Perhaps you haven't worked in the field, never had to scrub systems that have had a higher classification introduced to them than authorized, or never worked in an office where telephones and unclassified computer connections have to be at least 6 feet away from classified computers, and all the computers are labelled with several stickers, and each computer has security levels plastered on every screen, just so you aren't to one idiot who puts classified info on the unclassified computer next to all the classified ones?
And yes, I realize that was a really long run-on sentence...for emphasis.
Its the same thing with people thinking Harry Potter or Dungeons and Dragons will encourage kids into witchcraft. Its sad, but people are stupid enough to believe it.
I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Did you say some people are religious enough to believe it?
The people in government who work with classified information use computer systems that aren't capable of hooking up to the World Wide Web. Instead, classified systems work on their own, closed mini-WWW. Entering a computer that handles classified information into an unclassified network (such as the WWW, where file sharing resides) is a major security violation. Unless government employees are bringing music into work on their iPods and uploading tunes to their secure terminals (another major security violation), there is no music to be shared on secret and above level computers.
The sad part is the people who came up with this junk study already know this, so they truly are just caving to the RIAA/MPAA with their pathetic fear mongering.
I'm still waiting for the innovative Microsoft graphic design to surface. The best thing I've seen from them is from their Mac business unit. The clipart in Mac office is at least usable. Same for the PowerPoint templates.
I think the last time Microsoft bumped off a reigning format was in the early 90s when Excel bumped off (Lotus?)1-2-3. Even that was only a teniuous reign by 1-2-3. And even then, it was only because the early Mac versions of Excel (pre-windows 95) actually kind of worked and looked the same as it does now.
That was a grand total of 2 minute of reasearch and dragging and dropping the URL into here. If I could find this much in 2 minutes, it looks pretty good for Apple in more detailed research.
You have had some horrible luck, as those two brands are historically #1 and #2 in initial quality, reliability and customer satisfaction. Just to counter your anecdotal evidence with more anecdotal evidence; I've owned three mac portables, two top end towers, two destop models and now own two Intel macs, and I've never had anything fail other than wear and tear items like mice and cables. I bent the pin on my ethernet port once, but it was my fault. Do my 9 macs and 15 years of ownership trump your bad experience? Probably not, but it is one small comfort to know that I can keep buying their machines and not worry about build quality (sans the occassional flaming batteries).
Then the PC user figures out which obscure file format he needs to amend to his document, and voila, it opens. I can't count how many times a week I have to add.doc or.pdf to a file at work before my stupid pc realizes what it is.
Although Keynote was immediately better in its first iteration than PowerPoint and its 10 year head start, it isn't free. Still, Keynote does cost much less and is a much superior product. It is too bad that PowerPoint has such a foothold in the brains of billions of people who lack all ability to consider alternatives.
Ignoring your lack of people skills, it is worth noting that you didn't provide any examples of how awful OS X contextual menus are. If you really knew as much about Macs as you claim, you'd be crazy to claim the right click functionality is worthless. Just in the dock alone apps have customized right click options, such as "next song" in iTunes. You can force quit from the right click (try that in Windows?), you can select a program to auto-start on boot-up from a right click (try that in Windows?), you can right click an icon to find where it resides on your computer, and you can navigate entire directories with a right click (to name a few).
The only glaring omission from Apple's right click functionality for me is the lack of "cutting" a file and pasting it elsewhere.
Feel free to drop your stupid semantical argument about physical buttons.
Ok, I'll give it an oddball analogy. When I got out of the Army, they suspiciously kept my dental records (so I couldn't sue, probably). When I went to my new dentist for the first time as a civilian, they had to conduct "dental forensics" to recreate my dental history. Without the records, they had to poke and prod to figure what was going on, and what work I had done in the past. This took the better part of a day, with a follow up appointment or two.
With every new WinOS release, Norton and company has to spend huge resources in reverse-engineering the new system (dental forensics), or at least those portions that Microsoft is sitting on and won't make open-source. In short, Microsoft determines what and how much to give to competitors. If one starts becoming insanely successful, Microsoft stops feeding them the source. It is a pretty smart scheme for the money making side...pretty awful for the user experience side.
Your credibility takes a small hit though, when you say there are MS products that you use over other alternatives. The only MS product I can think of that doesn't have a better alternative is MS Excel. Even Excel has its flaws (the stats plugins are terrible), but there simply is no competitor. Even when MS wins, it is only because there is no competition.
If my argument is flawed, then feel free to provide examples to the contrary.
