But a service pack is _WAY_ different then a hotfix/patch. Services packs do need to be tested a lot because many times there are changes in functionality. A hotfix (released in Jul for this particular problem) has never (to my knowledge at lest) changed anything. So sure, you have to reboot, but that's the only excuse for not installing a patch right away... but months later?
The point the original poster was trying to make is that CPU speed is the bottleneck in only a minority of current uses for computers.
I understand, but with MP3 and DVD encoding, Video Editing, and Gaming I wouldn't say that the minority of users don't need a fast CPU.
And if CPU usage causes your audio to clip, then the software and/or the audio interface sucks.
No, you are talking about simple hard disk audio recording. Of course I can do that on an iMac G3. I'm talking about software synthesis (physical modeling, software sampling, DSP, etc.) which can eat up a LOT of CPU when using multiple instruments and effects simultaneously and in realtime from a MIDI controller. For the specific app I'm talking about (which is nicely optimised for OS X and dual proc operation), check out Reason.
Sure, for those who browse the web and edit small image files, no, it's not about speed. But my hobby is audio (some video) production. My Athlon1.2Ghz barely keeps up with some complex software synthesis packages (extremely complex Reason songs). I want to eventually move all of my A/V stuff to a Mac, and use a MOTU 828 firewire audio interface. Unfortunately, I'd need a Dual1ghz G4 - this costs me almost twice as much $$$ as the Athlon XP 2600+ which I'm about to build which in some ways (because of the 333FSB) may run a bit faster. So, I could either get a ~800mhz G4 which would not be fast enough for me, or I can get an Athlon XP2600+. True, the OS (WinXP) isn't quite as nice, and the hardware isn't quite as slick, but if my audio is clipping because there's too much CPU usage, the Mac solution is useless to me.
Yes, AltiVec is nice, but do I HAVE to keep posting this link? John Carmack on the G4 and Altivec. (Note that this was before SSE2 was being considered)
I wouldn't say that the only reason that MS has more exploits is because there are way more hackers hacking into Windows because it's popular (although that is an overlooked factor by many/. types), however, the original "+5/. Insightful MS basher" post was far off from the fact books.
Ah yes I forgot intel has (to AMD lovers' shame) a faster bus than AMD now.
Eh, not to my shame (and I'm an AMD supporter too). You have to remember that in the Real World(tm), faster bus is needed only with faster clocks. Since AMD can do more with less clocks on the CPU, the same can be said (for many applications) with the FSB. As long as AMD keeps upping the FSB relative to the CPU's frequency, the FSB won't become a bottleneck (unlike on many PPC systems, where the G4 is being strangled by a 66 - 133mhz(?) FSB).
Hell, I code VB. You shouldn't trust my opinions on spatula operation, let alone legal matters...
Or programming matters! Sorry, I had to take the low blow:-). Hey, at least we get to all play nice on.NET! I mean, the language is still a mess but now I can implement your crap elegantly with C#:-)... *ouch* two low blows! Okay, I'll stop!
Well, as you can probably intuit Home machines are vastly different then Corporate machines - esp. from major players like Dell and Compaq.
Using your own logic your findings are flawed because your answers aren't quantified.
No, because you were the one who made the contention. I'm not saying that you are right or wrong about that contention (although my anecdotes contend the antithesis), I'm saying that you didn't provide sufficient basis for it.
So, if you have a Mac at home, do you not do any.NET development at home? What is your development platform of choice on OS X (for web applications particularly)?
A) If you are a.NET developer, how do you use a mac? I primarily code in C# (a little Perl, Java, Cold Fusion, etc.) and I use VS.NET. If I could get VS.NET on OS X with reasonable speed (emulator?) that may be enough to push me to buy a mac.
B) You can't compare the 2 hours that your friend took to find an MP3 encoder. It's an innacurate comparison. A "PC" is not a "PC" as a Mac is a Mac. So what if he bought a poorly equiped PC? If he bought a Dell (for example) all the software is included. Maybe the software isn't quite as slick, but the CPU difference would easily make up for a minor usability difference.
