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Mac Cloner Psystar Ships First Service Pack
Preedit writes "Not only is Mac clone maker Psystar continuing to defy Apple's ban on third-party Leopard installations, it's supporting the hardware with updates. Psystar Mac clones shipped as of Monday will include a 'service pack' that features fixes for a range of problems, some of them inherent in Apple's own software, according to InformationWeek. The fixes address a range of troubles, from glitches in Apple's Time Machine backup feature to quirks in the Keyboard Viewer and Character Palette entries in Leopard's system preferences menu. There's also support for the latest version of Java and other updates. According to the story, by offering a full menu of support, Psystar appears to be daring Apple to attempt to enforce provisions in the Leopard license agreement that forbid third-party installations and sales." We've been discussing Psystar clones for a while.
Now Apple has to compete with it's own product. I mean, making a product better them MS wasn't exatly a challenge, was it?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Really big hairy ones that must be protected by some sort of anti-steve force field.
Or maybe they're eunichs (sp?) and steve can't cut off their balls.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
The system is priced at $804.99. A similar, Apple-branded computer could cost more than $2,000.
The Psystar system has a single Core 2 Duo CPU.
They don't say what the "similar, Apple-branded computer" is, but if it's a Mac Pro it's got two four-core CPUs.
The problem is that Apple doesn't make a similar computer. If they did, Psystar wouldn't have a market. And Apple would have a bigger one.
tar can already process streams just fine, there's no need for a fork.
I remember this happening in the days of the Apple ][, what with the Peach and other clones. But then, you had to get the ROMs. Maybe this time will turn out (un)successful (depending on your point of view :)
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
We'll see no lawsuit. This gives Apple more exposure. If they do sue, I won't be offering them a bandage for their blown-off foot.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
From TFA:
To me it seems more like daring suckers to send their credit-card information to a fairly shady operation. As in the last slashdot article on Psystar, has anyone besides a few high-profile writers with 'protoypes' actually seen a Psystar -- in the wild, so to speak? InfoWeek cribbed a breif website notice and apparently created a whole 'article piece' based on it
Anway... Instead of becoming a noble defender of user's EULA rights, it seems far more likely they'll take the submitted order money and disappear into the night.
{ - Generic Guy - }
... are they shipping a service pack to correct problems in Apple's binaries - or are they downloading the open source portions and fixing/rebuilding/shipping those as fixes?
In that case having open source is again working against Apple.
Or was that supposed to be Chloe... or Cleo...
begun, the mac war has.
If people can get past, can they get future? Best way to confuse a stoner
Being in the "Community" Time Machine issues exist with most network cards... as well as issues with AFP / Bonjour. These are fixed by patching IONetworkingFamily.kext So it's not like they are FIXING apple's mistakes. They are fixing inherent issues with Hackintoshes that they should have fixed in the first place. It does nothing more the show, how this company continues to be hasty, and will doom us all ;\
Apple is unlikely to sue Psystar. Apple would probably lose; Apple's EULA is an "illegal tying arrangement" under antitrust law. Psystar is tiny, but a court loss would encourage bigger players to start making clones.
More likely, Apple will stop selling their OS as a boxed product.
My Hackintosh supports software updates from Apple.
Isn't it possible for them to install PC EFI? They're an integrator, they could buy EFI boards.
this all started cause I dared stevie to change his mind about pardoning all the apple // hackers
Buy doing nothing Apple isn't give any free press to this company. Companies like do are only looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. People who want Mac's will buy Mac and get a better deal once you factor in cost of OS X the clone isn't that good a deal. Down the road they will have trouble keeping up with updates and etc. In other words leave them alone and they will go back to being just another white box computer maker.
Andy
This box is NOT a clone, it is a hackintosh . Please refer to it as such, but not a clone. A true clone would have EFI firmware, not EFI emulation. It would require no hacks to install OS X, it would cleanly install and be recognized by the OS.
I believe this would actually be a desirable system if it really were a clone... but with that fan noise problem and all, how many people would really want one?
