People here are not understanding what's going on here. Customers are trying to buy cheap hardware on eBay rather than buying new hardware directly from the company in question. Now that the bubble has burst and all of this excess hardware has flooded the grey market, everyone wants a good deal on equipment.
So, a company like Cisco has two options: 1. Go out of business because you're not selling any new product, or 2. Drive up the cost of maintenance contracts on the used hardware to force your customers to buy new hardware regardless.
I work for a large computer manufacturer that sold a ton of equipment during the dot com boom. Now the grey-market guys are competing directly against us. The problem with the grey market guys is that they will buy the hardware at an auction, then refurbish it on their own. Lots of times they will put non-standard parts in the boxes (hard drives and other components that are not approved configurations or tested equipment), then package the server up and sell it on eBay. When the customer buys the box from them, and they want to roll it into their existing service contract, we say "Fine, we'll support your box, but first it must be recertified, and by the way it costs $250 an hour to do the recertification, plus the full retail price of any parts that need to be replaced because they're not up to spec."
Usually the customer will get burned once or twice and realize that the cheap $1000 box they bought off eBay just ended up costing them $5000 just to recertify it because the grey market reseller put hard drives in it that weren't approved, plus whatever the standard maintenance costs are, and they won't buy grey market gear any more.
It's just a way of companies protecting their revenue streams. They're not going to encourage you to buy shoddy hardware off the grey market and then replace all of your bad parts for free under your maintenance agreement, are they?
Another thing that is quite common with the high-end Cisco and other type of gear is that a grey market reseller will buy a lot of gear that was damaged, like say in WTC during 9/11. They will get one big router or server under maintenance, then load it up with bad parts. Call support and say "send someone onsite, this system is down." Well, support comes out and gladly replaces all the bad parts and gets them back up and running, then next week, the grey market reseller loads the box back up with more bad parts. Repeat ad infinitum, and get all new parts for free. We've had to revoke several maintenance agreements because of that.
Aahh... That sheds some light on the situation. It's too bad Apple couldn't have just paid the MPEG2 encoder license for every copy of OS X sold, but I guess that would have meant every iBook and G3 that can't even run iDVD would have to pay the license fee as well. There's gotta be some crack or something for it available on the down low though... (xlr8yourmac.com or something)
I'm sorry, but IMO this is a ploy by Apple to sell more hardware. I have an external Firewire/USB 2.0 (Oxford 1911 chipset) Pioneer DVR-A105 on my PC and it works great. I can use any DVD burning application in exactly the same manner as I would if it were an internal drive.
Also, in tests I've run, the CPU utilization using an external burner is much lower due to the fact that when you're using an internal burner, your IDE bus uses CPU cycles to handle reads/writes. When you're using Firewire, those writes are passed off to the Oxford chipset and offloaded from your main CPU.
Burning a DVD using RecordNowMAX with an internal drive uses about 7-10% of my CPU on an Athlon XP 1700, where using the external burner my CPU useage averaged only 2-3%, just barely above idle.
Not to mention another advantage of an external burner: It's not tied to one computer. I don't need to spend an extra $200 for every computer in my house. Want to burn a DVD or backup some data off of the computer in the next room, no problem. Have a friend that wants to burn a DVD but doesn't have a burner? Just bring it over to his house one day.
All of these advantages mean that an external burner is far better than an internal one. The fact that Apple put a limitation in iDVD that doesn't allow burning with any external burners just means they want to force you to buy more hardware from them. I don't like limitations like that. Anyone know of a way to hack iDVD to allow external burners?
I suppose I could write some nice scripts to do all that, but it would just as complex as meta* given the wildly varying configurations I use.. lately I've been going from the "commands.log" files of similar installations I did under Solaris 8 and tweaking it as appropriate.
DiskSuite 4.2.1, or SVM as it is known in Solaris 9 works exactly the same as it has in Solaris 8 and previous versions. Use the same commands to set it up and you should be fine.