C) Most of your evidence is Anecdotal (thefore, you haven't quantified as I asked you to). So what if you spend an hour fixing your dad's stuff? It's an isolated incident with too many variables. My machine at home has been running fine and I don't waste time "fixing it".
In my experience, Mac's are definitely slicker out of the box. But you can't compare it's usability to the significant performance gap (for the price). For the most part certain tasks like MP3 encoding will always be faster than the mac, until Apple finally goes to a closed, proprietary, but x86 based solution.
Until then, I'd like a Mac for all of my audio software. The problem is, my 1.2Ghz Athlon is not quite fast enough for complex software synthesis (only super complex songs in Reason - 90% of songs only use only 50% of the CPU). If I knew that a dual 1Ghz G4 could beat the pants off of that, AND that I could get one for ~$1600 WITH a 17 or 18" flat panel, then I'd be sold.
The problem is that you can't compare Apple to Intel all the time. Look at AMD with NVidia's Nforce2 platform. Look at Hypertransport. It looks a like some of the benefits that Apple has, with a faster CPU (real world performance, not ghz) and cheaper price tag.
Don't get me wrong, a part of me want's a MAC, but my audio editing has strict performance requirements. These performance requirements are easily met by my ~$800 1.5 year old Athlon (firewire, UWSCSI (10K rpm), etc.) and can barely be beat by a $1500 G4 TODAY. Sure, the powermac is much more elegant, and has a cooler OS (for A/V, at least) but I still can't justify the price/performance margin.
On the flipside, for a casual user who would be just fine on a "low end" G4 with 256MB of RAM, I'd recommend a $1199 iMac over a $899 DELL any day.
For most people the fact that the system is stable and that it works predictably is more than enough.
Can you quantify this statement? As software becomes more usable, more and more people are finding the benefits of MP3 and Video encoding, Home video editing, and other multimedia activities that are not fast enough even on the best Nforce2 based Athlon.
Not quite... I consider myself a critical thinker of many ideas. I may not go with popular opinion, and sometimes I do go with popular opinion (eg: MS Office and Outlook are notoriously insecure, and I run Open Office because of that reason alone - I actually like MS Office better, but I don't install trojan's on my machine). It just so happens that a lot of my opinions weigh on MS's behalf, because MS has the cashflow to attract some of the brightest programmers in the world, and it shows.
Yeah, you can get a 499 dollar Dell, but it has the standard equipment of a four year old model.
Or, you can buy a G4 which came out... 4 years ago!
Not to troll - I really want to convert to OS X for all of my music applications. But I _NEED_ the CPU speed of an Athlon 2100+ (~1.3-1.4Ggz G4)... I can get a cheap Athlon2100+ box for well under $999 (with Firewire and a Radeon 9500Pro). I'm willing to pay a little more for the quality of Apple hardware, but not much.
No offense but grow up and broaden your understanding of what a "criminal organization" is. A company that broke a very complex, NON OBVIOUS (just because you believe in something passionatly does not make it trivially obvious to others) law, and have "paid" for their crimes as the judges see fit (if you don't think it's enough, become a judge and learn about balanced perspectives). Second, almost all major corporations have broken multiple laws, some intentionally, and some by ignorance. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't prosecute, but you make it sound like a shoe company that farms 80% of it's work out to sweatshops.
Look at the disruption caused by Unisys's LZW patent used in GIFs.
Except that most of what Mono is implementing is Industry Standardized (not ASP.NET, or Winforms... but those don't use any MS code anyway).
Until then, Java is much further along. I doubt it..NET Beta 2 felt more stable and refined then curently available tools (okay, Borland JBuilder with the SunJVM...ACK!). Now that MS has had a 1.0 product out for over a year (with no major problems on some of the largest enterprise installations) I think that it's safe to say that it's a very robust platform. Furthermore, MS had the opportunity to improve on Java in many ways, which makes it farther along in certain aspects (IMHO).
The problem with the poison in unnatural cigarettes is the chemicals that enhance the addictive qualities of nicotine. If you smoke a Cigar or Nat Sherman natural cigarette you are far less likely to become physically dependant. The real problem, of course, is the habitual nature of smoking.
I know in their 30s and 40s chuckle at the young turks who don't realize that their "hot new paradigm" (or language or whatever) is the same recycled cat shit that's been around - and dismissed - for years.
