Yes, I used shoes in my reply the parent post as well. Shoes are one of the best examples of where generic brands are not only far inferior, but can actually be very harmful to your health.
But as far as frosted flakes go, are you sure you are not confusing familiar preference with actual quality? The taste and texture of things is a tricky thing to evaluate because it is not only subjective, but fairly persistent. You have to try to like something you don't like for quite a while before a true evaluation can be made. Nine times out of ten, if you really do try to like something for a long enough period of time, you will learn to enjoy the taste of it, and you'll find that trying your old favorite no longer tastes right. This is true of drastic things, such as learning to like an entire style of food preperation. So I find it hard to believe that such a minimal difference as generic or Kellogg's brand flakes is impossible to adjust to.
That's a good point. I've found the sweet spot for wines is around $10-$15. There are exceptions. I had a $20 dollar bottle once that was clearly superior to anything I've ever had. I've also had a $5.00 that was damn near as good, though. But there are a lot of really good wines within the bracket I mentioned.
But yes, Oregon and Washington have some really good quality vineyards. Plus it feels good to support the local market. I'll prefer that over a marginal increase in quality any day.
Windex to me smells like it has some ammonia based agent in it. There is/was a vinegar based Windex that came out in the early 90's. It had a substantially different smell, much less "harsh" in my opinion. The original version of this was green. I have no idea if they still sell it. Clear windows is just about the last thing on my list since I generally keep them shuttered.
With most commodity items, you are correct. Where things tend to deviate is in the luxury market. Often it is best, if you can afford it of course, to bridge the gap between high consumer brand and low luxury brand. While the gap is usually fairly large price wise, so also is the quality difference. For instance, a $60 pair of Sony headphones is generally not going to be significantly better than a $15 pair at RadioShack. But if you go all out and spend a few hundred on a really good pair of Sennheisers or Etymotics, there is a huge difference in quality, in nearly ever aspect. However, once you bridge that gap, within the luxury market itself, the same rules apply as within the commodity market. For $2,500 you can get a limited edition pair of leather coated Audio Technica headphones. Is the sound and build quality really going to be that much better than the $400 Sennheisers? No. But both will leave the $60 Sonys and $15 Kosses in the dust.
Of course this isn't true with all things. It mainly holds true to things that are difficult to make well. Things like sunglasses, shirts, and bread are most often the victims of extreme over-pricing by name brands, and even worse by fashion designers. Other things like shoes, watches, and stereo components are actually difficult to make, and going the extra mile to buy a "lifetime" quality level item can be worth the cost. In the case of some things like shoes, it can even prevent injury.
With food, there are very few foods where cost generally does mean a great deal. There are specialty foods. Things like wine, fine cheeses, and other luxury foods. Most "staple" foods, that being the things you eat every day, are merely a case of familiarity, as you said. A classic example is soy or rice milk as opposed to dairy milk. The main reason hardly anyone stays with the non-dairy alternatives, despite their obvious benefits, is that they are just too used to the taste of dairy milk to tolerate anything else in their cereal. In truth, if you give yourself a good six or twelve months of complete dairy abstinence, switching back from rice or soy will find the milkd tasting repulsive.
I probably already well exceed that quota. I spend about $40 - $70 in CDs every week, and not a single penny of that goes towards the RIAA.
Good idea though, as long as the spending towards the RIAA stops, no matter how much you like the artist. I've had to stop listening to a number of artists since I stopped several years ago. I don't really regret it either. I've found entire new genres that appeal to me as a result.
Okay, as long as you are applying human philosophy to your question: The same reason people travel to under-developed countries to help them out / study them / exploit them / et cetera. Or maybe it was just a scout mission and they made a single entry in their logbooks before they crashed, that said: "Mostly Harmless."
The percentage of people who feel that way from all of the people who download it and use it would be very small. The reason I don't consider it to be a killer app is because it is not an integral application. It is a peripheral toy. Why would the average user throw away all of the software they currently own just for a music player, when there are plenty of good music players already for Windows, including iTunes? I suppose if these people bought no software and just used Notepad and Calculator it wouldn't be that big of a deal to switch next time.
