Slashdot Mirror
OS X Mountain Lion Review
John Siracusa at Ars Technica has published a lengthy and detailed review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. (Lengthy enough that the review garnered a review of its own.) Siracusa methodically goes through all of the changes in the new version, covering everything from the minor new features to the overarching goals. Quoting:
"Despite the oft-cited prediction that Mac will eventually be subsumed by iOS, that's not what's happening here. Apple is determined to bring the benefits of iOS to the Mac, but it's equally determined to do so in a way that preserves the strengths of the Mac platform. Where we Mac nerds go wrong is in mistaking traditions for strengths. Loss aversion is alive and well in the Mac community; with each 'feature' removed and each decision point eliminated from our favorite OS, our tendency is to focus heavily on what's been lost, sometimes blinding ourselves to the gains. But the larger problem is that losses and gains are context-dependent. A person who never uses a feature will not miss it when it's gone. We all pay lip service to the idea that most users never change the default settings in software, but we rarely follow this through to its logical conclusion. The fact is, we are not the center of the market, and haven't been for a long time. Three decades ago, the personal computer industry was built on the backs of technology enthusiasts. Every product, every ad was created to please us. No longer. Technology must now work for everyone, not just 'computing enthusiasts.'"
A somewhat briefer review is available at ComputerWorld, and there's a quick one from John Gruber.
This is why I left the commercial software behind so many years ago. Let us contrast OS X, Windows and Linux+GNOME. All have recently succumbed, or will soon, to tablet madness. By this I mean that they are all undergoing an almost total rewrite to target an audience almost exactly unlike the one that currently uses the product. Whether this will be 'successful' is still debatable but for my purpose, as a current or past user, almost beside the point.
If you are a Mac user, as a drinker of the Kool-Aid you have no choice. Whatever is coming out is insanely great, you simply must believe that because any other thought would lead to madness. Windows folk will simply bitterly cling to Windows 7 until it end of lifes and hope policy changes, as it often does. They are more like Star Trek fans, they admit there is a pattern to which releases suck and don't suck. But again, their choice is limited to picking one of the available supported versions. When you hitch yourself to a commercial entity you always subject yourself to their business needs, which are rarely in alignment with your own and you get little input into the decisions they make and few options when they change directions and abandon you.
Now lets see how I came out. Few would dispute the GNOMEs also became infected with tablet madness and were suffering from 'lets remove features until an idiot can't screw anything up" disorder long before that. Difference is that when it finally became too much, after installing Fedora 15 and looking at the steaming turd that was GNOME 3, I didn't have to develop a cognitive disonance and convince myself the turd was actually shiny, new and that I loved it after all. I didn't have to bitterly cling to Fedora 14 (along with my gun, bible, etc.) and pray either. There were a multitude of options at that time and because I was in the company of a multitude who had also been similarly abandoned even more new options quickly appeared. And none involved the pain of even distro switching, let alone switching OS and most applications just because one group decided to change focus. In the end, WE decide. I decide. Worst case I could fork the closest thing to what I like and work on it.
Free means never being at the mercy of someone else's business plan.
Democrat delenda est
Few would dispute the GNOMEs also became infected with tablet madness and were suffering from 'lets remove features until an idiot can't screw anything up" disorder/quote?
I thought that was the GNOME mantra.
GNOME won't run until the users are dumb?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Before I'm going to take the risk in upgrading, or even considering whether I want to upgrade, I'll be waiting to hear about other experiences — upgrading a machine on which you rely at the very first (public) opportunity sounds like a recipe for pain to me... Long reviews on tech. sites are all well and good, but there's nothing like finding out how others in the same position as you have fared before taking the jump.
For the good of the herd, we must not change settings
It's a post about a review of a review of a review.
And yet my Windows 7 will have better gaming and application support than your Loonix desktop for the next decade well after mainstream support is dropped. Have fun with your distro that loses support anywhere from 6 months to 3 years later and has a dearth of application choice in comparison (no the 1000 different text editors and solitaire clones don't count).
Look. All I want is a computer with two keys. A 1 and a 0. Preferably really, really big keys. No software. No firmware. Just me and the machine. No way to screw things up. It will do what I tell it, and no more. That way, I can keep banging away until I get either Turing's syndrome, or Tourette's.
1000 different text editors and solitaire clones
Don't forget text editors which run solitaire!
Or is that a solitaire game which permits text editing...?
It's a good thing there isn't a handy command like "apt-get dist-upgrade" on debian based systems or anything.
Maybe, just maybe, the desktop experience was flawed to start with. Now that people have the equivalent of Tricorders, they want real Star Trek computers. You don't need a Start button or a mouse to operate the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701).
This is why I left the commercial software behind so many years ago. Let us contrast OS X, Windows and Linux+GNOME. All have recently succumbed, or will soon, to tablet madness.
I'd buy that in the case of Win8, and maybe Gnome 3, but not OS X. Apple already owns the most successful tablet OS in the business. OS X has borrowed a few iOS touches, mostly aesthetic [eg superficial and easily ignored] ones, but has not succumbed to "tablet madness" the way Microsoft did. Probably because Apple was the only OS vendor that didn't have an "Oh-shit-we-need-our-own-iPad-thing" reaction.
OS X still has a Desktop metaphor.
Still has a user-accessible filesystem.
Still has windows and a menu bar.
Doesn't even have native touch-screen support at all
And these are not accidents, or features that Apple forgot to cover up or replace with tablet-like equivalents. They're there because Apple was smart enough to understand the differences between tablets and traditional PCs, and had enough foresight to come up with a separate OS for the former five years ago.
And yet I don't have to upgrade my OS at all. That's the point. My unsupported Windows version will have longer and better support from software developers than your 6 month old Loonix install will. Just look at how 12 years later that XP still gets the latest games and most of the latest versions of applications.
OS 10.8 is not trying to be a tablet OS like Windows 8. (Interesting that Apple and Microsoft have synced-up with their numbers)
old OS: Win7 and 10.7
new OS: Win8 and 10.8
BTW the review of the review was funny. But this award-nominee was even funnier: http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/04/the-shadow-war-of-the-night-dragons-book-one-the-dead-city-excerpt
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
"It feels like Apple has run out of ideas. Or worse, that Apple is too afraid to implement new concepts, fearing it will kill the company's golden goose. "
So silly round icons that bring up childish games and worthless apps on ubiquitous touchscreens with DRM everywhere.
Soon even the most die hard mac fanboys will realise they need to throw their iToy out the window and buy a real computer if they want to get some work done. Or at least install linux on their mac while it's still allowed
>Free means never being at the mercy of someone else's business plan.
It just means being at the mercy of a bunch of random developers instead.
Nobody has enough time to maintain forks of everything they use, never mind the people who don't even have the knowhow.
"emerge --update world"
"We all pay lip service to the idea that most users never change the default settings in software, but we rarely follow this through to its logical conclusion."
That most users are ignorant?
Or the Windows 8 folks could simply click the Desktop tile or install Start8 to boot directly to the desktop.
Spread over 24 pages, so they can get 24x the page views, or in my case fewer because I stopped at the first page.
I'm sure you're trying to make a point in there somewhere, but it's pretty evident that you haven't used OS X Lion or the new Mountain Lion. With a few tweaks, my desktop looks the same in Mountain Lion as it does on my older machine running Leopard. I just don't see what you are talking about. A single application named "Launchpad" doesn't mean that OS X has abandoned the desktop and gone tablet crazy.
Congrats on your effort to somehow include Gnome 3 and your free software slogan in your diatribe.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Looks like they still don't have a working spell check though.
Yeah, Apple is going to phase out Macs, because disposing of billions of dollars of profit every quarter makes perfect sense, right? Apple makes lots of money from Macs. That is only one of many reasons that they're in no danger of dying off.
It was faster to install the upgrade than it was to read that extremely long review.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
...um... And here I thought I was just upgrading to a newer release, not drinking Kool-Aid or proving I am a slave or whatever.
10.8 is a nice dot release. I am VERY happy to have AirPlay mirroring to my AppleTV. I travel and give presentations to small groups and in meetings, knowing that I just lost my tether and will be able to sit anywhere around the table instead of right next to wherever the monitor cable happened to be is kind of nice. I also appreciate the integration with my reminders app on my iPhone.
I dislike the fact that they removed Podcast Publisher. This means I am going to have to find a workaround for what (had been) an easy workflow for me. I'm sure I'll find other little annoyances over the coming days and weeks. And I'll adjust.
All things considered, I'm pleased. More than that, though, I guess I'm just really confused by the us-vs.-them mentality in the above post. I happen to use the OS I do because it seems to be the right tool for the job. I also run Windows 7 (via Parallels) so that I can run Visio and MS Project and a few other programs that I need. Sometimes my smartphone is the right tool (happens to be an iPhone but I've seen similar functionality on Android phones and Windows phones) sometimes my tablet... I don't feel "locked in" to any of it any more than I feel locked in by the choices a television network makes for their fall lineup or the choices my state has made for when and where road construction will occur. There are projects in life that are bigger than one person and choices are made we don't always agree with.
Jeepers. I had no idea I was drinking Kool Aid or stifling dissenting thoughts so as to stave off madness. I've been coming to Slashdot for over 14 years. I appreciate a low 4 digit UID. But really, does a content free screed about how open source is the only right path posted minutes after the article hits the front page really further the discussion about the OS X Mountain Lion review?
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
Well, one admittedly small loss is that my little shareware app that existed for over a decade will no longer work out of the box on OSX thanks to Gatekeeper.
No problem, though. If people complain, I'll just send them to Apple customer support.
Anyone who hasn't noticed the slew of basic problems in 10.6-10.7 isn't worth reading about 10.8. There are so many non-debatable flaws, such as switching to an Apple application often taking longer than it takes to open it -- or often just plain locking up during the switch; or the way multi-threading still is a piece of shit, with the finder often freezing up while the CPU load is next to nothing; that if someone's writing how 10.7 was a great under the hood release, then they're just trying to sell something.
What if. What if Linux and Windows ARE that "multitude of options" to OS X? You know you can install GNOME in OS X and use that, right? You can drop right to a command prompt too and to the lay person it doesn't look any different than any other BSD OS.
What if. People actually like these improvements? What if you had actually liked GNOME3?
Dun Dun Dun.
QUOTE: "The old way: go to the Finder, find the file you want, and open it. The new way: go to the app and open the document from within the app. Conceptually it works just like iOS â" your files arenâ(TM)t in the file system, but rather âoeinâ the app you used to create them. This is the future, but Apple isnâ(TM)t forcing it upon us. The feature is prominent, yes, because Apple wants us to use it. But it is far from mandatory. Donâ(TM)t want to use iCloud document storage? Then just keep on managing your files exactly as before. Appleâ(TM)s not dragging us to the future; theyâ(TM)re enticing us to walk there on our own."
I wish Microsoft was more like that.
I'm not sure if tying files to the program makes sense though. What if I decide I don't want my songs/videos tied to Apple's default player, and would rather use an Open program like VLC? Are the files removable from the Apple app to VLC app?
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
As long as you do not mind having a botnet zombie.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Their handling of the retina display was a major screw up that sacrificed the very reason to call the MacBook Pro a professional device so that normal users (home and manager types, for example) could have an expensive and sexy fashion statement-laptop (instead of giving them a 17 inch retina display Air). Their unwillingness to maintain the Mac Pro is another reason why people get the impression that the iPhoneification of OS X is underway.
