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New South Wales Traffic Authority Switches to Macs
MacGyver writes ""In what may well be Apple Computer's largest coup in the Australian enterprise space, the New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) will deploy 1200 G4 iMacs across 140 registry offices." This isn't just a Mac story: the RTA statement noted, "The Apple rollout is a continuation of RTA usage of open standards-based software and systems. The further adoption of open source is being undertaken to provide more choice of vendors and to guarantee RTA systems are providing value for money."
People deserve better. Companies too. ;)
thats like saying your moving from california to idaho for a better selection of produce.
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
They decide to switch to "open standards-based software and systems", and decide on Apple, a company which makes Microsoft look like a bastion of openness?
I mean, no offense to Apple fans out there... Apple's niche of success is BUILT on having complete control over their hardware... Wouldn't a Linux or *BSD solution, ultimately, be what they should have gone with?
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
It's been a long time since I've heard a story like this that didn't involve a university or some other education-based organization.
I think Apple can make an excellent case given the rising amount of spyware, viruses, and worms on the PC as well as selling their BSD-based OS.
Good deal and hooray for competition! It's about time (again).
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
so how does going to macs go with the open souce thing - mos OSS software works with windows at least as well as OSX.
Sure it has unix goodness from darwin but it has M$ office too.
This is quite a great achievement for Apple. They currently are doing very well with their advertising campaign and showing off the capabilities of their products. I have been a hard-line OSS user for probably about 5 years and have been very impressed with the new eMac, Powerbook and G5, the new MacOS X too is very refined and well done and I love how the command line utilities are still available(compared to Win). I think all governments should be trying to distribute their computing schemes to several different OS for security purposes alone and should at least not be locked into deals with Microsoft. Linux on the desktop I just don't feel has the simple usability of MacOS X yet so I am very glad too see Apple getting such a large deployment. I am sure their will be more to come as I doubt they will hear many complaints about there G4 iMacs.
A moratorium around election time to end some of these shenanigans would be appropriate.
Is it dying more slowly than OS X, so you'll get more life out of it?
Its somewhat important as (i assume. i'm not bothering to read the article becasue a) its slashdot and b) i'm drunk ) they're using it in an enterprise application, which, prior to OS X was difficult and isn't particularly common (in my experience) outside of colleges.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
Sick fuck post link
They could have used the money to fix 1200 potholes in Sydney roads, you can swim in some of them when it rains!
... then they should have gone for a custom FreeBSD solution. All the stability of OS X without the heinous cost of proprietary hardware and software. The outlay on custom development for their needs would have been offset with cheaper hardware, no licencing costs, and then they would have completely owned their own software rather than being locked into the vendor relationship.
not to mention to cost of licences! i better go for my green P soon. i can see them going form cositng me a total of $95 to $150 with the implemtaion of this new mac policy
There's bondi blue, uh....pink....and some other colors. Green too, I think. All the choices they could ever want. It's the most flexible system around.
hell yes to alll that.
i may not be a big apple fan, but anything non windows is cool to me, (its not a MS hating thing, its a pro everything else to level the playing field thing).
and since mac is Unix (or is it unix like, well it doesnt matter anyways). im happy about that.
as my favorite quote goes:
"Microsoft windows is designed for the Internet,
the Internet is designed for Unix"
So they are using full blown Macs for a cash register, attaching a laser printer for receipts and certificates and running some specific software. Seems to me a cheaper solution might be found using a dumber device and a web app or two.
Hardware company has complete control over their hardware. Story and reactions at 11.
I think they meant that MAcs play nicer with Linux and other *nixes and that Macs are a lot friendlier in the OS department then windows... the do have an open source kernel and do ship with open source tools.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Maybe because they want a UI which is consistent and actually *usable*. Macs provide all that, rather than some hacked together user interface geeks use.
For the love of God, just use Windows.
This isn't just a Mac story: The further adoption of open source is being undertaken
:P
The irony here is, there wouldn't be a mac/apple story if it weren't for Apple having gone to OS X and a more open software philosophy. It looks like, were it not for open source, much of the revitalization that Apple has undergone in the wake of OS X would not have occured, and "Apple is dying!" would be all over slashdot - as it as prior to OS X. Haven't seen those trolls for a while, so maybe it's telling.
Of course, now there'll be 15 replies with, "Apple is dying!" or "BSD is dying!" or such, just to spite me.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
My guess why they went for Apple is probably because Darwin is bassed on BSD and the source is available. It may not be open in the sence that Linux is but it is more open then Microsoft ever will be.
Also, with Apple meing a majoe vendor they have a certain sence of security when it coemes to future support. Apple have a better chance of sticking around than some shop making custom Linux boxes
> but their systems are definately NOT "open stardards-based"
Hmm,
PCI
Open Firmware
S-IDE
USB
IEEE1394 (Firewire)
Come again?
Yes, because apple does give full documentation, for free, to it's users while also giving free development tools. Apple also doesn't include large ammounts of gpled software in it's client and server base install while also NOT supporting X11 compatability for linux apps. Furthermore, Apple sure as hell doesn't have an open source kernel to which you are free to contributed or fork.
Ya, them damn Mac people. Buy good hardware, get a beautiful GUI ontop of an open kernel using many open tools.
