Because by the time the benchmark came out, the AMD K8/Hammer series was out which had SSE2. SSE3 was added in the next update, which was before the most recent patch to the benchmark.
Ether way there is a set of flags returned by CPUID that specifically lists what features a chip has (like SSE1/2/3). To not check that would be moronic.
Try reading the article. You can't do that. Only VIA lets you change what the CPU reports. Intel and AMD lock it down so it can't be changed making those tests impossible to run.
You can't. That's why it was discovered now. Intel and AMD don't let you change the CPUID results on their CPUs. Via DOES let you change it. (You could hack the benchmark to change the checks, but then your results are invalid because you changed the benchmark code)
Either way, that's not an excuse. As Ars points out, if it is just checking for something like SSE2 the Nano has that. If you want to make an optimized code path it should be based on if a feature is reported as present or not, not who made the CPU.
Maybe if nearly every building and park he got built with public money wasn't named after him I could say it was good. I'm having trouble finding a list with a quick Google (because everything is about his insane bridge project).
I'm a Republican and I disagree with most people here on/. about politics but I don't remember running across anything good about Stevens. I remember reading about tons of ethics investigations. I know about a ton of pork. I know half of Alaska is named after him at this point.
Last year CBS Nightly News was doing segments on pork. When they got to Stevens they spent like 2 minutes straight reading a list of buildings with "Ted Stevens" in their name. It was amazing.
I hope he gets thrown out of the Senate. He doesn't seem to have been acting in the best interest of the country (at least fiscally) for a very long time.
That would have also validated the use of their game rules / board design (which are copyrighted or whatever). That could cost them their registration. Plus it would only encourage others to do this kind of thing to get some quick cash.
The Wikipedia pages don't seem to mention the PS3. They mention OS X, Windows, and Linux. They also say that Torque Game Engine Advanced was developed for the XBox and 360 (used in Marble Blast, for example). There is also Torque X which was created to be used with Microsoft's XNA development kit.
The Torque website specifically lists a Torque for Wii and a Torque for 360, but I don't see a PS3 version.
All that said, I did notice a couple of places that seem to confirm Rocketmen was Torque.
Perhaps there is some feature that PAA:OtRSPoD:EO is using that Rocketmen didn't which is causing the Torque problem.
The game was written for the Torque engine (IIRC). Torque has ports for Windows, Linux, Mac, and 360. There is no PS3 port. They are either building a Torque port or going to a different engine.
This is, as always, wrong. Analysts never get this stuff right. The iPhone has shown the ability of a touchscreen with multi-touch to have a great interface. Notice that the iPhone was never a device with a mouse. Phone don't have mice (except for trackballs on some blackberries).
I'd love some of that multi-touch goodness in OS X. Let my trackpad start doing it. But let's get real here. We need mice.
All our interfaces are designed around them and keyboards. They are cheap (under $5 for a simple optical). They are precise. They are familiar. They need very little physical movement (just tiny wrist movements). A tablet gives you the precision a mouse does. I'd say they are far more likely to take over than generic touchscreen. Perhaps combos like Wacom Centiqs.
I'm w aiting for the FPS that figures out a way to use touchscreens for precision aiming.
The Wii has shown us some great things, but that's for games. How many people do you think want to waggle their way through creating powerpoint presentations?
I've got a Wii. What do some the best control schemes often use it for? That's right... a mouse! LostWinds (just finished, great game) uses it as a pointing device. Metroid Prime 3 uses it for aiming much like a mouse. Zack & Wiki (when not performing motions) uses it like a mouse. Every menu in every game uses it like a mouse. The console's own menu uses it like a mouse. And when Pikmin 3 comes out I'm willing to bet a fair bit of money that it will use the control mostly as... a mouse.
The mouse is just about the perfect 2D interface. There is probably a reason we've been using them for over 25 years (it's been about that long since the Macintosh came out, and I'm well aware they were available before that). When we get a real 3D interface (like some kind of hologram projecting surface/table) then we may need a new input device some of the time, but for now, the mouse will be around for a very long while.
Would it really be possible enough to make the magnetic field smooth enough so that the mirror surface was smooth and not something like the surface of a 300 sided polyhedron?
I would think it would be impractical to put enough small but powerful electromagnets behind the fluid so that you could make a smooth surface.
