I think there's something wrong with your G4 if it can't handle Flash at 1.5GHz. My 2x800Mhz G4 handles Flash easily, and I doubt it's because of the dual processors. I agree that Flash is better on x86 (much less cpu strain), but I don't share your experience of "dropping frames" on my old G4.
There's a new Utah law being voted on that will force drivers to literally get off the road if necessary to let people pass if you have at least 5 or 6 other cars tailing you, wanting to pass. It's suspected to pass easily, if it isn't already... I'm a bit behind on my local politics. Anyway, this seems to be an improvement on the standard slow-traffic-on-the-right concept. But you're right on; lack of enforcement of these things contributes to bad traffic considerably.
All proprietary software developers are monopolists. When you run non-free software you put the monopolists in control. I think you misunderstand what a monopoly is. Under a free market, the success of all products is based on merit, and that has nothing to do with whether it is propriety or Free. You may personally believe in and buy (or use) only software which is Free, but that does not make vendors of propriety software monopolies. That doesn't even make sense at all.
Don't confuse terms. A monopoly occurs when a company or group uses their market position (rather than the product's merit) to cause people to buy their product. Technically, it is quite possible that a Free software vendor could be guilty of monopolistic behavior. Believing that all propriety software vendors are monopolists is a clear logical fallacy as I have demonstrated, so please stop spreading misinformation. The merits of Free software do not increase because you post an irrational rant against propriety software.
Monopoly or no, it's undeniable that using secret APIs to give your own software an edge is anti-competitive. Sir, I believe you are perfectly correct. In the event that this terrible act is ever performed by Apple, I think we should discuss it.
What are you doing here? Rational thinking? Common sense? That kind of thinking is not welcome here. This is Slashdot, you know, where nobody RTFA's and everybody rises up to slam teh evil Micro$oft in the daily Vista article.
If Apple had the install base of Windows, they would never have risked that. When there are about.01% of the computing world using Apple OS, dropping the entire thing and creating a new one from scracth and keeping the old one as a VM is ok. you don't need to worry about too much backlash or loss of sales (as there aren't much to begin with).
When you're over 90% of the market, you simply cannot take your customers for granted and drop compatibilty. I think you misunderstand the point, which is that the "Classic" environment under Mac OS X worked really well while at the same time allowed Apple to actually improve the "real" operating system. So perhaps this approach would work even better for Microsoft since A) we know this approach does works, and B) we know Microsoft's current approach at keeping compatibility is a huge burden and apparently doesn't work so well. The fact that they have even more users should mean that it's even more important for them to do something that works, which a VM layer does, seeing as how Apple has proved that it works (multiple times).
Forgive my (perhaps naive) question as I am not an emacs user. I'm sure there's a good answer to this, but why use a vi or vim emulation layer in emacs instead of just using vim? I've never been at a workstation that had emacs if it didn't also have vim. Why not stick with the real deal if that's what you know/prefer?
but the fact is the iPod is Good Enough for most people. Your comment suggests most people would rather have something else if they could afford other products or at least knew about them, but I doubt it. The iPod is still a very good product, very capable of selling on its own merits, not including popularity.
You seem to think that you are, or at least ought to be, included in Apple's target market for their products. In reality, it's very possible that you are not included in any of their target markets. If you don't like the MacBook Air because it's only got one USB port and no user-replaceable battery, great. You're not in that target market so get something that you do like, perhaps from another company.
However, don't presume that because the MacBook Air doesn't meet your specific needs that it doesn't perfectly fit the needs of people who are actually in that target market. You might think that anyone who can find a use for a small laptop with only one USB port is a moronic cult-member, but you would be wrong. Same for the iPod; let me assure you that there are people buying the iPod, not because it's the most popular or because it's shiny, but because they find it to be more suitable than other products for their needs. I am one of them.
1. Apple does not have the resources that Microsoft does, at least in the way of a development team. 2. Your point is meaningless because we all agree that Apple's software isn't perfect; Even despite the (usually admitted) fanboism of many, not many are clueless enough to argue that Apple's software is perfect. 3. Therefore the original point remains valid: With Microsoft's available resources, they should be able to perform the required testing to ensure quality of their software. We won't hold Microsoft up to the standard of perfection any more than we do for Apple or FOSS, but the fact remains that they are messing up a lot lately. It is acceptable for a _very_ small percentage of people to have problems with an upgrade, but for that percentage to be so high that the upgrade had to be pulled, then obviously there is a problem. If you choose to turn a blind eye to this growing quality problem related specifically to Microsoft's software, then that's fine, but there's nothing wrong for the rest of us to talk about it.
