Because they are pressed, CD's are not as affected by environmental conditions. (Unless it gets so hot that the disc warps, but, well you've got other problems if that happens).
Conventional, mass produced CDs will also fail if kept in close proximity to ammonia and elevated (80-100F) temperatures. The chemical reaction literally destroys the aluminum substrate and you end up with a virtually clear disc of plastic that is unplayable.
Re:What about Apple LCDs?
on
LCD Round-up
·
· Score: 2
You got me there. But Apple still seems to be pushing LCD technolgy further and faster than other top-tier manufacturers. Apple no longer makes standalone CRT displays. All but the very lowest cost products are equipped with LCDs.
I seem to recall that Apple was all-LCD for a few months between the introduction of the new iMac and the eMac, but I guess that's not accurate either, since they've been selling the $799 iMac all along.
What about Apple LCDs?
on
LCD Round-up
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The first manufacturer to go to an all-LCD lineup doesn't get it's products reviewed?
Besides pushing the technology, they've actually got LCDs that are decently bright and easy to profile and calibrate. I wish they'd reviewed some of Apple's displays - I'd like to see if the dollar premium is really worth it. (The easel adjustment on the 17", 22" and 23" is pretty killer though!)
Do you really need to allocate more than 2 GB of RAM to a single process on your desktop?
16-bit scans of 4X5 inch film at 2400 dpi are over 2GB in size.
Although the percieved quality increase is negligible to nonexistent in most cases, 16 bit files give digital artists and photographers a greater margins to adjust tonality, contrast and other variables without introducing muddines or banding. The only problem is that 16 bit files are four times the size of the 8 bit files that are straining 32 bit plattforms right now.
Yes, I'd like to have more addressable memory. When I no monger have to worry about Photoshop scratch disks, I'll be a happy man.
A war between the entertainment cartel and the defense industry over controlling infrastructure? Or is it just another plain-old standards battle?
I don't like listening to today's radio, except for public radio in my area. (Santa Cruz) The last radio station I really liked was 105.3 before they got rid of Alex Bennett.
I hope this doesn't lead to a battle for standards. I don't need to be fiddling between FM1, FM/D1, XM, CD, etc. I just want to hear decent music.
Of course, if XM offers Phil Hendrie 24/7 cross-country, I'll be signing up immediately.
Oh, poor fat guy. Geez. Yeah, fat people are funny. I'm fat. Big deal.
What about white trash? It's OK to make fun of them too, isn't it? I mean, I hear about white trash and how stupid/inbred/whatever they are weekly. Gof forbid we make fun of people who are rotund!
Maybe DeNiro should produce a screenplay about a fat white trash hacker-type guy who gets his feeling hurt after someone posts something hurtful to him on Slashdot. Then he turns evil because of the world's insensitivity and invents technology for hijacking Tivos and forcing them to record the new Donahue show. Yeah.
Grow a thicker skin. I can't stand the victim culture this country has become.
Completely untrue is your implication that PowerPCs emulate 68K code. Apple wrote an emulator - a GOOD one - and included it in System 7 (7.5, I believe). By 7.5.3 they basically had it working perfectly, and quickly. So yes, they DID have to write an emulator.
The 68k emulator was included with system 7.1.2, which shipped with the opriginal power Macintosh computers - the first Macs to have PowerPC processors. This emulator was software-based, loaded at boot time and emulated a 68020+MMU, but no FPU.
The DRE (Dynamic Recompilation Emulator) was included with System 7.5.2, the OS shipped with the 9500/8500/7200 Power Macintosh computers. these models were the first Power Macintosh computers to include the PCI bus for expansion.
The DRE was faster than the original emulator and was reengineered to take advantage of the PowerPC 603 and 604 processors, which made their debuts in the fall of 1995.
Apple has traditionally cared too much for backwards compatibility and suffered real consequences because of this. Mac users in general tend to whine too much and think that Apple owes them something in exchange for the faith shown in the act of buying a Macintosh. Because of Apple's tenuous marketshare, they've never seen fit to grow the balls necessary to cut off legacy customers.
That's changing now. Anyone who complains that OS X is too slow, too fancy-looking, or just not to their taste needs to adjust their expectations and attitude. 10.2 is an extremely usable OS, and the alternative is the not-traditionally-easy-to-use-for-Mac-users LinuxPPC, or the crapshoot which is Windows.
