It sounds like a great program, until you find out that the State of Michigan is cutting the budgets with one hand, and then forcing the purchase of the laptops at a cost of $25 per unit with the other. This is a great idea, but it is happening at the wrong time. The State of Michigan needs to find a way to not cut the budgets before they force the school districts into this program. On top of that most of not all of the school districts have no IT staff. My local district has one person, and they still have boxen in boxes because they don't have time to deal with what they have.
Well, not really, the LANceGS has been available for over three years. It works with an Enhanced ][e or IIgs, although there are no apps for the ][e that use the interface. FWIW, Apple had created an ethernet card for the IIgs to be released with System 6 (GS/OS) but killed it at the last minute so as to not have the IIgs compete with the Macintosh LC.
BSD/OS was the commercial version of the BSD world. A few years ago there was a push to bring it up to date with the current FreeBSD at the time. Hopefully this will allow more focus on the *BSDs. I'm a real *BSD fan, but I wasn't even aware that this was still around, or even being actively developed.
when a local university hired Sun Microsystems to do an evaluation on server consolidation. You'll never guess what they suggested. Buy an E15K. This was after the university had major failures with an already implemented E10K. FWIW, I think that suggestion is still being considered. Sun also suggested that the university switch to iPlanet for their LDAP directory. I still think that some people at the university thought that Sun might actually suggest another companies product.
Great, now we'll have a concentrated location for the launch of the next Micro$oft enabled worm. Even if the worm isn't launched from the school, it could be a great source to amplify it's distrubution.
and remove the creditz from your "scene" released MP3s -- Better yet, go out and get your hands on a real, physical CD, and just rip the songs yourself.
AFAIK, if you purchase AppleCare at the end of the 1 year warranty, you only get 2 years of coverage. In addition to that, during the first year, you are only covered by AppleCare for 90 days, after that you have to schlep the machine into an authorized repair center for any warranty claims. Applecare repair service is awesome. You place a call, they send you a box that arrives the next day. You package it up and send it out, and it returns in less than 2 days with the repair work completed. In my opinion, waiting until the end of the first year only adds frustration if you need to make a warranty claim.
Applecare has saved my butt more times than I can count. I just recently connected my PBG4 (500Mhz) to an iMac via firewire target mode, and the logic board got fried on the PowerBook. One phone call to AppleCare and I had a shipping box at my desk the next day. I was without the PB for one whole day, and it came back in working order. AppleCare covers little things like missing rubber feet (they send you the feet, you don't have to send the unit in for something that trivial,) up to the big things like logic board failures. Keep in mind that while you do indeed have a year to decide whether or not to purchase Applecare, but you only receive AppleCare type services for the first 30 days. After that you have to take the machine to a local Authorized Apple Repair center for any claims. With AppleCare you place a phone call, and they send you a mailer. For all that AppleCare is, it is not what it used to be. A local BBS admin here in Michigan had AppleCare on an Apple ][e that was used to run his BBS. The machine was killed by lightning from an unprotected outlet, and Apple replaced the machine under AppleCare.
Boy does that bring back memories. Shortly after Apple purchased SoundJam they have away copies in a lottery at WWDC (2000.) There were a few good prizes, but every one I know won a copy of SoundJam. Bummer for me as I had just anted up for a full copy a few months before WWDC 2000.
Take that opteron "server" and add components that are comparable to the G5 boxes (2 x 1.8 GHZ CPU, 2 x 256 MB RAM, 160GB ATA 133, PIONERE DVR-A)5, CREATIVE LABS Sound Blaster Audigy, USR PCI 56k Modem, 2x Case Fans, Keyborad, and Mouse), and the prices jump to $3348.61 -- hardly a price savings. This doesn't include a high end video card, serial ATA, or a 1GHZ system bus, so it is not really comparable.
I have been keeping an eye on CD prices since the iTunes Music Store went up, and I think that it may have had an effect on the price of real CDs. I have purchased more CDs in the last month than I did all last year. The reason being the I could buy the CD for the same price that I would pay for it on the iTunes Music Store. The upside being that I now own the full quality CD, and I can rip it at whatever bit rate I like. I have purchased some individual songs, and a few albums from the store when the cost was less than buying the CD, and I much prefer owning the song and being able to do with it what I like, as opposed to having it go away if I unsubscribe.