Many times it has to do with the right implementation of said paradigm. I won't go into detail, but most of us know that the concept of an abstract syntax machine was around long before Java became the next big Fad. But implementation, market forces, etc. all play a part in the buy-in of a technology.
This just shows the power of Open Source guys! I would like to have seen Micro$oft respond to my bug reports so quickly and actually fix them.
I'm not trying to troll, but with MS the bugs wouldn't be there in the first place. Seriously, when it comes to.NET, you can't use the typical anti-MS arguments. With some of the minor issues regarding.NET, MS have been reasonably quick to release updates, although again, the issues have been extremely minor.
If you have the money. Unfortunately many small to medium businesses don't have the money, or shouldn't have the money allocated towards this sort of expense. In many cases it's just cheaper to stay with a reasonable recent version of whatever software you are using.
Yes, I am talking about a few buffer overflow attacks from October, and the point is that under certain configurations (even if that config is not the default) that a remote exploit was theoretically possible.
Insightful? How? If you haven't patched PostgreSQL within the last 6 months you are vulnerable to multiple buffer overflow/remote root exploits. If PostgreSQL had the volume of boxes that MSSQL had on the 'net, you can be sure that there'd be a large number of idiot sysadmins who A) don't patch and B) don't know how to use a firewall to protect their systems.
Because MS takes this line: "It isn't *our* fault for writing insecure, buggy software. *We've* had a patch out for N days/weeks/months. *You admins* screwed up.
Yes the admins did screw up, because IT's THERE JOB to apply patches and secure their systems. Everyone rights insecure software. If you're an admin and haven't applied a patch from 6 months ago you are NEGLIGANT. The same goes for PostgreSQL - If you haven't applied patches from 6 months ago you'd have a DB server with buffer overflow attacks which can allow the hacker to gain root.
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But a service pack is _WAY_ different then a hotfix/patch. Services packs do need to be tested a lot because many times there are changes in functionality. A hotfix (released in Jul for this particular problem) has never (to my knowledge at lest) changed anything. So sure, you have to reboot, but that's the only excuse for not installing a patch right away... but months later?
The point the original poster was trying to make is that CPU speed is the bottleneck in only a minority of current uses for computers.
I understand, but with MP3 and DVD encoding, Video Editing, and Gaming I wouldn't say that the minority of users don't need a fast CPU.
And if CPU usage causes your audio to clip, then the software and/or the audio interface sucks.
No, you are talking about simple hard disk audio recording. Of course I can do that on an iMac G3. I'm talking about software synthesis (physical modeling, software sampling, DSP, etc.) which can eat up a LOT of CPU when using multiple instruments and effects simultaneously and in realtime from a MIDI controller. For the specific app I'm talking about (which is nicely optimised for OS X and dual proc operation), check out Reason.
It's not about speed.
Yes it is!
Sure, for those who browse the web and edit small image files, no, it's not about speed. But my hobby is audio (some video) production. My Athlon1.2Ghz barely keeps up with some complex software synthesis packages (extremely complex Reason songs). I want to eventually move all of my A/V stuff to a Mac, and use a MOTU 828 firewire audio interface. Unfortunately, I'd need a Dual1ghz G4 - this costs me almost twice as much $$$ as the Athlon XP 2600+ which I'm about to build which in some ways (because of the 333FSB) may run a bit faster. So, I could either get a ~800mhz G4 which would not be fast enough for me, or I can get an Athlon XP2600+. True, the OS (WinXP) isn't quite as nice, and the hardware isn't quite as slick, but if my audio is clipping because there's too much CPU usage, the Mac solution is useless to me.
Yes, AltiVec is nice, but do I HAVE to keep posting this link? John Carmack on the G4 and Altivec. (Note that this was before SSE2 was being considered)
I wouldn't say that the only reason that MS has more exploits is because there are way more hackers hacking into Windows because it's popular (although that is an overlooked factor by many /. types), however, the original "+5 /. Insightful MS basher" post was far off from the fact books.
Ah yes I forgot intel has (to AMD lovers' shame) a faster bus than AMD now.
