My brother has an original Titanium Powerbook, and I know things have gotten faster for him through all these upgrades (it originally came with 9.x). That is such an amazing credit for Apple.
As for the PC/Mac comparison you made, I think it's perfectly valid. No P4 with a workstation graphics card (a Quadro) should have an issue like that. That's just sad. I don't know if things aren't configured right or what, but that shouldn't be happening. As Linux moves to OpenGL accelerated X over the next year or so that should be fixed though.
You may want to try something other than KDE. I used to use WindowMaker on my Linux box and even on my slower boxes it ran FAST because it was so light and it did everything I needed. KDE is nice, but with KDE you also have QT, KDM, and a million other things. It's a great desktop, but it's speed can't (and never will) compare to something more stripped down (like WindowMaker).
And of course, as long as you have all the libraries on, you can still run KDE programs.
You could even try running KDE with WindowMaker as your desktop manager and it may be faster.
I hadn't thought of that. My Mac is new enough to have accelerated Quartz Extreme graphics, so the bouncing is almost free for me (the graphics card is doing all the heavy lifting).
But for him, I'm guessing his iBook doesn't have a good enough graphics chip, so his CPU is doing all that compositing... which would really slow things down during an app launch.
I have a 1.67 GHz G4 with a gig of ram and I almost never have speed problems, everything is quite snappy enough (although I hear the new MacBook Pros would put my Mac to shame). More memory may help you if that is an option (I didn't follow Macs well enough back then to know what your max is).
That said, I seem to remember (and personal experience seems to bear this out) that OS X is really slow executing a fork() system call relative to Linux. I'm not sure if this is has to do with using a microkernel, or is because of specific decisions they made, but anything that fork()s a lot will run slower than on the same computer running Linux.
My only suggestion to you would be... are you running the Dashboard? As interesting as it is, I avoid it because it is a resource HOG like nothing else on the system. If you google around you can even find a way to completely disable it.
In general it is a very responsive system. The only time I can consistently cause a beachball is copying files (digital pictures) off of a CF card. This uses enough kernel time that the computer does seem to stop responding for tiny fractions of a second (and my CPU usage goes WAY up). I don't know what the computer is doing, but it has got to be able to do it faster. My theory? Hard coded uninterruptible sleep statements for timing purposes. Just a random guess though.
All that said, I regularly use a 2.3 GHz Windows laptop and I am constantly amazed at how long it seems to take some applications to launch, and how different it is. IE will come up almost instantly most times. But sometimes it takes 30 seconds to launch and show the page (then feels slow after that). Other apps can do the same thing sometimes. But most applications (IE is preloaded by the OS) take just as long as on my Mac, if not longer.
The AC that replied to you is right. I haven't been on P2P in a while (the music died, man!) but if there is one thing that is one P2P it is porn. Every single kind you can think of is probably there. And it's free. I'm sure there is true amateur content that people made of themselves, movies people took off web sites and put up, scans of magazines, copies of DVDs and VHS cassettes, etc.
I would be amazed, AMAZED if even 1/5 of the content on P2P networks was not porn.
Do you know what found it's way onto the original Napster (what a great service) fast? Porn. Napster could only share MP3s, or so they thought. It quickly occurred to people that you could just rename your file to.MP3 and then it could be shared. Napster didn't care if your MP3 was 1 meg or 1 gig. You would search for some song and find files named "something about porn or content (change extension to avi).mp3".
Plus there is what is on news groups (NNTP), the web, FTP sites, and who knows where else.
Music is what made P2P famous in the press, but I'm sure it would be just as big and popular if MP3s never existed. Porn ends up driving just about every technology, like it or not.
I suppose it would make it easier to find them. And maybe some site operator would prefer "hotteens.xxx" instead of "hotteens.com". As you point out, you'll never get the porn completely out of.com.
But what it really means is one thing: money. You run the big "joebob.com" porn site? (made that up, no idea what it is). Well now you have two choices. You can either buy "joebob.xxx" (how much? Lets say a few hundred bucks) or you can not buy it. If you DON'T buy it then your competitor ("pornking.net" or whatever) can buy "joebob.xxx" and make it point to HIS site. That way if someone tries to go to "joebob.xxx" mistakenly, you lose the business and he gets it.