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
There is nothing in this machine that makes it stand out; there is very little value and very little credibility to this company. Aside from the various violations in copyright law and End-User License Agreement made, this company fails to show how it is any cheaper or better than the Apple standard configurations.
I think this is good publicity for Apple, because it shows that its computers are priced very competitively for the features it offers. People have pointed out a Dell laptop or desktop with all of the same features as an iMac, MacBook, or MacBook Pro, in general is the same price or priced higher by just a $100 margin. Take into consideration the price of Windows Vista Ultimate, you might actually come out better with a Mac.
That this thing fills a niche between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro that's more upgradeable than an iMac is pretty much the point.
Oh, I agree, I want something in that slot too. I was just objecting to the way they mplied that this was really an equivalent machine to the Mac Pro.
PS: When I went to the Apple Store I didn't see a single-CPU option for the Mac Pro. Is that hidden down beneath the configuration link?
Netkas, one of the hackers that basically made OSX86 possible, is not happy about how they've taken a community effort that was trying to stay away from the Apple hammer by not being involved with money. ON his blog netkas.org, he's updated the EFI bootloader license to be non-commercial...of course this would imply he'd have to reveal himself...
A little less redundancy, please.
Just maybe Apple is allowing this to continue to test the waters for a PC version of OS/X
I am a bit stymied about why this company has not at least been served cease and desist papers. I can only suppose 1 of 2 things is going on here:
1) Apple knows the EULA is non-binding, and doesn't want to mess with the negative press of trying to squish small startup guy. I find this hard to believe as they have had little problem with this tactic in the past.
2) Steve didn't get the memo about psystar yet...Right.... this is even more unlikely, because if he had, there would be a crater where psystar hq used to be by now.
Who knows - maybe Steve is finally going soft....
So ... the license restricts your use on Apple-labeled computers but says nothing of non-Apple-labeled computers. You can interpret this in two ways: Since it does not restrict you from using the Apple Software on non-Apple-labeled computers, you are thus limitless, or you can slap an Apple, Inc. sticker on your computer (or build your computer within an Apple-labeled tower) and use the software on it (you know how EULAs always go to such extreme measures to define each term? "Apple-labeled computer" isn't defined!).
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
The mac market share isn't 4%. That's a dumb number that's used to make Windows appear much more dominant.
/. for a legitimate discussion about anti-trust.
Compare Dell's unit sales to HP's unit sales to Apple's unit sales for a given segment and you'll find Apple in the top-5 for sure on any given month. In laptops, Apple is #1 per unit and dollar and has been for a really, really long time.
Still, I doubt there's the expertise on
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
The funniest part of this whole thing is the guy who wrote the patch that allows Psystar to install Apple's OS X on their PC boxes is pissed because Psystar is using his "free software" to make tons of cash and they are not giving him any of the profit. What's ironic is the fact that he blatantly violated Apple's EULA, and is now surprised that Psystar is violating his EULA. LOL.
Anyway, I concur with being a bit surprised that Apple hasn't nuked these guys yet. I suspect they are trying to figure out exactly what to do before firing the first shots, so as not to accidentally invalidate their EULA in the process.
even cheaper right after a refresh
:-)
I've now tried refreshing several times, but in my browser Mac prices stay the same.
Should I switch to Safari?
Insert
Apple can sue Psystar and seek to get legal enforcement to EULA that right now has the illusion of authority. If they lose, they null and void all the EULA's in existence. Sometimes the illusion is effective enough.
Apple can make a deal with Psystar by liscensing the OS or buying out the company. That action will only encourage further cloning
The more likely action is Apple will wait an see the impact on the hardware business while planning on instituting a technological barrier for 10.6. Right now, these guys are selling systems that are not competing in Apple's price point nor are those can Psystar competing on quality. Also, Apple's hardware sales are higher than they ever been. Moreover, Apple isn't responsible to support the clones or the OS but still gets revenue from the sale of the OS. Eventually these guys will start to cut into Apple's computers business, however, it will probably happen right around 10.6 release.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
When will they start to draw Apple's attention?
