(1) Unauthorized. About 1%, static. I ran Kazaa on my Windows PC for a while because someone wanted to get me involved in a new Peer to Peer service and I needed to get a feel for it. Those files are still around, but I no longer run Kazaa. (Actually, I don't even remember when I last turned on my Windows PC).
(2) iTunes Music Store: 30% and growing once or twice a month.
(3) Sharable sources: None. I have some music downloaded for free from legitimate sites but I don't think it even approaches.1% of total music.
(4) 69% and shrinking because I buy most of my music from iTunes.
Does that mean they should have a permanent monopoly on space?
If this had been a NASA mission, would it not have cost ten times as much? And that makes it pretty much impossible to go to space for any reasons other than big-time investments like satellites.
Much as I absolutely loathe Microsoft and their products, it's nice to see this kind of cool thing being done.
I just hope these guys didn't use Microsoft Space Management to run the thing, although I have a nasty feeling that they had to:-(.
Well, it worked. And today, that's all that matters. I lift a glass of metaphorical champagne. For today, a truce -- at least until I see my next Windows meltdown here on the ground.
(Come to think of it, though, I believe Paul Allen has very little to do with Microsoft nowadays -- right?)
Well, the actual quote from the article was quite a bit less alarming:
He did say though that "fast forward 10 years, the two leading OS technologies will be Linux and Windows" hinting that most others (Sun, Mac?) will be eclipsed from the main business scene.
I would certainly argue that the Mac is eclipsed from the main business scene, since it was never there to begin with.
That doesn't mean the Mac's going to die; it just means he doesn't think it will be adopted by the masses.
If he can control malware, he's probably right. With malware spinning out of control, as it is today, I think a lot of smaller businesses, with less hidebound IT departments, are going to look very closely at alternatives. So I see a big opening for both Linux and MacOS, with MacOS having the advantage of better consumer appeal.
Let's see how we do in the future. Bill Gates is not paid the big bucks to say his operating system's going to lose market share, that's for sure.
You mean you think people will upgrade their $600 PC when it gets obsolete?
Not me. I'll sell it or let it rot in the closet (most likely since the cost of getting my data off it is more than it's worth) and buy a new one.
Both Macs AND PCs are trending towards the "throw away and buy a new one" ethos. And that makes sense because ALL components of new computers are improving all the time. My PowerMac G5 uses different memory, different disk drives and different graphics cards than the G4 it replaced.
I've noticed that a lot of retail companies still use ancient mainframe and SCO Unix-based applications. Seeing a well-trained sales associate look stuff up on one of those systems in microseconds is quite a joy.
It's especially interesting because the user interface looks clunky -- but well-trained people with experience on the system can still use it far faster than anything new.
I remember thinking the same thing when I saw my company's old accounting system, which we had to dump for a Windows-based solution because it wasn't Y2k compliant. It took about 10 times as long to enter data on the new system than the old.
It should be profoundly embarrassing to us that we have largely regressed in the speed in which an experienced user can work.
Check out my posts and let me know what you think of the ones that were modded down. (I start at 2 due to high Karma and I don't want to lose that just because of my political views).
The CBS debacle was a debacle because CBS lied. Credible sources say that there was doubt about the authenticity of the memos even before they were shown, but CBS ran with the story anyway.
Then Rather stonewalled, saying the memos were authentic until he was forced to eat his words.
If you look at the memos with any kind of care, you would realize that they were created with Microsoft Word, technology that did not exist at the time they were allegedly produced.
Since we're supposed to trust CBS to supply us with accurate information, and since the integrity of CBS news was a long tradition, this was a huge story indeed. To me, that's a serious issue no matter what your politics.
It's useful right now - look at how conservative bloggers were able to take down CBS news. No matter what you may think of the story, there's no question the memos were forged, and ineptly at that. This story would not have broken without the bloggers.