Actually, this is pretty important. Governmental departments are notoriously slow to change. This shows that governments are slowing giving MS/Windows alternatives a chance, which is extremely positive. Sure, they may not have gone with Linux (the fact that Mac OS X runs MS Office natively probably makes it easy for them to transition to the new platform), but this shows that alternative OS's are slowly gaining traction. Furthermore, Australia is very Microsoft-centric. I was surprised by the prevalence of MS technology there. And the fact that an Aussie governmental department would go with Apple highlights that alternative OS's may have a chance after all.
-B
I don't see the value in using 1200 Macintoshes for simple data entry applications which could be accomplished by dumb terminals. Nothing against Apple or the Macintosh, but this is like replacing the Fords and Chevys at the public works with 1200 brand new Mercedes-Benzes.
Why shouldn't Apple play the same crooked games with stock options as Microsoft? They're both companys with about the same ethical standards.
I know I'm going to get mod bombed by the Apple Zealots, but I have the karma and this needed to be said.
Not by apple zealots, but by people who have a clue what they're talking about, which you don't.
Come again?
Not Open in the least. Just read it for yourself.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Did you even read my post?
I conceded that Apple's OS is much more open than the industry leader, but I am talking about their computers.
Just try to build a compatible system if you doubt me.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Cool!
That means I get to listen to iTunes next time I go to fail my license exam.
Microsoft doesn't give out options anymore, only stock.
Apple almost went under in the 90s due to Enron Accounting, don't be shocked if it were to happen again.
"Yeah, but who's gonna FLY it, kid?"
Stability is a tricky thing - just like vendor relationships. Apple knows their hardware as well as their software. Whenever I hear the word, "Custom", as it relates to a large project like this, I cringe.
Does 'Custom' mean that you never have to:
- Patch it?
- Update various included software?
- Include new hardware support?
Of course not! Even if you're not paying for the software, you're going to have pay for the support for the software - however you figure it. Just ask IBM - that's their new business model. Think their customers are getting off any cheaper than Apple's? Don't bet on it.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
NuBus was created by TI.
And it was used in more than just Macs.
Honestly, when Apple selected NuBus, they had no real choice.
There were two other major busses available at the time.
One was VME Bus (used by Sun, amongst others). This was in wide use, but card support was strange, selecting drivers was often difficult. Also, you had to remove jumpers when you put in a card and put them back if you ever took it out. As an aside, VME Bus was "unfair", giving priority to some cards over others. This was not a big deal, although it was made out to be at the time.
The other was IBM's AT-bus (later ISA). This was incredibly slow and it was tied closely to the architecture of the Intel 80x86. Trying to make it work on a Motorola processor would have been difficult, and even if done perfectly would have produce very slow throughput since AT-Bus was only 16-bits wide. And, as we all know, installing more than one AT-Bus card at one time was incredibly dicey, requiring lots of jumper settings.
In short, Apple chose the only alternative they could have to accomplish their goals.
As to ADB, well, they could have used the PC keyboard connector (PS/2 wasn't available or in wide use at the time). It wasn't well suited to international keyboards (as you couldn't detect what keyboard was attached very well) and Apple wanted international support. It was key to gaining the desktop publishing market, which they did very well.
ADB also allowed the mouse to be plugged into the keyboard (reduced connectors) and allowed the machine to be turned on from the keyboard, which was nice.
All in all, I think your complaints are misguided. The technologies you speak of actually show less protectionism than the issues of the motherboard ROMs at the time.
As to Microsoft not working with competitors' hardware, Microsoft doesn't sell hardware. Well, usually they don't, and when they do it, they do it poorly (witness their current failed attempt to enter the 802.11 market). Anyway, there were 3rd party solutions to make 3rd party CD drives work. I don't get what the big deal is.
The plural of "Mac" is "Macs", not "Mac's". "Mac's" means "Mac is", as in "My Mac's such a sweet machine", or "Your Mac's been upgraded AGAIN?"
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
This is a MASSIVE contract. If you lived in NSW you'd know how much the filthy swine rob from us poor bastards who own our own vehicles.
I don't see the reason for the purchase. That said, I'm glad they bought Apple computers instead of Dell or other i386.
Last thing I need is my details on some hackers hard drive, as my NSW drivers license number stays with me for life, even if I change my name.
Yes, idiots who don't know what they're talking about always need to be heard.
I was one of the top 3 Mac repair guys in Pittsburgh from 1996-2001. With's Apple's repair dispatches this means that I personally have been everywhere between Sarver PA and Cadiz County OH to do Apple repairs. I replaced more analog/power boards in Summer 2000 iMacs than you've probably even seen, I've replaced more front panel boards in PowerMac G4s than you can imagine. Hundreds of 3.6v lithium and 4.5v alkaline batteries. Countless OS upgrades. I assisted one of my clients and Apple's engineers with determining that there was a problem with their Desktop Beige G3, Mac OS 8.0 and 768 MB of memory. I remember the driver problem with the hard drives on x400s and System 7.6 that caused the entire contents of hard drives to be lost. I still have copies of Mac OS 8 cds that were sent to me by Apple. I still have a couple of the Mac OS 8 temporary tattos and Tee shirts that were sent to me by Apple. I scored enough points in Apple's "Learn n Earn" program that I won an Apple Laptop Backpack. I know every Apple Machine from the Mac Plus through the Sawtooth G4s inside and out.
