I, however, care about functionality, and Firefox has a basic feature set that makes it useful out of the box, while Safari is truncated. Safari's tabbed browsing isn't as elegant. It has fewer keyboard shortcuts for common functions, and it doesn't have the library of installable extensions that Firefox has.
Yes, Firefox may be a bit slower, but it does a whole lot more than Safari, and it's easier to use.
You know, with this CVS tree, and the move to Intel hardware, how long before we have a Windows port of Safari?
Nah, the last thing we need is something like Safari cluttering things up. Mac users hang onto it for the same reason most windows users use IE, it's what came with the OS. I cant see anyone switching TO Safari if it wasn't preinstalled.
OK, how does this help me with a first person shooter, or many other forms of gaming? The difference between playing Quake III with a second mouse button and a scroll wheel versus playing with just a Mac mouse is significant, and is for me the difference between having fun, or just being frustrated at the lack of control.
That second mouse button is often used for the "alternate fire mode" of a weapon, and if you have to use a keyboard key to use that alternate fire mode, then it restricts your movement while firing. You have to stand still for a half a second or so to fire, instead of being able to do it while on the run. This allows the opposing team to get a bead on you, perhaps even get a kill.
All for the lack of a second mouse button.
Oh, wait, I just remembered the condition of Mac gaming. No wonder that aspect of the mouse problem didn't occur to you.
I'm used to having three functional mouse buttons and a scroll wheel. This makes a lot of tasks far easier, well beyond gaming. Hell, even using iTunes on a PC laptop instead of a Mac is easier.
With a second, even third, mouse button I can surf the web with a tabbed browser while eating lunch. I can load my iPod (A gift, I didn't give Apple any of my cash) and create new play lists with ease, again, while my other hand is holding my sandwich while I eat lunch.
I'm often in a position where I'm installing software at a client site, with on hand on my laptop's mouse and the other an a mouse attached to the client's KVM switch. It's much faster if I can use both machines at once, without having to stop what I'm doing on one machine in order to hit a key on the other machine, just so I can get the context menu that lets me "Copy" the files instead of "Move" them.
I'm sorry, but that second mouse button happens to be very useful, and I'm not going to waste my time and money on a laptop that's so poorly designed that it castrates such a simple aspect of functionality.
Windows 3.1 didn't make much use of the Right Mouse button. Apple can make use of it, but chooses to ignore that. They chose to use a mouse that would be appropriate for a Windows 3.1 machine. Yeah, that's cutting edge.
As I stated several times already, I'm talking about the fact that the castrated laptops only come with one button, and that it's not practical in most my travel situations to be using an external pointing device, because there's no place to put it.
You ever try to use a mouse on a laptop when at a client site where you have barely enough space for the laptop itself?
My Thinkpad has a decent built in pointing device, but because a Mac requires an external mouse to be useful I can't use it on the road, because there's almost never a place to set a damn mouse. I'd have to use a trackball or external touchpad, and let me be blunt, having an external touchpad hooked up to a laptop that already has a touch pad looks pretty absurd.
This isn't about the fact that I'd have to buy an external pointing device for the laptop to be useful, it's about the fact that the need for an external pointing device makes it sub standard hardware for use on the road and it's that's not worth my time or money.
Apple hardware is, to be kind, overpriced and suffers from castrated functionality.
I was thinking more about the castrated laptops. Let me tell you, having to use an external pointing device because your laptop came with a crappy built in one is a royal pain, especially in airports and when traveling.
Did you ever have to QA an Adobe Photoshop plugin?
This adds an architecture to the process.
This also complicates corporate roll outs of upgrades, as well as the purchasing process for companies.
Saying it's only a recompile away is an easy thing for the Linux crowd, especially when two thirds of the users compile form source when installing anyway.
Tell that to the Newspaper IT department that has to roll out a Photoshop upgrade to 300 users on a mix of Mac OS X machines with different OS versions and now different architectures.
And don't forget all the users who will take their new Mac, load it up with the install CDs from their old Mac and call IT demanding to know why Photoshop is running slower than it did on the old Mac. Telling the user about thins like the performance hit from Rosetta emulation wont, fly, and will make the IT department look bas, especially to PHBs and PHUs.