I'll grant it is a possibility, but I do not think it is a very big one. See, the whole "killer app" mentality really applies in its strongest sense to geeks. They are the ones who are willing to go to bizarre tech platforms for the sake of a powerful application. Back before Maya was ported everywhere -- geeks would be happy to learn IRIX for the benefit of such an application. Geeks are the ones who own several different platforms because each platform has something unique that they need. But the average user doesn't want to dive in to new pools. They've already spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out some needlessly complex system, and it would take a very large incentive to get them to move away from what they are already comfortable with, and have already invested all of their money in. A dinky little music player, no matter how "groovy" looking or whatever, is just not going to be that pull, especially now that it is available on both the major platforms.
How is this a killer app if it is ported to the mainstream? I thought the definition of a killer app was something so good it brought people to a different set of technology regardless of where the major forces in said technology type lay. In other words, iTunes *might* have been a killer app when it was on OS X only, but now that it is on Windows, it is no longer a killer app for all but a very small minority of fringe operating system users.
A common example of a killer app would be The Gimp before it got ported to Windows. That is an application that brought many people to installing Linux as a desktop alternative back in the mid to late nineties.
Anyway, I remain unconvinced of iTunes awesomeness. Maybe I just don't get the whole Simplicity-is-best thing. I think the iTunes player stinks compared to the competition, and literally nothing in the Apple Music Store excites me enough to purchase it.
No no, the 4ML is does not. To get the capability of printing from multiple platforms, you had to purchase a separate device, the JetDirect print server, which is about the size of a small hub, and hook that into the printer. It serves as a simple print server. One jack for the wall and three jacks for the printers.
I am not sure what OS the device was using, though. Probably a *BSD variant. I am positive that it uses CUPS though, because you can also log in to the device using FTP and transfer your print files straight to it. The login message when you do this gave the queue software used and the version. I was surprised when I tried FTP, too. I don't remember what posessed me to even try. I might have portscanned it out of curiosity and noticed the FTP port open. Pretty neat.
Anyway, sorry I misunderstood your original post about it being Linux specific. In all likelyhood, our setup did not have Linux involved anywhere between the OS X computers and the HP printer. This is working off of two years of memory so I might have some details wrong. We've since upgraded to an HP 4300 series printer that has much more advanced network capability built into the printer. It even supports AppleTalk printer broadcast, and some of the people in the office have been using that with X just fine, as well as TCP/IP.
Then you are far, far more tolerant of interface lag than most people. That is fine. A lot of Mac people have magically become tolerant of lag ever since they forgot how fast System 9 runs. People who regularly hop platforms do notice the difference though. The difference between Final Cut 3 on 9 and X with an 867 G4 is laughable.
Anyway, I believe the comparison was between five year old computers, which the G4 400 is not. Have you played with X on a modern G5 yet? Your G4 is not just as responsive. You just feel it is because you are used to it.
The point was that XP widgets are very efficient. Just as fast in a five year old computer as a new computer. Your original assertion was that XP widgets are slower than X widgets, which is absurd. Have you even seen X in a first generation G3? I have, it's bad.
The very conception that windowing system widgets need to be run on the graphics card is just yet another sign of brainwashed Mac users.
I see it the other way around. It is sad that modern operating systems are being compared with increasingly ancient ones and found wanting. Sometimes old features get resurrected. I bet you aren't sad the NeXT crowd never quite shut up, are you? Good things can from the past.
Don't worry. This update is not life-or-death important. OS 10.2.8 has most of the older big bugs ironed out. Unless there is some very specific feature of 10.3 you need, such as Microsoft Exchange interface, your computer lab will exist just fine on 10.2.