I would wholeheartedly reccomend SiteScope from Freshwater Software. I was introduced to this software at my last job. It does a great job of monitoring multiple sites on a host, as well as monitoring the host itself (i.e. CPU utilization, memory utilization, etc.) The best part about SiteScope is that it does not require any sort of client on the servers that it monitors. It uses SSH/telnet/rlogin/etc to make a connection and use normal system utilities to parse out the data that it needs. You can even monitor NT boxes with SiteScope, but you have to install SiteScope on an NT box in order to remotely monitor other NT boxes. It can be pricey, but it is proven. You can also extend it to do whatever types of monitors you can think of via custom scripts that you write. They do offer a free demo verson from their website if you want to try it out.
Any chance this is some sort of retalliation for Apple producing iPhoto?
Apple could learn one thing from Sun...
on
The Faded Sun
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Apple needs to to add serial port access to the OpenFirmware. When you ask Apple engineers about this feature, they will reply "We hear that a lot from 'Sun people'." This is one of the only things I can think of that Apple could gain from a meger with Sun. It would also give them a bit of clout in the enterprise market. Having said that, I don't think it is a good idea. Sun is losing marketshare at an alarming rate. I know of at lease one company that was primarily a Sun shop that is in the process of replacing all of their servers with IBM/AIX and Linux boxes.
You will need to do a search for xinitrc, and rename that file. IIRC it's located at/private/etx/X11/xinit/xinitrc -- I renamed it to bkup.xinitrc, and then quit and restarted X11.app -- everything worked just fine. If that doesn't work, make sure you don't have a.xinitrc in your home directory.
I used to use one of these, but not for long. They were analogous to the WinModems available for wintel PCs. Basically an A-D/D-A converter, and you CPU did the modem functions. They were slow as hell, but they did work. Basically, just a box that hung of the back of the CPU with two phone jacks.
I sort of doubt that they are working on something of this sort. The bluetooth integration with the current crop of SonyEricsson phones looks great. They would be better off with a partnership, than creating their own products.
Well I guess you won't be happy until you win, so if disabling these features is useful to you, then you win. In my book this doesn't add much value, but if I were still administering labs of machines, this would be very useful. To each, his own. I don't use it, but I can see that it might be useful to some. The point is that users should not enable this password without knowing the consequences.
It is bad security because it doesn't buy you anything. Your data is no more secure with it on than off. It adds inconvenience by disabling some very useful functions (firewire target mode) and in order to turn it off to use fw disk mode, you have to boot into X to turn it off. If you are after data security, you would be better served to look somewhere else.
Enabling the OF password will disable all of the startup key sequences, including booting from a CD, ejecting removable media, and Firewire target disk mode. This can be very confusing if you set the password, forget that it is set, and then try to use FW target disk mode, or need to boot from a CD. For everything that it disables, it is not worth the very little bit of security that it adds.
Omni also won 2 Apple Design Awards at WWDC 2002 -- for OmniGraffle. They are one of the coolest software companies out there -- probably due to the fact that they had a running start with their apps, being that they were a NeXT/OpenSTEP development house.
Last time I checked PC meant Personal Computer. A market in which Apple was a pioneer. You may remeber a very popular personal computer named Apple ][ that was widely used in schools and homes in the early 80's, and in fact was around until the early 90's when the company that produced it created a personal computer named Macintosh. They were the first to offer an affordable GUI (the Apple II had a Macintosh like GUI, and it was in color, unlike the Macintoshes available at the time.) Also keep in mind that if IBM had their way, the IBM PC would not have been cloneable. If they could have found a way to legally shut down the cloners, they would have. Apple hase one very large advantage, they make the whole widget. They can make sure that their OS runs very well on their boxen, and they can make sure that all the bits work. I know that there are a few things that need to be done to OS X to make this 100% true, but it's getting there. Anyway, I'm rambling now......time for more coffee.....
Very true -- Sytem 7 was when Apple started charging for MacOS Updates.This was well before the clones, but I think the justification was the amount of development and features waranted the need to charge
FWIW, A2 Central offers the Apple ][ sytem software in Apple ][ format. I guess this would be usefull for those who shelled out the cash for an ethernet card for their GS.:) It is also interesting to note taht Apple did sell the last version of GS/OS "System 6.0.1" (And it System 6 for that matter,) but you didn't have to pay if you didn't want the manuals.
Does anyone else remember the good old days when OS upgrades were free? When newer version of the OS for the Apple ][ line were released, all you had to do was take a blank disk to your local dealer or user group, and you could get a legit copy. I'm pretty sure that the other OS's at the time (mid to late 80s) had similar update processes. In fact, Mac OS worked this way up until System 7.