Now multiply that (and yeah, it is practically extortion) by the thousands of large porn sites that would have to buy that new domain (and renew it every year, it's extortion on an installment plan!). Add in a few of the hundreds of thousands (or millions) of smaller sites who may or may not pay.
What's that add up to? Money. LOTS of money.
Things would have been better if someone had tried to force the categories in the start (personal sites go into.people, commercial into.com, ISPs and phone companies into.net, non-profits into.org, porn into.xxx), despite all the problems that would have ensued. But we're not there. The top level domain a web site is basically meaningless.
This is another chance to sell "sex.whatever", "porn.whatever", "hotteens.whatever", etc again with the fun (and lucrative) bidding wars that will happen over those names.
There may be other benefits (block all of.xxx for your company and your chances of blocking something important are basically 0.0, would make porn slightly easier to find), but it all comes down to the money.
I subscribe to Forbes. It is a fantastic magazine. The writing is insightful and well written (targeted at an adult, not a 7th grade reading level). It's often very interesting, informative, and has quickly become my favorite magazine.
Every magazine seems to have someone odd working there. Don't judge the magazine based on one opinion columnist.
I read a great piece on that whole debacle. I think it was in Forbes.
They made that software Intel only when it didn't need to be. This was found out (much to no-one's surprise) and they looked terrible.
But did it have to be that way?
The article posited it this way. They should have made that same software, but only bundled it with Intel computers. They wouldn't offer it for download. Other people would find it and put it up for download and it would be discovered that the limit was there and it worked just fine on AMD processors when the limit was removed.
At this point, Skype could say that they made it for Intel and not the general public, and that it was Intel only becuase that was all they tested it on (after all, they made it for Intel). They could then "test it" on AMD processors and release a version that let ANYONE do the 12 person conference a week later.
By doing this, they wouldn't have looked like a bad guy, and may have earned some praise.
Instead they looked like they sold out (which they did) and earned a lot of scorn.
This sounds like a fine system to me. But there is always a catch. So...
The downloads will not be full resolution
This will only work on Windows
The DRM (which we all know is there) will be over the top (must use their player with no other open applications)
The compression will be bad
It will be in a hard to use format (i.e., can't put on your iPod or transcode it for that purpose)
etc.
I predict at least two of those, probably 3. The second on the list (Windows only) is almost a certainty. Good luck to them, this sounds very good, but my experience tells me there are some major catches in there that we can't see yet.
Asking your Senator or Congressman means you have to get them to make a bill, introduce it, get it passed, etc. That is a long process. And that assumes that you can get them to do that over the corporations that don't want that bill passed (and will donate more money than you'll ever make).
Filing a lawsuit gets you instant publicity, which can be parlayed into capital to use with your representative to get a bill passed. Either way, the company will probably just fix the problem and then settle rather than fight it. And if you win, it is a precedent on your side you can use to get other companies to change their practices.
Plus, you only have to convince one judge you're right, or 12 jurors (depending on if you can somehow swing a jury trial). And "poor me, I can't buy things because the big evil Target hates the blind" plays much better with a judge or jury than all those representatives.
I agreed with most of your post until you got to Christmas.
Wouldn't MS want to get Vista out in time for Christmas? There are two big PC shopping times... back to school (August) and Christmas (December). They'll never get it out by August, and never said they would. But getting it out in November would be just in time to make a big blitz about "Buy a new computer with Windows Vista to put under your tree this year." The OEMs would love this, and MS could get massive sales.
Frankly, by November I don't think you should buy a new computer until Vista comes out and is pre-installed (Wintel only, if you are buying for Linux or a Mac, this doesn't apply).
If anything, I think this would HURT MS and the OEMs.
I doubt they would give the beta version to businesses. Maybe the business version is finished and it is the special features in the home edition that need the extra testing (like the Media Center stuff).
That said, it reminds me of an interesting story. What happens when a company doesn't want to wait for MS to ship them the final version of an OS (say... Windows 95)? The answer is in this fun little entry in The Old New Thing weblog from a Microsoft employee.
"The fact is, Apple hasn't gained markeshare over Windows since OSX was introduced in 2000."
