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The Ten Worst Products of the Year
WaZiX writes "Not sure what you want to buy for christmas? Well me neither, but PCMag has an interesting article on what they consider to be the 10 worst products of the year, so at least you know what not to buy. Helpful article that picked out products from different categories such as PDA's, Notebooks and MP3 players."
Slashdot subscription?
Would be funny if they put PC Magazine on that list.
His reviews mostly made sense except for the eMac rip. I'm not a huge Mac fan (nothing wrong with them, just not my cup of tea), but I thought he seemed to be targetting a different audience with his review of the eMac. 40GB would certainly not fill up quickly with the type of things my parents do on a computer, and I think anyone wishing to play "this fall's hottest games" wouldn't be considering an entry level computer. Finally, $800 seems to be about right for the price of an eMac. Sure, you can get a dell for $499 with a monitor (please don't correct the numbers), but Macintoshes cost more because they provide more value for their target audience. And when he said, "buy a Dell", does that mean if I pick an entry level Dell it will play "this fall's hottest games?" Although IANAG (gamer), something tells me you're not going to get stellar HL2 performance on an Intel 810.
so that cheap £9.99 webcam i bought for parents is no good :/ awww
...surely you can wait until Friday evening.
Yeah, right.
Long loading times, scratchable screen, bad battery life, a lousy UMD drive that ejects disc in midplay, the button that doesn't press...
I can go on all day...
The Dell 1600n isn't as bad as he is talking about... We bought one a couple weeks ago for like 2 bills and it works fine.
It copies when the attached PC is down, works fine as a network printer and isn't that slow. It takes a minute or so to warm up, but it is a laser, that is to be expected.
SCO "Linux license".
Digital Cameras: Concord 5062AF
PDA: iPAQ
Phone: Samsung D415
Desktop PC: eMac
Notebook PC: VoodooPC Envy m:380
Multifunction Printer: MFP Laser Printer 1600n
MP3 Players: Mojo 1
HDTV: ADS Upconverter
Camcorder: Fisher's FVD-C1
Wireless: WF717-APR router
Worst Magazine Reviews of the Year, at number 1 we have ...
you get the picture
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
HDTV: High-definition content looks great on an HDTV, but on a regular TV, which is most of what you'll probably watch, it can look worse than an ancient Philco. And that's where the ADS Upconverter seems a logical choice. It claims to convert DVDs and over-the-air TV into video that'll stand up to real HD content. Don't buy it. Marred by a terrible user interface, a remote control seemingly designed by ascetic monks, and output quality that redefines GIGO (Good In, Garbage Out), it's a quick $500 flushed down the drain. For better HDTV choices, including sets with decent built-in upconverters, see our HDTV product guide.
just throw a bunch of components into a box, route the input to the output and sell the "working" box
make fake box
buy parts
sell
profit!
Another iPod owner who has to tell us he/she has an iPod...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Hmmm. I'd have figured the SCO license would have surely made that list. $699 and you don't even get a pet rock out of the deal.
"Cowboy Neal's 'Thongs for Geeks'", which includes graphic instructions.....
Shudders
Monstar L
1. Find worst product in catagory. Mention it.
2. Post a link to the "PC Mag guide" for that catagory with the tex "for better options in (name of catagory) see PC Mag's guide
3.Profit!
I have blog like everyone else
I think saying that eMac is the worst product in the desktop PC cathegory is like saying that a brand X toaster is the worst product in the baking oven cathegory. eMac was primarily targeted at the education market where it is mostly likely being used as some sort of a thin client. Therefore, the relatively small disk size is not very important (likely the end user files live on the servers), the video card choice is also not very important as you don't need a top end 3D card to run Microsoft Office or Mathematica. While eMac's CPU might not be fastest on the market, it is sufficient to run desktop productivity apps, a web browser, and for doing light numerical work. My $0.02 ..
;o)
Remember, there are no stupid questions. But there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
Whoever modded this "flamebait" needs to get over it. This was hilarious!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
A better product is a subscription to WindBusiness !!
New technologic product, very important for you !
WindBusiness : because selling wind is our business...
Of course, it DOES support XML !
Great manager pictures here
GIGO (Good In, Garbage Out)
Way to show your tech credentials! Coming soon, to a PCMag article near you, the newest and hottest acronyms:
Could the article be anymore GigaLame?
Hmmm.
I think that's exactly what he's saying. If you're shopping for the best bang for $800, the eMac is the last place you should look.
Nothing but a plug for their 'best of' articles.
Seriously, why waste the time to write an article about 10 things you don't recommend?
how come there is never a list of the 10 worst cars? Never saw an article in Car and Driver saying don't buy this - it sucks.
Items 1-10 would all be the PT Cruiser.
Ugly, overpriced, underpowered, inefficient, and shockingly unsafe. It's the Corvair for the 21st Century.
Now watch this get modded into oblivion and "Flamebait" by angry Chrystler owners who are living in denial, and you will understand why there's never a list of 10 worst cars.