Or could you use something to vastly increase the surface tension thus making it easier to create a smooth surface?
How about the link to the just published (today) update on Tom's that not only has useful methodologies, but shows a new OCZ drive that wipes the floor with the rest of the drives in both power draw and performance?
[...] the ability to specify which monitor new apps / dialog boxes pop-up on.
I hate this. I really hate this. Does ANYONE know what logic XP uses?
My setup is rather simple. I have two monitors. I want everything to open on the monitor it was last on.
That's how I'm setup now. But from time to time Windows decides that for whatever reason FireFox or IE (the two that I fight with on this issue) should open on the opposite monitor. I always manage to fix it though some combination of opening windows, maximizing things, rebooting, and voodoo.
But man does it drive me nuts. At this point I would prefer that everything ALWAYS opened on my main monitor, and I just had to move things. At least then I would understand why things happen the way they do.
My computer has a gaming mode. It's called "Windows."
I run OS X most of the time (it's a MacBook Pro). When I want to play some games (really, just Valve games like TF2) I boot into Windows XP. My XP install has PuTTY (incase I have to rescue a server), FireFox (because I can't stand IE6/7 at this point) and a few games. That's it.
Let me tell you, it's a pain. A big pain. Having to reboot to play a game is incredibly annoying. Even if you could do it without rebooting I'd imagine it would take so long to get all those little programs out and back in the effect would be nearly the same.
I'm with other posters. Just make it so the OS can manage that stuff correctly and the problem won't be much of a problem. The "gaming mode" band-aid is not a real fix.
Blame the dollar. My understanding is that Nintendo is shifting a significant portion of what they are making to Europe due to the dollar. Why should they sell the hardware they produced for $250 when they can sell the exact same thing for significantly more in Europe. If the dollar was better, we'd see more of the stock directed here.
I seriously doubt Photoshop would stop you, but that's just me. It seems a little pointless to have photo-editing software try to do that.
That said, for years scanners, copiers, and I believe laser prints have been designed to try to detect people copying currency and refuse to print. It may happen in ink jets and other printers too. I believe it is only the high end models though.
There is also the "invisible" yellow dot tracking that so many printers do today (you can Google it, or I know it's been discussed here years ago).
Better tactics. The robot is better at predicting the puck and where to hit it. It also plays very defensively. Combine that with high speed and accuracy, and the bot is a winner.
In fact, the only reason it loses in 8 bit mode is it can't calculate the position of the puck fast enough to always catch it.
I've read that before. I think it was the Dutch that breed the modern carrot.
The point of the article was that those pads would do that up against anything organic (although I wouldn't be too surprised if a dirty coke can did the same thing).
I've seem some scams recently, but the most amazing has to be Kinoki Foot Pads. Let's ignore the fact that my understanding is the word "kinoki" is meaningless and the characters they use in the ad don't even read "kinoki".
I'm used to all sorts of pseudo science in TV ads, but this one is downright amazing. Did you know tree roots are used to dispose of chemicals, and that my feet are actually tree roots? I'm so glad someone told me. I especially love the list of conditions that these things can cure. Even if they weren't fake and actually would detoxify you, I seriously doubt it would even touch many of those conditions. I seem to remember reading someone wrapped carrots with the pads just to prove that anything will make them blacken from "toxins".
The ad id just amazing. I was dumbfounded the first time I saw it. Diet pill ads look like something out of the Mayo Clinic in comparison.
Yes, they do sent tons of emails. I've worked on those systems as they started up. My idea of the cap was for people who are using the service for more background processing type things. Amazon can decide on their own magic level. Maybe it's 3,000 a day. Maybe 10k. Maybe it's based on your bond size.
Yes, you can send a ton of spam in 6 months, but you don't get to under by idea. As soon as you start spamming, you lose your bond. That's it.
So to get around the bond, you have to PAY $5-$10k, hold the account for 6 months (probably making it look used), and THEN start spamming after you get your bond back. That's a huge investment for only having part of a day to spam. As soon as your outgoing email traffic spikes from 10 emails a day to 1,000,000 they'll kill your account.
I'm not trying to stop all spam, I'm just trying to propose something Amazon can do on their service. It's not useful for Amazon to sue Pfizer over the Viagra spam being sent out.