I think it's much simpler: Steve Jobs was the last executive who understood the need to keep Apple's feet in both the home market and the outskirts of the enterprise. Their current management may know the design approaches he liked and a host of other things that can let them keep going in the same pattern. Unfortunately, I don't think they "get" the different segments of Apple's products. Macs aren't supposed to just be toys for upper-middle class snobs (I say this as an owner of a 2008 MBP). They're supposed to be able to actually do work as well.
This is why I really think Apple's fans need to realize that this may be the start of Apple's decline (not into irrelevant, just to some place of North of Sony's current position in 10 years). A company Apple's size can afford to maintain both appliance-like devices and real workhorse computers. Apple is not even saying they won't keep going. They're just stumbling around.
> Nobody has enough time to maintain forks of everything they use, never mind the people who don't even have the knowhow.
The point is that we usually don't have to. Unless you really are a unique snowflake, you aren't the only one being abandoned. In the case of GNOME going nuts there were lots of options and more directly on point a lot of pissed off former users creating offshoot replacement projects. Most of those will fail but it doesn't matter because it will be because a couple will succeed and attract in attracting the majority of the outcast former GNOME users. You don't HAVE to create everything yourself, from scratch. You can even take the last 'good' version of a software line that goes off the deep end and use that as a starting point.
If you don't like MIcrosoft or Apple's new direction you have fewer options. You can suck it up, switch operating systems or start a cleanroom cloning effort of the entire stack from scratch. And look at ReactOS or Wine to see how impractical that last option has proven to be.
Democrat delenda est
I'm pretty sure Apple can figure out: "port X-code to iOS, but make the ability to compile, run, and upload apps to the app store each individual in app purchases".
No, they're still hanging onto the "computer" market because there's still money to squeeze out of it. Not because they can't think of a way to ditch it.
This is amusing, because most of the Linux users I know are *constantly* upgrading to the latest version of everything. I'm still using Windows XP at work, though I have 7 at home, and my Mac (and most of my friend's) is/are still on 10.6. If it works, why upgrade?
In any case, why would you *bitterly* cling to Fedora 14? Does 15 have something you *absolutely* must have? Why did you upgrade to begin with?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I think you're blowing the "iOS-ness" of Mountain Lion out of proportion. I've been using the GM for a while and the DPs before that, and my core usage has remained unchanged since Lion. "Now wait," you say, "Lion also brought iOS features!" True. Of course, you don't have to use them. My Lion usage patterns are unchanged from Snow Leopard.
If you look at the main features, you'll see two things. First, it's not a big update like Leopard or Tiger (hence the $20 price tag). Second, the most iOS-like feature is Notification Center, which is basically just a better version of Growl that Macs have had for years now. Reminders and Notes are apps that appear in iOS, yes, but that's all they are--apps. Use them or don't.
There are two major features of Mountain Lion. iCloud is the most obvious user-facing one, as it is much more tightly integrated with the OS than it was in Lion. The biggest feature is probably the one least talked about, and that is Gatekeeper. It's pseudo-iOS-like, because by default it only allows apps from "identified" developers to run on your system, but when you try to run an unsigned app it lets you know how to turn it off. It should be noted that "identified" does not mean App Store only, though obviously App Store developers are "identified".
Compare this to Windows 8, which is getting a near-complete UI change. Or GNOME or Unity and possibly other DEs I haven't used, which are also heavily influenced by tablets. Apple seems to be the only one that isn't trying to completely change my workflow. I wouldn't be sure I'd call this update insanely great or anything--frankly, the iCloud features should have been present in Lion--but it's a nice update and it's cheap.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Just a heads up: Mac sales are flat.
the iPAD also take consumers from the mac line.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Neil_Brown recently came out with his new #40767049 comment response to Moblaster's comment. In a surpising move, it was available for immediate reading at the time of its announcement. While missing out on some of the features we've come to love about his line of comments, I find it a refreshing level of meta-commenting that hasn't been seen in a while. Whether it's worth refreshing the browser to read responses to his comment has yet to be seen. We'll have to give it some time out in the wild to really get a feel for its general reception, but its +5 funny moderation does suggest that it will be read by many.
I'm still on Snow Leopard because I still have some old OSX PowerPC code I need to run.
Does anyone know a way to run PPC OSX code in Lion or Mountain Lion? I have the Sheepshaver emulator which runs PPC stuff, but only OS 9 / Classic, not OS X.
Is there a way to emulate, say, 10.4 in 10.7/10.8?
No it won't.
Eventually 3rd parties will begin to ignore it.
XP is interesting here only because it's successor (Vista) was so bad that Microsoft was forced to continue supporting it against it's will.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I can dismantle your whole pro-Linux argument with one sentence:
- Show me how to run Microsoft Visio on Gnome, KDE, or any other distribution so I can open, edit, and then save *.vsd files on my company's network drive.
I don't use MS-Windows because I like it. Anymore than I drive through interstate jams for fun. I do it because it's the defacto standard that everyone uses. I avoid Microsoft as much as possible but using alternatives (LibreOffice, VLC Player, Winamp, Mozilla seaMonkey, etc). But at the end of the day I still need to use Windows as my base because that's where the office & engineering tools run.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Yes, but in many countries genocide of stupid users is illegal!
Interestingly, it's also just as easy for a Linux user to never upgrade their system and still run self-contained binary packages. That doesn't change that it's absolutely retarded to do so. Grats on never upgrading your shitty OS: that strategy is a real winner.
One thing I never really agreed with in terms of the Star Trek's depiction of computers was that the alphanumeric keyboard was a goner.
How Scotty manages to rock the QWERTY in Star Trek IV, I don't know. Dictation is not a natural fit for everyone ; I can probably type far more efficiently than I can orate.
And while there are some nods to a "tactile interface" - presumably produced by forcefields in the control panels - the TNG / Okuda panels must be murderous for anyone who wants to be productive.
Enterprise and Voyager both acknowledged this to a degree by bringing back the analogue joystick for the helmsman.
XP is being phased out.
Also, Linux is written as Linux.
Also, almost every problem that Linux has can be attributed to lack of people's demand. Especially better support.
Also, of all things, I can still run an app up to a decade old (RTCW/Enemy Territory) and have it run just fine, aside from occasional hijinks with audio.
People on Linux prefer to live on a constant 6-month-to-3-years upgrade schedule. Software reflects it.
Your views will fall flat on anyone with a life if you keep pressing this ridiculously dramatic nonsense. Using a computer or phone or operating system does not make you free or a slave. These are tools. At any time, someone can chose to stop using them. Using Linux will not make you free any more than using OS X will make you a slave.
Read a bit of history about what slavery means, and get real.
(Not yet published, but will probably go "live" on www.techcitement.com later today) I didn't really come here to promote my article though....
I was just going to comment that while it's probably true that Mac users often confuse tradition for the "best" way to accomplish something in their OS, it's also true that in the case of OS X Lion, an awful lot was removed..... In some cases, I think these deletions were unjustified and let people to a poor user experience, despite many benefits with the upgrade.
Examples that come to mind?
1. iCal losing its sidebar
2. Contacts losing the 3 column view
3. Loss of expose functionality to ungroup a selection
Combine that with some of the more justified but troublesome deletions, including removal of Rosetta for PPC application support, and Apple easily built a scenario where users happy with OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" considered "Lion" to be the Mac equivalent of Windows Vista ... an upgrade they'd rather skip.
To me, Mountain Lion looks like Apple's refining of Lion based on some of the user feedback, plus completion of "half baked" concepts it was clear were rushed to market the last time around. (I'm thinking of such things as storing notes inside the Mail application, vs. creating an independent app for them as they did now.)
Having jumped this morning on the download train, I think I've now got everything back up and running, Parallels v7 required a reinstall (it uses kernel extensions so I'm not surprised that it needed an over-the-top reinstall) The odd one was Firefox not allowing me to download anything (even with a control-click save-as) the solution to that one was to clear my download history (why that fixed it ... I have not idea)
.0 release of software on the day it comes out :)
Fink is proving to be a total pain in the ass to get working again, not to mention xcode apparently now requires a developer-enabled apple account to download and install the command line tools via the GUI (you can still download the tools via the developer website)
Ah the fun of running a new
Tablets and phones outnumber Apple's computer sales by something like 10:1.
If Apple is making "billions of dollars of profit" every quarter, then it is not because of the PC business. If Apple were still just a PC company they would be either dead or terribly obscure by this point.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Or Carpal Tunnel
I wasn't talking about from Microsoft. I was talking about 3rd party software. I can play all the latest games on XP and I can run the latest Firefox or Chrome without updating my OS.
The point is that we usually don't have to
Thus putting yourself at the mercy of someone else.
Almost all the features I saw in Apple's presentation and feature list are rip-offs of features from third party iOS developers, Android, Firefox, Chrome, Gnome, KDE, and other non-Apple developers and systems.
In principle, I don't see anything wrong with that, except that Apple then goes around suing others when they (supposedly) copy similarly trivial features from iPhone.
I came here to see a first post along the lines of "I heard you like reviews so I did a review of your review so you could review your review" or something.
I don't know if I was happy, or sad, to see an interesting FP instead.
the changes OSX is making and the dumb moves that ubuntu did.
Removal of scroll bars on OSX is not a big deal, Apple hardware had scrolling devices (magic mouse and multitouch pad) for a long time. so scrolling is not affected on that platform. Removal of scroll bars on Ubuntu was the stupidest move ever. I dont have a multitouch device to scroll with, so now I have to hit a 2 pixel bar on a window. WTF is that??!?!?! ROWARRGH!
Ubuntu needs to stop everything they are doing right now and support apple multitouch hardware and tell everyone to use X,Y or Z and suck it up. OR they need to stop chasing a UI that requires special hardware to make it useable.
Now the "single window" mode is retarded. on a 27" mac it is utterly stupid to do this. on a 11" macbook air? ok, I can see that. Dumbification of the UI needs to be optional. Let me have a "professional mode" to switch to a power users multiple window setup.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As long as you do not mind having a botnet zombie.
Botnet malware doesn't just pop in out of nowhere. It's gets in when the user does something careless. It's gotten much easier to avoid issues without being excessively paranoid. If you like torrents or porn, quarantine them in a Linux VM. I believe Chrome (and maybe Firefox) now sandboxes websites as well. (of course, VM works here too) Change the moronic default settings to various programs so executables don't get launched without your direct action. (I blame software developers, including Microsoft, in the early 00's for this) There are other things to do as well, but you still get to enjoy your Windows gaming.
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
If you are a Mac user, as a drinker of the Kool-Aid you have no choice. Whatever is coming out is insanely great, you simply must believe that because any other thought would lead to madness. Windows folk will simply bitterly cling to Windows 7 until it end of lifes and hope policy changes, as it often does. They are more like Star Trek fans, they admit there is a pattern to which releases suck and don't suck. But again, their choice is limited to picking one of the available supported versions. When you hitch yourself to a commercial entity you always subject yourself to their business needs, which are rarely in alignment with your own and you get little input into the decisions they make and few options when they change directions and abandon you.
