No, the eMac is a machine for people who are going to buy a Macintosh no matter what and can't afford a better one. I think it mainly exists to upsell people to the iMac.
Frankly, with a G4, the machine is Dead End. It's 2004 now, not 2001. You might be able to squeak by and play Halo, but next year's game / video app is going to require more oomph. It's a word processor, not a home computer.
Think of all those people who bought iMacs 5 years ago -- that machine was price and speed competitive with PCs and it sold like hotcakes. Where's the machine that will get those iMac1 users into the Apple Store? It ain't the eMac! (My sister is in this boat, and probably will be getting rid of her 400mhz iMac for a PC.)
I'm fine with Apple selling "upmarket" machines, but let's see some upmarket hardware! Not this 3 year old shit.
Come on -- drink the Mac kool-aid! Since the "value" can't really be defended, the information must be censored. Praise Big Brother!
Speaking of which, Apple's sales are flat, their marketshare is declining... As a Macintosh fan I'm as disgusted with Apple's luxury pricing as all the PC users out there. I want the Mac platform to be around a long time, and pretending the eMac is a good low-end value is not the way to do it. They should either price the machine correctly, or give a G5 and position it at the mid-range (3Ghz Dells).
Anyway, just because you like Apple/Macs doesn't mean that you have to go to the wall for a dubious G4 eMac.
As a side note, this "can't transfer a resource fork" thing seems like one of those net-rumors some uneducated Mac user invented, and the rest of the Mac users just repeat like good little grassroots drones whenever this MP3 Trojan comes up.
It's so obviously false -- MacMIME, SIT files, Disk Images, auto decoding of BinHex and MacBinary files, etc etc -- that I shouldn't be the only one getting the Informative points on this one. I've never had problems transfering applications between my Macs.
the code can't even be moved in raw binary form without destroying the resource fork
I assume that most Mac mailers observe the MacMIME spec. This makes sending forked files through email a transparent process.
(Not arguing with the rest of your post -- I think it would be a lot easier to trojan Mac users with a "Install this Cool Screensaver" thing instead of jumping through hoops with a fake MP3.)
Problem is that VisualStudio libraries are not normally distributed with Windows, so at least it violates the letter, if not the spirit of that clause.
> If it did, then GPL applications could only be built with GPL compilers on GPL operating systems.
Either that or a more conventional view of "derived works" would rule the day. The issue is that Stallman seems to be saying "We can use YOUR libraries, but you can't use OURS", and MS is saying "Um Like Whatever, just don't create any obligations for Microsoft in the process."
(b) If you use the Redistributables, or the "Sample Code" or "Redistributable Code" portions of the SDK Software (as described in Section 4.2(b) (all of the foregoing referred to in this paragraph as the "Licensed Software"), then in addition to your compliance with the applicable distribution requirements described for the Licensed Software, the following also applies. Your license rights to the Licensed Software are conditioned upon your (i) not incorporating Identified Software into or combining Identified Software with the Licensed Software or a derivative work thereof; (ii) not distributing Identified Software in conjunction with the Licensed Software or a derivative work thereof; and (iii) not using Identified Software in the development of a derivative work of the Licensed Software. "Identified Software" means software which is licensed pursuant to terms that directly or indirectly (A) create, or purport to create, obligations for Microsoft with respect to the Licensed Software or derivative work thereof or (B) grant, or purport to grant, to any third party any rights or immunities under Microsoft's intellectual property or proprietary rights in the Licensed Software or derivative work thereof.
Identified Software includes, without limitation, any software that requires as a condition of use, modification and/or distribution of such software that other software incorporated into, derived from or distributed with such software be (1) disclosed or distributed in source code form; (2) be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (3) be redistributable at no charge.
This seems to be a pre-emptive strike against Stallman's unconventional view of "derived works" -- that GPL obligations can extend across library boundries.
I don't think this is a real problem for GPL developers however -- either the GPL does not impose these requirements on Microsoft libraries (due to "fair use" and the right to run software under copyright law), or it's also illegal to distribute these programs under the GPL.