No kidding. I'd say you have to put up a bond if you want to be able send more than some small threshold of emails out per day (100?). If you're good, you are safe. Maybe you get your bond back after 6 months. If you misbehave, Amazon cuts you off and you just lost $5-$10k.
That's an excellent point. I was wondering if the metric should simply be different altogether.
What if we used MB/Watt or some such? The "disks" are supposed to be really good at some things (random reads) but don't hold too much advantage over others (long continuous reads). So how many WattHours does it take to load a continuous 50 GB file? How about a random 50 GB of data off a 128 GB disk? How does that compare to the same measurements with a standard magnetic disk? How does power consumption change between reading, writing, and mixed disk loads? Writing flash takes far more power than reading, doesn't it? Yet on a physical disk it's not that different in power requirements.
There are other things too. Operating systems still aren't designed around these things, they are designed for physical rotating disks. Do these things even have native controllers (designed for this purpose) yet, or are they still using modified rotating disk controllers like the first models used? As time goes on, better power saving features will show up, especially as the OS cooperates to tell this disk more information about what's going on. A well managed flash drive may be able to shut off large chunks of it's self and only wake up the bits that actually need reading/writing. That would help quite a bit, I'm sure.
PS: First time I've been to Tom's Hardware in 6 months to a year. Nice to see they found a way to make it uglier. Used to be a nice site. I especially like the "you must login to see the printer friendly version" trick.
Of course at this point, the two parties dislike each other so much they'd never nominate the same person. If Dick Chaney changed his affiliation to Democrat, the Republicans would never nominate him for the office just because of that D next to his name. His strong right wing record wouldn't matter. Partisanship is too strong right now.
I'd like to see vice president either a separate ticket (so we could get 1 Dem and 1 Rep) or possibly the 2nd place finishing candidate of the same party (i.e. Obama would get Hillary). Some times it wouldn't work out well (see Obama and Hillary), but some times I think it would be much better than the choices they often make now.
But then again, VP has been a pretty useless job it seems for quite a while. Just a presidential "hot-spare". It wasn't until Chaney that they seemed to do much.
And the Chaney model will probably be outlawed in the next president's first 6 months in office.
Re:There is only one true keyboard...
on
Review of Das Keyboard
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I can sympathize. I've always wanted that on my PCs. Keyboards that don't do that (due to "saving space", or whatever) always drive me nuts.
On my Mac though, I've found I rather like it the other way. I have a MacBook Pro and while it has function keys, you have to press the "fn" key to use them. The rest of the time they operate shortcuts (volume, brightness, spaces, etc). They are very handy. I never need to use them in OS X.
The only time I use them as function keys is when I boot into Windows. And there, it is annoying.
I'd really hate to try to use them to switch virtual terminals in Linux though. That'd drive me batty pretty fast until I got used to it (begrudgingly).
Re:There is only one true keyboard...
on
Review of Das Keyboard
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Tried going to a standard keyboard to do some programming and it was hell. I could never go back.
That's sort of where I am. I bought the Natural keyboard because I did a fair bit of typing (I'd have been 12 or so, at the time) and I thought it was neat. The Windows key was handy. I did almost all my typing on that thing for a long time.
Then as I got to college, I found typing code on their Dells (standard dell $2 keyboard) was annoying after an hour or two. Typing a paper would get annoying to painful after 2 hours or so. My laptop was better (for some reason) but still happened after long enough. When I had a long paper to type, I'd set the laptop on a table and pull out my old Microsoft Natural and get it done with no problem. Larger hands made normal keyboards much less comfortable (where at 12-14 they fit just fine).
Then I got my job two years ago. As I did more and more programming (because I was more familiar with the code base so I could do longer chunks without having to go look stuff up for a few minutes), programming got more and more painful (again, $2 Dell run-of-the-mill keyboard).
So I looked around my house, found my old MS Natural, and took it to work. I seem to be able to type faster on it, but more importantly I have to type for hours and hours straight, for a few days straight, before typing starts to get annoying and painful.
Some times when there is lots to be typed or programmed, I'm not sure I'd get nearly as much done if I had to use a standard little keyboard due to rest breaks.
People laugh. Some people (especially those who can't touch type) think the things would be worse to type on. But the proliferation of split keyboards over the last 12+ years shows how useful they are.