Except that you don't pronounce it as "ecks." At least, unless you do not wish to look like a dork. It is version 10, X being the Roman numeral for ten. If you select "About This Mac..." from the Apple menu, it says Mac OS X \ Version 10.2.8. Not Mac OS Xv2 A.K.A. Jaguar.
You sound like a Star Trek fan trying to explain a plot hole by using data that never existed in the Star Trek universe.
Hmm, not sure about that one. For several years we used an old HP 4ML that was hooked into the network with a Jet Direct device. To my knowledge, these devices use CUPS for queuing. Never had any garbling issues with the Macs that wasn't an application/user error.
What are you talking about? XP Widgets blow Cocoa widgets out of the water -- on five year old computers. Hack X onto a first generation beige G3 and weep. I run XP on a 400mhz P2 from that same era and it perhaps boots a little slower than my modern computer, but interface wise, it is just as snappy. OS X just barely runs adequately on six month old computers. Go back further and everything runs like a slug. Video card handling it or not.
The metal stuff is just preference. Personally I think it looks silly. Everyone went through a brushed metal phase, most people got it out of their system in the late 90s. Next to the clean and simplistic striped white interface, it looks just as icky as classic applications riding along in my opinion. And while it was originally limited to applications where it kind of made sense to make it look metal, Apple now uses it for positively everything, whether it makes sense to or not. There even used to be style guidelines about this for developers to follow -- unfortunately now that Apple has broken all of their own consistency rules -- I expect a dirth of mindlessly tag-along in the shareware/freeware community.
Clicking one of the windows in the background brings only that window to the foreground...
You get used to it, and once you do it is actually an improvement. It allows for more operation between applications without mousing around; just eyeballing. It's one of those preference things. Actually I spend most of my time in the Linux world where all applications act that way. Each window is its own thing, so I was used to it before. I always despised how Pre-X Macintoshes felt the need to bring *everything* to the foreground when all you need to do was select one part of the application for reference.
If you need to see them all at once, that is easy. Just tap the application icon in the dock. This is easier than Pre-X as all of the icons are lined up and visible instead of hidden in the Process Menu in the upper right corner. How is this any more difficult? It is one single click. Even clicking on the corner of a submerged app in Pre-X was just one click. You still have the old Option-Click to hide a foreground application and all of its windows, as well.
I'll take freedom of choice over the OS deciding what is best for you, any day.
Also, what happened to my Apple menu?
I haven't missed it in the slightest. I never liked it much to begin with. I always augmented Pre-X with DragThing. Justification? Everyone is difference. I never used it, so it was a waste of space for me. It doesn't require justification; there is no way to justify personal preference.
Some of the sluggishness may be due to the fact that I have a number of background processes running that most users probably do without (sendmail, mysql, to name a couple).
Now that is a valid gripe that I sympathize with. I think Apple dropped the ball big-time on performance. They fell prey to the whole ReleaseNow FixLater disease -- and they are still fixing it. I hear 10.3 will *finally* have a responsive interface, but I remain dubious of that until I see it. They said the same thing about 10.2, and while it was a marginal increase in performance it was still far, far beneath the level of performance one expects from mere widgets. I am not even exaggerating when I say that my Palm Pilot is more responsive than my one year old Macintosh. Oh and by the way, it isn't the background processes you listed. I run that kind of stuff on Linux as well and it in no way impacts the performance of the UI. I mean, unless you are using your TIBook for a corporate webserver. It's all the interface that is sluggish. The interface and sloppy networking issues (that have thankfully mostly been resolved in later patches.)
the mouse moves MUCH faster in OS 9
I don't know if I would say much faster, but it might be a little faster. Mouse speed has always been intolerably slow on Macintoshes, especially if you use a decent monitor and/or multiple heads. Just about the funniest thing you'll ever see is something trying to get the mouse from three 1600x1200 screens over with the default Mac (either Pre or X) mouse speeds. Fortunatley most mice manufacturer's have their own device software that includes reasonable speed settings. No professional should be using the stock Mac mice anyway. If you are stuck with one, or have to use the trackpad, there are hacks floating around that let you adjust the speed above Apple's artificial limitation.