It's still amusing when I read stuff like this. Anyone who suggests Gimp as a viable alternative to Photoshop is not into professional graphic design. Gimp may be good for some people in the same way that MS Paint is also good for some people, but it won't work for everyone.
(I think there may be some here who will skim over that last statement and assume I'm saying that Gimp is like MS Paint. If so, reread it and try to understand.)
Or consider that you can get a wireless router for your home/office, another cheap computer (if you don't already have one) to use as an optical drive server, and even a cheap USB hub if you really want for less than the extra cost of the Thinkpad, and you'll have a hard drive big enough to actually store some files if you go for the MacBook Air. And I thought Macs were expensive...
I'm typing this from my Thinkpad T42. Actually, I'm not in a great position to talk about "new" computers. From what I've seen, none of them really are as good in quality as they used to be. These old Thinkpads are solid, and so are the old Powerbooks. These "new" laptops are too expensive for me anyway.
* Restore the ability to have folders remember their views. Hasn't this always been possible in Mac OS X?
* Run each Finder window in a separate process, so it doesn't lock everything up when one window gets busy. Particularly when hitting network shares. 100% agree. I have hated this in Puma, then hated it some more in Jaguar, continued to hate it in Panther, and now I'm still hating it in Tiger. I had read that Finder was much improved in this regard in Leopard. Is this not the case!? (I haven't been able to really try it out yet.) If not, I really think Finder should be Apple's #1 priority, and hopefully it happens before the next major release. Finder only seems to improve in very small increments, and it has also decreased in usability in many cases, like when they didn't have spring-loaded folders in OS X for way too long.
Well, let's be honest. McCain is exclusively the media darling. Ron Paul has some good ideas, but some of his other ideas (isolation) are extreme so it's not difficult to see how he is ignored.
Mitt Romney on the other hand has had to fight 10 times harder for every vote he gets because he doesn't get the free press like McCain does, yet his principles are much more aligned with the Republican base than McCain.
So Ron Paul isn't the only one being "suppressed." I would argue that Ron Paul's unpopular positions help suppress him, but why are they holding Romney back?
IMO some of these complaints remind me of things said in the Win98 vs WinXP days. Does anyone else see what's wrong with this statement?
Then why are you still using Windows? Maybe it's just me, but I think the point of new software meant to replace old software is to actually, you know, improve upon the older software.
If I upgraded my Linux operating system to find that network functionality was reduced and I was at the mercy of Linux developers to fix it whenever they felt like it, I wouldn't use Linux. So why do you continue to use Windows, and pay for the "privilege?" It's like a woman continuing to go back to her abusive husband. Stop hurting yourself!
On the other hand, it's VERY much typical behavior for Steve to try and lock people into his products.
Proof?
By the way, Apple lowered their "iTunes Plus" (no DRM) prices when Amazon came out with their MP3 service. It now costs the same as regular DRM songs. This should indicate to you that Apple is willing to ditch DRM entirely, seeing as how they are willing to charge the same prices.
I'm surprised you haven't seen the common theory that the major labels aren't giving non-DRM rights to Apple yet in order to retain pricing control. I don't know if anyone can prove it, but it certainly is the most common theory and really the only one that makes sense, given the facts. If you really care to know (you're not a troll right?), then google it. Duh.
Actually, the other guy is right dude. Most humor is directly related to context. You may like to think that you can find humor out of any context, but the reality is you can find something really funny in one context and absolutely not funny at all in a slightly different context. It may be true that you still find FSJ funny, but that's only because you apparently don't care about the minor context switch which took place once his identity was known, and that's fine. Good for you (I personally didn't find him funny even before that). However, just be informed that context very much does matter in humor, regardless of whether the context switch made an impression on you or not.
Mac OS X runs on a Mac. This is the way it has always been. Apple started using Intel chips, but why did you expect that anything would (or should) change? Let me repeat: Mac OS X runs on a Mac!
You can argue till your blue in the face that they need to do this, doesn't change what they are doing. If it wasn't DRM'd, it'd run fine on any hardware that met its technical requirements. Your statement is false. If Mac OS X was allowed to (marketed to, sold to) run on commodity x86 hardware, then you can be sure that _many_ people would do it! I think you agree. You are wrong, however, in saying that it (OS X) would run just fine. It wouldn't, and have you considered how much support costs would sky-rocket with people trying to use OS X on hardware or with hardware that wasn't designed for it? The only reason OS X as we know it is possible is because it must only support a much narrower spectrum of hardware. Therefore Apple can put their resources to better use actually developering their products.