My first Mac was a Mac Plus, 8mhz, 1MB of RAM System 6.0.x and a 20MB hard drive. I started coding for the Mac with Codewarrior 1 and Symantec C++ version 7.
I could go on for a while, but suffice it to say that I know Macs.
How about you?
With all I know, I have chosen to not purchase any new Apple hardware.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Also, this is a motor registry. My guess is they want basic office automation and the ability to run their own software (you know, stonking huge database of cars, drivers, billing and such). AFAIK, it's not the sort of thing you buy at WalMart. With MacOS X, my guess is that they'll write so they can port to BSD/Linux/Solaris/whatever if needed. The Mac provides a nice, predictable hardware platform.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Another state police force in Australia already use Macs as their base machine. That is in Queensland (QLD).
Or at least they were in the 1990s. I'm a bit out of date on my Mac info.
Um HELLO!!!! (I copied that bit off your post)...proprietary computers don't cause lock in....proprietary data formats do. If the data is OS/hardware agnostic, it hardly matters what hardware they use on the desktop.
If using Macs helps with that transition (remember they probably need MS Office) then lucky Apple - they make a sale.
I come from a LAN down under
Where the packets flow and routers chunder
Whilst I like the idea of using Macs, somehow I think that considering the intended use of them, this is an ideal situation in which to deploy x-terms. The article says that they already use Sun gear, so why not roll-out a load of Sunrays? - They'd use less power and last longer because they have no moving parts.
That being said, the Macs are a better choice when compared to PC's... they might be a bit more expensive up front, but the build quality is excellent and people find them easier to use, so the cost of maintaining and supporting them is going to be lower.
One of the interesting things in the article is that they can use the swivel mount to show people their license photos easily. Pretty nifty.
Of course, I have no idea about why they made the decision because I don't work there - I also live across the border in SA.
Then obviously whoever installs it does not know what they are dong.
I've set up dozens of print shops with every incarnation of OSX since 10.1 and NONE of their software "breaks".
Troll.
I've been upgraded to "bad"!
mac's can also be the possessive form, you left that out. so: "my mac's kernel is a mach" would be proper usage ;)
and "your mac's been upgraded again?" would be "your mac has been upgraded again?" not "your mac is been upgraded again?".
so if you're the grammar nazi, i must be the grammar military police
Obviously Apple are not charging their usual outside-USA rip-off prices to those in Australia. Oh wait, government sales.....no I take that back.
Karma? Sorry, i don't believe in superstition. http://talk.thinkingmatters.org.nz
- "Your Mac's been upgraded AGAIN" is an informal contraction of "Mac has."
- "Mac's" can also be the possessive form of "Mac."
Sorry to be pedantic, but you started it.For example, "My Mac's rather dirty; it likes to be spanked."
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
"Apple rollout is a continuation of RTA usage of open standards-based software and systems."
The Apple GUI isn't any more open than MS. The only stuff that is open in Apple is stuff that didn't originate there.
Oh hold on there gentle nonsensicle poster! Proprietary hardware most certainly *DOES* cause vendor lock in. Have you ever tried to plug a 25 pin cable into a 23 pin socket? Have you ever seen 'proprietary drive' where Oh there is another drive that costs 1/10 the price and has twice the performance and four times the warranty, but because of the little connector, you are screwed? If you haven't then you haven't seen proprietary hardware. Including: monitors that can't even be salvaged because they can't be plugged in (oh yes, very different connectors), different data storage formats (not just the filesystem, but also the firmware that needs 'the key', I could go on. Solving software incompatibility is a giant pain, but possible. Solving hardware incompatibility needs side cutters, soldering iron, oscilloscope, dmm, (if your danmed lucky: blueprints including schematic and all changes (board level changes including jumper-wire hardware bug fixes), voltage reference points and circuit timing diagrams. Good luck getting those. And you say hardware compatibility isn't a problem! BAH!
"The Apple rollout is a continuation of RTA usage of open standards-based software and systems."
Wasn't there just a story saying Apple didn't even want to talk with Real about opening fairplay. And of course there's Apple hardware, which is a closed design.
Duh, OS X is built on a FreeBSD kernel.
No it's not.
didn't the dark lord in redmond, where the dark shadow lies, tremble and shake in fury and rage?
... y Dios vio que Linux era bueno... Genesis 99.666
When used with the smartcard readers they feature, you can take your session with you. So you are working, need to go somewhere else, just pull the card and go. When you insert it into another system, your session will be there, just as you left it.
I'm a real fan, provided you aren't using intense applications. If your stuff does a lot of graphics, you'll quickly find that the CPU and memory it requires makes the servers more expensive than just getting dedicated computers. However for centralized data entry (as they'll be doing) Sunrays rock.
I'm faily certain this guy is a troll, but I'l bite.
/hardware/ lockin - they're concerned about software.
So, what is it then exactly about the current breed of MacOS that locks a person in? People don't tend to be terribly concerned about
Name one thing about apple software that currently locks a person into MacOS. I'm genuinely interested. Look here if you have any doubt that apple is, indeed, embracing a more open approach.
In all honesty, I'd wager that you're likely to have better "hardware portability" with PPC stuff and macs in general in the future than with x86, due to the fact that there are many fewer variants of macs compared to PCs, and there seem to be a lot more shitty components that lack multiplatform support on PC (winmodems, nforce chipsets, and what have you).
