Yea, but HD, Video card, and Ram are all cheap. Xeons, on the other hand, are not. People constantly fail to realize that the Mac Pro is not comparable to a normal Core 2 or Core i7 desktop. No Mac is. Apple doesn't use any of Intel's desktop chips. The Macbooks, iMacs, and Minis all use mobile chips, and the Mac Pros and Xserves use Xeons.
You can certainly argue that Apple is missing an entire market segment, but I'd say they pretty much specialize in that.
Techies eh? I know this is all anecdotal crap that is utterly useless, but I'm a programmer and a sys-admin and I have been for 15 years now, and after spending the first 12 years working on and administering everything *but* macs, I finally tried one, and loved it. Last December I started migrating some of the Linux and Solaris boxes of my current employer to Xserves and it's been great. We still have a bunch of Windows build servers because our build targets for most of our projects require it, but apart from a few in-house-built high performance NAS systems, all of our Unix boxes now run OS X.
Also, you can keep your Visual Studio. I use it all day at work cranking out C++ code, but I always go home to Xcode these days. I have a lot of machines at home, mostly running Solaris or Gentoo at this point, and one Windows XP x64 desktop I had before I ever considered a Mac. I might as well sell most of them, because I spend 99% of my time on my Macbook Pro now.
And just for anecdotal completeness (cause that makes sense...) most of the best coders I know have switched to macs in the past 3 years, and I know *a lot* of really good coders.
I'd say "trust me," but this is Slashdot.....that would be horrible advice.
Personally I own PCs as well because I already had them before I switched to Mac. When they die or become too slow to be useful, they will not be replaced. Honestly I haven't booted my "main" PC in about 3 months, and that was just to grab some files. So, I "own" PCs, but I don't "use" them anymore. My ancient Sun E4500 sees more use than any of my PCs these days, and at this point that thing is just a power-hungry toy.
Losing one developers 'couple of days' work usually isn't a big concern. It's common for svn users to also have several days worth of work uncommitted.
I don't know where you work, but at my company losing half a day of one developer's work would be a huge deal. We're required to check in all of our work *at least* every couple hours. If it's not done, we need to check in a patch. There is no legitimate reason here for a developer to lose more than 2 hours of work. You'd be reprimanded for doing that once, and fired if you did it again.
Great opinion. Unfortunately it ignores the reality that humans are involved... As far as the vast majority of (at least Americans, after all, this is NASA we're talking about) are concerned, there might as well not be a space program at all at this point. Most people have *no* idea what NASA is up to these days, and don't really care. If people don't care, their representatives don't care, and if their reps don't care, well then, "why are we funding NASA again?" If NASA doesn't do something to inspire the public, they're going to continue seeing what they've seen for decades: Budget cuts. *That* is why they need to send people. It's *all* about the "chest-thumping nonsense" because chest-thumping nonsense is what holds the attention of the vast majority of people. It really doesn't matter how much it ends up costing. People will beg, borrow, and steal to get things they want. But they're not going to lift a finger to get something they could care less about. I think the current budget for NASA (something like 0.6% of the total budget) probably accurately represents the percentage of Americans interested in space exploration at this point. Honestly, the best way to fund a Mars mission is probably to make some kind of reality TV show about it... Maybe send a dysfunctional family or an aging rock band instead of scientists.
We have a couple of the 4TB ReadyNAS 1100's... 80MB/sec?!?!?!?!? How? What magic did you work to get that? The most we've been able to squeeze out of the things is ~30MB/s, which is in line with what most reviews have found. We've ended up just using them as on-line backups because they're too slow for active use. We've got them mounted via NFS to a linux box with 4TB of really fast RAID5 storage internally, and we just use rdiff-backup to sync the internal RAID daily. In terms of a speed comparison, the linux box (via an Intel PCIe quad gigE board) has no trouble pumping 350-400MB/s.
How is this FUD? I don't really see how news that Apple is approaching a 10% market share induces Fear, Uncertainty, or Doubt in anyone about competing products... Usually FUD relies more on "90% of people can't be wrong!" rather than "10% of people can't be wrong!"
(Disclaimer: This is not meant to imply that any percentage of people "can't be wrong")
My uncle is legally blind and was able to upgrade the hard drives in both his, and his wife's MacBooks himself. So you can knock off at least one of those requirements.
