Anyway, it doesn't really matter since I still haven't met anyone who paid for MS Office, I only know of big institutions licensing it.
I'm sure most people you've met haven't paid for Microsoft Office, which merely strengthens my point. Most people pirate their software. That's why $500 PCs seem like such a bargain; people aren't paying for the software they install on it.
What's funnier is all the people, including yourself, trying to tell me about OpenOffice (as if I didn't already know). Face facts, people. The average person installs a pirated copy of Microsoft Office. Stop fooling yourself because you aren't fooling anybody else. You and I both know that 99% of those $500 PCs are going to be running $2000+ worth of pirated software within the week.
The point, as always, is that with a Mac you are fully legit from the start. With the $500 PC, unless you run Linux and OpenOffice (which by all reliable sources is less than 1% of the desktop market) then you're up for at least another $500 to get the basic necessities of software. Anybody who mentions "OpenOffice" and "Linux" is ignoring the reality of the situation.
But if you think you can change slashdot, then you are barking up a tree with no coons.
I didn't say anything about changing Slashdot.
My point was that you make your choice WRT to where you want to be - as here. If you don't like it, leave.
And it boggles the mind that you'd use the same stupid argument after I had just indicated its worthlessness. I mean, really, how dumb are you?
One of the great things about slashdot is that you can voice your opinion, but that doesn't mean that slashdot is going to change to be what you want it to be.
Listen, buddy, I didn't ask Slashdot to change to suit me. What is it with Americans that they can't accept feedback. Any negative comment is misinterpreted as a set of demands. I gave my opinion, numbskull. There were no demands.
I can just imagine you writing letters to movie critics. "Hey, if you don't like it, don't watch it". "If you can do a better movie, why don't you, huh". "Crying about the movie won't make it better". Putting it in a context like that, do you understand how silly you sound?
Before angrily hitting the Submit button to a reply, make sure you haven't managed to write another version of "If you don't like it, leave". Because if that's all you manage to splutter out for the *third* time in a row then you have once again missed the entire fricking point, while simultaneously demonstrating your basic inability to comprehend the written word.
Let's be honest, slashdot is primarily IT oriented - and what are the big issues in IT now?
I think the previous poster's point, as mine, was that we don't care about the "big issues" in IT. We liked Slashdot as a link site to Stuff For Nerds. Now it's an anti-establishment "Your Rights Online" style site.
if you don't like slashdot, go elsewhere....
But, seriously, if one doesn't like this forum, there are others. This *is* one of the best all-around ones out there now, tho, that I'll agree on.
Saying "if you don't like it then leave" is perhaps the most intellectually devoid argument possible. Can't anybody express an opinion these days without somebody replying "then leave".
Uhhhhh... You still have to pay for MS Office for your Mac, too. If you factor the cost for that into the PC, you must also do so for the Mac.
I mentioned Appleworks. You can argue that Microsoft Office is much better than Appleworks, and I wouldn't disagree, but the fact remains that you get a useful word processor out of the box with Apple. You pay extra with that $500 PC.
And Microsoft Wordpad does not count. Even in the most wildest stretch of the imagination, it is not a word processor.
Oh, and try $99 for XP Home or $199 for XP Professional (your average user only needs Home). That includes service packs that even add new features from time to time. Compare that to $120 every time Apple graces the world with another minor update to OS X.
I'm Australian. I used Australian prices.
I like OS X, but don't try to tell me that the TCO of Macs is about the same as that of a PC with Windows XP.
TCO has very little to do with the purchase price.
Yes indeed! Gnome seems to have a strange desire to mimic the bad sides of Windows while claiming to be an alternative. I'm not saying Gnome is worse than Windows, but seeing things like a registry-like configuration system (that, although it's more "open" due to XML, actually has a per-user daemon associated with it) and an extra virtual file system layer, makes me worry very much about its future course.
Except gconf is nothing like the Windows registry.
The Windows registry is a single file (the infamous REG.DAT) which is a single point of failure. The keys are undocumented thus leading to large 1000+ tomes describing the well-known keys but many keys are unfathomable.
The gconf "registry" is an illusion. Gconf files are all separate. Go look in ~/.gconf and see every application has its own file. If any file is corrupted, it only affects that app. All the other files are not corrupted and other apps are not affected. Also the gconf schema permits human-discovery of the keys and values; the developers can attach a textual description to every key.
The gconf "registry" is nothing more than a formalisation of rc-files (more commonly called dotfiles). Instead of each rc-file having a unique format, all gconf files are XML with a known schema. Instead of scattering rc-files randomly through ~/ with strange names, gconf files have a consistent naming scheme. Gconf is hierarchial, self-discoverable, and has event triggers so applications can receive feedback if values change.
But gconf does not throw away the benefits of rc-files! Gconf files are still human readable, they are still separate files, you can pick them up and copy them around to other machines, etc. Gconf files are entirely unlike the Windows registry. It's a testament to the quality of the illusion that you saw gconf-editor and thought "it's a registry" but it's just an illusion. You are really seeing a tree view of separate gconf files.
Factual clarification, the gconf backend can be swapped, so in theory you could have a single monolithic windows-registry-alike backend. But in practise the separate files are more convenient.