Bravo to Apple for taking this bold and wise step. OS X has a lot of headroom - now if we can just get some higher clock frequencies out of Chum-a-rola, we'll be in great shape.
IBm has already built G4 chips with Altivec on the mask. I've seen 'em and used 'em - but only in prototypes of 2 year vintage.
Point is, IBM is well-versed in building high performance PowerPC-style chips (invented the core architecture, after all) and has the werewithal to continue as a strong supplier for Apple. Motorola is a badly-run has-been in many respects, and the morale in Austin and their other fabs has been low for many years.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple swap the Mach 3 Kernel in Jaguar for something a little more 64-bit savvy down the line.
Digital broadcast will also allow you to get clearer pictures. Bye bye ghosting.
Yeah. Great. Just like I never have multipath problems on my digital cell phone. I can hear it now: "Kids, when I was young, all we needed to improve our TV signal was a piece of tinfoil. Well, it was actually aluminum foil. We just called it tinfoil. Anyway, let's get ready to move, since the hill and tall buildings between us and the TV station are making the TV act all funny."
Digital is no panacea. Digital brings lots of new and annoying problems.
I like my analog TV. I hate my "interactive" Digital Cable box because it has a clunky, ad-driven interface that is slow to react to my input. Practically the only thing I like about 'modern' analog TVs that improves upon 'traditional' analog TVs is the convenience of remote random channel access rather than the mechanical frailty of knob-selected tuners.
It all sounds like another excuse to make money by re-selling "obsolete" bandwidth and a practical bonanza for overseas electronics equipment vendors, leading to a trade imbalance that will make the current trade deficit look like a joke.
Why is it that no one in the U.S. government seems to be able to think beyond the next election cycle - and that none of the voters care? "Well, we know it'll be a problem, but we'll legislate it when it crops up.
Why do we need digital TV? Someone please give me a compelling answer, and I'll listen. But I maintain it's nothing but a way to gain more spectrum to resell while driving the economy with disposable goods sales.
I can't wait until the annoying artifacts and compression snow that accompany digital satellite TV broadcasts are part and parcel of EVERY broadcast. Yay.
I can hear the FCC honchos now: "Boy, that digital TV transition was tough - but we saved some ananlog TV bandwidth we were able to sell back to wireless information providers who then went bankrupt and which was later resold for fractions of cents on the dollar. "
Once again the U.S. trades the future for a few pieces of gold.
First off, I'm not a Mac zealot. I've been very critical of Apple in the past, especially when I worked there. I never claimed anything about one-button mice being "better" because of some percieved lack of flexibility. It seems as though you'e the one with a problem.
Paying $15.00 for another button on the mouse? What's wrong with it? Nothing. I think Apple should offer a 2-button Apple-branded mouse as an option at the Apple store. I think it's a bit dunderheaded to offer only a one-button mouse.
However, most tasks in the classic Mac OS can easily be accomplished with one mouse button; the compliment of contextual menus is a recent (1998) addition, and a welcome one - but the goal at Apple has always been to deign the simplest interface to the task at hand, and one button is the simplest interface to most action tasks.
This changes in software like Maya, where contextual menus can be and are heavily used. The second and third buttons allow quick and easy access to commands too numerous to be assigned easy key combinations of one-click buttons. Apple shows their extensive interface knowledge here too; they don't handicap the user by requiring a one-button mouse, but instead allow users with more experience and knowledge to easily add pointing/action devices that take advantages of additional software capabilities.
I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that Apple is heavy-handed in all respects - in some ways they are, such as their refusal to move to more, uh, accessible and commoditized processors. The one-button mouse isn't an example of this though - for the past 18 years, they'e used a one-button mouse. Most Macintosh customers are repeat customers. Switching to a two-button mouse requires a complete re-intuiting of the interface to these new users (what's the second button for?).
It's easier for Apple and Macintosh users to allow the user's knowledge to supercede the interface and included hardware than to supercedee the user's knowlegde with additional hardware that isn't _needed_. That's why they still ship a one-button mouse.
In fact, Apple has evaluated adding buttons to the standard Apple mouse many times over the past several years. The conclusion has always been that doing so would add too much complexity for the basic user.