We open our gifts the morning of January 6th ;-)
Make It Secret . Free JavaScript implementation of AES for your browser
Why do most "best-of" or "worst-of" kind of compilations have to be conveniently bracketed into well-rounded numbers like 10, 20, 100 etc. It clearly implies that the authors are just hunting around for products to slander just so that they can fill in the 2 vacant slots or whatever. I mean, if someone does honestly compile a list of bad products, they would simply make a list of products that are outstandingly horrible in a product segment, and end the list when they run out of horrible products!
These kind of list compilations only exemplify shoddy jounalism.
It is fairly common knowlege that the eMac is apples lowest end System. No one ever made the impression that it wasn't. The eMac was primarly made for educational usage. Which normally means that its useage would be Running a Word Processor, Browsing the internet. Running low end Sciencetific tools, that could probably run quicly on a 486 as well and some Educational Games. It keeps the CRT Screen because it is easier to clean up from pencel marks and takes scratches better. The extra price over say the $499 Dell is usually due to 1st Apple is getting a larger % of the profit, (Most PC manufacturars make there Low End system and sell it at very low margins so they can advertise the lower end PC and then most people will go to Dell.com then look around and order a higher priced one), Secondarly the eMac is build to be a little more solid then a Dell W. Monitor Which is part of the Educational Need for a computer, thridly because of Supply v. Demmand the supply for part to make an eMac is much smaller then the supply of part to make a low end PC, so the price is higher.
I find it disapointing that PC magazine decided to choose the eMac as its bad system to buy not because they chose an Apple computer but because there are so many Windows PC that are of very poor quality and are advertised as much more then they are. But it is no secret that PC magizene is no Fan of Apple anyways. Back when the PowerMac g5 was released their "Glowing" afermation of the G5s power was saying it was just as good as the top of he line PC.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
But we know the important question is really, will it run Emacs?
And fortunately, the answer is yes, yes, and yes.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Missing from list: the Bantam BA50 mp3 player. The buttons are cheap and poorly labelled, the MP3's play with a loud hiss. Worst of all, the thing looks like the torso of the Lost in Space movie robot. I think they recycled these from unsold movie tie-in toys. If this trend continues, look for thumb-drives built into unsold "Battlefield Earth" Terl action figures. Oh, almost forgot. It looks embarassingly bad. Don't want to be seen in public with it!
While I can't assess this article's accuracy; the writer does a good job of explaining exactly why each of the products are "worst". I found the pointer to the magazine product reviews helpful to find something better. And it was funny too.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
Well that's just rubbish. I own and iPod but I don't feel the need to tell the world.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
...10 worst Slashdot articles of the year?
I know some people like it and some people hate it, but Consumer Reports puts out a car buying guide each year that actually does compile some useful information on which cars are reliable and which ones totally suck. They base their information on surveys and give you an idea of how many folks report reliability problems with the different components of their cars. They also have an annual list of best bets and worst bets for used cars that includes year, make, and model.
That having been said, I don't actually subscribe. Still, I do always find a copy somewhere and take a quick glance when I'm looking to buy a car. So far, they've been pretty accurate (in my experience).
Probably because people are much better informed about cars than peripherals through word of mouth and reputation. Price can also be a decent indication of a car's quality, which doesn't necessarily apply to this stuff.
It would be amusing to see a Chevy Cavalier and Dodge Neon fight it out though. :)
*blinking cursor*
I don't really know about the 5MP Concord camera mentioned in the article, but i did witness some photos taken with a 3.1MP (can't recall the model) and i was impressed with their quality. The build quality of the camera was quite nice as well, plastic, but sturdy.
Both Concord and BenQ have nice digital cameras for cheap - and they have some awful stuff as well; you just got to inform yourself a bit. Just in case anyone decided to steer clear from Concord after reading the article.
Which? the magazine of the independent Consumers Association, has, I forget the correct legal term, "super complainer" status in law ie their complaints inherently carry more legal weight and can automatically trigger investigations. Anyway, they also publish regular reviews of the best and worst of everything, including cars. That's in the UK of course.
Could the answer to your question be that you're simply not looking very hard?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
This is easy... because the auto magazines are too dependant upon advertising revenue from these companies -- invariably some of the worst cars come from manufacturers that advertise the most.
If you want to get honest car reviews, I'd recommend Edmondston's Lemon Aid Car Guide...100% independent, uses public access to information through safety councils, etc. Its Canadian based, but should be very applicable to all North American-available automobiles.
You'll find this same experience with most stereo magazines, and also to a great extend with video game and photography enthusiast publications.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Err... you just did.
While anybody who trashes John C. Dvorak is OK in my book, I would disagree with this author's assessment of the eMac and I would agree as well. Underpowered? For A/V editing or number crunching, I would agree but for it's primary target market of education, I think that it's fine--or used to be. Word processing and web surfing don't require that much snap and pop. It's pretty much the same machine as an iBookG4. However, I would say that it's past time for Apple to update or jetison this model--the G4 processor is old news. I would expect to see Apple announce an update to this product to the G5 class at January's Macworld Expo or it will die a quiet little death.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Fucking please. Even if there were enough /.ers interested in reading this lame turd of an article to bring a proper /.ing, they are not going to hose PC Magazine. What was the point of that again?
Sleep is futile.