OneCare is a product offered by Microsoft. I didn't say it was bundled with Windows, I said OneCare offers bundled security software. It is a half-assed attempt to make sure they can at least say "yes, we have virus protection in our system". You are correct that I don't understand exactly how it works, because I don't use it. I'm merely using data from TFA and 12 years of anecdotal evidence of this sort of corporate culture coming from Microsoft to support my point.
Interestingly enough, you don't seem to deny that OneCare (as most everything from MS) is crap.
If MS funded every product they make with billions of dollars they would go bankrupt pretty fast. Generally speaking, in areas where they are not the market leader their product is not as well funded as that of their competitors.
And this is precisely why every Microsoft product is so damned mediocre. They do a lot of things, but they don't do any one thing well (other than make money).
2) "Microsoft creates the OS"
OK, I have to ask: What advantage do you think they gain by this?
You don't agree that being the creators of the source-code would give you at least a slight advantage?
Because Microsoft is easily 10x bigger than all the other companies combined, and Microsoft creates the OS, so their results could stand to be a little better.
Considering how much hype Microsoft has created to improve their image as being extraordinarily lame in security, I think the last place finish IS the story. Whoopy doo, a bunch of boring utility programs going head to head, mostly doing the same things equally well....except Microsoft, the multi-billion dollar corporation that controls the OS.
This is just another indictment of the corporate culture of Microsoft...money first, customers somewhere near the bottom. Microsoft includes a bunch of half-assed, half finished apps so they can put on the packaging that Windows has it. The sad thing is OneCare is just another "check-the-block" feature, and average Joe won't know how awful it is or even care. They'll see it has security software bundled in and think that's all they need.
Let me try again. As an educator, I believe everyone is trainable. All Mac portables have a left and a right click built into the track pad. There is no need for a button really, except that many people are used to having a button.
If you really do have a girlfriend, go get her Macbook, hover the mouse over an icon, and tap the mouse pad with your finger twice. Don't touch the button below it. Amazingly, you just opened something. Now do the same thing, except, instead of tapping twice with your finger, tap once and hold your index finger on the pad, then tap with your middle finger. You just executed a right mouse button click.
If you want to debate the lack of a physical right mouse button, that is a different topic. I'm pretty sure Apple is king when it comes to less-is-more interface (see iPod). I am merely debunking the myth that Macs don't right click, which is really just an ignorant 10 year old argument. It wasn't true 10 years ago, and it still isn't today.
Good thing all MacBooks have wireless built in and there is no need to install whatever third party wireless adapter he was using.
I don't know the history, but evidently he claims to be able to hack the built-in wireless too? Then why doesn't this video show that? For all I can tell, he setup some code that lets the too machines talk to each other. Whoopdy doo.
Buttons are so 90s. Mac portables have right click functionality. You place one finger on the track pad, then click the track pad with your "right click" finger and you get a contextual menu, just as if you were to click the right mouse button. I don't really remember the last time I used the button below the track pad, even for left click functionality.
If you are going to rip something, get your facts straight first.
1 - You don't understand how OS X works. If you have all those instances open, then minimize them, they go into the dock on the RIGHT hand side of the bar. So no, you don't just get three triangles. In comparison, try it in XP and you get 74 illegibly truncated bars in the task bar. What good is that?
2 - Type the name of the app you want in Spotlight. 99% of the time it is the first hit. Click that. I guess the answer to your misguided question is, one? If you want to go old school, open a new finder window, click on apps, click on the app. Or you can install any number of third part apps that act as a "start" button.
3 - You answered the question yourself, then added a nice non-sequitur with the Gnome/KDE/Window reference.
4 - You are applying Windows logic to a Mac. OS X doesn't work the same way as Windows. A better question would be "where is the File Edit.. menu in Windows when you don't have any apps running? How many menus deep do you have to go to find system prefs, for example? Why do you have to look around in four or five different places in Windows, when in OS X everything is available from the omnipresent menubar? To each his own, but the lack of a menu bar in XP when no apps are running is widely documented as one of the worst design faux-pas in UI history. A close second being the minimize bar right next to the close bar.
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And yes, I realize that was a really long run-on sentence...for emphasis.
I think the homophobic Marine General was on this panel?
I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Did you say some people are religious enough to believe it?
The sad part is the people who came up with this junk study already know this, so they truly are just caving to the RIAA/MPAA with their pathetic fear mongering.
I'm still waiting for the innovative Microsoft graphic design to surface. The best thing I've seen from them is from their Mac business unit. The clipart in Mac office is at least usable. Same for the PowerPoint templates.
