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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."
Imagine the taxes required to pay for all those Macs.
WOW!
Another example of Apple talking over the world!
OS X sucks.
Use FreeBSD instead.
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?
Stuff like this might help keep Mac sales from sagging significantly Q/Q again. iBook's flat. GO APPLE!
When will they adopt honest accounting of stock options? I'm thinking never. Discuss.
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
Wow, this is cool. The more Mac's the better, I always say. It's a good alternative to Windows. So is Linux of course.
Free Wii Points
It's also a boring aussie story
No, seriously, does this matter at all? Does it really make one fucking jot of difference whether some traffic authority's bundle of boxes are running Mac OS, or Windows, or Red Hat Linux, or NetBSD, or whatever? Does it make any difference at all? No, it doesn't mean a thing! I guess it's a pretty fucking slow news day.
Selling my K5 account
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..."
no shit.
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.
Shouldn't this be: "New South Wales Traffic Authority Switches to Linux"?
Dear Apple,
I am a homosexual. I bought an Apple computer because of its well-earned reputation for being
"the" gay computer. Since I have become an Apple owner, I have been exposed to a whole new world
of gay friends. It is really a pleasure to meet and compute with other homos such as myself. I
plan on using my new Apple computer as a way to entice and recruit young schoolboys into the
homosexual lifestyle; it would be so helpful if you could produce more software which would appeal
to young boys. Thanks in advance.
With much gayness,
Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day, S.J.
Is it dying more slowly than OS X, so you'll get more life out of it?
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.
Um, HELLO!!!! Apple is far less open with regard to their systems than any other major manufacturere of consumer grade computers. Microsoft's OS is less open than Apple's, but their systems are definately NOT "open stardards-based".
I know I'm going to get mod bombed by the Apple Zealots, but I have the karma and this needed to be said.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Now that the RTA are buying overpriced garbage PC's, the cost of personalised plates will go up again. Not to mention how simple the customer service staff will get. "Look, my computer's aqua!!!"
Just when we're getting ass-reamed for driving a car, it gets worse!
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
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.
Use Windows instead!
absurdity is what makes this World so enchanting. Its so nice to see that people still think that using computer takes some brains. or for those who can't think, THEY USE WINDOWS!!!
http://www.geocities.com/baddsectorr
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.
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.
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
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.
Cool!
That means I get to listen to iTunes next time I go to fail my license exam.
"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
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"
I work for a printer company, and every time they release a new OS X it breaks our software.
I think it IS just an Apple story! And I think that Apple in all likelyhood offered them a deep discount. This news conference guy is just blabbing about open source and choice because it pushes all the right buttons and diverts attention from the truth- that they bought a bunch of overpriced hardware with taxpayers money. He doesn't want Joe Taxpayer to ask why they just bought a whole bunch of computers from a company with a tiny fraction of the architectural marketshare. More choice of vendors? It would be more accurate to say he is locked into exactly one vendor. Funny how that particular part of his statement makes absolutely no sense at all.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
there are a lot of homosexuals working for the RTA
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.
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?
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.
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/
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.
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.
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.