Well, I was critical of your presentation elsewhere, so I guess I'll say it to your face.
Even with a technical audience, it never hurts to "start at the top" and work your way down. The impression one gets looking at your presentation is "KDE 3.2 -- now with 43% more blocky configuration dialogs!"
I guess it's mainly the order that the information is presented in -- focusing on a lot of detailed screens without giving an overview of what is going on there.
Yeah, that looks nice, especially when compared to the Windows MMC. However, when you are talking about enduser usability, having a flashy GUI for your DHCP server is pretty low on the list.
Maybe the issue is that the screenshots do a pretty poor job of demonstrating KDE and instead focus on the wonky/Win95ish features. This looks much nicer than the stuff in the article.
I'll go out on a limb and say that 80% of users never change any of the defaults.
I certainly turn off all that stuff, but then I fall into the trap of thinking that "This is just like Win95, nothing has changed", when it actually has quite a bit.
Looking at those KDE screenshots reminds me a lot of this old cartoon.
Showing off pictures like this or this just shows that people don't quite get it -- it like they just managed to reinvent Windows 95 plus a couple extra features.
Meanwhile the modern Windows user is used to looking at stuff like this. Totally different user experience to what you see on 'last generation' desktops. (Of course, all the Windows users on slashdot turn off this fluff, but after watching a totally new user play around with XP a bit, you realize that "task-oriented" features are actually helpful.)
I'm not saying that KDE isn't a good "power user" desktop, but the proprietary folks keep raising the bar, and having a "Start Menu" isn't enough to cut it anymore.
I used to dualboot between 'free' Solaris 2.51 and RedHat 5.1. I have to say that I preferred Solaris because Netscape didn't crash every 30 seconds like it did under Linux and I could get my Lotus Notes mail from work. CDE was also nicer than the ass Win95 copy that RedHat shipped as the default.
OTOH, setting up Solaris PPP was a pain, and the IDE driver did not do DMA (fortunately I was using SCSI). If there was half-decent device support, I think a lot of hobbyists/enthusiasts would have chosen Solaris over Linux.
Yeah, I wouldn't be suprised to see the "Java Desktop" move over to Solaris in the future.
However, it's too late for mindshare -- the market now thinks of Linux as the hot new thing (rather than risky and hackerish as people did 5 years ago), and it's unlikely that an improved version of Solaris x86 will change that.
As a side note, Solaris x86's worst enemy was always Solaris Admins (who love Sparcs, the firmware, etc). They bashed hard on the product, when they could have been it's biggest proponent.
I agree -- Sun was doing so well during the dotcom days that they totally lost track of their competitive position in the market.
On the high-end, the death of SPARC was a long time coming, yet Sun continued to plow massive amounts of money into a chip that was not competing with POWER etc.
On the low-end, they didn't do anything about the growth of Linux except diss it. Had they positioned Solaris x86 strongly against Linux back in the RedHat 5/6 days, they would have killed alot of Linux's market growth -- remember back in 1999, UNIX was the "safe choice" and Linux was not. But Solaris x86 was so obviously an orphan product that nobody took it seriously.
Instead they spent a lot of time bashing Microsoft (not their #1 competitor) and farting around with things like StarOffice. And planting trees.
No AC, you entirely missed the point -- Powerbooks come with dead keys that can't even be read by software unless the user holds down Fn (or installs 10.3 and twiddles a setting).
> And PowerBooks have had cursor keys for quite some time.. by pressing "Function"
No, that means it has cursor functions, not cursor keys. My specific complaint is about having to press Fn.
Out-of-box, the PowerBook has a totally ass keyboard -- it's missing standard keys (PgUp, PgDn, Forward Delete, etc.), but then it has a bunch of dead keys that do nothing in the function key row (unless you press Fn). Oh, but at least there's an "Enter" key:P
Fortunately, 10.3 finally allows one to "turn on" the F-Key row, which then allows one to 3rd party stuff to remap otherwise useless buttons to something useful. Apple usually gets basic design features right -- but whoever designed the PowerBook keyboard was a retard.
I have a Powerbook, but I'll disagree with the other posters.