Market share is the same? That's odd, I can find articles that say otherwise. Do you have articles that say your point? Check out the table on this page. Apple's share is growing. It's not meteoric, but it going up. Or by "not growing" do you mean "hasn't gone up 10 points"? I switched, I know many others who have, and I have been asked by many people interested in switching.
"The fact it, most companies are not going to switch to OSX for the simple cost of ownership. [...] Once you switch to OSX, you have to buy a whole slew of applications for it as well, which compounds the cost."
OS X is cheaper. There was an article not too long ago that I read that said that for a business, a Mac costs $1500-$3000 less than an equivalent Windows desktop when you add in all the time with security updates, virus protection you have use, spyware protection, etc. This was for 1-3 years. That means the Macs PAID FOR THEMSELVES, not just the difference between the PC and the Mac. As for the apps, big deal. You are a Photoshop shop? Instead of buying CS 3 (or 4 or whenever you upgrade) for the PC, buy it for the Mac and make the switch then. Office is there too. Most programs are there. Give it a try. And with the Intel transition, it won't be long at all before you can run legacy or custom code under WINE at full speed just like under Windows.
"Application support just isn't in OSX also because the development environment for Windows is so much easier and more robust then OSX. XCode and Objective C, while free, represents everything that is wrong with Apple, their adherance to old philosophies that are failing, but too much ego is involved to let it go."
There is no application problem. I never had one. The one program I haven't found a replacement for in the very short time I looked? Microsoft Project. I'm sure there are replacements though. And have you used XCode and Objective-C? They are a pleasure to use. Objective-C and Cocoa makes GUI programming SO MUCH NICER than other languages. Have you done much Windows programming? A big GIANT HOG of an application (Visual Studio) to do it all for you and lock you in just as much as you seem to think XCode will. Except XCode is built entirely on top of GCC, a standard compiler. Visual Studio is built on top of Microsoft's compiler.
And XCode is free. Microsoft will give you the compiler, but you have to pay out the nose for the IDE.
"If your serious about Mac programming, then you use CodeWarrior instead of Apple's free tools. Without good software tools, then the slew of shareware and freeware apps that PC users get to use just isn't available on the Mac platform."
Can you back that up with examples and proof? Most people I know are happier with XCode than CodeWarrior. And what "shareware and freeware apps" does the Mac lack? What about all the nice things Macs come with (iTunes, iMail, iCal, Address Book, iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, Garage Band, iWeb) that Windows computers DON'T?
"I will whole heartedly agree that Microsoft has a lot to fear with Ubuntuu and other Linux alternatives."
Agreed.
"But to suggest that people are adopting OSX in droves is just unfounded."
Wrong again. You just have to remember that compared to an installed base of 200 Million or so, droves can still look small.
"Microsoft will never have to worry about OSX, in fact, with people finding ways of running WindowsXP aond the new Macintels, Microsoft is laughing their way to the bank as PC users buy Apple's to run Windows in a fancy box."
Wrong again. Microsoft has to worry about OS X. They have to RIGHT NOW. Why do you think they are adding so much stuff to Vista? The search (see: Spotlight), the sidebar (see: Dashboard), the 3D accleerated GUI (see: Quartz). It's not Linux th
I wouldn't consider games to a part of multimedia. Games can be multimedia games (like Myst), but games are not part of multimedia.
The Mac Mini is good for what it is, and for anyone but a gamer it is an excellent computer. But it is not a hardcore games machine. It is not even a "mediumcore" games machine (they should fix this). If you want to play games, buy a MacBook Pro, an Intel iMac, or wait for the Intel PowerMacs.
That said, most Wintel computers I see advertised are not fit to play games that are in the Mini's class either. Their saving grace is that they may have a AGP slot you can put something half-decent into.
But if you want to play games, the cheapest computer in ANY company's line up (check Dell, HP, Acer, etc) will not be a good games machine. That's just the way it is.
I use OS X, which I switched to because I like the UNIX internals and the excellent Apple applications.
That said, once AGAIN we see that same stupid statement. It's taken as a tautology that Apple's stability is due to it's hardware. From the article:
"Macintosh OS X runs on a limited number of hardware devices which allows Apple Computers to offer a stable and high-performance product overall. Apple's entry level products such as the Mac mini provides a low-cost, high-value multimedia platform."