After that Microsoft decided that it was too "troublesome" to have all of these separate configuration text files. They got smart here too (again too smart for their own good) and decided that it would be so much "better" to have all the settings in a single monolithic and monumentally fragile registry. (Watch out Gnome)
GNOME does *NOT* have a single monolithic registry. Each section in your gconf is a separate file. The gconf-editor shows you a unified view but it's an illusion. The files are all separate. Corruption of one gconf file will not affect any of the others. You can backup a single file from gconf, or transfer it to another machine (and I have done this when migrating my evolution settings from one machine to another).
I just built my own computer for a little under $500 by just buying parts I needed. AMD 2500+ w/fan, 512 MB PC2700, 120GB 7,200 8MB cache HDD, 64 MB Gefore 3 Ti 500, DVD +- R-RW drive, new case and new KT600 based mobo all for under $500. I was able to shop around to get the best price, a feature not available from Apple.
Sure, and now just add $220 for a copy of Windows XP and $400 for a copy of Microsoft Office and...
What? You mean you didn't factor in the cost of the software? But we all know software piracy is wrong, so you would never do that. Were you going to run Linux on that PC of yours?
Remember that Apple doesn't sell hardware. They sell an appliance. That's a combination of software and hardware. The $800 e-Mac includes an OS, iLife, Appleworks, and some games. Your $500 PC comes with driver discs if you're lucky.
Re:To curb the anti-Red Hat gibberish
on
Red Hat Recap
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· Score: 3, Informative
Just a quick post: those of you bashing Red Hat for various reasons, consider this:
1) They release all their config tools under the GPL
2) They contribute to the kernel, GCC, glibc, XFree86, GNOME, OpenOffice.org and other projects
3) They're standing up and fighting SCO
Hey, I'm not too happy about the whole RH-to-Fedora business, but Red Hat as a company deserves huge respect. Without its help and funding, Linux would not be progressing so fast.
This is slightly off-topic, and while I agree with you that RedHat is most definitely a friend of Linux (and always has been), there are always going to be some people who see conspiracies everywhere. Your 3 facts show RedHat to be one of the good guys but the facts will be ignored by some people. They want RedHat to be evil. They will misinterpret the facts to support their warped view.
Another recent example is Sun. Here are just some of the things that Sun has done for Linux.
Donates money and support to OSDL, which employs Linus Torvalds.
Donates money and employs full-time paid developers to work on GNOME.
Spent $75 million to buy StarOffice, which they subsequently open-sourced as OpenOffice. Further donates money and employs full-time paid developers to work on OpenOffice.
Yet we're already seeing the "Sun is evil" comments regarding the recent settlement between Sun and Microsoft. I've even seen one normally respectable site accuse Sun of entering into a conspiracy with SCO and Microsoft as early as March of last year, and this $2 billion settlement is part of the "pay off" for Sun's cooperation in destroying Linux. I can't even imagine the kind of confusion that would make somebody think like that.
My point is that people believe what they want to believe. You and I both know that RedHat is a bloody good thing for Linux, and so is Sun, but people who want to believe that RedHat and Sun are evil will continue to believe that, and no amount of facts will change their beliefs.
I miss when there was no agenda other than being a cool site for nerds to get news on the latest Stallman lecture, Linux kernel technology, or programmer interview.
You know, I was thinking you were a troll (or at the very best, a malcontent) up until that last sentence. Then I realised I agreed with you. I also miss the days when Slashdot posted an interview with a kernel programmer or discussed the latest gadgets. It seems these days the articles all have an anti-establishment theme.
Perhaps the Slashdot editors have let success go to their heads. They think that their larger audience means they have a greater responsibility to report on the "important stuff". Unfortunately the Slashdot editors don't limit the "important stuff" into the YRO category, so you can't easily turn it all off.
In that respect, he is wrong. The MacOSX printing proves that he is wrong. MacOSX uses the same CUPS core that Fedora uses, but it has a better GUI slapped on top. The GUI was slapped on top after CUPS had been written.
No, you are incorrect. CUPS was added in 10.2 while the printing system had been in place since the beginning. Apple designed the GUI first, along with a proprietary (and to be kind, poor) back-end system. Then they decided they could keep the same GUI and switch the back-end to a standardized, open source implementation.
I don't see why you think I'm incorrect. As near as I can tell, you have just repeated what I said. Perhaps you're seeing some difference that I can't see, so you might have to explain it in more detail. I'm saying that CUPS existed before Apple used it. Apple didn't design the GUI and then recode CUPS to suit. CUPS stayed the same. The GUI was put on top of CUPS. It wasn't the case that CUPS was designed to suit the GUI. So Gruber's claim that the UI must be designed before you can build the core is incorrect. CUPS was designed without prior knowledge of the Apple GUI and it works with the GUI. You can build the core first. CUPS proves that. Gruber is wrong when he says that the UI must be designed first and the core built second. Is the point clearer?
Then he rants on how OSS can never deliver the brilliant GUI designs of MacOSX and Windows.
That's not what he said. The current development model of OSS can't deliver the GUI designs of closed source software.
I think you're splitting hairs. I and many other people think that's exactly what he said and your correction is trivially different.
Also I don't agree with that last claim of
yours. There's this widespread belief that UI designers are mystical unapproachable people who only work for money, are only employed by rich companies like Microsoft and Apple, and require incredibly complex rooms filled with Aunt Tillies to produce fabulous interfaces.
It's a myth. UI design is common sense. The reason why most UIs suck (commercial and OSS) is because most people lack common sense. The software development model - proprietary or OSS - is irrelevant. Either development model can incorporate intelligent UI design. Either model can produce atrocious UI design. It's silly to say OSS can't deliver on good UI design. It's a nonsensical statement. Like saying that OSS can't produce stable software. Or OSS can't produce documented software.