The trade-off of course, if you want to get on-board you had better get a Mac, because Mac OS X runs on a Mac. You can whine and moan all day long about how that mean Apple doesn't support using OS X on commodity hardware to reduce their support costs. On the other hand, you can realize that OS X doesn't carry enough value itself to justify having to buy extra hardware to use it and go along your merry way with Ubuntu or Windows or whatever tool has justifiable value to you.
... I don't travel nearly enough to justify the cost. Which is why I think your assessment is wrong. It's not for travelers, which is what a lot of people are saying here. They've already got a travel bag and maybe a suitcase they have to carry with them. What difference would a couple pounds in the laptop make?
No, this is for people like students who carry their notebook around everywhere they go all the time. Personally, I love the idea of a "satellite" notebook. Certainly the Air is enough computer for most people's needs, but it appeals to me because I'd like a portable for those times that I'm out, but I also enjoy sitting down at my powerhouse (base, hub, or whatever) computer with my big widescreen monitor when I'm at home.
However, the Air is not for me for two reasons. First, I'm a poor student and daddy doesn't buy me everything I want. Second, there is an unsolved problem which needs addressing for a satellite/base system to work: simple, automatic syncing. Until these two issues are resolved, I'll keep lugging around my hefty Thinkpad.
People say that Apple missed the mark with everything they release. Sometimes they do, but lately it hasn't been very often. One thing Apple knows is their customers. Apple Marketing is truly superb. When you say that Apple "missed the mark," what you really mean is they missed the mark for you, but most likely you weren't in their target market for this device in the first place.
That said, you may be right. Maybe nobody will buy it, but I don't think so.
If McCain can beat Romney in MI, Romney will be against the ropes and will likely have to consider withdrawing from the race, as it'd be an embarressing defeat. Romney withdraw if McCain wins Michigan? Why would Romney withdraw after Michigan when he currently has the most delegates on the Republican side? The fact that he placed 2nd in the two states that were the highest publicized shouldn't indicate to you that he's doing poorly by any means. With Iowa's evangelical base, Huckabee's Iowa victory is unsurprising, and we've all known that McCain was going to take New Hampshire since the beginning.
Business is not based on good or evil but profit and loss. One should never expect business to do anything but maximize its profits. To control byuiness, one needs laws that make it profitable to do good and unprofitable to do evil. That means costs for business should include the externalities, such as production of greenhouse gases, now subsidized by government.
While it is true that a for-profit business is #1 in it for the profit, we cannot assume that business does not do a lot of good locally and worldwide, because it very much does. To use the figure from Adam Smith most everyone knows, although we (business) will have self-interest, the invisible hand will still make sure that good is performed.
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I think there's something wrong with your G4 if it can't handle Flash at 1.5GHz. My 2x800Mhz G4 handles Flash easily, and I doubt it's because of the dual processors. I agree that Flash is better on x86 (much less cpu strain), but I don't share your experience of "dropping frames" on my old G4.
That's interesting. I have had absolutely no problems with Flash on Vista 64-bit or OS X. Before anyone asks, I run Vista for porting purposes.
There's a new Utah law being voted on that will force drivers to literally get off the road if necessary to let people pass if you have at least 5 or 6 other cars tailing you, wanting to pass. It's suspected to pass easily, if it isn't already... I'm a bit behind on my local politics. Anyway, this seems to be an improvement on the standard slow-traffic-on-the-right concept. But you're right on; lack of enforcement of these things contributes to bad traffic considerably.
You got modded down, AC, but your point is valid. Lock-in is indeed one of the notable reasons IMO why Microsoft continues to be so successful.
Don't confuse terms. A monopoly occurs when a company or group uses their market position (rather than the product's merit) to cause people to buy their product. Technically, it is quite possible that a Free software vendor could be guilty of monopolistic behavior. Believing that all propriety software vendors are monopolists is a clear logical fallacy as I have demonstrated, so please stop spreading misinformation. The merits of Free software do not increase because you post an irrational rant against propriety software.
Yes, if you run gentoo.
