I'm a medical student and a technophile. I studied part of my third year clinicals in a third world nation with Doctors without Borders. Quite frankly, people who keep pushing for computers to be put into 3rd world nations don't seem to actually visit the poorest (and hence the most populous parts) of those places. The fact is that even a $100 put towards a computer can be better put towards generic versions of prescription drugs. Clean water, food, medical care and education are more important than any internet connection, laptop, or cellular phone. Unfortunately, Slashdot folks don't get it. A computer is nothing more than a tool that only matters when an educated and healthy population can utilize them.
If I had mod points, I'd just mod you up, but I'll just do a "me too" post. What good is a computer, if you're drinking the same water you took a leak it yesterday, and have children dying of diseases a $5 vaccination would cure?
'Basically, customers said "We want to make sure our PCs are running genuine Windows and have access to all the content on the Microsoft Download Center; the experience when we're running a Mozilla browser is not great. Do something about it." Brad's team did. I think that's a good thing for customers.'"
Yeah, I installed this Windows the other day, had some sort of goofy foot for a start menu, Office didn't install, and I couldn't get any of my games to work. I'm glad now there is a way I can see if I actually have genuine Windows, and not that fake Windows going around.
You go into your first CS class as a freshman. Something like CS101 - Intro to Java, and you get some guy like Sanji Akawhatever. It's an 8AM class, and the guy babbles though basic stuff in the 100 words of english he can speak. You end up going about 5 times the whole semester, still manage an A because really, the class doesn't matter. He doesn't keep up on handed in assignments, and what test there are, are a joke.
Next semster you have two other classes, with professors with names you can pronounce, and accents you can't understand anyways. While all your friends are doing other interesting classes, you're sitting in CS102 - Computer Arch. which the professor is going page by page. It has taken him two weeks to tell you how a CD stores information. Meanwhile, you're sitting next to some hardcore linux nerd, who keeps telling you about the great things about his distro of choice, and saying he doesn't have to do any work, because he knows everything(note he fails any assignment that's handed out, with some 30 minute explaination on why).
Your friends are starting to do even interesting stuff, and you're sitting in classes(if you actually manage to go to them) that are just tedious to even follow. You start looking up fall classes and go "I want to put up with this shit for 3+ more years? Hell no" and go back in the fall with a new major.
I've seen the situation way too many times to just pass it off as antidotal. Maybe if schools would hire professors that actually knew what they were doing, and not make it a total waste to go, more people wouldn't leave the major.
If someone could either correct me or find the article I remember reading it in, but didn't Golden Tee become the #1 arcade game of all time (in units sold) like last year?
Ship of Fools.....Car of Idiots
on
SimChurch
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· Score: 0
was the first thing I thought of when I saw the article. It was one of the classic Far Side comics.
If anyone has a link they want to put up, feel free, but I couldn't find one, and I didn't feel like looking it up in my collection and scanning it in.
I like to bake my own bread using those Rhodes frozen bread dough loaves. The heat given off by the case makes it rise pretty well. Don't think I couldn't actually shove it into a drive bay...
Let's not forget the original gay character....from Nintendo no less...Birdo in Super Mario Bros 2. Yes, that pink thing that shot eggs and wore a bow...was a dude.
I actually finished E.T, as much as one could anyways...
You had to get the phone pieces from the pits, hardest part was getting OUT of them.. I forget if raising the flower was a requirement to finish, or if was just bonus..
Then gets to the part few know how to do, actually phoning home. You had to keep walking around, until the symbol at the top of the screen looked like a frog. It actually kinda looked like a hall monster from Venture. then you raised your head, and that phoned home.
You then went to a screen with Elliot's house, and the ship came back and picked you up. It calculated a score, and then you did it all over again, and again, and again.
The game was nearly impossible to have fun with. The play control just KILLED any chance of fun with the game. The damned camera would just move around at will dispite you having control over it. and the movement on the stick was based on the view. So nothing was worse they trying to walljump, and falling off because the camera decided to move.