Re:There is only one true keyboard...
on
Review of Das Keyboard
·
· Score: 5, Informative
No kidding. I'm tying this on a 1995/6 Microsoft Natural keyboard. The first natural keyboard. The one that came with a diskette to add functions for the Windows key (which was new at the time). The logo on the bottom says "Windows Compatible". Not Windows XP, or 2000, or NT, or 95. Windows.
I've used this keyboard daily for years and years. It got a break of a few years when I spent most time on a laptop in college (though I'd break it out for long papers due to comfort), but I took it to work (because typing on those standard non-ergonomics keyboards becomes painful quickly) and it's been in constant use for the last two years.
It's big, it's heavy, and it feels great to type on. Only two letters (N and M) are faded, every other one looks as good as the day I bought it. I took it apart a year or so ago to clean it really well (grime and dust from sitting around unused) and it was very well built. It has a large steel or aluminum plate in it to provide support.
Best of all, it has a real inverted T set of arrow keys and a 3x2 set of home/end keys. I hate the way they've changed those on all their models they sell now.
I had one of their internet natural keyboard a few years ago (with all the buttons on top). I didn't really use them, and at this point I'm not even sure where it is.
But my comfortable 1995 keyboard works as well today as the day I bought it. Microsoft can make some really nice hardware at times.
I'm mostly mad with the tone of the article and the posting. It "OMG Applz is l00ting custmers wal3ts!". This isn't new.
Now if they had a big piece with lots of facts and numbers and comparisons there would be some valuable fodder for discussion. But it's not. It's a little blog post. It's what I'd expect out of an individual, not someone as big as CNet who could research it. Heck, CNet should have data for many machines over more than a decade. They should be able to tell us if this rip-off is getting better or worse that it used to be.
Yet they only have three data points. RAM costs more on the MacBook. Hard drives cost more on a MacBook. Stuff costs more on another model, but we can't directly compare and made up some numbers.
Are some parts more expensive than others (i.e. does the margin get bigger or smaller for larger parts)? Are the margins consistant across products (i.e. do they gouge MacBook customers more than MacBook Pro customers?) They compare against Dell (who is known for razor thin margins), what about HP? What about Lenovo?
If there was a full article here, it would be worth discussing. Instead it is just one or two little observations that aren't new.
I'm also annoyed by the title. Apple laptop upgrade cost the same as Dells, unless you buy the upgrade from Apple. The prices given only reflect Build-To-Order. Once the machine is in your hands, you can upgrade the RAM for the same price as the Dell, as many Dells use the exact same RAM modules the MacBooks/MacBook Pros use.
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Because by the time the benchmark came out, the AMD K8/Hammer series was out which had SSE2. SSE3 was added in the next update, which was before the most recent patch to the benchmark.
Ether way there is a set of flags returned by CPUID that specifically lists what features a chip has (like SSE1/2/3). To not check that would be moronic.
Try reading the article. You can't do that. Only VIA lets you change what the CPU reports. Intel and AMD lock it down so it can't be changed making those tests impossible to run.
You can't. That's why it was discovered now. Intel and AMD don't let you change the CPUID results on their CPUs. Via DOES let you change it. (You could hack the benchmark to change the checks, but then your results are invalid because you changed the benchmark code)
Either way, that's not an excuse. As Ars points out, if it is just checking for something like SSE2 the Nano has that. If you want to make an optimized code path it should be based on if a feature is reported as present or not, not who made the CPU.
It's just really REALLY fishy.
Maybe if nearly every building and park he got built with public money wasn't named after him I could say it was good. I'm having trouble finding a list with a quick Google (because everything is about his insane bridge project).
I'm a Republican and I disagree with most people here on /. about politics but I don't remember running across anything good about Stevens. I remember reading about tons of ethics investigations. I know about a ton of pork. I know half of Alaska is named after him at this point.
Last year CBS Nightly News was doing segments on pork. When they got to Stevens they spent like 2 minutes straight reading a list of buildings with "Ted Stevens" in their name. It was amazing.
I hope he gets thrown out of the Senate. He doesn't seem to have been acting in the best interest of the country (at least fiscally) for a very long time.
His own fiscal interest though...
That would cost money. This way they get money.
That would have also validated the use of their game rules / board design (which are copyrighted or whatever). That could cost them their registration. Plus it would only encourage others to do this kind of thing to get some quick cash.
The Torque website specifically lists a Torque for Wii and a Torque for 360, but I don't see a PS3 version.
