I agree with you on almost every point except the first: products which won't work after 30 days until you "activate them" (Win XP, Office XP, Autocad, etc),
Activation is easier than typing those rediculously long, error prone serial numbers (granted, in XP you have to type that in too!) I have 2 Windows XP machines (I finally switched about a month ago) and I was all up-in-arms about activation, until I actually did it. If you are on the Internet, you have to click the "OK" button during install when asked "do you want to activate". Then you have to wait 2-3 seconds. Otherwise, you have to call a 24hour toll-free support line in which you have to wait on hold for about 5-10 seconds before you can get your activation key.
Personally, I think that product activation for smaller products like an OS is a waste of time for the makers of the software because it's still trivial to pirate the software. However, I would not call product activation an area in which consumers are "hurt" by anti-piracy measures.
Furthermore, it's not that hard to setup IIS to limit bandwidth or concurrent users so that you don't take the server down. In Apache just install Apache::Throttle and configure as well. Either way, the worst case scenario is that during a spike some users receive a "Try again later", while other users who have already established a connection can keep using the site at a reasonable speed.
Even if you don't have access to your web server, configuring a web application server (such as Tomcat, Cold Fusion, or ASP.NET) to limit connections before it goes into a "low bandwidth" or "static" mode (kind of like CNN did during 9/11). I know a lot of these sites are personal sites, but most seem to be PHP or Perl sites which assumes that a coder of some sorts is involved.
Yes, you're missing the fact that it doesn't say that you can not distribute the modified version. It's just saying that you can't distribute the modified source - binaries are still OK.
SSE2 and Altivec are both SIMD's. Altivec is different in architecture, and is superior, but they are on the same playinf field.
Also, in many CPU intensive tasks (again, isoltated cases such as photoshop notwithstanding), even P3's could beat out the G4's with a minimal clock advantage.
Check out Carmack's post - he spent a lot of time optimising for Altivec with little improvement: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10702&cid=4107 03
Because Laptops are more proprietary in nature, Apple can compete a little better on price as opposed to desktop "boxes". The ~$600 price difference is not bad considering the quality of software, screen size, and clean hardware design of the Powerbook. I would like to correct you with your "debateable" processor analysis. This is a problem with many Mac only users - they believe the mhz myth inversly ("G4's are always faster no matter how fast the AMD/Intel counterpart). I would also like to point out that price/performance differences are usually smaller on the highest tier of the product segment. Compare medium range laptops (and esp. desktops) and the gap is much wider.
But back to my biggest gripe - your comparion of CPU's. There are many applications where even a P3 can beat a G4 Clock-for-Clock. G4 excels in areas like Photoshop where Altivec makes a huge difference. Remember though, that Intel's SSE2 marginalizes the differences in speed gains that Altivec receives. Although P4's leave a lot to be desired (I'm an AMD fan), based on what I've seen I think it's more accurate to compare a ~1.5Ghz P4 to a 1Ghz G4.
I'm not saying that this extra performance makes the Dell a better computer. My point is that it's not definitely not a marginal or arguable difference in speed, and many people run applications that will easily tax a 1Ghz G4 such as myself. I just bought Sony w/an Athlon XP2000+ and 512MB RAM for ~$1500. And yes, I have firewire and 10/100 (I don't need 1000, so why pay for it?) and USB2.0 and a CDRW/DVD combo (no DVD-R). Sony makes very clean an elegant laptopts - they don't quite match Apple's hardware design, however.
So no, the processer is not a little slower on the G4, it's significantly slower. If you don't need that extra speed and have an extra $1K+ to spend, then the Apple is great from an overall value. For me, the value just isn't there because some of my software simply won't run properly on such slow hardware. And for half the price, I have a machine that has the power I need.
They explicitly use c#. Microsoft is paying many universities today to use their products so when students graduate they will pick Microsoft based solutions.