And to anyone that's played it a while, I don't have to mention the level that took you behind the ferris wheel. It gave you the chose of two views, behind a wall, and behind a fence. I finnished the level by sheer luck. It also cost me a contoler, when I almost got past it, the camera changed to behind the wall, and I fell off. I ended up just tossing the controler into the fireplace...
That little water pack to float a little? The bad play control is why it was there..The jumps would have been impossible unless you had a way to correct the movement in midair. And sometimes that wasn't even enough.
The only part of the game that was remotely fun were the "classic" hidden levels, which really took the old gaming experience into 3D. If the game was those alone, THEN it would have been a true classic.
As it stands now, it's not a classic, but WILL be remembered for being one of the worst Mario games of the series. I celebrated finishing it(by the way, the WORST Bowser fight ever), by tossing the game into the side of my house. Damn thing didn't even break correctly eaither, just cracked....
Dell did this, Compaq still does to some extent, and now HP is getting into it. The problem is that you have to dig though all sorts of stuff, or just call them outright if you want them. And then calling is having to talk to a supervisor, because the first sales rep will have no idea you can get a non-Windows PC. I've never gone to either of these three "major OEMS" that are "supporting linux" and actually have the option to either buy it in their normal storefronts, or though their normal distributions.
How is someone even soposed to know that linux is an option, if under "Operating System" you have only the choice of WindowsXP Home or Pro? The special linux PCs are usual so hidden you couldn't find them with Ponce De Leon, a GPS, and a personalized Googlebot.
So this is all a non-issue. Until I can go to hp.com and under their normal site, just see the "Mandrake 9.1 (subtract $52)" option on their site when I go though their store and chose "Operating System" for a new PC, it's all just smoke and mirrors.
I pay $4.95 a month for a ESPN.com subscription. I also paid the $24.95 for a yearly subscription to IGN.
So I pay about $85 a year for content. Why? Because it's content I actually find really useful. ESPN has a lot of really good articles in their insider pages, in aditition to things like linking articles to the local paper's websites of my favorite teams on sports stories. Not to mention their own extra content is written by the top guys in the business. IGN has a few nice videos once in a while, and some of their previews are really good. Not to mention with both of them, I got printed versions of ESPN the Magazine, and EGM.
The problem with paying for slashdot pages, or other micropayments, is that I'm getting anything special. I don't care to "help out a website". I want something I can't get anywhere else. If slashdot offered something like a private mirror for linked sites, distribtutions, debian/gentoo mirrors, etc. that's something to pay for. Hell, if even slashdot had their own articles to read to "subscribers only" I'd at least look to see what they were.
So to make a long story short...to anyone that has a website and wants subscription dollars. Make something worth paying for, and people will pay for it. Too bad only a few websites really grasped that idea.
Re:The Apple We All Know and Love
on
iBox Episode 2
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· Score: 1
yada yada yada about the "pro" mac case.
yes, the newer cases are more spacious....hardly better then current x86 offerings. All the other info still stands. And such things as firewire drives also "just work" in other OSes as well....it's not limited to OSX as people would have you believe.
You'll find bad stories about every product from every major company. Apple consistently does well in large scale surveys of reliability and customer satisfaction (usually the top or near the top score across the board).
Yes you find problems from a ot of products from a lot of companies...but the fact remains I can still get better quality and tech support from a $500 Dell then a $2000 Apple (Dell usually #1 in tech support by various reporting groups). The problem is when I buy a $1,500 laptop from Apple(I acually BOUGHT an iBook, so this is personal exp.) and I have keys poping off a keyboard that looks like it was made by fisher-price, and have a power supply who's charge light decides not to work, and Apple tells me in kind words to go screw myself, it's a problem...both things that actually happened.