When they start appearing on Walmart shelves.
Personally, I can't wait for the day. One, because I wouldn't mind seeing a reasonably priced headless MAC desktop. Two, just to rejoice in the anguish of the apple fanbois.
Maybe Apple Ninjas have infiltrated Psystar's headquarters and are currently switching their coffee to decafe?
I drank what? -- Socrates
I think most of us really want the mac mini pro, a mac mini in a mini tower with room for a card or 2 and few full size hard drives.
Even just two 3.5" drive bays and one optical bay, one video-capable PCI-Express slot, and uncompromised USB. I can't even charge my iPod Shuffle off my Mini without an external powered hub because they limited the internal power too much to meet the cooling challenge of that tiny case.
...that's exactly what we switchers and Apple fanbois were waiting for: A large, ugly box, sounding like a hovercraft, depending on "service packs" to somehow keep running. The horror! The horror!
Can you honestly see Apple:
* Starting to use serial numbers, annoying the user.
* Selling "upgrade only" discs, annoying the user (and what do you do on a new HD?)
* Stopping all sales of OS upgrades
* Doing anything at all
If they were going to take such measures they would have done so long ago, to prevent piracy. Apple is smart in that they realize all of those measures are easily worked around by hackers, and so it is stupid to spend money on them. Why would Apple suddenly think it's not stupid when it would not actually do anything to stop the company?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd bide my time on this. Allowing another company to make a similar, cheaper, but of a lesser quality product can often have a beneficial impact on the original product. In this case users that may have been prohibited by the Mac price tag may be able to pick up a product with a similar/same OS and begin to use it. Down the line these consumers may like the product and decide the next time to spend a little extra to get the "good" one. Worse comes to worst Apple can always enforce its EULA, which would be interesting because you don't often see those types of court cases, and can regain their market share.
"Say you love us like i know you will and that our deaths won't be in vain or in the name of gasoline"
They don't have a consumer desktop line, which is what a whole lot of people and companies want. Their Mac Pros are good for the money if and only if you actually need all the high end hardware they mandate. The entry level Mac Pro is $2800 with no monitor. Now that's no surprising as it features things like dual quad core Xeons. Ok, fine, but there are very, very, very few apps that can use 8 cores. There are, in fact, very few that can use 4 cores. So for most people it, like much of the other high end hardware you have to get (ECC RAM, for example) is a waste of money. Consider that MPC (our supplier at work) will happily sell me a single quad core desktop for just under $1000.
Thus it is overpriced if you don't need the hardware they are trying to push. They don't have a mid range tower at all.
You can go down to their all in ones, but of course those come with their own problems. A big one would be why do I want to get a nice monitor, if I am going to have to get rid of it when the computer attached to it is obsolete? Monitors last longer than computers, particularly nice ones. You get a nice 24" IPS LCD, man, that's a keeper for a long time. However, the computer is going to get outdated at the same rate all computers do, which is to say fairly quickly. So if you buy the all in ones, you have to get a monitor every time you want a computer upgrade.
That's a waste of money to most of us. Pretty much everyone I know keeps their monitors well past their computers. Either they buy cheap monitors, in which case they generally keep them until they break because they don't want to spend any more money on a display than they have to, or they buy good monitors, and they keep them because the monitor is still a good monitor and works for many years.
I have a nice 26" IPS panel that I plan on keeping probably until it fails. Hell, first thing to go out on it will be the backlight, and I can and most likely will buy new tubes and a new ballast and replace it. It's a great display and when the day comes that I retire it from my primary system, it'll work very nicely on my guest system. No reason to throw it away in a couple years. However if it were tied to my computer, well that's what would happen. I upgrade my system very regularly. My monitor though, that lasts.
So that's where the complaints against Apple's price tend to come from. It isn't that they are necessarily bad if you do a straight 1:1 comparison. It is that they don't offer many choices, and one of the choices they exclude is one of the most popular choices: consumer desktop/tower and separate monitor. People like that choice, and businesses REALLY like that choice. If you want a separate monitor, you either have to get a very low end system, with no upgradability (mini) or an amazingly powerful workstation (pro). Nothing in the middle range. Thus for most people, the pro is what they'd look at and it is expensive.