It certainly could change, and he points out his observations on what the problem is.
Observation? His "observation" was that Linux developers and their "ilk" have contempt for their users. What a load of shit! That wasn't an observation. It was a troll.
One enlightening thing to come out of Gruber's ugly troll was the number of comments pointing out deficiencies in the MacOSX GUI. I've now got several examples of poor design in the MacOSX GUI for future arguments. So riddle me this. Does Apple have contempt for their users? Will Gruber turn the argument around and blame Apple for these problems? Claim that the solution is for Apple to hire these mystical UI designers which they obviously don't have?
Or will Gruber and "his ilk" be more sensible and just admit that UI design is an iterative process. It takes time to build a consistent and logical interface. Apple has been going for 20 years. Really Apple has drawn upon 40 years of UI research to get this far. The OSS UIs are younger than the OSS kernels and OSS compilers. So they are still evolving. Sure, GNOME looks primitive compared to MacOSX, but it doesn't look shabby compared to MacOS 8, or Windows 98. Honestly, speaking as an uneducated unmystical UI heathen, I think GNOME 2.6 looks better than Windows XP. But perhaps that's just me.
First you say most of your time is spent thinking about what you're writing in email and word processing.
Then you say "address those two tasks first".
How do you address the fact that most of the time spent there is thinking time?
If I had that answer then I'd be a billionaire and I wouldn't be wasting my time on Slashdot.
But even though I don't have the answer, I do believe it's possible. One day, somebody will design a revolutionary change to word processors that will make them even more productive. Maybe it will be intelligent grammar creation; you type in what you want and the software makes it sound good. Maybe it will be incredibly advanced forms of collaboration; not annotations and review lists, but some way that 100s of people can work on a single document like some kind of Asimov fantasy vision of the future (have you ever read Fantastic Voyage).
What I do know is that significant increases in productivity won't happen because of translucent windows. Those improvements, while clever and attractive, have only a minor effect on my productivity. I'm waiting for the next spreadsheet, or the next web browser, because those were inventions that greatly enhanced my productivity.
This is the point. The raw install is barely usable, put a thoughtful, well designed interface on it and the whole complexion changes. Gruber argues that to get such an interface you have to have paid, professional developers on the case in order to deliver that genuine usability in a reasonable amount of time. I tend to agree with him. The points you make don't demolish his argument, they seem to strengthen it.
Gruber's point was that you can't just slap a GUI onto existing code and make it usable; you have to design usability into the entire product from the start.
UI development is the hard part. And it's not the last step, it's the first step.
In that respect, he is wrong. The MacOSX printing proves that he is wrong. MacOSX uses the same CUPS core that Fedora uses, but it has a better GUI slapped on top. The GUI was slapped on top after CUPS had been written.
Gruber is an asshole in many ways, and this latest rant just confirms more of the same. He's quick to insult Linux users, demean the efforts of many people, and claim that Linux can't ever meet the standards of paid UI designers.
If there's a glib, nutshell synopsis for why Linux desktop software tends to suck, it's this: Raymond and his ilk have no respect for anyone but themselves....
And, most importantly, they have no respect at all for real users.
Then he rants on how OSS can never deliver the brilliant GUI designs of MacOSX and Windows. Well dream on, Gruber. Here's a summary of Gruber and "his ilk" over the past decade.
1994: Linux is cute but it will always be a hobbyist toy.
1995: Ok, well it's good for workstations and researchers, but it's no good for servers.
1997: Ok, well it's good for servers, but it will never be commercially viable.
1999: Ok, well people are making money from Linux, but it'll never be really big.
2001: Ok, well it dominates the server and embedded markets, but it'll never take the desktop, there's just no applications.
2003: Ok, well it has word processors and e-mail clients and browsers, but it's not as easy to use as Windows or Macintosh, so it'll never have significant marketshare.
2004: Shit, Linux just passed Macintosh in desktop marketshare, but... ummm... errr... Linux users are all pooheads and they suck and they'll never be as cool as me so nyah.
I'll be first in line to watch Gruber and "his ilk" eat humble pie in 2010.
...when all I really wanted to do was burn a bunch of files to a CD-RW. Would drag-and-drop really be harder or less powerful or more inconvenient to use than the command line?
Click Home. Click menu Go. Click menu item CD Creator. Drag files into window. Click Burn.
I think for someone that is really as light a computer user as you describe, the whole user interface argument is meaningless once you learn to launch the two or three applications you use (and become proficient with them).
Giggle. It's amusing that you think I'm a "light" computer user. I'm a UNIX sysadmin by trade, I code for fun, and I'm currently running GNOME 2.6 (from Debian) with... 19 windows open across 5 desktops on 2 monitors. My home network is 7 servers (mixture of Solaris and Linux). If you asked anybody in my office whether I was a
"light" computer user they'd laugh in your face.
When I say that I spend most of my time writing e-mail and documents, I'm not saying that's all that I do. I'm saying that boosts to productivity need to address those two tasks first and foremost, because everything else is teasing at the edges. I think my situation is true for near everybody in this office (several 100 people) both techs and suits alike.
I see a lot of comments glowing with praise for the legendary "productivity boost" you
get from using a Macintosh. But how much of this is just hype? I'm not disputing that in
several aspects MacOS is well in the lead; file browsing, interface consistency, intelligent
dialogs, auto discovery, and so on. But how much of that really adds to your productivity?