So basically: it's wintel monoculture vs. everything else, discount or no. "choice of vendors" makes perfect sense, as when there's a monopoly with over 90% market share (hint: it's microsoft), everything else -is- a choice, if it works.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
So yep, whoever installs it doesn't know what they're doing
Well, this might (just) make up for the loss of the long-standing arrangement thqt the Queensland Police Service had had with Apple to supply hardware. QPS opted to use open systems, and went out and bought PCs, with MS products from top to bottom. They didn't want to be tied to a single vendor...
I could mention all the problems that have resulted, but then they'd have to shoot me.
Whilst is a nice word. I suppose 'kith and kin' would be beyond the pale for you as well?
Relax. Languages are more fun if you can play with them; often half the meaning communicated falls between the strict literal meaning of the words in a sentence.
> Name one thing about apple software that currently locks a person into MacOS
Any program written for Carbon or Cocoa only runs on single vendor hardware from Apple. DUHHH!
Great. Why not buy it? You didn't give reasoning.
:) Pretty nice history.
Btw, you did go on "for a while"
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Too right, although I wish you were wrong. Take the department of computing at Macquarie University, for example. You'd think that a school of computing at a university would be fairly fussy about the computing technology used, wouldn't you? But no, the place is basically a Microsoft shop. Other things get used, of course (Solaris, notably, and Linux here and there), but just about every computer on every desktop runs Windows (with the exception of the odd Mac status-symbol here and there). At least they're non-hostile to the idea of installing your own operating system, but it's not like they're going to do anything to facilitate it. So far as I'm aware I'm the only person in the department running a Linux desktop. Nobody seems to care in the least about the potential down-side of being a Microsoft shop. The apathy is utterly overwhelming.
Completely irrelevent. These boffins are buying several hundred computers for a large organization. If they went with PCs, the vast majority of them would probably be identical. If they went completely linux from the start, they would pick something that already played nice with linux. Who cares that most computers have a component or two that doesn't work on linux? They would either A: get hardware that already works. Or B: get someone to write them a driver.
How much custom configurating did Apple have to do for these guys? A fair amount I would think. For 1200 computers, picking all parts that work from the beginning would be the best bet.
Please explain to me how your PPC is more hardware portabable. Intel-compatable hardware can run most any version of a wide variety of operating systems. If you really want to, you can run Windows 2.0 on the latest Athlons. Macs are limited to Apple OS and a very small list of linux distributions.
Wintel Monoculture? Whats that? All I see is a list of choice you could put yourself to sleep to, and a field not limited to mostly one company.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
What I find incredibly amusing, is the fact that a similar size loss has occurred to Apple in a nearby area. Optus Communications, Australias second largest telco, has been a MAC Shop since it started, but is slowly changing away. And slowly is the operative word, as it has been found that the "amount of hardware" and inherent cost has increased dramatically in the Wintel world...
Probably because it has outsourced it's IT to Compaq, and then HP (With IBM GSA Doing application design in the wings) disentangling the incumbent MAC components has been a nightmare for them, predominantly because of hardware vendors more focused on selling new widgets than working out what flavour of widgets the customer required.
But then, this is the same company that has a Billing System that runs just fine on VAXes, that they haven't been able to "beat" with applications runing on Sun E10000's and HP Superdomes...
I touched my first Macintosh in December of 1987 because my best friend said it would be better if my resume were presented as a Macintosh document. From a cold start to finished product (including figuring out how to print: 20 minutes). That resume got me a job as a contractor at Apple. I stayed there for the most part of the next fourteen years.
.Mac), AirPort, LC II Apple II emulator, HyperCard Audio Help, every Mac OS from 6 through X, every machine up to the original iMac (I was laid off in 1997), and every machine from the 1999 crop to the domed iMac in 2001. I now make my living as a Mac and Windows consultant on the big island of Hawaii. I've owned (or own) a PowerBook Duo 250, PowerBook 5300, iBook (dual USB) and a Sawtooth G4. I, too, know the machines, the software and a lot of the people who made them. Been there, done that and still own a shitload of t-shirts.
The projects I worked on: Communications Toolbox, AppleShare 2.0, AppleShare PC, AppleShare IP, PC Exchange, Copland, MacTerminal, quality lead for the Scriptable Finder, iTools (later
I could go on for a while, but suffice it to say that I know Macs.
With all I know, I will always purchase new Apple hardware. I'm recommending Apple hardware to everyone for whom it is appropriate.
I can rebuild a Mac from parts I buy at WalMart (monitors, CD and DVD drives, external Zip drives, speakers, mice, keyboards, hard drives, routers (wired and wireless), USB and FireWire cards in both PCI and PCMCIA flavors), RadioShack (memory, USB keyboards, mice and hubs) or Office Depot (miscellaneous). As long as the equipment is up to spec, I don't worry about compatibility.
Apple isn't perfect. It has its quirks. But I fix more Macs more quickly with less hassle than just about any Windows shitbox you could put in front of me. And they stay fixed.
End of story.
As a NSW native for 57 years & into computers for the last 16, you are dead right. It is all politics
for discounts/kickbacks etc which is rife in NSW politics.
grandad
Holy COW! APPLE IS ALIVE!! MUHAHAHAHA!