They were identical fresh Solaris 9 installs -- one duped (ufsdump | ufsrestore) from the other and sys-unconfig'd to the new hostname, even!
This is not the appropriate way to duplicate a Solaris install. Use flash copy. If you're not sure how to use it, do a "man flarcreate". I think your ufsdump | ufsrestore trick probably left some hostid or mac address specific configuration information behind.
Sorry, I can't take any of your arguments seriously until you learn basic spelling and grammar. Tords? That isn't even a word. I think you meant towards.
I'm normally not a spelling/grammar nazi, but after reading your comment it's obvious that you haven't done very much actual reading.
Great interview! I'd just like to point out one section where it seems that the attorney answering these questions is still out of touch with the realities of the "damage" that is being caused by IP infringement:
The value of the copyrighted material on servers like this is frequently in the millions of dollars. Factor in the number of times those titles are distributed over the Internet, and the damage amounts skyrocket. The sentencing structure reflects this harm.
I think the DOJ attorneys are still failing to realize that the number of times a copyrighted work is duplicated (or downloaded) is in no way indicative of the number of times it would sell for full retail price in a store. They need to accomodate the fact that 99% of those downloading an infringing work would _not_ buy that work under normal circumstances, so it is _not_ a sale lost by the copyright owner. The vast majority of those downloading or illegally duplicating pirated works are college students that couldn't afford a $500 software package in the first place. They just want to be able to try the software and learn it so they can be ready to enter the workforce with the skills necessary to succeed in today's competitive job market.
I should also mention at this point that piracy actually helps a lot of large software corporations by creating a market for software where none existed in the past. Take Microsoft for example. Microsoft has actively encouraged piracy of their products in the past and it has been a huge success for them. By encouraging piracy, you get your products into the hands of early adopters and the techno-elite who will be making purchasing decisions for their corporations, thereby directly buying more product from you at a higher price.
I'd be willing to bet that the prevelance of MS Windows + MS Office as a desktop standard is the direct result of pirated versions of MS Windows + MS Office that were used on a technology decision maker's home computer, and when he decided on an Office platform for his work he just happened to choose the one that he was "most familiar" with.
Take Adobe Photoshop as another example (another one of the most widely pirated pieces of software out there). Any coincidence that their market share is due in large part to college students that just "happened upon" a free copy and took their Photoshop skills with them out into the workforce after college?
The college students of today will be the executives and corporate decision makers of tomorrow, and every executive knows that you can't use pirated software on your work machines. The few dollars lost to the college students that infringe on copyrights now will be more than made up for by the millions in sales in coming years when those people are in the work force.
I'm all for using the might of the DOJ to punish counterfeiters and organized crime rings that are profiting from other's copyrighted works, but let's leave the poor college students alone. The bottom line should be "if you don't profit from someone elses work, there is no infringement."
Hey, that's a neat hack, although with el-cheapo Apex DVD players only costing $40 at Walmart that play DVD, VCD, SVCD, MP3, JPG, MPEG, etc., it's probably easier to just buy a cheap DVD player for every set in your house.
My Sony 40" Trinitron (40KV-XBR800) has DVI input, as do most hi-definition sets manufactured in the last few years.
IMO, you would be foolish to buy a new HDTV without DVI-HDCP as most set-top boxes are moving to this format as a method of copy protection (encrypting the signal between the set-top box and your TV in order to eliminate video capture and upload to the net).
When this thing is offered in the USA with Macrovision disabled, all regions playable at any time, and no forced chapters, then I'll whip out my VISA and buy one. But not until then.
If you're worried about Macrovision then this product isn't for you. Macrovision only affects analog outputs. Why would you pay extra for a DVD player with DVI output if your TV doesn't have DVI input capability?