My faith in PC Magazines normally excellent journalism has been shattered. The missed the worst gift of the year...
an SCO Intellectual Property license for the Linux lover in your life.
Hmmm, as an e30 bmw owner, they are expensive to fix when they break; however, with careful maintence they can last, unlike my parents honda prelude(1988) and acura integra(1987) which though the engine ran well, rusted into oblivion.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
A camcorder from Fisher...no thanks!
Who the hell is Concord anyway?
GiGaFast? Now there's a name brand! ;)
Some people are like Slinkies - Not good for anything, but you can't help smiling when you push 'em down the stairs.
The Car Talk guys (from NPR) have the Worst Cars of the Millenium as voted on by their listeners.
It's funny and worth a read.
From a terminal window just now:
You probably have to make the so-called BSD Subsystem a part of your install, but that's installed by default anyway (I have no idea if the sub-BSD-Subsystem that gets installed anyway whether you install the BSD Subsystem or not includes it)You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
all true
I think the fink install is more up to date than the currently installed default though.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
Nooo, it's a Mac, it's more than just a personal computer, right? Whatever.
Still, from the article, impossible to get information off of it because of a lack of a DVD burner? What's the author smoking? What did we all do with our 40+GB drives before DVD burners came along? Give me a break. I'd bet he wouldn't dream of trying to back up a 250GB drive with a DVD burner since that'd be over 50 DVDs. Why, backing up a 40GB drive with 700MB CDs yields just under 60 CDs. There's hardly a difference at all.
If not now, when?
What exactly more do you want for a low-usage-user?
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
And anyway, why pay 200$ for a freaking usb cd burner from Apple when most work on windows or mac?
Bypass Compulsory Web Registration -- http://bugmenot.com/
My3578magnum says
but on a regular TV, which is most of what you'll probably watch
I keep hearing people say this. Coming from PCMag its not too suprising I guess. In just about any medium sized city now every local channel broadcasts HD. Combine that with movie channels, espn, discovery, NFL Sunday ticket and several others, for a lot of people just about everything they would watch is in HD.
Are you intolerant of intolerant people?
How about drugs whose manufacturers gave large amounts of money to the FDA for fasttrack approval, which turned out to be deadly?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Heheh, thanks for the link. Those side comments for each car made me laugh really hard :)
I've made this mistake more than once. I refuse to do so anymore. It's ok to do tech support for yourself when you succumb to the lure of cheap/free hardware. It's utterly AWFUL to do it for someone else. Sure, you can get your parents a shiny new PC for less than $300 using parts from that guy at the computer fair who always has the hot deals on stuff whose serial numbers seem to have somehow gotten rubbed off, but do you really want to? What you don't realize at the time is that $300 is really just the first installment on the new system. You'll be carving fleshy screaming bits off your soul for the next 5 years and trading them in for known-good replacement computer parts in an attempt to figure out just WTF is wrong with the system you built. All the while you get to reside in Tech Support Purgatory, wincing whenever caller ID announces that it's Mom & Dad on the line, because they never call unless the PC you got for them is on the fritz.
Save the risk-taking for your own system. If your relatives won't shell out the $$$ for a decent new/used system or at least decent parts for the system, they'll have to learn to support the crap they buy themselves.
sz
The worst digital slr of the year is the Pentax K1000. I mean it doesn't even have USB! See our review here.
The worst desktop computer of the year is the super nintendo. I can't seem to get it to run Open Office and I have to fold my CD's in half just to get them in the ROM drive. See our review here.
The worst spread sheet application of the year is Windows Calculator. I see that you can congifure it to use Radians, but you can't even plot y=mx+b. How am I supposed to get my paper published in Science using diagrams created with a tool like that? See our review here.
Cisco makes these terific and robust managed routers, but the Netgear FS108 is a piece of junk in comparison. It only has 8 100MB ports. It doesn't have any built-in firewall. And, to top it all off, I still have to use cat5 ethernet cables. Can you image what the designers could have been thinking when they came up with that? See our review here.
Maybe I'm being too critical of this article.
0xfeedface
A couple of bad things for a worst-of-all-list:
1. Missile defence - dated before it left the planning committee, and impossible to actually implement in real life.
2. Teflon tyres.
Marketshare has everything to do with it. If you have a lot of developers developing for a platform, you will get a certain percentage of bad ones making malware. If you have few developers, and a company that has a history of discouraging not encouraging languages and software development, you will get little software (and little malware).
Back when the PowerMac g5 was released their "Glowing" afermation of the G5s power was saying it was just as good as the top of he line PC.
That sounds about right. While the G5 was a huge leap in performance for Mac fans and generated loads of hype in the Mac community, it only matched performance that PC fans have been used to. In fact, when the G5 came out, it matched the speed of the fastest Intel systems but still came short of the top of the line AMD chips.
I remember when the G5 benchmarks came out, Mac fans enthusiastically pointed to benchmarks on Apple's website. They were not objective in the least bit. They compared optimized Altivec code running on the G5 with non-optimized code running on the Intel machines. Also the Intel system had less memory than the fully configured Mac. It was pretty sad, actually, that a respected company such as Apple would benchmark using such a slanted configuration.
Well, a spellchecker might be, uh, "helpfull" for Taco.