You think that the sudden interest in rounded glass-like buttons is purely coincidental? You think that PC manufacturers got thrilled by translucent plastics just coincidentally with the success of the iMac? Apple is no different from a company like Nike that spends a lot of money building up brand recognition for a new shoe design and then finds its own suppliers selling products they designed to their competition.
the "iMac look" was going into products before Apple released the first iMac...Apple was following other trends, not other companies following Apple. And as far as temes that DO copy the OSX look and feel, there are themes that copy every OS'es look and feel, from BeOS, Windows, older Mac, SGI's look, etc.
My friend's Casio calculator in high school had the same functions as a higher priced model, they just weren't marked on the bezel. Most of the difference between a Golf and an Audi A3 is the software in its onboard computer. IBM used to upgrade customers' computers by flipping a switch in the back. Intel used to burn the math coprocessor off the 486DX to make the 486SX. This is hardly a charge that can solely be applied to Apple.
I lot of "used to" in that...and other companies to various extends do that now, but not nearly as much in the PC industry as Apple. And comparing a $50 calculator to a $2000 computer is pardon the pun, Apples to Oranges
Strange example. How many folks have IEEE1394 video cameras that won't work with their Mac OS X box? Now try to get them working with your PC. Or PS2 for that matter... what's its IEEE1394 jack for anyway?
And most, if not all of those vidoe cameras work just as easily in XP....as far as the PS2 firewire port....who knows?. The whole "just works" idea isn't OSX only. Driver issues etc. are all but non-existant anymore on XP. And even with Apple's extreme hardware/software integration, they have driver issues from time to time.
I dunno. They like their products or something
Everyone is intitled to their opinions...doesn't make them correct ones. I happen to like Gentoo Linux as my prefered OS...doesn't make it the best, just what I prefer. And I have no illusions it's the "best OS ever".
Re:The Apple We All Know and Love
on
iBox Episode 2
·
· Score: 1
I'll bite back...
1) the BMW comment is the defending of higher prices for their systems because BMW has a smaller market, and charges such a high price....but with BMW you actually get quality...as I pointed out, that's not the case with Apple. As far as the case goes, if that's the specs on the newer PM cases, I stand corrected. But the information about their quality of the insides of this case still remain.
2)this was about OSX, not the hardware prices, but I'll counter both comments here. Quicktime being a "value" is highly subjective, and if one of their reasons of higher priced hardware is software R&D, then they can't offer it for free on new macs? And it also still stands it's horrible the number of goofy $20 shareware aps you need to do useful things.
Yes, iBooks start at $1k, that's with 128M of SDRAM and a CDROM drive. This falls into #4 of crippling low end hardware. upping that to even 512, and a DVD would be pennies for an OEM at the quanity they buy...why they don't is to not cut into higher priced sales...unlike other companies that actually offer REAL value on higher end systems.
Your ability to network Macs faster then Windows PCs is due to your knowledge of Windows, not that Macs are "better" or "easier". I can network any systems from linux, Windows, to OSX just as easily...and find them all about the same. You do different things, but none really difficult(millions of normal PC users have home networks now with no problems BTW).
3) Yes, they have a very good image...because people seem to have a reason for everything they do, that flys in the face of all logic that is applied to other companies(Mircosoft comes up as an example) People blasted Mircosoft for killing off IE for the Mac, and I don't see people up in arms about Safari not being out for Windows or Linux(as far as IE only sites going to kill off Mac, IE for Windows and Mac were never the same renderer or codebase)
4) no, you're also right....I got caught up typing "consumer" a couple times typing the post, and realized it's something that really bothered me about Apple. I ment to add it to the end, but it didn't work out that way. I should have done a better job editing the post. But the information in it still stands.
5) Mice, Trackballs, etc. work in anything...drives and monitors don't need dirvers(a minitor "driver" just tells what the sync rates are) so they "just work" on everything, not just OSX. As far as the level of things that "just work" in OSX are the same as in XP, and in most desktop Linux distros. So I wish people would stop treating OSX like the "just works" genie and realize it's the same on XP and most desktop Linus distros.
and for your last point....the idea they made very good products is sketchy at best...and certain segments of the population also think various things that aren't true based on propaganda. Doesn't make it correct.
