You are a troll because you like Apple. Of course that makes me a troll too, but I thought I'd help you out in figuring out what goes on around here on/.
Well it's funny because it is based in truth, based on Microsoft's long proven track record of such tactics. That's kinda the staple of all good parodies.
Clippy may be dead and buried, but his spirit lives on in the form of horrible "help" functions, like a poor grammar checker, and a myriad of other "Microsoft Knows Better Than You" features. Microsoft doesn't get it. They'd rather make 2 cents in revenue from an ad click and piss off millions of users instead of letting the users be in charge of their own computers.
Gee, what would you rather face, me (a blatant Apple fanboy) telling you how great Macs are year after year, or a bunch of advertising crap in your software that bogs you down and makes you prone to malware? Personally, I'd rather have the rabid Mac guy letting me know how bad my Microsoft product is, because, a) it's true, and b) I can avoid the fanboy easier than I can avoid being spammed to death by advertising.
Ripping a cd was a challenge for Win98 users, maybe, but not for OS 9 users. I still have my Mac from 1999. It is a 350mhz G4 and has no problem, even today, ripping a cd while surfing the web AND playing songs from the iTunes library while it rips the cd. You want to rip on the quality of Apple's gear at the time? Why is my G4 still a decent machine, while P3s are landfill fodder?
As far as it being technically difficult to rip a cd, I guess inserting the cd and pushing the button in iTunes is difficult? Just because the masses where wallowing in the mediocrity of Win98 boxes that couldn't do much in the multi-media department, doesn't detract from the Macs ability to do cool things like ripping cds to our iTunes libraries with ease.
You are right about it being hard to get a good rip without skips (on the PC side). Yet another reason Napster was such a dog. You could never count on the quality of the file you were getting (no thanks to the PCs inability to make good mp3 files to share). Again, this is why iTunes has a bigger impact than Napster. Users like myself found it worth our time to spend $1 on a song that was guaranteed to work, come with the real artwork, and be properly named and tagged. Napster, in short, became a monumental waste of time, weeding through the mislabeled, crappy rips of cds. Unless, of course, you were part of that 18-twentysomething crowd that had a hard time saving $1 for a song and has been raised with an anything goes mentality when it comes to the use of the 'net.
As long as this distro has an icon driven way to install Flash, then it is an issue related to the author. If that is the case, then the author is wrong. BUT...to the eyes of the masses, Linux is just like this guy describes: typing in random stuff in a command line (even if it isn't true). In otherwords, because of articles like this one, Linux is getting a raw deal. The author is making Linux less accessible to people who casually gloss over the review.
Yes, I used html tags...poorly, even. And yes you are right, this slashdot thing will never become mainstream. That's the problem with 99% of slashdot stories and discussion threads. Most users on here are nerd-egocentric and think normal people understand what goes on over here, when the actually don't.
So you're trying to tell me that you are some freak of nature who can just fight through a good taze? I'm not buying it. My 5'8" , 150 lb frame would take you down with a taze. You'd be cuffed before you regained muscle control to do anything about it.
Getting yourself arrested for refusing to sign a traffic ticket is pretty stupid (on both guys' part). But I'll be damned if I ever let myself get tased just because I'm too pig-headed to admit I was doing 60 in a 40 zone. That's what, an $80 ticket? Pay your stupid ticket fool, or let the rest of us watch you eat pavement over and over again on the 'net.
Incidentally, I hope they go after the cop and ruin his life. What a freakin' prick.
Well, when I do speak up, and in that ONE instance where the ends DO justify the means, I'm forever labelled as someone who believes that the ends justify the means.
Because I'd much rather be shot with a 9mm lead bullet than be hit with a jolt of electricity. Surviving a close range pistol blast is probably a lot less likely than dying from a taser.