... let me say that the story doesn't do the project great justice.
The main reason for choosing iMacs over a Linux/BSD/whatever solution (which we did try side by side with plenty of others) was OH&S.
Yes, Occupational Health and Safety. They took one look at the screen design, the way each individual user could move the screen where they wanted it and they were pretty much sold. We approached another supplier for a similar solution, only to get a quote for a movable screen of equivalent specs that put it about AUD $1000 over the price of the iMacs.
We were keen to Switch to Macs from our Javastations because they make a great product, they are supported by a "big" name (the rest of our our system is Solaris), and we can perform remote admin and stuff easily.
Other big-name suppliers were pushing to get in on this but someone with the authority to make such decisions said "no Windows in registries" after Blaster/Slammer/et al took out most of the rest of the organisation while our Javastations kept on kicking on.
As with any public-facing organisation, the amount of customers we would have had to say "sorry you've waited half an hour already, please come back tomorrow, assuming we've fixed it by then" to if our registry network was taken out would have made for a bigger news story than this one by far.
On another note, the press release that seems to have made it out mixes two different things we are doing - changing to the iMacs here, which running our custom Java app (plus Mozilla and a few other bits and pieces), and investigating open-source as a general concept. There's plenty of OS there all throughout the registry network, but the corporate desktops are all still Win2k/Office/Exchange/Novell jobbies, the replacement of which is being investigated with closed and open solutions from varying vendors.
Nothing like inside information to set all the wild theorising in slashdot to rest. Oh yeah. Slashdot. Sorry, continue the wild speculations!
Bitter and proud of it.
Both IM protocols are proprietary.
The difference is that MS has released all the specs of its protocol and people can write their clients, whereas Oscar had to be reverse engineered. So next time, please don't let your Mac favouritism cloud the facts.
As far as search engines go, neither MS nor Apple force you to use their default choices, which of course goes for most of things you have mentioned. Yes, Google is better than MSN, but I suppose being free and all stops when it has to do with Google, right?
/. Where the truth
I'm going to school for my masters... just wanted to say that the mac lab... chock full of whatever the fastest mac is... is unused. Not many people use them- the lab is almost always empty. So even if Apple says that it sold thousands of macs to a university that doesn't equal thousands of students using the machines. It just plain doesn't work that way.
/has to be a lot of push-back. Sure, the glitz and eye candy might make them go ga-ga over how pretty the machines are but there are still learning-curves and a host of other issues to overcome. It will be interesting to learn just how many of those machines remain in use 6-months from now.
So even though this australian agency has purhased lots of Macs... they have to force their users to adopt new ways of using a totaly new environment. users don't like change, there is
Finally, iTits get some respect.
windows uses a proprietary network file sharing protocol. apple uses nfs
if I recall SMB was developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM and I think it actually it standard. I'm sure just as with HTML MS has made MS specific extensions, but I do believe it was a standar. It was used in OS/2 among other things.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
So because the userland is from BSD it's a BSD fork, despite the fact that the kernel is based on Mach?
With your logic if I take all the userland utilities from Linux (which are basically GNU) don't use the kernel but rather use a Mach based kernel then I have created a Linux fork?
Don't make me laugh.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Sorry, OS X is built on the Mach microkernel.
not being able to build it does not make it closed.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
have you ever looked inside a mac?
USB, Firewire, VGA, ATA and SATA.
yeah, look at all the strange connectors.
Data locks you into a platform dork. if all my files are in some format that is only available on windows, I can't really pickup and move over to Linux very easily can I.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
If the data is cross-platform, then you can scrap your hardware and/or platform. If your data isn't then you are screwed.
I come from a LAN down under
Where the packets flow and routers chunder
Another reason the iMac's moveable screen was such a hit was that it allows the RTA staffmember to show the customer an image of their licence photo before the licence is printed, which happens at the registry. (New South Wales driving licences are pinted on demand on a plastic card the same size and thickness as a credit card, and include a passport style picture. A transparent holographic image is then laminated on top to make them harder to forge.)
But if YOU were given a spec that looked like this: Replace our EOL'ed Javastations, must have
LCD screen on movable arm
fast, reliable Java implementation
strongly prefer UNIX
can't be Windows
Easy integration with head office wintel software a bonus
Would you pick anything but an iMac?
OS X is not just a pretty UI running on top of a FreeBSD kernel, but saying that it is not based on FreeBSD is also wrong.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
With a networked display protocol like X, there's no particularly good reason for putting all of your eggs in a single large and expensive basket on the server end.
You can deploy a similar, X based archtecture using Linux, or indeed Sun/HP/IBM kit. Make the desktop cheap diskless systems which support PXE booting, put in a load balanced array of smaller and cheaper servers on the back end instead of a large server, individually they work out very much in the same price range as a desktop PC. Examples would be Dell PowerEdge 750,1750,2650 machines or Sun V120,V240 machines and then because memory is cheap you max them out. I think the Dell PE 1750 provides a good price/ performance ratio at the moment. The architecture scales in parallel. Need more power you add more machines to the array. "The network is the machine" as they say. Consider them disposable, dispense with hardware maintenance, if a disk fails, buy another, if a machine fails completely outwith the warranty period just buy another.