It's funny how even if the manufacturers don't bother to encrypt the DVI output with HDCP, I can't think of a solution that will capture a raw, uncompressed DVI video stream to disk. You would need an insane amount of SCSI RAID storage in order to do it. If I remember correctly it's something like hundreds of megabytes per second of data in a 1080i feed. But, I guess this time the manufacturers aren't waiting for technology to outflank the content industry (see RIAA for examples of this;-)
The real question is: How good is the scaling algorithm that's used on these? I've seen 480p upscaled to 1080i and the quality is amazing if done properly! It almost makes those regular DVDs look like hi-def. As a matter of fact, looking at 1080i scaled from 480p on the new Terminator 2 DVD and comparing it to the WMP9 version, there were screen captures that were hard to tell apart.
So, has anyone evaluated these units, and is the scaling as good as D-Scaler, or a Faroudja scaler? I might be interested in buying one if they're only a couple of hundred dollars and I don't have to have an HTPC whirring away in my living room.
I thought 2.6 was suppose to have crashdump support?
Say it isn't so! A feature that commercial Unix has had for years isn't yet implemented in Linux?
Folks, when those Ask Slashdot questions come up that sound like "why doesn't everyone switch from commercial Unix to Linux right now? Unix suxxx.... Linux r0x0rz!!!"
Actually, the ad campaign is directed at IBM's Unix efforts, not it's Linux efforts. AIX is one of Sun's primary competitors. But I guess this is Slashdot, and competing fairly in a tough marketplace is verboten.
I'm sure that refusing to buy the one original Sparcstation 5 on Ebay that you could afford with the $20 in loose change you scrounged out of the decaying couch in your dorm room will really hurt Sun...:-) Scott Mcnealy better send his top sales monkeys by your college straight away!
Before you read too much into this, you should read the article. Sun needed to purchase new licensing rights to some x86 drivers in order to run Solaris for Intel on their new Xeon servers. That's right, Sun now sells Xeon servers. These kind of licensing agreements happen all the time between companies that need hardware compatibility with the latest and greatest devices.
The last time I deployed I had just purchased a new laptop, and realized after I was enroute that Norton System Tools 2002 did not support the XP the system ran, so I tried to order Norton System Tools 2003.
That's your first problem... running Norton System Tools on Windows XP... quickest way to mess up your system yet. And talk about a resource hog...:-)
But in all seriousness, I would highly recommend NewEgg for all of your hardware/software purchasing needs. They are extremely reliable and have some of the best prices in the business. Also, their customer service is top notch and they will ship anything except a monitor larger than 19" to an APO address. No, I don't work for them, but I have built a bunch of computers from my friends and purchased everything from them. Once I even bought a GeForce 4ti4200 graphics card from them and it failed after about 8 months (shoddy capacitors leaked). Well, I sent it back to them and they had a brand new replacement card shipped to me in 2 days! It's worth the peace of mind just knowing that I can return anything I have problems with.
Because this case has the potential to rock the computing world unlike any other case in history. Think about what will happen if SCO's suit is found to be valid. What would happen if the suit was valid and major computing magazines gave it no coverage? They would not be caught with their pants down like that.
Wake up people. Those of us that live and work outside of the "Linux FUD bubble" that seems to exist here at Slashdot are putting a lot of stock in this case, and so should you. That's not to say that Linux won't easily recover and rewrite the sections of the code that are infringing, but IBM will probably be out of the AIX/Unix market for good.
Let's see here, they compare two cards that shouldn't compare in real life.
The GeForce card has:
* Twice as much memory (256 MB vs. 128MB) * More memory bandwidth (27 GB/s vs. 21 GB/s) * Faster memory (3 ns vs. 3.8 ns chips)
And the GeForce still got it's ass handed to it by the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, which, by the way, doesn't even need a leaf-blower attachment just to keep it from overheating!
Is anyone still buying Nvidia cards any more these days (other than the blindly trusting fanboys, that is)?