In EVERY case I've seen, the person getting tased could have prevented the tasing by just doing what the cop tells them. The newest one of the guy in Utah is typical of the anti-tasing crowd's fervor. Of course, the Utah guy goes around to all the TV shows displaying his video and "outrage" of being tased for no reason. Well, the news here played the video, but this time, YOU COULD HEAR THE AUDIO. The video goes from, "holy shit, that cop just tased a guy for no reason" to, "moooohahahahaha, that guy is resisting arrest so the cop tased his stupid ass." It's amazing what a little video out of context will do for your case.
Calling somebody "clueless" lends nothing to the credibility of your post. If anything, this review shows that, a) Wal-mart is missing the target audience, and b) Linux isn't ready for Joe Consumer. Just because you think the reviewer is dumb really change anything.
I popped up a terminal window and installed it using "sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree."
Point made? As much as I'd like to see a viable, novice-friendly version of Linux, all I get is review after review just like this one -- somebody with moderate computing experience floundering around in some non user-friendly Linux variant.
In 1999 I was in my 30s. I'm guessing you were a lot younger. Yes, I had Napster, but the overwhelming majority of my peers were too busy with careers, families, etc. to have time for most anything tech related. I've been ripping CDs since the early 90s too, so you can't say that ripping a CD was difficult in 1999. Maybe it was on a PC, but with iTunes 1.0 (2000), you just put your CD in and ripped the songs to your library. That was much faster than downloading a dubious song file anyway with the 56k modems that were prevalent at the time.
Quicktime is bundled with iTunes, not the other way around as you suggest. iTunes is a bundled app with all Macs as well. Most PC users don't use iTunes UNTIL they buy an iPod, but given how many PC users buy iPods, I would suggest that's a lot of iTunin' going on out there.
The iphone, while being exceptionally heavily marketed, has already been deemed uncool in the 18-30 age group.
Oh REALLY now? I wish you'd come tell the 18-30 age group to quit asking to mess with my iPhone then. I *guess* I'm older, at 37??? but I didn't buy the phone for hype or advertising. I bought the phone because it is the best phone I tried. The phone features are the best, from voice mail to the address book, of any phone I've tried. All the other stuff (email, maps, a really good web browser) are just bonus. The phone is a crappy text-message phone, but then again, texting has been deemed uncool in the 37-50 age group.
Just a quick search of the 'net, and the only thing I see is a bunch of software hacks and work-arounds to get Zunes to work on Macs. I'd be interested to see some native Mac support, but from what I can tell, the Zune is Windows Proprietary. I could be wrong, but Zune.net doesn't make it very easy to figure it out either.
I disagree. Most non-computer geeks don't know how to use P2P to download songs illegally. IF the software is installed, then maybe they'll figure it out, but I'm willing to bet that iTunes is installed on way more computers than Limewire or whatever it is the kiddies use now days (Xtorrent for me, thanks).
Well you make a good point too about TCP/IP -- Internet. I never really thought of that. What I guess I'm saying is that a few interested people were into peer-to-peer before the iPod was ubiquitous, but the legitimate store offered by ITMS is what really made digital music take off. Napster put it in the Spotlight, but mostly because of the controversy of illegal downloading, so Apple's iTunes capitalized on that. It took me a good couple of hours to figure out what bittorrent was, let alone be able to DO anything with it. That took another few weeks of trial and error, yet I'm still not very sure what I'm doing. iTunes, however, has been easy from day 1, with no research and no instructional manual needed. This is why I think a lot of people don't mind paying $1 for DRM encrusted music. At some point, it is just easier to push the "buy now" button than it is to weed through file after file of horribly ripped version of songs. And as my income has gone up over the years, my P2P downloads have gone down to almost zero. I say "almost" because my wife and I lived in the UK, and we simply can't find some of the songs we liked over there to buy legitimately.
Exactly my point. People are using P2P, but they don't even realize that's what it is. It's hard to claim you are changing the world when you don't even know what you are using is called. People stealing songs with half of them not even knowing they are stealing songs didn't put digital music on the mainstream. The iTunes music store, on the other hand, sure did. Anyone who tries to ignore the 2 Billion + songs that have sold on there are blatantly dishonest and have something against Apple. No other market place has come close to matching Apple's success, and there's no revising history on this one.