Course, SunRays don't use X and are not Xterminals, i don't know if they support run apps on multiple different servers and still connect back to a single display, it's a mistake if they don't. This is the design mistake that Windows Terminal server makes(though Citrix doesn't), limiting scalability and increasing the server and administration costs.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
You think Apple machines don't hold their value any more because they use off the shelf hardware?
Go poke about on ebay for a while in the Mac section and compare G3, G4, Cubes, iMacs, Powerbooks and iBooks against x86 boxen of the same age - there's no comparison.
Apple kit depeciates much, much more slowly that x86.
>And they stay fixed.
Then how did they break in the first place? (Actually, I suppose you could blame the user for abusing the Mac.)
"proprietary computers don't cause lock in....proprietary data formats do."
Then what the hell is your problem with Windows!?
I've got Open Office on my PC running XP. I can rip CD's to ogg. There's nary a data format I can't read and create.
So explain this to me now, just how would I be better off using a closed box to create open data format files?
Are you Folding for the greatest Mac Team? Team Mac OS X? Sure would like to have your experience aboard our Team. http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
Great. Why not buy it? You didn't give reasoning.
Good point. I didn't explain that.
Apple used to "Think Different" because they had found a better way of doing things than the rest of the industry. Apple was the first major manufacturer to include built-in networking(local talk and SCSI), 3.5" floppy drives, CD-ROM drives, built in SCSI, a GUI based OS and numerous other things than made made me a "Mac Guy" for over a decade.
Now they are doing things differently just to be different. Their decisions to lock out the Cloners, to kill Copeland, to only make machines out of clear shiney plastic and most importantly that I can't play the games that I want to play on a Mac are the reasons why I haven't bought any new Apple hardware in the past 7 years.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
But I fix more Macs more quickly with less hassle than just about any Windows shitbox you could put in front of me. And they stay fixed.
Leaves me with the question "How did they get 'broken' in the first place?"
I'll make the assumption that it was a user problem, there is no way to prevent that from happening again.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
not being able to build it does not make it closed.
Sure it does, so does not being able to get specs for the hardware. Ask the guys from Be why they stopped supporting Apple hardware on the BeOS.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Actually, it's nothing to do with the installer. It worked fine on OS X 10.2.8, then once upgraded to OS X 10.3.3 the software dies a horrible death.
Yeah. That's right. I'm trolling. I'm trolling when you discover that they forgot to add the postfix user and the lp user in their upgrade from OS X 10.2.x to OS X 10.3.x. And let's not mention the numerous bug-fixes they needed for the Print Centre in OS X 10.1.x
The only thing worse than a Linux fan-boy is a Mac fan-boy. Get a clue.
I don't think so. More like pointing out some facts.
The Finder burns CDs.
Just pop in a blank CD, drag files to it and pull it to the trash (which turns into a burn icon)
Alternatively, you can use Disk Utility, located in Applications > Utilities.
Personally, I think it's worth the money for Toast Titanium.
You can download a freeware Toast-a-like from versiontracker that does pretty much everything Toast does. It's called Firestarter.
OK, put like that it's a good idea.
Just try to build a compatible system if you doubt me.
Easy. With this I can recompile many Cocoa apps from source code to run on free operating systems, because both Cocoa and GNUstep implement the OPENSTEP specification.
Or did you mean binary compatible? Yes, I understand that disproportionately many Mac users work in a niche (such as color dead-tree publishing) that requires a patented process (such as PANTONE color matching), but many applications that don't require patented processes have a free alternative, and it probably wouldn't take too much work to maintain a GNUstep port of a free Cocoa app.
What's with posting all the Mac stories so Mac fans can astroturf on Slashdot? What up?
Mac okay; but why everyday? The mod on "funnies" and "interstings" and scoring dissent down on these threads is out-of-control.
holy crap....
do you understand the diffrence between a company not being able to make an OS for a box (because of the proprietary code apple puts in Openfirmware)
and an end user having the ability to use open protocols, open file formats, etc. allowing them the freedom to not be locked into the platform?
I don't care if a computer is a black box that electrocutes you if you try to open it up, if I can take the data I create and move to any other system in the world, and can integrate that black box into any system out there, it is open for the end user.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Actually, the hardware is made from off the shelf components. Last time I checked they used PCI cards, AGP video cards, DDR ram, ATA/SATA drives, USB ports, etc... what's not standard about that? Just because they don't allow clones, doesn't mean they don't use standard components.
Yes, because apple does give full documentation, for free, to it's users while also giving free development tools.
Now if only their repair manuals weren't proprietary.....
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Sorry to hear that. The fact that a product breaks (and all products do in varying amounts) doesn't instantly invalidate ALL other products from the company. Heck, for all you know, you might have gotten the only one that had probs out of that entire production (obviously we'll never know). I used to sell and service computers (who at /. hasn't eh?) and I know that some solidly built machines have suffered problems in delivery, packing, etc. I have watched some unscrupulous people just pack em up and send em anyway. Regardless....even if Apple had the verifiably best quality in the market, having received the product that you did, you would obviously NEVER believe it (due to your experience)
It should come as no surprise that a lot of posts are in the vein of "they should have used xxx instead of Apple, because Apple is proprietary/expensive/..."
Which shows a lot of people who shout RTFM all day are above RTFA. I think it's pretty cool to see macs deployed in open source situations. Best of two worlds and such...
