Cocoa, Carbon, W32, DirectX, Quicktime, what does Linux have? SDL? X? The others have OpenGL. QT? QT is available on the other platforms as well. GTK? KDE? Those are hardly competitive, though each has their advocates.
      Usability of Linux is another hurdle; compared to Windows or Mac OS X, Linux is still very difficult (I run Debian on my server, and what takes me a few seconds in the other two OSes still takes me minutes or hours in Linux; looking up man pages, installing programs, checking versions, configuring stuff, etc)

      So the question is... *can* you get application support parity in Linux? How much are you willing to pay for this *feature*? How much more than an Apple machine is worth the cost of Linux support?

    6. Re:It's just a great system by vkevlar · · Score: 1
      re:"And the fact that apple laptops still refuse to have a servicable 3 button mouse like any good Unix system should leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This one button stuff irks me something fierce."
      >>mandatory "go buy a $9 3-button scrollwheel mouse then, it's supported without adding extra software as long as it's usb." comment.

      or a kensington turboball, that's actually much better than it should be, and better for laptopiness. $39 though.

    7. Re:It's just a great system by SPiKe · · Score: 1

      > The fixed, targeted, complete API is another >Compare to Cocoa, Carbon, W32, DirectX, Quicktime, >what does Linux have? SDL? X? The others have >OpenGL.

      Last I checked, my Linux box had an OpenGL implementation on it.

      Maybe you were thinking more along the lines of Direct3D...

    8. Re:It's just a great system by Groovus · · Score: 1

      "You're essentially claiming that a user's experience is related to the software available to the user."

      Uh what else would a user care about? Currently a computer is pretty much useless without software.......

    9. Re:It's just a great system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fact that you can run "mainstream" applications on MacOS X is the _entire point_. It is, in fact, the _entire reason_ that MacOS X is reasonable as a Windows alternative. It is also the reason that Linux or FreeBSD is not. It was also the reason that BeOS was not. BeOS, as an OS, was at least as nice as MacOS X, probably more so (faster, but I'd say Cocoa is nicer than the BeOS APIs), but it didn't have the apps.

      The nice thing about Linux/FreeBSD is that it won't run out of money like BeOS did... thus there is the hope that, over time, they will accumulate enough mainstream apps to be a serious desktop alternative.

    10. Re:It's just a great system by jspaleta · · Score: 2

      I am wishing for application support...right on target...especially for Adobe products.
      Adobe's big marketing campaign for PDF is viewable anywhere...I'd like them to expand that anywhere definition to include their graphics products.

      Taken the fact that I know very little about programing any gui toolkit on any OS for granted...
      I can't imagine that coding up an interface in straight X or kde or GNOME is any harder than coding up soming in Cocoa/Carbon for Mac X...
      If it where a lack of a targeted api issue i would imagine Adobe and other companies would be screaming up and down to the KDE developers to give them certain API features in the QT libraries....

      Shrug...ive had things take 10 seconds to install and I have had things take 3 hours (both windows and Linux)..its really a matter of how well the installer was written...and how munched yer system was before you started the install. I'm not going to debate the generalization that linux is harder to setup initially...but I've had a much easier time troubleshooting linux that I have ever had troubleshooting windows...thanks those bloated ugly .config and .rc files.
      Build something assuming it will "just work" and you have a dickens of a time figuring out why it isnt.

      But i think you are using a different definition for "usability" than I am. I refer to usability as day in and day out usage...after the initial learning curve. I don't count learning how to use the very different process of flat file configs that linux uses as part of usability. Just like i dont count the 4 day "learning the differences between win2k and win9x" course offered where I work as part of win2k usability. If you took all the money that gets spent on basic "how to use windows" coursework out there and spent it on linux training...you'd get people just as competent in linux.

      Am I willing to pay for commercial software in linux? No less than I am willing to pay for commercial software ontop of other OSes. Am i willing to pay for commercial software in general? No, not really. But my employer is...and there is no doubt in my mind that if MS office and adobe illistrator was available for linux all the pc's where I would would become some sort of linux solution.

      -jef

    11. Re:It's just a great system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If, if, if...

      If pigs had wings, they might fly.

    12. Re:It's just a great system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      uhm. he was saying that the other systems (i.e. Windows) has OpenGL already. Its not a plus for Linux, just a feature which came much later for Linux than the others. Win95 had opengl out of the box. Linux didn't have it for a long ass time.

    13. Re:It's just a great system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Am I willing to pay for commercial software in linux? No less than I am willing to pay for commercial software ontop of other OSes. Am i willing to pay for commercial software in general? No, not really.
      Well I don't like paying for bread. Ya know what? Fuck it. I'll just take it. I'm a leech just like you! Books? I just photocopy them. Music? Fuck. Just leech the damn shit. Not much point to paying for items if you can get away without pay. Right? Software grows on trees just like everything else does.
    14. Re:It's just a great system by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 2

      I only meant that all the platforms had OpenGL at this point; Linux, Mac, and Windows.

      Linux has... KDE, GNOME, SDL, X... but what about font APIs (QuickDraw, ATSUI (Unicode text), etc), among other things?

    15. Re:It's just a great system by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 2

      "Am I willing to pay for commercial software in linux? No less than I am willing to pay for commercial software ontop of other OSes. Am i willing to pay for commercial software in general? No, not really. But my employer is...and there is no doubt in my mind that if MS office and adobe illistrator was available for linux all the pc's where I would would become some sort of linux solution."

      You know, perhaps Linux would have as much support as Mac does if, well, you were willing to PAY for your software?

      Mac users, bless their souls, are *known* for paying for more expensive hardware, paying for their software, and generally being a profitable market.

      Them's the breaks

    16. Re:It's just a great system by jspaleta · · Score: 2

      I'm willing to PAY to hire developers to write code tp be be given back to the community...on a contract basis. This near infinite profit margin for the n+1 copy of software sold is not something I support.
      I will PAY to fund source code development....I donate to OSS directly or to companies who have supported OSS development in the past.

      I don't believe binary only source code is a fair return on my monetary investment...considering how little expense there is in making X number of copies of the code. I would rather pay my money to pay developer time and give the source code back in return....

      My employer on the other hand will shell out money hand over fist if they have to, to be productive...but my personal standards are a bit more socialistic.

      You can't compare software to things like bread..becuase there isn't the same sort of production costs for software..making copies of software is cheaper than making copies of bread.

      Music and books are a much better analogy...and here again I think record and publishing companies try to take an unfair profit...profit that doesnt end up benifiting the developers the people I really want to pay. there are several workable direct digital distribution business modles by performers and authors that would remove the large publishing and record industries and make books and music significantly cheaper while provide a fair return on an artists for the development time invovled...but thats another thread entirely.

      God bless Apple's soul for co-opting a freely available BSD operating system to sell to the Macintosh faithful. I wonder why Apple didn't start from some closed source Unix system that they had to pay for. Does Apple also get their bread for free? If free software is good enough for apple...then its good enough for me.

      I really would like to see a non-profit source code co-op farm spring up into existance...where you can donate money to pay directly for developer time to produce OSS code.

      -jef

    17. Re:It's just a great system by linux_avenger · · Score: 0

      Meaning your first choice may very well be Windows XP, followed by Windows 2000, followed by Windows 98, followed by Mac OS X, followed by Windows 95, followed by Mac Classic, followed by Linux, right?

      Whoah, not the order I would choose! Mac OS X and Linux tied for first, Windows 2000 and Mac OS tied for second, Windows XP for third, and the Commodore 64 and Windows 98 get honorable mention! Mac OS X simply just runs everything. It's sometimes difficult to get the Linux/UNIX apps to run, and you've got to have an emulator to run the Windows apps, but with a great GUI and CLI put together, you've got total freedom in Mac OS X. But despite all that, the reason that I like Linux just as much is because,

      1. Linux has vastly superior free software bundled with it,

      2. The Mac OS is generally slower than Linux,

      3.Developer support for Linux is slightly better, i.e. enough source code examples to last a lifetime,

      4. Mac OS booting into classic just takes too long when you switch user accounts often,

      5. You know you're free when you're on an Open Source OS,

      6. Even though it's not thoroughly polished and debugged, there are way more developers improving Linux, and I can definitely see it catching up to Mac OS X.

    18. Re:It's just a great system by KillerKane · · Score: 1

      Why would a company that makes a lot of money selling fairly expensive apps (Photoshop - $609) Spend the time to port those apps to a system whose user-base contains a huge percentage of people who are perceived to be opposed to paying for software? It doesn't make any business sense.

      I hear a lot of folks here saying they want Adobe apps, Office, etc., but would they BUY a copy? Some would, I imagine, but the whole OSS, Free Beer/Free Speech thing makes it look like a waste of time, from, say, Adobe's point of view. The impression any suit who spends time hanging around /. or otherwise monitoring OSS-type goings-on is going to get is: "Let's see, they want the product for free, and we'll have to turn over our code as well."

      Whether it's true, somewhat true, not true at all, doesn't matter. That's the impression they're going to get. I don't think we'll ever see Photoshop and its like on Linux.

      --
      There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line. -- Oscar Levant
    19. Re:It's just a great system by AME · · Score: 2
      I'm willing to PAY to hire developers to write code tp be be given back to the community...on a contract basis. This near infinite profit margin for the n+1 copy of software sold is not something I support.

      Does anybody on this forum understand how much money is spent on R&D when making software? I write embedded firmware. The stuff I do is tiny compared to most of the stuff on the shelves at CompUSA. But my boss has spent probably $15,000 on a product that we are developing if we consider my salary alone. This project isn't finished yet.

      Where does this "near infinite profit on n+1 copies sold" idea come from? After we've sold maybe 6000 units, our profit on the software portion of this project will be a few pennies per unit. 10,000 units (this will take several years) and our profit is a few more pennies per unit. I don't think we will be able to find one customer willing to cough up twenty grand for one unit, or two willing to part with ten grand apiece. No, in order to turn a profit, we need to drop the price to a point where thousands will be willing to pay. Otherwise, we won't make a profit at all.

      Imagine that I wasn't writing a relatively small embedded system. If this were a reasonably sized game, an office suite, or large RDBMS, R&D costs are no longer measured in tens of thousands of dollars. Try hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Maybe tens of millions for really big projects. I don't think that a non-profit source code co-op is goung to be able to come up with the money to pay for this kind of development.

      Very few software houses sell so many copies that their profit per copy is "near infinite" or even "really, really high." For most, selling enough to remain solvent another fiscal year is where it's at. The whole "near-infinite profit per copy" thing is a fantasy. The Open Source community needs to come up with a better argument. Or at least come up with less obvious hyperbole.

      I will PAY to fund source code development....

      With what, exactly, are you going to PAY to fund OS development? The profits from the first sale of the product resulting from that development? I'm pretty certain you can't afford my time.

      --
      "I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
    20. Re:It's just a great system by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 2

      AME has a great answer to your point. Apple is not exactly *rolling* in dough.

      As people like to joke, they've been dying for the past twenty years.

      Perhaps you don't realize it, but some of your analogies have problems. The music analogy is good in terms of the nature of the product. You want books and music that are signficantly cheaper, for some reason.

      I don't.

      I see *no* problem with a $30 DVD or a $6 book. If they were $20 DVDs and $3 books, I would buy *more* DVDs and books.

      So it's not the price.

      What I want to see is more money going back to the developers; IE, the artists!

      In terms of software, I actually think Adobe, Apple, et al have it right, and the video game, movie, and music industry have it wrong.

      Because Adobe, Apple, et al, pay their engineers about $70k->$200k salaries thanks to their profit-pricing scheme.

      Economics says that products will tend to price themselves to whatever the market will bear.

      So $700 for Photoshop, $130 for OS X, and $1000 for Final Cut Pro seem reasonable.

      So does $30 for a DVD and $20 for a CD and $6 for a book. $15, $10, and $3 would be *nicer*, but I would just buy twice as much then.

      As I said before, it's the distribution of wealth that's the problem. If DVDs were $40, I would buy fewer DVDs. If DVDs were $20 I would buy more. It's self corrective behavior and the market adjusts. The problem is that no money is being funneled to the content creators (or pitiful amounts, really, compared to what the producers get).

      Anyway, that's Off Topic.

      I think Apple has done fine by co-opting BSD. This was done over 20 years ago, at NeXT, so don't go blaming Apple. It's *OLD* history.

      Apple has even done so much as release the core of their OS and their Quicktime Streaming Server as open source. The same with their game sprockets technolgy, I believe.

      I have no objections to socialist bents. Apple is a capitalistic entity; it tries to change the world (the way computers work, the way people interact with each other and with computers, how people can be freed to be creative), and to do that Apple must stay in business, and thus make profits.

      Apple also tries to feed and clothes all of it's employees, which is also a good thing; send all of those employee's children to school, donate to charitable causes, etc, but in order to do that they must earn profits. Business is a transaction; I pay them money, they offer me a good.

      You don't like that? You want your own model? It's a fairly free country, which rewards success. Go out and build your own OSS wealth redistribution system. If it has merit and works, you will be wealthy, as will everyone working with your, because it *works* and people are willing to pay for it because it offers a substantial service that *saves* them money.

      That's how Photoshop and Apple work.

      You plunk down $7000, and in a year you've earned a $70k salary. Or higher.

      So create your better, ideal, system, and change the world for the better, the OSS way.

    21. Re:It's just a great system by jspaleta · · Score: 2

      "I see *no* problem with a $30 DVD or a $6 book. If they were $20 DVDs and $3 books, I would buy *more* DVDs and books".

      I think I said digital distribution as an analogy to source code...let me be clear. I have no problem paying something of the order what I currently pay for CD's or books...but I have a massive problem paying the same price for the digital delivery of music or literature when I have to provide the storage medium and the bandwidth to store the downloads on. The costs of well managed digital distribution would be far less than the current retail package system. A very competitive online market place would be potential more profitable for the artists as well as being cheaper for consumers. A very competitive online marketplace could give artists much more freedom to renegotiate contracts and move from one digital label to another if they don't like the contracts. Right now the record industry "controls" artists...

      remember prince and that stupid name change he did. He did it becuase is record company owned the name prince...and he had an X number of years contract with them. He got sick of it and had to publish music under a nother name to prevent breach of contract. He released a cd box set online where he made MORE money than what he made from all his record contract albums combined. He took Y number of pre-orders from people...then releases it to the public...to the public as in free to copy and redistribute. And just from the pre-orders he saw more profit than from all the records he cut while under contract....There is a better way....artists can get paid fairly and the music can be free....

