I'd love to ask Jonathan why they've chosen to use a proprietary dongle connector for VGA-out on both the iBook and the new iMac.
Frankly, this is the dumbest design decision ever. If you're trying to make a "simple" computer, why use a dongle that consumers will most certainly forget or lose? What could be more simple than the same connector used on 99% of the world's personal computers?
This is extra stupid, since there is plenty of space to put a standard VGA-out connector on both systems. Additionally, making a custom port and dongle adds to the cost of an already expensive computer.
Space. I can't speak to the new iMac; however, if you look at the side of my new iBook, you'll see there is no way a standard VGA connector would fit there. Neither in width nor height. (remember you have to have some sort of mounting behind the socket, which is generally bigger than the socket itself) The largest port on my iBook is the ethernet socket, and if you pop off the keyboard, you can see there is very little space between the top of the ethernet port and the bottom of the recess for the keyboard. Can you get a VGA socket and mounting to within the height restrictions of an ethernet port? Honestly, I'm quite glad they went with the new connecter. I rarely use an external monitor, so it's not worth it to me to sacrifice some of the elegance of my iBook just to stick in some clunky old-style port I'm hardly ever going to use. While dongles are a PITA, a VGA port would be more-so.
I'm all for design improvements, but there is no point being proprietary just for the sake of being different.
If you were saying this 5 or 8 years ago, I might concur; however, given the shift from the proprietary that Apple has made recently, I would argue that the new port is different because it works better with the current design of the iBook.
Simple question: What happens if they spot a piece of junk heading at them when a shuttle isn't docked?
The Station uses it's own thrusters. They use the Shuttle's when it's docked to save station fuel. This is pretty much the same reason that they use the Shuttle for the "Re-boost" operations. They'd already done 3 of those this flight, now the emergency maneuvers. I can see why they had to cut the flight a day short.
While, yes, National Engineering week might be at the beginning of March, most engineering schools in Canada have their own "E-Week" at other times during the year. UBC Engineering stunts are traditionally done during UBC's Engineering Week, which happens to be the first week of February.
I've found a third-party commercial addon that will do it by dynamically messing with the kernel, but that is hardly an acceptable way of doing it
The *NIX admin in me shudders at the thought of this as well; however, this is not harmful in the Mac environment(if the developer is careful), and is quite common practice. Since the Mac, for better or worse, has never had unprotected memory, it's a common practice to patch the OS to make it behave differently from the way that Apple designed it. Apple built this ability into the Mac OS from the day it was first built. INITs & CDEVs (or Extensions and Control Panels as they've been known since System 7) have been available to customize your computer in multitudes of ways. Everything from patching the Disc Eject routine to play a vomiting sound when ejecting a disc, to useful things like changing the Menu names to being little Icons that didn't take up as much space, or putting a clock into your menubar.
Don't want to rely on someone else's utility to edit your MTU, why not write your own?
Multiple users is only available in Mac OS 9 and up. Of course (as has been mentioned previously in this thread) you can use At Ease. It won't prevent a determined attempt to bypass it, but it does prevent most of the "OOPS, I didn't want to do THAT" type of problems.
If you're talking about NetBooting and the Macintosh Manager, you are correct; that can only be run from Mac OS X Server (although you can have OS 8.x & 9.0.x clients IIRC).
> You've helped make Slashdot a place for obituaries.
Well, If the person who died was of interest or relevance to Geeks and Nerds, why not? I doubt there would be an arguement to the Slashdot gang posting RMS's, ESR's, or Knuth's obit. if they happened to kick the bucket. I think the same should apply to Desmond Llewelyn, or DeForest Kelly.
>If this IS news for nerds (by some twisted definition)
While neither of them directly contributed to computing or the Open Source movement, they both had an impact on every Geek I know, and most that I don't know. I think the fact that 72 people sent this in before it was posted shows this. Hell, I'd go so far as to say Q has had as much of an influence on me being a Geek as Lego and computers. Just because this particular posting isn't interesting to *you*, it dosen't mean that it's irrelevant to *lots* of other people.
"News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." is not restricted to "News on Open Source. Stuff about Computers."
I can't see how you can argue that SlashDot isn't a free (libre et gratis) and open forum. Yes, the moderation scheme isn't perfect, but it's the best one that I've ever seen. If you don't agree with the choices the moderators make,you are also given the option to cruise at -1. Alan Cox had this exact same choice. If he wished to sift through the entire thread and pick which questions he wanted to answer, there's nothing Rob & Co. could do to stop him. (What, they wouldn't publish his responses? Yeah, right! )
As for your point that AC's are at a disadvantage. I would have to say that they should be. Credibility is not a stateless entity This is why people who have their comments moderated up frequently start posting at a higher level, they have a higher credibility than someone who has just put their two bits in here and there. This is also why people who have been moderated down frequently start posting at a lower level, they've lost their respectability. Due to the nature of AC's, there is not way of imposing this system on them.