There is actually enough controversy between people nominally on the same side in sites like Free Republic (right) and Democratic Underground (left) to create effective debates. As a conservative site, Free Republic contains material of all kinds (from The Nation to National Review), and the conservatives who debate range from libertarians to fundamentalists. Democratic Underground is much smaller and ironically has much less tolerance of opposing views than Free Republic. Both sites will delete blatant trolls within seconds, but someone called Liberal Larry has survived on FR for years. He's civil, so he survives. In contrast, I wrote civil messages on DU which people seemed to enjoy responding to and I was deleted simply because I wasn't a liberal. I don't think that would have happened on FR.
A major reason for the emergence of liberal and conservative enclaves is that liberals and conservatives are pretty darn nasty when put in the same web site together, and as a result very little productive discussion actually occurs. This is unfortunate but true.
It's interesting that Slashdot has developed into essentially a liberal ghetto because intelligent conservative posts are moderated down. I have seen this happen to many of my posts, to the extent that I feel unwelcome. As a result, I don't post nearly as much as I did when the section was originally opened.
Virgin Atlantic Airways has an excellent reputation, though.
Virgin Trains was, perhaps, not the best idea since the British government still handled the maintenance and still did a poor job as I recall.
In this case, if you like the SpaceShipOne people, that's where most of the money's going to. Virgin is just the marketing company. They'll probably handle things like reservations just fine, and Branson's about the best promoter there is.
I suspect the "low" price for space tourism is based on Mr Branson's finances and not ours, though:-(.
Except that if they did, they'd lose their good guy image and the Slashdot story would get 10,000 responses.
I think you understate the protections built in to the capitalist system that make the use of patents in that way most unwise. If PDF was patented, it wouldn't become a standard. They need it more to be a standard, so they can sell their tools, than they need the possible royalties from a patent.
Show me the one web site which best rebuts the Swift Vets.
I've read Unfit for Command and it strikes me as a highly credible case.
Most of the arguments I've heard against the Swift Vets are that they're a Republican attack group, set up by fat cat Republican donors. To a great extent, this is true. However, that doesn't prove the information on their web site or in Unfit for Command false.
There's no question I'm aware of that the stories behind Kerry's medals are wildly exaggerated. And the arguments against his silly "Christmas in Cambodia" yarn, as far as I know, have never been countered successfully. Even Kerry's campaign now admits that he wasn't in Cambodia during Christmas, and therefore the incident cannot be "seared, seared" in him.
Did Kerry spend Christmas in Cambodia, fighting the Khmer Rouge (which didn't exist as a fighting force at the time), fulminating about President Nixon (who wasn't President at the time)? Were the non-Christian Cambodians really celebrating Christmas as he watched from his boat?
I doubt it, personally, but hey. Give restoring Kerry's credibility yoru best shot.
D
Re:Iraq: 61% Bush, 39% Kerry
on
Mock World Vote
·
· Score: 1
Most of the insurgents are foreigners, linked to Al Queda. The Iraqi-on-the-street appreciates our role in getting rid of Saddam, but is cynical about how we are doing at combatting the insurrections.
The consensus in-country seems to be that we're not tough enough on them.
See Iraq the Model and other Iraqi blogs for supporting evidence.
You guys on the left just love to exaggerate, and I'm not sure if it helps you.
I mean, Stalin means the Gulag! Stalin means farmers being executed for not giving up all their food to the State!
I personally guarantee you that George Bush is not Hitler, or Stalin, and the simple act of saying he is, or might be, is ridiculous.
I think any government that wants to survive would wind up curtailing civil liberties in the name of capturing Al Queda and friends. I really doubt that John Kerry, should he become President, would do much different from Bush on this question one way or the other.
The only thing we would gain from John Kerry is a government that's a slave to France, and I don't know if that's an improvement even in civil liberties terms.
Under whatever leader we wind up with, you will not be prevented from comparing him to Hitler, or marching for hours screaming at the top of your lungs that he's evil. None of those rights are in any danger today. Not even the right to make a complete fool of yourself.