I already have these things (from my last system) so I just stole them, but lets see, if I had to buy them:
- $90 Digital In/Out MAudio sound card - $41 Gigabit Ethernet PCI card - $18.99 Firewire PCI card - $173.99 Pioneer DVR-105 4x DVD burner - Actually, did you see, I upgraded the memory to 1GB, 4 times as much as the entry level PowerMac. - Minimal warranty? The Dell has 3 years On-Site, next day service. The PowerMac only has 1 year of warranty service and you have to bring it into an Apple repair shop. You have to buy Applecare if you want a decent warranty.
So let's see, total all those things up and I still have a system that is only $1317.98.
With all of the same high-end features in your precious PowerMac. About $700 cheaper.
I'm not saying the PowerMac isn't a sweet machine, but please, the low-end model is a rip-off. Apple should have kept the low-end model at the same $1499 price point that the last entry level PowerMac was at. Then it would be a good deal.
If you're smart you buy a Dell using Coupons or other online deals. I got my system like this:
* Pentium 4-C 2.6 Ghz. Processor w/ 800 mhz. FSB (and hyperthreading) * 256 MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400 Mhz. * No Monitor * ATI RADEON 9800 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI * No Floppy Drive * Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition * On-board 100megabit ethernet * No Modem * Internal 16x DVD-ROM drive
Total price: $956.00 minus $200.00 mail-in rebate (already received it): $756.00
Added the following:
* IBM Hitach 120GB 8MB cache ATA-133 hard disk: $97.00 (newegg.com) * 2x Geil 512MB PC3200 DDR400 memory: $71.00 each, for a total of $141.00 (newegg.com)
So basically, I got 1 GB of DDR 400 memory and a 120GB fast hard disk.
Total price of upgrades: $238.00
Total price of system after upgrades: $994.00
That is one smoking system after upgrading it, and for less than $1000.00. Apple needs to compete with this on the low-end, at least. This system rocks for gaming, and can seriously challenge any Apple G5 workstation (except maybe the dual 2.0 ghz.) on the high end stuff.
I love Apple's OS X as well as their new G5 systems, but they need to compete better on the low-end, entry level. The high end they are doing really well at.
The G5's FSB is only dual-pumped, not quad pumped. A 2.0 ghz. G5 is actually running at 500 mhz. FSB dual pumped.
I also think IBM had stated earlier that they were fabricating 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 procs. They never mentioned 2.0 ghz., which is why the specs took everyone by surprise. Of course, Apple could be already overclocking them with the 9 fans they have cooling them.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone finds out that you can setenv an OpenBoot variable to bump up your FSB speed and thereby overclock the processor.
What he's saying you should do is build up a comparable 3.0 ghz. Dell Dimension 8300 (single proc box) and compare it to the $1999 1.6 ghz. G5. The Dell will completely blow it away.
The only exception I have in my policy is that I can't sue my employer (since it's partially funded by them). But I agree with the general sentiment of what you're saying. You're not going to get stellar service out of them, but what you will get is the ability for you to have a lawyer write a letter for you. This will cause 99% of the stupid RIAA type of harrassment to stop, once they realize you have an attorney working for you.
I haven't had to do this yet, but do you agree this might work?
When I started my current job, one of the optional benefits was prepaid legal service. Basically, I elect to have $15 taken out of my paycheck every month, and in case I need legal services, there is a network of attorneys around the country that will come to my defense. It is basically "legal insurance".
I don't do anything illegal, but if the RIAA ever came after me, it would be nice to know that I have my own cadre of legal professionals at my beck and call. I wouldn't have to just cave, I could actually have my lawyers stand up to them for once.
I would highly recommend that everyone get this. If it's not offered through the company you work for, you can still get it for about $20 a month. If you ever need to use it, it will be the best $20 you ever spent.
Slashdot Mirror
People here are not understanding what's going on here. Customers are trying to buy cheap hardware on eBay rather than buying new hardware directly from the company in question. Now that the bubble has burst and all of this excess hardware has flooded the grey market, everyone wants a good deal on equipment.