      Free Market economic arguments don't stand up well for music and literature...becuase music and literature or MONOPOLIES granted by congress via the copyright act. A monopoly sets prices vastly differently than someone who has to compete similar products. The creative works by artists are more unique than say different brands of refrigerators....you dont buy music or books in the same way you buy a car..normally.

      but thats off-topic.....

      "Apple also tries to feed and clothes all of it's employees, which is also a good thing; send all of those employee's children to school, donate to charitable causes, etc, but in order to do that they must earn profits. Business is a transaction; I pay them money, they offer me a good."

      And what I'm saying is that the closed source binaries that they offer are a raw deal. I would much rather see Apple make a "promise" to open up their source code extentions have they recoup their development costs.

      I want to see Apple make a social contract with the community that says...
      we want to develop for you a kick ass operating system...and if you like it and pay us for our time and expense...we will give you back the source code...

      What's so unfair with that arrangement? The next computer I buy would be an apple, no question about it, if I had any belief that Apple would play nice and return the source code that I help pay for with my purchace once they got paidback for that codework. I never said I need to source code upfront when I pay...I understand that software development can be expensive...but I'd feel much more comfortable purchasing binaries if there was a legal undestanding that what i was paying towards was release of the source code. After so many units sold the code would be released...its a work for hire arrangement.

      "You plunk down $7000, and in a year you've earned a $70k salary. Or higher"

      Yep...my employer is more than willing to pay that kind of cash. I don't think i was arguing that it isnt better...my original question was is the appl e OS from a user standpoint the key?...or is it the 3rd party applications support that really made the parent poster happy. I don't have the income to buy something like photoshop for personal use. But if I needed it for work...I'd have it no doubt...becuase in the long run it would save my employer money becuase it would save me time at work. At home...my spare time has little value.

      "So create your better, ideal, system, and change the world for the better, the OSS way."

      That's silly...I don't have to do it...looks like china and india will do it for me.

      -jef

    22. Re:It's just a great system by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 2

      I find I'm agreeing with you on the most part; ID software follows your social contract model, having released the source code to their popular Quake, Quake 2, and Doom series of games after having made millions off them.

      If Apple were to similarly follow suit, they would release the source to their previous OSes, up to say, System 8, for people to play with and 'improve' and access, while they focus on OS 9 and OS X; and then in the near future, when they decide to drop OS 9 entirely, release that source so the community can maintain it themselves...

      Etc.

      That, I can see, would be an excellent social contract.

    23. Re:It's just a great system by jspaleta · · Score: 2

      Yes!!!!

      Binding up sourcecode under 100+ years of copyright protection is an abuse of the whole idea of copyright law. Sourcecode holds no value to the public 100+ years from now. Companies who release code once they've decided to abandon the project is a fair coypright compromise in the internet age. But I would go further...I would have Apple or ID spell out in legalese that once they sold Y number of copies then the source code gets released...even if the codebase is not obsolete and unsupported.

      Having Apple and OSS developers working together on the same codebase for a window of time could only benifit both parties. And I'm not a GPL purest...Apple release things under BSDlike license would be fine...or even a slightly more restrictive license that would require all change to come back to apple while apple is still supporting the codebase...but once Apple drops support the codebase should be released as BSD.
      Something like this spelled out at inception of the licensing and selling of the commecial codebase would be great. I want to support companies that build good products...but i hate seeing software and associated hardware get abandoned for lack of support...its wasteful.

      -jef

    24. Re:It's just a great system by kubrick · · Score: 2

      and he had an X number of years contract with them. He got sick of it...

      Well, maybe he shouldn't have signed that contract in the first place. Being "sick of it" doesn't give him any right to break it in the way he did -- unless I can stand up in court and claim that I didn't fulfil my side of a contract because "I didn't feel like it."

      --
      deus does not exist but if he does
    25. Re:It's just a great system by GargoyleMT · · Score: 1

      Windows 95 OSR2 was the update that added OpenGL. The original 95 didn't ship with it.

    26. Re:It's just a great system by jspaleta · · Score: 2

      No a lot of choices out there in terms of recording contracts...atleast not until very recently thanks to the internet with more access for direct to consumer sales.

      And he didnt breach contract..he found a loophole and used...in a rather clever way.

      Look around...the big labels pay artists a measly share of each CD sold...and up until recently that was the best game in town...becuase the barrier to entry into music publishing was pretty high...the internet has changed that. It's now significantly easier to go out and find indie labels via the web and order directly..it would get even better if small labels would endorse song by song digital sales...pressing cd's is cheap...but just giving out digital downloads to consumers is cheaper....

      It looks like this thread is better talked about on either one of the 2 newer slashdot article that showed up today...both of which have elements which bolster my point of view (if you can sell songs in india for 25 cents per song you can do it in america...and it looks like cd sales drops are a factor of unfair price controls by the music industry as much of internet downloads cutting into sales)

      -jef

    27. Re:It's just a great system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're essentially claiming that a user's experience is related to the software available to the user.

      yes, that's the point.

      of course, available software need not be the ONLY factor in evaluating the user experience, but that point seemed to be lost on you...

    28. Re:It's just a great system by kubrick · · Score: 1

      ISTR that at the time Prince had signed the second highest earning contract in the history of recorded music, with only Madonna doing better -- so don't cry poor on his behalf to me.

      Yes, the record industry executives are a greedy, gouging bunch, but the musicians at the top of the pile aren't much better. Prince was happy to take the money *and* seek ways to get around or out of his contract -- he would have been more worthy of respect if he'd simply bought his way out of it.

      --
      deus does not exist but if he does
  59. I'm using Sun by nullard · · Score: 1

    Who uses Sun boxes as workstations?

    I'm on one now, using Netscape on wmaker. I'm
    trying to convince the administration to give
    me a G4 instead. At least they don't have me
    stuck on that Win2k box anymore. Yech!

    --


    t'nera semordnilap
  60. Why isn't Apple making an ATX motherboard??? by dgrgich · · Score: 1

    Even Sun was (is?) selling an ATX board with their chips and so forth on them.

    I understand Apple not wanting to lose too much control by porting the OS to run on AMD chips.

    It seems to me, however, that they could sell an ATX board with onboard PPC that would work with any standard "beige" case. It could be a naked PowerMac and they could even charge a premium - say $400 for the board? - and open their market even more.

    Just a thought.

    1. Re:Why isn't Apple making an ATX motherboard??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      It seems to me, however, that they could sell an ATX board with onboard PPC that would work with any standard "beige" case.

      I can accept Apple not using standard ATX boards because their cases to hold the boards are so well-designed (ease of use, efficacy and style wise).

    2. Re:Why isn't Apple making an ATX motherboard??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simple... a mac isn't just a computer... it is a way of life. The computer itself is part of the experience.

      same question could be asked why dosn't apple make nice looking atx cases and charge a premium.

    3. Re:Why isn't Apple making an ATX motherboard??? by rixkix · · Score: 1

      Good question - I'd buy one!

  61. Smart audience targeting by Apple by oingoboingo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's interesting to note what the sources of the quotes surrounding the PowerBook are. Three of them are from people working in the life sciences or associated fields (one guy from the Brain Mapping Centre at UCLA, another one from the genetics department at Stanford, and the third from a cheminformatics company). Even Tim O'Reilly is showing an interest in the life sciences computing market these days (another person who is quoted in the ad) by publishing a series of books about bioinformatics.

    Apples have long been used in educational and research settings, but over the last few years, Linux workstations have becoming more and more frequent (especially in light of the need for everyday labs working in genomics and proteomics to be paying more attention to their data generation and analysis). I wonder if Apple is recognising this and specifically targeting people working in bioinformatics and life science research to try and win them back to their 'traditional' platform?

  62. Re:Linux/UNIX/OpenSource is no platform for spywar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Apple is always "almost" standard so of cause they want to ride the UNIX wave. Until it no longer suits their purpose.

    that was a pretty absurd comment. you dont just build an entire 1.0 operating system for yourself because UNIX is trendy. obviously they are looking to get another 20 years of performance out of this new system, and using UNIX as the base is a pretty darn good start.

  63. Re:Targetted ads? What a conspiracy! by dimator · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You need to fucking relax. The guy was just pointing out something he thought was neat.

    --
    python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
  64. can't use iTools with OmniWeb by k2r · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You cannot even use iTools with OmniWeb, because "We don't support your current browser.".

    Do I have to mention that it works smoothly if you switch OmniWeb's identity to some MSoft-Products?

    Is this very bad style, apple?

    1. Re:can't use iTools with OmniWeb by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this may of been becose of apples m$ agrement

      we all know m$ likes to do things like this

      give them a little bit and then complain ;)

  65. OS X vs. Linux by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Now that I've had a chance to use OS X for a while, I'd have to say that if what you are looking for is Unix...that is, if you are the kind of person who thinks that the purpose of a GUI is to conveniently manage a bunch of terminal windows and run a web browser, then Linux is better out of the box.

    OS X can certainly be fixed up to be as good, mostly, but out of the box, most Linux distributions win:

    No bash on OS X
    No Vim
    Terminal program is nowhere near as good as the KDE terminal program

    That's not a complete list, of course. Basically, what I've found is that if I sit down and try to use OS X to develop Unix programs, I run into lots of little things where it is just not as good as Linux.

    If I had to have exactly one computer, and if Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot did not exist (their existence makes this no contest...I'd pick Windows), it would be a Mac with OS X, because the combination of an acceptable Unix plus mainstream commercial apps, and a very nice administrative interface for those things I'm not expert enough in to configure by hand, makes it a great system.

    Oh, and the development tools and environment are certainly a big plus for OS X. With Interface Builder and Project Builder, using Carbon or Cocoa, it is easy to whip out an application that consists of a nice GUI front end and a traditional command-line stdin/stdout Unix program on the backend.

    Yes, you can do this on Linux, using something like Perl/Tk, but when you do it on OS X, you get a great looking interface. Perl/Tk is one of those things we like in spite of its looks.

    1. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      great, you'll let games drive you're technical descions.
      I wonder if you'll ever ger any priciples.
      if you had an once of echnical skill, you would know how to change the look of Tk, and write a tool that lets you use it the way you want to.

      whiny technical people with bo princeples, like you, are why the industries level of competence has been dropping for 10 years.

    2. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Otter · · Score: 1
      For what it's worth, both bash and vim run fine on my OS X system. I got them through fink (IIRC) but they'll probably both compile out of the box. Most of those "little things" will.

      The Terminal preferences allow you to use the shell of your choice.

    3. Re:OS X vs. Linux by ambrosius27 · · Score: 1

      If you're looking to manage a bunch of terminal windows and a webbrowser, you probably shouldn't be using KDE either. You would be better off using Blackbox window manager with some xterms and Mozilla (launched from the command line). That configuration would be one of the most efficient graphical solutions to the terminal-webbrowser needs described above.

      KDE (and GNOME) are trying to be full-featured desktop environments such as the ones that Apple and Microsoft provide. If you don't want all the extra features provided by the full desktops, you're just using up memory for no good reason.

      --

      ~~~~~~~~~
      dissertus scribendo latine videri volo.
    4. Re:OS X vs. Linux by gee308 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Actually vi is on OS X, not vim.
      Also, a good unix is definetely NOT defined by having bash. Bash is actually not a good shell. OS X comes with sh,tcsh, zsh, and csh. I'm pretty sure "elite" UNIX users DO NOT use bash. Please try running sh and bash and run some basic commands and see which shell is hogging the CPU. I think you meant to say, linux doesn't make a good linux. You are right, becuase OS X is based off BSD. BSD doesn't have bash, vim, or other unnecessary stuff.

    5. Re:OS X vs. Linux by green+pizza · · Score: 4, Informative

      No bash on OS X, No Vim

      Mac OS X ships with plain vi. Bash is not included, but zsh, csh, and tcsh are... also sh, the real sh (not a sym link to bash).

    6. Re:OS X vs. Linux by TheMonkeyDepartment · · Score: 5, Informative

      - Bash IS available for OS X. You don't even have to recompile anything. It took me 5 seconds to find this on Google.

      - Vim IS available for OS X. Again, no recompile needed. About 3 seconds, again Google.

      - Agreed, the Terminal is decidedly no-frills. I don't need to spend a lot of time in the Terminal though (thanks to those awesome development tools) so I haven't looked very hard for a replacement. For those inclined, there has to be something better available somewhere. Perhaps someone can recommend an alternative?

    7. Re:OS X vs. Linux by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I know they are available. That's why I kept saying "out of the box". :-)

      Given some searching and downloading, all current operating systems (Windows XP, Linux, OS X) can be made into quite acceptable environments.

      The nice thing about most Linux distributions is that you don't need to do that searching and downloading. That's especially nice for those that don't have broadband.

      That's why I say that for the pure Unix user, Linux wins. It's got all that good stuff out of the box.

      OS X reminds me a lot of a commercial Unix in the '80s and 90's. A good base that you can tweek with free software to get something great. And, unlike those other commerical Unixes, it also runs end-user consumer applications.

      Let me put it another way. Take away the GUI from OS X and you are left with Darwin. Darwin is available for x86. How many people do you see choosing Darwin/x86 over Linux? Not many...because as a Unix, it just isn't as good a Unix as Linux is.

    8. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fucking twit!

      you COMPILE vim.
      you COMPILE bash (although frankly tcsh OWNS bash).

      how long have you been using linux? three months?

      puh-lease.

    9. Re:OS X vs. Linux by gavcam · · Score: 2, Informative
      That's why I say that for the pure Unix user, Linux wins.

      For a pure Unix user I'm afraid that OS X would win... Linux is the one that is totally non standard (even amongst different distributions) in the Unix world!

      Go and have a look at the multitude of Unices out there and you'll find that what OS X gives you is the de-facto standard.

    10. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      +1 for Dark Age of Camelot. Is there any better reason for owning a windows box?

      At least until Star Wars Galaxies comes out...

    11. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Re: bash -- in the next major release of OS X, not only is Apple going to bundle it, but it's going to become the default shell. (It's been discussed on the darwin-devel mailing list.)

    12. Re:OS X vs. Linux by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 2
      great, you'll let games drive you're technical descions.
      I wonder if you'll ever ger any priciples.
      if you had an once of echnical skill, you would know how to change the look of Tk, and write a tool that lets you use it the way you want to.

      whiny technical people with bo princeples, like you, are why the industries level of competence has been dropping for 10 years.

      I hope to God that someday I'll get a chance to ger some priciples.

    13. Re:OS X vs. Linux by melatonin · · Score: 2
      No bash on OS X

      It's got zsh. FreeBSD doesn't come with bash either.