Now to get around to your point that AC's shouldn't be forced to post at 0, because this makes it harder to get to the higher levels. I think that because of the very nature of ac's they should have to "work harder" to get moderated highly. We have no way of establishing identity of them, and therefore now way of assessing their credibility. For logged in posters you can tell who they are, and based on what you've seen of them in the past make a judgement on how skeptical you should be about their opinions. For ACs you have no idea if they even know what they're talking about, or whether they're even telling the truth. As such they should be treated with skepticism. This does actually work in their favour as well though. If I see a highly moderated AC posting I'm quite likely to read it, just because chances are it must be a good post to get moderated up that much.
he really needs to ask consumers what they want. Selling crippled machines with little or no chance of upgradability is one track; the rest of the world is headed along a different one.
OK, correct me If i'm wrong, but wasn't that one of the reasons that everyone said the iMac wasn't going to sell? (Including myself, I will admit...)
People who're bitching about lack of this and that and the other thing need to remember a couple of things:
1) No Firewire: So far Firewire is only in use for high end stuff. For everything else you've got USB and (I assume) IDE. Firewire is a sweet technology, but most consumers don't need stupidly fast Hard Discs, RAID arrays, nor High-End digital cameras.
2) 12.1 inch display: Yeah, I admit I'd like more screen space, but that would jack up the $$. You still get a decent quality screen though.
3) Colours/looks: Guess what, People have different tastes. Just because you don't happen to like how it looks, or you think a particular colour is ugly, dosen't mean everyone else in the world does. Ever looked in a women/teen magazine? Some of the stuff in there is absolutely hideous (IMHO), yet it sells.
4) Upgradeability: People seem to keep losing sight of the fact that this is a consumer portable. Most of the people who're going to buy this don't want to have to upgrade it. I know many people who're still hammering away on their old Classics,SE/30's,[34]86's. Just for the simple fact that it does everything they need it to. In a couple of years when they finally have to do something more, they'll go out an buy another computer, which they'll use for another 8 years. They don't really care (or even know) whether their machine has the latest video card, or has more than X amount of RAM, or supports {insert latest gizmo, gadget or doohicky here}.
To be honest, this consumer portable is a very well, and nice, but what caught my eye and sent my technosterone flowing was the AirPort networking. This was a complete surprise to me, and I've been keeping an eye on things. When they get the wrinkles sorted out of it, this will probably be the most important new Tech to come out of this MacWorld. I know that wireless networks are nothing new, I've been hearing about them since the first PowerBooks came out (remember the 100, 140 and 170?). However, AFAIK this is the first time a computer manufacturer has specifically included support for them (yeah, I know it's $100 for a card, and ~$300 for the hub, so what? $500 for a wireless network? That ain't that bad. Especially since the price is only going to come down. Since it's based on an IE^3 standard, it shouldn't be that hard for 3rd party products to be developed. (If Apple makes it hard, they're only shooting themselves in the foot)
All in all Apple's lined up a pretty spiffy Quartet of products. Lets just hope they can keep it up.
It's easy to say that someone shouldn't have "sold out"; however, most slashdot readers (myself included) have no idea how much running slashdot was costing Rob & Hemeos. For all we know they could've been living off of KD & Kool Aid and working 90 hour weeks, just to break even.
Besides, who's to say this won't be looked back on as "the move that made Slashdot". There's many ways to making your fortune in this world. Who's to say that Slashdot has to take the conventional route?
It seems to me that Andover.net has the insight not to try and control slashdot. Do you give a position on your board to someone whose prime work you're going to gut?
What Andover.net is giving Rob is the ability to run Slashdot the way he wants to. Without having to worry about selling banner ads, admin the server, and all the other myrad of things that are required in the care and feeding of Slashdot. What Andover.net is going to get is an increase in their prestige ("hey, they're the guys who support Slashdot, they *must* be cool!"), people who have first hand experience in running one of the best websites on the internet (IMHO), and a whole whack of hits on one of "their" websites.