Allow the user to make the choice to take advantage of additional capabilities; don't foist extra mouse buttons onto people who don't need them, but make sure that people who do need those extra buttons are able to take advantage of them easily.
I personally like having one button on my PowerBook G4, as I have to keep my left hand on the keyboard anyway; amaking he modifier Control an easy target. On my desktop machine, I use a two-button scroll wheel mouse from Logitech.
Apologies for misreading your question; it's the sort of thing one sees so often on/. I'm not trying to change your mind, but to explain WHY Apple continues to ship a one-button mouse. It's obvious you don't agree, but it's also obvious to me that Apple takes the least objectionable road to providing effective interaction with the interface for the majority of users.
It's either (1) retrain every Mac user on the hows and why od two mouse buttons, or (2) provide the flexibility to use more mouse buttons at a slight extra cost when the user's needs call for that extra button. The choice seems simple to me.
I remember Maya (on SGI) utilizing all three mouse buttons very extensively. How is the Mac version coping with the single button limitation?
More importantly, why doesn't Apple have a three button scrolling mouse yet? After 18 years of insisting that users *like* having their hands tied behind their back, isn't it time to admit they're just being stubborn? C'mon, Steve, we won't think any less of you.
You're not serious, are you?
Mac 3-button mouse support explained:
1. Go to store.
2. Buy 3-button USB scrolling mouse.(Intellimouse explorer, etc.)
3. Plug mouse in.
Just because Apple ships a one-button mouse with Macintosh computers (ostensibly for newbie users, the core consistuent of their user base) doesn't mean mice with n buttons aren't supported. Dell ships machines with two-button mice. Does that mean that 3-button scrolling mice aren't supported on Dell machines?
I'm hoping you're not just trolling. Anyone who reads any story about Apple on slashdot inevitably runs across the whole multi-button mouse thing - and every single time, it gets explained that yes, OS X does support multi-button mice quite nicely right outta the box. I think it's been explained here about 100 times in the past month.
Sheesh.
Apple isn't forcing or coercing anyone to buy or use certain products based on the fact that they own the whole ball of wax.
ITunes, for example is an optional, free dwnload, but if I still want to use (.mp3 Player) then I can, and it'll work just as well with OS X. Same with FTP space and e-mail. Likewise with Linux distros for the Power Mac.
As a Mac user for nearly 18 years, I'm quite happy that Apple is now charging some modest fees for their value-added services.
This is something that Microsoft's hedgemony WON'T let other PC manufacturers do - at least not to the extent that Apple has shown here. If Gateway (Dell, whoever) wants to create a value-added portal like.mac, they've got to fight similar interests at Microsoft.
Apple has no such conflict - they own the whole ball of wax, so the hardware and OS sides of the company can work together to produce a best-in-class (and don't pretend they aren't class-leading or at least very innovative and polished) set of services for Mac users - for free in many cases (iTunes, iPhoto) and for a modest yearly charge in other cases.
My ISP charges $20.00 a month for a 5MB mailox and 50MB of FTP space. Apple is providing more than that for $100.00 a year. That's half off for me - for more space.
Owning a mac has never looked better. Apple is again taking positive steps to increase revenue growth and reduce it's dependence on volatile hardware sales. Reasonable prices for services that generate recurring revenue...new product refreshes on a regular basis to win the fence sitters and an advertising program that _is_ winning over some converts (right here in my office) - rather unfunny Penny Arcade cartoons notwithstanding.
John Dvorak, noted PC World columnist, has reported for the very first time that Apple is irrelevant.
Dvorak could not be reached for comment, although his agent noted that "John's probably just off his meds again".
Seriously. Dvorak seems to forget that Apple HAS reinvented the Mac into something quite different and novel - through Mac OS X.
A Mac in OS 9 is one thing...but a Mac in OS X is a completely different computer. Dvorak either needs some hits on his portion of the PC Magazine web site, or he's just feeling mean.
I call bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about.
Ricochet used public spectrum in the 900MHz and 2.4GHz spectrum. You want to talk about spectrally efficient? It used FREE and available spectrum. Because Ricochet used wide, publicly available spectrum, spectrum reuse wasn't as much of an issue for the designers - although they broke new ground there too, by using an inexpensive microcellular architecture to maximise spectrum reuse. It was efficent logically and monetarily...too bad the network cost so much to build so fast. Thanks, Schellman!