Show me a mac tower with a single dual core processor and regular DDR2 RAM and then we can talk. Until then the choices are a system that isn't powerful or expandable enough or a system that is overpriced.
Which is exactly where they don't want to be. Right now they're huge in the $1000 and up market, which I'm sure is where they're happy to be.
Yea, you could almost say Apple owns the market above $1000: "Apple dominates sales for PCs above $1,000".
FalconShould there be a Law?
EULAs have no power. They go against Consumer Protection Laws. You know that part about "We are not liable for any damage to hardware this software may cause" part? Nope, goes against our consumer protection laws. The whole EULA is null and void in California. What's doubly funny is Apple is where? Cupertino, CA?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I have no problem with monopolies, so long as it's not a government granted monopoly, what I have trouble with is when that monopoly uses it's position as leverage to enter another market anticompetitively.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"some of them inherent in Apple's own software"
So they released an unsupported machine that uses hardware that MacOS X wasn't built to run on and it's suddenly Apple's fault that it has problems?
You can hookup an external monitor to an iMac.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Anyway you need to use a spoon for streams. Or a straw.
I was there in Cupertino in the early days. On my third day of employment I was called into Jobs's office. He was there, alone, in drag. He lifts up the blue skirt he was wearing, and BAM. Cilice.
"You know what this means?" he asks me, twirling a faded Apple ][+ case badge in his hand. "Opus Dei. I have some friends I'd like you to meet."
In walks Gates and Ballmer. Ballmer is in a Masonic apron and Gates says, "You know what Gates translates to in Aramaic? Bilderberger." L. Ron Hubbard (Jobs kept calling him honey-pie) then walks in with an Apple IIe prototype, or so it seems. Opens it up. Juice cans. Ballmer forces me down into the chair with a big meaty hand. In 3 hours, I'd gone clear. They had me in the basement of Novation for a few years with a chip puller, replacing perfectly fine commodity ICs with compromised chips made of pure evil. All of those g-philes about homemade bombs and manufacturing cocaine out of draino? No one in the BBS scene wrote them. They sprang forth onto boards in the middle of the night from those compromised ICs. The concept was to cause disruption and chaos in the suburbs. Why? They wouldn't tell me. But when I'd proven myself by not asking questions, they moved me up through the ranks. OS/2 Warp was mine. As was the scuttling of that product line when it didn't match this infernal cabal's machinations. But I've said too much already.
NeXT? What you don't know is how many of those were sold to the Soviets. You don't see many of them anymore; most of them were made of an unstable polycarbonate which, when exposed to alcohol, denatures into something like sarin gas. But I'm not supposed to be telling you that. The Russians are well known for computing drunk. Vodka. NeXT cube. You know what happens next. How do you think we won the cold war? The NeXT cubes you might have seen are facsimiles. If you've seen one powered on, all you've seen is a hacked version of Windowmaker running on embedded Linux. Don't believe me? Fine, be a sheep.
About a year ago Jobs calls me in. The Pope is there, as is Hubbard (who did not, in fact, expire in the California desert as the Church of Scientology would have you believe). Jobs says, "You know, people are fucking with my OS. I can't have that. Soon, we're going to see hackintoshes all over the god damned Pacific Rim. This is what you're going to do," he says to me. "We're going to start a shell company and we're going to build the worst goddamned hackintosh you can imagine. It should be loud enough to make all of the audio capabilities of the thing damn near useless. Crippled, but intriguing. That's your mantra. Fuck insanely great - the only mantra you have going forward is 'Crippled, but Intriguing.' I want you and my friends here to work it," and he motions behind me.
Standing behind me are 14 original members of the Process Church - Processians, who you might remember from the Manson connection. God and Satan in league. Turns out Jobs was a double agent, working for both the Catholics and Processians. Which side he favored is unclear to this day. But we lit out for Florida in the early morning hours to pull off the Crippled but Intriguing thing.