      No Vim

      It's got Emacs, which FreeBSD does not out-of-the-box. I'm not one to miss vim :)

      That's not a complete list, of course. Basically, what I've found is that if I sit down and try to use OS X to develop Unix programs, I run into lots of little things where it is just not as good as Linux.

      Duh. You've been using Linux for quite some time, you would say that you're more comfortable with Linux. For example, I can't stand bash. I love zsh. In fact, I feel like I can't even type when I'm using any other shell. I've used FreeBSD and OS X side by side for, well, exactly a year now I guess. I'm very comfortable on both; actually more comfortable with OS X because it comes with industrial strength development, debugging and profiling tools. libMallocDebug! out-of-the-box! You can't beat that!

      OS X's BSD layer is a bit old (no localtime_r, and other _r functions). I'd much rather use FreeBSD for servers. But I'm more than comfortable enough to develop Unix stuff on it! The code I write is intended for FreeBSD, but I tend to make it OS X compatible (using #ifdefs and the like where needed) just so I can get the superior development experience.

      And sure Terminal may not be as good as KDE's term. But hey, I've used aterm on FreeBSD. Terminal kicks the crap out of that. And that doesn't mean that FreeBSD 'loses' to most Linux distributions.

      --
      Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
    14. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Darwin itself, comes with xfree while mac os x dosn't. It isn't fair to say strip away the GUI and your left with darwin... not fair at all.

      However most Mac OS X user could care less about bash and vim... apple just want to provide the baisc tools for the bsd subsystem and let groups like fink pick up the slack.

      just use fink

    15. Re:OS X vs. Linux by self+assembled+struc · · Score: 2

      no bash, and no vim?

      not pre-installed.

      i'm not a programmer. i don't know c. but i do know how to compile and install software packages in unix (i learned it from linux).

      when i noticed bash and vim were missing (vi is there, but i prefer vim honestly), all i had to do was get the source tarballs, and do the normal:
      tar xvzf bashBLAH.tar.gz
      cd bashBLAH
      ./configure
      make
      sudo make install

      (vim is different, but the INSTALL and README files tell you waht to do).

      now i have vim and bash on my os x machine, i've got bash set to my default shell (netinfo is weird, but that's just because i'm not used to it).

    16. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      10.2 is rumored to ship with bash as the default shell

    17. Re:OS X vs. Linux by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 1

      That's crazy talk...I can see including it, but tcsh really has much more powerful features (like more powerful tab complete) and is cooler by default just because it's a csh variant instead of straight-up sh.

      --
      ± 29 dB
    18. Re:OS X vs. Linux by leandrod · · Score: 2

      > - Bash IS available for OS X. You don't even have to recompile anything. [osxgnu.org] It took me 5 seconds to find this on Google.

      >- Vim IS available for OS X. Again, no recompile needed. [imdat.de] About 3 seconds, again Google.

      Bash, Vim and many others are available, together with Debian's dpkg, from Fink. That means everything from one place together with package management.

      Fink fails short of being Debian for Mac OS X, but it’s the second best thing next to Debian itself you can get running in a Mac, perhaps together with NetBSD.

      --
      Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
      DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
      GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    19. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Cy+Guy · · Score: 2
      Don't you think they are taking an unnecessarily harsh dig at Linux with this quote:
      "After two-and-a-half years of Linux, I've finally found joy in a UNIX operating system. And I found it when I purchased a Macintosh - the first one I've ever owned."
      - John Hummel Jr., The Gamers' Press
      While I can understand that Apple wants to get Linux users to try OS X, I don't see implying that Linux is hard to use as way to win them over. Don't you think they risk a Linux backlash from making/using comments like this?

    20. Re:OS X vs. Linux by Orbital+Sander · · Score: 1

      also sh, the real sh (not a sym link to bash)

      You'll find that sh is actually zsh:

      [batmobile:/Volumes/Data] sctemme% openssl md5 /bin/sh
      MD5(/bin/sh)= cada16b093d4fa7766eff56aa2b48261
      [batmobile:/Volumes/Data] sctemme% openssl md5 /bin/zsh
      MD5(/bin/zsh)= cada16b093d4fa7766eff56aa2b48261


      And as someone said, sh may be bash in the future.

    21. Re:OS X vs. Linux by stripes · · Score: 2
      I don't see implying that Linux is hard to use as way to win them over.

      I thought they were implying Linux is joyless...

  66. fruitcake! by petis · · Score: 4, Funny

    Comparing Unix with MAC is like comparing Apples and ora.. oh.. wait. Apple.

    1. Re:fruitcake! by DigitalGodBoy · · Score: 1

      Why do lots of people type "Mac" in all CAPS?!? IIRC, MAC is a type of address used on a network card. Just wondering...

      --
      "liberty and justice for all those who can afford it"
    2. Re:fruitcake! by dasheiff · · Score: 1

      Comparing Unix with MAC is like comparing Apples and ora.. oh.. wait. Apple.


      Or maybe like comparing Apples and Penguins.

    3. Re:fruitcake! by TotallyUseless · · Score: 1

      maybe we should start typing WINDOWS, LINUX, and bsd

      --

      Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
    4. Re:fruitcake! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      okay everyone, let's repeat this all together now:

      "MAC" is an identifier for ethernet cards.
      "Mac" is shorthand for "Macintosh". It is NOT AN ACRONYM. IT SHOULD NOT BE ALL CAPS. GET A CLUE.

      Argh!

  67. Slashdotted! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

    The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

    Apache/1.3.22 Server at www.stonedcow.com Port 80

    Guess you got your wish! Nice try, tho' .....
  68. I don't rate their chances highly by SIGFPE · · Score: 2

    'Sends other UNIX boxes to /dev/null',

    I've always enjoyed using Unix for its reliability. When Apple make an OS that doesn't need rebooting 5 times a day then they might get a few more converts from other Unices. Well, that's my experience with 10.1.3 on a PowerBook. As it is my PowerBook is OK to use as a toy but for the heavy duty kind of use that I usually put Unix workstations to I'll keep well away.
    --
    -- SIGFPE
    1. Re:I don't rate their chances highly by d0n+quix0te · · Score: 1

      This has to be first rate trolling. OS X on a PowerBook is a very stable development and 3d graphics platform. Assuming you have ample RAM.

      It is maha-stable. To say the least...

    2. Re:I don't rate their chances highly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Huh...

      My Powerbook's uptime says "7:21PM up 10 days, 6:33, 2 users, load averages: 1.42, 1.19, 0.99" right now... Guess it doesn't need rebooting 5 times a day, huh? ;)

    3. Re:I don't rate their chances highly by astrodawg · · Score: 1

      My G4 is currently at 24 days. 5 reboots a year might be more accurate.

    4. Re:I don't rate their chances highly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My desktop has an uptime of 11 days.
      My laptop has an uptime of 13 days.

      I reboot when software updates come along, or I need to travel (either taking laptop with me, or going to conserve a little power by shutting down).

      I've had probably 3 crashes since september - 2 were due to the "PPP/Kernel hang" thing, and the other was (I think) related to lookupd getting confused about having too many network interfaces go away at once.

    5. Re:I don't rate their chances highly by Erik+K.+Veland · · Score: 1

      Sounds like some funky hardware failure to me.

      My desktop uptime is a solid 35+ days now (at work, can't check the total), my laptop has almost that much as well.

      I can't remember the last time I crashed. Apps go down now and then, but I hardly even notice it. Internet Explorer and beta-software seems to be offenders.

      I have had one kernel panic, and that was when I used my TiBook in FireWire target-mode (as a hard drive) and I accidently had forgot to plug in the powercable and the batteries ran out after about 5 hours...

      --
      "I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
  69. Re:FP Robber - I hate trolls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Fact: Logged in trolls are retards. They are not clever enough to get around IP-ban, so the dwell in the land of -1.


    Fact: All logged in trolls were brought up by mothers who sucked cock for a quarter at the bus-depot.

  70. Re:It's goatse, really by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 1

    A bigger question may be why they don't have any of the Omni Group's [omnigroup.com] [goatse.cx] software in the Dock.

    And this is +4 informative, how?

    --
    0 1 - just my two bits
  71. MacOS X.. by Chicane-UK · · Score: 1

    Hm.. I'd have to debate Apples claim that their UNIX based OS sits as king of the hill..

    Coincidentally enough, I had to unbox a brand new Titanium iBook and just run the initial setup for a department at the college I work at..

    Pretty straight forward enough.. unboxed, plugged in, "insert restore discs 1-->3" and off you go.

    MacOSX looked nice enough.. so on first boot, I thought I would try out the Apple DVD player. Plopped in a DVD, waited a few seconds, and got a message "This application has terminated unexpectedly" or some crap.. oh.. great. If I had just paid for that iBook instead of going for an unreliable Windows machine I would be pretty peeved - is that the sign of things to come?

    To re-iterate my point.. I dont think a UNIX OS as young as MacOS X (and yes, I know its based off NextStep, but so much has been added since then) can compete in the speed and reliability market, alongside such kings as Sun and SGI.

    --
    "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
    1. Re:MacOS X.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      every hear of updating your software? the orginally dvd player for os x sucked but apple had to get it out the door.

      did the crash bring up a blue screen saying the program crash and asking you to reboot? i don;t think so...

      programs are designed by men, men have flaws, programs have flaws... all programs... well maybe not hello world.

    2. Re:MacOS X.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are an idiot.

    3. Re:MacOS X.. by Chicane-UK · · Score: 1

      I can appreciate that.. but this is factory fresh, as is, just out of the door. I could appreciate some unusual little bug that someone perhaps didnt notice at first..

      I just felt that it left a sour taste in the mouth.

      --
      "Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
  72. Especially considering the lead time on print ads. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Especially considering the lead time on print ads, hell, this ad was probably prepared before they officially launched the new "Pixar" iMac.

  73. SLAshDOTED by ljaguar · · Score: 1

    They may have had the way in.
    Just not any more.

    ./ed
    to
    oblivion

    1. Re:SLAshDOTED by taozilla · · Score: 0

      Do you think they are running OS X Server?

  74. "... other UNIX boxes to /dev/null" by setag · · Score: 1

    Does OS X even have a notion of /dev/null?

    Probably depends on what filesystem your current
    working directory is...

  75. netscape, shmetscape by scapegoat51 · · Score: 1

    personally, (and i realize i may get my pants flamed off for this) i actually prefer IE to Netscape. i use IE as my main browser, and i've tried everything from Opera to Omniweb and all inbetween. and i actually have all of them currently installed, and switch back and forth a bit... i've even got straight up Mozilla installed, as well as Netscape 6.2.2. anyway, my feelings are that as soon as Netscape gets its act together and is more conscientious about its program, i might start using it. but right now, IE is a lot more stable, and easier to use (for me).

    one thing i particularly like about IE is the way they handle bookmarks (favorites, whatever)... maybe it's just me. eh... it's all a matter of preference anyway. but i sure hope Apple isn't gonna ditch IE now... and actually, i really hope MS doesn't ditch us either... Office X is actually a program i like... esp. Entrourage.

    oh heck... i've sold out... AAHHHHH!!!!!

  76. Re:It's goatse, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, it's not. I don't know why the poster manually put that name in his post, though.

  77. Windows timeline correction by paulschreiber · · Score: 5, Informative
    X is circa 1986. Microsoft Windows, at the *very* earliest, is 1989. Why can't people seem to grasp this concept? X has been around longer.

    Windows 1.0 was released in November, 1985.

    Paul

    1. Re:Windows timeline correction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft finally shipped Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985, almost two years past the initially promised release date.
      Some things never change...

    2. Re:Windows timeline correction by spitzak · · Score: 2
      TopView was hardly a contender, it was very much designed for emulating the character map of existing displays. There was no support for graphics (other than arrays of fixed-pitch characters) at all.

      GEM would have been a contender but I am pretty certain we had test versions of Windows before we saw GEM. GEM also had laughable errors in their interface design, too, for instance they did double-clicks by delaying the reporting of the first click to the program until enough time had passed that they knew it was not a double click, this is unimaginably stupid and would have made it look like a performance dog.

    3. Re:Windows timeline correction by wedg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      According to this the original announcement was made November, 1983 (11/10/1983, I believe) for Microsoft Windows, however, the first commercial release wasn't until November, 1985. E.g. no one had seen it yet.

      According to this X, as an asynchronous immediate graphics windowing achictecture was born May 1984. The first public release was September, 1985, 3 months before the release of Microsoft Windows.

      Reguardless, the point is valid: X is not an imitation of Microsoft's Windows. I'm sorry to say I didn't check my facts first. I actually picked up the 1989 from Microsoft's splashscreen at boot (it says Copyright 1989-1998, since I used Windows 98 still). And Microsoft Windows didn't see much popularity until 3.0 started to roll around.

      --
      Jake
      Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
  78. guaranteed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If MS has takes real exception with this we will know soon enough becasue there will be swift and terrible retribution as soon as the ink dries on the DOJ "settlement".

  79. <nelson>Ha-ha</nelson> by phyxeld · · Score: 1
    And now your mirror is slashdotted:

    Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
    The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
    ----------------------
    Apache/1.3.22 Server at www.stonedcow.com Port 80
    --
    __
    Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
  80. Fast Mirror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've posted a fast mirror that shouldn't have any bandwidth or server problems.

    http://www.stanford.edu/~katokop1/unixad.jpg

  81. MacNN Slashdotted? by dankow · · Score: 1

    Wow, we slashdotted one of the major Mac news sites. Just for kicks, can we try Maccentral while we're at it? Then we could just sit back and wait for the /. posts about the big anti-Apple conspiracy.

    --
    I am the hub of Jack's digital lifestyle.
    1. Re:MacNN Slashdotted? by Rubbersoul · · Score: 2

      Wow, we slashdotted one of the major Mac news sites

      well from the looks of it we did not slashdot a major Mac news site in a very fair way:

      http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/articles/unixad.jpg

      notie the www4 it would seem that we did not use the load balancer so much ... o well the editors made me do it :)

      --
      man .sig
      No manual entry for .sig.
  82. Yeah, and? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You know that over 80% of the Mac users are running IE just for web compatability... who cares what they show in the dock honestly... they could have a picture of jesus on the screen but that doesn't make it holy.

  83. Trial by MindStalker · · Score: 2

    Wow, I remembered in the first MS trial it was mentioned that way back when MS threatend the removal of office from Mac if they didn't put IE on the desktop. This is what created the contract I believe. Sounds like Apple is saying.. SO we will remove IE, unless you make a Mac version of office, apple pulling the other side of the same tug rope. Great Stuff!