Except distros pretty much demand that you're on the upgrade treadmill to get newer versions of software, backports are few and far between and library versions are often carelessly bumped so everything turns into a massive upgrade. For the most part you can install a brand new Windows application on an OS released in 2001 and it'll still work fine. I don't have to "bitterly cling" to Windows 7, it's not me losing out on that but Microsoft. Yes, maybe eventually after a string of horrible releases where I don't want to upgrade to any of them but that hasn't happened so far. I gladly skipped Vista as did many others I know, with no skin off our backs. I can stay on Windows 7 until 2020 and for the most part every new version of every application I want will run, without me manually compiling anything from source.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
And yet my Windows 7 will have better gaming and application support than your Loonix desktop for the next decade well after mainstream support is dropped
Windows definitely has much better support for new games, but for older games I've found that WINE often works better. I have a number of games designed for Windows 9x that work fine in WINE on OS X (which is very much a tier 2 platform for WINE), yet won't even run on Windows 2000 or XP, let alone anything newer.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They are a marketing engine
You can always tell someone who has no idea what they're talking about, or has blindly drunk the Apple Hater Kool-aid (just as potent as the Apple Fan Kool-aid), when they talk about Apple being a "marketing company". If they were only marketing, then they wouldn't continue to be successful with each new iteration of the product. They might have one good run, but then people would decide they were crap, and not upgrade. The fact of the matter is, they make very good products, and many people believe they fit their needs better than the competition.
Any post like the parent's can be safely ignored, as it clearly has no rational basis and no actual content.
After a disastrous attempt at installing Lion on its release, will will gladly wait for one maybe even two patches before I even attempt to touch Mountain Lion (including buying it). Also I hope that I can simply upgrade to Mountain Lion and not be forced to buy the Server package just because I previously had the server package installed (Lion Server added VERY little value BTW). I was charged twice by the Mac Store in addition to the Server update for something that didn't work out of the proverbial box (it bricked my Mac Mini Server). Lion was pretty much Apple's version of Vista, hopefully Mountain Lion their Windows 7.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Yeah, they are flat in this booming economy!
Try telling the whole story.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I can dismantle your whole pro-Linux argument with one sentence:
Wow, you're confident.
- Show me how to run Microsoft Visio on Gnome, KDE, or any other distribution so I can open, edit, and then save *.vsd files on my company's network drive.
And yet again, your confidence is misplaced...
I don't use MS-Windows because I like it.
So, basically, your argument about how free is better because you're not a slave to proprietary software is to show that you are a slave to proprietary software and how you dislike this.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Ah, the old astroturfing: a "dearth of applications for Linux" and "great backwards support for Windows". Give it up, man, you'll never hype your stock up again.
That depends on who you are. As an individual, sure. As a company with 10,000 employees, things look quite different. Companies like Red Hat or iX Systems will happily let you pay for a fork to be maintained on your behalf.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I'm a little tired of the analogies between software and physical freedom. The suggestion (in fact, the outright claim of this OP) is that using commercial software is the equivalent of slavery. RIDICULOUS. People making this claim are almost 100% tech geeks. For such people (and I include myself), open software is a great thing because *we know what to do with the options* and the consequences of making incorrect choices (and how to fix them). The vast majority of people (such as my parents and 99% of my friends) are NOT tech geeks. For them, open software ("freedom") presents choices to them that they do NOT want to make or simply do not know HOW to make. For them, a walled garden is a beautiful thing. Far better than the jungle out there where they may be eaten by lions and bears.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
For now, I know firefox was talking at one point of dropping XP support and we aren't far from the rest of the current software developers doing the same. A 12 year old Linux system is still just as usable, but you would be a fool to think any 12 year old system with no updates is in any way secure. As Microsoft is soon to phase out all updates for XP, you'll find that your 12 year old OS is no longer really usable.
You'll also find that your not getting the performance if your running that 12 year old OS on newer hardware since you have a lack of 64 bit support, lower memory allowances, and worse video performance capabilities.
You'll also find you still have to reboot on a frequent basis, a Linux system can go years without a reboot (and our Linux based phone systems do go 2+ years without frequently)
Just a heads up: you are dumb as a fucking post.
On that graph Mac sales aren't correlated to iPad sales, and the slope of their line has not changed significantly since the iPad was released.
Compare this to Windows 8, which is getting a near-complete UI change.
Except the old UI is still there. The argument for Windows 8 is the same as you just put forth for ML: "Now wait," you say, "Windows 8 also brought metro features!" True. Of course, you don't have to use them. My Windows 8 usage patterns are unchanged from Windows 7. I just boot into the desktop and use it as I always have.
Did you look at new ubuntu 12? I mean, seriously in this day and age, an OS that struggles to work with multiple monitors, puts task bars on both the desktops, has a windowing system that totally sucks(has a lot of bugs) and has a sluggish UI(because of driver issues).
And compare that to OS X. Works out of the box. Has a decent mail and messaging app. And I can still login to my linux box to work.
Linux box is relegated to where it belongs. It might be bright on the engineering side of things, but I have come to realize after a decade of tinkering with it that my time on this planet is limited, and I cannot waste my time on *already* solved problems and elegantly so(by OS X), by people who know better about those things.
I am all for open source computing. I, for the most part use emacs as my editor, and still run a home built linux box that I ssh to.
Talking about open source computing is not the only way to pay homage to it. May be if you and others put your money where your mouth is and offer a compelling reason for using it, by enhancing the productivity, may be more people would move to it. If that is not possible, this movement, like other idealistic movements in the history will end up where the belong, namely, in the intellectual trash can.
You will never have experience until after you needed it.
http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/
This is the most chilling thing I've read in a while: "Three decades ago, the personal computer industry was built on the backs of technology enthusiasts. Every product, every ad was created to please us. No longer. Technology must now work for everyone, not just 'computing enthusiasts'." Why is it chilling? Because I'm seeing it everywhere. Things that I consider to be killer features that MUST exist on a computing device are just disappearing. No OS is immune at this point. As a hardcore Linux fan since the early 90s, even I have to acknowledge that Linux is dying. Ubuntu is killing it. Windows isn't looking to sharp in version 8 either. It sounds like Mac OS X is headed down the same road.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Mountain Lion might be the thing that tips me over. The retina Macbook Pro is becoming hard to resist and there is no comparable Windows laptop on the horizon. I like Windows 7, I am comfortable with it, but if I am going to relearn stuff from scratch, I would pick ML over the travesty that is Windows 8. I'll pick something that doesn't show me a blocky touch based interface on a goddamn laptop. I never wish to use a touch screen on a laptop or a desktop, it's the most uncomfortable thing ever, I don't know why Microsoft and everyone forgot about Gorilla Arm. OSX doesn't look like it's going to anything that crazy, some of the things copied over from iOS, like notifications, are actually worth copying over. At least for now, Mac OS still doesn't put restrictions on anyone who wants to do stuff from the command line or install unapproved apps. App support in Macs has improved with growing market share. The only thing I will miss about Windows is games, but for the few times I do play games, dual booting with Boot Camp will do.
I can't think of a reason why I shouldn't 'learn' ML rather than learning Windows 8.
12 year old linux system just as usable? seriously? would you be able to find _any_ recent binaries that ran fine on it? which was the point about windows stability.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This is true. However, Windows 8 is much more in-your-face about it, and does provide a completely new UI on top of the old one. ML doesn't do this--you have the same old UI as ever. The iOS features are unobtrusive, whereas Metro has the potential to be very obtrusive (depending on whether popular apps switch to Metro-only; consequently, does Win8 offer support for "hybrid" apps that have both desktop and Metro versions?).
(For the record, I actually like Windows 8.)
If you can't convince them, convict them.
You, maybe.. But why do you think they had to make shorthand and stenotype machines?
Heck, watch the closed captioning on basically any live TV show (or live-to-tape, like late night talk shows). Lots of errors, and missed words, even *with* the more-efficient-than-standard-typing mechanisms.
(I am not claiming that voice input is always the superior interface, simply that it's faster than typing the same text.)
This is empirically not true. The developers are not random, they are a self-selecting group that values the same thing you value. If some of them go away, others can replace them, and you can choose to be one of them if you like.
All you have to do is compare what's happening with Thunderbird to what's happening with Sparrow to see the difference. Commerical software absolutely puts you at the mercy of the entity supporting it. Open source not nearly as much.
Huh?
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
> I'm a little tired of the analogies between software and physical freedom.
That is because there are differences between physical products and software, especially entire platforms/operating systems. If I bought a GM car years ago it really doesn't matter if they are now a zombie entity jokingly called Government Motors or even if that had been allowed to simply fail, especially if the car is out of warranty. Parts and service are available from a wide variety of third parties and if I don't like the new model year version it doesn't matter because I'm not going to eventually get forced into upgrading to it. And when the car wears out and needs replacing I haven't developed any long term dependencies that will tend to make it hard to switch to Ford or Toyota.
Same for most things. Some products have some tendencies to lock in, but with less computerized stuff it isn't usually unbearable. Buy a Sony amp and sure, it works better with the Sony CD,DVD/BD and TV but you can, and most people do, mix and match. Not so with computers and increasingly with phones, tablets, ebooks, etc. That initial purchase will often dictate a lifetime of followup purchases as you have bought into a whole ecosystem.
Democrat delenda est
Fedora is really a bad example. Fedora is really good, but they push new buggy tech all the time. (Fedora user here, but I would use FreeBSD if the graphics driver was better)
Ridiculous. Microsoft may have "succumbed to tablet madness", but the review made clear that Mac OS X has not. Mountain Lion has borrowed things from (tablet) iOS, but many of these ideas are not tablet-specific at all. The review specifically states that OS X has not been subsumed by iOS, and has a distinct trajectory.
Do iOS 6 and Mountain Lion converge a bit? Yes. Is there "madness" to it? Not even a taste. You should actually read the article instead of using it as a jump-off point to grind your Linux axe.
Slightly OT in that I'm getting away from the Apple-ness of the topic, but...
This is precisely why smart phones and pads are going to return us to the days of $2000 hard drives and $5000 PCs. The general population has needed to buy a PC or laptop in order to not be left behind in our increasingly computerized and online society. Now that the average person has access to surfing the web, reading email, and anything other than compute-intensive work in the palm of their hand, there is absolutely no need for them to buy desktops or laptops. The commodity surge of desktops and laptops is now passing us by, and we're going to see general purpose computing return to non-commodity prices.
To quote Samuel L. Jackson, "Hold on to your butts!"
As has often been said, it's a really nice operating system. Shame the text editor is so clunky.
The guy's argument was that we should all stop using OS X or Windows. I dismantled the argument by showing that I can't run Visio or ModelSim or other worktools on Linux, because they are only available on Windows.
Therefore his advice to abandon Windows is an automatic deadend, and as brain-numbingly stupid as the Libertarians' advice to get rid of government-built roads. Clear?
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The problem err um though erm is ahhh that your brain errm is slower ahhh than your ummmmm speach, erm especially when eugh concentrating eeeeeh on ummmm talking to ehh an invisible ehhhh person.
The content of your post is nothing more than troll bait.
Please don't feed the troll here.
Exactly. Since Apple designed the iPad (before the iPhone, actually), it's understood that there are similarities and differences between laptop/desktops and tablets/phones. Microsoft never got this, which is why its tablet and phone OS's sucked: they tried to port a desktop OS and UI into a smaller form factor. Now, Microsoft is assuming that its philosophy was right, but the direction was 180 degrees off: they're porting a phone OS and UI to the desktop.
Meanwhile, Apple continues to share ideas between the two while keeping the distinctions clearly in mind. And Linux, which has always suffered from poor UI design, is floundering and trying desperately to catch the tablet wave since it will obviously never dominate the desktop/laptop market.
To a degree, yes, at least for Linux. As Linux stopped Microsoft's march towards the server segment in the 90s, Mac OS X has stopped Linux's march towards the consumer desktop segment in more recent years. Sure there are some people using Microsoft for servers or Linux on the desktop but they represent a minority and are likely to remain so. Today many people who need some *nix on the desktop are probably going to go Mac OS X, even some long time Linux users. Keeping this in mind helps to understand the anger and frustration of some of the more zealous Linux advocates. They are no less zealous than the Mac advocates ranting against Windows NT in the Mac OS 8 and 9 era (pre Mac OS X).