Jennifer Lopez, who, inexplicably was one of the "original Processians" but had somehow become age-resistant during a joint working of the Temple of Set and the OTO in 1979, says to me, "It is important that this fails. We want to sour the concept of the hackintosh in the mind of the public. It will put this issue to rest, once and for all."
We then proceeded to discuss Enochian magick and grimoires and all the casual kinds of stuff you normally discuss with an electronics-savvy death cult in a 1979 Econoline van on the way to Florida, and so we got there and set up shop.
I could be killed for posting this. But take it under advisement. There are dark fucking AEONIC FORCES behind this thing, and if you can figure out the kind of gematria Jobs is into, you'll figure out what Psystar *really* means (in A
I call BS. Apple software is perfectly perfect perfection, and of course contains no flaws, bugs, vulnerabilities, or inherent issues.
We aren't paying $150/year for bug fixes. They are "feature updates". That's the party line, and I stand by it. Where did my glass of kool aid go?
Everyone thought you were a scam, Now look at what you have done, you have actually accomplished a great feat. Let me say, keep up the good work and fight the good fight.
This gives Apple more exposure.
Apple already tried Mac clones, while Jobs was gone. But when they brought Steve back he looked at the books and saw the clones were costing more for Apple in lost hardware sales than it made in software licensing. So he ended the licensing.
If they do sue, I won't be offering them a bandage for their blown-off foot.
They'd be shooting their foot if they allowed clones again. Actually Apple is stuck between a rock and a hard place, if Apple does nothing their hardware sales can go do, as well as get a black eye because the clones don't "just work". Psystar may look bad but so will Apple. And if Apple does sue they'll get bad publicity.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If I bought a Mac with a CD that installs the OS, and then installed it on my compatible machine that I bought with either Windows, no OS, or whatever, or that I built to be Mac compatible from parts, and then used my Mac OS CD to install it, then there's not a goddamn thing I'd let Apple tell me about what to do with my Macs.
I know Apple has gotten used to controlling every detail of every Mac and making money from every Mac on the planet. I know Apple has gotten used to telling us which machines the bits we buy from Apple are allowed to run on, whether Mac OS or iTunes.
So what? I'd like every Mac to have 2 mouse buttons, but they're not my Macs. Apple just has to get used to the idea that they're getting my money in exchange for what then becomes my Mac.
--
make install -not war
EULA: "By being writer of the parent comment of this comment, you are bound to bend and suck your own dick."
Do you still think EULA are enforceable?
Am I the only one to see what type of conversation this makes for the PC and Mac guy?
The growing popularity of Mac is bound to result in these kinds of issues. Welcome to Microsoft's territory, Mr. Jobs.
Table-ized A.I.
2008 calling. Macs have been comparably priced to PCs for years.
You CAN compare them to similar spec'd PC hardware to see how overpriced they are.
For a few years now I have. Just a little while ago I did again. In a previous post about TFA I posted how a Dell configured similar to a Mac Pro cost considerably more than the Mac.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It's true that there's a lot of markup on apple hardware, especially the low end stuff. However, these guys are claiming that their hardware is *one fourth* the cost for a similar system, which is clearly not true.
"One version of Psystar's Open Computer features Apple's Leopard OS X 10.5 operating system ported onto generic PC hardware that includes anIntel (NSDQ: INTC) Core2Duo processor at 2.66 GHz, a 250 GB hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card.
The system is priced at $804.99. A similar, Apple-branded computer could cost more than $2,000. "
They are here comparing their core2due based system, to the mac pros which *8 core harpertown xeon* system with a 1600 mhz bus and 800 mhz memory. They aren't in the same class, the mac pros are heavy duty workstations, and what they are selling are dinky gaming boxes.
The mac pro processor, straight from intel, costs *alone* more than these guys entire system. So the comparison isn't even close to valid.
