Your brain stimulates the muscle nerves to move the muscles. So would you propose disconnecting them from the muscles to use them to control a video game? Now in the case of someone with nerve damage - this is exactly what has been experimented with. So that the messages sent to formerly control a hand could control a prothstetic hand. The big question is - if you could directly control a controller via your brain, would it be a big improvement over using your brain to control your hand which moves the controller? You think "left" and the controller moves left - that's what you are doing anyway. The big difference is that you can already control your hands without conciously thinking about it. Any neural interface would require retraining of your brain, just as people with brain damage often need to retrain their brains to control their bodies.
I love how you get moderated "flamebait" and "overrated". Some serious Blizzard fanboys out there. I played WoW from April of 05 to about Feb 06. During the course of that time I saw the performance (at least on my server) get worse. Last December saw the return of login queues sometimes lasting an hour or more. Given that I have only 2 or 3 hours on most nights to play, I really didn't enjoy the wait. Not to mention that I couldn't play something else while in queue because the WoW login screen was using my 3D card. I had a lvl 60 character, a 43 and a couple near 30. I was in a good guild with great people. Ultimately though I didn't care to revolve my gaming time around end game raids and found there was hardly anything worth doing at level 60 except for those raids. PVP at level 60 was a joke due to epic itemization. Bascially forget about it unless you have time to be in a core group. Spending an hour to log in and then waiting another hour to get into a battleground was hardly appealing either. In December I took a break to play City of Villains. My WoW account was still open (3 month play plan) but I found myself logging in less and less. About two months ago I started playing EQ2 after trying out the trial. SOE has made a lot of big changes to the game since launch and I'm really enjoying it. In some areas it is way ahead of WoW (i.e. guild system, player housing, crafting). There is a ton of content and the although the player base is smaller there certainly are less dicks, griefers and ego-bloated epenis wavers. I noticed that a few replies were the typical "that's because no one plays EQ2" response. Well, before WoW's millions, a couple hundred thousand players was considered a respectable amount for a MMO. Keep in mind that you are also talking about 150+ servers for WoW and something like 10 for EQ2. No it's not as populated as WoW. You won't see a scene like prime time at the Iron Forge AH in EQ2. I'm not trying to say "everyone quit and play EQ2" - what I am trying to say is that if you are no longer having fun in WoW - take a look at some other games. There are a lot of great games out and most have some sort of free trial to check them out. I just got sick of being frustrated when I wanted to be entertained and moved on from WoW.
I think the point is that in your example while they would still meet the 2 kobolds, Oblivion they would be tough kobolds and yet still be the exactly same kobolds as you fought earlier. So they would be level 15 kobolds in the spot where you fought level 1 kobolds. I think most games scale the difficulty by moving you to new encounter areas of greater difficulty. Something like World of Warcraft would be terrible if you had to be afraid of dying running through a low level zone. The point is if you need to go through parts of the game you have already more or less completed you don't need to have it be dangerous the 75th time you run through the zone. I'm not saying one approach is better than the other, just different takes on it. Although it does seem weird that the entire world levels with you in Oblivion - so even though you gain kick ass abilities those Kobolds are just as tough as they always were. Read the comments under Oscuro's mod for the thoughts behind why it was implemented. You'll note that he made some of the game actually harder - didn't just make it a easy game.
"Biggest problem: Wrong expectations. People heard "god game" and were thinking of something akin to Populous or, if they're younger, some RTS game. Of course, they were disappointed."
The biggest problem with Black and White was that it was two separate games badly merged together. The creature training and play was pretty innovative. It was wed to a sort of thrown together version of Populous. I don't think the problem was one of expectations - the prerelease hype was entirely around the creature aspect of the game. I definately wasn't expecting a traditional RTS from Black and White and what we got was entirely too much of a traditional RTS. It felt like the developers loved the idea of the pet and spent 90% of their time on it and then when the release deadline grew near they said "oh shit we need a game to go around this concept".
The article notes that the device has software fixes for the games to support the 3 display mode. World of Warcraft is one of the games they tested with it and they said it ran fine (unlike Oblivion which was slow). Maybe Chuck Norris was using this product.