No spectrum auctions, no billion-dollar outlay for airwaves...and they were able to get over 1Mbps (that's Megabit...maybe your tech IQ is a bit thin) raw air-air speed between poletop radios. while I understand that true 3G is 2.4Mbps at the site, things seem to turn to junk when more users get on the network and you're moving.
It could never serve more than a niche market (even if the demand wasn't so niche).
Then why is the data rate of 3G such a big deal? It would seem that this niche market is fairly large - the people who want a lot of data on the move. I think it was a pretty immature market when Ricochet was available, but it certainly wasn't a niche.
I would hesitate to believe that the cellcos have invested literally tens of billions collectively to bring high data rates to the U.S. inorder for people to goof with Pokemon on their phones.
That technology would never back it big simply because service providers wouldn't be able to serve large numbers of people (relative to what's happening with cellular networks) with it.
Again, you seem light on technology here. The Ricochet hardware and software could handle quite a bit more traffic at peak load and at lower cost/MB per user than 3G has ever been projected to achieve. Ever seen 40 simulated users hit one 3G base station at once?
What seems odd to me is that people who discounted Ricochet two years ago are hyping 3G at two to three times the cost per minute per month.
Ricochet was modeled after the internet itself - a mesh (about five $1500.00 radios per square mile) arrangement of programmable high-throughput devices that function independently of each other...each radio is not just a repeater, but a router.
As far as Ricochet node failover goes - as long as you've got a wired access point somewhere, the poletop radios will find it, as long as there's one about every mile or so and they can see each other. After the WTC towers collapsed, they took out quite a bit of Ricochet equipment - and yet the workers could utilize the technology at ground zero at reported speeds of over 150kbps. Try that with 3G.
It used to bug me when people I knew at Qualcomm bashed Ricochet without any idea of how it worked. Which wireless data network you rather: a few big towers that are easy to knock down, or thousands of poletop radios that depend on the streetlight infrastructure?
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Conventional, mass produced CDs will also fail if kept in close proximity to ammonia and elevated (80-100F) temperatures. The chemical reaction literally destroys the aluminum substrate and you end up with a virtually clear disc of plastic that is unplayable.
You got me there. But Apple still seems to be pushing LCD technolgy further and faster than other top-tier manufacturers. Apple no longer makes standalone CRT displays. All but the very lowest cost products are equipped with LCDs.
I seem to recall that Apple was all-LCD for a few months between the introduction of the new iMac and the eMac, but I guess that's not accurate either, since they've been selling the $799 iMac all along.
The first manufacturer to go to an all-LCD lineup doesn't get it's products reviewed?
Besides pushing the technology, they've actually got LCDs that are decently bright and easy to profile and calibrate. I wish they'd reviewed some of Apple's displays - I'd like to see if the dollar premium is really worth it. (The easel adjustment on the 17", 22" and 23" is pretty killer though!)
16-bit scans of 4X5 inch film at 2400 dpi are over 2GB in size.
Although the percieved quality increase is negligible to nonexistent in most cases, 16 bit files give digital artists and photographers a greater margins to adjust tonality, contrast and other variables without introducing muddines or banding. The only problem is that 16 bit files are four times the size of the 8 bit files that are straining 32 bit plattforms right now.
Yes, I'd like to have more addressable memory. When I no monger have to worry about Photoshop scratch disks, I'll be a happy man.
A war between the entertainment cartel and the defense industry over controlling infrastructure? Or is it just another plain-old standards battle?
I don't like listening to today's radio, except for public radio in my area. (Santa Cruz) The last radio station I really liked was 105.3 before they got rid of Alex Bennett.
I hope this doesn't lead to a battle for standards. I don't need to be fiddling between FM1, FM/D1, XM, CD, etc. I just want to hear decent music.
Of course, if XM offers Phil Hendrie 24/7 cross-country, I'll be signing up immediately.
867-5309?
James Lipton:I have only one word to describe the Simsons. And that word is...Scrumptastic.
Homer:Mmmm. Donuts.
Oh, poor fat guy. Geez. Yeah, fat people are funny. I'm fat. Big deal.
What about white trash? It's OK to make fun of them too, isn't it? I mean, I hear about white trash and how stupid/inbred/whatever they are weekly. Gof forbid we make fun of people who are rotund!
