You wouldn't *believe* all the Powerbooks at the Ottawa Linux Symposium, a gathering of hardcore Linux developers. I'm sure I saw Tridge carrying one around too...
Apple's always made nice hardware, and geeks appreciate that. The only reason why I bought x86 is because of MacOS. But, Linux on PPC means I can now run my favorite OS on kickass hardware. It's win-win.
You're wrong. It's not flamebate. I don't know what that is. But it is flameBAIT.
I run YellowDog Linux on my Titanium G4 notebook. Why? Performance is *excellent*, plus the notebook ain't to shabby to look at. Extra wide screen, good hardware integration. Works for me. In fact, every year I've attended the Ottawa Linux Symposium, I've seen more and more people lugging Apple hardware around, running Linux. We're not talking your average joe users either, but serious developer types. I seem to recall a few of the Samba fellows typing away on Powerbooks during the keynote...
MOL (Mac On Linux) is a nice tool for those that do run Linux on their Mac, yet occasionally need to boot into MacOS. It saves a reboot, and can be quite handy when you need to playback a Quicktime file, or something along those lines. I'd rather have a native Linux player of course, but since Sorenson won't disclose the codec, MOL allows me to run Linux yet still access one or two of those quirky Mac apps.;)
As another poster mentioned, it's like VMWare for the Mac. If you can postulate a use for VMWare, then it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out why some people like MOL.
These guys just don't get it. All it takes is one audiophile with a decent sound system, a couple RCA cables, and an MP3 encoder. Sure it'll be an D-A-D job and you'll lose a bit of fidelity on the initial copy, but once that's done, it'll be perfectly preserved, copy after copy after copy after copy.
Copy-protected music just doesn't work, because until we all start carrying around implants in our heads, the data *must* be converted to analog sound, and when that happens, the copy protection convieniently goes away.
"They want all the benefit of somone else's hard work without having to pay the actual price for it." is a rather silly comparison, when you consider that the price for honouring that patent might be my life.
Believe it or not, the Russian spacesuits are incompatible with the US airlock systems and vice versa - the US suits aren't compatible with the Russian airlocks. In other words, each suit must be prepped in it's respective lock. Hence the need for two distinct airlocks. Doesn't make much sense, does it?
Also, don't forget that for astronomy purposes, FITS is pretty much the standard file format. Images were converted to JPEG for the average web-surfer's convienience...
First off, let me state that I'm not a Mac Junkie. I own a Powerbook G4 simply because I liked the hardware, and because I could run Linux on it (the big screen was what drew me in).
That being said, I run YellowDog Linux 2.0 on my Ti and it kicks serious ass. It is an excellent Linux distribution, and for all intents and purposes, I've pretty much replaced my Linux desktop with the G4.
I've also played with OS X on the Ti quite a bit. While Aqua (the GUI) *is* slow, OS X itself has been nothing but rock-solid. I take exception to the author's comment " (it) flat out kills OS X in speed and reliability..." - OS X has been nothing but reliable. But yes, KDE on the G4 certainly runs faster than Aqua under OS X - no wonder, since Aqua's rendering system is PDF based...
All in all though, YDL 2.0 is a great PPC-based Linux distro.
You got a good deal... although that may be because you're located in the US. Here in Canada, Dell is selling the 8100 for quite a bit of $$$. As I mentioned, at the time I purchased my G4 Titanium, there was only a $50 difference between a Dell 8100 and the G4... not the $450 difference you claim. But then again, if you're in the US, you'll probably be able to save that $450.
heheh... Good point. However, I should point out that she's a computer science / chemistry girlfriend who hates chick flicks, builds her own 'puters, and codes some bad-ass C++ and Java.;)
Your mileage may vary. As I said in my first post, it's up to the individual user. Of the problems you mention, I've only experienced the key marks on LCD issue, and it seems to have gone away after a few months of use.
Contrary to popular belief in the x86 world (of which I was a part until recently), Apple hardware is not only very spiffy looking, it's very well engineered IMHO.
After a series of problems with 4 Sony Vaio notebooks (two PCG-748s, a Picturebook, and a PCG-F630), my girlfriend and I decided to look for alternative mobile computing solutions. Both of us being Unix/Linux users, we were drawn to the Apple Powerbooks/iBooks (the new model, not the clamshell).