So, a company like Cisco has two options: 1. Go out of business because you're not selling any new product, or 2. Drive up the cost of maintenance contracts on the used hardware to force your customers to buy new hardware regardless.
I work for a large computer manufacturer that sold a ton of equipment during the dot com boom. Now the grey-market guys are competing directly against us. The problem with the grey market guys is that they will buy the hardware at an auction, then refurbish it on their own. Lots of times they will put non-standard parts in the boxes (hard drives and other components that are not approved configurations or tested equipment), then package the server up and sell it on eBay. When the customer buys the box from them, and they want to roll it into their existing service contract, we say "Fine, we'll support your box, but first it must be recertified, and by the way it costs $250 an hour to do the recertification, plus the full retail price of any parts that need to be replaced because they're not up to spec."
Usually the customer will get burned once or twice and realize that the cheap $1000 box they bought off eBay just ended up costing them $5000 just to recertify it because the grey market reseller put hard drives in it that weren't approved, plus whatever the standard maintenance costs are, and they won't buy grey market gear any more.
It's just a way of companies protecting their revenue streams. They're not going to encourage you to buy shoddy hardware off the grey market and then replace all of your bad parts for free under your maintenance agreement, are they?
Another thing that is quite common with the high-end Cisco and other type of gear is that a grey market reseller will buy a lot of gear that was damaged, like say in WTC during 9/11. They will get one big router or server under maintenance, then load it up with bad parts. Call support and say "send someone onsite, this system is down." Well, support comes out and gladly replaces all the bad parts and gets them back up and running, then next week, the grey market reseller loads the box back up with more bad parts. Repeat ad infinitum, and get all new parts for free. We've had to revoke several maintenance agreements because of that.
Aahh... That sheds some light on the situation. It's too bad Apple couldn't have just paid the MPEG2 encoder license for every copy of OS X sold, but I guess that would have meant every iBook and G3 that can't even run iDVD would have to pay the license fee as well. There's gotta be some crack or something for it available on the down low though... (xlr8yourmac.com or something)
Thanks for the info.
I'm sorry, but IMO this is a ploy by Apple to sell more hardware. I have an external Firewire/USB 2.0 (Oxford 1911 chipset) Pioneer DVR-A105 on my PC and it works great. I can use any DVD burning application in exactly the same manner as I would if it were an internal drive.
Also, in tests I've run, the CPU utilization using an external burner is much lower due to the fact that when you're using an internal burner, your IDE bus uses CPU cycles to handle reads/writes. When you're using Firewire, those writes are passed off to the Oxford chipset and offloaded from your main CPU.
Burning a DVD using RecordNowMAX with an internal drive uses about 7-10% of my CPU on an Athlon XP 1700, where using the external burner my CPU useage averaged only 2-3%, just barely above idle.
Not to mention another advantage of an external burner: It's not tied to one computer. I don't need to spend an extra $200 for every computer in my house. Want to burn a DVD or backup some data off of the computer in the next room, no problem. Have a friend that wants to burn a DVD but doesn't have a burner? Just bring it over to his house one day.
All of these advantages mean that an external burner is far better than an internal one. The fact that Apple put a limitation in iDVD that doesn't allow burning with any external burners just means they want to force you to buy more hardware from them. I don't like limitations like that. Anyone know of a way to hack iDVD to allow external burners?
I suppose I could write some nice scripts to do all that, but it would just as complex as meta* given the wildly varying configurations I use.. lately I've been going from the "commands.log" files of similar installations I did under Solaris 8 and tweaking it as appropriate.
DiskSuite 4.2.1, or SVM as it is known in Solaris 9 works exactly the same as it has in Solaris 8 and previous versions. Use the same commands to set it up and you should be fine.
They were identical fresh Solaris 9 installs -- one duped (ufsdump | ufsrestore) from the other and sys-unconfig'd to the new hostname, even!