Maybe DeNiro should produce a screenplay about a fat white trash hacker-type guy who gets his feeling hurt after someone posts something hurtful to him on Slashdot. Then he turns evil because of the world's insensitivity and invents technology for hijacking Tivos and forcing them to record the new Donahue show. Yeah.
Grow a thicker skin. I can't stand the victim culture this country has become.
The 68k emulator was included with system 7.1.2, which shipped with the opriginal power Macintosh computers - the first Macs to have PowerPC processors. This emulator was software-based, loaded at boot time and emulated a 68020+MMU, but no FPU.
The DRE (Dynamic Recompilation Emulator) was included with System 7.5.2, the OS shipped with the 9500/8500/7200 Power Macintosh computers. these models were the first Power Macintosh computers to include the PCI bus for expansion.
The DRE was faster than the original emulator and was reengineered to take advantage of the PowerPC 603 and 604 processors, which made their debuts in the fall of 1995.
Apple has traditionally cared too much for backwards compatibility and suffered real consequences because of this. Mac users in general tend to whine too much and think that Apple owes them something in exchange for the faith shown in the act of buying a Macintosh. Because of Apple's tenuous marketshare, they've never seen fit to grow the balls necessary to cut off legacy customers.
That's changing now. Anyone who complains that OS X is too slow, too fancy-looking, or just not to their taste needs to adjust their expectations and attitude. 10.2 is an extremely usable OS, and the alternative is the not-traditionally-easy-to-use-for-Mac-users LinuxPPC, or the crapshoot which is Windows.
Bravo to Apple for taking this bold and wise step. OS X has a lot of headroom - now if we can just get some higher clock frequencies out of Chum-a-rola, we'll be in great shape.
Proof that intelligent life does indeed inhabit Slashdot.
IBm has already built G4 chips with Altivec on the mask. I've seen 'em and used 'em - but only in prototypes of 2 year vintage.
Point is, IBM is well-versed in building high performance PowerPC-style chips (invented the core architecture, after all) and has the werewithal to continue as a strong supplier for Apple. Motorola is a badly-run has-been in many respects, and the morale in Austin and their other fabs has been low for many years.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple swap the Mach 3 Kernel in Jaguar for something a little more 64-bit savvy down the line.
Yeah. Great. Just like I never have multipath problems on my digital cell phone. I can hear it now: "Kids, when I was young, all we needed to improve our TV signal was a piece of tinfoil. Well, it was actually aluminum foil. We just called it tinfoil. Anyway, let's get ready to move, since the hill and tall buildings between us and the TV station are making the TV act all funny."
Digital is no panacea. Digital brings lots of new and annoying problems.
I like my analog TV. I hate my "interactive" Digital Cable box because it has a clunky, ad-driven interface that is slow to react to my input. Practically the only thing I like about 'modern' analog TVs that improves upon 'traditional' analog TVs is the convenience of remote random channel access rather than the mechanical frailty of knob-selected tuners.
It all sounds like another excuse to make money by re-selling "obsolete" bandwidth and a practical bonanza for overseas electronics equipment vendors, leading to a trade imbalance that will make the current trade deficit look like a joke.
Why is it that no one in the U.S. government seems to be able to think beyond the next election cycle - and that none of the voters care? "Well, we know it'll be a problem, but we'll legislate it when it crops up.
Why do we need digital TV? Someone please give me a compelling answer, and I'll listen. But I maintain it's nothing but a way to gain more spectrum to resell while driving the economy with disposable goods sales.
I can't wait until the annoying artifacts and compression snow that accompany digital satellite TV broadcasts are part and parcel of EVERY broadcast. Yay.
I can hear the FCC honchos now: "Boy, that digital TV transition was tough - but we saved some ananlog TV bandwidth we were able to sell back to wireless information providers who then went bankrupt and which was later resold for fractions of cents on the dollar. "
Once again the U.S. trades the future for a few pieces of gold.
First off, I'm not a Mac zealot. I've been very critical of Apple in the past, especially when I worked there. I never claimed anything about one-button mice being "better" because of some percieved lack of flexibility. It seems as though you'e the one with a problem.
/. I'm not trying to change your mind, but to explain WHY Apple continues to ship a one-button mouse. It's obvious you don't agree, but it's also obvious to me that Apple takes the least objectionable road to providing effective interaction with the interface for the majority of users.
