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Verizon PCMCIA Card Just Works
Apple God writes "I was a friend's house and he showed me his Verizion PCMCIA card for internet access. On a whim, I put it in my PowerBook, and it recognized the card and prompted me for authorization to configure the system for use with the card. I entered my password, and was surprised to see an icon in the menu bar for it. I clicked on this icon and selected connect, it worked! I had internet access. Here is a picture of the card that I used. When we checked Verizon's page, they only listed Windows compatibility. To make matters sweeter, my friend was shocked that it 'just worked' because he had to install drivers in XP before it would work."
Whether or not a piece of hardware "just works" depends on what drivers were included in the OS. It's quite likely your XP installation(/media) is much older than your OSX one.
Nevertheless, nearly every piece of hardware I try on my XP box works first go. I certainly don't expect exotic hardware that wasn't released before XP, like my digital TV tuner, to work without installing drivers. But by the time the next Windows release is due, I expect this hardware to be not so exotic anymore, and that drivers will be included.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
"This is rarely the case wtih my XP box. slashdot is not "apple biased" it's "anti MS.." get it straight. "
Pity it isn't pointed out enough that if *nix/OSX doesn't have the driver, they're typically SOL until somebody cooks up one.
I'm going to get scorched pretty heavily for saying this, but there are upsides to MS's monopoly.
"Derp de derp."
Jeeze, the thing just worked, to quote the key phrase of this thread. At that moment, I knew I'd not be going back to solaris or linux anytime soon. After a year with the box, I've yet to plug in anything and find it not working right away.
Apple wants you to think that the GUI is the best thing about their OS, but that's wrong. The GUI is OK, mind you, but it's more awkward than GNOME in some respects. But the hardware support, that's the jewel.
I must be doing something wrong because we've had quite a bit of difficulty getting USB data cables (one for a nokia, one for a moto) to work with OS X (10.3.4)
I've had to resort to using Quicklink Mobile from Smith-Micro to get our staff's cell phones to transmit data. Mind you, QLM works very well and is worth the cost, but I don't like being dependent upon them for cables -- especially if one dies and I can't just hit the Verizon store or other retailer to buy a replacement.
The problem, as I've been told, is that USB drivers for these cables are not written for Mac. (Hence, the need for QLM's drivers and their supplied cable.)
Does anyone know anymore about USB drivers and USB cell phone data cables for Mac?
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson
I noticed this a lot with my new Mac. After eight years of using Microsoft products, I buckled down and bought a dual 1.8Ghz G5 a few weeks ago.
:)
Every time I plug something into it, it just works. I bought a Formac TVR video capture unit, and plugged it in. No drivers, it recognized it just fine and Toast even let me capture off it. My new mouse worked perfectly. I plugged in my USB printer, and it didn't even bother prompting me about it - I was simply suddenly able to print documents from anywhere.
I love this thing
Mike
Or it may only have an Amiga driver... and the joke is on both of us.
How fast is this service? I've used my T-Mobile phone with my PowerBook over bluetooth (irda a few years back) and it has always been dirt slow. Is this card faster than modem speeds?
I bought a playstation 2 adapter to USB for my G5. It said it was only compatable with Windows XP. It also came with a floppy disk full of drivers.
I plug it into my Mac.... And it worked. *shrug*
By reading this sig, you agree to be bound by all terms and conditions I choose.
i was a little concerned when I hooked up my printer to my mac because it was kind of old. I hooked up the usb cable and nothing happened. I thought, oh crap. I hit print and... it just spit out the page. i couldn't believe it. in fact.. it did something that i thought was so smart... it printed the pages in reverse order so when I took them out of the printer they were in the correct order. Always when i print on xp it prints page 1, then 2, then 3... so i have to rearrange them... not the case in osx.. they printed out reverse so I didn't need to arrange them.. that is one of the many things that always impress me when i use osx.
On the Mac, I've had the same problem with the HD, but I didn't get shunted to some TUI to download the latest version before I could use the GUI.
Same when I plugged a Sony BA1 USB Bluetooth dongle into my iBook...
:)
On Windows you need to start an install CD which copies half a dozen drivers (BT interface, several VCOM ports and lots of crap), 2 Windows hotfixes and a BT front-end application. Of course you also need to restart your PC. Overall, installing this thing on Windows takes about 10 minutes.
On OSX, the dongle is recognized instantly. No questions asked. Plug it in, it works. Fire up the Bluetooth Assistant, pair devices, that's it.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
Low high-end != top of the line.
Top of the line means biggest, best, fastest on the market.
The Radeon 9800 Pro, while an extremely good card, is no longer the top of the line from ATI. 1 GB of PC3200 RAM is not top of the line, when you consider most boards that support that much can support up to 4 GB of RAM. A P4 3.0 GHz is not top of the line from Intel, the 3.6 GHz is. Etc.
"Top of the Line" is not subjective, it means the top of the line products available by the manufacturers; your list does not include them. And to build a PC is to build one from scratch, not transfer old parts to it.
So you've got $439 spent on a non-top of the line PC, you have $61 left for everything else on my list, minus shipping costs, so figure $41-$51 left.