Note that none of the links you posted have the product in stock for a least a few weeks, while the link I posted to the drive (that is supposedly not in mass production) lists the product as IN STOCK. The fact that samsung's website doesn't list the drive as "in mass production" is pretty much meaningless, *especially* when talking about parts for Apple. Honestly, until you order a drive and receive it, you can't really say either way. We could talk around in circles until the price comes down and you're "right" if you like. There's also the possibility that it's not a Samsung drive at all and it's made by Toshiba, Apple uses both suppliers and both have 64GB SSDs. Either way it's a 1.8" PATA drive, and not anything else, no matter who says they're making what when. In any case, as far as "you how exactly you are looking right now" I'm not too worried...
As for "proving anything" I was simply pointing out that your claims to having so much of some related piece of hardware do nothing for your credibility. I could claim I have hundreds of SSDs in giant arrays, and even if it were true, it wouldn't mean I'm any more right about SSD pricing. It was simply a pointless claim.
I really shouldn't bother since your so-called "research" appears to be very limited, but you're spreading misinformation and I don't like it. First, Apple is not using the same drive as Dell, I'll give you the brand, but it's a different drive, at the very least it's PATA not SATA, and it's 1.8" while the Dell is 2.5" (that's a *big* difference). That said, try buying that *SAME* samsung drive from a retailer, you'll find the retail price on that *SAME* samsung drive to be over $1500, even the 2.5" version is over $1K at most places that actually have them. You won't find it at many retailers because it's an OEM drive, but here's one for you http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi?store=dvnation&product_name=Samsung+64GB+ZIF+SSD&exact_match=exact
As for your other, utterly ridiculous comparison, that is not just a different drive, but a completely different market segment. There's no point bringing that in, at least my example and your Dell were applicable products. Also no point in telling me about how many EMC DMX-4's you have since this is the internet and you can say anything and I don't believe you anyway.
You're wrong, maybe simply because you didn't read what you posted carefully, but that's what being aggressive gets you.
Incorrect? Hardly. Dell's price is not market price by any stretch. Sure you can buy an SSD from them cheap, but they go out of their way to paint it as an upgrade for a specific model. Newegg has the lowest price for an SSD at retail at the moment. Most other retailers are close to $2K. Cheapest price != market price.
Look around and you'll see that price is actually a steal.
Great. Sony's upgrade is $850 to go from a 100GB drive to a 64GB SSD vs Apple's upgrade from an 80GB drive to a 64GB SSD. That changes what exactly? Those prices aren't even directly from Sony.
You're certainly aggressive, I'll give you that, and that's about all.
Virtualization limits speed. Last I checked, virtualization didn't give you access to the GPU. The guest OS recognizes a driver provided by the environment with limited capabilities. It's fine for web browsing and cross platform testing, but in now way would let you do any kind of gaming.
You obviously haven't checked recently. Both Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion support 3D acceleration, and games (like half-life 2, doom, civ4, WoW (only ones I can attest to, only ones I've played in parallels)) work just fine, at near native speeds.
That's an upgrade from a 32GB SSD to a 64GB SSD. The Air is an upgrade from a normal HDD to an SSD. Completely different starting points in terms of price. Apple's price is still perfectly fair.
Just FYI, the MacBook is 1.08 inches thick, and the MacBook Pro is 1.00 inches thick. So unless you've got some other version of the MacBook that is unavailable to consumers or you've run it over with something and it is no longer functional, your current MacBook is not less than an inch thick already. That said, I'd still stick with my MacBook Pro over this, though I wouldn't mind a solid state drive. (Unfortunately my 200GB is constantly filling up).
The SSD is a $999 upgrade. Have you looked at the prices for 64GB SSDs recently? They tend to run in the $1500 range. I know it's hard to believe, but the SSD from Apple is actually *cheaper* than retail at the moment. It's not something you usually see in BTO upgrades for a Mac.