This is not the appropriate way to duplicate a Solaris install. Use flash copy. If you're not sure how to use it, do a "man flarcreate". I think your ufsdump | ufsrestore trick probably left some hostid or mac address specific configuration information behind.
Sorry, I can't take any of your arguments seriously until you learn basic spelling and grammar. Tords? That isn't even a word. I think you meant towards.
I'm normally not a spelling/grammar nazi, but after reading your comment it's obvious that you haven't done very much actual reading.
Great interview! I'd just like to point out one section where it seems that the attorney answering these questions is still out of touch with the realities of the "damage" that is being caused by IP infringement:
The value of the copyrighted material on servers like this is frequently in the millions of dollars. Factor in the number of times those titles are distributed over the Internet, and the damage amounts skyrocket. The sentencing structure reflects this harm.
I think the DOJ attorneys are still failing to realize that the number of times a copyrighted work is duplicated (or downloaded) is in no way indicative of the number of times it would sell for full retail price in a store. They need to accomodate the fact that 99% of those downloading an infringing work would _not_ buy that work under normal circumstances, so it is _not_ a sale lost by the copyright owner. The vast majority of those downloading or illegally duplicating pirated works are college students that couldn't afford a $500 software package in the first place. They just want to be able to try the software and learn it so they can be ready to enter the workforce with the skills necessary to succeed in today's competitive job market.
I should also mention at this point that piracy actually helps a lot of large software corporations by creating a market for software where none existed in the past. Take Microsoft for example. Microsoft has actively encouraged piracy of their products in the past and it has been a huge success for them. By encouraging piracy, you get your products into the hands of early adopters and the techno-elite who will be making purchasing decisions for their corporations, thereby directly buying more product from you at a higher price.
I'd be willing to bet that the prevelance of MS Windows + MS Office as a desktop standard is the direct result of pirated versions of MS Windows + MS Office that were used on a technology decision maker's home computer, and when he decided on an Office platform for his work he just happened to choose the one that he was "most familiar" with.
Take Adobe Photoshop as another example (another one of the most widely pirated pieces of software out there). Any coincidence that their market share is due in large part to college students that just "happened upon" a free copy and took their Photoshop skills with them out into the workforce after college?
The college students of today will be the executives and corporate decision makers of tomorrow, and every executive knows that you can't use pirated software on your work machines. The few dollars lost to the college students that infringe on copyrights now will be more than made up for by the millions in sales in coming years when those people are in the work force.
I'm all for using the might of the DOJ to punish counterfeiters and organized crime rings that are profiting from other's copyrighted works, but let's leave the poor college students alone. The bottom line should be "if you don't profit from someone elses work, there is no infringement."
"intellectual property rights regime"
:-)
I never thought a DOJ prosecutor would put it so succinctly!
Hey, that's a neat hack, although with el-cheapo Apex DVD players only costing $40 at Walmart that play DVD, VCD, SVCD, MP3, JPG, MPEG, etc., it's probably easier to just buy a cheap DVD player for every set in your house.
My Sony 40" Trinitron (40KV-XBR800) has DVI input, as do most hi-definition sets manufactured in the last few years.
IMO, you would be foolish to buy a new HDTV without DVI-HDCP as most set-top boxes are moving to this format as a method of copy protection (encrypting the signal between the set-top box and your TV in order to eliminate video capture and upload to the net).
When this thing is offered in the USA with Macrovision disabled, all regions playable at any time, and no forced chapters, then I'll whip out my VISA and buy one. But not until then.
If you're worried about Macrovision then this product isn't for you. Macrovision only affects analog outputs. Why would you pay extra for a DVD player with DVI output if your TV doesn't have DVI input capability?