Think about it, it's a good match. Andover.net is a web hosting/maintaining company. Slashdot is all about content. Andover provides the brawn, Slashdot provides the "Brain":-)
Yeah, the "poor downtrodden, victimized me" routine gets tiresome, and dosen't do your cause any good. Yet, much of what you're criticizing is evident everytime a FUD article on Linux shows up on SlashDot (one of the reasons for the Moderation mechanism here on/. now, all the posts that basically say "Microsoft SUCKS, the bastards!") There's always going to be someone that is going to whine about things. You just have to hope that more people come up with better ways of making your case. Since the Mac isn't Open Source,and is aimed at people who aren't neccisarially computer literate, it's kinda hard for them to contribute in ways other than advocacy.
All those OS'es that rely on "advocacy"...
Unfortunately, you contradict yourself. An integral part of the Open Source movement has been Advocacy (Unless you don't count RMS, ESR and the like as Advocates). That isn't to say that Linux & Open Source isn't a Good Thing (TM), only that Advocacy isn't a Bad Thing (TM). How can you say you're a part of something if you're not willing to fight for it?
It isn't really fair to just assume that all the mail from people who subscribed to the Evangelist were of the "you suck, mac rocks:-P" mentality. That's like saying that all the people who responded to a FUD article about Linux that they found mentioned on/. are just going to say "you suck, Linux rocks:-P", and that writers are going to give up daring to criticize Linux because they don't want their inboxes/.ed. Usually the flood of e-mails received by any writer who has written an article that contains inaccuracies about the Mac (or Linux) is going to range from the well thought out and polite, to the ones with less class and maturity than a beavis and butthead video
The Mac needed the Evangelist because there was no organized way of fighting all the FUD and bad press for the Mac.[1] Linux is supported by the FSF and Open Source movement. It is also blessed with a mentality that if you think something should be done, then round up a couple of people and do it. (Just look at some of the rebuttals here on/.) With the Mac, people are less likely to do so because they think (rightly so) that it's Apple's job to advertise for the Mac. Unfortunately, advertizing only does so much. The largest problem that the Macintosh has had is industry prejudices and bias. These require a lot more than good Ads to be overcome.[2] One of the ways Apple was trying to fight back was with the Evangelist. It isn't the only way to fight back though, personally I prefer MacKiDo's style (Actually, it's an interesting place to learn about some of the stunts that Intel and Micro$oft have pulled in the past[2]) Now Apple feels that it dosen't need people to evangalize the Macintosh for them anymore, which I think is a Good Thing(TM) because it's a sign that they're going to get up and start slugging it out for themselves. Given Apple's past preformances, it'll at the very least make for some cool ads;-)
[1]If you think the stuff about Linux is bad now, just wait till things get really warmed up.
[2] Think about this: we all know that Linux is a superior OS for a server, yet lots of IT shops use NT. Why?
How about have a slashbox with highlites of the changes. Then have a changelog.html page to list the changes a little more in depth, and have a comments section for it, just like all the stories. Likewise, you could have the changelog page in the format of the slashdot main page, freshmeat, etc. then have a comment section for each "story" on the page.
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly, this is the dumbest design decision ever. If you're trying to make a "simple" computer, why use a dongle that consumers will most certainly forget or lose? What could be more simple than the same connector used on 99% of the world's personal computers?
This is extra stupid, since there is plenty of space to put a standard VGA-out connector on both systems. Additionally, making a custom port and dongle adds to the cost of an already expensive computer.
Space. I can't speak to the new iMac; however, if you look at the side of my new iBook, you'll see there is no way a standard VGA connector would fit there. Neither in width nor height. (remember you have to have some sort of mounting behind the socket, which is generally bigger than the socket itself) The largest port on my iBook is the ethernet socket, and if you pop off the keyboard, you can see there is very little space between the top of the ethernet port and the bottom of the recess for the keyboard. Can you get a VGA socket and mounting to within the height restrictions of an ethernet port? Honestly, I'm quite glad they went with the new connecter. I rarely use an external monitor, so it's not worth it to me to sacrifice some of the elegance of my iBook just to stick in some clunky old-style port I'm hardly ever going to use. While dongles are a PITA, a VGA port would be more-so.
I'm all for design improvements, but there is no point being proprietary just for the sake of being different.
If you were saying this 5 or 8 years ago, I might concur; however, given the shift from the proprietary that Apple has made recently, I would argue that the new port is different because it works better with the current design of the iBook.
Simple question: What happens if they spot a piece of junk heading at them when a shuttle isn't docked?
The Station uses it's own thrusters. They use the Shuttle's when it's docked to save station fuel. This is pretty much the same reason that they use the Shuttle for the "Re-boost" operations. They'd already done 3 of those this flight, now the emergency maneuvers. I can see why they had to cut the flight a day short.
While, yes, National Engineering week might be at the beginning of March, most engineering schools in Canada have their own "E-Week" at other times during the year. UBC Engineering stunts are traditionally done during UBC's Engineering Week, which happens to be the first week of February.