Paying $15.00 for another button on the mouse? What's wrong with it? Nothing. I think Apple should offer a 2-button Apple-branded mouse as an option at the Apple store. I think it's a bit dunderheaded to offer only a one-button mouse.
However, most tasks in the classic Mac OS can easily be accomplished with one mouse button; the compliment of contextual menus is a recent (1998) addition, and a welcome one - but the goal at Apple has always been to deign the simplest interface to the task at hand, and one button is the simplest interface to most action tasks.
This changes in software like Maya, where contextual menus can be and are heavily used. The second and third buttons allow quick and easy access to commands too numerous to be assigned easy key combinations of one-click buttons. Apple shows their extensive interface knowledge here too; they don't handicap the user by requiring a one-button mouse, but instead allow users with more experience and knowledge to easily add pointing/action devices that take advantages of additional software capabilities.
I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that Apple is heavy-handed in all respects - in some ways they are, such as their refusal to move to more, uh, accessible and commoditized processors. The one-button mouse isn't an example of this though - for the past 18 years, they'e used a one-button mouse. Most Macintosh customers are repeat customers. Switching to a two-button mouse requires a complete re-intuiting of the interface to these new users (what's the second button for?).
It's easier for Apple and Macintosh users to allow the user's knowledge to supercede the interface and included hardware than to supercedee the user's knowlegde with additional hardware that isn't _needed_. That's why they still ship a one-button mouse.
In fact, Apple has evaluated adding buttons to the standard Apple mouse many times over the past several years. The conclusion has always been that doing so would add too much complexity for the basic user.
Allow the user to make the choice to take advantage of additional capabilities; don't foist extra mouse buttons onto people who don't need them, but make sure that people who do need those extra buttons are able to take advantage of them easily.
I personally like having one button on my PowerBook G4, as I have to keep my left hand on the keyboard anyway; amaking he modifier Control an easy target. On my desktop machine, I use a two-button scroll wheel mouse from Logitech.
Apologies for misreading your question; it's the sort of thing one sees so often on
It's either (1) retrain every Mac user on the hows and why od two mouse buttons, or (2) provide the flexibility to use more mouse buttons at a slight extra cost when the user's needs call for that extra button. The choice seems simple to me.
You're not serious, are you?
Mac 3-button mouse support explained:
1. Go to store.
2. Buy 3-button USB scrolling mouse.(Intellimouse explorer, etc.)
3. Plug mouse in.
Just because Apple ships a one-button mouse with Macintosh computers (ostensibly for newbie users, the core consistuent of their user base) doesn't mean mice with n buttons aren't supported. Dell ships machines with two-button mice. Does that mean that 3-button scrolling mice aren't supported on Dell machines?
I'm hoping you're not just trolling. Anyone who reads any story about Apple on slashdot inevitably runs across the whole multi-button mouse thing - and every single time, it gets explained that yes, OS X does support multi-button mice quite nicely right outta the box. I think it's been explained here about 100 times in the past month. Sheesh.
Apple isn't forcing or coercing anyone to buy or use certain products based on the fact that they own the whole ball of wax.
ITunes, for example is an optional, free dwnload, but if I still want to use (.mp3 Player) then I can, and it'll work just as well with OS X. Same with FTP space and e-mail. Likewise with Linux distros for the Power Mac.
So, the feds shouldn' be too concerned.
When I can just subscribe to $35.00/mo. DSL and NOT have to pay for the $20.00/mo. email and FTP space...well, that make a bit more sense, doesn't it?
As a Mac user for nearly 18 years, I'm quite happy that Apple is now charging some modest fees for their value-added services.
.mac, they've got to fight similar interests at Microsoft.
This is something that Microsoft's hedgemony WON'T let other PC manufacturers do - at least not to the extent that Apple has shown here. If Gateway (Dell, whoever) wants to create a value-added portal like
Apple has no such conflict - they own the whole ball of wax, so the hardware and OS sides of the company can work together to produce a best-in-class (and don't pretend they aren't class-leading or at least very innovative and polished) set of services for Mac users - for free in many cases (iTunes, iPhoto) and for a modest yearly charge in other cases.
My ISP charges $20.00 a month for a 5MB mailox and 50MB of FTP space. Apple is providing more than that for $100.00 a year. That's half off for me - for more space.