Bull. While that can't do anything but help, I don't buy it. I think Linux has proven that you can run an operating system on a very diverse set of hardware (that is, the same hardware Windows runs on) and be entirely stable enough to run for months without issue (Windows has gotten there, for the most part). OS X is stable not because there are only 3 pieces of hardware it runs on, but because it was well designed and well built, based on a stable and mature architecture (BSD). It's perfectly stable (from what I hear) when installed on generic Intel computers that it was never designed for.
Besides, what does OS X run on? It runs on Powerbooks, the Minis, PowerMacs, iMacs, iBooks, and the G4 Cube, and more. Each of those has numerous different revisions (often amazingly different, as the difference between a G4 PowerMac and a G5 PowerMac, or a 12" Aluminum Powerbook and a 15" MacBook Pro). In the year I have owned a PowerBook there have been 3 revisions, along with the MacBook Pro. That's one year, one computer line. Not including the different sizes (12", 15", 17").
When will people stop blaming OS X's stability on the hardware. When will they start to blame it on good design. Give Apple a fair shake.
Besides, if the hardware thing was true, OS 8 and OS 9 should have been MUCH MORE stable because they only ran on those few pieces of Apple hardware, while Windows XP should be much LESS stable because it runs on so many million different types of computers.
That's true. At this point, it looks like he didn't ever have them (which surprised me).
More interesting though, is that many of his own top generals and officials didn't know this. They thought he did have the weapons up until nearly the very end.
Sadam wanted everyone to think he had those weapons. And he did one hell of a job convincing the world. Ironic that it lead to his downfall (we would have had a hard time going in and removing him without that, even though he still needed to be removed).
I'd play 'em. If I had a 360 I'd play 'em. I'd love to try Geometry Wars. What I meant was, no one is going to buy a 360 just for these games. I don't see this as any real advantage since Nintendo (and quite possibly Sony) will have similar things.
It's a good thing, no doubt, I just think the article is making far too much of it.
The article seems to paint this like this is the thing that will be the key to the 360 being more successful than the Rev or PS3. When all three are out, all three will have something similar. That's my point.
If the article point is that this is what's helping the 360 win the next-gen race right now... that's stupid. It's the only next-gen console out. It is currently winning by default.
OK, this is stupid. First the conversion rate thing. The conversion rate between a $5 game is different from that of a $65 game. No. Really.
The ability to play PopCap style games on an XBox 360 isn't going to give them a big advantage in the console race. No one will buy a $400 console just to play $5 games. Besides, Sony will be selling PSOne games to play on the PSP, how much you want to be they'll let you play them on your PS3? They could easily do the same with PS2 games. Plus there is nothing stopping them from offering the same thing.
Nintendo will let you download and play GB/GBA/NES/SNES/N64/GC games, so they can compete on that front easily. Plus, again, they could have new PopCap style games as well.
We can't be sure that your domain won't be hijacked unless you pay our security fee
or We find our records tend to be sold to spammers, but we could fix it with some more security money
or We can't be positive that we won't send people to beat you up unless you pay the security deposit
This is great. Am I the only one who thinks that ICANN needs a serious blow to the side of the head to get things back in order? I remember paying $100 for a.com a few years ago when there was no choice of registrars. Now they are like $7. Here comes "inflation."
Reminds me of a joke. A man is about to walk into a bar and he sees a bum near the door asking for money. He goes up to the bum.
Man: If I give you $5, will you use it to get drunk? Bum: No Man: Will you use it to go gambling? Bum: No Man: Will you come home with me so I can show my wife what happens to people who don't drink and gamble?
In all seriousness, I don't care. I'd prefer that they just legalize gambling online, through US sites only. And can't this bill be challenged as overriding states rights (right to permit/outlaw gambling)?
Both Metroid Primes were fantastic games. I loved Wind Waker, it was classic Zelda. It's only real problem was that near the end the sailing mechanic can get a little tiresome. The Resident Evil 1 remake was great, if you haven't played the original, and RE 4 was absolutely amazing (it's hard to believe that the 'Cube was capable of such graphics).