Eh, not to my shame (and I'm an AMD supporter too). You have to remember that in the Real World(tm), faster bus is needed only with faster clocks. Since AMD can do more with less clocks on the CPU, the same can be said (for many applications) with the FSB. As long as AMD keeps upping the FSB relative to the CPU's frequency, the FSB won't become a bottleneck (unlike on many PPC systems, where the G4 is being strangled by a 66 - 133mhz(?) FSB).
Hell, I code VB. You shouldn't trust my opinions on spatula operation, let alone legal matters...
:-). Hey, at least we get to all play nice on .NET! I mean, the language is still a mess but now I can implement your crap elegantly with C# :-)... *ouch* two low blows! Okay, I'll stop!
Or programming matters! Sorry, I had to take the low blow
Well, as you can probably intuit Home machines are vastly different then Corporate machines - esp. from major players like Dell and Compaq.
.NET development at home? What is your development platform of choice on OS X (for web applications particularly)?
Using your own logic your findings are flawed because your answers aren't quantified.
No, because you were the one who made the contention. I'm not saying that you are right or wrong about that contention (although my anecdotes contend the antithesis), I'm saying that you didn't provide sufficient basis for it.
So, if you have a Mac at home, do you not do any
...always nice to see public dollars supporting public software.
But do the programmers who spend a lot of time on it see a dime?
A) If you are a .NET developer, how do you use a mac? I primarily code in C# (a little Perl, Java, Cold Fusion, etc.) and I use VS.NET. If I could get VS.NET on OS X with reasonable speed (emulator?) that may be enough to push me to buy a mac.
B) You can't compare the 2 hours that your friend took to find an MP3 encoder. It's an innacurate comparison. A "PC" is not a "PC" as a Mac is a Mac. So what if he bought a poorly equiped PC? If he bought a Dell (for example) all the software is included. Maybe the software isn't quite as slick, but the CPU difference would easily make up for a minor usability difference.
C) Most of your evidence is Anecdotal (thefore, you haven't quantified as I asked you to). So what if you spend an hour fixing your dad's stuff? It's an isolated incident with too many variables. My machine at home has been running fine and I don't waste time "fixing it".
In my experience, Mac's are definitely slicker out of the box. But you can't compare it's usability to the significant performance gap (for the price). For the most part certain tasks like MP3 encoding will always be faster than the mac, until Apple finally goes to a closed, proprietary, but x86 based solution.
Until then, I'd like a Mac for all of my audio software. The problem is, my 1.2Ghz Athlon is not quite fast enough for complex software synthesis (only super complex songs in Reason - 90% of songs only use only 50% of the CPU). If I knew that a dual 1Ghz G4 could beat the pants off of that, AND that I could get one for ~$1600 WITH a 17 or 18" flat panel, then I'd be sold.
The problem is that you can't compare Apple to Intel all the time. Look at AMD with NVidia's Nforce2 platform. Look at Hypertransport. It looks a like some of the benefits that Apple has, with a faster CPU (real world performance, not ghz) and cheaper price tag.
Don't get me wrong, a part of me want's a MAC, but my audio editing has strict performance requirements. These performance requirements are easily met by my ~$800 1.5 year old Athlon (firewire, UWSCSI (10K rpm), etc.) and can barely be beat by a $1500 G4 TODAY. Sure, the powermac is much more elegant, and has a cooler OS (for A/V, at least) but I still can't justify the price/performance margin.
On the flipside, for a casual user who would be just fine on a "low end" G4 with 256MB of RAM, I'd recommend a $1199 iMac over a $899 DELL any day.
For most people the fact that the system is stable and that it works predictably is more than enough.
Can you quantify this statement? As software becomes more usable, more and more people are finding the benefits of MP3 and Video encoding, Home video editing, and other multimedia activities that are not fast enough even on the best Nforce2 based Athlon.
Not quite... I consider myself a critical thinker of many ideas. I may not go with popular opinion, and sometimes I do go with popular opinion (eg: MS Office and Outlook are notoriously insecure, and I run Open Office because of that reason alone - I actually like MS Office better, but I don't install trojan's on my machine). It just so happens that a lot of my opinions weigh on MS's behalf, because MS has the cashflow to attract some of the brightest programmers in the world, and it shows.