If you are an experienced PC user, you'll probably hate the single mouse button and having to play keyboard gymnastics in order to get the context menu to appear. It really is an annoyance that one should strongly consider before dropping a few grand for new laptop. Most Mac users aren't used to "right-clicking", so I believe they tend to downplay the issue.
(I nearly always use an external mouse, but that's not always possible. Another issue is the lack of cursor keys on the Powerbook keyboard, but that can be sorta solved with some add-ons.)
Back in the late 90s, a place I was working for decommissioned their 370. Turns out the racks were filled with tons of gold wire. They had firms bidding to PAY THEM to dismantle it and haul it away.
So I kinda doubt you are going to find one on a loading dock.
Watch out though, coming from a traditional SQL 2D set perspective to nD MDX can seriously warp your mind. It took me a couple weeks just to completely conceptualize what was going on. Also, the MSDN docs/example are a little thin, at least for what we were trying to accomplish. Of course, now that I've learned it, I can't seem to find someone to hire me to use it.
Keep in mind that GNU/Linux has mainly been taking market share from commercial unices.
In a World Without Microsoft, Commercial UNIX would likely be a lot more advanced -- especially in terms of GUI and small server administration. This would make the bar much higher for Linux/BSD as a replacement.
When MS shipped Windows NT, UNIX responded by killing CDE/Motif development and scaling back X11 dev to almost nothing. Imagine if Sun had continued to take the workstation market seriousl for the last 10 years.
It would have been IBM. Apple was a boutique player even back in the 1980s.
People forget the enormous influence IBM had over the PC business back in those days. Microsoft was literally the only company that was willing to go toe-to-toe with them. If MS had fought and won the "war", I think it's quite certain that OS/2 would have 90% marketshare right now.
Agreed. And I'm not particuarlly fond of Mozilla using it's full-featured HTML renderer for E-mail either. (Even though there's no known problems.) Ideally, you'd have a mini-render that would only operate on a Netscape v1-level HTML -- fonts and styles only.
As for text clients, there's been a few real world mail-based exploits for Pine over the years. Buffer-overflows in date or MIME parsing isn't exclusive to GUI programs.
Losing market share is actually not a pretty sure sign a company is in decline.... Whether a company makes a profit, however, is a pretty good indicator
Not necessarily. You can be sure that OpenVMS is very profitable for HP -- but hardly anyone would say that the VAX/VMS market is healthy. Instead, HP is farming it's legacy base for as much money as possible until the loyal users finally say "uncle" and HP can kill the platform.
Now the question is Apple just soaking it's traditional "hard core" user base, or are they really interested in growing the Mac platform? Their current line of consumer computers is so overpriced and uninspiring, it seems like they are doing the former (for now).
The big difference between Apple and Atari/Commodore was mainly price.
Apple made a premium, custom system and they charged you for it. The IIfx base config was $9995 without videocard or keyboard, and even the real cheap color models started at $3000.
Commodore made a premium, custom system, and they lowballed it into the home/game market. Which was fine, but they ended up cost cutting on things like the keyboard, and they never really could afford to spend enough money on R&D for the next big thing. Rather than having a reputation of being a great workstation, the Amiga mainly had a reputation of being "cheap" or a "Mac copy" in the US market.
You look at Apple -- it seems stupid that they priced their machines so expensively because it basically limited them to 10% of the market. But at the same time, they put $40 Billion in the bank, which has helped them survive some lean times and terrible management. (Even now, I think they make more on investment income than computers.) And their brandname has always been a gold standard.
I think it's an interesting question, but I can see why they cut it. I mean, I haven't heard anything about investors wanting Ballmer out (I'd probably be the last to know, however).
But, from the technical side, MS is making some odd choices -- They're faced with some real fierce compeition from Linux, IBM, Sun, Java, etc, and their tactic is to take a 3 year timeout and shoot for a total overhaul of their product line in 2006. That seems like a really long time to ask their customers to sit and wait -- especially if the economy starts to pick up.