  84. "boxen" is not an admin term! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "boxen" is a gay wanna-be admin term. The same kind of cutesy crap like using "fsck" instead of the word "fuck". 99.9% of the faggots that use these terms have never had the root password for anything other than their home redhat "boxen".
    Fuck You.

  85. Re:Linux/UNIX/OpenSource is no platform for spywar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or, they didn't build a 1.0 OS -- they were desperate, so they bought a version 4.2 OS that just so happened to have Unix included.

    Unix compatibility was never on the list for any of Apple's inhouse attempts.

  86. Look more carefully before you jump to conslusion by dpaton.net · · Score: 1

    If you bothered to take a good look, you'd notice that the absence of IE is made up for by the presence of icons for Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

    Sheesh...

    -dave

    --
    This is not a sig. this is a duck. quack.
  87. here i'm sitting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...with my powermac 7300/200 with debian running, browsing with Links wishing i had an ibook with os x.

    mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

  88. They HAD the way out. by Perlguy · · Score: 1

    Once again, Microsoft's marketing minions are hard at work, spending MILLIONS of dollars on their so-called "way out".

    I think I am up to $40 now (no, i didn't leave off 5 or 6 zero's)

    Please, check out my "Microsoft" site at www.wehadthewayout.com. I really hope to be a thorn i Microsoft's side - and if I can help out the Apple folks as well, then that is cool too!

    --
    -- Windows security? Sure, which ONE would you like? -me
  89. This is why... by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 2

    Emacs is superior. It only takes 30 months to learn it. ;-P

  90. ...and it's been said in another thread already... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    which is also sad. It was ALSO commented in the MacNN forum earlier this morning.

  91. MacOS was designed for a 1 button mouse by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 2

    First of all... it's a Trackpad, not a mouse. Second of all, MacOS has always been an OS that was designed for a single button mouse. Windows and *nix users tend to forget this. Apple was the first computer company to ship a mouse GUI for consumers. Macs came with a one button mouse in 1984, and they still do today. Most of the basic GUI features that make a Mac a Mac still exist and therefore still allow a one button mouse to be somewhat practical for many consumers.

    One of the main things that sets MacOS apart from most other OSes is the existance of a global menu bar that hovers on the top of the monitor. This menu bar stores many common tasks that most other OSes store in "right-clicked" contextual menus.

    No, doubt, I do find contextual menus much faster... and I actully own a 5 button mouse ;). However there is a slew of consumers out there that would rather shoot up to a desktop menubar then have to right-click on desktop icons and whatnot.

    All in all, there's actully a ton of variouse GUI features that make single button mousing possible on MacOS and a freek'n pain in the butt on other operating systems. But, hey, if you don't want a one button mouse you don't have to use one. MacOS X fully supports just about any USB mouse you can pick up at compUSA... go get one. Last I checked mice cost about the same as eating at TacoBell (yuck ;)).

    --
    "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
    1. Re:MacOS was designed for a 1 button mouse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It'd be nice if Apple at least had a multibutton option for the pro computers, especially the Powerbooks, since trackpads aren't exactly replaceable and the lack of more than one button built in (why would you want to ruin portability and the looks of a TiBook with an external mouse?) has kept many people (more professional people, not your average iMac buying consumer) from buying a TiBook.

      Personally, I'm fine with just 1 button in MacOS. What I really want is a scroll wheel or scrolling buttons built into the laptops.

    2. Re:MacOS was designed for a 1 button mouse by connorbd · · Score: 2

      The idea that the MacOS is a one-button system has been a fiction since MacOS 8. IMHO they should have changed the mouse to a two-button long ago.

      /Brian

  92. Re:*Sigh* Re:Mirror of ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your = something belonging to you.
    You're = contraction of "you are"

    Please try to learn at least the native tongue, eh?

  93. Re:Targetted ads? What a conspiracy! by Monkelectric · · Score: 2
    Im gonna have to agree with you on this one ... Advertisers take pains to present what they feel is the perfect image.

    One day I was watching tv, and I stumbled on a commercial running at the *exact* same time* on two channels: Fox and Univision (spanish channel)... So the commerical looked like this: there was a baby sitting in a high chair on the kitchen faceing the camera, and people doing things in the kitchen ... An anouncer was giving some information about some baby care program.

    On fox -- the baby and the babies family were white -- on univision -- the baby and the babies family were mexican. Exact same commercial! It was on the same set, and the movements of the actors were exactly the same, it was like staring at some weird alternate universe.

    Whats even stranger is there was no reason they *had* to do that because there was no dialogue except that of the announcer -- which could have easily been overdubbed ...

    --

    Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

  94. ... especially under LinuxPPC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    You can enjoy much more when YOU don't pay a penny for their fancy OS X.

    but I admit - if you are not a professional software engineer and you just look for fancy easy-to-install whistles - Mac OS X is the best choice still leaving open for you the road into Unix world.

    I've used Windows for over a decade, Linux for 3 years, and a Mac for 3 months. Out of them all, OS X is the best out of the lot.

    I can't believe - having 3 Linux years you still enojoy whistles already 3 months? Seems like 10 years of Windows really poisened you a lot. I remember that "over decade" ago Windows was very ... poisoning :)

  95. Mirrors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://homepage.mac.com/macnnadmins/.Pictures/unix ad.jpg
    http://stonedcow.com/unixad.jpg
    http://ww w.osuweb.net/~ahaning/unixad.jpg

  96. How is this a response to MS/Unisys? by donutello · · Score: 2

    MS/Unisys were advertising the alleged superiority of their offering over Big Iron Unix servers and talking about how Unix sucked, etc.

    Apple, on the other hand is placing an ad about how their Desktop box with Unix on it is so much cooler than other Unix (desktop) boxes.

    The two are not even vaguely related.

    <conspiracy theory>Is this just an attempt by slashdot editors to generate hits by including a gratuitous microsoft reference in an article?</conspiracy theory>

    As far as the Netscape icon is concerned, I think they are making the excellent point that OS X is Unix (with the shell command and netscape) while at the same time being able to run MS Office. This is also reflected in one of the comments which said that the single machine was now able to replace three machines which were used for research, coding and writing.

    --
    Mmmm.. Donuts
  97. Re:open office & translators by mkoz · · Score: 2, Informative

    Translators All well and good until you have something like formulas... I have yet to find a translator that handles them well. Abiword, AppleWorks, whatever. Being a science person, loosing the formulas is a deal killer.

  98. Almost there... by Van+Halen · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I'd love to say that I agree 100% with the ad's tagline, but I can't. Not yet, anyway. I love OS X and definitely rate it as the best overall OS I've ever used, but on the UNIX side, it still needs work.

    • First, there's stability. It's very good, orders of magnitude better than classic Mac OS, but still well behind most other UNIXes. In my group at work, we have a mix of about 25 IRIX and Solaris boxes. Of those, we get maybe one or two crashes a year due to memory parity errors. I have yet to crash my FreeBSD box at home after a year and a half. The Mac, since I got it 2 months ago, has crashed or locked up at least 4 times. Stock hardware, stock OS X install with the latest updates. Twice a month is great if you're used to Windows, but for UNIX, it stinks.

    • Flakiness/weirdness. Occasionally I'll type a command at the tcsh prompt and it will coredump for no reason. "ls" gets a bus error or something. Then it works fine after that. This certainly isn't every day, and it always seems to work the next time, but it's not indicative of a truly mature OS.

    • Administration. I realize that OS X has a lot of NeXTStep heritage, and therefore uses NetInfo instead of the more traditional UNIX administration mechanisms. Fine. But Apple, being the king of ease-of-use, needs to improve the administration abilities in OS X. Easy gui panels for everything - not just a few settings like IP address, users, etc. Do it like IRIX but even better. (I may have read somewhere that OS X Server has a lot of this stuff - maybe Apple wants people to buy that to get all the admin stuff. Fair enough)

    • The whole assumption that everyday users will run with admin privileges. As a seasoned UNIX veteran, I cringe at the very thought of running with any more than standard user privileges. Most things in OS X work just fine as a regular user, but some still assume you have admin privileges. Moreover, many third party applications have taken this attitude from Apple and practically refuse to work if run by a non-admin user. Quicken was a real ordeal to get working so both my wife and I could run it and update the same data file from our respective accounts.

      Also, I wish there weren't so many different installers used by various apps. The standard one you get with Apple's development environment is nice in that it allows normal users to temporarily acquire admin privileges by entering a user/password. They all should do this, but I find myself logging out completely and logging back in as admin just to install some software.

      Along these lines, it would also be nice to have an easier way to start gui apps as an admin - sort of a graphical sudo. Of course I can do something like sudo open /path/to/Finder.app or whatever but it's a pain.

    • Virtual memory. I don't know a lot of details about this, but from what I've read, there is a lot of room for improvement here. As I understand, OS X allocates swap space in 80 meg chunks as needed, in files on the filesystem (again, heritage from NeXTStep). I'm no expert, but it seems like a dedicated swap partition might be faster. Maybe not, though.

    • Performance. 10.1.x runs pretty well, but it still seems like there is room for improvement, even at the BSD level (of course Aqua can use more performance, but that's not exactly the UNIX layer anymore). Command-line utilities on my G4/733 still seem slower than the same ones on my Duron/750. I know Apple's advertising about the MHz myth is a bit misleading with highly optimized Photoshop filters, but still - isn't there some more optimization that can be done? GCC is nice and all, but my understanding is it's not that great at optimizing for PowerPC. Perhaps real performance gain could be had simply by improving compiler output.

    Well, those are my completely non-expert opinions. Take them with a huge grain of salt. Hopefully Apple will improve on them in 10.2, along with some of the other issues I've noticed. Even so, I love this OS and I'm very excited to see how much better it can get!

    1. Re:Almost there... by Razzak · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure. I think the worst part of OSX is the finder. It's a slow, clunky, piece of shit. And why would you implement copy commands yet not implement cut? If you're going to make me copy and then dig through to paste, you don't have to be a double bastard and force me to tunnel back to the originals to delete them. /rant

    2. Re:Almost there... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) most crashes (kernel panics) I find are caused by the USBAudioIO driver. Applications will crash, but I think IE is the only one I know of so far to take the machine down (that happened ONCE)

      2) I've never seen the bus error problems. These are more or less straight recompiles of existing BSD software

      3) you can do all the NetInfo stuff from the command line if you MUST

      4) a. Most things ARE hidden from most users, so unless you are running as root (which is NOT the default setup) you cant just fsck your computer up. The only time you should need to enter an admin password for installing stuff or changing locked configurations. (it asks for YOUR passwd if youre an admin, not roots passwd!)
      b. Installers are lame anyway... any good OSX app should be able to fit in one icon (.app wrapper) or folder in /Applications. Programs that do otherwise are usually just trying to be fancy ;P
      c. Why should you need to frequently run apps are root? Bad idea if you ask me ;)

      5. many OSes use swap files rather than partitions: WinNT (not the best example :P), OS X and NeXT OSes, BeOS, and others i care not to list ;) Since the 80 MB chunks are (i think) allocated contiguously, it doesnt really matter about disk access (you CAN move it to another disk if you really want tho, search around /etc in the boot config files)

      6. OSX 10.2 will have a huge boost in performance (from what I've heard anyway) Also, Finder will be bringing back spring-loaded folders YAY!

    3. Re:Almost there... by alexjp · · Score: 1

      First, there's stability. The Mac, since I got it 2 months ago, has crashed or locked up at least 4 times. Stock hardware, stock OS X install with the latest updates. Twice a month is great if you're used to Windows, but for UNIX, it stinks.

      It's unusual that you've had so many crashes under 10.1. I've only managed to crash 10.1 twice. Once, I was burning a CD on Server and tried to access an AppleTalk share. The other time, I was trying to run Quake I in Classic mode on 10.1 client. Sure, individual programs crash from time to time, but the whole system almost never goes down. This was not true of 10.0.x server, which had all sorts of problems.

      Flakiness/weirdness. Occasionally I'll type a command at the tcsh prompt and it will coredump for no reason. "ls" gets a bus error or something. Then it works fine after that. This certainly isn't every day, and it always seems to work the next time, but it's not indicative of a truly mature OS.

      Again, I have to wonder if you have a hardware problem. We have an iBook that came with a bad memory chip, and it exhibited lots of wierd behavior that disappeared when we replaced the chip and re-installed the OS. Other than that, on a half-dozen machines, we never see much weirdness (aside from the printing subsystem, which is horrible).

      ... Apple, being the king of ease-of-use, needs to improve the administration abilities in OS X. Easy gui panels for everything - not just a few settings like IP address, users, etc. Do it like IRIX but even better. (I may have read somewhere that OS X Server has a lot of this stuff - maybe Apple wants people to buy that to get all the admin stuff. Fair enough)

      Yes, Server has a lot of this stuff. The Server Admin tool is great for administering most things, especially Apache. And you can still edit httpd.conf by hand if you want to - Apache just runs off of multiple config files. It'd be nice if it was easy to write and add modules for Server Admin (for things like mySQL); perhaps this will come later.

      Moreover, many third party applications have taken this attitude from Apple and practically refuse to work if run by a non-admin user. Quicken was a real ordeal to get working so both my wife and I could run it and update the same data file from our respective accounts.

      This is a bit of a pain, especially since admin users get notified when software updates are available. This can be quite confusing for someone who doesn't need to be an admin (but are set up as one because their programs need it.)

      Also, I wish there weren't so many different installers used by various apps.

      Yeah. Especially since every other OS has one and only one installer! I'm so glad Linux has standardized on one installer for everything ;P

    4. Re:Almost there... by jimm · · Score: 1

      Dominic Giampaolo (the author of the BeOS file system) has joined Apple. This tells me that not only is Apple serious about improving their OS, but that it's going to kick serious butt.

      Go Dominic!

      --
      Transcript show: self sigs atRandom.
    5. Re:Almost there... by owenc · · Score: 1

      Minor quibbles:
      The "admin" account given by default is not the equivelant of root. It is a normal nonpriveledged user who has the ability to use sudo. Read and write priveledges to the /Applications/ (a place for GUI .apps) is also given, to make mac users feel at home. You cannot drag the system folder to the trash or delete /etc without giving the root password via sudo.

      There are many tutorials on the web on how to move the swapfiles to a dedicated partition. However, according to some Darwin hackers on Omnigroup's Mac OS X-Talk list there is little to no speed gain unless that swapfile is on a seperate physical disk.

    6. Re:Almost there... by Van+Halen · · Score: 1
      4) a. Most things ARE hidden from most users, so unless you are running as root (which is NOT the default setup) you cant just fsck your computer up. The only time you should need to enter an admin password for installing stuff or changing locked configurations. (it asks for YOUR passwd if youre an admin, not roots passwd!)