My belief is, not a whole lot.
Hear me out. My typical use of the computer involves e-mail and word processing. I don't
spend a whole lot of time reorganising my files. If the typical day involves 2 hours writing
documents, 2 hours reading/writing e-mails, 15 minutes reorganising my files, and 4 hours
doing non-computer things like meetings, then even if the Finder made me twice as productive
when reorganising my files that's only 7 minutes. I waste more time than that saying hello
to everybody each morning.
I can anticipate the first round of angry denials. "But it's not just the Finder; the
Aqua interface and Human Interface Guidelines makes you N% more productive for [intangible
reason]". Ok, perhaps that's true, but the majority of my time writing documents and mails
is spent thinking. I don't struggle with the interface. I click "New Message" then I spend
10 minutes writing then I click "Send". I click "New Document" then I spend 2 hours writing
then I click "Save".
The second round of angry denials will probably be "But MacOS makes it easier to add
hardware because once I installed [Foo Device] on Linux and it took me 16 days and cost me
$1 kajillion dollars in lost productivity". Well I rarely change my hardware, so while I can
agree that Microsoft and Apple make it easier to install new hardware than in Linux, it's
not as if that really affects me either.
My point is that you spend most of your time inside applications; not the Finder and not
the hardware installation wizards. So it amazes me that of the people I know who switched
from Windows or Linux to MacOSX they are all using Mozilla or Firefox, OpenOffice or NeoJ, and
the free e-mail client with MacOSX which (IMO) is slightly worse than Evolution (eg. it only just got threading). How much
productivity did these people gain by changing the OS but keeping the same applications? If
you listened to them, you'd think they were suddenly Ultra Productive Super Beings, able to
produce documents and e-mails faster than a speeding bullet, but from what I can see they
are still spending most of their time inside a word processor or an e-mail client.
So how much more productitive are you with MacOSX? Be honest. Instead of replying
immediately with "U R DUMHED, MACOSX IS HEAPS FASTER FOR EVERYTHING", step back and reflect
on actual improvements. Are you saving minutes per week? Hours? Nothing at all? In my case
it was a few minutes per week and I wasn't willing to lock myself into a proprietary upgrade
treadmill to save a few minutes per week.
1. Attitude - This is very important. You must have a positive attitude about the company and your work. Let everyone know that you are excited about the company and moving up the ladder within the company. Never be satisfied with what you have, always want more.
Kiss butt. Be smarmy. Greed is good.
2. Your Boss - You have to find out from your boss what it takes to get a top rating. Have a one on one meeting with your boss and let your boss know that you really want a top rating. Get them to tell you what steps you need to take. Follow up and make sure you are on the right track throughout the year.
Work for your rating, not for your company. It's easier to look good than to be good.
3. Documentation - You can't count on your boss to document your progress so do it yourself. Keep track of every project you are on and every class you take that can help you in your job.
Do your boss's job because heaven knows he won't. He's too busy screwing the office secretary and playing golf to do mere work. Meanwhile he gets a 6 figure salary and you're paid peanuts.
4. Projects - Get involved in projects any way you can. Your company probably has Six Sigma or BPI. Take advantage of these opportunities. If you see something that needs improvement, write up a proposal and sumbit it to you boss or whoever is in charge of such things.
Spread yourself thin. This way you can gain glory for successful projects "I did that" and absolve any responsibility from failures "I was barely involved in that project".
5. Flexibility - This not only means being willing to work overtime, but it means working out of your area as well. Look for opportunities to cross-train in other areas. Be willing to take on additional responsibility for no additional pay. Be eager to learn.
Get involved in areas where you have no experience and no skills. That's how successful projects move forwards; by being weighed down with dozens of incompetent boobs.
6. Be an Expert - Become an expert in your job. Even if your job is nothing but cleaning toilets, know everything about it.
Everybody loves a know-it-all. You'll quickly gain new friends after you tell them how they're doing their jobs all wrong, and how much better you could have done it.
7. Be a Team Player - Customers aren't just the poeple at home using your product, your teammates are also your customers. Find out what you can do to make other people's jobs easier down the line. Never say "That's not my job." Be willing to help anyone.
Be a schmuck. You'll quickly be targetted by incompetent slackers who should have been fired years ago, but who have the uncanny knack of identifying gullible dolts like you. They'll sit back and relax while you make them look good.
8. Do Things by the Book - Always try to follow company policies and processes.
Everybody loves the stickler for the rules.
9. Accept Responsibility - If you mess up, don't be afraid to admit responsibility. Apologize for messing up and ask what you can do to fix the problem to make sure it doesn't happen again.
My point is not that Windows is better than Linux, because believe me, I would rather have gone with Linux on my laptop. However, until it's easy to install (you know, just go through the prompts and most everything works), you're not going to get anyone to switch.
Nonsense. You almost switched and if your wireless card had worked then you would have switched. You'd already invested effort into getting X working, proving that you wanted Linux and were willing to work at it.
The problem is that the bar was a little higher than you were willing to jump. That's OK. I switched to Linux in 1992. The bar was pretty fucking high back then. The "installer" was 10 floppies containing files such as binutils.tar.gz and X386.tar.gz and a README explaining how to use the fdisk program. I switched anyway (leaving behind Interactive UNIX). Different people are willing to invest different levels of effort.