Gadget A sucks. Now let us show you what products our sponsors have asked us to shill... er... products we've reviewed and consider to be of the highest quality.
the top pi^e devices
Completive Human Nature since we are a little Kid always wants to classify things as Good and Bad. Or Better and Worst. We like it when we see that the stuff we have is better then the stuff that someone else has and will often find methods of proving it to themselves and to others what they have is better then what others have. Some people like products just because they look nice, others for the number of features, others for simplify, other for the price, others for quality. The real question when you are comparing to others peoples products you need to ask them if they are happy with the product. There are a lot of people out there who don't like upgrading to a new computer because they are very happy with their old one, It does what they need and does it well. Other people after buying a top of the line system may be disappointed with it because it doesn't run the way they want it to, while an other person with the same system will give it glowing reviews. A lot of people don't realize how different all people are and putting them in groups rarely ever works. And trying to give a list on what is good vs. What is Bad will always cause controversy.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In the MP3 section anything by RIO, with the amount of spyware they add to your machine and the inability to veiw the item as a usb drive makes these units mostly unusable.
:)
I find it funny, they guy gigs a mac product and the mac 'ButButs' are all out for a party.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
The review made no sense,and shows no concept of what is needed in an average k-12 classroom. To add, and eMac is not the consumer or commerical model. It is the K-12 educational model.
My school had Macs, which we learned on, and later on I realized that it was a very bad idea. We learned on Macs and then got out into the "real world" where Mac skills were nearly useless. 95% of the market was IBM-compatibles. If you wanted to get a job where they called for "PC skills", they didn't mean knowing how to use a Mac. They meant knowing how to use Dos and Windows 3.1
If you were to teach something, would you teach something that 95% of people could use, or teach something that only 5% of people could use?
I'm not saying that Macs are bad, but we must face reality and admit that they're only a tiny percentage of the market, and when teaching subject matter that would help the majority of kids in school, learning on IBM compatibles would have been the smarter choice that helped more people in all practicality.
err, ah well, what do I add more to it? :)
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Tubgirl Chocolate Fondue Fountain?
And before you point out that the Mac isn't designed specifically for x86, neither are Transmeta processors, yet they go into PC laptops. Their emulation is just at a different stage. Even today's Intel PCs have completely different architecture that has x86 translated into the internal instructions. Also note that today's Macs don't natively support the original 68k based Mac software. Does that mean it's been misnamed as a Mac?
The point is the whole line is being blurred. There's hardly a thing you can do on one home computer platform that you can't on another. Almost certainly nothing you'd do on an eMac.
It's traditional for computers traced back to IBM PC compatability to be called PCs and Apples to be called Macs for ease of differentiation in selling platform specific software or in some now rare cases hardware. Also note that Apple claimed to offer the "world's first 64-bit processor for personal computers".
Using the term PC to refer just to x86 machines should meet its end. PC Magazine's already doing it. The end of PC being platform specific happening. The terminology we use is alive. It's now turning into what the acronym expands to and nothing more. PCs are becoming nothing but personal computers. Sorry if that takes away some feeling of superiority from using one type of personal computer over another.
If not now, when?
I'm not debating whether eMacs are good or crap, or anywhere in between, but in his review snipplet, the author stated that "the lack of a DVD burner makes offloading files impossible"
Ignoring the fact that the eMac is a Mac, and therefore has USB, Firewire, ethernet, supports Target Disk Mode (ok, some of that is slightly poweruser), the review model had a CD-RW?!?! Last time I checked, people still used those, Best Buy still sells CD-R's and you could use them to, I dunno offload files?
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Who listens to the words of someone who uses a phrase like that? I mean, damn, that line alone is a shooting offense in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Greater Antilles.
--- Ban humanity.
"glacially slow processor and anemic memory"
"designed by orangutans without opposable thumbs"
"longer than it took the Minnow's crew to escape Gilligan's Island"
"it's slower than a 330-pound defensive tackle with two bad knees on a muddy field"
"like watching the neighbor's TV with a periscope"
"look worse than an ancient Philco"
"control more twitchy than Jennifer Tilly in Seed of Chucky"
"this twisted offspring of a Norelco shaver"
"you'd be GigaWrong. Buy this one and you'll end up GigaSad"
"doesn't matter a NanoBit."
It's $799, not $900.
creation science book
There is something to be said for putting your archival device in the chassis, PC style. It really helps with the power supply and interconnect cable tangles and saves on desktop real estate.
Back in the 90s, I had an Amiga. Great computer, but precious little room in the box for peripherals. External equipment in my setup included: high-density floppy drive, CD-ROM, Zip Drive, Video I/O box, MIDI interface, Modem (with switchbox), and printer switchbox. Most of these required a wall wart of their own, with corresponding power strips plugged into other power strips. The collection turned into a pile, with the largest items on the bottom. Transporting the whole collection was also a real chore.
So there are advantages to the all-in-one-case approach.
I am not a crackpot.
Now that's a product idea only a dumbass could come up with...
There are enough programs for both Windows and Macintosh that any one individual could not possibly try all of them in her lifetime.