The fact that Adobe can release a new version doesn't make it any better to deal with. You quickly hit the point where it's enough of a headache for management to tell the graphics people to suck it up and switch to Photoshop on the PC.
Will someone with MAC OS 10.2 with a PPC be able to run the new binaries?
I doubt it.
With all the vile things we say about Windows, at least they try to maintain reasonable backward computability. Linux is even better about it in many ways.
Same thing will probably happen here. If you're lucky, your OS X Intel app will be a Fat Binary that runs on both, if not, then you're SOL and some places will probably charge extra for the recompiled binary if it's even available.
In the end, this will probably result in less MAC developers, as they stop bothering. If the Apple port was on the edge in terms of profitability, this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Of course this means you'll have to check if the software you're running is compiled to run on the system you're using.
I wonder what this will do to commercial deployment ton Mac OS? Games? Adobe?
It's not binary computability, you have to recompile, which means that $2,000 a graphics artist just invested in Adobe and Macromedia software is down the tubes if they want to upgrade their MAC. My employer is having a lot of problems with customers who are in the middle of massive MAC upgrades. What do you think this will do? A lot of newspapers are struggling with getting upgraded to Mac OS X machines, now they'll have to worry about if the software they're installing is for MAC OS X PPC or MAX OS X Intel?
And now our client software has to be recompiled for, tested on and deployed on MAC OS X PPC or MAX OS X Intel? Please.
I was considering a MAC before, and I'm ditching the idea now. I'll keep the iPod that I got as a gift, but I'm not investing anything in their hardware.
Oh, wait, I forgot, having tried Safari I gave up on it as it sucks a$$.
Back to Firefox.
All you poor Apple snobs, all that fanfare only to see Apple become just another OS for the Intel Platform.
Now you get to see all the Windows and Linux driver problems for Apple, but worse. You see, unlike Microsoft and Linux hackers, Apple doesn't have any real experience with maintaining a stable of drivers for vastly differing hardware. The motherboard mambo will soon mean all my wife's ranting about Apple "just working" will soon come to an end.
They'll be just another Wintel OS, but crippled by fewer applications and one less mouse button.
In which case Plextor probably doesn't want your business very much. They have all this windows software they want to sell you, and if you're not interested then they don't make as much money as if they'd sold the drive to a Windows user interested in their additional software.
And they don't want OSS versions out there for any platform, because it competes with the stuff they charge money for.
The software is a revenue stream for them. They don't care about OSS users, as a matter of fact it's clear from the e-mail that started all this that they consider OSS a threat. If an OSS product exists on Linux that does the same thing at their $50 to $60 product, then it's possible that it could be ported to Windows. What's far better for the PHBs to just nip this in the bud, and only support Linux when they can be the ones milking it and providing all the support. Nvidia is probably one of their role models in this arena.
Open source community trying to figure out how to get Red Has to stop calling and calling, even though OSS has given Red Hat every possible signal that it's no longer interested.
Slashdot Mirror
Become true?
Dude, it already is. It's one of the countries 1984 was BASED on.
You know, it's been a couple of versions since I used Opera. I should give it another go. Thanks for the tip.
I generally run with one of the tabbed browser extensions that adds a close button to each tab, and lets you change the tab order with drag and drop.
This is why I consider Firefox extensions so important.
On Windows and Linux
Move between open tabs:
CTRL+Tab
Move between Tabs in reverse order:
CTRL+SHIFT+Tab
Backspace already takes you back a screen in the browser history, unless the cursor is in an editable field.
Don't know about Firefox on Mac. It may have fewer shortcuts.
Web designers could use it to test for Safari compatibility
Ohhh!
A GOOD reason for a port!
Assuming of course that both ports run the same on both platforms.
Well if SPEED is all that matters, use lynx.
I, however, care about functionality, and Firefox has a basic feature set that makes it useful out of the box, while Safari is truncated. Safari's tabbed browsing isn't as elegant. It has fewer keyboard shortcuts for common functions, and it doesn't have the library of installable extensions that Firefox has.