It's funny how even if the manufacturers don't bother to encrypt the DVI output with HDCP, I can't think of a solution that will capture a raw, uncompressed DVI video stream to disk. You would need an insane amount of SCSI RAID storage in order to do it. If I remember correctly it's something like hundreds of megabytes per second of data in a 1080i feed. But, I guess this time the manufacturers aren't waiting for technology to outflank the content industry (see RIAA for examples of this ;-)
The real question is: How good is the scaling algorithm that's used on these? I've seen 480p upscaled to 1080i and the quality is amazing if done properly! It almost makes those regular DVDs look like hi-def. As a matter of fact, looking at 1080i scaled from 480p on the new Terminator 2 DVD and comparing it to the WMP9 version, there were screen captures that were hard to tell apart.
So, has anyone evaluated these units, and is the scaling as good as D-Scaler, or a Faroudja scaler? I might be interested in buying one if they're only a couple of hundred dollars and I don't have to have an HTPC whirring away in my living room.
I thought 2.6 was suppose to have crashdump support?
Say it isn't so! A feature that commercial Unix has had for years isn't yet implemented in Linux?
Folks, when those Ask Slashdot questions come up that sound like "why doesn't everyone switch from commercial Unix to Linux right now? Unix suxxx.... Linux r0x0rz!!!"
This is why.
Actually, the ad campaign is directed at IBM's Unix efforts, not it's Linux efforts. AIX is one of Sun's primary competitors. But I guess this is Slashdot, and competing fairly in a tough marketplace is verboten.
:-) Scott Mcnealy better send his top sales monkeys by your college straight away!
I'm sure that refusing to buy the one original Sparcstation 5 on Ebay that you could afford with the $20 in loose change you scrounged out of the decaying couch in your dorm room will really hurt Sun...
Before you read too much into this, you should read the article. Sun needed to purchase new licensing rights to some x86 drivers in order to run Solaris for Intel on their new Xeon servers. That's right, Sun now sells Xeon servers. These kind of licensing agreements happen all the time between companies that need hardware compatibility with the latest and greatest devices.
The last time I deployed I had just purchased a new laptop, and realized after I was enroute that Norton System Tools 2002 did not support the XP the system ran, so I tried to order Norton System Tools 2003.
:-)
That's your first problem... running Norton System Tools on Windows XP... quickest way to mess up your system yet. And talk about a resource hog...
But in all seriousness, I would highly recommend NewEgg for all of your hardware/software purchasing needs. They are extremely reliable and have some of the best prices in the business. Also, their customer service is top notch and they will ship anything except a monitor larger than 19" to an APO address. No, I don't work for them, but I have built a bunch of computers from my friends and purchased everything from them. Once I even bought a GeForce 4ti4200 graphics card from them and it failed after about 8 months (shoddy capacitors leaked). Well, I sent it back to them and they had a brand new replacement card shipped to me in 2 days! It's worth the peace of mind just knowing that I can return anything I have problems with.
I can't say enough good things about them.
Because this case has the potential to rock the computing world unlike any other case in history. Think about what will happen if SCO's suit is found to be valid. What would happen if the suit was valid and major computing magazines gave it no coverage? They would not be caught with their pants down like that.
Wake up people. Those of us that live and work outside of the "Linux FUD bubble" that seems to exist here at Slashdot are putting a lot of stock in this case, and so should you. That's not to say that Linux won't easily recover and rewrite the sections of the code that are infringing, but IBM will probably be out of the AIX/Unix market for good.
Let's see here, they compare two cards that shouldn't compare in real life.
The GeForce card has:
* Twice as much memory (256 MB vs. 128MB)
* More memory bandwidth (27 GB/s vs. 21 GB/s)
* Faster memory (3 ns vs. 3.8 ns chips)
And the GeForce still got it's ass handed to it by the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, which, by the way, doesn't even need a leaf-blower attachment just to keep it from overheating!
Is anyone still buying Nvidia cards any more these days (other than the blindly trusting fanboys, that is)?
