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Rendezvous, Microsoft And Apple
serendigital writes "MacCentral reports that a BusinessWeek article entitled: 'A Rendezvous with Redmond?' has -- with Rendezvous -- created an actual threat to Microsoft. As reported by MacCentral, it's interesting to note that BusinesWeek's 'Byte of the Apple' columnist Charles Haddad is on temporary leave and this article was written by a substitute columnist."
The author suggests that Apple should release a Rendezvous enabled VOIP app. It seems to me that he's almost hit the nail on the head. Imagine if all new Macs came with not only that app, but also a phone jack that you could plug your telephone into. Maybe partner with a long distance company to provide a .Mac internet-to-phone calling plan! The possibilities are wide open for a company who owns the hardware, the software, and has little bit of capital.
I work for a high-tech company, that must remain nameless, and in my work I talk to IT people on a regular basses across the U.S. I am astounded that most of these people even have jobs. I must however convey that every now and then I come across a person of the highest integrity and the ability to get the job done right. The sad part is, that this only happens in about one in twenty contacts, way too low of a number to have these people running our country. When they've been bad, I have no idea how the company is even running, but when they've been good, it's been crystal clear why they hold that position and are an asset to the computing world.
Food for thought, when ever I converse with the people who do a great job and run they're IT department efficiently, and Apple/Macintosh is part of the conversation, they have no problem with it. I quote in a conversation just last Friday, "in our company we do what ever it takes to get the job done in the most efficient and effective way, at this time Mac's are not part of our makeup, but if that's the direction we need to go in the future, then we will. I am loyal to my company, not Microsoft and certainly not Dell.
I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that "Pop-pop" is rendezvous-enabled. No need to "host" a game -- you just see each other, double-click to request a game.
What is interesting is that even though "normal host a game over IP" stuff still works, and is dead-easy to config, rendezvous seems to be relatively easy to drop into an app.
I was skeptical at first, but now I'm curious to see what neato things people will start to implement using rendezvous.
-- clvrmnky
What's the state of ZeroConf on Linux? How long before the major distributions have out-of-the-box support for Rendezvous? What would be required to make that happen?
Also, what exactly are the security implications? Obviously there are certain things you don't want to broadcast to just anybody! Rendezvous could make wardriving even easier...
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This article is perfectible...
The first thing Apple shipped using rendez-vous was iChat. The iTunes demo refered to has yet to ship. (you can get the same fuctionnality using iCommune though).
Then, it's not that magical. It only works on one subnet, no way to manually add hosts to the resolver (at least not without serious hacking).
What's the deal with Safari helping you change your printer config? IF your printer advertises itself as a web serveur via Rendez-vous, AND you ask safari to display Rendez-vous-discovered bookmarks, then yes, you can directly access the printer's config pages. But the article does not make this clear at all. And this is different from auto-discovering printers, which I have yet to test since the old HPs we use are still go for a couple hundred thousand pages.
The wild guesses about distributed computing are still a pipe dream, Rendez-vous or not.
And at work, somehow, aliases of Rendez-vous-mountedd servers won't resolve after unmounting the server. Aliases made of servers mounted via AFP or Appletalk will resolve and mount the server.
Rendez-vous is cool, but it still has a long way to go before it is as polished (from a user POV) as the old Appletalk system.
a) Ignore
b) FUD
c) Embrace/extend/destroy
One important question: Does the Apple Public Source License (under which Rendezvous has been released) give Apple the ability to stop Microsoft from embracing/extending/destroying?
The big criticism of of AppleTalk was that it was too chatty (really, I think the issue was overblown, but that was the reputation it picked up). And yet, Rendezvous seems to be doing a lot of the same things that AppleTalk was doing.
Has Rendezvous really addressed the issue that got AppleTalk locked out of a lot of corporate networks? I wonder how it compares to AT.
I don't know about the most recent machines, but most ATA drives can be placed right into my PowerMac G4. I done it all be myself.
I can also pretty much put in any kind of memory I want, so long as it complies with the expected stats:
168 Pin PC100 SDRAM DIMM
Changing modems and NICs are easy on Macs too, assuming you're just putting them in the PCI slot. You just have to make sure you have a driver for them. It is true that sometimes Mac drivers do not exist for the cards, but as I understand this is also true in *nix. Sound cards aren't as easy to change but I have never in my 10+ years of using computers felt a need to change mine.
The reason I prefer Macs is...surprise, surprise! The ease of Hardware configuartion! I have used PCs for many things over the years, and consistently found that setting up new hardware can be difficult on PCs whereas it is generally a breeze on the Mac.
Honestly, it really is just familiarity that drives my preference. If I had been raised on Windows, no doubt I would use that instead.
However, I think that it's wrong to say that the appearance of a computer should have no say in your preference.
When I get my next car, my #1 priority is that it be a nice shade of blue. I really don't have any major preference beyond that, so long as it looks good, gets decent mileage and is fairly dependable. These days, a lot of cars fit that bill, but if it ain't blue, I ain't buying it. Is it a stupid criteria? Maybe. But it's a criteria nonetheless. A lot of people tie up their identity in their "look", and their computer might fall under that too.
If you were buying some piece of shit computer that looked pretty, then I'd agree that it was a stupid decision. But Apple computers aren't pieces of shit.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Since you can now run bash and other unix-y things on Macs, I've noticed there have been a lot more people at the 2002 LISA conference with Mac laptops than PC laptops. At the 2000 LISA conference, most people had Sony Vaios.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
The best demo of Rendezvous currently is iChat. I used it to wow one of my clients back in December when I upgraded them to Jaguar. They were always having to e-mail files back and forth to one another, blah blah blah.
Now, they just launch iChat when they log in in the morning, and boom-- instant, zero-config buddy list of everyone in the department. Need to ask someone a question? No more hollering over cubes or using the phone, a quick IM does the trick. Need to send someone a file? No more e-mailing or putting it on the server for the person who needs it. Drag it and drop it onto their name in the buddy list, and they'll get a dialog, "Person wants to send you file filename, do you wish to accept?"
The only people who think something like this is a bad thing are the ignorant ones. OF COURSE the devices that use Rendezvous will OFFER security and configurability options-- but the point is, you don't NEED them if all you want to do is get on a network and print to a networked printer. And you don't need to have silly little wizards walk you through the process. Rendezvous is the logical extension of Apple's whole 'it just works' philosophy, and is a wonderful modern incarnation of AppleTalk.
~Philly