The truth is that apple's higher end stuff has maybe a 10 or 20% markup over what you could get form dell *with the same hardware*. People often look at the 2000 or 3000 dollar computers and think they are overpriced, but what they aren't taking into account is that apple tends to use very expensive components, like the 1600 mhz bus harpertowns (most expensive cpu on the market), 800 mhz ram, maybe a raid card so you can use SAS harddrives.
The mid to low end systems and the laptops are actually the systems where you are really paying the apple tax; however, even there it's never a 5 times the cost of the competition like they are claiming.
The main problem the lineup apple has is that it has a limited range of products. They have good options for the low end, and the very high end, but they don't have the cheap but upgradeable desktops that gamers like, and they don't offer a whole lot in the server market (they have *1* model of server).
Really, since gaming on the mac sucks anyway, what I'd like to see is some kind of generic osx for servers, or at least a better darwin that's actually usable. That way, you could develop on real mac dev machines, and deploy to a darwin server.
For two reasons:
1) People aren't buying Macs en mass.
2) The desktop/tower with separate monitor is still the most popular seller from the PC vendors.
These companies aren't stupid, and they respond to market forces like everyone else. If consumers were snapping up only all-in-ones and tiny computers and not buying towers/desktops, well that'd be their main market. However, their big sellers are still separate tower types, specifically mid-low range ones. I mean look at the server market, these days it's all rackmount hardware, mostly 1U. The reason they've gone mostly to that is that's what sells. Tower servers aren't a popular item anymore. People still buy them (And thus companies still sell them) but not nearly as many as buy rackmount.
It has also been this way for many a year. It isn't as though Apple is new to the game, and it isn't as though their strategy of "Ultra high end tower or integrated," is new either.
Like it or not, the low and mid range desktop/tower market is the major one for non-laptops. Sales figures bear this out. It isn't as though consumers don't have a choice, Apple has the iMac, Dell has the One, Gateway had their's who's name I can't remember. Consumers have the ability to buy all-in-ones, however most don't.
Really excellent stuff. My only complaint is the lack of posting as AC; not enough devotion to the cause to truly be a paranoid lunatic talking about the Steve Jobs-conspiracy connection. Still, bravo sir. I think I see the plot of Indigo Prophecy 2 brewing here.
I wasn't talking about the cost difference between Dell's high end workstation and a Mac high end workstation, I was talking about the original article comparing a midrange PC with a Mac workstation as if they were "similar".
You're the one on drugs, though I wish I were. You said nothing about high end hardware not counting.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I want one of these OSX on a white box PC, does anyone know if this is available in Hong Kong?
apple engineers and coders are too dumb to figure out how to get "their" (stolen from debian) software
Name one program Apple stole from Debian, where's your citation?
they make the hardware and they write the software to work with that set of hardware specifically
That's right, they write the software, they don't steal it unlike Microsoft.
and points to the non-mac x86 market machines' biggest advantage as it's biggest flaw
And what advantage is that? Other than that Windows run most PCs. Is it that unless you're a super user or sys admin it crashes frequently?
and brainless mindless sheep will still flock to apple because they make a laptop that uses a magnet to stay closed rather than a latch
Just as mindless sheep buy Windows because it's the dominate OS. After 10 years of having PC hardware having to be replaced and constantly having to reinstall Windows because it kept crashing I decided maybe it's tyme to switch. So when I replaced my Windows PC I replaced it with a Linux PC. Unfortunately I had to have it's motherboard replaced after less than a year too. Then after doing some comparisons I chose to get a MacBook Pro for a new laptop. It's price was about the same as other OEM's offerings and less than others'.
FalconShould there be a Law?
(hate to post anon but used mod points)
Is a damn good possibility simply because Apple manufactures both the hardware and the software and right now they are probably giving Pystar enough rope to hang themselves before they assimilate them into the Apple Collective.
No prob, I make way too many errs. Among other problems my memory is bad.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"constantly having to reinstall windows...." you're doing it wrong.