The notebooks feel solid. They have excellent battery life (I got 4.5 hours on a charge at the Ottawa Linux Symposium, while surfing wirelessly the whole time). The G3 and G4 processors feel fast. You don't have to have a 1 GHz Intel beast in your notebook - performance isn't measured solely by MHz, and especially not across different chip architectures!
Sure, I had some minor complaints - only one mouse button for instance. But both YellowDog and LinuxPPC allow you to easily remap keys to mouse buttons. Guess what? That Apple key, and the "enter" key, on either side of the spacebar, just above the mouse pad on a G4 Titanium make excellent mouse buttons! Not to mention full USB support for external keyboards/mice when "docked". Built in antennas for wireless networking reduce the cost of a wireless network card... here in Canada, an 802.11b wireless card typically runs around $220 Cdn, whereas the Apple Airport (OEMed Lucent 802.11b card) runs about $140. And the G4 Titanium's screen is simply the most georgeous thing out there IMHO.
Price-wise Apple hardware isn't all that bad these days. Sure, the G4 Titanium is expensive when compared to a Dell Latitude. But the G4 Ti is the top of the line Apple - it has more in common with the Dell 8100 series... and when you compare those two, the difference is $50-$100 Cdn.
Ultimately, it's up to the individual user to decide which notebook best suits them. But at least give an Apple notebook a chance before dismissing it. They are really quite nice (and quite popular with the Linux coder crowd at the Ottawa Linux Symposium - there were many, many, many Powerbook G4s, and a few iBooks).
There is a peer to peer mode in Ricochet modems - at least (here's the catch) the older modems. Some guys on the Wearable Computing Mailing List have gotten them to work in P2P mode without any trouble.
However, Ricochet removed or somehow blocked this functionality in more recent models (those released within the past year). So the newer modems, unless you can figure out what they did and undo it, are useless in P2P mode.
As for your buddy, he must not know about the older models (I've seen them work in a demonstration here in Canada - definitely no network infrastructure).
Very nice. Why not throw a few more stereotypes around while you're at it? I'd say you were exhibiting an attitude "typical of a citizen of the USA", only as a Canadian, I'm too "polite".
Without us, you wouldn't have made it to the moon in the timeframe JFK laid out. Who do you think made up a large percentage of NASA's engineering and science cores in the 1960's (and even today)? Canadians. Where do you think the Canadarm (shuttle) and Canadarm2 (ISS) came from? Do you need a hint?
As for the metric system, wake up and smell reality. Most of the world uses the metric system these days, at least the rest of the technologically advanced world... except for your little backwater country. Of course, if you did bother to catch up and standardize with the rest of us, perhaps that little mishap with the Mars probe smacking into the Red Planet due to an Imperial/Metric conversion error wouldn't have happened. But I digress.
Finally, you asked "What will we get in return?". Well, I don't know if you've been following the news or not (then again, US news is rather domestic in nature and tends to ignore anything happening outside of your borders, unless you're blowing something up), but guess which country has been knocking on Canada's door, looking for energy and freshwater handouts?
I've got a Powerbook G4 Titanium notebook (G4 400 Mhz and 384 mb RAM)... I run YDL 2.0 on it right now, and it's excellent - as the author of the article mentioned, it easily keeps pace with my 850 Mhz PIII at the office.
OS X on it is another matter altogether. It seems inherently slow, whether running applications through the OS 9 compatability mode, running native OS X apps (there are quite a few now), or running no apps at all and just the OS.
My notebook originally came with 128 MB RAM. I upgraded to 384 almost immediately because under OS X it seemed the OS was swapping to disk constantly, with no apps running! OS X easily consumes 128 MB RAM by itself - the price you pay for the Aqua UI, which is incredibly graphics intensive.
Personally, I love Linux on the G4 - now, I'm not a Mac head, I've got an Athlon 1200 here and a bunch of x86 machines. But the G4 Titanium is such a nice little box I couldn't resist picking one up. Price-wise, it was about $100 more expensive than the Dell Inspiron 8000 notebook I was also considering - granted, the Dell was 1 GHz, but again, my G4 seems just as fast. Plus, Linux runs beautifully on it, and the extra-wide screen makes coding a pleasure.