As for other games, I adored Pikmin, and the sequel was great (but not as good, the dungeon crawling got very tiresome). MarioKart Double Dash was a blast, as was Mario Golf: Toldstool Tour. Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door had a great story and was a blast, Viewtiful Joe was terrifically original, and the sequel was very good. Both of those can be set to be extraordinarily difficult if you want a challenge. Super Smash Brothers Melee was fun (especially if you can get more people to play with). F-Zero GX was fun. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was an amazing game (I hadn't played the original yet).
Animal Crossing will suck an amazing amount of your time up (I didn't like the DS version though), and Mario Sunshine was fun (but it was no Mario 64 or Super Mario World). Luigi's Mansion was fun (give it a rent, or buy it cheap).
On top of that, most any cross-platform game you can think of has been on the 'Cube, along with a few others. There is always stuff like Donkey Konga too (fun).
I'd like to see they make it so I can use Linux to develop my own games for the PS3 that I could share with my friends. Give me OpenGL, a good 2D library, and some good documentation and I'll be happy. It's OK if my games would only look PS quality or less, I'd still be happy.
By limiting it like that, they don't run any risks of piracy (same kind of thing they did with running PS2 Linux on top of a managed microkernel), but they foster development (hold contests!), good will, and people gaining skills.
I've asked for something like this with the Revolution on/. and was replied by someone "in the know" that I could be "assured" that Nintendo would be doing this. Either way, I would love it.
Now I've never heard of that European tax (very interesting), but giving people the ability to develop on it would go a long way to proving it was not just a game machine.
That said, wouldn't all Sony's "you can use it as a DVR and home media server and PSP dock and...." be enough to dodge the "video game machine" tax?
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As for the PC/Mac comparison you made, I think it's perfectly valid. No P4 with a workstation graphics card (a Quadro) should have an issue like that. That's just sad. I don't know if things aren't configured right or what, but that shouldn't be happening. As Linux moves to OpenGL accelerated X over the next year or so that should be fixed though.
You may want to try something other than KDE. I used to use WindowMaker on my Linux box and even on my slower boxes it ran FAST because it was so light and it did everything I needed. KDE is nice, but with KDE you also have QT, KDM, and a million other things. It's a great desktop, but it's speed can't (and never will) compare to something more stripped down (like WindowMaker).
And of course, as long as you have all the libraries on, you can still run KDE programs.
You could even try running KDE with WindowMaker as your desktop manager and it may be faster.
But for him, I'm guessing his iBook doesn't have a good enough graphics chip, so his CPU is doing all that compositing... which would really slow things down during an app launch.
Interesting point!
That said, I seem to remember (and personal experience seems to bear this out) that OS X is really slow executing a fork() system call relative to Linux. I'm not sure if this is has to do with using a microkernel, or is because of specific decisions they made, but anything that fork()s a lot will run slower than on the same computer running Linux.
My only suggestion to you would be... are you running the Dashboard? As interesting as it is, I avoid it because it is a resource HOG like nothing else on the system. If you google around you can even find a way to completely disable it.
In general it is a very responsive system. The only time I can consistently cause a beachball is copying files (digital pictures) off of a CF card. This uses enough kernel time that the computer does seem to stop responding for tiny fractions of a second (and my CPU usage goes WAY up). I don't know what the computer is doing, but it has got to be able to do it faster. My theory? Hard coded uninterruptible sleep statements for timing purposes. Just a random guess though.
All that said, I regularly use a 2.3 GHz Windows laptop and I am constantly amazed at how long it seems to take some applications to launch, and how different it is. IE will come up almost instantly most times. But sometimes it takes 30 seconds to launch and show the page (then feels slow after that). Other apps can do the same thing sometimes. But most applications (IE is preloaded by the OS) take just as long as on my Mac, if not longer.
I would be amazed, AMAZED if even 1/5 of the content on P2P networks was not porn.
Do you know what found it's way onto the original Napster (what a great service) fast? Porn. Napster could only share MP3s, or so they thought. It quickly occurred to people that you could just rename your file to .MP3 and then it could be shared. Napster didn't care if your MP3 was 1 meg or 1 gig. You would search for some song and find files named "something about porn or content (change extension to avi).mp3".
Plus there is what is on news groups (NNTP), the web, FTP sites, and who knows where else.