Yes, Firefox may be a bit slower, but it does a whole lot more than Safari, and it's easier to use.
You know, with this CVS tree, and the move to Intel hardware, how long before we have a Windows port of Safari?
Nah, the last thing we need is something like Safari cluttering things up. Mac users hang onto it for the same reason most windows users use IE, it's what came with the OS. I cant see anyone switching TO Safari if it wasn't preinstalled.
OK, how does this help me with a first person shooter, or many other forms of gaming? The difference between playing Quake III with a second mouse button and a scroll wheel versus playing with just a Mac mouse is significant, and is for me the difference between having fun, or just being frustrated at the lack of control.
That second mouse button is often used for the "alternate fire mode" of a weapon, and if you have to use a keyboard key to use that alternate fire mode, then it restricts your movement while firing. You have to stand still for a half a second or so to fire, instead of being able to do it while on the run. This allows the opposing team to get a bead on you, perhaps even get a kill.
All for the lack of a second mouse button.
Oh, wait, I just remembered the condition of Mac gaming. No wonder that aspect of the mouse problem didn't occur to you.
I'm used to having three functional mouse buttons and a scroll wheel. This makes a lot of tasks far easier, well beyond gaming. Hell, even using iTunes on a PC laptop instead of a Mac is easier.
With a second, even third, mouse button I can surf the web with a tabbed browser while eating lunch. I can load my iPod (A gift, I didn't give Apple any of my cash) and create new play lists with ease, again, while my other hand is holding my sandwich while I eat lunch.
I'm often in a position where I'm installing software at a client site, with on hand on my laptop's mouse and the other an a mouse attached to the client's KVM switch. It's much faster if I can use both machines at once, without having to stop what I'm doing on one machine in order to hit a key on the other machine, just so I can get the context menu that lets me "Copy" the files instead of "Move" them.
I'm sorry, but that second mouse button happens to be very useful, and I'm not going to waste my time and money on a laptop that's so poorly designed that it castrates such a simple aspect of functionality.
Windows 3.1 didn't make much use of the Right Mouse button. Apple can make use of it, but chooses to ignore that. They chose to use a mouse that would be appropriate for a Windows 3.1 machine. Yeah, that's cutting edge.
As I stated several times already, I'm talking about the fact that the castrated laptops only come with one button, and that it's not practical in most my travel situations to be using an external pointing device, because there's no place to put it.
I kinda like the eraser like pointing device on IBM Thinkpads.
But having only one button is a whole other level of lame.
You ever try to use a mouse on a laptop when at a client site where you have barely enough space for the laptop itself?
My Thinkpad has a decent built in pointing device, but because a Mac requires an external mouse to be useful I can't use it on the road, because there's almost never a place to set a damn mouse. I'd have to use a trackball or external touchpad, and let me be blunt, having an external touchpad hooked up to a laptop that already has a touch pad looks pretty absurd.
This isn't about the fact that I'd have to buy an external pointing device for the laptop to be useful, it's about the fact that the need for an external pointing device makes it sub standard hardware for use on the road and it's that's not worth my time or money.
Apple hardware is, to be kind, overpriced and suffers from castrated functionality.
I was thinking more about the castrated laptops. Let me tell you, having to use an external pointing device because your laptop came with a crappy built in one is a royal pain, especially in airports and when traveling.
Did you ever have to QA an Adobe Photoshop plugin?
This adds an architecture to the process.
This also complicates corporate roll outs of upgrades, as well as the purchasing process for companies.
Saying it's only a recompile away is an easy thing for the Linux crowd, especially when two thirds of the users compile form source when installing anyway.
Tell that to the Newspaper IT department that has to roll out a Photoshop upgrade to 300 users on a mix of Mac OS X machines with different OS versions and now different architectures.
And don't forget all the users who will take their new Mac, load it up with the install CDs from their old Mac and call IT demanding to know why Photoshop is running slower than it did on the old Mac. Telling the user about thins like the performance hit from Rosetta emulation wont, fly, and will make the IT department look bas, especially to PHBs and PHUs.