If "and yet I don't have to upgrade my OS at all" means no longer being updated with security patches, then that probably qualifies as "the user does something careless".
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
The guy's argument is that we should all stop using OS X or Windows. The problem is that I can't run Visio or ModelSim or other worktools on Linux, because they are only available on Windows. Therefore his advice to abandon Windows is an automatic deadend, and as brain-numbingly stupid as the anarcho-capitalist's advice to get rid of government-built roads. (IMHO)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Their handling of the retina display was a major screw up
You didn't lay out the case for that well at all.
The fact is the VAST majority of professionals like and use the 15" form factor. The Macbook Retina is a "pro air" in that form factor, really light, really thin and an amazing display. Months after launch, there's still a 1-2 week shipping delay on new systems.
I myself have a 17" macbook pro, and while I don't plan to upgrade soon (my system works well enough as is for a year or so more I think) I wouldn't mind switching to a system that has more physical pixels than what I have now. It has as fast an interface as I could desire (in fact two, USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt). So how can you possibly argue that is not a "pro" system?
Also there are hints the Mac Pro is not abandoned, just not updated yet... early next year we'll probably see a new line of them. And possibly a Macbook Pro 17" retina too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
NIke also makes pretty decent shoes. But worth the price? Perhaps to an NBA player they are, the best will buy the best tools available no questions asked. But for 90% of their customers? But they all convince themselves they are absolutely worth it, sometimes worth killing for even. I'm somewhat skeptical of that claim.
Never underestimate the power of marketing on the minds of the weak willed.
In Apple's case though I don't even concede that they are 'the best.' I have looked at ther wares and this Thinkpad I'm on now cost more than a lot of Macbooks and it was bought with OPM anyway. I could have had a Mac instead but have no desire to use or to own one. Don't really like em and will tend to pick Free/Open software if it is an option. Would pick open hardware if it were a practical option, it isn't. If I had to pick a closed OS today I'd take the preload Win7, add Cygwin and hunker down to ride out Metro.
Democrat delenda est
Free means never being at the mercy of someone else's business plan.
Isn't free a business plan in itself?
I realize that you're biased by your "Kool-Aid" comment, but have you stopped to think that some people actually want a stable Unix platform with a nice UI, and choose to run OS X rather than doing it because it is "cool"?
OS X is far more stable in day-to-day desktop operation than Linux. I don't have to rebuild my nvidia driver every kernel update, I don't have X crash occasionally, causing me to lose all my work, my audio driver never stops working. All of these were very real problems I had running Ubuntu just a few years back when I finally decided to switch. I also get nearly all the software that you get running Linux, plus a lot more commercial apps.
I also have plenty of choice. Did you know that OS X runs X and is based on BSD? That means I can run the KDE suite if I wish, and most portably-written Unix apps as well. I run wireshark on a daily basis. Gnome is pretty Linux focused, but probably wouldn't be terribly difficult to port if I had the motivation, which I don't.
I've been running Linux as a primary OS since 1995 and would never dream of running a server on anything else, but for day-to-day work, I choose OS X.
Tablets and phones outnumber Apple's computer sales by something like 10:1.
If Apple is making "billions of dollars of profit" every quarter, then it is not because of the PC business. If Apple were still just a PC company they would be either dead or terribly obscure by this point.
I disagree. A tablet is a PC. Anyway, that's what all the evidence says.
Interestingly enough, if you are comfortable at a command line, OSX is rather customizable. Yes, the GUI has been dumbed down recently to the great benefit of the 98% of computer users out there who aren't /. geeks. But the underlying feature sets you speak of have not been minimized at all. For computing enthusiasts, OSX still has a BSD-like CLI. And one of the available commands is the 'defaults' command that allows quite a bit of tweaking of the GUI. Many of the available tweaks are specifically for removing the dumbed-down GUI restrictions such as the "Are you sure you want to open this application?" dialog.
The best part will be the weekly stack ranking and 360 degree review sessions.
"You are an A/10! Please vacate the house at once!"
It's a particular FOSSy proclivity of making any and all applications into operating-system-like meta-platforms. You haven't written a proper Open application until you've provided SWIG bindings and a console that runs Scheme one-liners.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I bought an iMac 4-5 years ago when I was feeling flush with cash and wanted to try out OS X. I liked it. Never used it as my main machine, though, and it eventually turned into my media center in my bedroom. Worked great for that, the screen was about the size of a TV, I could use the apple remote from bed, and if I didn't have my netbook handy I would use the wireless keyboard and mouse to web browsing, whatever.
The last version of OS X took away Front Row. Front Row was the Apple application that let me drive my media with the remote control. Push a button, large (I can see them from across the room...and even with my contacts out if I squint or maybe squeeze my eyeball a bit) menus pop up, and you can navigate essentially all the media that iTunes knows about. Which, for me, was awesome.
And they just removed it. It was the MAIN reason I was still using the iMac. You're supposed to be able to get it working again if you reinstall something from the OS X CD...but yeah, I don't really have that anymore. I've tried XMBC and it sucks in comparison. I believe Apple rolled all the Front Row features into some AppleTV thing. Thanks for that.
So, I'm still using it as my TV / stereo / whatever but it is much less functional due to their "upgrade".
Thats my only real hate on Apple (my main machine is a linux box, linux on a netbook, and a PC for gaming). Other than the time the hard drive died and I decided to replace it myself. Changing the hard drive in the iMac made me want to punch the designer in his small, shriveled nuts.
> What if Linux and Windows ARE that "multitude of options" to OS X?
Eh? You can bring your Apple apps over to Window or Linux? Since when?
You see, that is my point: GNOME went nuts, a large fractionof their userbase said "screw you" and slid in a few new packages and kept right on working. We didn't have to toss our hardware (as in a Linux or Win to Mac migration) or all of our software (any complete OS migration) to escape the changes in GNOME we didn't like. We kept all of our files exactly as they were, all of our hardware exactly as it was, we even kept all of the exact same applications. It wasn't a problem.
If Redhat keeps it up I might abandon Fedora entirely, but guess what? Even moving to Debian won't be all that painful. The versions of a lot of apps will probably change, Debian does tend to lag. But most things will continue to be recognizable and I won't have to relearn everything. Like I would if I tried to go back to Windows since finally abandoning it at Win95. I check in on Windows from time to time, a lot has changed. And a lot more is different compared to Fedora, even with Cygwin to soften the shock.
> What if you had actually liked GNOME3?
That would have been nice. But I didn't. My problem goes beyond me though. I have a lab full of GNOME 2 machines and random members of the public using them. It acts close enough to how they expect a 'computer' (read as Windows) to work that we don't have to hand hold them. No way in Hell I'm upgrading to GNOME3 unless and until Metro succeeds and totally redefines what the public expects.
Democrat delenda est
- Show me how to run Microsoft Visio on Gnome, KDE, or any other distribution so I can open, edit, and then save *.vsd files on my company's network drive.
Run bare-bones Windows in a virtual machine, installing and running only those things you can't get on Linux. Done.
That's how I run for work. My primary workstation is an Apple iMac running Lion. Under my desk I have a headless Core 2 Quad running Debian and VirtualBox. Run the VM on the Debian box, enable terminal services, and run the Remote Desktop Client for Mac. Dedicate a virtual desktop for the RDC instance, and run it fullscreen. As I'm on a gigabit network, it's extremely fast, and I only ever need to touch Windows for those things I absolutely require it for (the product I'm currently working on runs only in IE9. Believe me, having come from a long history of cross-platform projects, this one wounds me to the very core of my being).
Of course, you don't need as fancy a setup -- this one simply suits me, particularly as my iMac workstation is already used heavily for development work. Most of the modern desktop VM solutions have mechanisms to run Windows apps directly on the host desktop in "seamless mode", so you never even need to see Windows itself. VirtualBox is free -- all you need is a Windows installation to virtualize, and/or Windows media and a license key. Easy peasy.
Yaz
> The problem is that I can't run Visio or ModelSim or other worktools...
Dunno about you but I'd run Visio in a VM the few times a typical person needs it and download the Linux tarball for ModelSim. It ain't the 1990s anymore, dude! Professional tools tend to be available on professional workstations and Sun and SGI are long since out of that space, replaced with high end hardware running Linux, usually RHEL. That means any serious software runs there now. Sure they have a Windows exectuable and since Mac is POSIX they will often do one of those too, but real work happens on real workstations and more importantly, real compute heavy stuff happens on clusters. In case you have been in a cave the last few years, Linux pretty much owns clusters.
Democrat delenda est
Security patches certainly have their value, but 30 years from now it'll still be user error that results in their system/data/finances being compromised. Security patches reduce the ways that users of all skill levels get blindsided, but they're not a catch-all.
I still contend that a seasoned user with EOL system software can pull it off. (hell, I'm sure a good number of slashdotters are what I just described)
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
If you are a Mac user, as a drinker of the Kool-Aid you have no choice.
I have been using Mac computers since 1989 and to this date I have found the OS to consistently improve over time. The only exception being OS 9, which kinda sucked. I'm speaking about my perception of their software of course, and implying others should share my opinion.
It makes no sense for me to believe it's better to switch to Linux out of fear of being let down in the future. I really have no reason to believe it will happen. Even if it did, moving my files to some other PC would not really be an issue for me.
My experiences with Linux weren't very happy ones either. I'm not trying to generalize but I've more than once found myself in a situation in which I've been told to fix something myself - which really is not something I'm interested in doing at all. I've got my dev projects and work, and I don't really care about improving the OS I use at home. Some of those issues were things that I know I can get working much easier in windows or mac (maybe due to experience on the OSes, that's not really important to me). My personal opinion on the subject is that Linux is not for me.
Going back to your idea about Mac users drinking Kool-Aid, I think you're failing to put yourself in other people's shoes. Maybe your principles regarding open source/free software vs commercial software are not as important to others as they are to you?
diegoT
No, OSX now has NO trajectory. None at all. It is merely an appendage, to be soon removed.
Correction in bold, for my previous post: "The only exception being OS 9, which kinda sucked. I'm speaking about my perception of their software of course, and NOT implying others should share my opinion."
diegoT
Linux system just as usable? Seriously?
Not really. All those people who dont need to use a computer, wont know how, and generally wont be employable in most functions.
Also, of all things, I can still run an app up to a decade old (RTCW/Enemy Territory) and have it run just fine, aside from occasional hijinks with audio.
...on Linux? On a recent distro?
On the flip side, I played through 1998's Half-Life 1 and its two Gearbox expansions (Opposing Force and Blue Shift) last year. Although that's probably not the best example, due to Valve having long term support for their products... and I installed the current version through Steam.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Wow, you're a real dumbass. ModelSim/QuestaSim has a perfectly workable Linux version. So does VCS and NCSim, which is what you should be using anyway unless you're building toys.
Your analysis is like an analogy of an airline passenger. You can choose to be a consumer and fly one of the major airlines. You get the seats the give you and the snacks they serve. You don't get to pick the flight path to your destination, and you don't get to pick your own schedule. To "best the system", you went to get your own pilot's license. You can fly where you want, when you want and choose the path. You're part of an elite bunch alright.
From up that high, you might not be able to see it, but not everyone has the ability/time/desire to be a pilot. An overwhelming majority of the people who use planes to get from A to B are content with that choice. And frankly, I don't really hear a lot of private pilots droning on about how much better they are that they can fly themselves to somewhere when they want to.