All that said, I did notice a couple of places that seem to confirm Rocketmen was Torque.
Perhaps there is some feature that PAA:OtRSPoD:EO is using that Rocketmen didn't which is causing the Torque problem.
The game was written for the Torque engine (IIRC). Torque has ports for Windows, Linux, Mac, and 360. There is no PS3 port. They are either building a Torque port or going to a different engine.
This is, as always, wrong. Analysts never get this stuff right. The iPhone has shown the ability of a touchscreen with multi-touch to have a great interface. Notice that the iPhone was never a device with a mouse. Phone don't have mice (except for trackballs on some blackberries).
I'd love some of that multi-touch goodness in OS X. Let my trackpad start doing it. But let's get real here. We need mice.
All our interfaces are designed around them and keyboards. They are cheap (under $5 for a simple optical). They are precise. They are familiar. They need very little physical movement (just tiny wrist movements). A tablet gives you the precision a mouse does. I'd say they are far more likely to take over than generic touchscreen. Perhaps combos like Wacom Centiqs.
I'm w aiting for the FPS that figures out a way to use touchscreens for precision aiming.
The Wii has shown us some great things, but that's for games. How many people do you think want to waggle their way through creating powerpoint presentations?
I've got a Wii. What do some the best control schemes often use it for? That's right... a mouse! LostWinds (just finished, great game) uses it as a pointing device. Metroid Prime 3 uses it for aiming much like a mouse. Zack & Wiki (when not performing motions) uses it like a mouse. Every menu in every game uses it like a mouse. The console's own menu uses it like a mouse. And when Pikmin 3 comes out I'm willing to bet a fair bit of money that it will use the control mostly as... a mouse.
The mouse is just about the perfect 2D interface. There is probably a reason we've been using them for over 25 years (it's been about that long since the Macintosh came out, and I'm well aware they were available before that). When we get a real 3D interface (like some kind of hologram projecting surface/table) then we may need a new input device some of the time, but for now, the mouse will be around for a very long while.
Would it really be possible enough to make the magnetic field smooth enough so that the mirror surface was smooth and not something like the surface of a 300 sided polyhedron?
I would think it would be impractical to put enough small but powerful electromagnets behind the fluid so that you could make a smooth surface.
Or could you use something to vastly increase the surface tension thus making it easier to create a smooth surface?
How about the link to the just published (today) update on Tom's that not only has useful methodologies, but shows a new OCZ drive that wipes the floor with the rest of the drives in both power draw and performance?
I hate this. I really hate this. Does ANYONE know what logic XP uses?
My setup is rather simple. I have two monitors. I want everything to open on the monitor it was last on.
That's how I'm setup now. But from time to time Windows decides that for whatever reason FireFox or IE (the two that I fight with on this issue) should open on the opposite monitor. I always manage to fix it though some combination of opening windows, maximizing things, rebooting, and voodoo.
But man does it drive me nuts. At this point I would prefer that everything ALWAYS opened on my main monitor, and I just had to move things. At least then I would understand why things happen the way they do.
My computer has a gaming mode. It's called "Windows."
I run OS X most of the time (it's a MacBook Pro). When I want to play some games (really, just Valve games like TF2) I boot into Windows XP. My XP install has PuTTY (incase I have to rescue a server), FireFox (because I can't stand IE6/7 at this point) and a few games. That's it.
Let me tell you, it's a pain. A big pain. Having to reboot to play a game is incredibly annoying. Even if you could do it without rebooting I'd imagine it would take so long to get all those little programs out and back in the effect would be nearly the same.
I'm with other posters. Just make it so the OS can manage that stuff correctly and the problem won't be much of a problem. The "gaming mode" band-aid is not a real fix.
Blame the dollar. My understanding is that Nintendo is shifting a significant portion of what they are making to Europe due to the dollar. Why should they sell the hardware they produced for $250 when they can sell the exact same thing for significantly more in Europe. If the dollar was better, we'd see more of the stock directed here.
I seriously doubt Photoshop would stop you, but that's just me. It seems a little pointless to have photo-editing software try to do that.
That said, for years scanners, copiers, and I believe laser prints have been designed to try to detect people copying currency and refuse to print. It may happen in ink jets and other printers too. I believe it is only the high end models though.
There is also the "invisible" yellow dot tracking that so many printers do today (you can Google it, or I know it's been discussed here years ago).