Unless you want software specifically targeted at some obscure niche, like an accounting system geared towards left-handed people who work in the trout farming industry, you'll find plenty of Mac software available.
Well, or unless you want ten million ways to wander around rooms and kill off robotic monsters, instead of only one million. Then I can't help you.
D
I'm not just being a Mac fanboy here, I really don't get that entry.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Jim Louderback [this story's writer]
John C Dvorak [mentioned in this story as having a credible opinion]
Both of these guys are Mac haters and neither have a valid merit to make any statement about the Personal Computer or electronics industry.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
that as an individual, rather than a mammoth corporation that can get huge discounts, I can get an 80GB hard disk for around 35UKP, and a 160GB one for around 45UKP. i can't even buy anything as small as a 40GB one anymore - so surely apple could have been just a little less cheap with the drives?
I am not a Mac fanatic, yet I do not like that eMac made the article. It is a solid machine for somebody who wants to have a stable client for checking e-mail, using a digital camera, surfing the web and being somewhat secure. Especially for $800.
Please do not give me "my Linux box can do the same for less" crap because there is no fucking way in hell I am going to recommend a Linux box to any of my relatives or non-techie people. Currently, I still see Linux as a great system for servers and desktops owned by techies who know the differences between kernel 2.4 and 2.6. Dell is okay, but as long as they run some sort of Windows, I am not touching them.
A couple of months ago I spent 2 days cleaning my friend's computer from every goddamn malware program out there. Then I cleaned my aunts computer, then I helped my mom because her box was extremely slow due to all the "addware" that she managed to install. Being a naive and a non-experienced user sucks, especially when companies do not want to be on your side. That is why I strongly push my mom toward an eMac because as far as I am concerned it represents a solid machine for beginners who do not want to spend all their free time maintaining it. Let's face the facts: not everybody enjoys configuring their computers whenever they have free time.
Here is why I like eMac:
It runs Mac OS X. This eliminates tons of malware available for Windows users. It is also easy to upgrade and maintain. I can enable SSHd and login to my mom's computer whenever she has a problem that needs to be fixed.
It is relatively cheap for what it is. Because I do not have to spend my time maintaining the computer, I can do something else. How much does your free time cost?
It has enough disk space. Believe it or not, 40GB is enough for any normal person. So far, all my software on my computer takes up 20GB. A person who does not download movies or music does not need a large hard drive to begin with.
eMac is pretty damn compact. I do not want my mom to deal with tons of wires, so a single box seems to be a perfect solution.
And that is just the beginning. Granted, I am a little biased towards Macs because since I got one, I noticed increase in my productivity. Now I can actually spend my time on writing code and doing fun things that do not involve system administration 24/7.
Anything.
Wait until after January 1st and get what you want for a lot less cash.
Wow. <span class="flamebait">For the first time in my life, I think I'd consider a Macintosh, if I were shopping for a new PC. You know, to use it as a real computer.</span>
No, seriously, does Emacs run with antialiased fonts, on the Mac? That's pretty much the only real annoyance in my Gnome desktop. I don't know how hard it would be for Emacs to use XFT or FreeType, but damn, that's needed. Badly.
I agree with you about the market for a lower priced (less-expandable) box, but the eMac has many, many fans, and for good reason. Others at /. have made argued a good case that the price is reasonable, and they have done this without attaching a dollar value to FireWire, OS X, the all-in-one form factor!
The 1.25 GHz eMac Value Equation: Wow!
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
Nice going, maybe they'll mention us in one of their shows!
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Anyone else that every single one of these product damnings also includes a link to the related product guide on the site?
I guess the basic nature of this column is:
A: Do the customary bitching about Dvorak. (Not to say that Dvorak bashing isn't okay- he loves it and uses it to his advantage.)
B: Drive traffic deeper into the site to increase revenue during the Christmas season.
And people wonder why I'm like the freaking Grinch around this time of year.
Bah humf*ckingbug.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
that 40gb will vanish fast.
Already have gone the upgrade route on my parents PC compatible. They had issues before with a scanner and that doubled as they not only were making new photos but scanning in all the old ones.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Ironically the article is lack-lustre, because the information presented is in many parts entirely incorrect.(perhaps /. could assemble the most uninformed tech articles for the year?) This is probably because the author didn't bother revising specs on the discussed items since the first time they reviewed them.
In other news the article is quite blatant with it's recommendation guides, and considering that it's Dec 21, it's naive to suggest that this isn't product placement.
whoa...talk about postmodern.
The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
in the desktop OS category, for it's tendancy to, for the slightest of causes, or none at all, decide to go down and take everything with it.
As for "the real world," 99% of the design studios I've worked at are Mac-based, so all that learning of BASIC, DOS and dBase back in high school was a waste of time, wasn't it? ;)
And what's the percentage of people who work in design houses compared to people who use Windows PC's in the corporate workplace? The VAST majority of computers used in the workplace are Microsoft based, like it or not. The Mac crowd is merely a very vocal minority. But no matter how loud they yell, it doesn't increase their platform's market share.
It should have read:
...and the Radeon 9200 graphics card won't even run this fall's hot Mac game.
Wrong. It is a PC, it is not an IBM compatible PC. (Note: PC stands for "Personal Computer". IBM did not invent the phrase).