Though I must say, you might have gotten more joy trying Mandrake or Fedora. I honestly wouldn't have expected a 2.5 year old Linux distribution to contain built-in drivers for the hardware in the latest laptop. Perhaps your expectations were a little high.
The problem every ignorant OSS-ONLY kid and zealot tends to forget, Software Has A Design Cost.
It's only a problem for dolts like you who can't understand that OSS does NOT mean zero cost. It means source code and the ability to create derivative works[1].
Yet nobody wants to buy "under-powered" devices because they have been trained for 2 decades by Wintel that they must have the fastest machine to get decent performance.
I must have missed that training course because I don't use Windows nor Intel, but I still like to have the fastest computer. Why? Because then I can play DOSBOX, or fullscreen DVDs, or my MP3 collection.
A 50MHz CPU that gets 30 hours battery life but doesn't do what I want is useless to me. I don't want a personal organiser. I want a portable entertainment device. That's why I choose to "suffer" with 5 hours battery life.
And that's one of the main reasons why it is a former employee. He didn't want a mouse, he wanted a powerful keyboard (maybe by now we cuold have found a better way to use the mouse than to select from menus, which is most efficiently done with a LEAP-enabled keyboard)
On folklore.org, Raskin himself disputes this myth about his preference for keyboards. Andy makes the comment that Raskin opposed the mouse and wanted a LEAP interface. Raskin writes in the comments at the bottom that LEAP didn't even exist back then, and although he did oppose the mouse that was because he wanted some other form of pointing device (eg, light-pen). He vigorously denies that he wanted a keyboard alone.
Given that I prefer touchscreens instead of mice and trackpads, I have to agree with Raskin. It's better to just point to the screen than to have a seperate device with a "mental link" joining the two.
Wouldn't it be an interesting world if Raskin had got his way. I know why Apple went with the mouse (cost) but light pens were decades old even when the Mac was being built. Early CGA cards for IBM PCs had light pen inputs. If the Mac used a light pen instead of a mouse it would have been a seamless transition first to magnetic pens, then to touchscreens. The Mac interface would have been fully prepared for the "tablet revolution" (which still hasn't happened). Microsoft wouldn't have released their Mouse+Windows package; they would have released a Pen+Windows package. PenWindows wouldn't have come after the event. Handwriting recognition would have been more advanced than it currently is, purely due to increased interest by hobbyists and professionals in exploiting the pen.
Mac wasn't the first GUI to market, and they weren't the only pioneers (Amiga came out at roughly the same time which meant they must have been working on their GUI in parallel), but there's no denying that Mac had a huge influence. Microsoft basically copied Mac word for word. Wouldn't it be a strange world if Microsoft had copied a light pen interface instead.
Hate him if you want, but there's no denying that Bill Gates made PCs mainstream
Apple and Commodore made PCs mainstream.
nd accessible-with Windows 95 onwards, anyone could use a PC-no need to muck about with a terminal, or config.sys
Ahhh, you're talking about IBM PCs. Well, young person of little experience, Microsoft made all those problems like "config.sys" in the first place. They hardly deserve praise for fixing them almost 15 years after introducing them.
Microsoft's business model, like it or not, made the clone industry possible... causing the clone PC to actually take a hold of the market.
Nonsense. CP/M would have filled the same niche. Bill Gates was just lucky that the Kildalls (specifically his wife) stuffed up the deal of a lifetime.
If not CP/M, then UNIX would almost certainly have filled the same niche. UNIX was already well on its way to being a "generic" OS. However, with UNIX as the primary platform it's likely we would have seen a faster convergence of the standards and the utter destruction of Intel. Motorola would have cleaned their clocks a thousand times over.
Been there, done that and believe me, asking a woman if she wanted to come to your place to see your 3 foot inflatible penguin will _not_ get you laid.
Actually, she probably will come back to your place, but you're unlikely to get laid when she finds out it wasn't a euphemism.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure most people you've met haven't paid for Microsoft Office, which merely strengthens my point. Most people pirate their software. That's why $500 PCs seem like such a bargain; people aren't paying for the software they install on it.
What's funnier is all the people, including yourself, trying to tell me about OpenOffice (as if I didn't already know). Face facts, people. The average person installs a pirated copy of Microsoft Office. Stop fooling yourself because you aren't fooling anybody else. You and I both know that 99% of those $500 PCs are going to be running $2000+ worth of pirated software within the week.
The point, as always, is that with a Mac you are fully legit from the start. With the $500 PC, unless you run Linux and OpenOffice (which by all reliable sources is less than 1% of the desktop market) then you're up for at least another $500 to get the basic necessities of software. Anybody who mentions "OpenOffice" and "Linux" is ignoring the reality of the situation.
I didn't say anything about changing Slashdot.
And it boggles the mind that you'd use the same stupid argument after I had just indicated its worthlessness. I mean, really, how dumb are you?
Listen, buddy, I didn't ask Slashdot to change to suit me. What is it with Americans that they can't accept feedback. Any negative comment is misinterpreted as a set of demands. I gave my opinion, numbskull. There were no demands.
I can just imagine you writing letters to movie critics. "Hey, if you don't like it, don't watch it". "If you can do a better movie, why don't you, huh". "Crying about the movie won't make it better". Putting it in a context like that, do you understand how silly you sound?
Before angrily hitting the Submit button to a reply, make sure you haven't managed to write another version of "If you don't like it, leave". Because if that's all you manage to splutter out for the *third* time in a row then you have once again missed the entire fricking point, while simultaneously demonstrating your basic inability to comprehend the written word.