And what about keyboard shortcuts?
I'm not sure what you are talking about here. If anything X is way more keyboard friendly. You might be running into a few differences. Keys have been juggled around a bit for whatever reason. You can do way more with the keyboard though. Even access menu items. It's not quite up to par with Windows on that score, but much better than it used to be. This is probably because you only used it for an hour. Like any system, the keyboard shortcuts are something you get used to after the first hour of usage.
Honestly I never much cared for the Finder. I grew up w
Uh, except that the media did not change in your second example, and it did change in the first. I rather highly doubt that Britannica was selling a CD-ROM version of the encyclopedia 25 years ago, so you are obviously referring to the full printed publication, which in case you haven't seen one lately, is very Huge, lavishly hardbound, and printed on high quality paper. The cost for them to transfer the data to a CD is minimal in comparison to that. $25 wouldn't even cover the shipping charges of the printed set.
Secondly, you need to adjust your $12 figure (if that is even correct) for inflation. Most of the CDs I buy are around $12-$15, which means they have gone down in price. Not a whole lot, but neither has the fundamental process of producing a CD really changed that much in constrast with an etext distribution compared with a print distribution.
No, it is a combnation of the words unique, queue, and quick. Microsloffic is promising that this new system will enable them to meet the needs and solutions of demanding sheepsumers who require queueable quick unique customizations for their optimizable browising exprintiance.
Not likely. The telecomms are somehow in on all of this with the telemarketers. How else do you think they are getting unlisted cell numbers and immunity from using wardialers? I doubt the amount of money the telecomms could bring in for any protection scheme would equal the amount in payoffs the marketers are providing.
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But as far as frosted flakes go, are you sure you are not confusing familiar preference with actual quality? The taste and texture of things is a tricky thing to evaluate because it is not only subjective, but fairly persistent. You have to try to like something you don't like for quite a while before a true evaluation can be made. Nine times out of ten, if you really do try to like something for a long enough period of time, you will learn to enjoy the taste of it, and you'll find that trying your old favorite no longer tastes right. This is true of drastic things, such as learning to like an entire style of food preperation. So I find it hard to believe that such a minimal difference as generic or Kellogg's brand flakes is impossible to adjust to.
But yes, Oregon and Washington have some really good quality vineyards. Plus it feels good to support the local market. I'll prefer that over a marginal increase in quality any day.
Windex to me smells like it has some ammonia based agent in it. There is/was a vinegar based Windex that came out in the early 90's. It had a substantially different smell, much less "harsh" in my opinion. The original version of this was green. I have no idea if they still sell it. Clear windows is just about the last thing on my list since I generally keep them shuttered.
Of course this isn't true with all things. It mainly holds true to things that are difficult to make well. Things like sunglasses, shirts, and bread are most often the victims of extreme over-pricing by name brands, and even worse by fashion designers. Other things like shoes, watches, and stereo components are actually difficult to make, and going the extra mile to buy a "lifetime" quality level item can be worth the cost. In the case of some things like shoes, it can even prevent injury.
With food, there are very few foods where cost generally does mean a great deal. There are specialty foods. Things like wine, fine cheeses, and other luxury foods. Most "staple" foods, that being the things you eat every day, are merely a case of familiarity, as you said. A classic example is soy or rice milk as opposed to dairy milk. The main reason hardly anyone stays with the non-dairy alternatives, despite their obvious benefits, is that they are just too used to the taste of dairy milk to tolerate anything else in their cereal. In truth, if you give yourself a good six or twelve months of complete dairy abstinence, switching back from rice or soy will find the milkd tasting repulsive.
Good idea though, as long as the spending towards the RIAA stops, no matter how much you like the artist. I've had to stop listening to a number of artists since I stopped several years ago. I don't really regret it either. I've found entire new genres that appeal to me as a result.
Praise Bob!