The Apple We All Know and Love
on
iBox Episode 2
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
It's always funny reading the Apple appoligist, defending every lawsuit they do, defending their overpriced systems, what have you. I'm going to put straight these myths now.
1) the "BMW" of computers. Macs are PCs, and cheaply made ones at that. The only thing that makes a Mac a Mac, is a case, cpu, and board. Their boards are at least 18 months behind x86 tech, their cpus, albeit a better design lag behind current x86 preformance. Their cases are also too small to put much more then another harddrive. The overall quality of Apple computers isn't even up to snuff with the x86 world. Read some forums about dented and pain peeling of Powerbooks, noise issues of Powermacs, keys falling off cheeply made iBooks, and you get the picture. The myth of "Apple quality" is greater then their "mhz myth"
2) OSX is the greatest OS since sliced bread. This comes from the fast that it's a "UNIX-based" OS that's "for a consumer". Well, if you want to compare feature for feature of the OS, Windows XP beats it hand down. I can also show you a couple linux distros that easily compare. Yes it's pretty, then try to do something useful with it, and you find that the OS doesn't do it, and it's a $20 shareware application to get it to work(joysticks anyone?). You buy a $2000 computer, and you still get nag screens with their media player asking for $20. You want a real unix, install a linux disto or a real *BSD. And OSX isn't cheap either, every year, they have a new $129 that kills backwards compatability(you want new iTunes? buy 10.2 for $129) And people complain about Mircosoft's "forced upgrades"? How much would Mircosoft be bashed if they started to tie payed services into XP like.mac ? People flip out when they buy out an anti-virus company to assumably integrate it with Windows Update.
3) Apple is a "friendly" company. Apple will sue anyone and everything. You have a theme that remotely has circular buttons? Apply legal will be on you like flies on manure. You want to talk about Microsoft buying competition, ask current Emagic customers about Apple. Mircosoft buys Virtual PC for a valid reason(server virtualization), Apple buys Emagic to lock their customers into expensive hardware. Mircosoft sues to stop RealPC because the company sold the rights to the program years ago(to the company MS bought BTW). Apple sues a company for making their systems for 1/2 the cost. If Joe Bag O'Donuts can make Macs for 1/2 price using Apple parts, how much is Apple REALLY overcharging for their systems?
4) "Consumer" vs. "Pro"....the whole idea that "consumers"(and boy I hate when I'm refered to as a consumer) need crappy integrated systems and slow hardware comes from Apple. Apple for years hasn't been able to offer workstation level proformance on systems, so they decide "consumers" don't need to do things like upgrade. And to make matters worse, they intentionally cripple their low end of their lines, to not comptete with higher priced offerings. An example is monitor spaning on an iBook..although the video chipset is capable, they intentionaly disable it, so if you want it, you have to buy a higher priced Powerbook. Wouldn't be needed if they could offer REAL reasons to buy higher priced Powerbooks, then to get functionality that they crippled on lower systems. Apple lovers even AGREE with this, because "that's what Apple has to do" As a computer buyer, I want the best for my money, and I don't want intentionally crippled hardware...Apple users disagree.
5) It all "just works" Yes, and my PS2 and Gamecube all "just work" out of the box as well. You stray from what you get via default from Apple, and it's less then 50/50 that it will "just work" Plug in a video cam? Hope it has OSX drivers. I've had better luck with things that "just work" in Mandrake Linux better then in OSX.
I could go on about Apple....but one major question remains....Why is it exactly that people support such a company to such great lengths?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a medical student and a technophile. I studied part of my third year clinicals in a third world nation with Doctors without Borders. Quite frankly, people who keep pushing for computers to be put into 3rd world nations don't seem to actually visit the poorest (and hence the most populous parts) of those places. The fact is that even a $100 put towards a computer can be better put towards generic versions of prescription drugs. Clean water, food, medical care and education are more important than any internet connection, laptop, or cellular phone. Unfortunately, Slashdot folks don't get it. A computer is nothing more than a tool that only matters when an educated and healthy population can utilize them.