I think the previous poster's point, as mine, was that we don't care about the "big issues" in IT. We liked Slashdot as a link site to Stuff For Nerds. Now it's an anti-establishment "Your Rights Online" style site.
Saying "if you don't like it then leave" is perhaps the most intellectually devoid argument possible. Can't anybody express an opinion these days without somebody replying "then leave".
I mentioned Appleworks. You can argue that Microsoft Office is much better than Appleworks, and I wouldn't disagree, but the fact remains that you get a useful word processor out of the box with Apple. You pay extra with that $500 PC.
And Microsoft Wordpad does not count. Even in the most wildest stretch of the imagination, it is not a word processor.
I'm Australian. I used Australian prices.
TCO has very little to do with the purchase price.
Except gconf is nothing like the Windows registry.
The Windows registry is a single file (the infamous REG.DAT) which is a single point of failure. The keys are undocumented thus leading to large 1000+ tomes describing the well-known keys but many keys are unfathomable.
The gconf "registry" is an illusion. Gconf files are all separate. Go look in ~/.gconf and see every application has its own file. If any file is corrupted, it only affects that app. All the other files are not corrupted and other apps are not affected. Also the gconf schema permits human-discovery of the keys and values; the developers can attach a textual description to every key.
The gconf "registry" is nothing more than a formalisation of rc-files (more commonly called dotfiles). Instead of each rc-file having a unique format, all gconf files are XML with a known schema. Instead of scattering rc-files randomly through ~/ with strange names, gconf files have a consistent naming scheme. Gconf is hierarchial, self-discoverable, and has event triggers so applications can receive feedback if values change.
But gconf does not throw away the benefits of rc-files! Gconf files are still human readable, they are still separate files, you can pick them up and copy them around to other machines, etc. Gconf files are entirely unlike the Windows registry. It's a testament to the quality of the illusion that you saw gconf-editor and thought "it's a registry" but it's just an illusion. You are really seeing a tree view of separate gconf files.
Factual clarification, the gconf backend can be swapped, so in theory you could have a single monolithic windows-registry-alike backend. But in practise the separate files are more convenient.
GNOME does *NOT* have a single monolithic registry. Each section in your gconf is a separate file. The gconf-editor shows you a unified view but it's an illusion. The files are all separate. Corruption of one gconf file will not affect any of the others. You can backup a single file from gconf, or transfer it to another machine (and I have done this when migrating my evolution settings from one machine to another).
Sure, and now just add $220 for a copy of Windows XP and $400 for a copy of Microsoft Office and ...
What? You mean you didn't factor in the cost of the software? But we all know software piracy is wrong, so you would never do that. Were you going to run Linux on that PC of yours?
Remember that Apple doesn't sell hardware. They sell an appliance. That's a combination of software and hardware. The $800 e-Mac includes an OS, iLife, Appleworks, and some games. Your $500 PC comes with driver discs if you're lucky.
This is slightly off-topic, and while I agree with you that RedHat is most definitely a friend of Linux (and always has been), there are always going to be some people who see conspiracies everywhere. Your 3 facts show RedHat to be one of the good guys but the facts will be ignored by some people. They want RedHat to be evil. They will misinterpret the facts to support their warped view.
Another recent example is Sun. Here are just some of the things that Sun has done for Linux.
Yet we're already seeing the "Sun is evil" comments regarding the recent settlement between Sun and Microsoft. I've even seen one normally respectable site accuse Sun of entering into a conspiracy with SCO and Microsoft as early as March of last year, and this $2 billion settlement is part of the "pay off" for Sun's cooperation in destroying Linux. I can't even imagine the kind of confusion that would make somebody think like that.
My point is that people believe what they want to believe. You and I both know that RedHat is a bloody good thing for Linux, and so is Sun, but people who want to believe that RedHat and Sun are evil will continue to believe that, and no amount of facts will change their beliefs.
You know, I was thinking you were a troll (or at the very best, a malcontent) up until that last sentence. Then I realised I agreed with you. I also miss the days when Slashdot posted an interview with a kernel programmer or discussed the latest gadgets. It seems these days the articles all have an anti-establishment theme.
Perhaps the Slashdot editors have let success go to their heads. They think that their larger audience means they have a greater responsibility to report on the "important stuff". Unfortunately the Slashdot editors don't limit the "important stuff" into the YRO category, so you can't easily turn it all off.
I don't see why you think I'm incorrect. As near as I can tell, you have just repeated what I said. Perhaps you're seeing some difference that I can't see, so you might have to explain it in more detail. I'm saying that CUPS existed before Apple used it. Apple didn't design the GUI and then recode CUPS to suit. CUPS stayed the same. The GUI was put on top of CUPS. It wasn't the case that CUPS was designed to suit the GUI. So Gruber's claim that the UI must be designed before you can build the core is incorrect. CUPS was designed without prior knowledge of the Apple GUI and it works with the GUI. You can build the core first. CUPS proves that. Gruber is wrong when he says that the UI must be designed first and the core built second. Is the point clearer?
I think you're splitting hairs. I and many other people think that's exactly what he said and your correction is trivially different.
Also I don't agree with that last claim of yours. There's this widespread belief that UI designers are mystical unapproachable people who only work for money, are only employed by rich companies like Microsoft and Apple, and require incredibly complex rooms filled with Aunt Tillies to produce fabulous interfaces.