Most people are going to be uninterested in buying video in a locked format; unless blu-rays allow you to play your videos on a generic DVD player, rip your video into your computer, play your video on your PSP, iPod, iPhone, or whatever, not enough people will want them to generate economies of scale. You're doing that thing! That thing where you mistake "Most people" with "I, and people just like me". Consumers are dumb. For better or worse, they are dumb. Even when they're really really sure they're being smart, they're usually still dumb. "Most people" don't actually know enough about any of this to make any kind of informed decision. "Most people" will buy whatever they see the most advertisements for. "Most people" will buy whatever their friends buy. "Most people" only read the GIANT LETTERS on the packaging, and take the advice of the "helpful" employee at Best Buy. I don't know if you've ever spent any time in a consumer electronics store, but if you have you really can't deny anything I've said. People believe the most ridiculous crap, and open up their wallets for it.
Indeed, Apple stole me from Linux (preceded by Linux stealing me from Solaris). I used Linux pretty exclusively for the last decade, and I still use it a bit (I've got gentoo on a Sun E4500 and a custom 3.5TB RAID5 server), but after I got my macbook pro (~Nov 2006) I quickly became consumed by it. I love OS X and I do not miss the customization available with Linux because Apple has done a better job making a desktop that I like than I could ever do (and that is the truth, not sarcasm). I love how things literally *just work*, and I really enjoy being able to use commercial software for a change, and even play games. I can live with proprietary lock in if this is what it's going to be like. I really don't mind being told what features I can and can't have when the people making these decisions seem to be psychic.
I won't try speaking for "looks" (for a lot of reasons), but in terms of performance and stability, I can attest to the PS3's superiority over the 360. Oblivion is a great example of this. Putting "looks" aside, the PS3 version has far shorter load times, loads far less frequently, and is far more stable than the 360 version. Having put in well over 200 hours (each) on all three ports of Oblivion (360, PC, PS3), I can say that the PS3 version is *the* best executed version. Try riding a horse in Oblivion on the 360 and you're in for a slideshow, no such issues with the PS3 port. The 360 version also crashes frequently. I have never seen the PS3 version crash. I've had a similar experience with Assassin's Creed. I played through it on the PS3, and then a second time on the 360. The 360 version took longer to load, stuttered, and crashed. The PS3 port exhibited none of those symptoms. To be completely honest, the 360 crashes a lot, in many games (most recently, and frustratingly, Bioshock). I've been fortunate enough to avoid the red-ring so far, many of my friends have not been so lucky (one is on her fourth warranty replacement since July). The most stable game I've seen to date on the 360 is Rock Band, which has thus far (with a ton of playing, for a ton of hours, by a ton of people over the past couple weeks) been "Rock" solid. *I* wanted to get the PS3 version of Rock Band, but my wife thought it was more important that we actually be able to play with our friends online, which I *grudgingly* must admit is true. The PS3 is in a sad state at the moment. IMHO the PS3 is definitely the superior console, but has been abused by it's creator and abandoned by it's friends. There haven't been many games for it so far, but it has served as an excellent PS2 replacement and Blu-ray player for the past year between its few stints as an actual PS3. I apologize for rambling...I just really like the PS3 and hate seeing it down. (For the record, I'm a game programmer, but I've been working solely on DS and Wii titles for a while now. Fortunately for me, those platforms don't need defending.)
"I couldn't get past the first half of the first book. Jordan's writing was so amateurish, it reminded me more of a lot of the fanfiction out there. I found it dull and poorly written."
Perhaps you meant that a lot of the fan fiction out there reminds you of Jordan's writing? That's probably because a lot of fan fiction writers got their inspiration from him.
I'll concede that the writing itself was not the greatest, but the story is excellent. I'm sorry that you "couldn't" get past the writing and enjoy the story.
It's really sad that even when reading a fantasy series, people are so obsessed with getting to the point that they can't tolerate a single word not expressly intended for plot advancement. There's a reason old people are always telling young people to slow down.
I have installed Leopard on 6 machines. Three Macbook Pros (All identical C2D models), one Mac Mini (G4 1.4Ghz), and 2 iBooks (12" G4 1.4Ghz, and 14" G4 1.33Ghz). The only machine that had problems was the 12" iBook, and it was an install problem. None of the machines has had problems since. The three MBPs are used everyday for work by me, my wife, and our friend. The two iBooks are used every day by a college student. The mac mini is hooked up to my TV to play shows off of iTunes. All of the installs were done on Nov 1st. Not that this means anything at all, but I'm 6 for 6 with successful Leopard installs that work fine. For the record, my MBP has had exactly 3 kernel panics in the year that I have owned it and all were under Tiger. So since we're all going by personal experience here, I hereby declare Leopard perfect!