Yes and in my world there is no "it just works" dept. It's a bullshit term that was made to sound oh so cute by Apple. And you are a tool for using it quotes an all. I don't consider it to be a siginificant attribute of any operating system. I consider it to be an invented term in the context of how you are using. It is entirely subjective. For example if a Windows user or a Linux user has an expectation of how some function is performed and it doesn't work that way on Mac OS X it will not "just work" for them. I have users who can't grasp the concept that when you close all of the windows the application stays open. They don't grasp that the top menu bar changes when you are on different applications. For them, this doesn't work, no matter how many times I've told them how it works. One of these people has used Macs all his life. Previous to OS X I would get a call at least once a month where he would say he can't open program X because he was out of memory but he says that he has closed all of his applications. Of course he has just closed the windows and not quit the application so his memory is still being used by the applications. Now this guy has used Macs for 15 years and he still doesn't get that one concept. It's not "just working" for him, it causes him confusion. Bottom line, it's a stupid marketing term spun by Jobs that is completely overused and helps to create false impressions of the reliability of the operating system. I glad you like it so much, I'm sick of having to explain to users who are confused because their OS isn't "just working" like it does for the smarmy man in the turtleneck.
As a long time Heroes of Might and Magic player I was disappointed to hear that the new game would be protected with Starforce. I have a personal boycott on Starforce and do not purchase any games protected with it. I will however wait until Heroes 5 is released because I don't trust Ubisoft not to use something as insidious as Starforce in protecting their games.
I can't comment on the paticulars of the medical software but that accounting software looks like a toy compared to enterprise level Windows ones. Just because there is "an option" on the Mac doesn't mean it compares with industry leading software on other platforms.
If you market your OS as being the one that "just works" the user base that believes that is going to install anything with the Apple logo on it assuming it "just works". Never mind that it's a beta which by it's very nature might "just not work". Never mind that the software is doing some very technical magic that the average Mac user has no clue as to what's going on (partition? boot record?). Apple probably shouldn't have released the software until it was ready for prime time but of course they wanted to make a media splash with it. Personally I find the whole nature of the error to be pretty hilarious.
It's a Mac. It's Apple software. That combination is supposed to "just work". I think among the average user these days the term beta has lost it's original meaning. The days when "backup before installing beta software" was common sense are apparently long gone.
I don't know if this is the difference between business and consumer support. I have heard that there is a big difference but I've never dealt with consumer support. I guess the big difference is that if you are spending a lot of money with Dell and support trys to give you the run around you can call your account exec and bitch to them. I've only had to do that once and I got a call back from the proper support 15 minutes later. Of course for the sales person it's in his best interest to make me happy both with him and with Dell because that will lead to more commision down the road.
My point is simple. Using the term "just works" in reference to OS X is simply a marketing spin term. And I find it an insulting one when things "just don't work". Just like calling the Mac "insanely great" when some aspects were "insanely stupid" (the extension debacle in OS 9 and lower comes to mind). The term is bandied about so much it's just ridiculous. You paint a magical picture of the perfect operating system, when it has plenty of issues. I'm not, nor have I been arguing Windows is better, just that at least with Windows you don't have a retarded level of evangelism that gushes about things "just working" and ignores what doesn't. As someone who uses Mac's in business I find that starry-eyed attitude irritating. Most of the people I see with it are consumer's who never dealt with Macs in a production environment. We'll never agree on this - you think it's a valid "attribute" of an operating system, I think it's a subjective term that orginated in marketing and glosses over any deficiencies in the OS.
Uh no. There are plenty of other industries that have specific software that doesn't run on Mac. What about large scale "Enterprise level" CRM applications? The same for accounting servers? Hospital applications?
"If you can point me to a document or documents standardizing terms like "Web 2.0", "enterprise", "solution", "mission-critical", "partner", etc., then I will admit my criticism of corporate speak is wrong."
Lol n00b! Like you even understand the Internets.
Web 2.0: This is when Microsoft made the new Internets with Internet Explorer. Because the bearded old people who made Web 1.0 all died and no one can understand UNIX any more without them.
enterprise: Ever heard of Star Trak????? This was teh first shuttle spaceship, it lasted 3 years out a five year mission then crashed into Florida.
solution: if you had contacts you would realize this is what you put in your eyes to keep them wet, but nope you sure are to be a four-eyed geek! oh noes the nerds!
mission-critical: the movie with Tom Cruise doing spy stuff. Come on this is really important to know about because of the terrorists. How can you do security if you don't know the secrets?
partner: yeah no wonder you don't know - cus you never had one! except your hand!