It's a myth. UI design is common sense. The reason why most UIs suck (commercial and OSS) is because most people lack common sense. The software development model - proprietary or OSS - is irrelevant. Either development model can incorporate intelligent UI design. Either model can produce atrocious UI design. It's silly to say OSS can't deliver on good UI design. It's a nonsensical statement. Like saying that OSS can't produce stable software. Or OSS can't produce documented software.
Observation? His "observation" was that Linux developers and their "ilk" have contempt for their users. What a load of shit! That wasn't an observation. It was a troll.
One enlightening thing to come out of Gruber's ugly troll was the number of comments pointing out deficiencies in the MacOSX GUI. I've now got several examples of poor design in the MacOSX GUI for future arguments. So riddle me this. Does Apple have contempt for their users? Will Gruber turn the argument around and blame Apple for these problems? Claim that the solution is for Apple to hire these mystical UI designers which they obviously don't have?
Or will Gruber and "his ilk" be more sensible and just admit that UI design is an iterative process. It takes time to build a consistent and logical interface. Apple has been going for 20 years. Really Apple has drawn upon 40 years of UI research to get this far. The OSS UIs are younger than the OSS kernels and OSS compilers. So they are still evolving. Sure, GNOME looks primitive compared to MacOSX, but it doesn't look shabby compared to MacOS 8, or Windows 98. Honestly, speaking as an uneducated unmystical UI heathen, I think GNOME 2.6 looks better than Windows XP. But perhaps that's just me.
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If I had that answer then I'd be a billionaire and I wouldn't be wasting my time on Slashdot.
But even though I don't have the answer, I do believe it's possible. One day, somebody will design a revolutionary change to word processors that will make them even more productive. Maybe it will be intelligent grammar creation; you type in what you want and the software makes it sound good. Maybe it will be incredibly advanced forms of collaboration; not annotations and review lists, but some way that 100s of people can work on a single document like some kind of Asimov fantasy vision of the future (have you ever read Fantastic Voyage).
What I do know is that significant increases in productivity won't happen because of translucent windows. Those improvements, while clever and attractive, have only a minor effect on my productivity. I'm waiting for the next spreadsheet, or the next web browser, because those were inventions that greatly enhanced my productivity.
Gruber's point was that you can't just slap a GUI onto existing code and make it usable; you have to design usability into the entire product from the start.
In that respect, he is wrong. The MacOSX printing proves that he is wrong. MacOSX uses the same CUPS core that Fedora uses, but it has a better GUI slapped on top. The GUI was slapped on top after CUPS had been written.
Gruber is an asshole in many ways, and this latest rant just confirms more of the same. He's quick to insult Linux users, demean the efforts of many people, and claim that Linux can't ever meet the standards of paid UI designers.
Then he rants on how OSS can never deliver the brilliant GUI designs of MacOSX and Windows. Well dream on, Gruber. Here's a summary of Gruber and "his ilk" over the past decade.
I'll be first in line to watch Gruber and "his ilk" eat humble pie in 2010.
Click Home. Click menu Go. Click menu item CD Creator. Drag files into window. Click Burn.
Giggle. It's amusing that you think I'm a "light" computer user. I'm a UNIX sysadmin by trade, I code for fun, and I'm currently running GNOME 2.6 (from Debian) with ... 19 windows open across 5 desktops on 2 monitors. My home network is 7 servers (mixture of Solaris and Linux). If you asked anybody in my office whether I was a
"light" computer user they'd laugh in your face.
When I say that I spend most of my time writing e-mail and documents, I'm not saying that's all that I do. I'm saying that boosts to productivity need to address those two tasks first and foremost, because everything else is teasing at the edges. I think my situation is true for near everybody in this office (several 100 people) both techs and suits alike.
I see a lot of comments glowing with praise for the legendary "productivity boost" you get from using a Macintosh. But how much of this is just hype? I'm not disputing that in several aspects MacOS is well in the lead; file browsing, interface consistency, intelligent dialogs, auto discovery, and so on. But how much of that really adds to your productivity? My belief is, not a whole lot.
Hear me out. My typical use of the computer involves e-mail and word processing. I don't spend a whole lot of time reorganising my files. If the typical day involves 2 hours writing documents, 2 hours reading/writing e-mails, 15 minutes reorganising my files, and 4 hours doing non-computer things like meetings, then even if the Finder made me twice as productive when reorganising my files that's only 7 minutes. I waste more time than that saying hello to everybody each morning.
I can anticipate the first round of angry denials. "But it's not just the Finder; the Aqua interface and Human Interface Guidelines makes you N% more productive for [intangible reason]". Ok, perhaps that's true, but the majority of my time writing documents and mails is spent thinking. I don't struggle with the interface. I click "New Message" then I spend 10 minutes writing then I click "Send". I click "New Document" then I spend 2 hours writing then I click "Save".
The second round of angry denials will probably be "But MacOS makes it easier to add hardware because once I installed [Foo Device] on Linux and it took me 16 days and cost me $1 kajillion dollars in lost productivity". Well I rarely change my hardware, so while I can agree that Microsoft and Apple make it easier to install new hardware than in Linux, it's not as if that really affects me either.