Why would you buy two consoles and limit yourself to only the games available on those two consoles? If you want the widest possible variety of games, you buy every console every generation.
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And profit? Doesn't seem so bad to me.
Yea, but HD, Video card, and Ram are all cheap. Xeons, on the other hand, are not. People constantly fail to realize that the Mac Pro is not comparable to a normal Core 2 or Core i7 desktop. No Mac is. Apple doesn't use any of Intel's desktop chips. The Macbooks, iMacs, and Minis all use mobile chips, and the Mac Pros and Xserves use Xeons.
You can certainly argue that Apple is missing an entire market segment, but I'd say they pretty much specialize in that.
Techies eh? I know this is all anecdotal crap that is utterly useless, but I'm a programmer and a sys-admin and I have been for 15 years now, and after spending the first 12 years working on and administering everything *but* macs, I finally tried one, and loved it. Last December I started migrating some of the Linux and Solaris boxes of my current employer to Xserves and it's been great. We still have a bunch of Windows build servers because our build targets for most of our projects require it, but apart from a few in-house-built high performance NAS systems, all of our Unix boxes now run OS X.
Also, you can keep your Visual Studio. I use it all day at work cranking out C++ code, but I always go home to Xcode these days. I have a lot of machines at home, mostly running Solaris or Gentoo at this point, and one Windows XP x64 desktop I had before I ever considered a Mac. I might as well sell most of them, because I spend 99% of my time on my Macbook Pro now.
And just for anecdotal completeness (cause that makes sense...) most of the best coders I know have switched to macs in the past 3 years, and I know *a lot* of really good coders.
I'd say "trust me," but this is Slashdot.....that would be horrible advice.
Personally I own PCs as well because I already had them before I switched to Mac. When they die or become too slow to be useful, they will not be replaced. Honestly I haven't booted my "main" PC in about 3 months, and that was just to grab some files. So, I "own" PCs, but I don't "use" them anymore. My ancient Sun E4500 sees more use than any of my PCs these days, and at this point that thing is just a power-hungry toy.
Losing one developers 'couple of days' work usually isn't a big concern. It's common for svn users to also have several days worth of work uncommitted.
I don't know where you work, but at my company losing half a day of one developer's work would be a huge deal. We're required to check in all of our work *at least* every couple hours. If it's not done, we need to check in a patch. There is no legitimate reason here for a developer to lose more than 2 hours of work. You'd be reprimanded for doing that once, and fired if you did it again.
Great opinion. Unfortunately it ignores the reality that humans are involved... As far as the vast majority of (at least Americans, after all, this is NASA we're talking about) are concerned, there might as well not be a space program at all at this point. Most people have *no* idea what NASA is up to these days, and don't really care. If people don't care, their representatives don't care, and if their reps don't care, well then, "why are we funding NASA again?" If NASA doesn't do something to inspire the public, they're going to continue seeing what they've seen for decades: Budget cuts. *That* is why they need to send people. It's *all* about the "chest-thumping nonsense" because chest-thumping nonsense is what holds the attention of the vast majority of people. It really doesn't matter how much it ends up costing. People will beg, borrow, and steal to get things they want. But they're not going to lift a finger to get something they could care less about. I think the current budget for NASA (something like 0.6% of the total budget) probably accurately represents the percentage of Americans interested in space exploration at this point. Honestly, the best way to fund a Mars mission is probably to make some kind of reality TV show about it... Maybe send a dysfunctional family or an aging rock band instead of scientists.
We have a couple of the 4TB ReadyNAS 1100's... 80MB/sec?!?!?!?!? How? What magic did you work to get that? The most we've been able to squeeze out of the things is ~30MB/s, which is in line with what most reviews have found. We've ended up just using them as on-line backups because they're too slow for active use. We've got them mounted via NFS to a linux box with 4TB of really fast RAID5 storage internally, and we just use rdiff-backup to sync the internal RAID daily. In terms of a speed comparison, the linux box (via an Intel PCIe quad gigE board) has no trouble pumping 350-400MB/s.