Okay, as long as you are applying human philosophy to your question: The same reason people travel to under-developed countries to help them out / study them / exploit them / et cetera. Or maybe it was just a scout mission and they made a single entry in their logbooks before they crashed, that said: "Mostly Harmless."
BZZZTTT!! Wrong. What you meant to type was, ""
I'll grant it is a possibility, but I do not think it is a very big one. See, the whole "killer app" mentality really applies in its strongest sense to geeks. They are the ones who are willing to go to bizarre tech platforms for the sake of a powerful application. Back before Maya was ported everywhere -- geeks would be happy to learn IRIX for the benefit of such an application. Geeks are the ones who own several different platforms because each platform has something unique that they need. But the average user doesn't want to dive in to new pools. They've already spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out some needlessly complex system, and it would take a very large incentive to get them to move away from what they are already comfortable with, and have already invested all of their money in. A dinky little music player, no matter how "groovy" looking or whatever, is just not going to be that pull, especially now that it is available on both the major platforms.
I think that would be in the same category as Canada's CN Tower, which is still the tallest structure in the world.
Where is the registry setting for that option? I have been looking postively everywhere for that!
A common example of a killer app would be The Gimp before it got ported to Windows. That is an application that brought many people to installing Linux as a desktop alternative back in the mid to late nineties.
Anyway, I remain unconvinced of iTunes awesomeness. Maybe I just don't get the whole Simplicity-is-best thing. I think the iTunes player stinks compared to the competition, and literally nothing in the Apple Music Store excites me enough to purchase it.
I am not sure what OS the device was using, though. Probably a *BSD variant. I am positive that it uses CUPS though, because you can also log in to the device using FTP and transfer your print files straight to it. The login message when you do this gave the queue software used and the version. I was surprised when I tried FTP, too. I don't remember what posessed me to even try. I might have portscanned it out of curiosity and noticed the FTP port open. Pretty neat.
Anyway, sorry I misunderstood your original post about it being Linux specific. In all likelyhood, our setup did not have Linux involved anywhere between the OS X computers and the HP printer. This is working off of two years of memory so I might have some details wrong. We've since upgraded to an HP 4300 series printer that has much more advanced network capability built into the printer. It even supports AppleTalk printer broadcast, and some of the people in the office have been using that with X just fine, as well as TCP/IP.
Anyway, I believe the comparison was between five year old computers, which the G4 400 is not. Have you played with X on a modern G5 yet? Your G4 is not just as responsive. You just feel it is because you are used to it.
The point was that XP widgets are very efficient. Just as fast in a five year old computer as a new computer. Your original assertion was that XP widgets are slower than X widgets, which is absurd. Have you even seen X in a first generation G3? I have, it's bad.
The very conception that windowing system widgets need to be run on the graphics card is just yet another sign of brainwashed Mac users.
That wouldn't make the iPod very marketable.
I see it the other way around. It is sad that modern operating systems are being compared with increasingly ancient ones and found wanting. Sometimes old features get resurrected. I bet you aren't sad the NeXT crowd never quite shut up, are you? Good things can from the past.
Don't worry. This update is not life-or-death important. OS 10.2.8 has most of the older big bugs ironed out. Unless there is some very specific feature of 10.3 you need, such as Microsoft Exchange interface, your computer lab will exist just fine on 10.2.
You sound like a Star Trek fan trying to explain a plot hole by using data that never existed in the Star Trek universe.
Hmm, not sure about that one. For several years we used an old HP 4ML that was hooked into the network with a Jet Direct device. To my knowledge, these devices use CUPS for queuing. Never had any garbling issues with the Macs that wasn't an application/user error.
The metal stuff is just preference. Personally I think it looks silly. Everyone went through a brushed metal phase, most people got it out of their system in the late 90s. Next to the clean and simplistic striped white interface, it looks just as icky as classic applications riding along in my opinion. And while it was originally limited to applications where it kind of made sense to make it look metal, Apple now uses it for positively everything, whether it makes sense to or not. There even used to be style guidelines about this for developers to follow -- unfortunately now that Apple has broken all of their own consistency rules -- I expect a dirth of mindlessly tag-along in the shareware/freeware community.