And how do you think Java got into the universities in the first place? Business has (unfortunately) always had an influence in acedamia. Until this is illegal, it's a very legit and ethical business tactic IMHO.
MS has a Windows and BSD implementation. But that's not the point, the point is that when it becomes standardized others can implement and/or interoperate with it. As already mentioned, there are multiple projects underway for non-Windows platforms.
Different classes of screens
on
LCD Price Fixing?
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· Score: 4, Informative
Notebook screens differ from desktop LCD's in that,
* Their viewing angle is usually a lot worse
* Their contrast ratio and brightness is usually worse
I never said the problem doesn't exist. My point was that this is catagorically "/. FUD" because although the problem exists, it's practically unnoticeable and it's not that big of a deal.
My first experience with XP (no pun intended) was just a few weeks ago with my new laptop. Everything about it is faster than my workstation. True, my workstation has a slower CPU, but it also has a significantly faster harddrive, which is usually the bottleneck for loadtimes. XP boots way faster, loads programs noticeably faster, and has a more responsive GUI even considering the more resource intensive graphics. So, if in fact there is a bug in XP that slows the loading of some programs down, then that just means that SP2 will make things even faster.
Oh, and let's not talk about load times for X window managers. Even with XP's "bug" KDE nor Gnome stand a chance*.
* Disclaimer: this is based on my experience RH8. I'm currently downloading the Mandrake 9.1 ISO's (slowly... mirrors are hammered) so my observation is not taking into account potential performance improvements made recently.
Looking at a Sun's stock as a metric in which to measure Java's future is folly at best. Java's not going anywhere. I'd be more worried about PHP falling into a niche and "barely supported" category (even though that's not likely either). I agree with the parent post - scripts should not be used for Web Applications, because Web Applications need a full blown application server. I personally prefer ASP.NET, but I'd much rather come into a company with a Web Application written on a J2EE platform then one scripted in PHP, Perl, etc.
You are making an unsubstantiated assumption. Sure MS _MAY_ remove the dual boot feature - and if they do then I won't upgrade to that OS 4 years from now. But, Palladium may also fail so they may remove it alltogether.
No facts get a +5: only on/. I won't even waste my time going into the myriad the differences between the mentioned OS's but I have to say that NT4 is (IMHO) an OS that should not be used for anything remotely mission critical. I personally stayed away from Windows as much as possible on the server until Win2K came out. And even then it took a lot of convincing (and Service Packs) before I made the switch. W2K is a very different OS than NT4. Furthermore, if you've read much of anything on Win2003, you'd know that the differences abound.
.NET plays with any database just fine via Native drivers, OLE/DB, or ODBC. AFAIK the issue is that VS.NET doesn't fully support non MSSQL DB's within it's Server Explorer - a feature that I have never found too useful anyway.
The fact of the matter is that for most applications, both PCs and Macs are so damned fast that it doesn't matter which is faster...
What Adobe apps don't require a ton of CPU? My Premier renders still take forever - the same goes for After Affects. Even Photoshop on large files can take a minute or two to apply filters. I'm sorry but the whole attitude of "a dual 1.42Ghz G4 is fast enough" is BS - especially within the scope of digital media!
If Verizon (my provider) want's to put my number on 411, they can pay for all incoming calls (or at least the first minute - Sprint _used_ to do this). I know that there are currently plans (from Nextel I believe) that only bill you for outgoing calls.
What does corporate activity have anything to do with whethor or not humans are a commodity? I'll say yes, corporations generally have been treating humans as a commodity, and I'm saying that this is wrong (ethically, not legally).
Re:I was going to be a karma whore and
on
Strike on Iraq
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· Score: 1
Uhm, do you really think that Saddam allows Iraqi's to read slashdot?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you on almost every point except the first: products which won't work after 30 days until you "activate them" (Win XP, Office XP, Autocad, etc),
Activation is easier than typing those rediculously long, error prone serial numbers (granted, in XP you have to type that in too!) I have 2 Windows XP machines (I finally switched about a month ago) and I was all up-in-arms about activation, until I actually did it. If you are on the Internet, you have to click the "OK" button during install when asked "do you want to activate". Then you have to wait 2-3 seconds. Otherwise, you have to call a 24hour toll-free support line in which you have to wait on hold for about 5-10 seconds before you can get your activation key.