My point is that you spend most of your time inside applications; not the Finder and not the hardware installation wizards. So it amazes me that of the people I know who switched from Windows or Linux to MacOSX they are all using Mozilla or Firefox, OpenOffice or NeoJ, and the free e-mail client with MacOSX which (IMO) is slightly worse than Evolution (eg. it only just got threading). How much productivity did these people gain by changing the OS but keeping the same applications? If you listened to them, you'd think they were suddenly Ultra Productive Super Beings, able to produce documents and e-mails faster than a speeding bullet, but from what I can see they are still spending most of their time inside a word processor or an e-mail client.
So how much more productitive are you with MacOSX? Be honest. Instead of replying immediately with "U R DUMHED, MACOSX IS HEAPS FASTER FOR EVERYTHING", step back and reflect on actual improvements. Are you saving minutes per week? Hours? Nothing at all? In my case it was a few minutes per week and I wasn't willing to lock myself into a proprietary upgrade treadmill to save a few minutes per week.
There's quite a bit more of the /. crowd that thinks the Everquest items are just as stupid.
The cynic's guide to the earlier list.
Kiss butt. Be smarmy. Greed is good.
Work for your rating, not for your company. It's easier to look good than to be good.
Do your boss's job because heaven knows he won't. He's too busy screwing the office secretary and playing golf to do mere work. Meanwhile he gets a 6 figure salary and you're paid peanuts.
Spread yourself thin. This way you can gain glory for successful projects "I did that" and absolve any responsibility from failures "I was barely involved in that project".
Get involved in areas where you have no experience and no skills. That's how successful projects move forwards; by being weighed down with dozens of incompetent boobs.
Everybody loves a know-it-all. You'll quickly gain new friends after you tell them how they're doing their jobs all wrong, and how much better you could have done it.
Be a schmuck. You'll quickly be targetted by incompetent slackers who should have been fired years ago, but who have the uncanny knack of identifying gullible dolts like you. They'll sit back and relax while you make them look good.
Everybody loves the stickler for the rules.
Blame Tibor for everything.
PS: I'm only half joking.
Nonsense. You almost switched and if your wireless card had worked then you would have switched. You'd already invested effort into getting X working, proving that you wanted Linux and were willing to work at it.
The problem is that the bar was a little higher than you were willing to jump. That's OK. I switched to Linux in 1992. The bar was pretty fucking high back then. The "installer" was 10 floppies containing files such as binutils.tar.gz and X386.tar.gz and a README explaining how to use the fdisk program. I switched anyway (leaving behind Interactive UNIX). Different people are willing to invest different levels of effort.
Though I must say, you might have gotten more joy trying Mandrake or Fedora. I honestly wouldn't have expected a 2.5 year old Linux distribution to contain built-in drivers for the hardware in the latest laptop. Perhaps your expectations were a little high.
It's only a problem for dolts like you who can't understand that OSS does NOT mean zero cost. It means source code and the ability to create derivative works[1].
I would pay _MORE_ for those rights.
[1] Full definition of OSS at www.opensource.org.
I must have missed that training course because I don't use Windows nor Intel, but I still like to have the fastest computer. Why? Because then I can play DOSBOX, or fullscreen DVDs, or my MP3 collection.
A 50MHz CPU that gets 30 hours battery life but doesn't do what I want is useless to me. I don't want a personal organiser. I want a portable entertainment device. That's why I choose to "suffer" with 5 hours battery life.
On folklore.org, Raskin himself disputes this myth about his preference for keyboards. Andy makes the comment that Raskin opposed the mouse and wanted a LEAP interface. Raskin writes in the comments at the bottom that LEAP didn't even exist back then, and although he did oppose the mouse that was because he wanted some other form of pointing device (eg, light-pen). He vigorously denies that he wanted a keyboard alone.
Given that I prefer touchscreens instead of mice and trackpads, I have to agree with Raskin. It's better to just point to the screen than to have a seperate device with a "mental link" joining the two.
Wouldn't it be an interesting world if Raskin had got his way. I know why Apple went with the mouse (cost) but light pens were decades old even when the Mac was being built. Early CGA cards for IBM PCs had light pen inputs. If the Mac used a light pen instead of a mouse it would have been a seamless transition first to magnetic pens, then to touchscreens. The Mac interface would have been fully prepared for the "tablet revolution" (which still hasn't happened). Microsoft wouldn't have released their Mouse+Windows package; they would have released a Pen+Windows package. PenWindows wouldn't have come after the event. Handwriting recognition would have been more advanced than it currently is, purely due to increased interest by hobbyists and professionals in exploiting the pen.
Mac wasn't the first GUI to market, and they weren't the only pioneers (Amiga came out at roughly the same time which meant they must have been working on their GUI in parallel), but there's no denying that Mac had a huge influence. Microsoft basically copied Mac word for word. Wouldn't it be a strange world if Microsoft had copied a light pen interface instead.
Apple and Commodore made PCs mainstream.
Ahhh, you're talking about IBM PCs. Well, young person of little experience, Microsoft made all those problems like "config.sys" in the first place. They hardly deserve praise for fixing them almost 15 years after introducing them.
Nonsense. CP/M would have filled the same niche. Bill Gates was just lucky that the Kildalls (specifically his wife) stuffed up the deal of a lifetime.
If not CP/M, then UNIX would almost certainly have filled the same niche. UNIX was already well on its way to being a "generic" OS. However, with UNIX as the primary platform it's likely we would have seen a faster convergence of the standards and the utter destruction of Intel. Motorola would have cleaned their clocks a thousand times over.
Because Microsoft and Linux are both copying ideas from the experts.
Actually, she probably will come back to your place, but you're unlikely to get laid when she finds out it wasn't a euphemism.