I belong to a pro-Bush protest organization, and I enjoy making a complete fool of myself sometimes, so relax. Neither of us are going to be prevented from expressing our views.
Democrats have been losing because the Gore and Kerry are wooden bores.
The solution is not to field a wooden bore. We Republicans did that with Bush Sr and Bob Dole and were trounced soundly, and deservedly so. Now it's your guys' turn.
Kerry spent his whole convention talking about bravery and Vietnam even though he didn't think Vietnam was such a brainy scheme at the time. In other words, he lied, either now or while testifying about his experiences.
At least when we talk to George W Bush, we know where he stands, and we know he'll do his level best to keep his promises.
I can't even tell what John Kerry is promising, it seems to change every other day.
Bush's a better candidate. Get over it, and for God's sake find someone half-decent in four years.
D
PS The US is sufficiently divided that I don't buy the allegations in the article that Republican dirty tricks are going to keep the House and Senate in Republican hands. We're a divided nation, tending right at this point. That's Democracy.
In what way was the Segway crippled? Is that the slow mode?
I went to an art expo a few weekends ago, and they had it available to try. It's pretty fun to use but I asked them to take photos of me riding it and GOSH I look dorky doing it.
That might be why it hasn't proved more popular. Well, that and the price.
When I've raised this issue in previous articles on the new iMac, I have been informed that it's apparently VESA compliant and there are VESA arms that you can buy.
Not as elegant a solution as the original iMac - in fact, I wish the redesigned displays had an arm - but it should work.
Let's say you have a lot of stuff on your desk. As a concrete example, let's say you have a music keyboard for use with GarageBand. It's in front of your display, so you can't rotate it. You could still rotate the iLamp design.
I have the previous 23" Cinema Display. You can tell her from me that it's well worth the money although you might want to wait for the 30", which I'll bet will be awesome.
As others have suggested, you might want to get the display with a VESA mounting arm and therefore solve the problem and make your wife happy.
Speaking of which... I hear a lot about these arms but know nothing about them - do you folks have any recommended sources for them? (Yes, I know I could search Google, but I'm looking for personal recommendations).
I don't see much point in Mac AV software when I have yet to see a significant virus threat on MacOS X.
A $600 PC isn't any great shakes either. The G5 on the new iMac should be a bit faster, but to be honest either machine is more than fast enough for any corporate software I'm aware of. The big need for hardware power is with video and the like.
I know some of the other posters say similar things, but I think it's good to make how it works explicit.
You buy a copy of Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 87.
You click in the "My Music" folder.
The happy little Windows XP(tm) screen comes up with the bar on the left with lots of options.
The top option is "Buy music from the Microsoft Music Store".
Click on that option, IE comes up and the downloads are automatically added to the My Music folder. You can then use the music player features built into the Music folder to play them.
It will be easy and seamless. It won't be as slick as the iTunes+iPod combo, but like Windows itself, it will be Good Enough.
By the way, I had an interesting talk with a friend of mine about why he likes Windows. He's a crusty old man, and it turns out the pretty girls in his neighborhood turn to him for their Windows problem fixes in exchange for sexual favours, and the guys give him beer. He blesses Bill Gates every day for putting together such a "shitty product"! He also likes the challenge. So he's well stocked with beer, women and challenges, which makes for a fun retirement indeed.
Macs have longer active lives than PCs since there is much less built-in obsolescence. I can run MacOS X well on my five-year old iMac or PowerMac.
If you have a lousy monitor left in a corner the PC is much cheaper than the Mac. But if you want your employees to survive without eyestrain you probably want to fix its lifespan at three years. This means replacing the monitor at the same time as the PC.
The cost of spyware and virus protection/removal solutions is about $50 per machine, plus $1,000-odd on the server level, plus about $100 per year per machine for roughly one technician hour a year of support.