If I had mod points, I'd just mod you up, but I'll just do a "me too" post. What good is a computer, if you're drinking the same water you took a leak it yesterday, and have children dying of diseases a $5 vaccination would cure?cmacb wrote:
Computer Science .ne. Rocket Science
Nice use of the fortran syntax
/Codes fortran on vms as his job
//Knows it's not gettings outsourced ever
///Likes to put in fark like comments in slashdot
'Basically, customers said "We want to make sure our PCs are running genuine Windows and have access to all the content on the Microsoft Download Center; the experience when we're running a Mozilla browser is not great. Do something about it." Brad's team did. I think that's a good thing for customers.'"
Yeah, I installed this Windows the other day, had some sort of goofy foot for a start menu, Office didn't install, and I couldn't get any of my games to work. I'm glad now there is a way I can see if I actually have genuine Windows, and not that fake Windows going around.
even better:
/dev/printer
echo ^g >
most of your cash drawers are connected to receipt printers that when they get the bell command, send the signal to kick open the till.
You go into your first CS class as a freshman. Something like CS101 - Intro to Java, and you get some guy like Sanji Akawhatever. It's an 8AM class, and the guy babbles though basic stuff in the 100 words of english he can speak. You end up going about 5 times the whole semester, still manage an A because really, the class doesn't matter. He doesn't keep up on handed in assignments, and what test there are, are a joke.
Next semster you have two other classes, with professors with names you can pronounce, and accents you can't understand anyways. While all your friends are doing other interesting classes, you're sitting in CS102 - Computer Arch. which the professor is going page by page. It has taken him two weeks to tell you how a CD stores information. Meanwhile, you're sitting next to some hardcore linux nerd, who keeps telling you about the great things about his distro of choice, and saying he doesn't have to do any work, because he knows everything(note he fails any assignment that's handed out, with some 30 minute explaination on why).
Your friends are starting to do even interesting stuff, and you're sitting in classes(if you actually manage to go to them) that are just tedious to even follow. You start looking up fall classes and go "I want to put up with this shit for 3+ more years? Hell no" and go back in the fall with a new major.
I've seen the situation way too many times to just pass it off as antidotal. Maybe if schools would hire professors that actually knew what they were doing, and not make it a total waste to go, more people wouldn't leave the major.
it is 34% more snappy, and applicaions open with 21% less DBs(dock bounces) than 10.4.1
They said google, not goldenpalace.com
If someone could either correct me or find the article I remember reading it in, but didn't Golden Tee become the #1 arcade game of all time (in units sold) like last year?
This was submitted to fark with a funnier headline...
Really, since when did Slashdot become old Fark stories?
It just me, or does this whole article seem like it came from the Conan O'Brian skit "Pierre Bernard's Recliner of Rage"?
That's why it was the name of the boat in Jaws.
"good, install, reinstall,re-reinstall, re-re-reinstall"
so yes, it's a Mircosoft site.
was the first thing I thought of when I saw the article. It was one of the classic Far Side comics.
If anyone has a link they want to put up, feel free, but I couldn't find one, and I didn't feel like looking it up in my collection and scanning it in.
I like to bake my own bread using those Rhodes frozen bread dough loaves. The heat given off by the case makes it rise pretty well. Don't think I couldn't actually shove it into a drive bay...
Let's not forget the original gay character....from Nintendo no less...Birdo in Super Mario Bros 2. Yes, that pink thing that shot eggs and wore a bow...was a dude.
I actually finished E.T, as much as one could anyways...
You had to get the phone pieces from the pits, hardest part was getting OUT of them.. I forget if raising the flower was a requirement to finish, or if was just bonus..
Then gets to the part few know how to do, actually phoning home. You had to keep walking around, until the symbol at the top of the screen looked like a frog. It actually kinda looked like a hall monster from Venture. then you raised your head, and that phoned home.