Owning a mac has never looked better. Apple is again taking positive steps to increase revenue growth and reduce it's dependence on volatile hardware sales. Reasonable prices for services that generate recurring revenue...new product refreshes on a regular basis to win the fence sitters and an advertising program that _is_ winning over some converts (right here in my office) - rather unfunny Penny Arcade cartoons notwithstanding.
Good job, Apple.
I don't think there's is such a beast as a dual 400MHz G4, unless you work at Apple and have access to a production prototype.
The lowest frequency Apple produced dual CPU G4s at was 450MHz, to my recollection.
IBM has, in fact produced AltiVec-enabled CPUs on a production sample basis.
Yeah, but can it send you an e-mail about the failing fan, notify you with a blinkelight, and shut itself down automagically?
Didn't think so. I'll bet your 486 doesn't have two 1GHz processors or .5 terabyte capacity, either. =>
As for walking the dog, Macs arent that expensive - I mean, we're not talking about a Sun machine or anything.
Mac OS X will terminate on an overheat signal. On the new XServe, the machine can be configured to send an alarm or shut down upon fan failure.
But I guess you get what you pay for, since Macs can be significantly more expensive.
How easy would it be to integrate that sort of thing into all the flavors of Windows or into Linux?
John Dvorak, noted PC World columnist, has reported for the very first time that Apple is irrelevant.
Dvorak could not be reached for comment, although his agent noted that "John's probably just off his meds again".
Seriously. Dvorak seems to forget that Apple HAS reinvented the Mac into something quite different and novel - through Mac OS X.
A Mac in OS 9 is one thing...but a Mac in OS X is a completely different computer. Dvorak either needs some hits on his portion of the PC Magazine web site, or he's just feeling mean.
Don't you?
L.A.W. = Lawyers Are Wimps (for making the development team change the code name).
I call bullshit. You don't know what you're talking about.
Ricochet used public spectrum in the 900MHz and 2.4GHz spectrum. You want to talk about spectrally efficient? It used FREE and available spectrum. Because Ricochet used wide, publicly available spectrum, spectrum reuse wasn't as much of an issue for the designers - although they broke new ground there too, by using an inexpensive microcellular architecture to maximise spectrum reuse. It was efficent logically and monetarily...too bad the network cost so much to build so fast. Thanks, Schellman!
No spectrum auctions, no billion-dollar outlay for airwaves...and they were able to get over 1Mbps (that's Megabit...maybe your tech IQ is a bit thin) raw air-air speed between poletop radios. while I understand that true 3G is 2.4Mbps at the site, things seem to turn to junk when more users get on the network and you're moving.
It could never serve more than a niche market (even if the demand wasn't so niche).
Then why is the data rate of 3G such a big deal? It would seem that this niche market is fairly large - the people who want a lot of data on the move. I think it was a pretty immature market when Ricochet was available, but it certainly wasn't a niche.
I would hesitate to believe that the cellcos have invested literally tens of billions collectively to bring high data rates to the U.S. inorder for people to goof with Pokemon on their phones.
That technology would never back it big simply because service providers wouldn't be able to serve large numbers of people (relative to what's happening with cellular networks) with it.
Again, you seem light on technology here. The Ricochet hardware and software could handle quite a bit more traffic at peak load and at lower cost/MB per user than 3G has ever been projected to achieve. Ever seen 40 simulated users hit one 3G base station at once?
What seems odd to me is that people who discounted Ricochet two years ago are hyping 3G at two to three times the cost per minute per month.
Ricochet was modeled after the internet itself - a mesh (about five $1500.00 radios per square mile) arrangement of programmable high-throughput devices that function independently of each other...each radio is not just a repeater, but a router.
As far as Ricochet node failover goes - as long as you've got a wired access point somewhere, the poletop radios will find it, as long as there's one about every mile or so and they can see each other. After the WTC towers collapsed, they took out quite a bit of Ricochet equipment - and yet the workers could utilize the technology at ground zero at reported speeds of over 150kbps. Try that with 3G.
It used to bug me when people I knew at Qualcomm bashed Ricochet without any idea of how it worked. Which wireless data network you rather: a few big towers that are easy to knock down, or thousands of poletop radios that depend on the streetlight infrastructure?