PC............. $ 600 Visits........3 year life x100 = 300 per lifetime of machine Spyware+AV Software... $100 Total......... $ 1,000
Cost per year: $333 If we add a cheap monitor for $100 it goes up to $366. But then you should really compare it to the $799 eMac, not the $1,299 iMac, which would actually increase Apple's advantage. if we add a 17" LCD for $500 it goes up to $458.
Visits may be a gross underestimate. I've seen PCs messed up so badly that it's been cheaper to buy a new PC than to figure out what's wrong.
This doesn't even include the server-based AV software you should also buy.
See? The Mac isn't half bad when it comes to a reasonable cost perspective with all costs included. Not to mention that Apple Mail + iCal costs nothing, while Outlook + Exchange are obscenely expensive.
I have a feeling the photos don't do the new machine justice, but I really loved the fully adjustable screen on the previous generation iMac. I thought it was wonderfully practical and ergonomic to be able to bend it up, down and sideways. Frankly, I wished the standalone displays were designed as nicely.
Unfortunately, I think they've pretty much sold out the previous generation iMacs, so I doubt that getting one of them is much of an option. And of course the G5 processor's going to be great.
Interesting that they went to 17" only. I wish they'd kept a 15" model at $999. This lack of low end is Apple's greatest problem with consumers. With HP and others packaging a computer, monitor and printer for $999, I think a $999 iMac with a nice LCD would make a very nice package for many, considering that you can buy printers for next to free nowadays.
Not only that, but his apparent obsession with details of Microsoft internals was a little spooky:
So recently out of the blue I got an email from my MVP Lead, Andrew, if I wanted a PMC to play with for a bit. I was like, what in the world, why me, why now? Especially since the PMC is not an eHome product like Media Center is. It's a Windows Mobile device that's really under the Digital Media Division at Microsoft. So except for the fact that it's called a Portable "Media Center" and that it's got a very similar Start (green) button and the UI is also very similar to the desktop Media Center. It is not a Media Center and doesn't belong to eHome.
Yikes! Now that's getting to know Microsoft up close and personal. This guy should know his audience and realize that few people care whether it's an eHome or a Windows Mobile device. They just care about what it is and how well it works.
After I read that I came to two conclusions: First that this guy is trolling for a job at Microsoft, and that's probably why he knows the division structure. Second, he's not likely to give an honest review of the device, because he really wants a job at Microsoft.
Much to his credit, though, I can pretty much guarantee that he gave an honest review because it's none too positive. I wouldn't say the piece is really worth reading because it's awfully long and rambling, but it does bring the point across.
Here's a portable media player that you can't use outdoors. It takes two hours to shove 14gb of media into the approved playback format. If you add a projection TV to it, you can use it to play back presentations as though it was a laptop, but a laptop would be hugely more versatile and not that much more difficult to carry. And if you use it as a portable hard drive, you have to copy your documents over to the mothership PC before you can edit them; it doesn't work like an iPod, which is a full-fledged portable hard drive.
In the end, he refused to compare it to an iPod because it's so different. It can play video as well as audio, but I found it interesting that he seemed to use it mostly as an audio player, despite having plenty of video material available. Does this vindicate Steve Jobs' contention that a portable video player is a silly thing?
I think a portable video player might be a useful thing for kids to use in the car, so I wouldn't dismiss this device entirely, especially since built-in in-car video's pretty expensive. But if even someone in love with the Microsoft Corporation doesn't see much of a use for this thing, I don't think I do either.
Slashdot Mirror
(1) Unauthorized. About 1%, static. I ran Kazaa on my Windows PC for a while because someone wanted to get me involved in a new Peer to Peer service and I needed to get a feel for it. Those files are still around, but I no longer run Kazaa. (Actually, I don't even remember when I last turned on my Windows PC).
.1% of total music.
(2) iTunes Music Store: 30% and growing once or twice a month.
(3) Sharable sources: None. I have some music downloaded for free from legitimate sites but I don't think it even approaches
(4) 69% and shrinking because I buy most of my music from iTunes.
(5) None.
Hope that helps.
D
True on one level, false on another.