      I agree absolutely! I run as a regular user (not an admin, and certainly not root) just fine most of the time. The problem is those few applications that expect I'll be running as an admin (Quicken is a notorious offender I can think of off the top of my head - though a little poking around and chmod on the command line fixed that).

      b. Installers are lame anyway... any good OSX app should be able to fit in one icon (.app wrapper) or folder in /Applications. Programs that do otherwise are usually just trying to be fancy ;P
      c. Why should you need to frequently run apps are root? Bad idea if you ask me ;)

      Agreed again! The problem with the drag-and-drop application bundles is that I don't have permission, under my normal account, to drag them to /Applications. (I can put them in my own ~/Applications folder but I usually want them available to all users) I guess what I'd really like is for Finder to automatically pop up and ask for an admin user/password when I try to drag something to a folder I don't have permission to modify. That would save the hassle of logging out, logging in as admin, dragging the application to install, logging out, logging back in as myself. I don't install things every day, but it's a pain when I have to do this. Again, I think the assumption is that most users will give their normal accounts admin privileges, so it's not an issue at all for them.

    7. Re:Almost there... by phillymjs · · Score: 2

      Yes, Server has a lot of this stuff. The Server Admin tool is great for administering most things, especially Apache. And you can still edit httpd.conf by hand if you want to - Apache just runs off of multiple config files. It'd be nice if it was easy to write and add modules for Server Admin (for things like mySQL); perhaps this will come later.

      Well, the Admin stuff on AppleShare IP is pretty modular in nature-- if you have Apple Remote Access Server installed, the ASIP installer picks up on this and adds an Admin module for it in the Admin app. And it's also possible in ASIP to manually strip out the modules you don't use so the server doesn't have unneeded functionality and it doesn't appear in the Admin app.

      Considering how similar ASIP is to X Server, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that it is similarly modular.

      ~Philly

    8. Re:Almost there... by paulschreiber · · Score: 5, Informative
      Along these lines, it would also be nice to have an easier way to start gui apps as an admin - sort of a graphical sudo. Of course I can do something like sudo open /path/to/Finder.app or whatever but it's a pain.

      There's a shareware tool for this -- pesudo.

      Paul

    9. Re:Almost there... by PghFox · · Score: 1

      Along these lines, it would also be nice to have an easier way to start gui apps as an admin - sort of a graphical sudo. Of course I can do something like sudo open /path/to/Finder.app or whatever but it's a pain.

      There is indeed such a graphical application that will allow you to start an application with root privs. It's called Pseudo.

      --
      --- Fox
    10. Re:Almost there... by Van+Halen · · Score: 1
      Again, I have to wonder if you have a hardware problem. We have an iBook that came with a bad memory chip, and it exhibited lots of wierd behavior that disappeared when we replaced the chip and re-installed the OS. Other than that, on a half-dozen machines, we never see much weirdness (aside from the printing subsystem, which is horrible).

      This is certainly a possibility. I've avoided trying to swap out memory chips or something because it's still relatively infrequent. In my experience, a hardware problem generally makes the whole machine very unstable - as in you're lucky to get through a few hours or a day without at least a few application crashes if not an OS crash. I'm not seeing that - just the occasional infrequent oddity or crash. I've had Linux crash on me more often than that on perfectly good hardware. ;-) Besides, I'd hate to pull my 512meg memory chip and go back to 128 just to see if that's it. It'd probably take a few weeks to be sure with this infrequency, and that's painful!

      Yeah. Especially since every other OS has one and only one installer! I'm so glad Linux has standardized on one installer for everything ;P

      Heh, fair enough. I just wish Apple had picked one (that allows non-admin users to easily assume temporary privileges for the install) and pushed it harder with developers.

    11. Re:Almost there... by Van+Halen · · Score: 1

      Excellent! This looks like exactly what I was looking for. Thanks (to you and PghFox, who must have been about 10 seconds later, heh...).

    12. Re:Almost there... by stux · · Score: 2, Informative

      Along these lines, it would also be nice to have an easier way to start gui apps as an admin - sort of a graphical sudo. Of course I can do something like sudo open /path/to/Finder.app or whatever but it's a pain.

      I tend to agree with a large chunk of what you said :)

      And thought I might point out that you should try Pseudo,

      Its a graphical sudo, you basically drag an app on to it and it launches with su privs,

      Nice.

      And I love its icon :)

      --

      ---
      Live Long & Prosper \\//_
      CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
      Jedi & Last *-fytr
  99. wintel troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    u obviously have never heard of Quartz/Aqua. you don't like X? fine. then go back to your clubhouse with the other wintel drones. obviously u don't understand the point of being able to run X apps. where have u been? under a rock? at ITT all day? probably both.

  100. Re:Unix was designed for a N button mouse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I remember old HP CAD stations having a mouse with buttons more than I have fingers on one hand. Where they are? In musiums. Who made a choice? The market? Us, consumers? I gues you heard about who was a commn dominator last decade.

    Unix (and Windows) users don't tend to forget it - they are trying to make their choice - now back into N-button mouse. Today their choice is between old-fashion 3-button mouse or new cordless animal with optical ball, 5-buttons, and wheel.

    By the way, Mac OS X works perfectly with new animals.

    Old GUI was based on new (at that time) element - point. Old Web was based on new (that time) element - click. Today both GUI and Web are full of realtime complex applications. People already think about gloves to interact in such environment . They have fingers and other bones and they want to use them at last! That's why they appreciate to see one-button animals only in musiums. Like Apple stores :)

  101. OS9 vs. OSX Finder by phossie · · Score: 1

    Just because I'm curious:
    I've heard in a few places that OSX doesn't allow the customization that OS9 does, and you say the OSX Finder is missing functionality... Can you explain this? OS9 seems rigid, inflexible, and it's been a pain in the ass to make even slightly usable - OSX has been perfectly sane for me. What are they missing (that I'm missing too)?

    Tx...

    --

    [|]
    1. Re:OS9 vs. OSX Finder by pressman · · Score: 2

      Well, first off, contextual menus are almost completely abandoned. Spring loaded folders. Tabbed folders. Click and a half fodler navigation. The "put away" feature. I'm sorry, but cmd+n opening a new window rather than creating a new folder drives me absolutely furious. I guess it makes sense seeing as all programs use the same command to create a new document which is essentially a new window, but damn after 17 years of using Mac OS, it's hard to get used to!

      Don't get me wrong, OS X is a fantastic OS and it was a good move for Apple. 17 years of familiarity with certain functions is a hard habit to break.

      --
      Pooty tweet
    2. Re:OS9 vs. OSX Finder by stux · · Score: 1

      You'll get used to it... really...

      And then when you're using OS9 you'll head to the bottom of the screen to switch apps...

      And you press cmd-shift-n to make a new folder...

      And you get pissed off when you can't do something else while you're waiting for OS9 to do something (like open a window)

      But the kicker is... when you're doing finder copies, and you fail to bring it forwards to make it faster... and you wait for it to complete... and then realise, you have to bring it forwards because the OS isn't as good as OSX...

      Its not that OS9 all of a sudden sucks.. its just that OSX is sooooo good :)

      --

      ---
      Live Long & Prosper \\//_
      CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
      Jedi & Last *-fytr
    3. Re:OS9 vs. OSX Finder by pressman · · Score: 2

      I know I'll get used to it. Like I said, old habits die hard. Once I get my copy of Photoshop 7 and a carbon version of Dreamweaver comes out the only reason I'll ever have to switch back to OS 9 is to use Quark XPress. Then I'll be able to retrain myself more efficiently because I won't be switching back and forth between the two to get my work done. However, if InDesign keeps improving the way it has, I may never need to use XPress again.

      --
      Pooty tweet
  102. Also funny... by Big+Sean+O · · Score: 2

    When you start IE on Mac OS X for the first time, your homepage is set to livepage.apple.com which used to go to Excite. But now it goes to Netscape.

    And there in the corner is a big ole fancy come-on to download Netscape 6.2. I don't doubt for a minute that the agreement for hosting livepage.apple.com between Netscape and Apple included showing the Netscape browser in Apple ads.

    I get such a kick out of seeing IE point to a Netscape page, that I kept it as my homepage on IE (since I use Mozilla for almost all my surfing).

    --
    My father is a blogger.
  103. Mac OS X was designed for a two button mouse. by mindKMST · · Score: 1

    Actually Mac OS X has built in support for two button mice and scrollwheels.

  104. You give me hope at least by SIGFPE · · Score: 2
    I have 512Mb RAM. A pretty vanilla setup. I've reinstalled OSX once in an attempt to fix the problems. Here are some things that cause lockups for me:

    1. 1. My finger slips while selecting something from the GUI and I quickly select two things in a row (or something like that). GUI locks up.
      2. Closing and reopening the case. Not long after a reboot it comes back instantly. After an hour or two it takes between 20 seconds and never coming back. Frequently never comes back if I leave the PowerBook on but unattended - I guess because it goes into standby mode and has the same problem.
      3. I've had one kernel panic for absolutely no apparent reason.
      4. I've had to reboot because it denied I had an Airport card. (I do!) It mysteriously was there on reboot.
      5. Getting a DVD or CD back out often entails a reboot. Frequently the Finder or the OS simply fails to notice a disk has been inserted (this is a frequently reported issue on may web sites). And last time I tried playing a VOB file from HD (which the latest DVD player says it can do) it completely locked the machine up.

    Lots of dumb things can lock it up too. I wanted to use pppoe. Accidentally I had the modem selected in the Internet Connection dialogue when I asked it to make a connection. I immediately changed to ethernet and tried to make a connection. I guess the shock of making a ppp connection through two different devices simultaneously was too much of a shock for the system. Anyway - it locked up of course. Another dumb thing that can make it lock up is launching an application during a software update. I'm not so worried about these latter problems but I'm still not impressed.


    It's one crash after another for a wide variety of reasons.


    The only thing I can think of is the Microsoft Intellimouse drivers. Maybe some stuff (point 2 I'm hoping) will improve now I've removed them...

    --
    -- SIGFPE
    1. Re:You give me hope at least by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i don't think your as big of a geek as you think you are if every little thing requires a reboot.

      I have a g4 tower with never reboots except for software updates... i just put the things to sleep at night

      one g3 powerbook that only reboots when the batteries are out and i over extend the power cord, aka gets unplugged

      one ibook that well gets rebooted about once a week.

      now the system can get locked up from time to time... well the gui gets locked but to solve the proble you just need to restart the finder... or force quit the offending app.. i think you should check out one of the many os x for startes books on the market you might learn a few things

    2. Re:You give me hope at least by azosx · · Score: 1

      That is very strange. OS X has ran flawlessly for me since January. I run it on a G4 Cube. I'd say your problems are not the OS but the hardware you're running it on. Is your ram from Apple or did you purchase it elsewhere? Shitty ram will do the funkiest things to a system. Hopefully if you bought the laptop new it's still under warranty. Don't hesitate calling Apple up and telling them your PowerBook is defective, explain what's going on and have them fix it. My Cube did some funky things, the OS never crashed but the box would randomly turnon/shutoff and froze while booting several times as well. Apple fixed it in 2 days under warranty, sent it back, and it's been the most stable box I've ever owned since. Apple's support is second to none. In anycase, goodluck.

    3. Re:You give me hope at least by acrollet · · Score: 1

      I'd agree with the other repliers - I have a G4 powerbook, and haven't managed to make it crash once in the 3 or 4 weeks I've had it... Sounds like a hardware problem for sure

    4. Re:You give me hope at least by SIGFPE · · Score: 2

      Well it's been stable for 24 hours now. It looks like those damn Microsoft Intellimouse drivers were the source of the main problem!

      --
      -- SIGFPE
    5. Re:You give me hope at least by SIGFPE · · Score: 1

      Well what do you know? After using the PowerBook fine for the last 24 hours the first time I open it after posting that comment it fails to wake from sleep. Problem not fixed after all. Crap!

      --
      -- SIGFPE
    6. Re:You give me hope at least by stripes · · Score: 2
      . My finger slips while selecting something from the GUI and I quickly select two things in a row (or something like that). GUI locks up.

      Never seen anything like that.

      2. Closing and reopening the case. Not long after a reboot it comes back instantly. After an hour or two it takes between 20 seconds and never coming back. Frequently never comes back if I leave the PowerBook on but unattended - I guess because it goes into standby mode and has the same problem.

      I had this problem from time to time under OS 10.0, under 10.1 it has happened exactly three times (and I would guess I do 10+ suspends most days)

      3. I've had one kernel panic for absolutely no apparent reason.

      Three, all in OS 10.0, two provoked by umount -f (which seems to work under 10.1), the other was under lots of swap load, but nothing else special.

      4. I've had to reboot because it denied I had an Airport card. (I do!) It mysteriously was there on reboot.

      Denied as in the menu bar thing went out, or as in "ifconfig en1: no such device"? A few times it has stopped doing it's thing and doing "ifconfig en1 down && sleep 2 && ifconfig en1 up && sleep 2" a few times fixed it.

      I have also had the network part stop working sometimes. It happened a fair bit under 10.0, not so much under 10.1. Sometimes the ifconfig bounce did the trick. Almost all other times clearing the arp table would do it. It happened last month, but not yet this month.

      (your #1 and #8 never happened to me at all)

      Lots of dumb things can lock it up too. I wanted to use pppoe. Accidentally I had the modem selected in the Internet Connection dialogue when I asked it to make a connection. I immediately changed to ethernet and tried to make a connection. I guess the shock of making a ppp connection through two different devices simultaneously was too much of a shock for the system. Anyway - it locked up of course. Another dumb thing that can make it lock up is launching an application during a software update. I'm not so worried about these latter problems but I'm still not impressed.

      It's not that I disbelieve you, but this is different from my experience. Maybe the hardware is marginal (do you have AppleCare? You could try to have it replaced)? Or maybe there is some driver other then the MS mouse one that you missed?

  105. And some times it's impressive... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And sometimes it's impressive when people misspell "rubbish"...

  106. OpenOffice for OSX? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have pretty much replaced the need for MS Office with OpenOffice, under Linux, at work. I can still communicate with fellow workers when they send me MS Word files or Excel documents. OpenOffice has been a great MS Office replacement/upgrade.

    Does OpenOffice compile and work under OSX? With Netscape 6.*/Mozilla and OpenOffice, I don't see why Apple couldn't break completely free from MS apps.