I already have these things (from my last system) so I just stole them, but lets see, if I had to buy them:
- $90 Digital In/Out MAudio sound card
- $41 Gigabit Ethernet PCI card
- $18.99 Firewire PCI card
- $173.99 Pioneer DVR-105 4x DVD burner
- Actually, did you see, I upgraded the memory to 1GB, 4 times as much as the entry level PowerMac.
- Minimal warranty? The Dell has 3 years On-Site, next day service. The PowerMac only has 1 year of warranty service and you have to bring it into an Apple repair shop. You have to buy Applecare if you want a decent warranty.
So let's see, total all those things up and I still have a system that is only $1317.98.
With all of the same high-end features in your precious PowerMac. About $700 cheaper.
I'm not saying the PowerMac isn't a sweet machine, but please, the low-end model is a rip-off. Apple should have kept the low-end model at the same $1499 price point that the last entry level PowerMac was at. Then it would be a good deal.
If they could get better performance on PPC with a different compiler, don't you think Apple would be using that compiler instead of GCC?
If you're smart you buy a Dell using Coupons or other online deals. I got my system like this:
* Pentium 4-C 2.6 Ghz. Processor w/ 800 mhz. FSB (and hyperthreading)
* 256 MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400 Mhz.
* No Monitor
* ATI RADEON 9800 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI
* No Floppy Drive
* Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
* On-board 100megabit ethernet
* No Modem
* Internal 16x DVD-ROM drive
Total price: $956.00 minus $200.00 mail-in rebate (already received it): $756.00
Added the following:
* IBM Hitach 120GB 8MB cache ATA-133 hard disk: $97.00 (newegg.com)
* 2x Geil 512MB PC3200 DDR400 memory: $71.00 each, for a total of $141.00 (newegg.com)
So basically, I got 1 GB of DDR 400 memory and a 120GB fast hard disk.
Total price of upgrades: $238.00
Total price of system after upgrades: $994.00
That is one smoking system after upgrading it, and for less than $1000.00. Apple needs to compete with this on the low-end, at least. This system rocks for gaming, and can seriously challenge any Apple G5 workstation (except maybe the dual 2.0 ghz.) on the high end stuff.
I love Apple's OS X as well as their new G5 systems, but they need to compete better on the low-end, entry level. The high end they are doing really well at.
The G5's FSB is only dual-pumped, not quad pumped. A 2.0 ghz. G5 is actually running at 500 mhz. FSB dual pumped.
I also think IBM had stated earlier that they were fabricating 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 procs. They never mentioned 2.0 ghz., which is why the specs took everyone by surprise. Of course, Apple could be already overclocking them with the 9 fans they have cooling them.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone finds out that you can setenv an OpenBoot variable to bump up your FSB speed and thereby overclock the processor.
What he's saying you should do is build up a comparable 3.0 ghz. Dell Dimension 8300 (single proc box) and compare it to the $1999 1.6 ghz. G5. The Dell will completely blow it away.
The only exception I have in my policy is that I can't sue my employer (since it's partially funded by them). But I agree with the general sentiment of what you're saying. You're not going to get stellar service out of them, but what you will get is the ability for you to have a lawyer write a letter for you. This will cause 99% of the stupid RIAA type of harrassment to stop, once they realize you have an attorney working for you.
I haven't had to do this yet, but do you agree this might work?
When I started my current job, one of the optional benefits was prepaid legal service. Basically, I elect to have $15 taken out of my paycheck every month, and in case I need legal services, there is a network of attorneys around the country that will come to my defense. It is basically "legal insurance".
I don't do anything illegal, but if the RIAA ever came after me, it would be nice to know that I have my own cadre of legal professionals at my beck and call. I wouldn't have to just cave, I could actually have my lawyers stand up to them for once.
I would highly recommend that everyone get this. If it's not offered through the company you work for, you can still get it for about $20 a month. If you ever need to use it, it will be the best $20 you ever spent.
Haha... funny thing is, according to their claims, they may be the only one with a valid license to run Linux