And we open our gifts on Jan 6th. Well, at least we used to till Yanqui Claus took over.
I for one can vouch for GigaFast's (poor) product quality. I had one of their 8-port 10/100 switches. It failed after less then a year of normal use under my desk.
I thought about sending it back, but since I would just get another one in exchange, it didn't seem worth paying the S&H.
If they can't even make a simple product like this that is reliable, it really says a lot about the company.
I stick to the reliable names, and it's a policy that doesn't trip me up. I've seen so many people get burnt on little stuff that saves you very little cash, but if it goes wrong starts taking up all your time.
I'd also count buying from "cheapest retailer". Sure, you'll save $5, but then spend an hour trying to get through to the call centre to get some support. Pay the extra $5, get the support and get on.
Have you driven one? My wife & I test-drove one a few years ago. I was impressed with it's handling & braking, especially considering it's height. Not a sports-car, but reasonably peppy; probably slower fully loaded. "Ugly" is very subjective :) Inefficient: not compared to the minivans it's a smaller replacement for (that was my purpose, anyway; replacing an actual "real van"). PT is very adaptable for it's size. Didn't get one, but liked it more than I expected.
Just thought I'd share that with somebody!
I do like Apple which is why it's sad they don't understand the real value (ie.e they are not worth that much) of there machines.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
How could they have missed the $199 SCO IP-powered NutSmasher package?
No, they say buy a Dell because the eMac is slow, has a small hard drive and is expensive for what you get.
XP Service Pack 2
It's ridiculous to put a computer marketed and priced for the entry level in this list and to call it "pathetic." The eMac isn't made for 3D gaming, it's made for running Office and web browsers, etc.
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What happens if you don't patch a Mac? Possible intrusion is what happens, Same as on Wndows.
Two things of note - if you don't patch a Mac, right now you have a working unpatched Mac. If you don't patch Windows (or even if you do), you PROBABLY have a comprimised computer for the majority of users. You are confusing two possibilities with the reality of the situation at hand.
Which leads me to my second point. All Macs come set up to update weekly, so issues are patched quickly - AND because of the security setup in OS X you'd have to have the administrator password from the user to be able to disable this process. On Windows it would be a lot easier for some spyware to stop Windows Update, or even redirect it to install more unpleasant things!
Macs may not be an unbreakable fort, but at least that have a fence and are in a good neighborhood!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have to agree here. PCMag is full of it. If you look at the eMac benchmarks posted over at Macintouch just yesterday, you'll notice it has surprisingly good performance. This is likely something John Dvorak threw in there to attract angry Mac zealots. It's his M.O.: Piss off Mac fans to increase ad revenue.
The draw of the other Emacs is that they are full versions - the one that comes with OS X is sadly only text-based (you have to run it in Terminal).
That's why I downloaded GnuEmacs and use that. And in answer to the other posters question, yes it uses standard OS X widgets so the text is AA.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here is some more Bush for you :-)
This rant seems bit unfair for me.
We use bunch 1GHz eMacs EDU (without optical drive but with 512 MB RAM) for video editing (Final Cut) and basic audio editing (Garageband).
All what i can say- this machine rocks! It's cheap, its fully supported (A/V editing in cheap hardware, yuk), its fast. Having 2 FW jacks (working jacks, if you want use camcorders and DV decks this matters) is enough for anything you can imagine.
And about 40GB drive: 5 min ~ 1 GB DV video. This is lots of minutes, you know.
Offcourse, YMMV
What's really funny is that you missed Windows ME.
I don't know how hard it would be for Emacs to use XFT or FreeType
Chris Gray did a proof-of-concept port to XFT, and as I understand it, XFT's claimed compatibility interface (with existing X font mechanisms) was not compatible enough to work well. He expressed the opinion that Emacs would have to switch over to using native XFT interfaces, and this is something of a large task for Emacs, which demands a lot from the font interface.
[Note: I don't understand the details, this is a paraphrase of a message Chris sent me; any bogosities are likely due to my misunderstanding!]
We live, as we dream -- alone....
The beauty is that not only can you run SSHD, but that you can do so securure in the knowedge that Apple will be patching it for you through the weekly update check!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So are you agreeing because you wouldn't use a PC that slow to do the same thing?
I have a Powerbook 667 MHz (substantially slower than an eMac) that works very well for video editing. Rendering clips can take a little while some time if you have a lot of effects, but there are no problems whatsoever with capture or editing of normal video, and a lot of it.
There are no consumer tasks (including video and picture editing and most games) that the eMac would not be fine with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
George Bush.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Well, I can't speak for BMWs lasting 300k, but my family did have an old (1982 IIRC) 528e that lasted 175k before some moron broadsided the car on the NJ Turnpike. The engine was original and hadn't been touched, and it ran well, though there was a small puff of oil smoke when first starting it in the morning (probably needed valve seals). The 5-speed transmission and clutch were also original. All of the power bits worked except for one window which was broken by a thief who stole the radio - the window never quite closed right even after being fixed. The body of the car has no rust whatsoever, although the filler tube of the fuel tank did rust once and had to be replaced. All in all, it was a pretty damn good car. The one flaw that it had was its anemic engine - it was 2.8L and put out an earth-shaking 120hp.