  107. Look at the code for OpenOffice sometime by Ilan+Volow · · Score: 2

    And then you'll understand why nobody is really interested in porting it. There's millions upon millions of lines of messy undocumented code (Okay, there are *some* comments. Did I mention that they are all in german?) and according to a KDE developer quoted in an Linux and Main article the OpenOffice Word filter "is full of black magic values and voodoo programming that even [the OpenOffice developers] don't understand." Download the tarball, unzip, and then you will understand all.

    --
    Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
  108. Cross marketing / cross branding by cmoss_701 · · Score: 1

    With respect to the dock.. is this marketing getting a little subversive or what?

    After the arrangement of default icons, you have MS Office, an icon I've not seen before that looks like it could resemble an O, Netscape, and XFree86 for Darwin.

    The Microsoft Office icons are for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.. is it just me, or is letter arrangement a fine art afterall?

    W X P (o) N X

    ?!

    -CM

    1. Re:Cross marketing / cross branding by mookie-blaylock · · Score: 1

      "O" is the icon for Photoshop 7 - it's a screw-in lens filter that's been on the main Photoshop box & splash screen since at least version 5.0.

      --
      I am not Herbert.
  109. Statements by our leaders on the WXP Trinity by iskander · · Score: 5, Funny

    What Apple is really saying is that MacOS gives you the ability to run Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) on top of a UNIX core environment. But, is that a good thing? The answer is easy enough to obtain if we ask ourselves, with due humility, What ld Jesus Do? Oops, sorry -- wrong church. I mean, what would our leaders have to say about it? Well, my prayers to the Gods of Freenix were answered and what follows are (approximately) the words I heard in the vision with which I was rewarded for my Faith:

    RMS:

    It is far better to use available Free Software whenever possible. We do not need Word, as we have Emacs PSGML; we do not need Excel, as we have Emacs Calc; and we do not need Powerpoint, as Emacs AUC TeX supports SliTeX.

    WRS:

    I use a combination of vi, bc, and the -m packages. Whenever I have needed something that these tools did't provide, it has always been simple enough to write an awk script to process the data or a short C program to drive the underlying ex, dc, and troff directly.

    ESR:

    A couple of years ago, I was worried about it. Today, however, Microsoft must learn to coexist with open source systems or risk going the way of the dinosaurs. I believe that it is only a matter of time before Microsoft releases the Office application suite under an OSI-approved license. In fact, as soon as I get a hold of Neal to arrange the next junket at Bill's, I'll be able to give you a more precise date.

    CmdrTaco:

    As everyone knows, Vim is the best (only?) text editor. And KDE supplies everything else 'cause, as everyone knows, KDE is the best (only?) desktop system. Heh.

    [Yeah, I know WRS is dead, but this was a vision, see?]

    1. Re:Statements by our leaders on the WXP Trinity by MaxVlast · · Score: 2

      And I don't have to say anything. I just open the desired document and continue to be productive.

      --
      There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
      Max V.
      NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
  110. Re:Unix was designed for a N button mouse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    your argument would carry just a tiny little bit more weight if you'd learn how the spell the word "museum"

  111. EMACS 21.1 precompiled for Aqua? by Shuh · · Score: 1

    I did some Google for a while, but came up with a lot of dead ends. Anyone know where I can find precompiled EMACS 21.1 for Aqua OR XFree86?

    1. Re:EMACS 21.1 precompiled for Aqua? by Avumede · · Score: 1

      Try Andrew Choi's patched emacs. It's a bit flaky, not 21.2 yet, but mostly usable.

  112. Why "out of the box" is important by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 2, Insightful
    know they are available. That's why I kept saying "out of the box". :-)

    The reason "out of the box" is important, is that is the configuration that is easiest to maintain.

    Yes, I can add bash and vim and a better terminal to OS X, but then, if a security update is needed to, say, bash, I have to track it down and apply it. It won't be found by Apple's software update.

    With my Linux system, any necessary bash update will be found and applied automatically, because I use Red Hat Network.

    1. Re:Why "out of the box" is important by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 2

      OK, who is the idiot who moderated this as a "troll"?

  113. Re:It's goatse, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Beacause it's funny?

    Humor: it's worth your time.

  114. Oh wait, I see, YOU SUCK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    And the fact that apple laptops still refuse to have a servicable 3 button mouse like any good Unix system should leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This one button stuff irks me something fierce.

    You have officially qualified as a bastard.

    Buy a 47-button mouse, plug it in, and quit bitching. You don't even have to install drivers.
  115. yup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    % ls /dev
    bpf0 disk0s1 klog ptyp3 ptypa ptyq1 ptyq8 ptyqf rdisk0s5 ttyp0 ttyp7 ttype ttyq5 ttyqc
    bpf1 disk0s2 kmem ptyp4 ptypb ptyq2 ptyq9 random rdisk1 ttyp1 ttyp8 ttypf ttyq6 ttyqd
    bpf2 disk0s3 mem ptyp5 ptypc ptyq3 ptyqa rdisk0 stderr ttyp2 ttyp9 ttyq0 ttyq7 ttyqe
    bpf3 disk0s4 null ptyp6 ptypd ptyq4 ptyqb rdisk0s1 stdin ttyp3 ttypa ttyq1 ttyq8 ttyqf
    console disk0s5 ptyp0 ptyp7 ptype ptyq5 ptyqc rdisk0s2 stdout ttyp4 ttypb ttyq2 ttyq9 urandom
    cu.modem disk1 ptyp1 ptyp8 ptypf ptyq6 ptyqd rdisk0s3 tty ttyp5 ttypc ttyq3 ttyqa zero
    disk0 fd ptyp2 ptyp9 ptyq0 ptyq7 ptyqe rdisk0s4 tty.modem ttyp6 ttypd ttyq4 ttyqb
    %

  116. Hmm. W. X. P.? by parkanoid · · Score: 1

    Is it just me or does the dock spell the initals of the one whose name should not be spoken?

  117. OS X isn't UNIX by TheAlabamaKid · · Score: 1

    Doesn't the Open Group or something like that own the trademark UNIX? What about companies, like IBM and SGI, who pay money to them to have their systems considered UNIX to now have Apple calling their's UNIX? Seems like it degrades the trademark.

    1. Re:OS X isn't UNIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you are ignorant, which is allowable, and spouting off about that which you are ignorant, which in not. When you learn about BSD and its relationship to Mac OS X, you'll undoubtably be embarrassed by your post. If you're lucky, a kind moderator (or 2) will mod your post to -1 so it will be left out of the permanent archive. However, Google will probably cache your post, thus providing a chuckle to your detractors for generations to come.

    2. Re:OS X isn't UNIX by parkanoid · · Score: 1

      I believe you are technically right however unix is such a common term nowdays, OSX can be called unix as well (through BSD of course). I also don't think they actually stated that OSX is UNIX

    3. Re:OS X isn't UNIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh-huh. So by your logic, if it's BSD based, it's UNIX?

    4. Re:OS X isn't UNIX by ZerothAngel · · Score: 1
      There was something about this sometime last year.

      But if you notice the update at the end of the article, the Open Group later decided to include Apple as a UNIX vendor.

    5. Re:OS X isn't UNIX by dohcvtec · · Score: 1

      You're right, but nobody around here really wants to admit it. I don't see OS X anywhere on this page, and as much as I hate to admit it, nowadays OSs have to be registered as UNIX to be called UNIX, even though OS X is partially based on BSD, which is classical UNIX. And we've already seen that the Open Group wouldn't allow FreeBSD to call itself UNIX. However, even if Apple gets sued, it would be worth it; somebody's got to defend UNIX's honor from Microsoft.

      --
      -- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
  118. Re:Linux/UNIX/OpenSource is no platform for spywar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "... who cares about where our future goes."

    Get real. Apple has achieved what the Linux community has been failing to do forever: that ever elusive easy-to-use "future". OS X has done UNIX a huge favor by revamping its image. UNIX is now not only acceptable on the desktop, but cool. The Linux community would do well in riding the wave OS X has created by pushing Linux as a cheaper alternative. Let people know they can have the stability of UNIX and the usability of OS X without the hefty price tag.

    Of course, first there needs to be an easy-to-use and attractive version of Linux. Good luck.

  119. except its not by autopr0n · · Score: 2

    The link points to the right place. I have no idea why the guy put [goatse.cx] in his post, though...

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  120. Of course there is no IE... by Milo77 · · Score: 1

    IE is an integral part of MS Windows. There is *no* way to seperate IE and Windows.

    geez.

  121. Pre-installation is what you want by Xylantiel · · Score: 1

    I'm not really intending to "defend" linux, I think OSX deserves props for finally bringing unix with a nice front-end on it to the general populace (something all the linux vendors seemed to fail to do for years). But as another pointed out OSX is actually just the latest version of NextStep.

    Anyhow, many of your points are due to two things -- 1. OSX like all mac os's only runs on a limited set of hardware, this makes things TONS easier, especially in installation. 2. Linux have NEVER been widely shipped pre-installed. All those things you worry about you laptop not doing and "Top-end hardware support" would pretty much work with a preinstalled, properly system integrated Linux.

    I just had an idea. Some linux vendor should start selling boxes with simpler linux distribution pre-installed, with KDE, all the extra crap stripped out with their own picked PC hardware. At least this would give people something to compare fairly against Windows and Mac. Breaking into the PC market by installing on existing machines is just nearly suicide due to the insane variety of hardware.

    Of course the strength of the PC is the commodity hardware keeping prices down and avoiding dependency on single vendors.

    Hmmm.

    1. Re:Pre-installation is what you want by zeno_2 · · Score: 1
      I just had an idea. Some linux vendor should start selling boxes with simpler linux distribution pre-installed, with KDE, all the extra crap stripped out with their own picked PC hardware

      I think someone had the idea before, These guys sell an HP desktop machine or an IBM Thinkpad with a fairly easy to use distro. And nope, I dont work for them, there was a story about them about a week ago..

  122. open office is not an Office� replacement by Bobartig · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've worked sans office for 4.5 years now, which has been at times challenging since my work has always required Office compatibility. Open office only suffices for the very simplest of Office documents. As soon as you throw in a few pictures, some columns, tables, text effects, footnotes, or any of another hundred commonly used formatting tools, Open Office makes a garden frittata out of your *.doc files.

    A big part of Apple's OSX message is "Unix with Office." And for a lot of people, that's a huge development, as it means one less computer in their offices (ok, a lot of /.'ers WANT the extra machine on their desks). But apple's always been kinda silly by making some of their most important messages nearly imperceptible.

    --
    This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
    1. Re:open office is not an Office� replacement by stux · · Score: 1

      Their other important message, just not this time...

      is "UNIX with Photoshop"

      (and don't reply back "Use the Gimp")

      Of course, another message they have is "UNIX you can use"

      --

      ---
      Live Long & Prosper \\//_
      CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
      Jedi & Last *-fytr
    2. Re:open office is not an Office� replacement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      (and don't reply back "Use the Gimp")

      "The Gimp", use!

  123. Who's WRS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who is WRS? Sounds like my kind of computer users.

    1. Re:Who's WRS? by wrong · · Score: 2, Informative

      W. Richard Stevens. Amongst other things, wrote the book 'UNIX Network Programming' which is widely accepted as the best of its kind. See http://www.kohala.com/start/.

  124. the reason... by MoneyT · · Score: 1

    That it doesn't say that is because apple is trying to also market OS X to the home user. By using simple everyday terms, Apple can accoplish that. They already push the reasoning skill limits of an average american with the /dev/nul.

    --
    T Money
    World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
  125. Uncoordinated PB users by MoneyT · · Score: 1

    Damnit! Learn to use your powerbook the correct way. You have 2 hands, and I have never come across a situation where I've had to type and click at the same time, therefore, use the one free hand to hold down the control button and the other hand to work the track pad. Exercise both hands! And if your one hand happens to be busy cause you're looking at prOn, well, then just tone down the click and hold delay.

    --
    T Money
    World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    1. Re:Uncoordinated PB users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if you need to control-middle-click?

  126. unix computers by ion_crow · · Score: 1

    I am a computer tech and I am teaching myself coding, I firmly believe that unix isn't dead!! I plus a lot of times it's better then windows!! If they made it more easily configuriable it would be doing a lot better then windows!!

    --
    some have hopes and dreams, others have wings and means!! the rest of have it all!!
  127. Virtual PC does support Linux by Bogatyr · · Score: 1

    Virtual PC does support Linux. VPC is a hardware platform emulator. You install Windows, if you choose to. You can also install RedHatLinux, debian linux, slackware linux, BSD, Solaris x86, OS/2, and pretty much anything else that will install on a given Intel-based stack of hardware. (With the exception of BeOS, I seem to recall, and I'm not sure why it was described as "won't install").

    1. Re:Virtual PC does support Linux by TotallyUseless · · Score: 1

      i think he wants a native version of VPC for linux so he can host other OSs (be, windows, bsd, whatever) from his linux machine

      --

      Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
    2. Re:Virtual PC does support Linux by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      So something like vmware or bochs? Emulating a complete x86 system on a non x86 system seems fairly pointless however, since x86 is generally the cheapest architecture to buy, then why buy something else if you want to run x86 apps? Emulation will never be as fast as native code, and this isn`t 1994 anymore, using a DEC Alpha to emulate an x86 is no longer the fastest way to run x86 code, more`s the pity.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    3. Re:Virtual PC does support Linux by Bogatyr · · Score: 1

      VPC becomes reasonable when you need several Windows boxes, such as in website browser testing. The Windows instances start up in literally seconds, and if they crash you do not have to power-cycle the box. The big issue with webtesting is that MS Internet Explorer doesn't let you have more than one version of MSIE installed at any given time. If you are in a web development shop like I was and are required to test a website versus [Win95/98/98sp2/NT3.5/NT4serverNT4wkstation/2000se rver/2000professional/XP] and MSIE 3.0 - 6.0 (I am not exaggerating this in the least), you can see that quickly expands to close to twenty Windows systems. Twenty Windows boxes, inexpensive as you mention, with OS licenses still cost more than 1 Mac + VPC + Windows licenses. Installing a multiboot system still requires reboots, plus switching between the OS&IE versions requires rebooting instead of switching between Windows instances in different (small w) windows on the same monitor. We had neither the money nor the space for twenty Windows systems in the office. Vmware on linux is a similar way to get one machine to fake being twenty, too. Since the webdevelopers had Macs, we had an older Mac I bought an external firewire drive for and set up VPC for them. I hope this makes some sense. VPC isn't the best answer for all situations, but I believe for some situations it really is the best answer.

  128. And furthermore... by zyqqh · · Score: 2

    Quoth the ad: ...After two-and-a-half years of Linux, I've finally found joy in a UNIX operating system. And I found it when I purchased a Macintosh -- the first one I've ever owned...