Ignorant American person, who do you think built the robot arms on the current shuttle fleet? You know, the Canadarm? Made in Canada? Worked without a hitch over the entire shuttle program?
Give me a break buddy. "We should just turn Canada into a State"? What makes you think you have the right to force your will on another country? No, let me guess, something to do with a large army, nuclear weapons, and country music no doubt.
Go back to polishing that gun rack in your pickup.
See, this sort of comment is why Canadians like to distinguish themselves from Americans. Nuke another country because they disagree with you? Especially one that you share a border with? Ever hear of fallout? Hardly the behaviour of a rational group of people, now is it?
We don't make Americans out to be *bad*. We don't consider you the evil empire to the south. Believe it or not, we like you guys most of the time. It's just that the rest of the world considers Americans to be incredibly self-indulgent. The average American would have a hard time locating anything that isn't an American city on a map. I was actually asked by a 4th year university student in New York if Canada had a democracy.
BTW: We'll explain the attraction of curling to you, if you can explain the attraction of the NRA to us.
Grow up kid, and have the decency/maturity to login with a real id rather than "Anonymous Coward" if you're going to flame someone.
And yup, 90% of Canada's population does live close to the US border. Not necessarily because we want to be close to the US... but have you ever experienced winter in Northern Quebec, much less Churchill, Manitoba... or Ellesmere Island? No thanks.
Speaking as a Rogers@Home "customer", I can vouch for the experiences this judge had.
My 7x24 "always on" cable is flaky as hell. I've had the cable modem replaced several times, and I still get service interruptions ranging from a few minutes to 16 hours at a stretch. Regularly. Rogers has run several line tests but tells me they can't find a problem (other than the fact that I'm not getting a connection).
The past two weeks my connection has been relatively stable, aside from a seemingly regular disconnect in mid-morning that only lasts about 10 minutes, and mail servers that are sometimes reachable, and sometimes not.
This is especially bad in the Ottawa, ON area - numerous customers have been experiencing connection trouble, and have gone as far as to setup a consumer watchdog group to pester Rogers into improving their service.
Most of the Rogers@Home subscribers in Ontario lost network connectivity over a weekend about two months ago, when a *single* fiber line was severed by vandals in a *train yard* in southern Ontario.
Rogers side of the story is that @Home in CA is causing most of the trouble, with unscheduled network outages, downed fiber lines, etc.
If this judge is experiencing the same outages I was, I believe she has every right to complain - and with Rogers going after her credit rating, it's no wonder she sued.
Actually, her nationality does have quite a bit to do with it. Regardless of whether she's in small claims court, there are caps on the amounts one can sue for here in Canada... there *are* exceptions to the rule, but you almost never see the outlandish amounts of money often found in US lawsuits.
The lawsuit is not as ingrained into our culture as it is in the country just south of us. The "stereotypical" American class action lawsuit is often the subject of much discussion and laughter around Canadian office watercoolers/fax machines/copiers/lunchrooms.
The funny thing about your rather "witty" response (typed sarcastically of course) is not the age-old "abooooooooooot" joke (have you twits never heard of an Acadian accent? The whole country doesn't pronounce it aboooooot, mostly the eastern provinces. I for instance don't assume that all of the US pronounces Boston "Bawwwston"... geezus.)
Anyhow, back to what I was saying: the funny thing about your posting isn't the "abooooot" comment, it's your subject: "Nice work, Canada". There is a political satire TV show called "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" that airs here in Canada. One segment is called "Talking to Americans" and features a Canadian host (Rick Mercer) interviewing Americans and asking them about Canada, or presenting them with some silly Canadian "fact", and getting them to congratulate Canada on it's newest achievement... usually by saying something like "Nice work, Canada"!
Examples of some of the questions posed to Americans:
Would you be willing to board a boat and protest the traditional clubbing of seals in Saskatchewan? (Sakatchewan is a land-locked prarie province)
How do you feel about the Canadian tradition of leaving the elderly on iceflows to die?
They have a problem with moose wandering into Vancouver. Do you think they should pummel them with timbits, as is the Canadian tradition, or use tranquilizers and fly 'em out to Newfoundland? Of course, they'll wander back into Vancouver in a day or two. (Newfoundland and Vancouver are on opposite ends of the country, and it takes at least a week to *drive* between the two... and timbits are tiny donuts)
The same problem that the US Government has with a foreign country bestowing honours upon US citizens without prior approval. It's actually quite common.