Yes, NASA did much of the basic research.
But that was all done decades ago.
Does that mean they should have a permanent monopoly on space?
If this had been a NASA mission, would it not have cost ten times as much? And that makes it pretty much impossible to go to space for any reasons other than big-time investments like satellites.
I thought How the West Wasn't Won was a very nice parable on this subject.
D
Much as I absolutely loathe Microsoft and their products, it's nice to see this kind of cool thing being done.
:-(.
I just hope these guys didn't use Microsoft Space Management to run the thing, although I have a nasty feeling that they had to
Well, it worked. And today, that's all that matters. I lift a glass of metaphorical champagne. For today, a truce -- at least until I see my next Windows meltdown here on the ground.
(Come to think of it, though, I believe Paul Allen has very little to do with Microsoft nowadays -- right?)
D
Well, the actual quote from the article was quite a bit less alarming:
He did say though that "fast forward 10 years, the two leading OS technologies will be Linux and Windows" hinting that most others (Sun, Mac?) will be eclipsed from the main business scene.
I would certainly argue that the Mac is eclipsed from the main business scene, since it was never there to begin with.
That doesn't mean the Mac's going to die; it just means he doesn't think it will be adopted by the masses.
If he can control malware, he's probably right. With malware spinning out of control, as it is today, I think a lot of smaller businesses, with less hidebound IT departments, are going to look very closely at alternatives. So I see a big opening for both Linux and MacOS, with MacOS having the advantage of better consumer appeal.
Let's see how we do in the future. Bill Gates is not paid the big bucks to say his operating system's going to lose market share, that's for sure.
D
You mean you think people will upgrade their $600 PC when it gets obsolete?
Not me. I'll sell it or let it rot in the closet (most likely since the cost of getting my data off it is more than it's worth) and buy a new one.
Both Macs AND PCs are trending towards the "throw away and buy a new one" ethos. And that makes sense because ALL components of new computers are improving all the time. My PowerMac G5 uses different memory, different disk drives and different graphics cards than the G4 it replaced.
D
I've noticed that a lot of retail companies still use ancient mainframe and SCO Unix-based applications. Seeing a well-trained sales associate look stuff up on one of those systems in microseconds is quite a joy.
It's especially interesting because the user interface looks clunky -- but well-trained people with experience on the system can still use it far faster than anything new.
I remember thinking the same thing when I saw my company's old accounting system, which we had to dump for a Windows-based solution because it wasn't Y2k compliant. It took about 10 times as long to enter data on the new system than the old.
It should be profoundly embarrassing to us that we have largely regressed in the speed in which an experienced user can work.
D
Check out my posts and let me know what you think of the ones that were modded down. (I start at 2 due to high Karma and I don't want to lose that just because of my political views).
The CBS debacle was a debacle because CBS lied. Credible sources say that there was doubt about the authenticity of the memos even before they were shown, but CBS ran with the story anyway.
Then Rather stonewalled, saying the memos were authentic until he was forced to eat his words.
If you look at the memos with any kind of care, you would realize that they were created with Microsoft Word, technology that did not exist at the time they were allegedly produced.
Since we're supposed to trust CBS to supply us with accurate information, and since the integrity of CBS news was a long tradition, this was a huge story indeed. To me, that's a serious issue no matter what your politics.
D
It's useful right now - look at how conservative bloggers were able to take down CBS news. No matter what you may think of the story, there's no question the memos were forged, and ineptly at that. This story would not have broken without the bloggers.
There is actually enough controversy between people nominally on the same side in sites like Free Republic (right) and Democratic Underground (left) to create effective debates. As a conservative site, Free Republic contains material of all kinds (from The Nation to National Review), and the conservatives who debate range from libertarians to fundamentalists. Democratic Underground is much smaller and ironically has much less tolerance of opposing views than Free Republic. Both sites will delete blatant trolls within seconds, but someone called Liberal Larry has survived on FR for years. He's civil, so he survives. In contrast, I wrote civil messages on DU which people seemed to enjoy responding to and I was deleted simply because I wasn't a liberal. I don't think that would have happened on FR.