Yeah, you can get a 499 dollar Dell, but it has the standard equipment of a four year old model.
Or, you can buy a G4 which came out... 4 years ago!
Not to troll - I really want to convert to OS X for all of my music applications. But I _NEED_ the CPU speed of an Athlon 2100+ (~1.3-1.4Ggz G4)... I can get a cheap Athlon2100+ box for well under $999 (with Firewire and a Radeon 9500Pro). I'm willing to pay a little more for the quality of Apple hardware, but not much.
It's benefits a criminal organization.
No offense but grow up and broaden your understanding of what a "criminal organization" is. A company that broke a very complex, NON OBVIOUS (just because you believe in something passionatly does not make it trivially obvious to others) law, and have "paid" for their crimes as the judges see fit (if you don't think it's enough, become a judge and learn about balanced perspectives). Second, almost all major corporations have broken multiple laws, some intentionally, and some by ignorance. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't prosecute, but you make it sound like a shoe company that farms 80% of it's work out to sweatshops.
Look at the disruption caused by Unisys's LZW patent used in GIFs.
.NET Beta 2 felt more stable and refined then curently available tools (okay, Borland JBuilder with the SunJVM...ACK!). Now that MS has had a 1.0 product out for over a year (with no major problems on some of the largest enterprise installations) I think that it's safe to say that it's a very robust platform. Furthermore, MS had the opportunity to improve on Java in many ways, which makes it farther along in certain aspects (IMHO).
Except that most of what Mono is implementing is Industry Standardized (not ASP.NET, or Winforms... but those don't use any MS code anyway).
Until then, Java is much further along.
I doubt it.
The problem with the poison in unnatural cigarettes is the chemicals that enhance the addictive qualities of nicotine. If you smoke a Cigar or Nat Sherman natural cigarette you are far less likely to become physically dependant. The real problem, of course, is the habitual nature of smoking.
I know in their 30s and 40s chuckle at the young turks who don't realize that their "hot new paradigm" (or language or whatever) is the same recycled cat shit that's been around - and dismissed - for years.
Many times it has to do with the right implementation of said paradigm. I won't go into detail, but most of us know that the concept of an abstract syntax machine was around long before Java became the next big Fad. But implementation, market forces, etc. all play a part in the buy-in of a technology.
This just shows the power of Open Source guys! I would like to have seen Micro$oft respond to my bug reports so quickly and actually fix them.
.NET, you can't use the typical anti-MS arguments. With some of the minor issues regarding .NET, MS have been reasonably quick to release updates, although again, the issues have been extremely minor.
I'm not trying to troll, but with MS the bugs wouldn't be there in the first place. Seriously, when it comes to
and you can pay anyone willing to fix it.
If you have the money. Unfortunately many small to medium businesses don't have the money, or shouldn't have the money allocated towards this sort of expense. In many cases it's just cheaper to stay with a reasonable recent version of whatever software you are using.
Yes, I am talking about a few buffer overflow attacks from October, and the point is that under certain configurations (even if that config is not the default) that a remote exploit was theoretically possible.
Insightful? How? If you haven't patched PostgreSQL within the last 6 months you are vulnerable to multiple buffer overflow/remote root exploits. If PostgreSQL had the volume of boxes that MSSQL had on the 'net, you can be sure that there'd be a large number of idiot sysadmins who A) don't patch and B) don't know how to use a firewall to protect their systems.
Once this blows over, it's time to start some real PostgreSQL advocacy..
And if you haven't applied patches to PostgreSQL within the last 6 months you'd also be vulnerable to remote root exploits.
Because MS takes this line: "It isn't *our* fault for writing insecure, buggy software. *We've* had a patch out for N days/weeks/months. *You admins* screwed up.
Yes the admins did screw up, because IT's THERE JOB to apply patches and secure their systems. Everyone rights insecure software. If you're an admin and haven't applied a patch from 6 months ago you are NEGLIGANT. The same goes for PostgreSQL - If you haven't applied patches from 6 months ago you'd have a DB server with buffer overflow attacks which can allow the hacker to gain root.
$30 million POS systems
That's a lot of money to spend on a POS!