Crap! You're right. Man, this just isn't my day...
How is this FUD? I don't really see how news that Apple is approaching a 10% market share induces Fear, Uncertainty, or Doubt in anyone about competing products... Usually FUD relies more on "90% of people can't be wrong!" rather than "10% of people can't be wrong!"
(Disclaimer: This is not meant to imply that any percentage of people "can't be wrong")
My uncle is legally blind and was able to upgrade the hard drives in both his, and his wife's MacBooks himself. So you can knock off at least one of those requirements.
Note that none of the links you posted have the product in stock for a least a few weeks, while the link I posted to the drive (that is supposedly not in mass production) lists the product as IN STOCK. The fact that samsung's website doesn't list the drive as "in mass production" is pretty much meaningless, *especially* when talking about parts for Apple. Honestly, until you order a drive and receive it, you can't really say either way. We could talk around in circles until the price comes down and you're "right" if you like. There's also the possibility that it's not a Samsung drive at all and it's made by Toshiba, Apple uses both suppliers and both have 64GB SSDs. Either way it's a 1.8" PATA drive, and not anything else, no matter who says they're making what when. In any case, as far as "you how exactly you are looking right now" I'm not too worried...
As for "proving anything" I was simply pointing out that your claims to having so much of some related piece of hardware do nothing for your credibility. I could claim I have hundreds of SSDs in giant arrays, and even if it were true, it wouldn't mean I'm any more right about SSD pricing. It was simply a pointless claim.
I really shouldn't bother since your so-called "research" appears to be very limited, but you're spreading misinformation and I don't like it. First, Apple is not using the same drive as Dell, I'll give you the brand, but it's a different drive, at the very least it's PATA not SATA, and it's 1.8" while the Dell is 2.5" (that's a *big* difference). That said, try buying that *SAME* samsung drive from a retailer, you'll find the retail price on that *SAME* samsung drive to be over $1500, even the 2.5" version is over $1K at most places that actually have them. You won't find it at many retailers because it's an OEM drive, but here's one for you
http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi?store=dvnation&product_name=Samsung+64GB+ZIF+SSD&exact_match=exact
As for your other, utterly ridiculous comparison, that is not just a different drive, but a completely different market segment. There's no point bringing that in, at least my example and your Dell were applicable products. Also no point in telling me about how many EMC DMX-4's you have since this is the internet and you can say anything and I don't believe you anyway.
You're wrong, maybe simply because you didn't read what you posted carefully, but that's what being aggressive gets you.
Incorrect? Hardly. Dell's price is not market price by any stretch. Sure you can buy an SSD from them cheap, but they go out of their way to paint it as an upgrade for a specific model. Newegg has the lowest price for an SSD at retail at the moment. Most other retailers are close to $2K. Cheapest price != market price.
Wow...I mean it takes like 6 seconds to find the retail price of a 64GB SSD....
here's an example for you:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820609244&Tpk=64GB%2BSSD
Look around and you'll see that price is actually a steal.
Great. Sony's upgrade is $850 to go from a 100GB drive to a 64GB SSD vs Apple's upgrade from an 80GB drive to a 64GB SSD. That changes what exactly? Those prices aren't even directly from Sony.
You're certainly aggressive, I'll give you that, and that's about all.
You obviously haven't checked recently. Both Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion support 3D acceleration, and games (like half-life 2, doom, civ4, WoW (only ones I can attest to, only ones I've played in parallels)) work just fine, at near native speeds.
That's an upgrade from a 32GB SSD to a 64GB SSD. The Air is an upgrade from a normal HDD to an SSD. Completely different starting points in terms of price. Apple's price is still perfectly fair.
Just FYI, the MacBook is 1.08 inches thick, and the MacBook Pro is 1.00 inches thick. So unless you've got some other version of the MacBook that is unavailable to consumers or you've run it over with something and it is no longer functional, your current MacBook is not less than an inch thick already. That said, I'd still stick with my MacBook Pro over this, though I wouldn't mind a solid state drive. (Unfortunately my 200GB is constantly filling up).