What are you doing here? Rational thinking? Common sense? That kind of thinking is not welcome here. This is Slashdot, you know, where nobody RTFA's and everybody rises up to slam teh evil Micro$oft in the daily Vista article.
Well anyway, welcome to Slashdot.
When you're over 90% of the market, you simply cannot take your customers for granted and drop compatibilty. I think you misunderstand the point, which is that the "Classic" environment under Mac OS X worked really well while at the same time allowed Apple to actually improve the "real" operating system. So perhaps this approach would work even better for Microsoft since A) we know this approach does works, and B) we know Microsoft's current approach at keeping compatibility is a huge burden and apparently doesn't work so well. The fact that they have even more users should mean that it's even more important for them to do something that works, which a VM layer does, seeing as how Apple has proved that it works (multiple times).
Forgive my (perhaps naive) question as I am not an emacs user. I'm sure there's a good answer to this, but why use a vi or vim emulation layer in emacs instead of just using vim? I've never been at a workstation that had emacs if it didn't also have vim. Why not stick with the real deal if that's what you know/prefer?
You seem to think that you are, or at least ought to be, included in Apple's target market for their products. In reality, it's very possible that you are not included in any of their target markets. If you don't like the MacBook Air because it's only got one USB port and no user-replaceable battery, great. You're not in that target market so get something that you do like, perhaps from another company.
However, don't presume that because the MacBook Air doesn't meet your specific needs that it doesn't perfectly fit the needs of people who are actually in that target market. You might think that anyone who can find a use for a small laptop with only one USB port is a moronic cult-member, but you would be wrong. Same for the iPod; let me assure you that there are people buying the iPod, not because it's the most popular or because it's shiny, but because they find it to be more suitable than other products for their needs. I am one of them.
1. Apple does not have the resources that Microsoft does, at least in the way of a development team.
2. Your point is meaningless because we all agree that Apple's software isn't perfect; Even despite the (usually admitted) fanboism of many, not many are clueless enough to argue that Apple's software is perfect.
3. Therefore the original point remains valid: With Microsoft's available resources, they should be able to perform the required testing to ensure quality of their software. We won't hold Microsoft up to the standard of perfection any more than we do for Apple or FOSS, but the fact remains that they are messing up a lot lately. It is acceptable for a _very_ small percentage of people to have problems with an upgrade, but for that percentage to be so high that the upgrade had to be pulled, then obviously there is a problem. If you choose to turn a blind eye to this growing quality problem related specifically to Microsoft's software, then that's fine, but there's nothing wrong for the rest of us to talk about it.
It's still amusing when I read stuff like this. Anyone who suggests Gimp as a viable alternative to Photoshop is not into professional graphic design. Gimp may be good for some people in the same way that MS Paint is also good for some people, but it won't work for everyone. (I think there may be some here who will skim over that last statement and assume I'm saying that Gimp is like MS Paint. If so, reread it and try to understand.)
Or consider that you can get a wireless router for your home/office, another cheap computer (if you don't already have one) to use as an optical drive server, and even a cheap USB hub if you really want for less than the extra cost of the Thinkpad, and you'll have a hard drive big enough to actually store some files if you go for the MacBook Air. And I thought Macs were expensive... I'm typing this from my Thinkpad T42. Actually, I'm not in a great position to talk about "new" computers. From what I've seen, none of them really are as good in quality as they used to be. These old Thinkpads are solid, and so are the old Powerbooks. These "new" laptops are too expensive for me anyway.
Hasn't this always been possible in Mac OS X? * Run each Finder window in a separate process, so it doesn't lock everything up when one window gets busy. Particularly when hitting network shares.
100% agree. I have hated this in Puma, then hated it some more in Jaguar, continued to hate it in Panther, and now I'm still hating it in Tiger. I had read that Finder was much improved in this regard in Leopard. Is this not the case!? (I haven't been able to really try it out yet.) If not, I really think Finder should be Apple's #1 priority, and hopefully it happens before the next major release. Finder only seems to improve in very small increments, and it has also decreased in usability in many cases, like when they didn't have spring-loaded folders in OS X for way too long.
Well, let's be honest. McCain is exclusively the media darling. Ron Paul has some good ideas, but some of his other ideas (isolation) are extreme so it's not difficult to see how he is ignored.
Mitt Romney on the other hand has had to fight 10 times harder for every vote he gets because he doesn't get the free press like McCain does, yet his principles are much more aligned with the Republican base than McCain.