A major reason for the emergence of liberal and conservative enclaves is that liberals and conservatives are pretty darn nasty when put in the same web site together, and as a result very little productive discussion actually occurs. This is unfortunate but true.
It's interesting that Slashdot has developed into essentially a liberal ghetto because intelligent conservative posts are moderated down. I have seen this happen to many of my posts, to the extent that I feel unwelcome. As a result, I don't post nearly as much as I did when the section was originally opened.
D
Virgin Atlantic Airways has an excellent reputation, though.
:-(.
Virgin Trains was, perhaps, not the best idea since the British government still handled the maintenance and still did a poor job as I recall.
In this case, if you like the SpaceShipOne people, that's where most of the money's going to. Virgin is just the marketing company. They'll probably handle things like reservations just fine, and Branson's about the best promoter there is.
I suspect the "low" price for space tourism is based on Mr Branson's finances and not ours, though
You'll see him on the first flight.
D
Except that if they did, they'd lose their good guy image and the Slashdot story would get 10,000 responses.
I think you understate the protections built in to the capitalist system that make the use of patents in that way most unwise. If PDF was patented, it wouldn't become a standard. They need it more to be a standard, so they can sell their tools, than they need the possible royalties from a patent.
D
Okay; give it your best shot.
Show me the one web site which best rebuts the Swift Vets.
I've read Unfit for Command and it strikes me as a highly credible case.
Most of the arguments I've heard against the Swift Vets are that they're a Republican attack group, set up by fat cat Republican donors. To a great extent, this is true. However, that doesn't prove the information on their web site or in Unfit for Command false.
There's no question I'm aware of that the stories behind Kerry's medals are wildly exaggerated. And the arguments against his silly "Christmas in Cambodia" yarn, as far as I know, have never been countered successfully. Even Kerry's campaign now admits that he wasn't in Cambodia during Christmas, and therefore the incident cannot be "seared, seared" in him.
Did Kerry spend Christmas in Cambodia, fighting the Khmer Rouge (which didn't exist as a fighting force at the time), fulminating about President Nixon (who wasn't President at the time)? Were the non-Christian Cambodians really celebrating Christmas as he watched from his boat?
I doubt it, personally, but hey. Give restoring Kerry's credibility yoru best shot.
D
Most of the insurgents are foreigners, linked to Al Queda. The Iraqi-on-the-street appreciates our role in getting rid of Saddam, but is cynical about how we are doing at combatting the insurrections.
The consensus in-country seems to be that we're not tough enough on them.
See Iraq the Model and other Iraqi blogs for supporting evidence.
D
Of course we exaggerate, although the exaggeration you cite was meant as a joke.
But we don't call our opponents Hitler, Nazis or Stalin.
That we leave to you.
D
(I did get a good chuckle out of your comment, so perhaps we can be friends).
You guys on the left just love to exaggerate, and I'm not sure if it helps you.
I mean, Stalin means the Gulag! Stalin means farmers being executed for not giving up all their food to the State!
I personally guarantee you that George Bush is not Hitler, or Stalin, and the simple act of saying he is, or might be, is ridiculous.
I think any government that wants to survive would wind up curtailing civil liberties in the name of capturing Al Queda and friends. I really doubt that John Kerry, should he become President, would do much different from Bush on this question one way or the other.
The only thing we would gain from John Kerry is a government that's a slave to France, and I don't know if that's an improvement even in civil liberties terms.
Under whatever leader we wind up with, you will not be prevented from comparing him to Hitler, or marching for hours screaming at the top of your lungs that he's evil. None of those rights are in any danger today. Not even the right to make a complete fool of yourself.
I belong to a pro-Bush protest organization, and I enjoy making a complete fool of myself sometimes, so relax. Neither of us are going to be prevented from expressing our views.
D
Democrats have been losing because the Gore and Kerry are wooden bores.