    Yea, and with the UNIX-scale number of open public services on the system... And a brand-new re-wrap of the OS... Well, insert favorite link to security hole here. Mac OS X is certainly responsible for the first dozen macs I've ever 0wn3d...

    --
    // zyqqh
    1. Re:And furthermore... by russotto · · Score: 1

      The number of open public services on a default OS X install is on the close order of zero. (There is one service, but it's bound to the loopback interface)

    2. Re:And furthermore... by Arkham · · Score: 2

      Unlike most Linux distros, OSX ships with everything off. No telnet, no FTP, no apache, no SSH, no file sharing, nothing. It's pretty secure until people start turning things on, so I suspect it won't be 0wn3d on any large scale by script kiddies. Microsoft can keep that role in the computer community.

      The good thing about OSX is that when you turn on "Allow Remote Login" you get OpenSSH, not telnet.

      --
      - Vincit qui patitur.
    3. Re:And furthermore... by 4of12 · · Score: 2

      Unlike most Linux distros, OSX ships with everything off.

      Sounds like a business opportunity to me.

      Bet the Linux PPC crowd and companies like Yellow Dog could release a cheap CD with "Everything OS X is Missing".

      If Apple is trying to sell desktops to the UNIX crowd, they should know that UNIX "desktop" machines are very closely related to what you find in the server machine room.

      Kinda like one of my Linux-using friends that runs Apache on a Dell Laptop...

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    4. Re:And furthermore... by stripes · · Score: 2
      Bet the Linux PPC crowd and companies like Yellow Dog could release a cheap CD with "Everything OS X is Missing".

      Um, "off" doesn't mean "missing". Want sshd? Click "enable remote logins" in the control panel (or set SSHSERVER to YES in /etc/hostconfig). Want apache? Click "Turn Web sharing on" in the control panel (or edit some other thing in /etc). Want ntpd? Click "network time service" on in the control panel...

      I don't think it comes with telnetd, but I turn that off. The only service it doesn't come with that I tend to run on my other Unix machines is a VNC server, and since my OSX box is a laptop, I wouldn't really use it (I would still like it though).

    5. Re:And furthermore... by jub · · Score: 1

      Those items aren't off the machine, they're installed but turned off. Big difference. It's a pretty well-equipped machine, but a secure one.

      This is something Apple does really well, btw - there are lots of very cool extras that the power user will find with a little digging. Apple suckers you in with a nice interface, then amazes you with how much power there is, if you look. This effect is multiplied 100x with OSX.

    6. Re:And furthermore... by 4of12 · · Score: 2

      You're starting to sell me on it.

      Maybe instead of buying an Intel compatible laptop I'll get a Mac and not have to futz with the whole Winmodem hassles and get a way to run Unix, dial in, and show powerpoint on the screen on a reasonable PowerPC chip.

      [Regarding telnetd turned off] Someone I know suggested that OS X can be tightened down more than any other flavor of UNIX. Normally I use Linux and my answer to "What's most secure?" is OpenBSD.

      Is OS X really that tight from a security perspective?

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    7. Re:And furthermore... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Incredibly. I could't think of any aspect of network security you couldn't pull tight as a wormhole. Much of this comes from the fact that OS X is BSD with a convenient GUI frontend. Surprisingly many security holes are the result of mistakes or carelessnes. With the convenient GUI, you can avoid many of the random pitfalls.

      Of course, it isn't just the GUI that makes OS X powerful from a security perspective. There are a number of system advantages that I, a unix newbie, couldn't recognize or understand. But I know they are there, I can feel them breathing beneath the surface ;-)

  129. Re:open office & translators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Translators All well and good until you have something like formulas

    LaTeX?

  130. Its XDarwin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its XDarwin from www.xdarwin.org

  131. Check your hardware. by Doktor+Memory · · Score: 4, Insightful
    • First, there's stability. It's very good, orders of magnitude better than classic Mac OS, but still well behind most other UNIXes. In my group at work, we have a mix of about 25 IRIX and Solaris boxes. Of those, we get maybe one or two crashes a year due to memory parity errors. I have yet to crash my FreeBSD box at home after a year and a half. The Mac, since I got it 2 months ago, has crashed or locked up at least 4 times. Stock hardware, stock OS X install with the latest updates. Twice a month is great if you're used to Windows, but for UNIX, it stinks.
    • Flakiness/weirdness. Occasionally I'll type a command at the tcsh prompt and it will coredump for no reason. "ls" gets a bus error or something. Then it works fine after that. This certainly isn't every day, and it always seems to work the next time, but it's not indicative of a truly mature OS.

    This is unintentional irony at its finest. :)

    Random bsd-layer application coredumps are not normal behavior under OSX, and the number of complete system crashes/lockups you describe are way above the average that I've observed. I would wager any amount of beer that you have a hardware problem.

    The ironic part: odds are very high that you have a memory parity error happening. Unfortunately, one of the reasons that those SGIs cost 5X as much as a PowerMac is that they support ECC memory, and can thus recover a bit more gracefully from such errors.

    Swap out your DIMMs with registered CL2 sticks from Mushkin, Kingston or Crucial, and I suspect you'll be suitably impressed by the results. (Also, check and make certain that the CPU and case fans are operating at their indicated voltage and RPM...)

    Insightful comments otherwise, btw.
    --

    News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.

    1. Re:Check your hardware. by qurob · · Score: 1

      Either case, even though you pay a premium for Apple hardware, it's not the level of quality, not to mention the service and support you get from Sun/etc etc

    2. Re:Check your hardware. by Van+Halen · · Score: 1
      Alright, you've convinced me to investigate the hardware angle more than I already have. ;-) I put it off due to the relative rarity of the problems, which makes it difficult to diagnose. It was easier to chalk up to a relatively new operating system...

      This is straying slightly off-topic, so moderate accordingly if you wish... But does anyone know of any good utilities to really stress test the memory under OS X? I suppose I could grab something large like gnome from fink and see if I get any compile errors. But it would be nicer to have a utility specifically for this purpose. I'll go check versiontracker now...

  132. Oh puh-lease by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would you geeks give it a rest? Microsoft is running things now. Unix is a legacy system.

  133. Rotting apples + aqua by Ilan+Volow · · Score: 2

    == hard cider. Mmmmmmmmm.....cider...

    --
    Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
  134. Re:Linux/UNIX/OpenSource is no platform for spywar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well... except for maybe A/UX.

    Dumbass.

  135. WXP icon layout by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it my imagination, or is the layout of the MS icons on the dock an ad for MS's flagship Win XP.
    What better way to advertise than through subliminal advertising on your competitors OS ad screen shots.

  136. Quartz vs. Aqua by Binky+The+Oracle · · Score: 2

    While Quartz (Aqua?) gives me a nice GUI,

    Aqua is the GUI with all the eye-candy. Quartz is the underlying display engine that allows for native PDF, etc.

    Just an FYI.

    --

    Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.

  137. Ad copy is misleading: Matlab is not available! by King+Babar · · Score: 2
    I really like Mac OS X, and I would use it for pretty much everything in life...except there is no native version of Matlab for it.

    To be brutally honest about it, the lack of Matlab is probably costing Apple tens of thousands of lost sales per year (really! I seriously do mean it!). If Apple is serious about selling the new Macs to technical users, they really, truly are going to have to do something about the complete lack of Matlab. Heck, it might even be worth it for them to jump into Octave development with both feet and bring *that* up to speed. R is wonderful, Mathematica is beautiful, but when you have to use Matlab, there really is no substitute. :-(

    --

    Babar

  138. Re:Targetted ads? What a conspiracy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you need to get a grip on reality and recognize the high-stakes game being played here, particularly with the poor economy we are faced with. You and the original poster seem to have completely underestimated the wile of Apple Computer's PR department. With the /. posting, I would say Apple got its money's worth!

  139. Re:open office & translators by dadragon · · Score: 0, Troll

    LaTeX?

    LaTeX is all well and good if:
    1) You know LaTeX.
    2) The person who's recieving your latex knows latex.

    Otherwise, you use MSOffice, or Corel WordPerfect (If you learned before about 1996)

    --
    God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
  140. Re:Linux/UNIX/OpenSource is no platform for spywar by N3P1u5U17r4 · · Score: 1

    >Of course, first there needs to be an easy-to-use >and attractive version of Linux. Good luck.

    Hey, it's been here for a while and it's called Mandrake.

    --
    You're Just Jealous Because The Voices Are Talking To Me.
  141. Re:Linux/UNIX/OpenSource is no platform for spywar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You really believe it comes close to the usability of OS X? That might be the problem, people with technical knowledge like yourself have no idea what it means to be an "average user".

  142. Good placement in Scientific American by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 1

    I first saw this ad in the inside cover of the latest edition of *Scientific American*. After sealing my geek fate by laughing at the tag line (and then having to explain to my wife why it was funny), I realized that it's one of the few times that Apple has actually placed an ad suggesting that the Mac is technologically superior in a place where the readers might care.

  143. GUI ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "This new OS has accomplished in a short period of time what other have struggled to do for years: bring a compelling widely accepted GUI (called Aqua) to UNIX."

    Someone might like to inform Tim O'Reilly that it took Apple years to do the same thing. (And even longer if you add in the Next's development time.)

  144. Speeding up command-line by greygent · · Score: 2

    I, too , was perturbed at the seeming slowness of the OS X Terminal. I found that if you bump up the Keyboard repeat settings under the System Preferences, that this takes away all of the slowness UNIX lovers hate.

  145. Partially good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, it's partially good, but "Sends other UNIX boxes to /dev/null" - give me a break, you're killing me!! haha!!

  146. Terminal.app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    The Terminal.app program on MacOS X actually has an interesting history. In the earlier versions of NeXTSTEP (0.8, 1.0, maybe 2.0, my memory fails me), NeXT had an application called Terminal.app which just wasn't very good. It was really bare-bones. We're talking on the level of xterm here.

    In response, Scott Hess created a little program called Stuart.app, which was basically a drop-in Terminal.app replacement. Stuart was so popular that eventually NeXT just contracted with Scott to create a souped-up version of Terminal for NeXTSTEP. Which he did. Then after NeXTSTEP 2.1 (or whatever the version was) was released, he turned around and released an even better version of Stuart.

    Scott then went on to create one of the coolest NeXTSTEP applications ever: TickleServices. This was an application that let you create TCL scripts which registered themselves in the NeXTSTEP Services menu (what's now the Services submenu of the application's menu). This automagically extended all NeXTSTEP apps with some very handy scripting facilities. I wonder if it can be recompiled of OS X, and a language like scheme or python...

    The current MacOS X Terminal.app program appears to be essentially a recompilation of the NeXTSTEP 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x Terminal.app program. No doubt someone could write yet another replacement application and blow it out of the water -- until Apple works with the author to encorporate it into the next version of the OS. I wonder what Scott Hess is doing nowadays...

  147. top running by slashclone · · Score: 1

    Nice to know that netscape6 is a hog on macOS X as well. CPU 53%

    --


    US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
  148. Actually workable IE on a 'nix' is a plus by DABANSHEE · · Score: 2

    They should be emphaisising it, you can run bloody netscrape on almost any nix box.

  149. true but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i dont see it at best buy, actually i dont see macs either.

    That is in the future going to be the biggest
    obstacle for linux

  150. Bluetooth by phunhippy · · Score: 1

    Top-end hardware support. Bluetooth, firewire, CD-RW, DVD, etc etc. It's all built in to a point that you don't even think about using it. You can burn a CD by drag-and-drop from the desktop for crissake.

    I just gotta know... what do you use bluetooth for?

    1. Re:Bluetooth by stripes · · Score: 2
      I just gotta know... what do you use bluetooth for?

      Basically the same stuff IRDA is used for, setting up PPP via a cell phone, sending files to lusers that can't use ethernet (or 802.11), and talking to a tiny number of printers...

      So far none of the "cool stuff" like having the PDA use the cell phone's vibrate mode, or the like has surfaced (it is still a little nicer then IRDA for cell phone attachment...or would be if the BlueTooth was built into the laptop)

  151. How the hell is this Anti-Microsoft? by Wakko+Warner · · Score: 2

    The ad is clearly aimed squarely at every other UNIX-like operating system out there. There's no mention of Microsoft -- hell, the ad even features three prominently-placed Microsoft icons in the system's dock.

    Yet Another Stroke of Retardation from slashdot...

    - A.P.

    --
    "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
  152. boxen is a fag-ism and a clueless-ism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    your ass is the only boxen around here.

  153. Ah the joys of /. by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 2

    I love how the third comment down on the left is our very own Dark Paladin. =)

    --
    ± 29 dB
  154. Competition by Paul+Komarek · · Score: 2

    Heh, this is the first time I've ever felt a tinge of competitiveness with my operating system. Microsoft just makes me mad (even though I expunged MS from my machine years ago, there's always tech support for friends and family). But Apple is now saying "Okay, we see why you like Unix so much, now we're going to up the ante." It's a great feeling.

    Imagine you were a soccer player on a good team. It's fun to play against another good team, with both teams believing they've got what it takes. That's how this add makes me feel. Microsoft, on the other hand, reminds me of an awful game against the foul-mouthed and dirty-playing U14 River City Steelers, refereed by two players from the foul-mouthed and dirty-playing U16 River City Steelers (we lost that game, and many of us were hurt badly -- the next game, with regular referees, we shut them out).

    -Paul Komarek

  155. "Sending script kiddies to /dev/null since 1995" by Tetard · · Score: 1

    That would be OpenBSD's slogan.

  156. yes it is by koekepeer · · Score: 1

    ...an anti linux ad. makes you wonder why ms still cuddles up next to apple even though their five year monster agreement nears its end.

    but, let's face it: linux / X11 / 'insert any desktop manager here' is not as nice a osx. it's free though, and that's why i keep on using it (that and the fact that osx doesn't run on an i386 arch).

  157. Aqua versus X by leandrod · · Score: 2

    Too bad even Tim O’Reilly says Aqua’s “widely accepted” it’s accepted only in Mac OS, because it’s proprietary to Apple and not compatible with the real standard, the X Window System. It is this kind of attitude that validates proprietary systems like Wintel or the Mac.

    --
    Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
    DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
    GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    1. Re:Aqua versus X by Erik+K.+Veland · · Score: 1

      Get off it already, the X Window System is clearly inferior. Windows is also a "real standard", but I don't see anybody (apart from Microsoft) claiming that it's superior. It is this kind of this attitude that validates proprietary systems for the benefit of the end user. And that's what really counts.

      --
      "I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
    2. Re:Aqua versus X by Arcturax · · Score: 2

      If you look closely you will see that X-Windows is running along side Aqua (in rootless mode).