I've found a third-party commercial addon that will do it by dynamically messing with the kernel, but that is hardly an acceptable way of doing it
k CommSvcs/OpenTransport/opentran sport.html
e nTransport/OT2.6/Open_Tra nsport_SDK_2.6.img.bin
/dev/null /dev/null /dev/console
The *NIX admin in me shudders at the thought of this as well; however, this is not harmful in the Mac environment(if the developer is careful), and is quite common practice. Since the Mac, for better or worse, has never had unprotected memory, it's a common practice to patch the OS to make it behave differently from the way that Apple designed it. Apple built this ability into the Mac OS from the day it was first built. INITs & CDEVs (or Extensions and Control Panels as they've been known since System 7) have been available to customize your computer in multitudes of ways. Everything from patching the Disc Eject routine to play a vomiting sound when ejecting a disc, to useful things like changing the Menu names to being little Icons that didn't take up as much space, or putting a clock into your menubar.
Don't want to rely on someone else's utility to edit your MTU, why not write your own?
Here's your API Documentation:
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macos8/Networ
Here's the Open Transport (the Mac's TCP/IP stack) SDK & Example Code: ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Development_Kits/Op
Here's a good introduction to Mac Programming:
http://www.mactech.com/Macintosh-C/
Pesky bugs annoying you? Here are a few debuggers:
http://developer.apple.com/tools/debugg ers/
Oh, and here's your free (Gratis) Compiler:
http://developer.apple.com/tools/mpw-to ols/
It can be done.
flames >
"mac suck" >
Intelligent content >
If you're talking about NetBooting and the Macintosh Manager, you are correct; that can only be run from Mac OS X Server (although you can have OS 8.x & 9.0.x clients IIRC).
> You've helped make Slashdot a place for obituaries.
Well, If the person who died was of interest or relevance to Geeks and Nerds, why not? I doubt there would be an arguement to the Slashdot gang posting RMS's, ESR's, or Knuth's obit. if they happened to kick the bucket. I think the same should apply to Desmond Llewelyn, or DeForest Kelly.
>If this IS news for nerds (by some twisted definition)
While neither of them directly contributed to computing or the Open Source movement, they both had an impact on every Geek I know, and most that I don't know. I think the fact that 72 people sent this in before it was posted shows this. Hell, I'd go so far as to say Q has had as much of an influence on me being a Geek as Lego and computers. Just because this particular posting isn't interesting to *you*, it dosen't mean that it's irrelevant to *lots* of other people.
"News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." is not restricted to "News on Open Source. Stuff about Computers."
Mike
As for your point that AC's are at a disadvantage. I would have to say that they should be. Credibility is not a stateless entity This is why people who have their comments moderated up frequently start posting at a higher level, they have a higher credibility than someone who has just put their two bits in here and there. This is also why people who have been moderated down frequently start posting at a lower level, they've lost their respectability. Due to the nature of AC's, there is not way of imposing this system on them.
Now to get around to your point that AC's shouldn't be forced to post at 0, because this makes it harder to get to the higher levels. I think that because of the very nature of ac's they should have to "work harder" to get moderated highly. We have no way of establishing identity of them, and therefore now way of assessing their credibility. For logged in posters you can tell who they are, and based on what you've seen of them in the past make a judgement on how skeptical you should be about their opinions. For ACs you have no idea if they even know what they're talking about, or whether they're even telling the truth. As such they should be treated with skepticism. This does actually work in their favour as well though. If I see a highly moderated AC posting I'm quite likely to read it, just because chances are it must be a good post to get moderated up that much.
Anyways, I should get back to work...
Mike Bain
he really needs to ask consumers what they want. Selling crippled machines with little or no chance of upgradability is one track; the rest of the world is headed along a different one.
OK, correct me If i'm wrong, but wasn't that one of the reasons that everyone said the iMac wasn't going to sell? (Including myself, I will admit...)
People who're bitching about lack of this and that and the other thing need to remember a couple of things:
1) No Firewire: So far Firewire is only in use for high end stuff. For everything else you've got USB and (I assume) IDE. Firewire is a sweet technology, but most consumers don't need stupidly fast Hard Discs, RAID arrays, nor High-End digital cameras.
2) 12.1 inch display: Yeah, I admit I'd like more screen space, but that would jack up the $$. You still get a decent quality screen though.
3) Colours/looks: Guess what, People have different tastes. Just because you don't happen to like how it looks, or you think a particular colour is ugly, dosen't mean everyone else in the world does. Ever looked in a women/teen magazine? Some of the stuff in there is absolutely hideous (IMHO), yet it sells.