Music is what made P2P famous in the press, but I'm sure it would be just as big and popular if MP3s never existed. Porn ends up driving just about every technology, like it or not.
But what it really means is one thing: money. You run the big "joebob.com" porn site? (made that up, no idea what it is). Well now you have two choices. You can either buy "joebob.xxx" (how much? Lets say a few hundred bucks) or you can not buy it. If you DON'T buy it then your competitor ("pornking.net" or whatever) can buy "joebob.xxx" and make it point to HIS site. That way if someone tries to go to "joebob.xxx" mistakenly, you lose the business and he gets it.
Now multiply that (and yeah, it is practically extortion) by the thousands of large porn sites that would have to buy that new domain (and renew it every year, it's extortion on an installment plan!). Add in a few of the hundreds of thousands (or millions) of smaller sites who may or may not pay.
What's that add up to? Money. LOTS of money.
Things would have been better if someone had tried to force the categories in the start (personal sites go into .people, commercial into .com, ISPs and phone companies into .net, non-profits into .org, porn into .xxx), despite all the problems that would have ensued. But we're not there. The top level domain a web site is basically meaningless.
This is another chance to sell "sex.whatever", "porn.whatever", "hotteens.whatever", etc again with the fun (and lucrative) bidding wars that will happen over those names.
There may be other benefits (block all of .xxx for your company and your chances of blocking something important are basically 0.0, would make porn slightly easier to find), but it all comes down to the money.
Every magazine seems to have someone odd working there. Don't judge the magazine based on one opinion columnist.
They made that software Intel only when it didn't need to be. This was found out (much to no-one's surprise) and they looked terrible.
But did it have to be that way?
The article posited it this way. They should have made that same software, but only bundled it with Intel computers. They wouldn't offer it for download. Other people would find it and put it up for download and it would be discovered that the limit was there and it worked just fine on AMD processors when the limit was removed.
At this point, Skype could say that they made it for Intel and not the general public, and that it was Intel only becuase that was all they tested it on (after all, they made it for Intel). They could then "test it" on AMD processors and release a version that let ANYONE do the 12 person conference a week later.
By doing this, they wouldn't have looked like a bad guy, and may have earned some praise.
Instead they looked like they sold out (which they did) and earned a lot of scorn.
I predict at least two of those, probably 3. The second on the list (Windows only) is almost a certainty. Good luck to them, this sounds very good, but my experience tells me there are some major catches in there that we can't see yet.
But it is a lot faster.
Asking your Senator or Congressman means you have to get them to make a bill, introduce it, get it passed, etc. That is a long process. And that assumes that you can get them to do that over the corporations that don't want that bill passed (and will donate more money than you'll ever make).
Filing a lawsuit gets you instant publicity, which can be parlayed into capital to use with your representative to get a bill passed. Either way, the company will probably just fix the problem and then settle rather than fight it. And if you win, it is a precedent on your side you can use to get other companies to change their practices.
Plus, you only have to convince one judge you're right, or 12 jurors (depending on if you can somehow swing a jury trial). And "poor me, I can't buy things because the big evil Target hates the blind" plays much better with a judge or jury than all those representatives.
I don't blame them for this choice.
Wouldn't MS want to get Vista out in time for Christmas? There are two big PC shopping times... back to school (August) and Christmas (December). They'll never get it out by August, and never said they would. But getting it out in November would be just in time to make a big blitz about "Buy a new computer with Windows Vista to put under your tree this year." The OEMs would love this, and MS could get massive sales.
Frankly, by November I don't think you should buy a new computer until Vista comes out and is pre-installed (Wintel only, if you are buying for Linux or a Mac, this doesn't apply).
If anything, I think this would HURT MS and the OEMs.
That said, it reminds me of an interesting story. What happens when a company doesn't want to wait for MS to ship them the final version of an OS (say... Windows 95)? The answer is in this fun little entry in The Old New Thing weblog from a Microsoft employee.
Thanks.
"The fact is, Apple hasn't gained markeshare over Windows since OSX was introduced in 2000."
Market share is the same? That's odd, I can find articles that say otherwise. Do you have articles that say your point? Check out the table on this page. Apple's share is growing. It's not meteoric, but it going up. Or by "not growing" do you mean "hasn't gone up 10 points"? I switched, I know many others who have, and I have been asked by many people interested in switching.