      Yes, you can run X-Windows and Aqua at the same time, I do it all the time, it rocks!

      --

      --Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
    3. Re:Aqua versus X by leandrod · · Score: 2

      > the X Window System is clearly inferior

      Why inferior? It’s faster, more flexible, and can do everything Aqua can do. Anything else is just tools and configuration.

      > Windows is also a "real standard"

      It isn’t any kind of standard – there was even an alliance called OpenWin32 or something the like that included IBM and called for the API standardization, but Microsoft refused claiming it was proprietary. Windows is only popular, not a standard by any means – if it was the barrier to entry in the market wouldn’t be so high, even with all the OEM strongarming Microsoft does.

      > It is this kind of this attitude that validates proprietary systems for the benefit of the end user.

      Which kind of attitude? And how proprietariness benefits users, by locking them in costlier and inferior systems, denying them choice?

      > And that's what really counts.

      So you don’t like freedom I’d suggest you move to Syria, Arabia, Libia, Tunisia, Iraq, North Korea, China, Cuba

      --
      Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
      DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
      GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    4. Re:Aqua versus X by leandrod · · Score: 2

      > you can run X-Windows and Aqua at the same time

      This helps nothing with the standards issue. Porgrams created for Aqua still won’t run under X, unless GNUStep actually gets popular and can keep binary and source code compatibility.

      And Aqua alone is already bloated, with X running gets still worse count also the bloatedness of single-server Mach, and you get Apple and Motorolla selling lots of hardware people wouldn’t need if it was a simple BSD or GNU/Linux system with OpenStep, X and a nice window manager with good tools and configuration.

      --
      Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
      DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
      GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
  158. Apple performance by cipset · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I don't know about you but any advertising can not cure the fact that a 450 G4 TiPB , 250 RAM barely can be used with MacOSX.

    "...and running them faster" It really takes a SGI 10 minutes to boot, 2 minutes to open a dialer, and 1 minute to open a browser? 4 minutes for Photoshop?

    I have seend some good performance only on G4 800, doesn't this really sounds bad enough. The system really looks nice and user-friendly but please do something about the performance.

    I am still not giving my 1 Ghz Athlon for this. Sorry.

    1. Re:Apple performance by stux · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you but any advertising can not cure the fact that a 450 G4 TiPB , 250 RAM barely can be used with MacOSX.

      "...and running them faster" It really takes a SGI 10 minutes to boot, 2 minutes to open a dialer, and 1 minute to open a browser? 4 minutes for Photoshop?


      You realise there's just something very very wrong with your TiBook or its OS install right?

      OSX on a Ti400 is fine...

      Sure I prefer it on my dual 500, but its FINE on a 400Mhz G4 laptop...

      Something is wrong with yours... I suggest fixing it.

      --

      ---
      Live Long & Prosper \\//_
      CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
      Jedi & Last *-fytr
  159. crossover by jojor · · Score: 0

    5 things: Word,
    Excel,
    Powerpoint,
    IE,
    Photoshop


    well crossover office from codeweavers cuts your list down to pretty much two things.
    and you seriously want to use IE...can you say "fight clicking the popups"?...and it also runs under wine if you want to have the hassle of it crashing all the time
    Now I do?t know about photoshop but gimp/ImageMagick do a good job for me.

    so there, if you want to use all that, you can (just the question whether you'd really want to)

  160. Re:*Sigh* Re:Mirror of ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I for one live about 7000 miles away from the closest newstand to stock Scientific American, so I'm quite happy to have found it on the web.

  161. Targeting Solaris by ZigMonty · · Score: 2

    I think this ad is targeting the users of the other commercial Unix boxen, eg. Solaris. Mac OS X can't really compete with Linux because it's not free and not as open. For those who don't care about the above, Mac OS X comes out on top. I think they're trying to grab the Unix workstation market.

  162. But why so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd like to like Apple, really. When the new iMac came out, I thought I might get one and use it as a dual-boot (with Linux), moving away from the PC platform. But after checking out various Macs (iMacs, iBooks of various processor speeds), I came away mystified (and put off) by just how slow they are to launch apps. Say, to launch Adobe Acrobat Reader. The Macs I tried were slower than the Linux boxes I have, slower than Win98 and WinNT, and about comparable to my experience of waiting on Solaris to launch Netscape. It's 2002, and maybe I'm spoiled, but I really don't expect to stare at the monitor waiting seconds for something to happen after I've clicked an icon! Sorry, Apple, I'm going to pass.

  163. Re:Linux/UNIX/OpenSource is no platform for spywar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't forget SuSE, if Mandrake's little penguins are too cutesy for you.

  164. A classic case of transference... by linuxjack55 · · Score: 1
    If you can't beat up the bully who's making your life miserable, beat up the nerd next door.

    It's nice to know the manure spreaders at One Infinite Loop are working overtime.

    --
    The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected. -- Will Rogers
  165. Netscape on Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has anyone been able to get Netscape to work on the mac? I have been trying for two weeks. I can look at web pages but I can't print or launch apps
    from the browser.

  166. ooh! what a screen shot! by option8 · · Score: 2

    i dig the quotes, and the fact that about .005% of mac users will know what the hell /dev/null is (and i'll bet no small number will try to find out by sending stuff there. fun!)

    what makes me smirk, though, is the screenshot on the powerbook. for one, the dock is full of MS Office icons - whoa, lots of unix there. the ever disappointing terminal is open (i replaced Terminal.app on my ibook with one that isn't dog slow, GLterm) and showing the "top" command.

    let's see what's in there.. yep, as usual, top is taking top spot.

    and what else is on the screen, showing the power of UNIX in a candy-coated Mac shell? iTunes! and lookee here, PowerPoint! i know those are both UNIX apps. i run them on my Solaris box all the time...

    top is showing apache in there (on a powerbook? why is that enabled?), and netscape 6 (tho, why not mozilla?) and the X icon is in the dock, but there's no windows to be seen. There's one terminal open, yet i see 2 tcsh processes.. maybe X is using one?

    i'm all about Apple advertising their UNIX underpinnings, but i have to think they could have done a better job showing it off. like in the old days when my favorite way of showing somebody the powerPC (smokin' at 100 MHz!) in my new 8100 was so dang fast - the graphing calculator. oh yeah. rotating trig functions in 3D with the apple logo mapped onto the surface.

    okay, i'm rambling now.

  167. s/X/Motif/ by devphil · · Score: 2


    Some people get this point confused: while X11 is definitely /not/ an imitation of MS-Windows, the Motif window manager /is/.

    Maybe that's what threw you at first?

    --
    You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
    1. Re:s/X/Motif/ by wedg · · Score: 1

      Maybe that's what threw you at first?

      Nah, I just didn't check my facts. Motif is far from being the sum of all Window Managers, but I'll agree that most of them have followed suit.

      My whole point came from the guy that mentioned the X icon on the dock, which has nothing to do with any of the WMs. This thread is already too damned long as it is.

      --
      Jake
      Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
  168. IE is gone ... by dhollm · · Score: 1

    ... but Powerpoint is running. So much for silly conspiracies.

  169. Netscape running in X-Windows by Arcturax · · Score: 2

    If you look closely you will notice that the netscape icon is the one you see under X-Windows and the Unix versions. Most likely it is running on another unix machine and being remote displayed to the Mac which is running XFree86 (note the red icon next to the Netscape icon). My guess is they were trying to show that you can also remote display apps from your current unix machines to the Mac. Given that you can run X-Windows in rootless mode right alongside Aqua, this is a major plus and something they should have focused more on the ad rather than leaving all users to figure it out by noting the Netscape icon next to the XFree86 icon.

    --

    --Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
  170. Virginity Under-rated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



    Hey man, virginity is far under-rated in this country!

    You have a 100% chance of falling in complete and utter love with the chick you lose your virginity to. I would imagine that if more people waited, and actually gave it up on their wedding night there would be a lot less divorces.

  171. and in other news by dickDragon · · Score: 1

    The Apache-Jakrta POI project releases Java utilities to read not only the "Horrible Document Format (HDF)", but also the "Horrible Spreadsheet Format (HSSF)" and the "Horrible Property Set Format (HPSF)".

    http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/index.html

  172. My thoughts on Unix vs Windows.. by Felinoid · · Score: 2

    AT&T Unix made AT&T a computer giant [Remembering of course AT&T was THE phone company so they had quite a bit behind them...
    So all they needed was a good os (Unix) half way decent computer (The 3Bs) and they are golden..
    Even giving Unix away AT&T had the money from the phone industry to role over anybody]

    Early 1990s AT&T took over NEC and NEC became AT&Ts hardware side..
    What did NEC make? The first high end Windows NT boxes.. using high end RISC..
    It was a big marketting campaign and everything..

    AT&T dropped out of the computer industry and let go of NEC to recover the losses..

    Sun a small little company making low end Unix boxes for Berkly went commertal to sell high end desk tops.. or low end servers.. depending on your prespective.
    A supped up 386 using a Unix clone called SunOS. Free of the limits of the PC ISA buss the Sun i386 was fast...

    Long story short...
    Unix made Sun into a techno giant..
    Windows NT put an end to AT&T computers.

    Windows NT is an answer all right.... But who here knows the question?

    A. Switch to Windows NT
    Q. How do you bring a larg company to a grinding halt..

    --
    I don't actually exist.
    1. Re:My thoughts on Unix vs Windows.. by presearch · · Score: 1

      Sun a small little company making low end Unix boxes for Berkly

      Stanford, actually. That's what the 'S" stands for. And the i386 was a dog compared to "real" Sun boxes. It could barely get out of it's own way.

  173. No hassle for Me [Unix preinstalled] by Felinoid · · Score: 1

    My first experence with Unix was on an AT&T 3B2.. It was used so the os was already installed configured etc..
    It was wonderful.. when I was done I instructed the computer to shut down... from the keyboard.. no funbling for a switch to turn it off...
    I hear you say "But didn't you need to AFTER the shut down?"
    Hack no.. this box was made to run Unix.. it turnned itself OFF..

    The joy of using Linux for the first time..
    I finally got it installed.. My Pentoum system was home made.. high end and great.. I install Slackware from floppy..
    The cool part was downloading everything using Dos...

    It was done and it took me a day to install..
    And annother to get DIP to work..
    and annother to get X11 to work..

    From there I was surfing the web and ircing at the same time..

    Could I do that from Windows? Yeah but only after forking over $100 more and I wasn't about to do it.

    Soon I was FTPing files left and right...
    and recompiling the kernel
    and still chatting on IRC..

    Somebody had to convence me to try out a graphical web browser however... stuck in the old ways I continued to use Lynx..

    Then after a while I caved to curreosity.. installed Windows...
    one week later It actually worked..
    one day later I reinstalled Linux...
    and I never looked back....

    --
    I don't actually exist.
  174. what's your favorite VH song? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    well?

  175. Bioinformatics and the human genome by epepke · · Score: 2

    I used to do this. (No, really. We even got a cover on Bioengineering Laboratory.) Traditionally, the bioinformatic community prefers the following:

    1. SGI
    2. SGI
    3. SGI
    4. Some supercomputer we can get time on
    5. Did I mention SGI?

    One of the first decent sequencers was a network application running on a 25 MHz SGI. Now that SGI is getting to be where Apple was five years ago, due partially to losing a lot of engineers to nVidea, perhaps they're going after the SGI market.

    1. Re:Bioinformatics and the human genome by oingoboingo · · Score: 1

      I thought it was only crystallographers and protein modellers who bought up all the SGI stuff. All the attention recently seems to have been focussed on Compaq Alphas (Celera, EBI + others), or Intel Linux clusters (everyone else). The company I work for has recently become a strategic partner with IBM, so of we're now doing all our proteomics on RS/6000s (or pSeries, to keep up with the IBM lingo). Not that I would mind if we got some SGIs...they're a lot nice to look at than a big black slab of IBM :-)

  176. Two things by Microsift · · Score: 1

    I think Hawkings is a quadreplegic

    Most people would play the piano better if there were only one key...

    --
    My other sig is extremely clever...
  177. Re:Unix was designed for a N button mouse by PythonOrRuby · · Score: 1

    As I recall, everything after MacOS 8 has support for upto 8 different basic mouse clicks(or "events").

    Also the last revision of the ADB mouse wasa two button mouse with the single button simply covering both triggers.

  178. Re:My thoughts on NEC vs NCR.. by presearch · · Score: 1

    NEC? I think you mean NCR.

    When I was at Bell Labs, I got to play with an
    amazing little box called "Alexander".
    It looked like a 3B2, shrunk to the size of a
    large book. It had a Unix that was compressed
    on a Nintendo-ish rom cart.
    When you turned it on, you got a login:
    instantly (from the serial port) while the
    rest of Unix uncompressed itself from
    the rom into memory. I don't think it
    had a hard drive. Seemingly 0 second
    boot time.

    Amazingly cool little box at the time.
    But like so many things at AT&T, it never saw the
    light of day.

    There's no limit to what the army of PHBs
    at AT&T could and continue to fsck up.
    (With or without Microsoft)

  179. Photoshop and Quark? by GatorMarc · · Score: 1

    As others have already mentioned, yes, Photoshop is now available for OS X. I'm looking forward to playing with it after getting ahold of the beta a little while back. I've never seen such a flood of adopters as I have for this recent release. If it was indeed the reason that most graphic designers hadn't moved up to OS X, we will soon know for sure.

    As for Quark, it looks to be shooting itself in the foot. Not only do most graphic designers I speak to prefer InDesign, but the fact that an even better version of InDesign is now available for OS X while Quark sits on their hands and does not release a Carbonized version, certainly lead me to believe a changing of the guard may be happening soon if it hasn't already begun.

  180. Hm, Linux doesn't just compete with "Unix" by jasonn · · Score: 1

    Linux and FreeBSD have converted hundreds of thousands if not millions of desktops, systems, servers and people to using something other than Microsoft. I was running a straight up Microsoft shop/ISP. And, I was converted for both personal and corporate use. The magnitude of Linux machines running out there on personal PCs should tell you they are eating up Microsoft territory. That is why Microsoft Blasts the GPL every chance they get (I am not a fan of GPL either - prefer BSD License, another Open Source / Free Source license).

    The real story here is that Steve can't stop the whole "I am the best acid trippin' visionary ever" mantra long enough to target his marketplace. He is still competing with the wrong company. You really want to live off Sun's drop-offs? Come on! Sun does not have a lock on any decent share of the desktop market. Macs are NOT Servers! They are visual development and personal computing tools.

    :)

    --
    Build something beautiful!