Better tactics. The robot is better at predicting the puck and where to hit it. It also plays very defensively. Combine that with high speed and accuracy, and the bot is a winner.
In fact, the only reason it loses in 8 bit mode is it can't calculate the position of the puck fast enough to always catch it.
I've read that before. I think it was the Dutch that breed the modern carrot.
The point of the article was that those pads would do that up against anything organic (although I wouldn't be too surprised if a dirty coke can did the same thing).
I've seem some scams recently, but the most amazing has to be Kinoki Foot Pads. Let's ignore the fact that my understanding is the word "kinoki" is meaningless and the characters they use in the ad don't even read "kinoki".
I'm used to all sorts of pseudo science in TV ads, but this one is downright amazing. Did you know tree roots are used to dispose of chemicals, and that my feet are actually tree roots? I'm so glad someone told me. I especially love the list of conditions that these things can cure. Even if they weren't fake and actually would detoxify you, I seriously doubt it would even touch many of those conditions. I seem to remember reading someone wrapped carrots with the pads just to prove that anything will make them blacken from "toxins".
The ad id just amazing. I was dumbfounded the first time I saw it. Diet pill ads look like something out of the Mayo Clinic in comparison.
Yes, they do sent tons of emails. I've worked on those systems as they started up. My idea of the cap was for people who are using the service for more background processing type things. Amazon can decide on their own magic level. Maybe it's 3,000 a day. Maybe 10k. Maybe it's based on your bond size.
Yes, you can send a ton of spam in 6 months, but you don't get to under by idea. As soon as you start spamming, you lose your bond. That's it.
So to get around the bond, you have to PAY $5-$10k, hold the account for 6 months (probably making it look used), and THEN start spamming after you get your bond back. That's a huge investment for only having part of a day to spam. As soon as your outgoing email traffic spikes from 10 emails a day to 1,000,000 they'll kill your account.
I'm not trying to stop all spam, I'm just trying to propose something Amazon can do on their service. It's not useful for Amazon to sue Pfizer over the Viagra spam being sent out.
No kidding. I'd say you have to put up a bond if you want to be able send more than some small threshold of emails out per day (100?). If you're good, you are safe. Maybe you get your bond back after 6 months. If you misbehave, Amazon cuts you off and you just lost $5-$10k.
That's an excellent point. I was wondering if the metric should simply be different altogether.
What if we used MB/Watt or some such? The "disks" are supposed to be really good at some things (random reads) but don't hold too much advantage over others (long continuous reads). So how many WattHours does it take to load a continuous 50 GB file? How about a random 50 GB of data off a 128 GB disk? How does that compare to the same measurements with a standard magnetic disk? How does power consumption change between reading, writing, and mixed disk loads? Writing flash takes far more power than reading, doesn't it? Yet on a physical disk it's not that different in power requirements.
There are other things too. Operating systems still aren't designed around these things, they are designed for physical rotating disks. Do these things even have native controllers (designed for this purpose) yet, or are they still using modified rotating disk controllers like the first models used? As time goes on, better power saving features will show up, especially as the OS cooperates to tell this disk more information about what's going on. A well managed flash drive may be able to shut off large chunks of it's self and only wake up the bits that actually need reading/writing. That would help quite a bit, I'm sure.
PS: First time I've been to Tom's Hardware in 6 months to a year. Nice to see they found a way to make it uglier. Used to be a nice site. I especially like the "you must login to see the printer friendly version" trick.
Of course at this point, the two parties dislike each other so much they'd never nominate the same person. If Dick Chaney changed his affiliation to Democrat, the Republicans would never nominate him for the office just because of that D next to his name. His strong right wing record wouldn't matter. Partisanship is too strong right now.
I'd like to see vice president either a separate ticket (so we could get 1 Dem and 1 Rep) or possibly the 2nd place finishing candidate of the same party (i.e. Obama would get Hillary). Some times it wouldn't work out well (see Obama and Hillary), but some times I think it would be much better than the choices they often make now.
But then again, VP has been a pretty useless job it seems for quite a while. Just a presidential "hot-spare". It wasn't until Chaney that they seemed to do much.
And the Chaney model will probably be outlawed in the next president's first 6 months in office.
I can sympathize. I've always wanted that on my PCs. Keyboards that don't do that (due to "saving space", or whatever) always drive me nuts.