Now, I agree that the PM is going a little overboard when it comes to Terry Matthews, as he is from Wales. However, Conrad Black is Canadian-born and obtained his British citizenship for the sole purpose of circumventing the law - in his case, I'd agree with Jean - he shouldn't be allowed to get it.
I would assume by your stereotypical comments that you are a gun-toting Amurican... how y'all doin?
Puhleeze. First, Canada is "up" there from y'all. Secondly, as for bastardized slang english, if you *are* American, you're certainly in no position to comment on bastardized english. Canadians may have an "accent" (wake up: every regional locality has their own distinctive "accent" - which is why the British sound British, the Canadians sound Canadian, and so on...) but our english is *much* closer to the "mother tongue" as it were, as far as spelling and vocabulary are concerned.
Finally, the comment on beer and bombing does not even rate a response.
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Apple's always made nice hardware, and geeks appreciate that. The only reason why I bought x86 is because of MacOS. But, Linux on PPC means I can now run my favorite OS on kickass hardware. It's win-win.
Yes, you were. And you (if you actually paid for your toy and it wasn't company property) paid at least $6k for it.
;)
There are, unfortunately, very few wearable HMD systems that are discrete and don't make you look like a reject from the Collective.
I run YellowDog Linux on my Titanium G4 notebook. Why? Performance is *excellent*, plus the notebook ain't to shabby to look at. Extra wide screen, good hardware integration. Works for me. In fact, every year I've attended the Ottawa Linux Symposium, I've seen more and more people lugging Apple hardware around, running Linux. We're not talking your average joe users either, but serious developer types. I seem to recall a few of the Samba fellows typing away on Powerbooks during the keynote...
MOL (Mac On Linux) is a nice tool for those that do run Linux on their Mac, yet occasionally need to boot into MacOS. It saves a reboot, and can be quite handy when you need to playback a Quicktime file, or something along those lines. I'd rather have a native Linux player of course, but since Sorenson won't disclose the codec, MOL allows me to run Linux yet still access one or two of those quirky Mac apps. ;)
As another poster mentioned, it's like VMWare for the Mac. If you can postulate a use for VMWare, then it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out why some people like MOL.
These guys just don't get it. All it takes is one audiophile with a decent sound system, a couple RCA cables, and an MP3 encoder. Sure it'll be an D-A-D job and you'll lose a bit of fidelity on the initial copy, but once that's done, it'll be perfectly preserved, copy after copy after copy after copy.
Copy-protected music just doesn't work, because until we all start carrying around implants in our heads, the data *must* be converted to analog sound, and when that happens, the copy protection convieniently goes away.
"They want all the benefit of somone else's hard work without having to pay the actual price for it." is a rather silly comparison, when you consider that the price for honouring that patent might be my life.
Believe it or not, the Russian spacesuits are incompatible with the US airlock systems and vice versa - the US suits aren't compatible with the Russian airlocks. In other words, each suit must be prepped in it's respective lock. Hence the need for two distinct airlocks. Doesn't make much sense, does it?
Also, don't forget that for astronomy purposes, FITS is pretty much the standard file format. Images were converted to JPEG for the average web-surfer's convienience...
That being said, I run YellowDog Linux 2.0 on my Ti and it kicks serious ass. It is an excellent Linux distribution, and for all intents and purposes, I've pretty much replaced my Linux desktop with the G4.
I've also played with OS X on the Ti quite a bit. While Aqua (the GUI) *is* slow, OS X itself has been nothing but rock-solid. I take exception to the author's comment " (it) flat out kills OS X in speed and reliability..." - OS X has been nothing but reliable. But yes, KDE on the G4 certainly runs faster than Aqua under OS X - no wonder, since Aqua's rendering system is PDF based...
All in all though, YDL 2.0 is a great PPC-based Linux distro.