Personally, I think that product activation for smaller products like an OS is a waste of time for the makers of the software because it's still trivial to pirate the software. However, I would not call product activation an area in which consumers are "hurt" by anti-piracy measures.
Furthermore, it's not that hard to setup IIS to limit bandwidth or concurrent users so that you don't take the server down. In Apache just install Apache::Throttle and configure as well. Either way, the worst case scenario is that during a spike some users receive a "Try again later", while other users who have already established a connection can keep using the site at a reasonable speed.
Even if you don't have access to your web server, configuring a web application server (such as Tomcat, Cold Fusion, or ASP.NET) to limit connections before it goes into a "low bandwidth" or "static" mode (kind of like CNN did during 9/11). I know a lot of these sites are personal sites, but most seem to be PHP or Perl sites which assumes that a coder of some sorts is involved.
You're correct. I thought it was an XOR - you can't distribute the source with binary.
...or am I missing something?
Yes, you're missing the fact that it doesn't say that you can not distribute the modified version. It's just saying that you can't distribute the modified source - binaries are still OK.
NT has been running on Alpha's since NT4 (or maybe even 3.51 AFAIK).
SSE2 and Altivec are both SIMD's. Altivec is different in architecture, and is superior, but they are on the same playinf field.
7 03
Also, in many CPU intensive tasks (again, isoltated cases such as photoshop notwithstanding), even P3's could beat out the G4's with a minimal clock advantage.
Check out Carmack's post - he spent a lot of time optimising for Altivec with little improvement: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10702&cid=410
Because Laptops are more proprietary in nature, Apple can compete a little better on price as opposed to desktop "boxes". The ~$600 price difference is not bad considering the quality of software, screen size, and clean hardware design of the Powerbook. I would like to correct you with your "debateable" processor analysis. This is a problem with many Mac only users - they believe the mhz myth inversly ("G4's are always faster no matter how fast the AMD/Intel counterpart). I would also like to point out that price/performance differences are usually smaller on the highest tier of the product segment. Compare medium range laptops (and esp. desktops) and the gap is much wider.
But back to my biggest gripe - your comparion of CPU's. There are many applications where even a P3 can beat a G4 Clock-for-Clock. G4 excels in areas like Photoshop where Altivec makes a huge difference. Remember though, that Intel's SSE2 marginalizes the differences in speed gains that Altivec receives. Although P4's leave a lot to be desired (I'm an AMD fan), based on what I've seen I think it's more accurate to compare a ~1.5Ghz P4 to a 1Ghz G4.
I'm not saying that this extra performance makes the Dell a better computer. My point is that it's not definitely not a marginal or arguable difference in speed, and many people run applications that will easily tax a 1Ghz G4 such as myself. I just bought Sony w/an Athlon XP2000+ and 512MB RAM for ~$1500. And yes, I have firewire and 10/100 (I don't need 1000, so why pay for it?) and USB2.0 and a CDRW/DVD combo (no DVD-R). Sony makes very clean an elegant laptopts - they don't quite match Apple's hardware design, however.
So no, the processer is not a little slower on the G4, it's significantly slower. If you don't need that extra speed and have an extra $1K+ to spend, then the Apple is great from an overall value. For me, the value just isn't there because some of my software simply won't run properly on such slow hardware. And for half the price, I have a machine that has the power I need.
And BSD (full implementation) and Linux (nearly complete).
They explicitly use c#. Microsoft is paying many universities today to use their products so when students graduate they will pick Microsoft based solutions.
And how do you think Java got into the universities in the first place? Business has (unfortunately) always had an influence in acedamia. Until this is illegal, it's a very legit and ethical business tactic IMHO.