The solution is not to field a wooden bore. We Republicans did that with Bush Sr and Bob Dole and were trounced soundly, and deservedly so. Now it's your guys' turn.
Kerry spent his whole convention talking about bravery and Vietnam even though he didn't think Vietnam was such a brainy scheme at the time. In other words, he lied, either now or while testifying about his experiences.
At least when we talk to George W Bush, we know where he stands, and we know he'll do his level best to keep his promises.
I can't even tell what John Kerry is promising, it seems to change every other day.
Bush's a better candidate. Get over it, and for God's sake find someone half-decent in four years.
D
PS The US is sufficiently divided that I don't buy the allegations in the article that Republican dirty tricks are going to keep the House and Senate in Republican hands. We're a divided nation, tending right at this point. That's Democracy.
In what way was the Segway crippled? Is that the slow mode?
I went to an art expo a few weekends ago, and they had it available to try. It's pretty fun to use but I asked them to take photos of me riding it and GOSH I look dorky doing it.
That might be why it hasn't proved more popular. Well, that and the price.
D
When I've raised this issue in previous articles on the new iMac, I have been informed that it's apparently VESA compliant and there are VESA arms that you can buy.
Not as elegant a solution as the original iMac - in fact, I wish the redesigned displays had an arm - but it should work.
D
Easy.
... I hear a lot about these arms but know nothing about them - do you folks have any recommended sources for them? (Yes, I know I could search Google, but I'm looking for personal recommendations).
Let's say you have a lot of stuff on your desk. As a concrete example, let's say you have a music keyboard for use with GarageBand. It's in front of your display, so you can't rotate it. You could still rotate the iLamp design.
I have the previous 23" Cinema Display. You can tell her from me that it's well worth the money although you might want to wait for the 30", which I'll bet will be awesome.
As others have suggested, you might want to get the display with a VESA mounting arm and therefore solve the problem and make your wife happy.
Speaking of which
D
I don't see much point in Mac AV software when I have yet to see a significant virus threat on MacOS X.
A $600 PC isn't any great shakes either. The G5 on the new iMac should be a bit faster, but to be honest either machine is more than fast enough for any corporate software I'm aware of. The big need for hardware power is with video and the like.
D
I know some of the other posters say similar things, but I think it's good to make how it works explicit.
:-).
You buy a copy of Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 87.
You click in the "My Music" folder.
The happy little Windows XP(tm) screen comes up with the bar on the left with lots of options.
The top option is "Buy music from the Microsoft Music Store".
Click on that option, IE comes up and the downloads are automatically added to the My Music folder. You can then use the music player features built into the Music folder to play them.
It will be easy and seamless. It won't be as slick as the iTunes+iPod combo, but like Windows itself, it will be Good Enough.
By the way, I had an interesting talk with a friend of mine about why he likes Windows. He's a crusty old man, and it turns out the pretty girls in his neighborhood turn to him for their Windows problem fixes in exchange for sexual favours, and the guys give him beer. He blesses Bill Gates every day for putting together such a "shitty product"! He also likes the challenge. So he's well stocked with beer, women and challenges, which makes for a fun retirement indeed.
I had to laugh. He has a point
D
I would absolutely agree with you, if that was what I said. However, I can't tell for the life of me where you came out with that figure.
I was projecting a three year lifespan of the machine, and projecting one technician visit a year. That's probably an underestimate.
Could you explain why anything in my message indicated a visit every three days? I've re-read my message and I just don't see it.
D
Macs have longer active lives than PCs since there is much less built-in obsolescence. I can run MacOS X well on my five-year old iMac or PowerMac.
........... $ 1,299 ......... 1xlifetime = 100 ..... 5 years ......... $1,399
............. $ 600 ........3 year life x100 = 300 per lifetime of machine ......... $ 1,000
If you have a lousy monitor left in a corner the PC is much cheaper than the Mac. But if you want your employees to survive without eyestrain you probably want to fix its lifespan at three years. This means replacing the monitor at the same time as the PC.