The interesting thing is that Ballmer was Microsoft's IBM Guy during the early years of the company, and since he took over, Microsoft seems a lot more "IBMish" -- more focused on big, complex product lines that are more tightly integrated. Sort of like back in the day when IBM was positing OS/2 as part of this end-to-end "SNA" strategy, while MS just kept chipping away with incremental releases of Windows -- I think a lot of customers are going to fail to see what the big picture is with the NET strategy.
(I suspect there's a good Ask Slashdot question in there somewhere, but I can't really think of anything that wouldn't just be red meat for the Linux Advocates.)
Slashdot Mirror
No, the eMac is a machine for people who are going to buy a Macintosh no matter what and can't afford a better one. I think it mainly exists to upsell people to the iMac.
Frankly, with a G4, the machine is Dead End. It's 2004 now, not 2001. You might be able to squeak by and play Halo, but next year's game / video app is going to require more oomph. It's a word processor, not a home computer.
Think of all those people who bought iMacs 5 years ago -- that machine was price and speed competitive with PCs and it sold like hotcakes. Where's the machine that will get those iMac1 users into the Apple Store? It ain't the eMac! (My sister is in this boat, and probably will be getting rid of her 400mhz iMac for a PC.)
I'm fine with Apple selling "upmarket" machines, but let's see some upmarket hardware! Not this 3 year old shit.
Come on -- drink the Mac kool-aid! Since the "value" can't really be defended, the information must be censored. Praise Big Brother!
Speaking of which, Apple's sales are flat, their marketshare is declining... As a Macintosh fan I'm as disgusted with Apple's luxury pricing as all the PC users out there. I want the Mac platform to be around a long time, and pretending the eMac is a good low-end value is not the way to do it. They should either price the machine correctly, or give a G5 and position it at the mid-range (3Ghz Dells).
Anyway, just because you like Apple/Macs doesn't mean that you have to go to the wall for a dubious G4 eMac.
As a side note, this "can't transfer a resource fork" thing seems like one of those net-rumors some uneducated Mac user invented, and the rest of the Mac users just repeat like good little grassroots drones whenever this MP3 Trojan comes up.
It's so obviously false -- MacMIME, SIT files, Disk Images, auto decoding of BinHex and MacBinary files, etc etc -- that I shouldn't be the only one getting the Informative points on this one. I've never had problems transfering applications between my Macs.
the code can't even be moved in raw binary form without destroying the resource fork
I assume that most Mac mailers observe the MacMIME spec. This makes sending forked files through email a transparent process.
(Not arguing with the rest of your post -- I think it would be a lot easier to trojan Mac users with a "Install this Cool Screensaver" thing instead of jumping through hoops with a fake MP3.)
Problem is that VisualStudio libraries are not normally distributed with Windows, so at least it violates the letter, if not the spirit of that clause.
> If it did, then GPL applications could only be built with GPL compilers on GPL operating systems.
Either that or a more conventional view of "derived works" would rule the day. The issue is that Stallman seems to be saying "We can use YOUR libraries, but you can't use OURS", and MS is saying "Um Like Whatever, just don't create any obligations for Microsoft in the process."
This seems to be a pre-emptive strike against Stallman's unconventional view of "derived works" -- that GPL obligations can extend across library boundries.
I don't think this is a real problem for GPL developers however -- either the GPL does not impose these requirements on Microsoft libraries (due to "fair use" and the right to run software under copyright law), or it's also illegal to distribute these programs under the GPL.
Well, I was critical of your presentation elsewhere, so I guess I'll say it to your face.
Even with a technical audience, it never hurts to "start at the top" and work your way down. The impression one gets looking at your presentation is "KDE 3.2 -- now with 43% more blocky configuration dialogs!"
I guess it's mainly the order that the information is presented in -- focusing on a lot of detailed screens without giving an overview of what is going on there.
Yeah, that looks nice, especially when compared to the Windows MMC. However, when you are talking about enduser usability, having a flashy GUI for your DHCP server is pretty low on the list.
Maybe the issue is that the screenshots do a pretty poor job of demonstrating KDE and instead focus on the wonky/Win95ish features. This looks much nicer than the stuff in the article.