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It sounds like a great program, until you find out that the State of Michigan is cutting the budgets with one hand, and then forcing the purchase of the laptops at a cost of $25 per unit with the other. This is a great idea, but it is happening at the wrong time. The State of Michigan needs to find a way to not cut the budgets before they force the school districts into this program. On top of that most of not all of the school districts have no IT staff. My local district has one person, and they still have boxen in boxes because they don't have time to deal with what they have.
Well, not really, the LANceGS has been available for over three years. It works with an Enhanced ][e or IIgs, although there are no apps for the ][e that use the interface. FWIW, Apple had created an ethernet card for the IIgs to be released with System 6 (GS/OS) but killed it at the last minute so as to not have the IIgs compete with the Macintosh LC.
BSD/OS was the commercial version of the BSD world. A few years ago there was a push to bring it up to date with the current FreeBSD at the time. Hopefully this will allow more focus on the *BSDs. I'm a real *BSD fan, but I wasn't even aware that this was still around, or even being actively developed.
when a local university hired Sun Microsystems to do an evaluation on server consolidation. You'll never guess what they suggested. Buy an E15K. This was after the university had major failures with an already implemented E10K. FWIW, I think that suggestion is still being considered. Sun also suggested that the university switch to iPlanet for their LDAP directory. I still think that some people at the university thought that Sun might actually suggest another companies product.
Great, now we'll have a concentrated location for the launch of the next Micro$oft enabled worm. Even if the worm isn't launched from the school, it could be a great source to amplify it's distrubution.
and remove the creditz from your "scene" released MP3s -- Better yet, go out and get your hands on a real, physical CD, and just rip the songs yourself.
AFAIK, if you purchase AppleCare at the end of the 1 year warranty, you only get 2 years of coverage. In addition to that, during the first year, you are only covered by AppleCare for 90 days, after that you have to schlep the machine into an authorized repair center for any warranty claims. Applecare repair service is awesome. You place a call, they send you a box that arrives the next day. You package it up and send it out, and it returns in less than 2 days with the repair work completed. In my opinion, waiting until the end of the first year only adds frustration if you need to make a warranty claim.
Applecare has saved my butt more times than I can count. I just recently connected my PBG4 (500Mhz) to an iMac via firewire target mode, and the logic board got fried on the PowerBook. One phone call to AppleCare and I had a shipping box at my desk the next day. I was without the PB for one whole day, and it came back in working order.
AppleCare covers little things like missing rubber feet (they send you the feet, you don't have to send the unit in for something that trivial,) up to the big things like logic board failures.
Keep in mind that while you do indeed have a year to decide whether or not to purchase Applecare, but you only receive AppleCare type services for the first 30 days. After that you have to take the machine to a local Authorized Apple Repair center for any claims. With AppleCare you place a phone call, and they send you a mailer.
For all that AppleCare is, it is not what it used to be. A local BBS admin here in Michigan had AppleCare on an Apple ][e that was used to run his BBS. The machine was killed by lightning from an unprotected outlet, and Apple replaced the machine under AppleCare.
Boy does that bring back memories. Shortly after Apple purchased SoundJam they have away copies in a lottery at WWDC (2000.) There were a few good prizes, but every one I know won a copy of SoundJam. Bummer for me as I had just anted up for a full copy a few months before WWDC 2000.
Take that opteron "server" and add components that are comparable to the G5 boxes (2 x 1.8 GHZ CPU, 2 x 256 MB RAM, 160GB ATA 133, PIONERE DVR-A)5, CREATIVE LABS Sound Blaster Audigy, USR PCI 56k Modem, 2x Case Fans, Keyborad, and Mouse), and the prices jump to $3348.61 -- hardly a price savings. This doesn't include a high end video card, serial ATA, or a 1GHZ system bus, so it is not really comparable.
isn't the "underlying OS" open source? Even the parts that aren't open source are pretty well documented.
I have been keeping an eye on CD prices since the iTunes Music Store went up, and I think that it may have had an effect on the price of real CDs. I have purchased more CDs in the last month than I did all last year. The reason being the I could buy the CD for the same price that I would pay for it on the iTunes Music Store. The upside being that I now own the full quality CD, and I can rip it at whatever bit rate I like. I have purchased some individual songs, and a few albums from the store when the cost was less than buying the CD, and I much prefer owning the song and being able to do with it what I like, as opposed to having it go away if I unsubscribe.
I would wholeheartedly reccomend SiteScope from Freshwater Software. I was introduced to this software at my last job. It does a great job of monitoring multiple sites on a host, as well as monitoring the host itself (i.e. CPU utilization, memory utilization, etc.)