MS has a Windows and BSD implementation. But that's not the point, the point is that when it becomes standardized others can implement and/or interoperate with it. As already mentioned, there are multiple projects underway for non-Windows platforms.
Notebook screens differ from desktop LCD's in that,
* Their viewing angle is usually a lot worse
* Their contrast ratio and brightness is usually worse
* They're smaller by at least an inch or two
* Their response times are generally a lot slower
The problem actually exists. (Thus is not FUD)
I never said the problem doesn't exist. My point was that this is catagorically "/. FUD" because although the problem exists, it's practically unnoticeable and it's not that big of a deal.
If it doesn't perform off the shelf, practically speaking it doesn't perform period.
My first experience with XP (no pun intended) was just a few weeks ago with my new laptop. Everything about it is faster than my workstation. True, my workstation has a slower CPU, but it also has a significantly faster harddrive, which is usually the bottleneck for loadtimes. XP boots way faster, loads programs noticeably faster, and has a more responsive GUI even considering the more resource intensive graphics. So, if in fact there is a bug in XP that slows the loading of some programs down, then that just means that SP2 will make things even faster.
Oh, and let's not talk about load times for X window managers. Even with XP's "bug" KDE nor Gnome stand a chance*.
* Disclaimer: this is based on my experience RH8. I'm currently downloading the Mandrake 9.1 ISO's (slowly... mirrors are hammered) so my observation is not taking into account potential performance improvements made recently.
Looking at a Sun's stock as a metric in which to measure Java's future is folly at best. Java's not going anywhere. I'd be more worried about PHP falling into a niche and "barely supported" category (even though that's not likely either). I agree with the parent post - scripts should not be used for Web Applications, because Web Applications need a full blown application server. I personally prefer ASP.NET, but I'd much rather come into a company with a Web Application written on a J2EE platform then one scripted in PHP, Perl, etc.
You are making an unsubstantiated assumption. Sure MS _MAY_ remove the dual boot feature - and if they do then I won't upgrade to that OS 4 years from now. But, Palladium may also fail so they may remove it alltogether.
Now that Palladium is going to lock me into Windows
I'd take your same stance as well, except that you can dual boot into non-Palladium mode.
No facts get a +5: only on /. I won't even waste my time going into the myriad the differences between the mentioned OS's but I have to say that NT4 is (IMHO) an OS that should not be used for anything remotely mission critical. I personally stayed away from Windows as much as possible on the server until Win2K came out. And even then it took a lot of convincing (and Service Packs) before I made the switch. W2K is a very different OS than NT4. Furthermore, if you've read much of anything on Win2003, you'd know that the differences abound.
.NET plays with any database just fine via Native drivers, OLE/DB, or ODBC. AFAIK the issue is that VS.NET doesn't fully support non MSSQL DB's within it's Server Explorer - a feature that I have never found too useful anyway.
The fact of the matter is that for most applications, both PCs and Macs are so damned fast that it doesn't matter which is faster...
What Adobe apps don't require a ton of CPU? My Premier renders still take forever - the same goes for After Affects. Even Photoshop on large files can take a minute or two to apply filters. I'm sorry but the whole attitude of "a dual 1.42Ghz G4 is fast enough" is BS - especially within the scope of digital media!
Your mod rating and your sig says it all...
If Verizon (my provider) want's to put my number on 411, they can pay for all incoming calls (or at least the first minute - Sprint _used_ to do this). I know that there are currently plans (from Nextel I believe) that only bill you for outgoing calls.
What does corporate activity have anything to do with whethor or not humans are a commodity? I'll say yes, corporations generally have been treating humans as a commodity, and I'm saying that this is wrong (ethically, not legally).
Uhm, do you really think that Saddam allows Iraqi's to read slashdot?
Because hey, if they were being abused before, if we abuse them less it's OK because they're better off... right?