I'll go out on a limb and say that 80% of users never change any of the defaults.
I certainly turn off all that stuff, but then I fall into the trap of thinking that "This is just like Win95, nothing has changed", when it actually has quite a bit.
Looking at those KDE screenshots reminds me a lot of this old cartoon.
Showing off pictures like this or this just shows that people don't quite get it -- it like they just managed to reinvent Windows 95 plus a couple extra features.
Meanwhile the modern Windows user is used to looking at stuff like this. Totally different user experience to what you see on 'last generation' desktops. (Of course, all the Windows users on slashdot turn off this fluff, but after watching a totally new user play around with XP a bit, you realize that "task-oriented" features are actually helpful.)
I'm not saying that KDE isn't a good "power user" desktop, but the proprietary folks keep raising the bar, and having a "Start Menu" isn't enough to cut it anymore.
I used to dualboot between 'free' Solaris 2.51 and RedHat 5.1. I have to say that I preferred Solaris because Netscape didn't crash every 30 seconds like it did under Linux and I could get my Lotus Notes mail from work. CDE was also nicer than the ass Win95 copy that RedHat shipped as the default.
OTOH, setting up Solaris PPP was a pain, and the IDE driver did not do DMA (fortunately I was using SCSI). If there was half-decent device support, I think a lot of hobbyists/enthusiasts would have chosen Solaris over Linux.
Yeah, I wouldn't be suprised to see the "Java Desktop" move over to Solaris in the future.
However, it's too late for mindshare -- the market now thinks of Linux as the hot new thing (rather than risky and hackerish as people did 5 years ago), and it's unlikely that an improved version of Solaris x86 will change that.
As a side note, Solaris x86's worst enemy was always Solaris Admins (who love Sparcs, the firmware, etc). They bashed hard on the product, when they could have been it's biggest proponent.
I agree -- Sun was doing so well during the dotcom days that they totally lost track of their competitive position in the market.
On the high-end, the death of SPARC was a long time coming, yet Sun continued to plow massive amounts of money into a chip that was not competing with POWER etc.
On the low-end, they didn't do anything about the growth of Linux except diss it. Had they positioned Solaris x86 strongly against Linux back in the RedHat 5/6 days, they would have killed alot of Linux's market growth -- remember back in 1999, UNIX was the "safe choice" and Linux was not. But Solaris x86 was so obviously an orphan product that nobody took it seriously.
Instead they spent a lot of time bashing Microsoft (not their #1 competitor) and farting around with things like StarOffice. And planting trees.
No AC, you entirely missed the point -- Powerbooks come with dead keys that can't even be read by software unless the user holds down Fn (or installs 10.3 and twiddles a setting).
> And PowerBooks have had cursor keys for quite some time .. by pressing "Function"
:P
No, that means it has cursor functions, not cursor keys. My specific complaint is about having to press Fn.
Out-of-box, the PowerBook has a totally ass keyboard -- it's missing standard keys (PgUp, PgDn, Forward Delete, etc.), but then it has a bunch of dead keys that do nothing in the function key row (unless you press Fn). Oh, but at least there's an "Enter" key
Fortunately, 10.3 finally allows one to "turn on" the F-Key row, which then allows one to 3rd party stuff to remap otherwise useless buttons to something useful. Apple usually gets basic design features right -- but whoever designed the PowerBook keyboard was a retard.
I have a Powerbook, but I'll disagree with the other posters.
If you are an experienced PC user, you'll probably hate the single mouse button and having to play keyboard gymnastics in order to get the context menu to appear. It really is an annoyance that one should strongly consider before dropping a few grand for new laptop. Most Mac users aren't used to "right-clicking", so I believe they tend to downplay the issue.
(I nearly always use an external mouse, but that's not always possible. Another issue is the lack of cursor keys on the Powerbook keyboard, but that can be sorta solved with some add-ons.)
> Anyone know where I can get my own s370?
Back in the late 90s, a place I was working for decommissioned their 370. Turns out the racks were filled with tons of gold wire. They had firms bidding to PAY THEM to dismantle it and haul it away.