You get used to it, and once you do it is actually an improvement. It allows for more operation between applications without mousing around; just eyeballing. It's one of those preference things. Actually I spend most of my time in the Linux world where all applications act that way. Each window is its own thing, so I was used to it before. I always despised how Pre-X Macintoshes felt the need to bring *everything* to the foreground when all you need to do was select one part of the application for reference.
If you need to see them all at once, that is easy. Just tap the application icon in the dock. This is easier than Pre-X as all of the icons are lined up and visible instead of hidden in the Process Menu in the upper right corner. How is this any more difficult? It is one single click. Even clicking on the corner of a submerged app in Pre-X was just one click. You still have the old Option-Click to hide a foreground application and all of its windows, as well.
I'll take freedom of choice over the OS deciding what is best for you, any day.
Also, what happened to my Apple menu?
I haven't missed it in the slightest. I never liked it much to begin with. I always augmented Pre-X with DragThing. Justification? Everyone is difference. I never used it, so it was a waste of space for me. It doesn't require justification; there is no way to justify personal preference.
Some of the sluggishness may be due to the fact that I have a number of background processes running that most users probably do without (sendmail, mysql, to name a couple).
Now that is a valid gripe that I sympathize with. I think Apple dropped the ball big-time on performance. They fell prey to the whole ReleaseNow FixLater disease -- and they are still fixing it. I hear 10.3 will *finally* have a responsive interface, but I remain dubious of that until I see it. They said the same thing about 10.2, and while it was a marginal increase in performance it was still far, far beneath the level of performance one expects from mere widgets. I am not even exaggerating when I say that my Palm Pilot is more responsive than my one year old Macintosh. Oh and by the way, it isn't the background processes you listed. I run that kind of stuff on Linux as well and it in no way impacts the performance of the UI. I mean, unless you are using your TIBook for a corporate webserver. It's all the interface that is sluggish. The interface and sloppy networking issues (that have thankfully mostly been resolved in later patches.)
the mouse moves MUCH faster in OS 9
I don't know if I would say much faster, but it might be a little faster. Mouse speed has always been intolerably slow on Macintoshes, especially if you use a decent monitor and/or multiple heads. Just about the funniest thing you'll ever see is something trying to get the mouse from three 1600x1200 screens over with the default Mac (either Pre or X) mouse speeds. Fortunatley most mice manufacturer's have their own device software that includes reasonable speed settings. No professional should be using the stock Mac mice anyway. If you are stuck with one, or have to use the trackpad, there are hacks floating around that let you adjust the speed above Apple's artificial limitation.
And what about keyboard shortcuts? I'm not sure what you are talking about here. If anything X is way more keyboard friendly. You might be running into a few differences. Keys have been juggled around a bit for whatever reason. You can do way more with the keyboard though. Even access menu items. It's not quite up to par with Windows on that score, but much better than it used to be. This is probably because you only used it for an hour. Like any system, the keyboard shortcuts are something you get used to after the first hour of usage.
Honestly I never much cared for the Finder. I grew up w
Secondly, you need to adjust your $12 figure (if that is even correct) for inflation. Most of the CDs I buy are around $12-$15, which means they have gone down in price. Not a whole lot, but neither has the fundamental process of producing a CD really changed that much in constrast with an etext distribution compared with a print distribution.
No, it is a combnation of the words unique, queue, and quick. Microsloffic is promising that this new system will enable them to meet the needs and solutions of demanding sheepsumers who require queueable quick unique customizations for their optimizable browising exprintiance.
Not likely. The telecomms are somehow in on all of this with the telemarketers. How else do you think they are getting unlisted cell numbers and immunity from using wardialers? I doubt the amount of money the telecomms could bring in for any protection scheme would equal the amount in payoffs the marketers are providing.
Nightmares of the Christmas Special!