The funniest posts of course are in the vein of "they should of called my cousin Ned" (translated from "build yourself").
Which shows a lot of people don't know what "Cost" and "Cost of ownership" and associated factors are.
Even with Apple's recent track record, I doubt self-built kits will outlive a bunch of macs without blowing some fuses and minds, but whatever.
I think the appropriate response to Apple and NSW TA would be "Good on ye, mate!"
I think, therefore I am...I think.
For every 1 like you there are 1000's (at the least, really) that aren't protected very well. Not to mention, you can still propagate some nasty problems without knowing it (heck, even OSX & Linux can still "bounce" malicious code around to soon-to-be infected win32 machines without even knowing it, depending on the user's skill of course). Numerically, windows users can't win (hehe, double entendre) the war against virus/trojan/etc, and buying a mac won't help the Big Picture, it will simply protect the one that uses the mac. With so many ...ahem...legitimate vendors packaging spyware with their windows products, it's like a war on two fronts for poor MS (my heart bleeds)
Oh yes, you're arroga...I mean self-assurance is only going to bite you someday. Someone WILL find a way into even you're C1 DoD certified blah blah......and even into my Mac. Perhaps you should accept this (I do, yet I am still vigilant and proactive with my security), but judging from how many "advocacy" and "apologist" posts you've placed here today I can only imagine that your mind is still closed.
damn, in my excitement I made the oh-so-avoidable "you're/your" error. I'll still sleep tonight. I just couldn't resist adding that from the tone of your posts today, you seem to be clinging to an agenda. You should just be secure (hehe, another double entendre) in the fact that you're comfortable using "whatever works for you", but apparently you feel threatened that Apple is getting some positive publicity. Sorry to come off so aggressive, I've got my own problems ;)
You already run the native version?
I've installed the pre-alpha and toyed with it, but *use* it?
Slow as a dog and buggy as hell.
To keep up with the adjectives however, I'm as excited as a virgin going to the proms...
Looks kind of dorky in aqualand, but heaps better than Gimp.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
The majority of my contacts with Mac customers entail software issues, the vast majority of those involving lack of disk maintenance. I usually run Norton's Disk Doctor and Speed Disk, charge a nominal fee and send them on their merry ways.
;-)
Then, I get a lot of machines from do-it-yourselfers who get stuck out of their depth. They buy crappy memory, put it in themselves, and then wonder why their machine freezes on POST after a few uses. They don't jumper ATA hard drives correctly. They don't know about the excellent third-party hardware installation support from this site. I make quite a bit on those
Next, I see a lot of stuff that has just plain worn out. Especially hard drives. Some people's drives are adversely affected by moving from drier, mainland climes to the humidity here, but Apple customers--by and large--wear their stuff out. I just had to turn away someone who wanted her Apple IIe fixed (the spring that ejected her floppies was worn out).
Electricity here isn't the stable commodity it is on the mainland, so I see more damage due to that than I would normally. Some early iMacs have weak flyback transformers that don't stand up well under fluctuating power and monster thunderstorms.
I don't carry a parts inventory and I advise customers with machines older than the original Power Macintosh G3 to get another machine. I refer them either to Apple's website or to Powermax because used Macs retain their resale value and are usually a great buy.
My only regret is that I can't sell new Macs. Oh, well... surf's up.
From the article I gather they'll mostly run java and terminal applications, something that could run from almost any platform. If that's the case then Macs seem to be overkill. I see it two different ways:
It's a good move. If they realize what they have they'll get a couple of good cocoa programmers that will make some cool custom apps that will make things better. Hopefully users will have access to a range of applications allowing them to do new things and do old things quicker. IT staff costs should be a sizable amount less than MS Windows. Access to a Mac can sometimes really make a user's job easier and better.
It's a bad move. Overall hardware costs are likely more than twice the price of diskless X workstations and will have a much higher maintance cost. If they don't have an in house Mac tech that can make repairs downtime per seat could be weeks. Mac parts have always be much more than the PC world. If all they are going to see is a couple of java and terminal windows then the Mac's beautiful interface has been wasted. Depending solely on off the shelf applications is also a waste. Diskless X stations at less than $500USD per seat is less than any Mac. Lets not forget Apple's habit of using OS upgrades to push hardware sales.
Moral of story: In the right place (and there are many of them) using Macs in most offices are the way to fly. Creativity flows, stuff works and users are happy. Worth every extra penny. For places where users will only have access to two or three apps (like a call center) Macs are overkill.
Years ago I worked for the corp. office of a large hotel chain that moved from IBMs running 3270 terminals to Macs with the promise of saving atleast ten seconds off the average call (this would save them a lot). Users were given access to one custom app that sucked (not the Mac's fault) and call times actually went up over ten seconds per call. The project cost them millions with no chance of any ROI.
"Use a Mac" is not the answer to ever question. Macs are bad ass machines, come with some great apps like iMoive but are a waste in what seems to be a "vertical" market. Again, if the point is to give users access to a bunch of apps like Photoshop then get the Macs. If 99% of the user's time is spent on java/terminal apps then they have wasted their money.
Many, many offices that use MS Windows could really benefit by switching to Macs. IMO it's not a good thing to push Macs in places that they don't make sense.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
like IBM?