4) Upgradeability: People seem to keep losing sight of the fact that this is a consumer portable. Most of the people who're going to buy this don't want to have to upgrade it. I know many people who're still hammering away on their old Classics,SE/30's,[34]86's. Just for the simple fact that it does everything they need it to. In a couple of years when they finally have to do something more, they'll go out an buy another computer, which they'll use for another 8 years. They don't really care (or even know) whether their machine has the latest video card, or has more than X amount of RAM, or supports {insert latest gizmo, gadget or doohicky here}.
To be honest, this consumer portable is a very well, and nice, but what caught my eye and sent my technosterone flowing was the AirPort networking. This was a complete surprise to me, and I've been keeping an eye on things. When they get the wrinkles sorted out of it, this will probably be the most important new Tech to come out of this MacWorld. I know that wireless networks are nothing new, I've been hearing about them since the first PowerBooks came out (remember the 100, 140 and 170?). However, AFAIK this is the first time a computer manufacturer has specifically included support for them (yeah, I know it's $100 for a card, and ~$300 for the hub, so what? $500 for a wireless network? That ain't that bad. Especially since the price is only going to come down. Since it's based on an IE^3 standard, it shouldn't be that hard for 3rd party products to be developed. (If Apple makes it hard, they're only shooting themselves in the foot)
All in all Apple's lined up a pretty spiffy Quartet of products. Lets just hope they can keep it up.
Anyways, I'd better get back to work....
CaveMan
It's easy to say that someone shouldn't have "sold out"; however, most slashdot readers (myself included) have no idea how much running slashdot was costing Rob & Hemeos. For all we know they could've been living off of KD & Kool Aid and working 90 hour weeks, just to break even.
:-)
Besides, who's to say this won't be looked back on as "the move that made Slashdot". There's many ways to making your fortune in this world. Who's to say that Slashdot has to take the conventional route?
It seems to me that Andover.net has the insight not to try and control slashdot. Do you give a position on your board to someone whose prime work you're going to gut?
What Andover.net is giving Rob is the ability to run Slashdot the way he wants to. Without having to worry about selling banner ads, admin the server, and all the other myrad of things that are required in the care and feeding of Slashdot. What Andover.net is going to get is an increase in their prestige ("hey, they're the guys who support Slashdot, they *must* be cool!"), people who have first hand experience in running one of the best websites on the internet (IMHO), and a whole whack of hits on one of "their" websites.
Think about it, it's a good match. Andover.net is a web hosting/maintaining company. Slashdot is all about content. Andover provides the brawn, Slashdot provides the "Brain"
just my $0.02 (or $0.012 US...)
how about "the bird herd"? ;-)
All those OS'es that rely on "advocacy"...
Unfortunately, you contradict yourself. An integral part of the Open Source movement has been Advocacy (Unless you don't count RMS, ESR and the like as Advocates). That isn't to say that Linux & Open Source isn't a Good Thing (TM), only that Advocacy isn't a Bad Thing (TM). How can you say you're a part of something if you're not willing to fight for it?
The Mac needed the Evangelist because there was no organized way of fighting all the FUD and bad press for the Mac.[1] /.) With the Mac, people are less likely to do so because they think (rightly so) that it's Apple's job to advertise for the Mac. Unfortunately, advertizing only does so much. The largest problem that the Macintosh has had is industry prejudices and bias. These require a lot more than good Ads to be overcome.[2] One of the ways Apple was trying to fight back was with the Evangelist. It isn't the only way to fight back though, personally I prefer MacKiDo's style (Actually, it's an interesting place to learn about some of the stunts that Intel and Micro$oft have pulled in the past[2]) Now Apple feels that it dosen't need people to evangalize the Macintosh for them anymore, which I think is a Good Thing(TM) because it's a sign that they're going to get up and start slugging it out for themselves. Given Apple's past preformances, it'll at the very least make for some cool ads ;-)
Linux is supported by the FSF and Open Source movement. It is also blessed with a mentality that if you think something should be done, then round up a couple of people and do it. (Just look at some of the rebuttals here on
[1]If you think the stuff about Linux is bad now, just wait till things get really warmed up.
[2] Think about this: we all know that Linux is a superior OS for a server, yet lots of IT shops use NT. Why?
[3] remember "know thy enemy..."
How about have a slashbox with highlites of the changes. Then have a changelog.html page to list the changes a little more in depth, and have a comments section for it, just like all the stories. Likewise, you could have the changelog page in the format of the slashdot main page, freshmeat, etc. then have a comment section for each "story" on the page.