Well, everything is relative, and compared to Vista, I guess XP is great. Compared to Tiger or Leopard, however...
Ok, not really, but people are sticking with XP because it (mostly) works. This is a shame, because Microsoft should be held to higher standards than the Fischer-Price OS known as XP. Instead, they throw a REALLY bad OS out there, and suddenly everyone forgets what they hate about XP already. Actually, that's kind of smart on Microsoft's behalf, come to think of it -- release something SO bad that people forget how bad the previous version was.
Well stated. I actually wasn't trying to be as confrontational as my post seemed upon re-read. What I mean about the radio is that MOST people could care less and Apple made the correct business decision to not include it, whereas Microsoft seems to add it as a, "look, WE have a radio and the iPod doesn't!". It's kind of ironic, because it's an old technology that not a lot of people want, yet Microsoft trumpets it as some sort of great success. In no way am I trying to demean the importance of radio on our daily lives; I just don't think that an mp3 player needs one. That IS my opinion, but it is an opinion shared by more perspective buyers than not, otherwise Apple would include the radio. Ironically enough, I would welcome a radio, but I feel no need to buy the adapter for the lack of one, and I accept the fact that most people don't care about the radio and I'm comfortable with Apple leaving it out. It doesn't harm the product, nor would it help it if it had it.
I also wasn't inferring that you were a PC user with my conversation about what makes Mac or PC users tick. I think your post just points out some major difference between users in general, regardless of you or my individual quirks about using technology. I didn't mean it to be an affront towards your tech choices.
I've also stated elsewhere in this thread that the Zune is a decent product. It's the awful marketing that is laughable and the unabashed fact that the version two zunes with flash memory are nothing more than 2nd gen Nano ripoffs. As usual, Microsoft blatantly rips off an Apple idea, and doesn't even try to hide the fact. Just LOOK at the new ads, with the nano laid over the top of the bigger one, just like Apple did three years ago. Copying a successful business model is one thing, but not even trying to innovate, but then adding a radio tuner and broken wireless connectivity and calling it an iPod killer is just silly. Someone else said it better in this thread. If Microsoft wants to keep copying Apple, the only way they'll cut into market share is if they make Zunes cost 1/2 as much. Hell, Microsoft is even copying the pricing schemes!!!
Just out of curiosity, does the Zune 2.0 work with Mac? I thought I read that it is PC only, so I was wondering how that would affect your opinion, if you are indeed a Mac user?
But putting 100 year old technology in a cutting edge media player goes against the sensibilities. I have an mp3 player to play all my music (and tv shows), not to listen to the radio. I have the added bonus of loading up radio shows in the form of Podcasts, and listen to them when I want to. Don't get me wrong, I listen to the radio in my car, so I'm not above 100 year old tech, I just don't see the need for it in my iPod. If I did, I'd buy the add-on. The danger of the "it doesn't cost much so put it in" mentality is you get "features" that only check the block. Kind of like how Windows XP does "video editing" just like Apple iMovie! See, it says so right on the box!
I think you've touched on that thing that separates "Mac users" from "PC users". It seems to me, in my short existence of 30 years of computing experience, that "PC users" look for specs and features without really trying the specs and features out. They are at ease with the comfort of "knowing" that they have a mile long laundry list of things their devices can do, even if they don't do them particularly well. Apple users, on the other hand, sleep just fine knowing that they don't have Microsoft Outlook on their computers, but at the same time, they know that iMovie really CAN be used to edit video with relative ease with a professional shine. They also know that just because 85% of the world uses Outlook at WORK, people use their HOME computers in much different ways. Mac users don't care about a long list of stuff that doesn't work very well. I think this is the part that people commonly refer to "it just works" or "Macs are easy to use". They work well, and as advertised, unlike the competition, so there really is no need to look elsewhere. This extends, of course, to the iPod line as well.
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You are a troll because you like Apple. Of course that makes me a troll too, but I thought I'd help you out in figuring out what goes on around here on /.