You then went to a screen with Elliot's house, and the ship came back and picked you up. It calculated a score, and then you did it all over again, and again, and again.
Be sure to pick Grow Can you make everything GROW! and get 20,000 points?
now that Monster Force is over, does this mean that work on Talisman will continue once again?
The game was nearly impossible to have fun with. The play control just KILLED any chance of fun with the game. The damned camera would just move around at will dispite you having control over it. and the movement on the stick was based on the view. So nothing was worse they trying to walljump, and falling off because the camera decided to move.
And to anyone that's played it a while, I don't have to mention the level that took you behind the ferris wheel. It gave you the chose of two views, behind a wall, and behind a fence. I finnished the level by sheer luck. It also cost me a contoler, when I almost got past it, the camera changed to behind the wall, and I fell off. I ended up just tossing the controler into the fireplace...
That little water pack to float a little? The bad play control is why it was there..The jumps would have been impossible unless you had a way to correct the movement in midair. And sometimes that wasn't even enough.
The only part of the game that was remotely fun were the "classic" hidden levels, which really took the old gaming experience into 3D. If the game was those alone, THEN it would have been a true classic.
As it stands now, it's not a classic, but WILL be remembered for being one of the worst Mario games of the series. I celebrated finishing it(by the way, the WORST Bowser fight ever), by tossing the game into the side of my house. Damn thing didn't even break correctly eaither, just cracked....
Dell did this, Compaq still does to some extent, and now HP is getting into it. The problem is that you have to dig though all sorts of stuff, or just call them outright if you want them. And then calling is having to talk to a supervisor, because the first sales rep will have no idea you can get a non-Windows PC. I've never gone to either of these three "major OEMS" that are "supporting linux" and actually have the option to either buy it in their normal storefronts, or though their normal distributions.
How is someone even soposed to know that linux is an option, if under "Operating System" you have only the choice of WindowsXP Home or Pro? The special linux PCs are usual so hidden you couldn't find them with Ponce De Leon, a GPS, and a personalized Googlebot.
So this is all a non-issue. Until I can go to hp.com and under their normal site, just see the "Mandrake 9.1 (subtract $52)" option on their site when I go though their store and chose "Operating System" for a new PC, it's all just smoke and mirrors.
It goes head to head with Pitt's supercomputer here. Then it will be crushed and all the time/energy will be wasted.
I pay $4.95 a month for a ESPN.com subscription. I also paid the $24.95 for a yearly subscription to IGN.
So I pay about $85 a year for content. Why? Because it's content I actually find really useful. ESPN has a lot of really good articles in their insider pages, in aditition to things like linking articles to the local paper's websites of my favorite teams on sports stories. Not to mention their own extra content is written by the top guys in the business. IGN has a few nice videos once in a while, and some of their previews are really good. Not to mention with both of them, I got printed versions of ESPN the Magazine, and EGM.
The problem with paying for slashdot pages, or other micropayments, is that I'm getting anything special. I don't care to "help out a website". I want something I can't get anywhere else. If slashdot offered something like a private mirror for linked sites, distribtutions, debian/gentoo mirrors, etc. that's something to pay for. Hell, if even slashdot had their own articles to read to "subscribers only" I'd at least look to see what they were.
So to make a long story short...to anyone that has a website and wants subscription dollars. Make something worth paying for, and people will pay for it. Too bad only a few websites really grasped that idea.
yes, the newer cases are more spacious....hardly better then current x86 offerings. All the other info still stands. And such things as firewire drives also "just work" in other OSes as well....it's not limited to OSX as people would have you believe.