On my Mac though, I've found I rather like it the other way. I have a MacBook Pro and while it has function keys, you have to press the "fn" key to use them. The rest of the time they operate shortcuts (volume, brightness, spaces, etc). They are very handy. I never need to use them in OS X.
The only time I use them as function keys is when I boot into Windows. And there, it is annoying.
I'd really hate to try to use them to switch virtual terminals in Linux though. That'd drive me batty pretty fast until I got used to it (begrudgingly).
That's sort of where I am. I bought the Natural keyboard because I did a fair bit of typing (I'd have been 12 or so, at the time) and I thought it was neat. The Windows key was handy. I did almost all my typing on that thing for a long time.
Then as I got to college, I found typing code on their Dells (standard dell $2 keyboard) was annoying after an hour or two. Typing a paper would get annoying to painful after 2 hours or so. My laptop was better (for some reason) but still happened after long enough. When I had a long paper to type, I'd set the laptop on a table and pull out my old Microsoft Natural and get it done with no problem. Larger hands made normal keyboards much less comfortable (where at 12-14 they fit just fine).
Then I got my job two years ago. As I did more and more programming (because I was more familiar with the code base so I could do longer chunks without having to go look stuff up for a few minutes), programming got more and more painful (again, $2 Dell run-of-the-mill keyboard).
So I looked around my house, found my old MS Natural, and took it to work. I seem to be able to type faster on it, but more importantly I have to type for hours and hours straight, for a few days straight, before typing starts to get annoying and painful.
Some times when there is lots to be typed or programmed, I'm not sure I'd get nearly as much done if I had to use a standard little keyboard due to rest breaks.
People laugh. Some people (especially those who can't touch type) think the things would be worse to type on. But the proliferation of split keyboards over the last 12+ years shows how useful they are.
No kidding. I'm tying this on a 1995/6 Microsoft Natural keyboard. The first natural keyboard. The one that came with a diskette to add functions for the Windows key (which was new at the time). The logo on the bottom says "Windows Compatible". Not Windows XP, or 2000, or NT, or 95. Windows.
I've used this keyboard daily for years and years. It got a break of a few years when I spent most time on a laptop in college (though I'd break it out for long papers due to comfort), but I took it to work (because typing on those standard non-ergonomics keyboards becomes painful quickly) and it's been in constant use for the last two years.
It's big, it's heavy, and it feels great to type on. Only two letters (N and M) are faded, every other one looks as good as the day I bought it. I took it apart a year or so ago to clean it really well (grime and dust from sitting around unused) and it was very well built. It has a large steel or aluminum plate in it to provide support.
Best of all, it has a real inverted T set of arrow keys and a 3x2 set of home/end keys. I hate the way they've changed those on all their models they sell now.
I had one of their internet natural keyboard a few years ago (with all the buttons on top). I didn't really use them, and at this point I'm not even sure where it is.
But my comfortable 1995 keyboard works as well today as the day I bought it. Microsoft can make some really nice hardware at times.
I'm mostly mad with the tone of the article and the posting. It "OMG Applz is l00ting custmers wal3ts!". This isn't new.
Now if they had a big piece with lots of facts and numbers and comparisons there would be some valuable fodder for discussion. But it's not. It's a little blog post. It's what I'd expect out of an individual, not someone as big as CNet who could research it. Heck, CNet should have data for many machines over more than a decade. They should be able to tell us if this rip-off is getting better or worse that it used to be.
Yet they only have three data points. RAM costs more on the MacBook. Hard drives cost more on a MacBook. Stuff costs more on another model, but we can't directly compare and made up some numbers.
Are some parts more expensive than others (i.e. does the margin get bigger or smaller for larger parts)? Are the margins consistant across products (i.e. do they gouge MacBook customers more than MacBook Pro customers?) They compare against Dell (who is known for razor thin margins), what about HP? What about Lenovo?
If there was a full article here, it would be worth discussing. Instead it is just one or two little observations that aren't new.
I'm also annoyed by the title. Apple laptop upgrade cost the same as Dells, unless you buy the upgrade from Apple. The prices given only reflect Build-To-Order. Once the machine is in your hands, you can upgrade the RAM for the same price as the Dell, as many Dells use the exact same RAM modules the MacBooks/MacBook Pros use.