Microsoft? You mean the same company that makes you go to "Start" so you can shut down your computer?
Well it's funny because it is based in truth, based on Microsoft's long proven track record of such tactics. That's kinda the staple of all good parodies.
Clippy may be dead and buried, but his spirit lives on in the form of horrible "help" functions, like a poor grammar checker, and a myriad of other "Microsoft Knows Better Than You" features. Microsoft doesn't get it. They'd rather make 2 cents in revenue from an ad click and piss off millions of users instead of letting the users be in charge of their own computers.
Gee, what would you rather face, me (a blatant Apple fanboy) telling you how great Macs are year after year, or a bunch of advertising crap in your software that bogs you down and makes you prone to malware? Personally, I'd rather have the rabid Mac guy letting me know how bad my Microsoft product is, because, a) it's true, and b) I can avoid the fanboy easier than I can avoid being spammed to death by advertising.
As far as it being technically difficult to rip a cd, I guess inserting the cd and pushing the button in iTunes is difficult? Just because the masses where wallowing in the mediocrity of Win98 boxes that couldn't do much in the multi-media department, doesn't detract from the Macs ability to do cool things like ripping cds to our iTunes libraries with ease.
You are right about it being hard to get a good rip without skips (on the PC side). Yet another reason Napster was such a dog. You could never count on the quality of the file you were getting (no thanks to the PCs inability to make good mp3 files to share). Again, this is why iTunes has a bigger impact than Napster. Users like myself found it worth our time to spend $1 on a song that was guaranteed to work, come with the real artwork, and be properly named and tagged. Napster, in short, became a monumental waste of time, weeding through the mislabeled, crappy rips of cds. Unless, of course, you were part of that 18-twentysomething crowd that had a hard time saving $1 for a song and has been raised with an anything goes mentality when it comes to the use of the 'net.
Yes, I used html tags...poorly, even. And yes you are right, this slashdot thing will never become mainstream. That's the problem with 99% of slashdot stories and discussion threads. Most users on here are nerd-egocentric and think normal people understand what goes on over here, when the actually don't.
Better a taser, "being used, repeatedly, in circumstances where they are not appropriate" than guns.
So you're trying to tell me that you are some freak of nature who can just fight through a good taze? I'm not buying it. My 5'8" , 150 lb frame would take you down with a taze. You'd be cuffed before you regained muscle control to do anything about it.
Incidentally, I hope they go after the cop and ruin his life. What a freakin' prick.
Well, when I do speak up, and in that ONE instance where the ends DO justify the means, I'm forever labelled as someone who believes that the ends justify the means.
In EVERY case I've seen, the person getting tased could have prevented the tasing by just doing what the cop tells them. The newest one of the guy in Utah is typical of the anti-tasing crowd's fervor. Of course, the Utah guy goes around to all the TV shows displaying his video and "outrage" of being tased for no reason. Well, the news here played the video, but this time, YOU COULD HEAR THE AUDIO. The video goes from, "holy shit, that cop just tased a guy for no reason" to, "moooohahahahaha, that guy is resisting arrest so the cop tased his stupid ass." It's amazing what a little video out of context will do for your case.
Calling somebody "clueless" lends nothing to the credibility of your post. If anything, this review shows that, a) Wal-mart is missing the target audience, and b) Linux isn't ready for Joe Consumer. Just because you think the reviewer is dumb really change anything.
Quicktime is bundled with iTunes, not the other way around as you suggest. iTunes is a bundled app with all Macs as well. Most PC users don't use iTunes UNTIL they buy an iPod, but given how many PC users buy iPods, I would suggest that's a lot of iTunin' going on out there.
Just a quick search of the 'net, and the only thing I see is a bunch of software hacks and work-arounds to get Zunes to work on Macs. I'd be interested to see some native Mac support, but from what I can tell, the Zune is Windows Proprietary. I could be wrong, but Zune.net doesn't make it very easy to figure it out either.