And btw, nobody is free. Don't pretend to be free just because you're a computer enthusiast. You're still a slave to the farmers, the electric company, the sanitation and water sources that feed your house and every other item in your world that you pay for. For you, this may be about freedom and choice and all that other jazz that 90% of the world doesn't care about when it comes to an operating system. If you sleep better at night, then cookie for you. The "Aura of Rightness" that you're projecting just comes off as a bit juvenile, though.
Just look at how 12 years later that XP still gets the latest games and most of the latest versions of applications.
Not for much longer. Microsoft has already removed support for XP from the current version of Visual Studio, just like how they removed W2K support from VS2008. Sure, you can still compile for W2K with VS2005, but for those who want to be completely legal about it, just try buying VS2005 licenses now. The only reason Firefox still works on XP is because they got VS2005 back in the day for their build system, and they've already had problems (with the linker being 32-bit only) because it is now unsupported.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I can probably type far more efficiently than I can orate.
You, maybe.. But why do you think they had to make shorthand and stenotype machines?
Heck, watch the closed captioning on basically any live TV show (or live-to-tape, like late night talk shows). Lots of errors, and missed words, even *with* the more-efficient-than-standard-typing mechanisms.
(I am not claiming that voice input is always the superior interface, simply that it's faster than typing the same text.)
Note: he said efficiently, not quickly. Since one types slower than one speaks, one naturally has more time to think about what one is communicating (see? I changed that from "saying" to "communicating" right before I typed it!)
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Actually I can tell you from first-hand experience that a WHOLE LOT of tinkering goes on behind those doors.
The real difference is this: When Apple comes up with something half-assed, it goes where it belongs: In the trash can.
When Microsoft comes up with something half-assed, they ship it and try to make a buck before anyone (even their own management/engineers) can catch on.
And then you'll buy a Mac.
They're flat, as in: not dwindling down to zero. Not bad in this economic crisis.
-- Cheers!
http://maczfs.org/
And I'd like to know of any suggestions or experiences or recent articles about the concept of code bounties and of personnel recruiting for free software engineering. I know it's kind of a demure subject which has come and gone, mostly focusing on an already-established project which already has its engineering personnel and who just wants to get them paid, or an already-completed project who put a price on the source code (like Blender 3D). In our case, we want to get our current people paid to do what they already know how to do, but we also want to recruit and incentivize entirely new talent.
So far, the only place I've found is http://www.fossfactory.org/ but I haven't researched it yet. Still looking. Thanks.
So we've abandoned any discussion on the merits of the new OS version and jumped right into the "My OS is better than yours OS!" right from the first post. Now that's what I call efficient. Saves me having to read and ponder and cultivate that shining ray of hope that there may be some genuinely useful discussion, only to have that hope dashed a screen or two down.
Yay for progress!
Free software doesn't exist in industries that does not involve computers itself. This is the fundamental limitation of the free-software model, since it relies on its own industry to support it - you need other software engineers to make it happen.
But, most people don't use computers to use computers, they use them to do something else that DOESN'T involve computers. People are only interested in what gets that job done.
For example, there is no better tool than Apple's Aperture in cataloging and publishing photos within an hour of doing a photoshoot for a fashion magazine or newspaper. Free software doesn't even exist in that industry. (Lightroom isn't as good...) So, what are you going to use to code a free-software version of Aperture? A bunch of eager fashion models and stylists? =^D Who's going to code the controls of your kitchen's microwave ovens? A bunch of chefs?
Nobody else really cares about software. You still have to pay to play in these industries. If you can't pay, you don't play. Go do something else.
Not to spread too much flowers and sunshine on your doom and gloom, but if that's going to happen why haven't desktop prices increased sharply? They've been falling in market share like a rock compared to laptops, you'd think desktop CPUs and motherboards and big graphics cards and whatnot would increase in price but they haven't. Also you forgot "typing-intense", unless you still count tablets with a proper keyboard as tablets. And "precision-intense", I'd hate to edit photos on a tablet without a mouse. I do think that eventually all the common computing tasks people need to do can fit in your phone though, you just dock it in a tablet/laptop/desktop and away you go.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
So, you download the source.
./configure
make
sudo make install
There's your binary.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I'd like to point out that your XP installation is only two versions old. I would hope I could still have software run on a commercial OS that is only two versions old (last time I checked I can still get software for RHEL 4 and Mac OS 10.6. Not sure on Solaris 9, I'm not running it on anything.)
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
XP is still around because Enterprise customers had established management tools, applications, and processes, milking as much as they could for their hardware (XP runs well on lower spec machines, compared to Windows 7) and software investment. In fact, most wouldn't be migrating to Windows 7 if it wasn't for Microsoft ending support,refusing to provide other component upgrades (IE 9, etc.), and security holes. Vista was used as an excuse to for IT budget cutbacks. Most enterprises have used the XP support extension to deploy Windows 7 as part of their equipment refresh process.
I had a go on OSX, but there was a bug where a window's menus were disconnected from the active window, and got stuck at the top of the screen. It's been like that for ages I think, so hope they have found a way to fix it now.
Not when there are vulnerabilities that don't require user initiation (or even awareness). Not all attacks are based on the user doing something stupid.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Holy shit! What color have you dyed *your* hair?
I think the argument (more specifically) is that for a while now (thankfully) we CAN stop using OS X or Windows and it won't impact you in the way say, a decade or so ago would. The support and enthusiastic community surrounding all things Linux is very hearty and shows no signs of going anywhere. Things that were "impossible" (or very difficult) in the past are nearly as seamless as or (in the case of certain things) more seamless than the paid counterparts.
For me, the transition to 100% Linux came around the launch of Lion. My new Snow Leopard Mac Mini was humming along, but I was not on board with the changes and felt the new model for Apple was too restrictive for me. It had been a long time coming, in smaller increments of course. The rework under the hood that started after Jaguar was getting to be a problem... (mailbox formats, etc.)
So I put Debian Squeeze on my old Athlon PC and have been running it exclusively for a while now. I used to run a VM of Fedora on my Mini but now that I am having a ball using Debian, I will be making my Mini a full time Linux machine too very soon. Once I bother to get some of my old documents off the Mac. :) I don't even hardly turn the Mini on anymore... :)
As for Windows, I generally avoid it if at all possible. That's just me. I have an XP machine I use to play some old games, but mostly I run them in WINE, which works surprisingly well for strategy games and the like. :)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Er, I use ModelSim on a Linux cluster almost every day. You mean the VHDL/Verilog simulator, right?
As for the GP: Yeah, yeah, blah blah Kool-Aid yadda yadda stop liking what I don't like. To quote Vonnegut, "And so on."
Do you realize that comparing OS choice to slavery makes the geek community look like a pack of lunatics to the outside world? Please stop. KTHX.
GNOME didn't go nuts. They knew their desktop share is close to 0%... so they went to make the GNOME interface a tablet one. The result is nasty, nasty, shit hole if you are a desktop user. But it makes complete sense given the reality of GNOME/Linux.
Windows 8 with Metro on the other hand... that's just Microsoft gone fucking batshit nuts.
ModelSim is the application you use as an example? I'm running it in Linux right now. Did you only pay for the PE version or something?
Eh? You can bring your Apple apps over to Window or Linux? Since when
Not sure about windows but for Linux since ./configure, make, make install.
Debian does tend to lag
If you're not running a production server Sid or Testing is perfectly fine. LMDE is hands down the best integration of the 'old school Debian' and 'new school' all in one integration.
GNOME 2
Check out MATE. It was forked and Linux Mint uses it.
And by the way, the "old UI" in Windows 8 is crippled enough, in order to fit into a system designed around the "new UI", that it's a pain in the backside to use.
The difference is that Apple and Microsoft are motivated by money, which I am happy to give them for things I need. Many Linux projects are motivated by personal joy and when that dries up the devs simply move on. It's a fickle world of alpha software and a dozen unfinished projects.
" Technology must now work for everyone, not just 'computing enthusiasts.'"
Which is exactly why advanced features should be hidden away in 'advanced' menus but not eliminated entirely. If technology ceases to work for it's enthusiasts then it in fact DOES NOT WORK for "everyone". In fact, when technology does not work for enthusiasts it does not work for the people who are most likely to innovate, it becomes stale and that benefits no one.
If you are a Mac user, as a drinker of the Kool-Aid you have no choice.
Really? I have no choice of staying with the previous release of the OS that I'm already happy with? I have no choice to install another OS? I have no choice in running KDE or GNOME?
Seems to me I have a lot of options. Probably more than you do.
Yaz
Don't forget OBEY, CONSUME, MARRY AND REPRODUCE, DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY, and most important, NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT.
Because we can. :) I am using Debian Squeeze... so, I really don't fall into that category. And neither do most of the people I know who run Linux. Tinkerers are tinkerers, no matter what platform they are on.The nature of Fedora and its community is incremental and frequent upgrades. If you had picked Debian (or perhaps slackware), I'd have been more inclined to see your analogy. In terms of what you're driving at (I think), you mean people who start on Debian and go to Arch or Ubuntu at the drop of a hat. Of course, I can see where OS X is becoming like Fedora in terms of frequency of updates, but considering pieces and parts of Fedora can be upgraded when necessary and even by hand after the community has moved on, it still is a tenuous connection. On the surface, it makes a point if one is referring to the "upgrade treadmill", but Linux doesn't require that at all, and we all know Windows and OS X do (in spite of XP's tenacity.)
My Mini as of now still runs 10.6... It was the last OS from Apple that I thought was good. Now that it's two versions behind, I suspect I will be putting Linux on my Mini so it won't collect dust. :)
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Not to spread too much flowers and sunshine on your doom and gloom, but if that's going to happen why haven't desktop prices increased sharply? They've been falling in market share like a rock compared to laptops, you'd think desktop CPUs and motherboards and big graphics cards and whatnot would increase in price but they haven't.
Supply and demand. Currently the manufacturers have a large supply but there is decreasing demand. Eventually they will wise up and reduce supply to just below the demand (making things more expensive; and doubly so since they won't be produced in as big of numbers).
Especially since that probably means they will be using an out of date browser with lots of vulnerabilities allowing easy drive by downloads.
DAMMIT EMACS!
Windows folk will simply bitterly cling to Windows 7
Who's bitter? I paid $450 for a laptop that fulfills all my needs, makes a kickin VMWare Workstation platform, and has a pretty good screen to boot. Plus, the Windows 7 UI works pretty darn well with widescreen monitors (with win+left and win+right). I basically dont use desktops anymore because of how good of a workstation the laptop makes.
"Bitter" would be if I had to pay $1200 for a laptop, or if Windows somehow impeded my work. I might also be bitter if I had to use OSX, since I personally dislike the UI scheme. If I were you, I might reflect on the fact that not everyone shares the same tastes, and there are some people who legitimately prefer Windows 7. Mindless bashing just makes you look like a rabid fanboy.
The point is that we usually don't have to. Unless you really are a unique snowflake, you aren't the only one being abandoned.
AmaroK 2. Gnome 3. KDE 4 ( @ launch). Need I go on?
You will likely need to do the same for a dozen dependencies before that works, since it won't compile against 12 year old libraries. And then some of those dependencies will need their own dependencies, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if you end up effectively upgrading half of your Linux install that way, if you actually started with a 12 year old distro - I mean, we're talking Gtk 1.2 and Qt 2.x in that time frame.
Eh? You can bring your Apple apps over to Window or Linux? Since when?
Since the advent of cross-platform applications. Google Chrome, Firefox, NetBeans, OpenOffice and many other software packages are now available cross platform. Even many Steam games are available on Mac OS X and Windows (and soon Linux form the looks of it). Most of Apple's apps are based on open standard file formats, making them easily portable.
And for those that aren't -- since the advent of OS virtualization. If you're so wildly unhappy with Apple that you don't want to run their OS anymore as your primary OS, just virtualize your existing install for those apps you can't easily immediately get away from. Seems pretty easy to me.
You see, that is my point: GNOME went nuts, a large fractionof their userbase said "screw you" and slid in a few new packages and kept right on working. We didn't have to toss our hardware (as in a Linux or Win to Mac migration)
I see what you did there -- you silently switched from "hard to move from OS X to something else" to "hard to move to OS X". Well, nobody here called you any names that I recall for not running a Mac, nor did anyone tell you you should. So that doesn't particularly help your argument at all. It's also not particularly hard, especially as OS X has a BSD user land; many Open Source apps are readily and easily built and run on OS X. There is even a ports-based system for doing so automatically available, same as for *BSD.
...or all of our software (any complete OS migration) to escape the changes in GNOME we didn't like. We kept all of our files exactly as they were, all of our hardware exactly as it was, we even kept all of the exact same applications. It wasn't a problem.
So what you're basically saying is that you stuck with what you had, and didn't upgrade or change anything at all. Seems to me all desktop OS users have exactly the same choice. Don't like Mountain Lion? Don't upgrade. Stick with what you have. Keep your files exactly as they are, all your hardware exactly as it was, and keep the same applications. What, you think this is some magical feature that only OSS has?
Yaz
Thats the command that utterly hoses your ubuntu installation, if I remember correctly from my days running 7.10. I still to this day havent figured out why they included it.
It's gets in when the user does something careless.
This myth really has GOT to die.
I direct you to exhibit A:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn2Own
6+ years of Windows and OSX being utterly Pwned through nothing more than a link click. Ill note that OSX was the first one owned for the majority of the time, but really the OS and browser dont matter that much. Chrome's upped ante and subsequent pwning this year shows that if you give hackers an incentive and enough time, they will 0-day remote-code-execution exploit any machine out there.
The VAST majority of infections out there have NOTHING TO DO with Windows "exe" files, and everything to do with Flash, Acrobat, or Java plugins being exploited to run arbitrary code. Oh, and exploits run against older versions of Windows and IE, for those folks who never got the memo that upgrading is important.
You can go ahead and assume that nothing can get thru your smug barrier, but Im going to go out on a limb here and say you might already be infected.
I suppose the review of the review is supposed to be funny?
From the not-so-funny review of the review:
Ars Technica split the 10.8 review into 24 pages. This is a double-edged sword: it’s tedious to click through to each new page as you read ... For the indecisive, Ars Premier subscribers can toggle a single-page option
And as anyone who uses a Mac knows, you don't have to be an Ars Premier subscriber to use the Reader feature of Safari to view the 24 pages as one long page (who would want to scroll for 24 pages of content btw?) But hey, we wouldn't expect somebody with an obvious grudge against OS X to actually know the features in OS X now would we?
Our 4-digit guru has spoken.
We bow in awe and praise!
Flat at FOUR MILLION Macs per quarter. Yeah, let's pack it in boys...we are ONLY SELLING FOUR MILLION computers at an average price of $1600 every three months. This is completely unsustainable!
If Apple were still just a PC company they would be either dead or terribly obscure by this point.
Or they would be the #3 largest computer manufacturer in the United States. Gee I wonder how "terribly obscure" that makes Lenovo (#4) or Acer (#5)
http://www.myfoxal.com/story/19103453/top-5-manufacturers-of-personal-computers-in-2q
Of course you could argue their PC success benefits from their iPhone/iPad successes, but that's kind of the whole vision of the company and not really an argument against.
And yet, you need to be wearing a set of stripes (TNG/DS9: command red, engineering yellow, or medical / science blue) to effectively use it. And to get the command stripes meant knowing how to do a yellow or blue job. Even in TOS, the science officer, Spock, was #2, and Kirk knowing how to do Spock's job was a precondition to him being the captain.
Now look at the people who want that kind of interface: do they strike you as being technologically capable? Could they wear the yellow or blue? The answer is no.
They're kind of like the various primitive types that inevitably show up on the ship / station. They poke around, are amazed at the interface, then either destroy it or give up. Using LCARS effectively meant either being technologically inclined from a young age (Ensign O'Brien, Major Kira Nerys), or attending an academy / university (everyone else). Or being a demigod, in the case of Q.
What more, these people have to actually read and understand the manual. For people who have trouble understanding the inner-workings of a toaster, that's not going to happen.
I am John Hurt.
The thing about the Enterprise is that not a lot changes very often with regards to the various functions. Unless they are being refitted for a major upgrade, diagrams with finite states could work fine. It's only when you're attempting to make the ship do something it's not designed to do that you start to see the crew members facepalm; at which point, they start using other interfaces (either switching around the usual stuff), or in extreme cases, putting something together on the Holodeck, which can synthesize any interface they need.
In that way, the usual control surfaces are kind of...specific to their use. They can be re-purposed, but appear slightly less effective (ask yourself, if they can access Engineering from any control panel in the corridor, why do they always rush down to the actual warp core?). Why such stylish and form-fitted displays?
I am John Hurt.
And if you're running a 12 year old linux distro you're probably familiar with this process. More to the point, if you're running a 12 year old linux distro, you're likely happy wit hthe software that's currently on it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I think you mean "eaten alive by snow leopards, lions and mountain lions"
My apologies: this is going to come out harsher than I intend, but your blanket assertions annoy me more than they should for some reason. Maybe because I've seen them too often before.
Free means never being at the mercy of someone else's business plan.
Unless you're a subsistance level farmer - that you buy nothing, and sell nothing - you will be "at the mercy" of someone else's business plan, someplace. Since you're using a computer with an Internet connection, powered by some power source you probably didn't create, running a browser you probably didn't code, you are now "at the mercy of someone else's business plan" a few times over.
It's actually possible that choosing a Mac (or Windows for that matter) is a rational choice, and one not having to "drink the kool-aid". A multitude of interface choices (or many situations with many choices) are not universally good, nor wanted. Sometimes a good default is better than having to analyze between a hundred choices. When you mention "I could fork ..." you just separated yourself from 99.999% of the people out there, and made this a diatribe about pretty much just yourself. Even those with the skill to fork a UI would have a hard time by themselves keeping their code workable and compatible against a changing world.
There is no such thing as infinite freedom - there are always opportunity costs. If you choose a road other than MacOS, Windows, Gnome, fine. But don't mistake your inability to think as others think as some kind of superpower where you know better than others what's good for them. Their choices and how they weigh costs are different than what you do, but that doesn't necessarily make them less valid.
Marco Arment has an "obvious grudge" against OS X? That is the exact opposite of the truth. He has long been an unabashed Apple booster, although he has never been afraid to call them out when they do things he doesn't agree with, and it strains credulity to hear him labeled as having a grudge of any kind against them.
And his review of Siracusa's review was funny; brilliantly so in fact. To suggest that Arment doesn't know about Reader is utterly ridiculous: as the creator of the extremely popular Instapaper, he was concerned about its future when Apple first announced Reader in Safari, which replicates Instapaper's functionality, but has subsequently stated that he has seen no obvious diminution in sales. Arment probably knows a hell of a lot more about Reader than the vast majority of Mac users, seeing as how it's a direct competitor to Instapaper.
I guess you just don't recognize satire when you see it. Siracusa's superbly detailed reviews of the various versions of OS X are considered the definitive word on the subject by Apple watchers and enthusiasts, Arment included,
It's not the interface features that are the strongest iOSificators, it's the tightening the leash that the app store put on developers.
You're a lot ignorant on what analogies are (they don't compare absolute magnitude) or why they are used (to highlight a point, not describe its importance).
Not sure if this is because of the Airplay Mirroring feature, but the Costa Rica stores are completely sold out of Apple TVs (even with the US $167 price). I heard others at the store asking about the Apple TV - something not that popular where downloading is more of the norm than renting/buying.
I went there to get one when I saw the new feature and even though I promised not to be a day1 sucker again I also got the update. Pretty much just to have the feature.
I had no desire to import my videos into iTunes then play them, mostly because most of my files are .mkv - something the device cannot import/play AFAIK.
Either way ... the feature is great and so are all the other additions. Will wait a week to put it on my office machine - coding has to go on, and if my tools are screwed in any way .. well .. went through this with Lion once :) .....
Turing's syndrome:
The case whereby a human is repeatedly mistaken for a machine during the Turing Test.
It's not a troll. It's his opinion, and it's largely correct.
And if Gatekeeper is on it is still possible to start an unsigned app by right-clicking it and selecting "Open" from the context-menu. Doing this once will mark it as "safe".
If running the absolute latest version of the operating system that the operating system's publisher provides for your hardware revision is careless, what should someone with a slightly older computer do? Mountain Lion already doesn't work on Macs made before sometime in 2009.
Botnet malware doesn't just pop in out of nowhere. It's gets in when the user does something careless.
Yes, "something careless" like receiving TCP/IP packets from the Internet.
A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the Windows TCP/IP stack due to the processing of a continuous flow of specially crafted UDP packets. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.
That was in November last year. Hope you patched since then!
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
A 12 year old Linux system is still just as usable, but you would be a fool to think any 12 year old system with no updates is in any way secure.
Users of a 12-year-old GNU/Linux system can take advantage of a free (as in beer) upgrade to a more recent distribution. Microsoft charges for upgrades, and Apple charges for the hardware required to run upgrades.
" I find myself doing more and more at the command line"
I know what you mean, but unfortunately for me, most of what I use a computer for is editing and adjusting photographs, which is a real bitch to do from the command line.
And that can not work good with office type apps or even games that say have a map editor.
Apple switched from 680x0 to PowerPC in 1994, switched to a completely new operating system in 2002 (when OS X was first preinstalled), and switched processor architectures again in 2006. Apple included compatibility technologies to alleviate the transitions (Classic, Rosetta), but those were all eventually dropped after Apple considered the transition complete, usually a few years.
Microsoft switched from Windows 9x to NT, the final drop of 9x being in 2001. Since then, NT all the way, and you can still run most 9x software, and even DOS software, natively.
Good, let "everyone" write the programs that "everyone" seems to love.
to bad the hardware choice is limited and desktop NON AIO is a laptop hardware with out the screen in small case with limited CPU / GPU choice or a over priced and out of date hardware with 2010 prices with just about the same hardware in 2012 with only a ram and cpu boost. So you pay 2010 prices for the same 2010 video card.
laptops no user changeable battery what a joke and having a cool screen tech is nice but only a SSD in that system some uses may need a bigger disk with out having to deal with external ones also NO Ethernet net with out a $30 dongle. Now you say use the cloud well wifi is not all over the place and if you are in a fixed place ethernet is faster but still ISP speed is not that fast and uploads are slower then downloads on most cable and dsl systems.
3g/4g has caps / throttling and high roaming costs.
if they can access Engineering from any control panel in the corridor, why do they always rush down to the actual warp core?
So they can have a turbolift conversation on the way.
Otherwise the whole show would be one long IM chat log - including the aliens.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Not for much longer. Microsoft has already removed support for XP from the current version of Visual Studio, just like how they removed W2K support from VS2008.
If by "current version" you mean the most recent released one, that's VS 2010, which runs on XP and lets you target it as well. If you mean the upcoming VS 2012, then by itself it won't even run on Vista, much less XP - Win7 is required. On the other hand, while it can't target XP out of the box for C++, the outcry about that was strong enough that support was re-added, though it will now have to come as a separate download because the decision was reversed so late in the release cycle.
Sure, you can still compile for W2K with VS2005, but for those who want to be completely legal about it, just try buying VS2005 licenses now.
Boxed versions of VS 2005 are still available. More importantly, MSDN subscription includes legal downloads for all Visual Studio versions all the way back to 6.0.
Do iOS 6 and Mountain Lion converge a bit? Yes. Is there "madness" to it? Not even a taste.
You mean except for the idiotic attempts to replace a proper file system with "cloud" that doesn't even support nested folders and is segregated per app?
My personal issue with Lion and Mountain Lion: no features worth upgrading for... I count 2, btw, full screen apps and 64-bit iTunes. You can have my Snow Leopard when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
hilarious
The Marco.org Review of John Siracusa’s Review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
http://www.marco.org/2012/07/25/siracusa-mountain-lion-review-review
"Battery Life
At medium brightness, my iPad (3rd-generation) battery fell from 73% to 56% while I read the review on it.
Additionally, my Retina 15” MacBook Pro was sitting open on my lap so I could take notes for this review-review. While reading on the iPad, the MacBook Pro’s battery fell from 99% to 86%.
These numbers are strong, especially on the Mac side. Power management has come a long way since Siracusa’s Mac OS X 10.0 review, and I’m cautiously optimistic for the battery-life improvements while reading Siracusa’s future review of 10.9."
Valve's Gabe Newell calls Win8 a 'catastrophe,' wants Linux to thrive
The Valve founder started his response by saying Valve owes its success to the inherent openness of the PC as a platform, but going forward, the company will need to take an active part in "[making] sure there are open platforms."
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/23315
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
1) Unit sales are not the significant measure. Plainly, if unit sales are 1:10, gross receipts are a much a much higher ratio than 1:10, and the ratio of profit attributable to Macs, to profit attributable to iPhones and iPads, is probably even greater than that.
2) You don't throw away 1/10 of your business just because you have the other 9/10. That would be stupid.
3) If Apple were just a PC company, then they would be the same company they were for about their first two decades - FAR from dead or obscure. Porsche is not dead or obscure just because VW sells far more units.
I'm still holding on to a few a.out (i.e. pre-ELF) binaries in the hope I might somehow run them some day, despite no support in Ubuntu...
Thus putting yourself at the mercy of someone else.
Do you make your own car, piece by piece with machines that you've created by grinding the iron and other metals from the stones in your backyard?
Do you live on a farm where you rely upon no one else, and you make all of your own food?
Do you make your own clothe with fabric you've created yourself?
Let's get realistic, it's how the world works. Exchanging money, goods, or services for goods, or services.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Until you can save a file to the filesystem, load it into a VM running on the same tablet, load the file and do something to it... it's not a PC.
It's a great product, but it's not a replacement for the desktop.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
That's done with applications, not the desktop.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Windows 8 on ARM already does no longer have the old UI.
It certainly does. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/02/09/building-windows-for-the-arm-processor-architecture.aspx
"The availability of the Windows desktop is an important part of WOA. The desktop offers you a familiar place to interact with PCs, particularly files, storage, and networking, as well as a range of peripherals. You can use Windows Explorer, for example, to connect to external storage devices, transfer and manage files from a network share, or use multiple displays, and do all of this with or without an attached keyboard and mouse—your choice. This is all familiar, fast, efficient, and useful. You’ll have access to a deep array of control panel settings to customize and access a finer-grained level of control over your system, should you want to. And if you’ve used the Developer Preview with a touch-capable PC, you know that the desktop user-interface has been refined for touch interaction with improved user-interface affordances."
And by the way, the "old UI" in Windows 8 is crippled enough
How so exactly? If you boot to desktop and install an application launcher of your liking, the only metro aspects you'd ever realistically interact with are the metro search and the charms to access settings and wireless. Other than that, the Windows 7 interface is in tact.
No, he said that he upgraded everything except gnome2, which was the point.
In a OSX world. Or you like it, or you'r fucked.
I like that from linux, it's my main desktop. I'd not suggest anyone to convert to Linux. I don't want that kind of responsability.
Still I hate mac users (the ones I met in this part of the world), so I might assume something behind that correlation.
well, you need to update deps too, effectively your linux distro wouldn't soon be from 12 years ago but from yesterday.
and being able to build from the source you could claim the same thing about dos from 1993.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Good to know, thanks.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
And yet, the App Store is still optional...
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Link the deps statically, so you're not replacing versions required by your other software; otherwise, you probably have to upgrade some of that, as well. At least, that's how it works on Windows and OSX, with the exception of a few core libraries, which have their version numbers in their names and, thus, can have multiple versions installed alongside each other. Even in the case of those core libs, they're included in the installer, in case they're not already installed.
Source: Real life experience, enough to know that no, you can't build and run Office 2003 (most recent version available in 2005, 12 years after your 1993 DOS reference) on DOS.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
"We all pay lip service to the idea" - or vagina.
To keep up with captioning for a live show, a typist has to track the pace of the show over a substantial period of time. The typist who is putting down her own thoughts gets to work at her own pace.
Natural, casual speech is usually around 150 or 160 words per minute. At first glance, this looks well beyond the abilities of a well skilled typist. A _very skilled_ typist might be expected to type around 50 or 60 words per minute on a sustained basis. But, the thing is, for most applications, content creation is not a linear process. Even people who dictate their writing seldom just let go with 3000 or 10000 words flowing out of their mouth. They might say one sentence, then say, `no. that is not right. what I mean is ...' Or they might delete an entire paragraph. Or decide to move a paragraph around. Or just move a singe sentence.
So, in the end, it really depends on the situation. I would go so far to say that, for most people, typing is probably quicker on balance than dictation. But it really depends on a given person's typing skills, how well that person can order his thoughts, and a whole host of other factors. And there are certainly situations (e.g. transcribing a live television event) where typists are at a disadvantage.
I think you missed the point, which is that you need to go with an upgraded version of your OS at some point, and 12 years is far too long without an OS upgrade if you want to be secure. Yes, things may run, but you are counting on the concept of security through obscurity to keep you secure on an old GNU/Linux system, in much the same way Mac users have generally felt they were secure because virtually no malware was being written to target Mac users. If you are talking about hardware being 12 years old, then that is a somewhat different story, but you still need to upgrade the OS regularly for the sake of security.
Major version number vs. minor. The jump from Windows XP to Vista was fairly large in terms of platform changes, so it does make sense that we will be seeing software that requires Vista or newer in the next few years. OS X on the other hand is still OS X, and the core is still primarily the same. You will also have to watch out for things like what rules are enforced and which are not in newer OS versions. The reason why so many things broke under Vista was that rules that were not enforced under Windows XP were suddenly enforced. If your application cut corners, then it may have broken under Vista(and Windows 7).
This is like the idea of jaywalking. Most people KNOW that they are supposed to walk down to a crosswalk to get across a busy street, but police generally don't enforce that rule. If the police suddenly started ticketing people for jaywalking, people would quickly start to follow the rules, but there would always be people who want to disregard those rules(and keep getting in trouble).
You will probably expect a LOT of things to break if Apple ever releases a MacOS 11 when it comes to compatibility, and at that point, I am sure there will be people complaining about THAT. They already complain when the latest versions of MacOS won't work on their older Mac that came with MacOS 10.4.
Use and operating system designed for people to stupid to use a computer.
I find myself rebuilding my stereo system from before computers and listing to music much more often than using the computer.
Perhaps the fad is over for me.
Guess it is time to toss my 8080 8088 286 386 p1 p2 p3 systems I have in the closet. I might just not buy or build another.
gopher protocol was better than what happened face book twitter I just might be out of the computer seen.
Log Off for reals.
That is a basic issue of what version of DirectX you are looking at. I really wish that Microsoft had required a header in games that use DirectX to say which version they were aimed at, since that would allow for a compatibility layer to handle things properly for older versions. There is no reason why we can't run an older game and tell it(via compatibility tab) to use DirectX 5 or something like that.
I think the ideas that you conjure up are pretty artificial or subjective at best. Yes, there are a lot of people who use Aperture, but they submit their images to systems that eventually go to press machines and color control machines that are usually application specific devices, driven by an embedded version of Windows, or driven by Linux. You've just decided to look at one end of a total process and I call BS on that.
Free software doesn't exist in industries that does not involve computers itself.
No that's just a load. That's like saying a hammer doesn't exist in industries that do not lend themselves to needing a hammer, or cameras do not exist in industries that do not involve shooting pictures. Linux is in a lot of places that are not computer specific, try the New York Stock Exchange. However, by your argument one could say, well that statement is true, because the Linux part of NYSE is strictly in the concept of dealing with all the computer transactions and so forth. Which is why I say your argument is a load. You've wording it in such a manner, that the system would have to be by itself in the middle of a forest in order to be shown as incorrect.
Connections between different systems has become just as important as the systems themselves. How many shops would exist if they only stuck to Aperture and had no web stack? When they do go to the web, the likelihood that their provider will be using LAMP, is pretty high. I don't care how awesome Aperture is, if you can't get that awesome picture to another machine, you're hosed.
That's were I think you've missed the point, and trust me, I know plenty of people who think exactly like you. I won't say your wrong but it's just shortsightedness. Sharing information between machines is just as important as the machine that creates the content. The majority of machines that move content on this planet are open source machines. In the context in which we are talking about, I can assure you, that a Linux workstations is about as good as any Windows or Mac workstation. Yeah, there are specific industries that require specific software. Macs dominate my company's legal and PR departments; Linux dominates the financial, AS400, are inventory control departments; Windows pretty much runs the HR and engineer's departments, along with the senior staff. We've got a mix of AS400 servers, Linux servers, and a couple of Windows servers. So each department has exactly the OS that fits their needs the best. General workstations are about a 35%/65% blend of Linux/Windows.
The parent of this whole topic has a point. Linux is just as good as Windows and Mac at general tasks. There is always going to be specific software that is required for a specific need, people are just going to have to get over themselves. One could easily toss that argument back into one's face. Aperture is only on Macs, but MS Access is only for Windows, so Windows rocks because real work is done in RDBMS. Or whatever. Then you get whiny people who chime in, "oh yeah?! Well Macs have File Maker Pro, so ha!" And so on, and so on...
So please, save us all the "well Linux doesn't have any specific software in _______ (insert some really specific industry) and thus is totally crap because they don't produce software for this one industry." No one OS serves every single freaking industry on this planet, just get over it. We're talking in general terms here buddy. Which all three of the major OSes serve quite well in.
If only Snow Leopard had TRIM support, I'd be set for good. Everything else since SL has been either a removal of good features or addition of useless ones.
Dude, there are these things called "girls". They're kinda soft and they smell great. You should check 'em out some time.
Right just like how democracy puts you at the mercy of the majority. Unless of course, you're in that majority and it's the minority (who once was the majority) that went ape shit crazy and changed everything.
I dislike people who translate "Not at the mercy of someone else" to equal "One must support the entire stack all by-themselves." To help you out, the statement is more akin to "Change favors popular demand." "Putting yourself at the mercy of someone else," being, the majority usually have no say in the process that a few engineers somewhere have decided on.
Does anyone really buy the crock that Microsoft touts with the new design of Windows 8 being something that was driven by customer demand? Because if you ask me, it looks like some senior member of staff was having a knee jerk reaction to a board meeting that brought up the question as to when Microsoft was going to actually start competing in the tablet market. Said member of staff ran down to software development and put everyone on notice about needing a new direction. Said direction not really involving any member of this planet outside that development group, most likely time being a contributing factor to the whole "not giving a damn about the public," mentality behind the development of the product. Just like anything a company does, you have to like this (at least publicly), because if you don't like it, then they won't like it, and if they don't like it, then they won't buy it, and if they don't buy it then you don't get a paycheck. Insert PR department and well I don't think I really have to explain the rest of the process. But, yeah, that's the feeling I get when I boot up that consumer preview of this load that Microsoft has "begiven" us all.
That's what that statement is all about, at no point does anyone outside of Microsoft have a say in the process. With open source, there exist the ability for the market of popular opinion to sway the leader. That's what that whole mercy/someone else thing is about. GNOME sucked so bad, that MATE, Cinnamon, and Unity were created. It will take some time for things to shake out, but at least two of these options will win out. I'm guessing Cinnamon and Unity (if I were to guess here, just my opinion.) Winning out is based on how many pissed off people vote with their usage of a particular use of an alternative. XFCE usage has risen pretty high and that has really bolstered the ranks of developers on that project. Just look at the length of time between 4.2 to 4.4 release and 4.8 to 4.10 release. You can see the people fleeing is really starting to pay dividends for XFCE. That's what us crazy FOSS people talk about with "not at the mercy of someone else."
you need to go with an upgraded version of your OS at some point
My point is that unless you go with Linux or FreeBSD, that OS upgrade will likely cost you a few hundred dollars. Compare the free upgrades for Windows XP to the free upgrades for GNU/Linux: If someone builds a PC during the Windows XP era, the major GNU/Linux distributions allow installing whole new major versions at no additional charge, while Microsoft charges for upgrades to Windows past the last service pack and rollup.
This is something DirectX gets for free from COM. When you request a handle to DirectX, it's via a versioned COM interface (basically, an array of function pointers). You don't need an explicit compatibility tab, because each new version of DirectX comes with a new set of COM interfaces, but you always request the one you were compiled with. That doesn't protect you from bugs, from dependence on driver issues (one good one is that some early drivers happened to enumerate texture formats in a particular order and a load of games depend on this, so break with newer drivers), and so on.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Nope. That's just self-serving wishful thinking. It's the kind of thinking that gets you decapitated by your subjects after you tell them to "eat cake".
Apple found success by not directly competing with Microsoft. Some brand partisans just can't get over that. You lost. Your generals gave up. It's time to move on already.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
No. All the evidences points to the successful Apple products being appliances. They are PCs pretending to be appliances but they are still appliances.
You don't fully control them. You are intended not to.
The moment one of us brings this up as a criticism, you will come up with some lame excuses for it that also completely ignore Apple's PC products and all of the marketing associated with them.
A PC is something where you don't need advance permission from the platform vendor to create the next killer app.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
What a ridiculous, inaccurate generalization. You've been around long enough to "know better." Oh wait ... "knowing better" would probably hinge on not having one's mind welded shut years ago, wouldn't it?. oops.
Maybe this will remind you of a long-time theory regarding hardware/software choices. ( "long-time" referring to whenever it was that you decided that the purpose of computers and software was to facilitate endless tinkering with the OS, itself (you know, "forking," etc), rather than accomplishing some set task, or goals)
I couldn't give a rat's ass about Apple, as a company. But I use a Mac. why? Because I need to accomplish certain work, and the software I want to use runs on Apple gear. That ring any bells in your brain? Identify the task, select software , THEN select platform ...?
Don't misunderstandâ"although that's apparently one of your strong suitsâ"I worked for a while as an MRI tech, and definitely know my way around UNIX and SPARCstations, and whatnot, also. And, I went through a phase, during a long break in audio engineering-related work, to run Linux on whatever Mac box I had laying around. I liked messing with the operating system. But my enjoyment of, or interest in, my own pursuits vis a vis computers and their software, did not dictate that I must go all reactionary and make unfounded statements about everybody else.
A lot of idiots buy Macs. But guess what pal? A lot of idiots buy other gear, instead. So what? Ninety-nine, point nine nine nine percent of those users couldn't give a flying fuck what you or I "think" about them and their choices.Get over yourself. Life is short, fuck.
Free software doesn't exist in industries that does not involve computers itself.
Just because an OS is free, doesn't mean you can't run closed-source commercial software on it.
For the record, OS X is usually the first one owned because it's the first contest run. The time-span between the beginning of the respective competitions and the first 'own' is pretty similar across the platforms being 'tested'. (Usually on the order of minutes to execute the attack which was developed over the course of weeks or months leading up to the event.)
You do realize that, by your own metric, even the very first iPhone was a PC. Every file you save is saved in the file system, and various VMs for a variety of hardware platforms exist for iOS.
Windows 8 on ARM already does no longer have the old UI.
It certainly does.
It only supports a couple of built-in MS applications, namely Explorer, Internet Explorer and some Office applications; probably, because Microsoft haven't properly ported all of their functionality into metro yet.
From the same article you linked: "WOA does not support running, emulating, or porting existing x86/64 desktop apps."
There's no Start menu. So no recent items list. The control panel is hidden in a toolbar button that appears only when you open explorer and click "my computer". Start menu items are scattered all over the metro wall (or sometimes they don't appear at all, I haven't figured out). Launching a program, or interacting with any metro app, implies going to a full screen wall that hides the work you're currently doing.
Can I do this in the Consumer Preview without recurring to a hack?
Remember, the point of the discussion isn't that you can no longer install desktop programs in the x86/x86_64 ports of Windows 8. What I'm saying is that Microsoft is phasing out the old UI, in the same way they phased out the DOS/Windows 3.1 interface with Windows 95. Being able to install a third party application that gives me back the old UI is not evidence of the contrary.
That's just self-serving wishful thinking
Which part?
Your position seems to be that Apple would be nothing without phones and tablets. Yet, they are the third largest PC manufacturer (as measured by US sales, computers only--no iPads, no iPhones, no iPads). They are bigger than Lenovo and Acer, yet I don't hear people claiming those companies as "dead" or "terribly obscure". I even gave you an out hinting that iPad/iPhone/iPod sales might give the Mac line a boost, to which you could argue people wouldn't be buying Macs had they not been exposed to Apple's other product lines (the oft-cited "Halo Effect").
Perhaps I misunderstood, but to discredit Apple's computer line just because their iOS department is X% of their bottom line is dumb. A percent is a percent, not a total. If Apple sold 1billion iPads a day, but only sold 100 million Macs a quarter, than woe is the Mac? That's dumb because, like I've said, they sold 4 million Macs last quarter and are the #3 PC vendor...this is hardly the same thing as obsolete/dead.
Feel free to clarify. Your follow up response is pretty cryptic.
Actually ModelSim (now Questa) does run under Linux, very well, and I use it every day.
I wish slashdot had a button for sharing comments, I'd tweet yours :)
Doubtlessly this new Mac OS X 10.8 (aka. Mountain Lion) looks too cool, and I personally like the new features this OS offers. But I was reading an article yesterday, and it was about some Malware and trojan threats to this new OS. The reaction of the readers was much alike as mine. They were so anxious to get this OS since its just $20 (not sure, quoting from some blog post), but at the same time they were a little hesitant because of this virus threats. This made wonder why Mac user don't think about installing a virtual desktop. Because Virus outbreaks are no longer a headache in hosted virtual desktops since you operate in a virtual environment which is 10 times more secured and there are no threats of any malware or virus attacks, Here is a useful resource for my fellow Mac lovers, explaining what else a virtual desktop can do for Mac OS: http://www.dincloud.com/run-virtual-desktop-on-apple-mac-os-x Hope you will find it interesting and useful.
I totally agree with you broader point but just wanted to note OS X was always the first one to be Pwned because of the schedule and the fact that it had the best prize (based on resale value). All of the hacks used in Pwn2Own are created weeks or months before the actual event. You can't tell the security of either OS from the order that they were pwned.
Mac Mini – early 2009 and newer
I was referring to the Mac mini, which is what I typically include in my calculation of the cost to get started in iOS application development. If not the Mac mini, which Mac model should people be buying if they want to be assured of continuing to be able to run versions of Xcode that target new versions of iOS?
Long Live System 7!
*ducks*
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Doubtlessly this new Mac OS X 10.8 (aka. Mountain Lion) looks too cool, and I personally like the new features this OS offers. But I was reading an article yesterday, and it was about some Malware and trojan threats to this new OS. The reaction of the readers was much alike as mine. They were so anxious to get this OS since its just $20 (not sure, quoting from some blog post), but at the same time they were a little hesitant because of this virus threats. This made wonder why Mac user don't think about installing a virtual desktop. Because Virus outbreaks are no longer a headache in hosted virtual desktops since you operate in a virtual environment which is 10 times more secured and there are no threats of any malware or virus attacks, Here is a useful resource for my fellow Mac lovers, explaining what else a virtual desktop can do for Mac OS: http://www.dincloud.com/run-virtual-desktop-on-apple-mac-os-x Hope you will find it interesting and useful.
Any rational person would start with either the most appropriate platform for the particular project type
Unless the gatekeeper for a particular platform requires the person to have already completed and shipped completely unrelated projects for an unrelated platform. This isn't the case for iOS and Mac App Store, but I can clarify what I mean by this if you want.
Yes, you'll have to clarify.
In some cases, "the most appropriate platform for the particular project type" is a video game console. Such projects may include video games in genres that are not popular on PC/Mac or on mobile. For example, a game may be best played with a gamepad, not a mouse and keyboard or a completely flat touch screen where the player can't feel where the on-screen buttons are. Or a game may be best played with two to four people in the same living room looking at one screen, not people hundreds of miles/km apart looking at different screens. These are things that a PC/Mac can handle, now that USB in and VGA or HDMI out are standard features on PC/Mac and now that a Mac mini looks at least as good next to a TV as a Wii does, but in which most PC/Mac users appear uninterested.
The video game console makers require a developer to have what Nintendo calls "relevant video game industry experience" before becoming licensed. I take this to mean experience developing a commercial game for PC, mobile, or another console maker's console. At that point, the only way to gain experience developing for another console maker's console is to work for an established business licensed to develop for that console, and the only way to get into such a company is to have a "portfolio", that is, to have already shipped several commercial or freeware games for PC or mobile. Therefore, in order to develop a game for a console, one must first develop an unrelated game in a different genre.
When I have been unsure of things, I have tried to include "Or what am I missing?" in my posts. If that is not clear enough, what should I be saying instead?
Tablets and phones outnumber Apple's computer sales by something like 10:1.
If Apple is making "billions of dollars of profit" every quarter, then it is not because of the PC business. If Apple were still just a PC company they would be either dead or terribly obscure by this point.
You basically said the same thing about the iPod in 1996, and how Apple would abandon the Mac in favor of the iPod because that made them so much more money. Today Apple makes much more money on Macs than they did overall in 1996.
Let's face it, your reasoning can't be trusted. Which is a nice way of saying: you're a moron.
I wish slashdot had a button for sharing comments, I'd tweet yours :)
Errm, click on "Share" below the comment?
Er, I use ModelSim on a Linux cluster almost every day. You mean the VHDL/Verilog simulator, right?
To be fair, he's on dial-up and hasn't gotten the news yet...
Drive-by downloads are just one of the reasons that won't work long-term. All kinds of nasties (even malware-infected ads) exist nowadays. XP is low-hanging fruit compared to other OS's security-wise and it will only become easier after the patches' discontinuation. It is irresponsible to advocating something resembling "being really careful" as a solution.
Once updates are gone, disconnecting that XP machine from any network is probably the best solution. It could still serve a purpose for other tasks, offline games etc.
Right back at ya! Had a SO for some time now.
I am John Hurt.