I think the last time Microsoft bumped off a reigning format was in the early 90s when Excel bumped off (Lotus?)1-2-3. Even that was only a teniuous reign by 1-2-3. And even then, it was only because the early Mac versions of Excel (pre-windows 95) actually kind of worked and looked the same as it does now.
The day Microsoft innovates ANYTHING in the graphics design field is the day I'll eat a hat. And I'll post it to Youtube.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/08/24/HNappled elllead_1.html
http://www.becta.org.uk/satisfactionsurvey/2001/de sktop/summary.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,122226-page,1/ar ticle.html
That was a grand total of 2 minute of reasearch and dragging and dropping the URL into here. If I could find this much in 2 minutes, it looks pretty good for Apple in more detailed research.
Then the PC user figures out which obscure file format he needs to amend to his document, and voila, it opens. I can't count how many times a week I have to add .doc or .pdf to a file at work before my stupid pc realizes what it is.
Although Keynote was immediately better in its first iteration than PowerPoint and its 10 year head start, it isn't free. Still, Keynote does cost much less and is a much superior product. It is too bad that PowerPoint has such a foothold in the brains of billions of people who lack all ability to consider alternatives.
The only glaring omission from Apple's right click functionality for me is the lack of "cutting" a file and pasting it elsewhere.
Feel free to drop your stupid semantical argument about physical buttons.
With every new WinOS release, Norton and company has to spend huge resources in reverse-engineering the new system (dental forensics), or at least those portions that Microsoft is sitting on and won't make open-source. In short, Microsoft determines what and how much to give to competitors. If one starts becoming insanely successful, Microsoft stops feeding them the source. It is a pretty smart scheme for the money making side...pretty awful for the user experience side.
If my argument is flawed, then feel free to provide examples to the contrary.
Interestingly enough, you don't seem to deny that OneCare (as most everything from MS) is crap.
This is just another indictment of the corporate culture of Microsoft...money first, customers somewhere near the bottom. Microsoft includes a bunch of half-assed, half finished apps so they can put on the packaging that Windows has it. The sad thing is OneCare is just another "check-the-block" feature, and average Joe won't know how awful it is or even care. They'll see it has security software bundled in and think that's all they need.
Let me try again. As an educator, I believe everyone is trainable. All Mac portables have a left and a right click built into the track pad. There is no need for a button really, except that many people are used to having a button.
If you really do have a girlfriend, go get her Macbook, hover the mouse over an icon, and tap the mouse pad with your finger twice. Don't touch the button below it. Amazingly, you just opened something. Now do the same thing, except, instead of tapping twice with your finger, tap once and hold your index finger on the pad, then tap with your middle finger. You just executed a right mouse button click.
If you want to debate the lack of a physical right mouse button, that is a different topic. I'm pretty sure Apple is king when it comes to less-is-more interface (see iPod). I am merely debunking the myth that Macs don't right click, which is really just an ignorant 10 year old argument. It wasn't true 10 years ago, and it still isn't today.
I don't know the history, but evidently he claims to be able to hack the built-in wireless too? Then why doesn't this video show that? For all I can tell, he setup some code that lets the too machines talk to each other. Whoopdy doo.
If you are going to rip something, get your facts straight first.
Now that the 'book pros have added right click, there are no Mac portables that DON'T have right click functionality. Insert quarter to continue.
You are high. My Macbook has right click functionality.
1 - You don't understand how OS X works. If you have all those instances open, then minimize them, they go into the dock on the RIGHT hand side of the bar. So no, you don't just get three triangles. In comparison, try it in XP and you get 74 illegibly truncated bars in the task bar. What good is that?
2 - Type the name of the app you want in Spotlight. 99% of the time it is the first hit. Click that. I guess the answer to your misguided question is, one? If you want to go old school, open a new finder window, click on apps, click on the app. Or you can install any number of third part apps that act as a "start" button.
3 - You answered the question yourself, then added a nice non-sequitur with the Gnome/KDE/Window reference.
4 - You are applying Windows logic to a Mac. OS X doesn't work the same way as Windows. A better question would be "where is the File Edit.. menu in Windows when you don't have any apps running? How many menus deep do you have to go to find system prefs, for example? Why do you have to look around in four or five different places in Windows, when in OS X everything is available from the omnipresent menubar? To each his own, but the lack of a menu bar in XP when no apps are running is widely documented as one of the worst design faux-pas in UI history. A close second being the minimize bar right next to the close bar.