I disagree. Most non-computer geeks don't know how to use P2P to download songs illegally. IF the software is installed, then maybe they'll figure it out, but I'm willing to bet that iTunes is installed on way more computers than Limewire or whatever it is the kiddies use now days (Xtorrent for me, thanks).
Well you make a good point too about TCP/IP -- Internet. I never really thought of that. What I guess I'm saying is that a few interested people were into peer-to-peer before the iPod was ubiquitous, but the legitimate store offered by ITMS is what really made digital music take off. Napster put it in the Spotlight, but mostly because of the controversy of illegal downloading, so Apple's iTunes capitalized on that. It took me a good couple of hours to figure out what bittorrent was, let alone be able to DO anything with it. That took another few weeks of trial and error, yet I'm still not very sure what I'm doing. iTunes, however, has been easy from day 1, with no research and no instructional manual needed. This is why I think a lot of people don't mind paying $1 for DRM encrusted music. At some point, it is just easier to push the "buy now" button than it is to weed through file after file of horribly ripped version of songs. And as my income has gone up over the years, my P2P downloads have gone down to almost zero. I say "almost" because my wife and I lived in the UK, and we simply can't find some of the songs we liked over there to buy legitimately.
Exactly my point. People are using P2P, but they don't even realize that's what it is. It's hard to claim you are changing the world when you don't even know what you are using is called. People stealing songs with half of them not even knowing they are stealing songs didn't put digital music on the mainstream. The iTunes music store, on the other hand, sure did. Anyone who tries to ignore the 2 Billion + songs that have sold on there are blatantly dishonest and have something against Apple. No other market place has come close to matching Apple's success, and there's no revising history on this one.
Ok, not really, but people are sticking with XP because it (mostly) works. This is a shame, because Microsoft should be held to higher standards than the Fischer-Price OS known as XP. Instead, they throw a REALLY bad OS out there, and suddenly everyone forgets what they hate about XP already. Actually, that's kind of smart on Microsoft's behalf, come to think of it -- release something SO bad that people forget how bad the previous version was.
I also wasn't inferring that you were a PC user with my conversation about what makes Mac or PC users tick. I think your post just points out some major difference between users in general, regardless of you or my individual quirks about using technology. I didn't mean it to be an affront towards your tech choices.
I've also stated elsewhere in this thread that the Zune is a decent product. It's the awful marketing that is laughable and the unabashed fact that the version two zunes with flash memory are nothing more than 2nd gen Nano ripoffs. As usual, Microsoft blatantly rips off an Apple idea, and doesn't even try to hide the fact. Just LOOK at the new ads, with the nano laid over the top of the bigger one, just like Apple did three years ago. Copying a successful business model is one thing, but not even trying to innovate, but then adding a radio tuner and broken wireless connectivity and calling it an iPod killer is just silly. Someone else said it better in this thread. If Microsoft wants to keep copying Apple, the only way they'll cut into market share is if they make Zunes cost 1/2 as much. Hell, Microsoft is even copying the pricing schemes!!!
Just out of curiosity, does the Zune 2.0 work with Mac? I thought I read that it is PC only, so I was wondering how that would affect your opinion, if you are indeed a Mac user?
I think you've touched on that thing that separates "Mac users" from "PC users". It seems to me, in my short existence of 30 years of computing experience, that "PC users" look for specs and features without really trying the specs and features out. They are at ease with the comfort of "knowing" that they have a mile long laundry list of things their devices can do, even if they don't do them particularly well. Apple users, on the other hand, sleep just fine knowing that they don't have Microsoft Outlook on their computers, but at the same time, they know that iMovie really CAN be used to edit video with relative ease with a professional shine. They also know that just because 85% of the world uses Outlook at WORK, people use their HOME computers in much different ways. Mac users don't care about a long list of stuff that doesn't work very well. I think this is the part that people commonly refer to "it just works" or "Macs are easy to use". They work well, and as advertised, unlike the competition, so there really is no need to look elsewhere. This extends, of course, to the iPod line as well.
There, fixed that for you.