So I kinda doubt you are going to find one on a loading dock.
Watch out though, coming from a traditional SQL 2D set perspective to nD MDX can seriously warp your mind. It took me a couple weeks just to completely conceptualize what was going on. Also, the MSDN docs/example are a little thin, at least for what we were trying to accomplish. Of course, now that I've learned it, I can't seem to find someone to hire me to use it.
Keep in mind that GNU/Linux has mainly been taking market share from commercial unices.
In a World Without Microsoft, Commercial UNIX would likely be a lot more advanced -- especially in terms of GUI and small server administration. This would make the bar much higher for Linux/BSD as a replacement.
When MS shipped Windows NT, UNIX responded by killing CDE/Motif development and scaling back X11 dev to almost nothing. Imagine if Sun had continued to take the workstation market seriousl for the last 10 years.
No, IBM would have bought out Gates and Microsoft would become the IBM PCSoft Division.
It would have been IBM. Apple was a boutique player even back in the 1980s.
People forget the enormous influence IBM had over the PC business back in those days. Microsoft was literally the only company that was willing to go toe-to-toe with them. If MS had fought and won the "war", I think it's quite certain that OS/2 would have 90% marketshare right now.
Agreed. And I'm not particuarlly fond of Mozilla using it's full-featured HTML renderer for E-mail either. (Even though there's no known problems.) Ideally, you'd have a mini-render that would only operate on a Netscape v1-level HTML -- fonts and styles only.
As for text clients, there's been a few real world mail-based exploits for Pine over the years. Buffer-overflows in date or MIME parsing isn't exclusive to GUI programs.
Losing market share is actually not a pretty sure sign a company is in decline. ... Whether a company makes a profit, however, is a pretty good indicator
Not necessarily. You can be sure that OpenVMS is very profitable for HP -- but hardly anyone would say that the VAX/VMS market is healthy. Instead, HP is farming it's legacy base for as much money as possible until the loyal users finally say "uncle" and HP can kill the platform.
Now the question is Apple just soaking it's traditional "hard core" user base, or are they really interested in growing the Mac platform? Their current line of consumer computers is so overpriced and uninspiring, it seems like they are doing the former (for now).
The big difference between Apple and Atari/Commodore was mainly price.
Apple made a premium, custom system and they charged you for it. The IIfx base config was $9995 without videocard or keyboard, and even the real cheap color models started at $3000.
Commodore made a premium, custom system, and they lowballed it into the home/game market. Which was fine, but they ended up cost cutting on things like the keyboard, and they never really could afford to spend enough money on R&D for the next big thing. Rather than having a reputation of being a great workstation, the Amiga mainly had a reputation of being "cheap" or a "Mac copy" in the US market.
You look at Apple -- it seems stupid that they priced their machines so expensively because it basically limited them to 10% of the market. But at the same time, they put $40 Billion in the bank, which has helped them survive some lean times and terrible management. (Even now, I think they make more on investment income than computers.) And their brandname has always been a gold standard.
I think it's an interesting question, but I can see why they cut it. I mean, I haven't heard anything about investors wanting Ballmer out (I'd probably be the last to know, however).
But, from the technical side, MS is making some odd choices -- They're faced with some real fierce compeition from Linux, IBM, Sun, Java, etc, and their tactic is to take a 3 year timeout and shoot for a total overhaul of their product line in 2006. That seems like a really long time to ask their customers to sit and wait -- especially if the economy starts to pick up.
The interesting thing is that Ballmer was Microsoft's IBM Guy during the early years of the company, and since he took over, Microsoft seems a lot more "IBMish" -- more focused on big, complex product lines that are more tightly integrated. Sort of like back in the day when IBM was positing OS/2 as part of this end-to-end "SNA" strategy, while MS just kept chipping away with incremental releases of Windows -- I think a lot of customers are going to fail to see what the big picture is with the NET strategy.
(I suspect there's a good Ask Slashdot question in there somewhere, but I can't really think of anything that wouldn't just be red meat for the Linux Advocates.)