"The fact it, most companies are not going to switch to OSX for the simple cost of ownership. [...] Once you switch to OSX, you have to buy a whole slew of applications for it as well, which compounds the cost."
OS X is cheaper. There was an article not too long ago that I read that said that for a business, a Mac costs $1500-$3000 less than an equivalent Windows desktop when you add in all the time with security updates, virus protection you have use, spyware protection, etc. This was for 1-3 years. That means the Macs PAID FOR THEMSELVES, not just the difference between the PC and the Mac. As for the apps, big deal. You are a Photoshop shop? Instead of buying CS 3 (or 4 or whenever you upgrade) for the PC, buy it for the Mac and make the switch then. Office is there too. Most programs are there. Give it a try. And with the Intel transition, it won't be long at all before you can run legacy or custom code under WINE at full speed just like under Windows.
"Application support just isn't in OSX also because the development environment for Windows is so much easier and more robust then OSX. XCode and Objective C, while free, represents everything that is wrong with Apple, their adherance to old philosophies that are failing, but too much ego is involved to let it go."
There is no application problem. I never had one. The one program I haven't found a replacement for in the very short time I looked? Microsoft Project. I'm sure there are replacements though. And have you used XCode and Objective-C? They are a pleasure to use. Objective-C and Cocoa makes GUI programming SO MUCH NICER than other languages. Have you done much Windows programming? A big GIANT HOG of an application (Visual Studio) to do it all for you and lock you in just as much as you seem to think XCode will. Except XCode is built entirely on top of GCC, a standard compiler. Visual Studio is built on top of Microsoft's compiler.
And XCode is free. Microsoft will give you the compiler, but you have to pay out the nose for the IDE.
"If your serious about Mac programming, then you use CodeWarrior instead of Apple's free tools. Without good software tools, then the slew of shareware and freeware apps that PC users get to use just isn't available on the Mac platform."
Can you back that up with examples and proof? Most people I know are happier with XCode than CodeWarrior. And what "shareware and freeware apps" does the Mac lack? What about all the nice things Macs come with (iTunes, iMail, iCal, Address Book, iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, Garage Band, iWeb) that Windows computers DON'T?
"I will whole heartedly agree that Microsoft has a lot to fear with Ubuntuu and other Linux alternatives."
Agreed.
"But to suggest that people are adopting OSX in droves is just unfounded."
Wrong again. You just have to remember that compared to an installed base of 200 Million or so, droves can still look small.
"Microsoft will never have to worry about OSX, in fact, with people finding ways of running WindowsXP aond the new Macintels, Microsoft is laughing their way to the bank as PC users buy Apple's to run Windows in a fancy box."
Wrong again. Microsoft has to worry about OS X. They have to RIGHT NOW. Why do you think they are adding so much stuff to Vista? The search (see: Spotlight), the sidebar (see: Dashboard), the 3D accleerated GUI (see: Quartz). It's not Linux th
I agree. I experienced just as many stability problems with previous version of Windows as others, but XP and 2000 are rock solid.
The Mac Mini is good for what it is, and for anyone but a gamer it is an excellent computer. But it is not a hardcore games machine. It is not even a "mediumcore" games machine (they should fix this). If you want to play games, buy a MacBook Pro, an Intel iMac, or wait for the Intel PowerMacs.
That said, most Wintel computers I see advertised are not fit to play games that are in the Mini's class either. Their saving grace is that they may have a AGP slot you can put something half-decent into.
But if you want to play games, the cheapest computer in ANY company's line up (check Dell, HP, Acer, etc) will not be a good games machine. That's just the way it is.
That said, once AGAIN we see that same stupid statement. It's taken as a tautology that Apple's stability is due to it's hardware. From the article:
"Macintosh OS X runs on a limited number of hardware devices which allows Apple Computers to offer a stable and high-performance product overall. Apple's entry level products such as the Mac mini provides a low-cost, high-value multimedia platform."
Bull. While that can't do anything but help, I don't buy it. I think Linux has proven that you can run an operating system on a very diverse set of hardware (that is, the same hardware Windows runs on) and be entirely stable enough to run for months without issue (Windows has gotten there, for the most part). OS X is stable not because there are only 3 pieces of hardware it runs on, but because it was well designed and well built, based on a stable and mature architecture (BSD). It's perfectly stable (from what I hear) when installed on generic Intel computers that it was never designed for.