You'll find bad stories about every product from every major company. Apple consistently does well in large scale surveys of reliability and customer satisfaction (usually the top or near the top score across the board).Yes you find problems from a ot of products from a lot of companies...but the fact remains I can still get better quality and tech support from a $500 Dell then a $2000 Apple (Dell usually #1 in tech support by various reporting groups). The problem is when I buy a $1,500 laptop from Apple(I acually BOUGHT an iBook, so this is personal exp.) and I have keys poping off a keyboard that looks like it was made by fisher-price, and have a power supply who's charge light decides not to work, and Apple tells me in kind words to go screw myself, it's a problem...both things that actually happened.
You think that the sudden interest in rounded glass-like buttons is purely coincidental? You think that PC manufacturers got thrilled by translucent plastics just coincidentally with the success of the iMac? Apple is no different from a company like Nike that spends a lot of money building up brand recognition for a new shoe design and then finds its own suppliers selling products they designed to their competition.the "iMac look" was going into products before Apple released the first iMac...Apple was following other trends, not other companies following Apple. And as far as temes that DO copy the OSX look and feel, there are themes that copy every OS'es look and feel, from BeOS, Windows, older Mac, SGI's look, etc.
My friend's Casio calculator in high school had the same functions as a higher priced model, they just weren't marked on the bezel. Most of the difference between a Golf and an Audi A3 is the software in its onboard computer. IBM used to upgrade customers' computers by flipping a switch in the back. Intel used to burn the math coprocessor off the 486DX to make the 486SX. This is hardly a charge that can solely be applied to Apple.I lot of "used to" in that...and other companies to various extends do that now, but not nearly as much in the PC industry as Apple. And comparing a $50 calculator to a $2000 computer is pardon the pun, Apples to Oranges
Strange example. How many folks have IEEE1394 video cameras that won't work with their Mac OS X box? Now try to get them working with your PC. Or PS2 for that matter... what's its IEEE1394 jack for anyway?And most, if not all of those vidoe cameras work just as easily in XP....as far as the PS2 firewire port....who knows?. The whole "just works" idea isn't OSX only. Driver issues etc. are all but non-existant anymore on XP. And even with Apple's extreme hardware/software integration, they have driver issues from time to time.
I dunno. They like their products or somethingEveryone is intitled to their opinions...doesn't make them correct ones. I happen to like Gentoo Linux as my prefered OS...doesn't make it the best, just what I prefer. And I have no illusions it's the "best OS ever".
I'll bite back...
1) the BMW comment is the defending of higher prices for their systems because BMW has a smaller market, and charges such a high price....but with BMW you actually get quality...as I pointed out, that's not the case with Apple. As far as the case goes, if that's the specs on the newer PM cases, I stand corrected. But the information about their quality of the insides of this case still remain.
2)this was about OSX, not the hardware prices, but I'll counter both comments here. Quicktime being a "value" is highly subjective, and if one of their reasons of higher priced hardware is software R&D, then they can't offer it for free on new macs? And it also still stands it's horrible the number of goofy $20 shareware aps you need to do useful things.
Yes, iBooks start at $1k, that's with 128M of SDRAM and a CDROM drive. This falls into #4 of crippling low end hardware. upping that to even 512, and a DVD would be pennies for an OEM at the quanity they buy...why they don't is to not cut into higher priced sales...unlike other companies that actually offer REAL value on higher end systems.
Your ability to network Macs faster then Windows PCs is due to your knowledge of Windows, not that Macs are "better" or "easier". I can network any systems from linux, Windows, to OSX just as easily...and find them all about the same. You do different things, but none really difficult(millions of normal PC users have home networks now with no problems BTW).
3) Yes, they have a very good image...because people seem to have a reason for everything they do, that flys in the face of all logic that is applied to other companies(Mircosoft comes up as an example) People blasted Mircosoft for killing off IE for the Mac, and I don't see people up in arms about Safari not being out for Windows or Linux(as far as IE only sites going to kill off Mac, IE for Windows and Mac were never the same renderer or codebase)
4) no, you're also right....I got caught up typing "consumer" a couple times typing the post, and realized it's something that really bothered me about Apple. I ment to add it to the end, but it didn't work out that way. I should have done a better job editing the post. But the information in it still stands.