You got a good deal... although that may be because you're located in the US. Here in Canada, Dell is selling the 8100 for quite a bit of $$$. As I mentioned, at the time I purchased my G4 Titanium, there was only a $50 difference between a Dell 8100 and the G4... not the $450 difference you claim. But then again, if you're in the US, you'll probably be able to save that $450.
heheh... Good point. However, I should point out that she's a computer science / chemistry girlfriend who hates chick flicks, builds her own 'puters, and codes some bad-ass C++ and Java. ;)
Your mileage may vary. As I said in my first post, it's up to the individual user. Of the problems you mention, I've only experienced the key marks on LCD issue, and it seems to have gone away after a few months of use.
After a series of problems with 4 Sony Vaio notebooks (two PCG-748s, a Picturebook, and a PCG-F630), my girlfriend and I decided to look for alternative mobile computing solutions. Both of us being Unix/Linux users, we were drawn to the Apple Powerbooks/iBooks (the new model, not the clamshell).
The notebooks feel solid. They have excellent battery life (I got 4.5 hours on a charge at the Ottawa Linux Symposium, while surfing wirelessly the whole time). The G3 and G4 processors feel fast. You don't have to have a 1 GHz Intel beast in your notebook - performance isn't measured solely by MHz, and especially not across different chip architectures!
Sure, I had some minor complaints - only one mouse button for instance. But both YellowDog and LinuxPPC allow you to easily remap keys to mouse buttons. Guess what? That Apple key, and the "enter" key, on either side of the spacebar, just above the mouse pad on a G4 Titanium make excellent mouse buttons! Not to mention full USB support for external keyboards/mice when "docked". Built in antennas for wireless networking reduce the cost of a wireless network card... here in Canada, an 802.11b wireless card typically runs around $220 Cdn, whereas the Apple Airport (OEMed Lucent 802.11b card) runs about $140. And the G4 Titanium's screen is simply the most georgeous thing out there IMHO.
Price-wise Apple hardware isn't all that bad these days. Sure, the G4 Titanium is expensive when compared to a Dell Latitude. But the G4 Ti is the top of the line Apple - it has more in common with the Dell 8100 series... and when you compare those two, the difference is $50-$100 Cdn.
Ultimately, it's up to the individual user to decide which notebook best suits them. But at least give an Apple notebook a chance before dismissing it. They are really quite nice (and quite popular with the Linux coder crowd at the Ottawa Linux Symposium - there were many, many, many Powerbook G4s, and a few iBooks).
There is a peer to peer mode in Ricochet modems - at least (here's the catch) the older modems. Some guys on the Wearable Computing Mailing List have gotten them to work in P2P mode without any trouble.
However, Ricochet removed or somehow blocked this functionality in more recent models (those released within the past year). So the newer modems, unless you can figure out what they did and undo it, are useless in P2P mode.
As for your buddy, he must not know about the older models (I've seen them work in a demonstration here in Canada - definitely no network infrastructure).
Without us, you wouldn't have made it to the moon in the timeframe JFK laid out. Who do you think made up a large percentage of NASA's engineering and science cores in the 1960's (and even today)? Canadians. Where do you think the Canadarm (shuttle) and Canadarm2 (ISS) came from? Do you need a hint?
As for the metric system, wake up and smell reality. Most of the world uses the metric system these days, at least the rest of the technologically advanced world... except for your little backwater country. Of course, if you did bother to catch up and standardize with the rest of us, perhaps that little mishap with the Mars probe smacking into the Red Planet due to an Imperial/Metric conversion error wouldn't have happened. But I digress.
Finally, you asked "What will we get in return?". Well, I don't know if you've been following the news or not (then again, US news is rather domestic in nature and tends to ignore anything happening outside of your borders, unless you're blowing something up), but guess which country has been knocking on Canada's door, looking for energy and freshwater handouts?
Before you insult your neighbor, get a clue.
OS X on it is another matter altogether. It seems inherently slow, whether running applications through the OS 9 compatability mode, running native OS X apps (there are quite a few now), or running no apps at all and just the OS.
My notebook originally came with 128 MB RAM. I upgraded to 384 almost immediately because under OS X it seemed the OS was swapping to disk constantly, with no apps running! OS X easily consumes 128 MB RAM by itself - the price you pay for the Aqua UI, which is incredibly graphics intensive.