German cars aren't the only cars that are well-built, though. We also had a Chevy Caprice wagon that we drove for 190k miles on the original engine and transmission, though a similar Oldsmobile wagon that we had earlier seized up at 70k or so miles. My current car is a Volvo 245 with the original drivetrain, very little rust, and 175k miles on it.
As far as Hondas, I'm not a big fan of them for other reasons, namely that most of them are front-heavy, understeering, and ill-handling. The S2000, NSX, and most of their bikes are exceptions to that rule, however. If I were going to go Japanese, I'd go for either a Toyota MR-Spyder or a Mazda Miata.
Lastly, as far as Consumer Reports, they seem to rate reliability as more important than durability. I'd rather have a car that occasionally needs minor problems fixed but runs to 250k miles than one that works flawlessly and then conks out at 95k miles, which is coincidentally 5k after the warrantee expires.
-b.
This article isn't really informative or funny at all. It's just a plug for their buyer's guide.
Basically they took each category in their buyer's guide and said which product finished last (most of which nobody had heard of anyway, I imagine), and then flogged the buyer's guide.
Weak.
Good post! I found it funny as heck, since I recently dusted off my old Myth:The Fallen Lords CD and have been playing it on my iBook G4 while commuting on the bus.
I still shake my head when I can play Myth on my iBook, when back in the day the requirements for that game were considered "hefty" and you needed a relatively modern Power Mac, preferably with a Voodoo card.
HBH
"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
I was thinking more along the lines of a program tampering with software update, but had not considered how a user being able to turn it off would mean a program might be able to do the same thing - I wonder what that really does. I'll have to check into that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And I'm a trout, you even more insensitive clod!
NOTE: These are a bit dated--done back in April and June respectively; I'm sure that Dell's current offerings have changed since then. Still, they give a reasonably fair and detailed comparison of what you get for your money:
p /2 004/0413_dt0800.html
l /2 004/0616_edu_dt0650.html
Consumer: $800 eMac Combo Drive vs. $800 Dell Dimension 4600
http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/deskto
Educational: $650 eMac CD-ROM vs. $650 Dell Dimension 4600
http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/specia
... that audio player embedded in the headphones supported Ogg, /. would be going ga-ga over it.
..or best product, if you are a mmorpg-aholic.
Sun was charging 1200$ a pop for Rays back in the day, if not more... and they didn't even have hard drives.
Oh, and they required a hugeass expensiveass server to boot and run. And a shitload of network infrastructure. So the total cost per unit was quite a bit higher.
Yes, that was REALLY FUNNY.
I guess he's never heard of burning CD's.
Dude, that guy has never even heard of FireWire. He thinks that a $499 Dell comes with a DVD burner, 80 GB harddrive and the r4dest graphics card on the market. He is a loser, much like Dvorak who has megapixel blindness and don't know what a lens is.
cruising at 80mph isnt a big deal.. its how you stop afterwards that can be a bit harry.
Or anything American-made from 1970 to 1995.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
It's kinda sad that the Japanese are even out-doing the Germans, now. Why buy German, when you can choose among Subaru (small, sporty, and fast) or Lexus (sporty with nicer toys).
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Autos are the one thing CR does well, because the the gargantuan market for such information. For other things, like appliances or audio equipment, CR is much less useful, as it provides just basic screening information and models churn so frequently that the information is often obselete.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Sandwich making has become such a chore.
You need the skills.
--
Promoting critical thinking since 1994.
"My Chevy Vega actually broke in half going over railroad tracks..."
That's priceless.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
My Vanagon (3rd-gen Bus) gets down from 80mph quite smoothly, thank you very much.
But I sure as hell wouldn't try that in an original Bus with drum brakes.
I don't think the DeLorean is on their list at all.
Besides, it wasn't that bad...
The author is being unfair here. Now, I have been using an eMac for almost a year now, and I dont seem to find it underpowered at all. I do freelance graphic design and illustrate childrens books, and do all my Photoshop/Illustraror work with it. Yeah, a G5 with a cinema display would be preferable, but I didnt have $6000 laying around. But I did have a thousand bucks, and that bought me this here eMac which is a pretty nice little platform for Photoshop and Illustrator. Oh yeah, Rainbow Six 3 runs great on it.
I was using the Ray as a price comparison, not an Ultimate Convenience comparison. A properly managed Mac network can be tightly secured- not quite as secure as Solaris, but close.
The local Library used to have a Ray network- your options were Netscape Navigator, or..... Netscape Navigator.
Quite secure.
(Disclaimer: This is just a knee-jerk cynical joke. I have no first hand knowledge that HP and Apple have declined PCMag advertising. And as Linux Magazine has been good enough to explain to us, advertising money never influences a responsible news source. I'm sure that PCMag is not dominated by multiple pages of Dell ads.)
Yay for a flamebate mod. Proves the moderator is either still a wet-behind-the-ears platform convert (I know a few), or can't articulate a convincing counterargument.
:P
The mac is not gifted in the games department, people. This isn't rocket science.
You can really see the lotus styling as well (if you look at the esprit from about the same time).