5) Mice, Trackballs, etc. work in anything...drives and monitors don't need dirvers(a minitor "driver" just tells what the sync rates are) so they "just work" on everything, not just OSX. As far as the level of things that "just work" in OSX are the same as in XP, and in most desktop Linux distros. So I wish people would stop treating OSX like the "just works" genie and realize it's the same on XP and most desktop Linus distros.
and for your last point....the idea they made very good products is sketchy at best...and certain segments of the population also think various things that aren't true based on propaganda. Doesn't make it correct.
It's always funny reading the Apple appoligist, defending every lawsuit they do, defending their overpriced systems, what have you. I'm going to put straight these myths now.
.mac ? People flip out when they buy out an anti-virus company to assumably integrate it with Windows Update.
1) the "BMW" of computers. Macs are PCs, and cheaply made ones at that. The only thing that makes a Mac a Mac, is a case, cpu, and board. Their boards are at least 18 months behind x86 tech, their cpus, albeit a better design lag behind current x86 preformance. Their cases are also too small to put much more then another harddrive. The overall quality of Apple computers isn't even up to snuff with the x86 world. Read some forums about dented and pain peeling of Powerbooks, noise issues of Powermacs, keys falling off cheeply made iBooks, and you get the picture. The myth of "Apple quality" is greater then their "mhz myth"
2) OSX is the greatest OS since sliced bread. This comes from the fast that it's a "UNIX-based" OS that's "for a consumer". Well, if you want to compare feature for feature of the OS, Windows XP beats it hand down. I can also show you a couple linux distros that easily compare. Yes it's pretty, then try to do something useful with it, and you find that the OS doesn't do it, and it's a $20 shareware application to get it to work(joysticks anyone?). You buy a $2000 computer, and you still get nag screens with their media player asking for $20. You want a real unix, install a linux disto or a real *BSD. And OSX isn't cheap either, every year, they have a new $129 that kills backwards compatability(you want new iTunes? buy 10.2 for $129) And people complain about Mircosoft's "forced upgrades"? How much would Mircosoft be bashed if they started to tie payed services into XP like
3) Apple is a "friendly" company. Apple will sue anyone and everything. You have a theme that remotely has circular buttons? Apply legal will be on you like flies on manure. You want to talk about Microsoft buying competition, ask current Emagic customers about Apple. Mircosoft buys Virtual PC for a valid reason(server virtualization), Apple buys Emagic to lock their customers into expensive hardware. Mircosoft sues to stop RealPC because the company sold the rights to the program years ago(to the company MS bought BTW). Apple sues a company for making their systems for 1/2 the cost. If Joe Bag O'Donuts can make Macs for 1/2 price using Apple parts, how much is Apple REALLY overcharging for their systems?
4) "Consumer" vs. "Pro"....the whole idea that "consumers"(and boy I hate when I'm refered to as a consumer) need crappy integrated systems and slow hardware comes from Apple. Apple for years hasn't been able to offer workstation level proformance on systems, so they decide "consumers" don't need to do things like upgrade. And to make matters worse, they intentionally cripple their low end of their lines, to not comptete with higher priced offerings. An example is monitor spaning on an iBook..although the video chipset is capable, they intentionaly disable it, so if you want it, you have to buy a higher priced Powerbook. Wouldn't be needed if they could offer REAL reasons to buy higher priced Powerbooks, then to get functionality that they crippled on lower systems. Apple lovers even AGREE with this, because "that's what Apple has to do" As a computer buyer, I want the best for my money, and I don't want intentionally crippled hardware...Apple users disagree.
5) It all "just works" Yes, and my PS2 and Gamecube all "just work" out of the box as well. You stray from what you get via default from Apple, and it's less then 50/50 that it will "just work" Plug in a video cam? Hope it has OSX drivers. I've had better luck with things that "just work" in Mandrake Linux better then in OSX.
I could go on about Apple....but one major question remains....Why is it exactly that people support such a company to such great lengths?