I agree, but at least you can just plug in a 3rd party USB Mouse(I like the MS Intellimouse Explorer - ironically, MS makes much better hardware (HIDs) than software), or even use a bluetooth mouse if you're being fancy (and you got a Mac with bluetooth support)
Also, even though the trackpads on the *books have only one button, they're usable due to the proximity of the ctrl, option(alt), and command(apple or weird hash-like symbol) keys
I'm 6'4". Using a computer while standing is always a pain because the monitor is fixed. I invariably end up stooping for any machine but an iMac. Read the article. The staff preferred the iMacs. Do you think it is just because they are purty? The laser printer will probably be cheaper in the long run too thanks to the price of ink. As for the web app bit, they already have point of sale software written in Java. It just needed a bit of tweaking for OS X. How is writing, testing, and debugging an entirely new web app more cost effective than reusing their old code?
> The laser printer will probably be cheaper in the long run too thanks to the price of ink.
Ink? I thought receipt printers were either dot-matrix or thermal.
see title of my post, jackass
I'm certain that there will be more OCCASIONAL apple security blunders (as that's really all there has been so far), but to bring attention to it for malicious purposes (as you say...taunting them) would surely bring ill toward linux as well. I say this because I'm certain the easiest targets for exploitation on OSX would be its open protocols or utilities or perhaps even an as yet undiscovered implementation issue. Due to the inherent similarities of *nixes, don't you agree that this would hurt the haxorz beloved unix as well? Why would they risk shooting themselves in the foot so badly, as it would only help MS (if they really were acting for some "cause" or whatever)
and I know why you know the difference.
Get back to work.
Can I use my apple created docs/files on ANY other system? hell yes.
Can I use my outlook/word/etc after transferring to a mac? Not very easily. I realize that you use open formats to begin with, but the hardware is really a "second order" problem, AFTER proprietary file formats (which all companies seem to use, Apple just relies on less of it). So, I can use Open Office or whatever open/free flavor-of-the-month app in OSX just the same as you on $whateverOS/architecture, and I can replace my hd/powersupply/memory/video card/etc ad nauseum with COMMON everyday or easily locatable hardware WITHOUT having to go back to apple, so what's you problem again?
Games...cmon? Do you think RTA of Queensland cares about games? The downtime they would be SURE to suffer if they went with windows (virus/trojan/exploits etc) would offset ANY SAVINGS they would have initially made. TCO?
Working hard? So apple's FREE compilers/IDEs and whatnot are just SO difficult to the average hardworking developer that it's not worth the effort? Manually editing source files? No more than any of my projects in Visual Studio (VB & VC++, but I don't know how much YOU code for a living), not to mention, have you even compiled from the CL in a *nix before? They have always (on occasion) needed tweaking between the different vendors. What I'm saying is that apple didn't necessarily solve the problem (they did help a lot, though I'm sure you will turn a blind eye to that) but the hand editing of source has been around even before Linux, and continues still. Btw, sending a different flag or arch info or whatever you need to do really isn't THAT much of a big deal to developers, at least not what you make it out to be, after all that's why they release source in the FIRST PLACE !
Tis a poor musician who blames his instrument....
astroturf? sounds like "it takes one to know one".
Unless you're reading from http://apple.slashdot.org I don't see a bias, especially one as large as you are implying. Learn to use slashdot's more advanced features first (it's not that hard, try just not posting anonymously for a change, wait that'd ruin your "grassroots astroturfing effort" or whatever), and perhaps you will be spared some of your emotional fits.
Warcraft? Besides.....why blame apple for what third party developers decide? They are just following the market....
Thanks, I could tell there was a bit more, I became weak and thus became fixated...grrr...lemme change the view/threshold so I can get the whole picture next time
;) thanks for the links.
I'm gonna read the whole thing again and see if I have anything RELEVANT to add
Sorry to perpetuate the poor S/N that already exists here...
I actually heard about this from the guy who engineered the switch, and apparently one of the main reasons the RTA went with Macs is that the eMac is cheap, clutter-free, and *gasp* you can use a swivel stand to rotate the screen towards the customer who can easily check their details during a license transaction.
Simple as that.
Their decisions to lock out the Cloners
...saved them. Apple sells hardware. The OS and the apps are the incentive to buy that hardware. If you can't see this, you're a fool.
to kill Copeland
Also, if I remember my Apple history right, saved them. It was a project that had gotten *terminally* bogged down, and way too much money was being poured into it. If they'd been able to pull it off, it would've been great, but by the time it was killed, it was way too late.
to only make machines out of clear shiney plastic
A legitimate complaint, if it's not to your taste; however, there are the PowerBooks and the G5s if translucent plastic is not to your liking. Mere style would never keep me away from a computer if it was good on the inside, though.
And, last but not least...
and most importantly that I can't play the games that I want to play on a Mac
YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!!!!!!
What the heck makes you think that was Apple's decision??? I guarantee you Apple would love to have all the games everyone wants to play. Don't blame Apple for that. Blame the stupid developers who don't bother to port or even let someone else port it (especially the ones who use the abomination that is DirectX, rather than nice, clean OpenGL).
Maybe you should actually think a little, about your reasons, and about who's to blame for them....or is that a little too much to handle for a two-bit, anti-Mac TROLL? ;-P
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.