So Ron Paul isn't the only one being "suppressed." I would argue that Ron Paul's unpopular positions help suppress him, but why are they holding Romney back?
Then why are you still using Windows? Maybe it's just me, but I think the point of new software meant to replace old software is to actually, you know, improve upon the older software.
If I upgraded my Linux operating system to find that network functionality was reduced and I was at the mercy of Linux developers to fix it whenever they felt like it, I wouldn't use Linux. So why do you continue to use Windows, and pay for the "privilege?" It's like a woman continuing to go back to her abusive husband. Stop hurting yourself!
On the other hand, it's VERY much typical behavior for Steve to try and lock people into his products.
Proof?By the way, Apple lowered their "iTunes Plus" (no DRM) prices when Amazon came out with their MP3 service. It now costs the same as regular DRM songs. This should indicate to you that Apple is willing to ditch DRM entirely, seeing as how they are willing to charge the same prices.
I'm surprised you haven't seen the common theory that the major labels aren't giving non-DRM rights to Apple yet in order to retain pricing control. I don't know if anyone can prove it, but it certainly is the most common theory and really the only one that makes sense, given the facts. If you really care to know (you're not a troll right?), then google it. Duh.
Actually, the other guy is right dude. Most humor is directly related to context. You may like to think that you can find humor out of any context, but the reality is you can find something really funny in one context and absolutely not funny at all in a slightly different context. It may be true that you still find FSJ funny, but that's only because you apparently don't care about the minor context switch which took place once his identity was known, and that's fine. Good for you (I personally didn't find him funny even before that). However, just be informed that context very much does matter in humor, regardless of whether the context switch made an impression on you or not.
You can argue till your blue in the face that they need to do this, doesn't change what they are doing. If it wasn't DRM'd, it'd run fine on any hardware that met its technical requirements. Your statement is false. If Mac OS X was allowed to (marketed to, sold to) run on commodity x86 hardware, then you can be sure that _many_ people would do it! I think you agree. You are wrong, however, in saying that it (OS X) would run just fine. It wouldn't, and have you considered how much support costs would sky-rocket with people trying to use OS X on hardware or with hardware that wasn't designed for it? The only reason OS X as we know it is possible is because it must only support a much narrower spectrum of hardware. Therefore Apple can put their resources to better use actually developering their products.
The trade-off of course, if you want to get on-board you had better get a Mac, because Mac OS X runs on a Mac. You can whine and moan all day long about how that mean Apple doesn't support using OS X on commodity hardware to reduce their support costs. On the other hand, you can realize that OS X doesn't carry enough value itself to justify having to buy extra hardware to use it and go along your merry way with Ubuntu or Windows or whatever tool has justifiable value to you.
Opinion or fact?
... I don't travel nearly enough to justify the cost. Which is why I think your assessment is wrong. It's not for travelers, which is what a lot of people are saying here. They've already got a travel bag and maybe a suitcase they have to carry with them. What difference would a couple pounds in the laptop make?No, this is for people like students who carry their notebook around everywhere they go all the time. Personally, I love the idea of a "satellite" notebook. Certainly the Air is enough computer for most people's needs, but it appeals to me because I'd like a portable for those times that I'm out, but I also enjoy sitting down at my powerhouse (base, hub, or whatever) computer with my big widescreen monitor when I'm at home.
However, the Air is not for me for two reasons. First, I'm a poor student and daddy doesn't buy me everything I want. Second, there is an unsolved problem which needs addressing for a satellite/base system to work: simple, automatic syncing. Until these two issues are resolved, I'll keep lugging around my hefty Thinkpad.
People say that Apple missed the mark with everything they release. Sometimes they do, but lately it hasn't been very often. One thing Apple knows is their customers. Apple Marketing is truly superb. When you say that Apple "missed the mark," what you really mean is they missed the mark for you, but most likely you weren't in their target market for this device in the first place.
That said, you may be right. Maybe nobody will buy it, but I don't think so.
Business is not based on good or evil but profit and loss. One should never expect business to do anything but maximize its profits. To control byuiness, one needs laws that make it profitable to do good and unprofitable to do evil. That means costs for business should include the externalities, such as production of greenhouse gases, now subsidized by government.
While it is true that a for-profit business is #1 in it for the profit, we cannot assume that business does not do a lot of good locally and worldwide, because it very much does. To use the figure from Adam Smith most everyone knows, although we (business) will have self-interest, the invisible hand will still make sure that good is performed.