The best part about SiteScope is that it does not require any sort of client on the servers that it monitors. It uses SSH/telnet/rlogin/etc to make a connection and use normal system utilities to parse out the data that it needs. You can even monitor NT boxes with SiteScope, but you have to install SiteScope on an NT box in order to remotely monitor other NT boxes.
It can be pricey, but it is proven. You can also extend it to do whatever types of monitors you can think of via custom scripts that you write. They do offer a free demo verson from their website if you want to try it out.
Any chance this is some sort of retalliation for Apple producing iPhoto?
Apple needs to to add serial port access to the OpenFirmware. When you ask Apple engineers about this feature, they will reply "We hear that a lot from 'Sun people'." This is one of the only things I can think of that Apple could gain from a meger with Sun. It would also give them a bit of clout in the enterprise market. Having said that, I don't think it is a good idea. Sun is losing marketshare at an alarming rate. I know of at lease one company that was primarily a Sun shop that is in the process of replacing all of their servers with IBM/AIX and Linux boxes.
You will need to do a search for xinitrc, and rename that file. IIRC it's located at /private/etx/X11/xinit/xinitrc -- I renamed it to bkup.xinitrc, and then quit and restarted X11.app -- everything worked just fine. If that doesn't work, make sure you don't have a .xinitrc in your home directory.
I used to use one of these, but not for long. They were analogous to the WinModems available for wintel PCs. Basically an A-D/D-A converter, and you CPU did the modem functions. They were slow as hell, but they did work. Basically, just a box that hung of the back of the CPU with two phone jacks.
I sort of doubt that they are working on something of this sort. The bluetooth integration with the current crop of SonyEricsson phones looks great. They would be better off with a partnership, than creating their own products.
Well I guess you won't be happy until you win, so if disabling these features is useful to you, then you win. In my book this doesn't add much value, but if I were still administering labs of machines, this would be very useful. To each, his own. I don't use it, but I can see that it might be useful to some. The point is that users should not enable this password without knowing the consequences.
It is bad security because it doesn't buy you anything. Your data is no more secure with it on than off. It adds inconvenience by disabling some very useful functions (firewire target mode) and in order to turn it off to use fw disk mode, you have to boot into X to turn it off. If you are after data security, you would be better served to look somewhere else.
Enabling the OF password will disable all of the startup key sequences, including booting from a CD, ejecting removable media, and Firewire target disk mode. This can be very confusing if you set the password, forget that it is set, and then try to use FW target disk mode, or need to boot from a CD. For everything that it disables, it is not worth the very little bit of security that it adds.
Omni also won 2 Apple Design Awards at WWDC 2002 -- for OmniGraffle. They are one of the coolest software companies out there -- probably due to the fact that they had a running start with their apps, being that they were a NeXT/OpenSTEP development house.
Last time I checked PC meant Personal Computer. A market in which Apple was a pioneer. You may remeber a very popular personal computer named Apple ][ that was widely used in schools and homes in the early 80's, and in fact was around until the early 90's when the company that produced it created a personal computer named Macintosh. They were the first to offer an affordable GUI (the Apple II had a Macintosh like GUI, and it was in color, unlike the Macintoshes available at the time.)
Also keep in mind that if IBM had their way, the IBM PC would not have been cloneable. If they could have found a way to legally shut down the cloners, they would have.
Apple hase one very large advantage, they make the whole widget. They can make sure that their OS runs very well on their boxen, and they can make sure that all the bits work. I know that there are a few things that need to be done to OS X to make this 100% true, but it's getting there.
Anyway, I'm rambling now......time for more coffee.....
Actually, according to Tech TV they will be providing both Wintel and Macintosh computers to the schools. All of the machines will be refubished.
Very true -- Sytem 7 was when Apple started charging for MacOS Updates.This was well before the clones, but I think the justification was the amount of development and features waranted the need to charge
FWIW, A2 Central offers the Apple ][ sytem software in Apple ][ format. I guess this would be usefull for those who shelled out the cash for an ethernet card for their GS. :) It is also interesting to note taht Apple did sell the last version of GS/OS "System 6.0.1" (And it System 6 for that matter,) but you didn't have to pay if you didn't want the manuals.
Does anyone else remember the good old days when OS upgrades were free? When newer version of the OS for the Apple ][ line were released, all you had to do was take a blank disk to your local dealer or user group, and you could get a legit copy. I'm pretty sure that the other OS's at the time (mid to late 80s) had similar update processes. In fact, Mac OS worked this way up until System 7.