The cost of spyware and virus protection/removal solutions is about $50 per machine, plus $1,000-odd on the server level, plus about $100 per year per machine for roughly one technician hour a year of support.
Mac
Visits
Lifetime
Total
Cost/year... $279
PC
Visits
Spyware+AV Software... $100
Total
Cost per year: $333
If we add a cheap monitor for $100 it goes up to $366. But then you should really compare it to the $799 eMac, not the $1,299 iMac, which would actually increase Apple's advantage.
if we add a 17" LCD for $500 it goes up to $458.
Visits may be a gross underestimate. I've seen PCs messed up so badly that it's been cheaper to buy a new PC than to figure out what's wrong.
This doesn't even include the server-based AV software you should also buy.
See? The Mac isn't half bad when it comes to a reasonable cost perspective with all costs included. Not to mention that Apple Mail + iCal costs nothing, while Outlook + Exchange are obscenely expensive.
D
I have a feeling the photos don't do the new machine justice, but I really loved the fully adjustable screen on the previous generation iMac. I thought it was wonderfully practical and ergonomic to be able to bend it up, down and sideways. Frankly, I wished the standalone displays were designed as nicely.
Unfortunately, I think they've pretty much sold out the previous generation iMacs, so I doubt that getting one of them is much of an option. And of course the G5 processor's going to be great.
Interesting that they went to 17" only. I wish they'd kept a 15" model at $999. This lack of low end is Apple's greatest problem with consumers. With HP and others packaging a computer, monitor and printer for $999, I think a $999 iMac with a nice LCD would make a very nice package for many, considering that you can buy printers for next to free nowadays.
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Not only that, but his apparent obsession with details of Microsoft internals was a little spooky:
So recently out of the blue I got an email from my MVP Lead, Andrew, if I wanted a PMC to play with for a bit. I was like, what in the world, why me, why now? Especially since the PMC is not an eHome product like Media Center is. It's a Windows Mobile device that's really under the Digital Media Division at Microsoft. So except for the fact that it's called a Portable "Media Center" and that it's got a very similar Start (green) button and the UI is also very similar to the desktop Media Center. It is not a Media Center and doesn't belong to eHome.
Yikes! Now that's getting to know Microsoft up close and personal. This guy should know his audience and realize that few people care whether it's an eHome or a Windows Mobile device. They just care about what it is and how well it works.
After I read that I came to two conclusions: First that this guy is trolling for a job at Microsoft, and that's probably why he knows the division structure. Second, he's not likely to give an honest review of the device, because he really wants a job at Microsoft.
Much to his credit, though, I can pretty much guarantee that he gave an honest review because it's none too positive. I wouldn't say the piece is really worth reading because it's awfully long and rambling, but it does bring the point across.
Here's a portable media player that you can't use outdoors. It takes two hours to shove 14gb of media into the approved playback format. If you add a projection TV to it, you can use it to play back presentations as though it was a laptop, but a laptop would be hugely more versatile and not that much more difficult to carry. And if you use it as a portable hard drive, you have to copy your documents over to the mothership PC before you can edit them; it doesn't work like an iPod, which is a full-fledged portable hard drive.
In the end, he refused to compare it to an iPod because it's so different. It can play video as well as audio, but I found it interesting that he seemed to use it mostly as an audio player, despite having plenty of video material available. Does this vindicate Steve Jobs' contention that a portable video player is a silly thing?
I think a portable video player might be a useful thing for kids to use in the car, so I wouldn't dismiss this device entirely, especially since built-in in-car video's pretty expensive. But if even someone in love with the Microsoft Corporation doesn't see much of a use for this thing, I don't think I do either.
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You've caught the really bad problem with the Sidekick: Reception is horrible.
I'm not sure if it's T-Mobile or the Sidekick itself. Do you have insights on that? I live in Los Angeles and service is very sporadic.
I'm wondering if the SideKick II would improve things.
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