Besides, what does OS X run on? It runs on Powerbooks, the Minis, PowerMacs, iMacs, iBooks, and the G4 Cube, and more. Each of those has numerous different revisions (often amazingly different, as the difference between a G4 PowerMac and a G5 PowerMac, or a 12" Aluminum Powerbook and a 15" MacBook Pro). In the year I have owned a PowerBook there have been 3 revisions, along with the MacBook Pro. That's one year, one computer line. Not including the different sizes (12", 15", 17").
When will people stop blaming OS X's stability on the hardware. When will they start to blame it on good design. Give Apple a fair shake.
Besides, if the hardware thing was true, OS 8 and OS 9 should have been MUCH MORE stable because they only ran on those few pieces of Apple hardware, while Windows XP should be much LESS stable because it runs on so many million different types of computers.
More interesting though, is that many of his own top generals and officials didn't know this. They thought he did have the weapons up until nearly the very end.
Sadam wanted everyone to think he had those weapons. And he did one hell of a job convincing the world. Ironic that it lead to his downfall (we would have had a hard time going in and removing him without that, even though he still needed to be removed).
It's a good thing, no doubt, I just think the article is making far too much of it.
If the article point is that this is what's helping the 360 win the next-gen race right now... that's stupid. It's the only next-gen console out. It is currently winning by default.
The ability to play PopCap style games on an XBox 360 isn't going to give them a big advantage in the console race. No one will buy a $400 console just to play $5 games. Besides, Sony will be selling PSOne games to play on the PSP, how much you want to be they'll let you play them on your PS3? They could easily do the same with PS2 games. Plus there is nothing stopping them from offering the same thing.
Nintendo will let you download and play GB/GBA/NES/SNES/N64/GC games, so they can compete on that front easily. Plus, again, they could have new PopCap style games as well.
This is great. Am I the only one who thinks that ICANN needs a serious blow to the side of the head to get things back in order? I remember paying $100 for a .com a few years ago when there was no choice of registrars. Now they are like $7. Here comes "inflation."
Man: If I give you $5, will you use it to get drunk?
Bum: No
Man: Will you use it to go gambling?
Bum: No
Man: Will you come home with me so I can show my wife what happens to people who don't drink and gamble?
In all seriousness, I don't care. I'd prefer that they just legalize gambling online, through US sites only. And can't this bill be challenged as overriding states rights (right to permit/outlaw gambling)?
As for other games, I adored Pikmin, and the sequel was great (but not as good, the dungeon crawling got very tiresome). MarioKart Double Dash was a blast, as was Mario Golf: Toldstool Tour. Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door had a great story and was a blast, Viewtiful Joe was terrifically original, and the sequel was very good. Both of those can be set to be extraordinarily difficult if you want a challenge. Super Smash Brothers Melee was fun (especially if you can get more people to play with). F-Zero GX was fun. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was an amazing game (I hadn't played the original yet).
Animal Crossing will suck an amazing amount of your time up (I didn't like the DS version though), and Mario Sunshine was fun (but it was no Mario 64 or Super Mario World). Luigi's Mansion was fun (give it a rent, or buy it cheap).
On top of that, most any cross-platform game you can think of has been on the 'Cube, along with a few others. There is always stuff like Donkey Konga too (fun).
My understanding was you got a linux "manual", and the documentation on the Emotion Engine and other chips in the PS2, and left to do it all yourself.
I'm looking for libraries to manage all that and good documention on them.
By limiting it like that, they don't run any risks of piracy (same kind of thing they did with running PS2 Linux on top of a managed microkernel), but they foster development (hold contests!), good will, and people gaining skills.
I've asked for something like this with the Revolution on /. and was replied by someone "in the know" that I could be "assured" that Nintendo would be doing this. Either way, I would love it.
Now I've never heard of that European tax (very interesting), but giving people the ability to develop on it would go a long way to proving it was not just a game machine.
That said, wouldn't all Sony's "you can use it as a DVR and home media server and PSP dock and...." be enough to dodge the "video game machine" tax?