The SSD is a $999 upgrade. Have you looked at the prices for 64GB SSDs recently? They tend to run in the $1500 range. I know it's hard to believe, but the SSD from Apple is actually *cheaper* than retail at the moment. It's not something you usually see in BTO upgrades for a Mac.
Amen to that! We run our servers on gentoo as well
Indeed, Apple stole me from Linux (preceded by Linux stealing me from Solaris). I used Linux pretty exclusively for the last decade, and I still use it a bit (I've got gentoo on a Sun E4500 and a custom 3.5TB RAID5 server), but after I got my macbook pro (~Nov 2006) I quickly became consumed by it. I love OS X and I do not miss the customization available with Linux because Apple has done a better job making a desktop that I like than I could ever do (and that is the truth, not sarcasm). I love how things literally *just work*, and I really enjoy being able to use commercial software for a change, and even play games. I can live with proprietary lock in if this is what it's going to be like. I really don't mind being told what features I can and can't have when the people making these decisions seem to be psychic.
I won't try speaking for "looks" (for a lot of reasons), but in terms of performance and stability, I can attest to the PS3's superiority over the 360. Oblivion is a great example of this. Putting "looks" aside, the PS3 version has far shorter load times, loads far less frequently, and is far more stable than the 360 version. Having put in well over 200 hours (each) on all three ports of Oblivion (360, PC, PS3), I can say that the PS3 version is *the* best executed version. Try riding a horse in Oblivion on the 360 and you're in for a slideshow, no such issues with the PS3 port. The 360 version also crashes frequently. I have never seen the PS3 version crash. I've had a similar experience with Assassin's Creed. I played through it on the PS3, and then a second time on the 360. The 360 version took longer to load, stuttered, and crashed. The PS3 port exhibited none of those symptoms. To be completely honest, the 360 crashes a lot, in many games (most recently, and frustratingly, Bioshock). I've been fortunate enough to avoid the red-ring so far, many of my friends have not been so lucky (one is on her fourth warranty replacement since July). The most stable game I've seen to date on the 360 is Rock Band, which has thus far (with a ton of playing, for a ton of hours, by a ton of people over the past couple weeks) been "Rock" solid. *I* wanted to get the PS3 version of Rock Band, but my wife thought it was more important that we actually be able to play with our friends online, which I *grudgingly* must admit is true. The PS3 is in a sad state at the moment. IMHO the PS3 is definitely the superior console, but has been abused by it's creator and abandoned by it's friends. There haven't been many games for it so far, but it has served as an excellent PS2 replacement and Blu-ray player for the past year between its few stints as an actual PS3. I apologize for rambling...I just really like the PS3 and hate seeing it down. (For the record, I'm a game programmer, but I've been working solely on DS and Wii titles for a while now. Fortunately for me, those platforms don't need defending.)
"I couldn't get past the first half of the first book. Jordan's writing was so amateurish, it reminded me more of a lot of the fanfiction out there. I found it dull and poorly written."
Perhaps you meant that a lot of the fan fiction out there reminds you of Jordan's writing? That's probably because a lot of fan fiction writers got their inspiration from him.
I'll concede that the writing itself was not the greatest, but the story is excellent. I'm sorry that you "couldn't" get past the writing and enjoy the story.
It's really sad that even when reading a fantasy series, people are so obsessed with getting to the point that they can't tolerate a single word not expressly intended for plot advancement. There's a reason old people are always telling young people to slow down.
I have installed Leopard on 6 machines. Three Macbook Pros (All identical C2D models), one Mac Mini (G4 1.4Ghz), and 2 iBooks (12" G4 1.4Ghz, and 14" G4 1.33Ghz). The only machine that had problems was the 12" iBook, and it was an install problem. None of the machines has had problems since. The three MBPs are used everyday for work by me, my wife, and our friend. The two iBooks are used every day by a college student. The mac mini is hooked up to my TV to play shows off of iTunes. All of the installs were done on Nov 1st. Not that this means anything at all, but I'm 6 for 6 with successful Leopard installs that work fine. For the record, my MBP has had exactly 3 kernel panics in the year that I have owned it and all were under Tiger. So since we're all going by personal experience here, I hereby declare Leopard perfect!
Why would you buy two consoles and limit yourself to only the games available on those two consoles? If you want the widest possible variety of games, you buy every console every generation.