The first few tymes I reinstalled Windows I was told to by tech support. I ordered and bought a PC from Gateway, and never will again. In the first year I had it I called tech support maybe half a dozen tymes and 2 or 3 of the calls the tech told me to reinstall Windows after walking me through some tests. After a couple of years going through this when I started getting a lot of system errs and crashes, believing the tech would tell me to reinstall I'd do it on my own.
my wife has a vista pc (ugh) and an XP-SP2 machine... we use her XP machine *just* to watch DVDs, and TV and DVR some TV programs.... it's uptime.... UPTIME mind you.... is over 30 days
I don't have a PC with XP but the first tyme I used one, it was at the college I attended. On the first day of a semester I walked into a classroom with all new Dells on the desks. I sat down and powered up the PC where I sat. Five minutes later it still hadn't booted up, the screen was frozen with boot info showing. I had to push in and hold the power button until it shutdown. On the other hand I had my NT4 PC running for more than 30 days at a tyme. Not once did I get an err from Windows. Unfortunately it's a DEC Alpha PC and I wasn't able to get much software installed. What was weird is that the only commercial software I was able to install was Borland C++ however I was able to install some free/shareware.
and the iBook G4 (because its small 12" form factor is perfect for carrying to on location photo shoots...)
Are you a pro photographer, or do you work as a photographer? I'm on disability now but I'm hoping to start working as a photographer. Which is why I wanted a large display with my laptop. I'm also looking for a good external display at least 24", I'd prefer an LCD but haven't been able to find one that a few photographers will recommend. As for portability, the weight doesn't bother me. What bothers me some is banging the laptop however the backpack I carry it in has plenty in it for cushioning.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The desktop/tower with separate monitor is still the most popular seller from the PC vendors.
In PCs above $1000 Macs dominate: "Apple dominates sales for PCs above $1,000".
their big sellers are still separate tower types, specifically mid-low range ones.
That's one area Apple isn't in. As someone said dealing with TFA, most people who say Macs are too expensive what they really mean is that Apple doesn't offer a computer configures the way they want it.
mean look at the server market, these days it's all rackmount hardware, mostly 1U.
Apple offers 1U servers, the Xserve. Unfortunately I didn't find data on what it's market share is otherwise I'd post it and the link.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Do you really mean Apple doesn't offer you a Mac configured the way you want it? If you do a side by side comparison of a Macbook or Macbook Pro and comparable Windows laptop, or a Mac Pro and comparable tower PC from a Windows OEM you'll see the price of the Apple offering is in line with the Windows PC offerings. Now what many people who say Macs are too expensive is that Apple doesn't offer a midrange desktop or tower.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If Apple can't make an appliance that has the options I want then I am not buying it.
That's really it isn't it, it's not the price? Apple doesn't offer a Mac with the options you want.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Well, two things. One is that I actually thought about getting the Mac Mini. But the other thing is that Apple doesn't afford you the opportunity to build it yourself why as my last two comps I did build myself and they work great and I saved a lot of money.
my last two comps I did build myself and they work great and I saved a lot of money.
When my last PC died I priced the parts at brick and mortar stores to rebuild it and the parts cost more than buying a new PC did. Just a mobo, cpu, ram, and hdd cost more. you might say I could have ordered them online from Newegg but if I have a problem with something I want a physical store I can go to for help.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Apple's not pitching all of its systems as high-end professional workstations, but they are hitting the top (or close to it) of each segment.
Ok.
The iMac is certainly upper-end for all-in-ones. It's not the top system out there for performance workstations (which is what the Mac Pro is for). It's certainly nicer than the Dell AIO systems and the ZeroPC stuff.
I see the all-in-ones as a waste, most people keep their monitors longer than the keep their computers.
The Mini has stiffer competition from Asus and Shuttle
The Mini is a waste too, but because it doesn't include a monitor it's not as bad as an all-in-one.
Their laptops are fairly high-end in their segments, too. The Air is a really nice thin-'n'-light. The MacBook is solid, and the MacBook Pro is great. Compare any of them to a Thinkpad or a Vaio on price and features.
The Air looks "pretty" but it doesn't have an optical drive, CD or DVD. The only way to, for instance, install software is via a network. Or an external drive.
What you said about high end is clearer now. And in that I agree. Then again Apple works on making things "just work".