I'd never seen one before, despite going to a motor museum specificly to see it. Really made an otherwise dull day.
No, they said "Buy a Dell" because it's PC Magazine, and their building would catch on fire before recommending a Mac.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Now really! This is just ONE opinion of a single person. The fact that Jim Louderback has a platform to speak from doesn't mean he has ANY qualifications to make these judgements. In fact people like him keep disqualifying themselves all the time by their own embarrassing writings. Nothing but a Rant in this case!
From the Desktop PC section: and the Radeon 9200 graphics card won't even run this fall's hot Mac games HAH!
Yes, but that's because no one bothers to write Mac OS worms. There have been plenty of remote root flaws in OS X.
I dispute "many", but even so - who cares how it comes to arrive at this state? If a big bag of money fell from the sky and landed at your feet, would you dismissit saying that all that money could get you addicted to crack?
The whole point is that even though there COULD be exploits, there are currently none!! It's the big elephant in the room that people seem willing to ignore so they can play HL2.
Furthermore even though there might have been a number of root exploits, the actual community of users affected by most holes is small since OSX ships with all services off by default. Remote SSH exploit? There are a lot of people that would never be affected, even if someone did finally write an exploit.
Microsoft does beg you to run the security updates, but because it's more intrusive fewer people do so. Isn't it better to just quietly leave that on in the background and let people disable it when they need to? It does ask you to install at the time an update is ready.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I read an article recently about the VHS/Betamax wars in the early 80's. Now everyone knows that the Betamax was a better machine, the quality was better, the tapes didn't degrade as quickly BUT the argument he gave for VHS can be perfectly attributed to the PC/Mac argument.
I agree. VHS won because it was the format pr0n was distributed on. PC's won because it was the format that had Doom deathmatches first. Very similar history.
I can scour hundreds of websites all selling parts cheaper than the last that will make my computer that little bit better. I can buy motherboards, CPU's, PSU's, Gfx cards, memory, etc. I can mix and match according to my budget. I know you can buy seperate memory and HDD's for the Mac but the choice is certainly not as extensive as it is for the PC
As somebody who uses both PC's and Macs, I've found that motherboard replacements on PC's almost never have a cost/benifit advantage over selling the old system and buying a new one. In the three years it takes for a PC to become obsolete, CUP Slot, memory format, graphics card slots, and power requirements all change formats, so replacing the motherboard demands the replacement of all those other components, and suddenly you are sinking $600 into a PC when you can buy one with bigger and faster media storage for $650.
Here, the high resale value of the Mac suddenly shines through. I could still get $300 for the G3 Tower I bought four years ago, while I could not get $50 for the PC I built a year later.
And let's be honest about CPU upgrades here. There are major CPU makers for PC's, Intel and AMD. Their CPU designs use completely different slots, so if you have an Intel PC, you are just as locked in to Intel as a Mac user is locked into PowerPC, unless you are willing to do a complete motherboard swap (which gets back to the point I made above.) If you have an AMD, you are locked into AMD.
Your only serious choices for graphics cards are nVidia and ATI, both of which make Mac cards.
Memory is a commodity part; Macs use DDR, the same stuff high-end PC's use.
Most of the stuff that people used to use PCI slots for now tends to be built in to the motherboard on both Macs and PC's (sound, modem, Ethernet, etc.), but the Mac towers still have three of the exact same PCI slots which PC's use.
What I'm getting at here is that it's kind of a myth that PC's are sooooo much more upgradable than Macs.
Unless you are a gamer or somebody who desperately needs to stay bleeding-edge on CPU speed, you probably will not replace the CPU on your PC more than once (if that) in the lifetime of the motherboard, and will probably replace the whole damned thing when the motherboard no longer meets your needs.
I can walk into my local PC World (PC Warehouse style store in the UK) and pick up anything off the shelf, take it home and install it. The only Apple shop i know is in London. I know that virtually all cameras, digital video cameras, mp3 players, etc. will work with my machine without even having to check the box for compatibility.
Your information is shockingly out of date. "Virtually all cameras, digital video cameras, mp3 players, etc." will work with a Mac. Furthermore, they will work immedately, while most PC users need to futz around with extra driver software.
Apple helped invent the IEEE-1394 format which most digital media devices now use. Furthermore, every new Mac ships with USB and Bluetooth.
Mac users seem to delight in pointing out all the viruses, trojans, etc for the pc but for them i have 3 words: Nortons Internet Security. Any pc user knows before the computer goes anyway near the internet he needs a firewall and antivirus. Of course no internet protection software is perfect but as long as the user is completely brain-dead he's relatively safe.
When I built my last PC and installed XP, hackers "pwned" it before the security patches from Microsoft could even finish downloading. I re
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
IBM did not invent the term PC. Both the TRS80 and the Apple ][ predate the IBM product. They were called PCs to distinguish them from the mainframes and other heavy metal that most peope thought of when they heard the word "computer". The IBM product was called the "IBM PC" , not the "PC". Also, the term PC referred specifically to the small computers that came complete with keyboard and screen, as opposed to the IMSAI's and Altairs "Hobby Computers" which relied on toggle switches and LEDs for communication with the useres.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest