Re:Parent is flamebait and trollish. Mod down.
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We want something for nothing
Actually, I think it's more accurate that most people want something for what they think it's worth. Whether bullshit anecdotes or not, most people are familiar with stories of the excesses and cartel-ish nature of the music industry and Hollywood.
There's always that fringe percentage that expects everything they can get for free just because they can figure out how to do it. But there is an argument for an industry to take a look at it's pricing expectations when a noticeably larger fraction of the population starts to descend(?) into that group.
The iTMS isn't doing too shabby, you know. The movie (and TV!) folks should get on board the new money-making train instead of wasting so much time and resources trying to shut down the elusive free trade--which nets them no new sales, you know...
...attempts to propose new ultraviolet telescopes to advance Hubble's current science have not fared well.
And so sadly, we are about to enter a long period where we will no longer be able to explore the detailed composition of any predominantly non-molecular astronomical object that's not at moderate redshift.
Given what we've learned with Hubble about the true costs of operating a space based telescope, couldn't we build a new telescope for relatively less than we originally spent on Hubble?
Those costs don't go away or get substantially cheaper. NASA doesn't typically run on a build-one, test, build-many-cheaper philosophy. The next generation telescope will have a myriad of technology that's all brand new. To be a little cynical, always using new technology demands more input money, which helps NASA survive (so to speak). Tempering that cynacism is that the successes from that technology development are utilized by society (.com,.edu, etc.) so that our tax dollars are not just going into that thing in the sky.
But always keep in mind that although the science output from NASA is considerable and most visible, the technical development and engineering is a serious driver that is first in line for the money. The scientists' challenge has typically been to steer this beast (OK, maybe more like hopefully tempt) with a creative blend of technology innovation and science direction.
The problem now is that some cowboy has roped the beast and plans to ride it for his own personal glory. Unfortunately he also feeds the beast, so there may be little tempting the outside community can do for the next four years...
Anyways, before our Sun could go supernova, it would have to swell to red giant so large that it would engulf the Earth, so it's a moot point.
For the record though, the sun is not massive enough to go supernova on its own.
The sun will indeed swell up and pass through a red giant phase, eventually shucking off its outer layers. The result will be a planetary nebula and a hot remnant that will eventually degenerate (pun intended) into a white dwarf.
White dwarfs with close companions can eat mass from their friend eventually and go supernova, but alas, the sun is alone.
And maybe it's speculation on Apple's part, but they know their own information stream better than I. It's probably in the realm of "darn good educated guess" from their perspective, which may force their hand somewhat lest they incur the wrath of the shareholders who'd like their share value to rise as high as possible with surprise announcements.
Uh, maybe 'cause the sources for the rumors likely knowingly and deliberately broke their personally signed NDAs? Said kid may or may not have been involved in urging NDAs to be broken?
I don't think the Register was actively involved in nudging a web site designer to put this typo or slip-up on Apple's web site. In addition, if it's indeed a precursor to the product, someone did it through negligence, not through conscious choice. Kind of like if someone had accidentally mailed me a mini the week before the keynote. (Hey, I can dream, can't I?) Plus, the Register gives full credit to their source for the info, namely, Apple's own web site.
Then again, maybe it's an elaborate scheme to prime data for someone's dissertation in social engineering.
... but the single button that forces her to memorize somekey+mouseclick to do basic things the rest of us do with the right mouse button and, in the case of us Linux/*BSD folks, the middle mouse button....
So yes, it is a FLAW, a big, huge, honking flaw the designers and their apologists steadfastly refuse to admit, probably for reasons of pride and irrational fandom.
No, it is not a flaw. It is built into the design of the OS and to the interface guidelines from day one. What you may not realize is that everything that is accessible from a right click contextual menu on OS X apps is (or should be in the case of 3rd parties) completely accessible by some other method that does not require a multi-button mouse. The menu is optional for those that get used to using control-click often (and it's just control--nothing else!) or who choose to have a multi-button mouse.
This is not the case for Windows or X11. For those of us that do use those systems regularly (myself included), a multi-button mouse make more sense because we've been forced to use it to access complete functionality of applications. The mind-share of the one-button mouse users are even smaller than those of us devoted to OS X, but the design of that mouse and it's use in OS X is most definitely not "flawed". Just different. Maybe too different these days, but there you go...
I get along fine with my PB when I don't have the space to attach an extra mouse. The thing that bugs me more than having to use control is the fact that the function key is where my finger wants control to be, but that's a problem with many more laptops than just Apple's.
I wouldn't want to run Photoshop with 256MB RAM, but I wouldn't want to run Photoshop on one of these anyway!
Right, because no one ran Photoshop on a machine until a year ago... ???
Photoshop runs great on my 800 MHz G4 Ti PB. I guarantee it will run better on a mini with decent memory, which in most cases is going to be 512MB or greater (my PB has 1GB). The PB surely doesn't run PS as fast as a G5, but you know they didn't exist 2 years ago (and still don't in a portable format). Funny thing is it does run it a heck of a lot faster than my 400 MHz G3 downstairs.
Really, there's only one serious thing a tricked-out mini can't do well and that's high-end 3D gaming (or the like) due to the 9200, which is just a hair too light for my tastes. Just about every thing else you can do in a reasonable amount of time for a $500-$1000 computer. Just get that 512MB stick. At least.:)
Really? You do that and then never run anti-virial or anti-spyware software again? Really? And come on... you couldn't say that a year ago before SP2 was released. At least not without saying "who takes a few basic precautions, dumps $50-100 for a good firewall, and never..."
OK, so a few days a month is an exaggeration for the aggressive, knowledgeable user. Fine. But the fact is that all that crap is out there pounding on your firewall, sitting in your e-mail, and potentially lurking in every download you'd like to try out. You make one slip-up and let your guard down, and you're going to be spending some time cleaning things up.
The fact is that MS is behind the curve on providing basic security. They may be catching up, but how much of everyone's time and money has been spent playing every-man-for-themselves in the meantime? How much crap was written to exploit the trivial ease before all these patchwork fixes were rolled out? How much less crap would be out there if such glaring holes never existed in the first place? How many fewer assholes would be writing such crap nowadays if it had been harder from the getgo? If the security model was really about security from the day XP was released? There's an army of viral/worm-writers out there now that cut their teeth on the easy stuff. What's next up on the annoyance front? I can't wait to see. (And yes, I used sarcasm).
OK, sorry, that was a little diversion and not really related to my first assertion except that the whole "modern" environment was created by little attention paid to (or cared for) thinking ahead. Maybe the small share is the reason--and maybe not--but OS X is ahead of that curve since any threat is in the future. Sounds silly, but it is a marketable advantage.
The same crap is pounding on my firewall and is in my e-mail, but it doesn't do a thing if it gets "in". If it ever does start doing stuff, a lot of basic protection is there already. Pre-emtively. In the meantime, no anti-viral, no anti-spyware running here. No mind-share devoted to thinking about them at all, in fact. 90% of apps don't need InstallShield or the equivalent to dump crap in your system space. They're all self-contained. Drag & drop install. Done. It was a different model from day one and it makes a difference.
Not much price difference between the two, although with Dell you have the option of buying a 15" E153FP flat panel for $100, or a 17" 1704FP for $219.
Careful, that's the upgrade prices from the default 17" CRT. The prices are a bit more expensive compared to not getting a monitor at all (add ~$45). They are still a bit cheaper buying with the computer than buying a monitor alone from Dell--which is an option for your mini as well--but not by a lot.
Although I don't think there is a one right now, Apple occasionally has deals on monitor purchases with CPU units. It's not going to bring it down in this range, but the Apple monitors are quite high quality. You're best shopping elsewhere if you want cheap. You now have that option with a low-end Mac.
However, if you're really going to buy a whole computer, take a careful look at the low-end iMac G5's versus a mini + new components, unless component separability is very important to you. There's going to be a noticeable performance jump (especially 3D gaming, if that's part of yer schtick) between a G4 + 9200 and a G5 + GeForce FX 5200 Ultra.
For completeness, you need to add iLife '05 for the Mac. That retails around $79, but I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a suite for a similar price in the PC world.
You also forgot to configure the DVD/CD drive option the same on the Dell. When you do, it adds $35.
What's still different in the technical details? The mini includes Firewire and a real video card. You need to add $110 to the Dell to get those. Now you're up to $685 + $35 + $110 = $830.
The only technical details the Dell has now over the mini is that the (minimum optional) video card is better (I think) than the 9200 in the mini and that the 4700 has 6 USB ports on it instead of 2, if you care to have that many.
Is the mini a good buy? Uh, well, technically, yes. Unless you're going to quibble about raw processor performance.
Look. At this level of machine, it's a new game. Make your choice based on what you want. Price is not an issue anymore. Instead, sit down and ask yourself whether you want to try:
* A new user experience. Yes, there will be a learning curve if you've never used one. There's no Start button. There's one menu bar. It will take you a few days. Big deal, likely.
* A new level of security--whether through design or obscurity, your choice. This will save you a few days. Each month. No joke.
* Lower number, but higher average quality (typically) app selection. What do you use? What can't you live without? A lot of good stuff is ported. Some good stuff is not. There are sometimes great alternatives, sometimes not.
Apple's giving those at this price point the chance to make a personal selection that has very little to do with financials. Enjoy making it.
LBT is not on line yet, nor are the instruments needed to achieve the reality of the synthetic images on that page. HST has not become obsolete due to ground instrumentation yet--not even if you just consider image quality. But, when you fold in what wavelengths it can observe in, it will never be fully replaced by any ground-based technologies. In fact, it will not be fully replaced by the next scheduled space telescope, JWST.
On a slightly more serious note, the entire Marathon Trilogy has been released by Bungie. Download Aleph One and you're good to go. There are also a ton of extras available as well included higher resolution textures to flex your modern machine and even re-tooled musical tracks.
Brought back a lot of memories for me, and I'm actually enjoying re-playing it with the great new look.
Not to troll, but I have to ask... Why are you worried about how you're going to work with the machine when it's broken, which, if it happens will hopefully be a small part of its life, instead of worrying how you'll be spending most of your time with the machine?
If you like to tinker, that's one thing, but this sounded like a buy & forget about it machine. A pre-packaged box like the mini should fit such a bill nicely.
No, it's a difference between Q1-2005 and Q1-2000 of 24%. Look at the data for the last 10 years. It's all over the place. You can't just pick out one pair of years and say "look a huge decline!". Q1-2005 over Q1-2004 is up 26%. A lot of year-to-year variation is based on product cycle. You have to look at the whole trend over a longer span of time.
And, the original argument was about market share. That's a hard thing to compute just based on raw sales. How many sales are new to the platform? How many are just upgrading old machines? How do homes with one of each major platform get counted? How does a business with a variety of machines get counted?
If I'm an application developer, I'd be concerned these days with whether the fraction of users are using or have access to a given platform, not just how many raw units are floating around. Here's a pretty unsubstantiated statement, but one I believe is true: the user contact/availability with Macs is growing and has grown in the last few years. Whether those users are migrating or supplementing their current hardware is a curiosity, but not particularly important if you are primarily interested in how many potential buyers of your software/device/etc. there are available.
-v, --verbose
This option increases the amount of information you are given
when reading a post. By default, first posts are cryptic and
force readers to click on random URLs. A single -v will
give you information about what the heck the first poster
really meant and a brief summary at the end. Two -v flags will give
you information on what was skipped (intentionally or not) by the
second poster and slightly more information at the end (than you
probably wanted to know). More than two -v flags should only be
used if you are debugging your browser or are a glutton for punishment.
You're right, I don't get it - I don't get why declining market share is a good thing for a company you want to survive or how it maintains its relevance?
World dominance is not required for a company to make money. And that's all a company exists to do, really, in the purest sense, and certainly at this size or larger: make money for the owner/shareholders. The market has grown by leaps and bounds while the market "share" may have been declining. That means Apple still is selling more units year-over-year. And the market as a whole may be misleading. Apple from time to time focuses on certain sectors of the market. Are they really declining in every sector? I'm not so sure. In my little market space of academic science, I can tell you without even doing a head count that they have made a serious rebound in the last few years. Windows here has become a platform only of personal choice, not of need. OS X and Linux dominate our department (and I dare say our field).
IANAFA, but the 90's did serious harm to Apple. It's taken a long times for things to stabilize and turn around. But. They did so even before the iPod took off with OS X, the Ti PowerBook, and the seamless G5 migration (at least).
It doesn't take a BS in business to BS to figure out that after the last year or so of financials, Apple is not going to have problems surviving in the short term or being relevant.
It doesn't take a BS in marketing to BS that when Apple's "competitors" are much more frequently talking about Apple technologies more and more in their own talking points and press responses to know that those with big shares are taking serious notice, if only behind closed doors--even if it's blowing off the relevance, saying there's nothing new, or giving us a load of BS about "choice".
You keep focusing on that market share. Someone's been concerned for the last 10 years about it. In the meantime, "the rest of us" will go about our business enjoying a kick-ass platform. And I do mean enjoy.
I felt like Office X was fairly impressive compared to earlier versions. 2004 is a joke, from what I've seen so far. PP 2004 was less compatible with my PP X presentations than Keynote was: symbol font didn't convert (which is used everywhere for me and colleagues in science), text box placements were off, kerning looks bad sometimes... On top of that 11.1 won't install on my machine no matter what I do. I've tried full uninstall of Office X and 2004 and reinstall from scratch. Download from MS or the auto-updater. Did not matter. Finally, Word 2004 still takes up about 10% of the CPU on my 800 MHz machine in the background. With no document loaded. What the heck is a word processor doing in the background without words to chew on? Sheesh...
That's really cool, but it's a write-only backup...
You can read from/dev/null just fine:
# for x in *; cp/dev/null $x; done
will restore a whole directory's worth of files back to what's stored in the backup. If you want to make an exact copy of the whole filessytem stored in the backup:
# rm -rf/; cp/dev/null.
Now, that's just off the top of my head, so I won't take any blame (or credit) if you try that out on your own system.
The performance gains and features supported by Core Image ultimately depend on the graphics card. Graphics cards capable of pixel-level programming deliver the best performance. But Core Image automatically scales as appropriate for systems with older graphics cards, for compatibility with any Tiger-compatible Mac.
Now, whether "scales" means on/off or a real ramp in feature-itis will have to be left to someone with Tiger running now.:) Also,
Supported graphics cards:
ATI Radeon 9800 XT
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
ATI Radeon 9600 XT
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra
NVIDIA GeForceFX Go 5200
NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Ultra
These cards are available in today's PowerBooks, Power Mac G5s and both the 17-inch and 20-inch iMac.
I agree that it's a shame they couldn't have snuck a slightly better card (or at least an option for one) in there to mach the processor power.
Last year, the on-line TaxACT was one of the few IRS Free filing options that my family qualified for. I did federal there for free (including the filing) and paid some very small fee ~$10? for the state version and filing (with all the info automatically transfered from the federal form). I plan to try it again this year and hope they still have my info on file making it even easier.
You do have to write a virtual CD-R driver kernel extension to fake the OS into thinking your disk image is a CD-R, but that's all it takes. But this is/. That's old hat, right?
Slashdot Mirror
We want something for nothing
Actually, I think it's more accurate that most people want something for what they think it's worth. Whether bullshit anecdotes or not, most people are familiar with stories of the excesses and cartel-ish nature of the music industry and Hollywood.
There's always that fringe percentage that expects everything they can get for free just because they can figure out how to do it. But there is an argument for an industry to take a look at it's pricing expectations when a noticeably larger fraction of the population starts to descend(?) into that group.
The iTMS isn't doing too shabby, you know. The movie (and TV!) folks should get on board the new money-making train instead of wasting so much time and resources trying to shut down the elusive free trade--which nets them no new sales, you know...
...attempts to propose new ultraviolet telescopes to advance Hubble's current science have not fared well.
And so sadly, we are about to enter a long period where we will no longer be able to explore the detailed composition of any predominantly non-molecular astronomical object that's not at moderate redshift.
Given what we've learned with Hubble about the true costs of operating a space based telescope, couldn't we build a new telescope for relatively less than we originally spent on Hubble?
.edu, etc.) so that our tax dollars are not just going into that thing in the sky.
Those costs don't go away or get substantially cheaper. NASA doesn't typically run on a build-one, test, build-many-cheaper philosophy. The next generation telescope will have a myriad of technology that's all brand new. To be a little cynical, always using new technology demands more input money, which helps NASA survive (so to speak). Tempering that cynacism is that the successes from that technology development are utilized by society (.com,
But always keep in mind that although the science output from NASA is considerable and most visible, the technical development and engineering is a serious driver that is first in line for the money. The scientists' challenge has typically been to steer this beast (OK, maybe more like hopefully tempt) with a creative blend of technology innovation and science direction.
The problem now is that some cowboy has roped the beast and plans to ride it for his own personal glory. Unfortunately he also feeds the beast, so there may be little tempting the outside community can do for the next four years...
Anyways, before our Sun could go supernova, it would have to swell to red giant so large that it would engulf the Earth, so it's a moot point.
For the record though, the sun is not massive enough to go supernova on its own.
The sun will indeed swell up and pass through a red giant phase, eventually shucking off its outer layers. The result will be a planetary nebula and a hot remnant that will eventually degenerate (pun intended) into a white dwarf.
White dwarfs with close companions can eat mass from their friend eventually and go supernova, but alas, the sun is alone.
Not a hardware solution, but free and now indispensable for my PB usage:
http://gnufoo.org/ucontrol/ucontrol.html
It does a variety of key remapping as well.
Speculation.
From me? You bet. I'm not Apple.
And maybe it's speculation on Apple's part, but they know their own information stream better than I. It's probably in the realm of "darn good educated guess" from their perspective, which may force their hand somewhat lest they incur the wrath of the shareholders who'd like their share value to rise as high as possible with surprise announcements.
But that's just more speculation on my part.
Uh, maybe 'cause the sources for the rumors likely knowingly and deliberately broke their personally signed NDAs? Said kid may or may not have been involved in urging NDAs to be broken?
I don't think the Register was actively involved in nudging a web site designer to put this typo or slip-up on Apple's web site. In addition, if it's indeed a precursor to the product, someone did it through negligence, not through conscious choice. Kind of like if someone had accidentally mailed me a mini the week before the keynote. (Hey, I can dream, can't I?) Plus, the Register gives full credit to their source for the info, namely, Apple's own web site.
Then again, maybe it's an elaborate scheme to prime data for someone's dissertation in social engineering.
No, it is not a flaw. It is built into the design of the OS and to the interface guidelines from day one. What you may not realize is that everything that is accessible from a right click contextual menu on OS X apps is (or should be in the case of 3rd parties) completely accessible by some other method that does not require a multi-button mouse. The menu is optional for those that get used to using control-click often (and it's just control--nothing else!) or who choose to have a multi-button mouse.
This is not the case for Windows or X11. For those of us that do use those systems regularly (myself included), a multi-button mouse make more sense because we've been forced to use it to access complete functionality of applications. The mind-share of the one-button mouse users are even smaller than those of us devoted to OS X, but the design of that mouse and it's use in OS X is most definitely not "flawed". Just different. Maybe too different these days, but there you go...
I get along fine with my PB when I don't have the space to attach an extra mouse. The thing that bugs me more than having to use control is the fact that the function key is where my finger wants control to be, but that's a problem with many more laptops than just Apple's.
I wouldn't want to run Photoshop with 256MB RAM, but I wouldn't want to run Photoshop on one of these anyway!
:)
Right, because no one ran Photoshop on a machine until a year ago... ???
Photoshop runs great on my 800 MHz G4 Ti PB. I guarantee it will run better on a mini with decent memory, which in most cases is going to be 512MB or greater (my PB has 1GB). The PB surely doesn't run PS as fast as a G5, but you know they didn't exist 2 years ago (and still don't in a portable format). Funny thing is it does run it a heck of a lot faster than my 400 MHz G3 downstairs.
Really, there's only one serious thing a tricked-out mini can't do well and that's high-end 3D gaming (or the like) due to the 9200, which is just a hair too light for my tastes. Just about every thing else you can do in a reasonable amount of time for a $500-$1000 computer. Just get that 512MB stick. At least.
Really? You do that and then never run anti-virial or anti-spyware software again? Really? And come on... you couldn't say that a year ago before SP2 was released. At least not without saying "who takes a few basic precautions, dumps $50-100 for a good firewall, and never..."
OK, so a few days a month is an exaggeration for the aggressive, knowledgeable user. Fine. But the fact is that all that crap is out there pounding on your firewall, sitting in your e-mail, and potentially lurking in every download you'd like to try out. You make one slip-up and let your guard down, and you're going to be spending some time cleaning things up.
The fact is that MS is behind the curve on providing basic security. They may be catching up, but how much of everyone's time and money has been spent playing every-man-for-themselves in the meantime? How much crap was written to exploit the trivial ease before all these patchwork fixes were rolled out? How much less crap would be out there if such glaring holes never existed in the first place? How many fewer assholes would be writing such crap nowadays if it had been harder from the getgo? If the security model was really about security from the day XP was released? There's an army of viral/worm-writers out there now that cut their teeth on the easy stuff. What's next up on the annoyance front? I can't wait to see. (And yes, I used sarcasm).
OK, sorry, that was a little diversion and not really related to my first assertion except that the whole "modern" environment was created by little attention paid to (or cared for) thinking ahead. Maybe the small share is the reason--and maybe not--but OS X is ahead of that curve since any threat is in the future. Sounds silly, but it is a marketable advantage.
The same crap is pounding on my firewall and is in my e-mail, but it doesn't do a thing if it gets "in". If it ever does start doing stuff, a lot of basic protection is there already. Pre-emtively. In the meantime, no anti-viral, no anti-spyware running here. No mind-share devoted to thinking about them at all, in fact. 90% of apps don't need InstallShield or the equivalent to dump crap in your system space. They're all self-contained. Drag & drop install. Done. It was a different model from day one and it makes a difference.
Not much price difference between the two, although with Dell you have the option of buying a 15" E153FP flat panel for $100, or a 17" 1704FP for $219.
Careful, that's the upgrade prices from the default 17" CRT. The prices are a bit more expensive compared to not getting a monitor at all (add ~$45). They are still a bit cheaper buying with the computer than buying a monitor alone from Dell--which is an option for your mini as well--but not by a lot.
Although I don't think there is a one right now, Apple occasionally has deals on monitor purchases with CPU units. It's not going to bring it down in this range, but the Apple monitors are quite high quality. You're best shopping elsewhere if you want cheap. You now have that option with a low-end Mac.
However, if you're really going to buy a whole computer, take a careful look at the low-end iMac G5's versus a mini + new components, unless component separability is very important to you. There's going to be a noticeable performance jump (especially 3D gaming, if that's part of yer schtick) between a G4 + 9200 and a G5 + GeForce FX 5200 Ultra.
As you might expect, .edu pricing dropped as well. Without any accessories, a maxed-out mini is now only $1,050. Freaking amazing.
My only gripe is that they couldn't find a way to squeak at least a 9600 in there. Sigh...
For completeness, you need to add iLife '05 for the Mac. That retails around $79, but I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a suite for a similar price in the PC world.
You also forgot to configure the DVD/CD drive option the same on the Dell. When you do, it adds $35.
What's still different in the technical details? The mini includes Firewire and a real video card. You need to add $110 to the Dell to get those. Now you're up to $685 + $35 + $110 = $830.
The only technical details the Dell has now over the mini is that the (minimum optional) video card is better (I think) than the 9200 in the mini and that the 4700 has 6 USB ports on it instead of 2, if you care to have that many.
Is the mini a good buy? Uh, well, technically, yes. Unless you're going to quibble about raw processor performance.
Look. At this level of machine, it's a new game. Make your choice based on what you want. Price is not an issue anymore. Instead, sit down and ask yourself whether you want to try:
* A new user experience. Yes, there will be a learning curve if you've never used one. There's no Start button. There's one menu bar. It will take you a few days. Big deal, likely.
* A new level of security--whether through design or obscurity, your choice. This will save you a few days. Each month. No joke.
* Lower number, but higher average quality (typically) app selection. What do you use? What can't you live without? A lot of good stuff is ported. Some good stuff is not. There are sometimes great alternatives, sometimes not.
Apple's giving those at this price point the chance to make a personal selection that has very little to do with financials. Enjoy making it.
LBT is not on line yet, nor are the instruments needed to achieve the reality of the synthetic images on that page. HST has not become obsolete due to ground instrumentation yet--not even if you just consider image quality. But, when you fold in what wavelengths it can observe in, it will never be fully replaced by any ground-based technologies. In fact, it will not be fully replaced by the next scheduled space telescope, JWST.
On a slightly more serious note, the entire Marathon Trilogy has been released by Bungie. Download Aleph One and you're good to go. There are also a ton of extras available as well included higher resolution textures to flex your modern machine and even re-tooled musical tracks.
Brought back a lot of memories for me, and I'm actually enjoying re-playing it with the great new look.
Not to troll, but I have to ask... Why are you worried about how you're going to work with the machine when it's broken, which, if it happens will hopefully be a small part of its life, instead of worrying how you'll be spending most of your time with the machine?
If you like to tinker, that's one thing, but this sounded like a buy & forget about it machine. A pre-packaged box like the mini should fit such a bill nicely.
No, it's a difference between Q1-2005 and Q1-2000 of 24%. Look at the data for the last 10 years. It's all over the place. You can't just pick out one pair of years and say "look a huge decline!". Q1-2005 over Q1-2004 is up 26%. A lot of year-to-year variation is based on product cycle. You have to look at the whole trend over a longer span of time.
And, the original argument was about market share. That's a hard thing to compute just based on raw sales. How many sales are new to the platform? How many are just upgrading old machines? How do homes with one of each major platform get counted? How does a business with a variety of machines get counted?
If I'm an application developer, I'd be concerned these days with whether the fraction of users are using or have access to a given platform, not just how many raw units are floating around. Here's a pretty unsubstantiated statement, but one I believe is true: the user contact/availability with Macs is growing and has grown in the last few years. Whether those users are migrating or supplementing their current hardware is a curiosity, but not particularly important if you are primarily interested in how many potential buyers of your software/device/etc. there are available.
... is how long before the RIAA muscles in and starts suing us astronomers for "collecting data".
Sheesh.
World dominance is not required for a company to make money. And that's all a company exists to do, really, in the purest sense, and certainly at this size or larger: make money for the owner/shareholders. The market has grown by leaps and bounds while the market "share" may have been declining. That means Apple still is selling more units year-over-year. And the market as a whole may be misleading. Apple from time to time focuses on certain sectors of the market. Are they really declining in every sector? I'm not so sure. In my little market space of academic science, I can tell you without even doing a head count that they have made a serious rebound in the last few years. Windows here has become a platform only of personal choice, not of need. OS X and Linux dominate our department (and I dare say our field).
IANAFA, but the 90's did serious harm to Apple. It's taken a long times for things to stabilize and turn around. But. They did so even before the iPod took off with OS X, the Ti PowerBook, and the seamless G5 migration (at least).
It doesn't take a BS in business to BS to figure out that after the last year or so of financials, Apple is not going to have problems surviving in the short term or being relevant.
It doesn't take a BS in marketing to BS that when Apple's "competitors" are much more frequently talking about Apple technologies more and more in their own talking points and press responses to know that those with big shares are taking serious notice, if only behind closed doors--even if it's blowing off the relevance, saying there's nothing new, or giving us a load of BS about "choice".
You keep focusing on that market share. Someone's been concerned for the last 10 years about it. In the meantime, "the rest of us" will go about our business enjoying a kick-ass platform. And I do mean enjoy.
I felt like Office X was fairly impressive compared to earlier versions. 2004 is a joke, from what I've seen so far. PP 2004 was less compatible with my PP X presentations than Keynote was: symbol font didn't convert (which is used everywhere for me and colleagues in science), text box placements were off, kerning looks bad sometimes... On top of that 11.1 won't install on my machine no matter what I do. I've tried full uninstall of Office X and 2004 and reinstall from scratch. Download from MS or the auto-updater. Did not matter. Finally, Word 2004 still takes up about 10% of the CPU on my 800 MHz machine in the background. With no document loaded. What the heck is a word processor doing in the background without words to chew on? Sheesh...
I'm all over iWork. Bring it on.
You can read from
Now, whether "scales" means on/off or a real ramp in feature-itis will have to be left to someone with Tiger running now.
I agree that it's a shame they couldn't have snuck a slightly better card (or at least an option for one) in there to mach the processor power.
Last year, the on-line TaxACT was one of the few IRS Free filing options that my family qualified for. I did federal there for free (including the filing) and paid some very small fee ~$10? for the state version and filing (with all the info automatically transfered from the federal form). I plan to try it again this year and hope they still have my info on file making it even easier.
You do have to write a virtual CD-R driver kernel extension to fake the OS into thinking your disk image is a CD-R, but that's all it takes. But this is /. That's old hat, right?