The fact that Adobe can release a new version doesn't make it any better to deal with. You quickly hit the point where it's enough of a headache for management to tell the graphics people to suck it up and switch to Photoshop on the PC.
Will it work both ways?
Will someone with MAC OS 10.2 with a PPC be able to run the new binaries?
I doubt it.
With all the vile things we say about Windows, at least they try to maintain reasonable backward computability. Linux is even better about it in many ways.
Remember how Apple cut off support for Mac os 9?
Same thing will probably happen here. If you're lucky, your OS X Intel app will be a Fat Binary that runs on both, if not, then you're SOL and some places will probably charge extra for the recompiled binary if it's even available.
In the end, this will probably result in less MAC developers, as they stop bothering. If the Apple port was on the edge in terms of profitability, this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Apple going for a second mouse buton on the laptop?
Never.
Jobs himself said he's never do it because it would confuse the users.
That's right, Jobs doesn't think Apple users are smart enough to handle a second mouse button.
And remember, CISC was always better and RISC, and Apple NEVER ran on PPC processors. It's always been running on Intel.
It seems I sit corrected.
Of course this means you'll have to check if the software you're running is compiled to run on the system you're using.
I wonder what this will do to commercial deployment ton Mac OS? Games? Adobe?
It's not binary computability, you have to recompile, which means that $2,000 a graphics artist just invested in Adobe and Macromedia software is down the tubes if they want to upgrade their MAC. My employer is having a lot of problems with customers who are in the middle of massive MAC upgrades. What do you think this will do? A lot of newspapers are struggling with getting upgraded to Mac OS X machines, now they'll have to worry about if the software they're installing is for MAC OS X PPC or MAX OS X Intel?
And now our client software has to be recompiled for, tested on and deployed on MAC OS X PPC or MAX OS X Intel? Please.
I was considering a MAC before, and I'm ditching the idea now. I'll keep the iPod that I got as a gift, but I'm not investing anything in their hardware.
What kind of hat is it?
I hope it's not TOO chewy.
Still want that free Mac Mini?
Let's see, Linux has a working vmware and wine, so it can run more Windows apps than MAC, even with it's "VirtualPC"
More applications in general. Most of what I run on Windows was ported there FROM Linux or BSD.
Two flipping mouse buttons.
You don't get reamed on the cost of hardware.
Capabilities are being added all the time, not taken away. (I have to buy Quicktime pro to save an MP3 I downloaded off the web??? WTF!!!)
And you have more flexibility on Linux or BSD than you ever will on Windows or Apple.
What's the case for apple again?
Oh yeah, there's ANOTHER reason I won't be going MAC.
Cool,
Soon, we'll get a Safari port for Windows!
Oh, wait, I forgot, having tried Safari I gave up on it as it sucks a$$.
Back to Firefox.
All you poor Apple snobs, all that fanfare only to see Apple become just another OS for the Intel Platform.
Now you get to see all the Windows and Linux driver problems for Apple, but worse. You see, unlike Microsoft and Linux hackers, Apple doesn't have any real experience with maintaining a stable of drivers for vastly differing hardware. The motherboard mambo will soon mean all my wife's ranting about Apple "just working" will soon come to an end.
They'll be just another Wintel OS, but crippled by fewer applications and one less mouse button.
Queue Nelson laugh
In which case Plextor probably doesn't want your business very much. They have all this windows software they want to sell you, and if you're not interested then they don't make as much money as if they'd sold the drive to a Windows user interested in their additional software.
And they don't want OSS versions out there for any platform, because it competes with the stuff they charge money for.
The software is a revenue stream for them. They don't care about OSS users, as a matter of fact it's clear from the e-mail that started all this that they consider OSS a threat. If an OSS product exists on Linux that does the same thing at their $50 to $60 product, then it's possible that it could be ported to Windows. What's far better for the PHBs to just nip this in the bud, and only support Linux when they can be the ones milking it and providing all the support. Nvidia is probably one of their role models in this arena.
Open source community trying to figure out how to get Red Has to stop calling and calling, even though OSS has given Red Hat every possible signal that it's no longer interested.
Damn stalker distros.