FalconShould there be a Law?
yeh fewer and fewer labs are processing E6, it's a tough line to manage if you don't have the volume
For class E6 wasn't a problem. After we shot an assignment, usually 5 exposures (without bracketing) but we were encouraged to use up the rolls, we turned them into the lab where other students developed the film. After the semester ended the store I took film to had to send E6 to another location as they didn't have the facilities where I went. But I'm hoping the association I mentioned earlier, IFP Minnesota, which has darkrooms members can use has what's needed for E6. Now I haven't developed E6 before so I'd need someone to show me how it's done. They may have someone who teaches it as before anyone uses the darkrooms they have to take a class on developing film they give.
i picked up a minolta scanner for 35mm a few years back, but... the lab has a $100,000 scanner that does up to 4X5 sheet film... so... i'd rather use theirs ;)
Just today I stopped at a Best Buy, on the way to Home Depot for gardening stuff, and asked if they had any film scanners. The person there showed me a flatbed scanner with a film attachment. I already have one, however I was thinking that maybe I'd get one, mine is an old one and only has a 2400 dpi resolution whereas the one he showed me was 4800 dpi. Also one of them cost $80. When I turned film in at a store for development I also ordered a CD which costed something like $15. Scanning the film myself, after 5 rolls it would be paid for. However I didn't particularly like the software it came with. The OCR, which I'd use a lot, was ok but I didn't like the graphics editor. What I really would like to get is a dedicated film scanner, I haven't seen any flatbeds that can scan medium format film, the largest I've seen is 35mm. However film scanners can scan larger film sizes. I suppose what I could do is develop enlargements then scan those.
for now i just use my darkroom for alternative processes.... cyanotypes.. liquid light, that sort of thing
I'd like to try different alternative processing myself. Last year I read a review of a book that goes into difference processes written by a professor at U Chicago. One of the methods in the book the review mentioned was using orange juice as the developer.
where a lot of photographers are tripping up in the switch to digital is that their used to shooting negatives.... which are very forgiving
This is why we used slide for class and not negatives. You can make a mistake on an exposure and with negatives it won't show up but with slide it will, half a stop under or over won't effect negative much but it will with slide.
FalconShould there be a Law?
A couple of days ago I talked with someone in a photography store. I was looking for a recommendation for a monitor, and the person there said that several of the people there use cheap Macs and Apple monitors and get what they need to do done. I won't say that was useless but apparently you do. Maybe photography isn't demanding for you but it's more than many other things, about the only thing I can think of that's more demanding, other than servers, is video. Here's a search of Photo.net for Mac Mini". Here's what one Mac mini user says: "Hi, I have a recent Intel Mac Mini (2 GB RAM, 2 GHz Core 2 Duo), and I use PS CS3 daily to edit 16 bits TIFFs converted from raw (10 megapixels). Saving/loading big files can take a while because of the slow internal hard drive in the Mac Mini, but otherwise editing feels fast, even with several full bitmap layers." Other comments say the Mini isn't that good for photography though.
You're going to tell my friend he needs to plop $1,300 for a Mac instead of a $600 Gateway PC to do essentially the same thing?
No I'm not, see above. Also Apple sells refurbished Macs, I just checked the website and they list 2 Macs under $1000. One is a Refurbished iMac 20-inch 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo for $950, $150 less than new. Another is an Refurbished iMac 20-inch 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SuperDrive also for $950, this one's original price was $1500.
What I found interesting was that they also listed a MacBook Air, which came out recently, for $150 under it's retail price.
Remember, we're talking about people who would like to own a Mac but don't really need one since their PCs are doing what they need just fine.
After 10 years I switched to Macs from PCs because they gave me too many problems. I've had to replace 3 mobos and 2 hdds in the first year of owning a new PC. I also had to reinstall Windows a number of tymes. About the only good thing about PCs is that they are easy to install new hardware and upgrade.
Maybe my experience with PCs is unusual but I've had too many problems with them and a working computer is more important to me.
FalconShould there be a Law?