Personally, I love Linux on the G4 - now, I'm not a Mac head, I've got an Athlon 1200 here and a bunch of x86 machines. But the G4 Titanium is such a nice little box I couldn't resist picking one up. Price-wise, it was about $100 more expensive than the Dell Inspiron 8000 notebook I was also considering - granted, the Dell was 1 GHz, but again, my G4 seems just as fast. Plus, Linux runs beautifully on it, and the extra-wide screen makes coding a pleasure.
Ignorant American person, who do you think built the robot arms on the current shuttle fleet? You know, the Canadarm? Made in Canada? Worked without a hitch over the entire shuttle program?
Dork.
Give me a break buddy. "We should just turn Canada into a State"? What makes you think you have the right to force your will on another country? No, let me guess, something to do with a large army, nuclear weapons, and country music no doubt.
Go back to polishing that gun rack in your pickup.
See, this sort of comment is why Canadians like to distinguish themselves from Americans. Nuke another country because they disagree with you? Especially one that you share a border with? Ever hear of fallout? Hardly the behaviour of a rational group of people, now is it?
We don't make Americans out to be *bad*. We don't consider you the evil empire to the south. Believe it or not, we like you guys most of the time. It's just that the rest of the world considers Americans to be incredibly self-indulgent. The average American would have a hard time locating anything that isn't an American city on a map. I was actually asked by a 4th year university student in New York if Canada had a democracy.
BTW: We'll explain the attraction of curling to you, if you can explain the attraction of the NRA to us.
And yup, 90% of Canada's population does live close to the US border. Not necessarily because we want to be close to the US ... but have you ever experienced winter in Northern Quebec, much less Churchill, Manitoba... or Ellesmere Island? No thanks.
My 7x24 "always on" cable is flaky as hell. I've had the cable modem replaced several times, and I still get service interruptions ranging from a few minutes to 16 hours at a stretch. Regularly. Rogers has run several line tests but tells me they can't find a problem (other than the fact that I'm not getting a connection). The past two weeks my connection has been relatively stable, aside from a seemingly regular disconnect in mid-morning that only lasts about 10 minutes, and mail servers that are sometimes reachable, and sometimes not.
This is especially bad in the Ottawa, ON area - numerous customers have been experiencing connection trouble, and have gone as far as to setup a consumer watchdog group to pester Rogers into improving their service.
Most of the Rogers@Home subscribers in Ontario lost network connectivity over a weekend about two months ago, when a *single* fiber line was severed by vandals in a *train yard* in southern Ontario.
Rogers side of the story is that @Home in CA is causing most of the trouble, with unscheduled network outages, downed fiber lines, etc.
If this judge is experiencing the same outages I was, I believe she has every right to complain - and with Rogers going after her credit rating, it's no wonder she sued.
The lawsuit is not as ingrained into our culture as it is in the country just south of us. The "stereotypical" American class action lawsuit is often the subject of much discussion and laughter around Canadian office watercoolers/fax machines/copiers/lunchrooms.
Relax. Take a pill. If you don't like Slashdot, go elsewhere.
Examples of some of the questions posed to Americans:
Would you be willing to board a boat and protest the traditional clubbing of seals in Saskatchewan? (Sakatchewan is a land-locked prarie province)
How do you feel about the Canadian tradition of leaving the elderly on iceflows to die?
They have a problem with moose wandering into Vancouver. Do you think they should pummel them with timbits, as is the Canadian tradition, or use tranquilizers and fly 'em out to Newfoundland? Of course, they'll wander back into Vancouver in a day or two. (Newfoundland and Vancouver are on opposite ends of the country, and it takes at least a week to *drive* between the two... and timbits are tiny donuts)
Now, I agree that the PM is going a little overboard when it comes to Terry Matthews, as he is from Wales. However, Conrad Black is Canadian-born and obtained his British citizenship for the sole purpose of circumventing the law - in his case, I'd agree with Jean - he shouldn't be allowed to get it.
Puhleeze. First, Canada is "up" there from y'all. Secondly, as for bastardized slang english, if you *are* American, you're certainly in no position to comment on bastardized english. Canadians may have an "accent" (wake up: every regional locality has their own distinctive "accent" - which is why the British sound British, the Canadians sound Canadian, and so on...) but our english is *much* closer to the "mother tongue" as it were, as far as spelling and vocabulary are concerned.
Finally, the comment on beer and bombing does not even rate a response.