The gold level business support is actually quite excellent. I haven't had any problems with understanding the support staff or getting replacement parts shipped out and in the office next day. Ditto for the onsite support. And if I do have problems (has happened once in 5 years) a quick call to my acccount manager got them jumping. From what I hear their standard support sucks ass. I guess it's a "you get what you pay for" situation.
The gamers who ARE IT managers such as myself have way to much experience with Dell to buy one to use for gaming. Unfortunately for Dell, we also know that Alienware is overpriced.
While I can agree that for standard uses they are good deals, I really don't think they are the best option for gamers or system tweakers by a long shot. We run Dell's for all of our Windows computers at work, so I'm pretty familiar with them. Here's a few things I've noticed:
1. You may have problems replacing a power supply, fan or swapping the motherboard with a standard off the shelf PC part. They tend to have proprietary connectors. 2. Depending on the model you buy you may not have an AGP or PCI Express X16 slot, which means no video upgrade. 3. Most models (especially the cheaper ones) have limited RAM expansion. Typically this is 2 DIMM slots, both of which are usually filled when you buy it (unless you specify otherwise). 4. If you like AMD processors you are out of luck.
Lately I've found that rather than build my own, it's actually cheap to go with a system from a boutique shop such as ibuypower.com. You can pick the specific components you want and can generally choose from a number of highly rated motherboards and cases. I did a cost compare with between buying parts from New Egg versus buying a system from ibuypower.com and it was cheaper to for me buy it built - plus you can get a warranty.
I too handle Dell servers and desktops at work. What is proprietary you ask? Ok here is my experience:
1. Power supply. The Dell (at least Optiplex and Dimensions I've used) power supply is not standard. You cannot mount an off the shelf power supply because the power cord connector will be blocked by the Dell case. 2. Case connector. The connector that attaches to the motherboard for power switch, reset, speaker etc. is in one solid block which plugs directly into the motherboard. Now the ordering of connectors on the block will not plug into an off the shelf motherboard. So you are generally out of luck if you want to use a non-Dell motherboard with a Dell case. You CAN cut the block off and rewire seperate connectors to allow connection to a different motherboard, but it's hardly worth the effort. 3. Fan. The fan connector that plugs into the motherboard is not standard. Replacing the fan with an off the shelf generic one will not let you connect the fan connector to the Dell motherboard. This means that the Dell bios will think the fan has failed.
Small things, but things that mean replacing a cheap part (power supply, fan) will not be as simple as going to the store. Also a major upgrade such as a motherboard swap is more of a pain than it should be.
You are correct in that add in boards and drives are not proprietary but you may find that Dell skimps in some ways on their motherboards. For example, the mid range Optiplex computers have no AGP slot and no PCI Express X16 slot. So no way you can add in a video card, you are stuck with onboard. Also most Dell desktops have only 2 DIMM slots compared to 3 or 4 on most standard motherboards. You also will need to pay a bit more if you want to get say 1 512MB DIMM versus 2 256MB DIMMS - in order to leave a slot open for future expansion. I have no problem will Dell's in the business environment. At least their business sales and support is excellent. As a home gaming system, there are much better (and cheaper) options.
"They ogle expensive, flashy machines... and they buy expensive, flashy machines."
Uh yeah whatever. I think a lot of hardcore gamers are more concerned about the performance then the flashy looks. They like quality parts, they like to be able to upgrade without worrying about proprietary parts (Dell I'm looking at you). Alienware just seems overpriced to me. But then I'm not the type that would by a Falcon Northwest computer either. I'm looking for performance for the price. While I may spend more than average on a video card and extra RAM, I'm not seeking that last 10% performance boost that doubles the cost. Who really does pay for those $5000 showcase computers that get raved at in magazines like Maximum PC? I always get the feeling that they are put out there more as advertising than actual product. The big rigs get exposure and the fan boys drool over them, but odds are they are buying something a couple notches below.
"You keep ignoring this video card issue as a perfect example. The card supports scaling. Mac OS can tell it to scale. Whether or not Windows can tell it to, it clearly did not.
An intelligent OS should be able to query the driver to find out if it supports a feature. If it does, it uses it, if it doesn't, and the feature is reasonable to implement in software, it should do that, entirely transparently to the user and the application. Windows clearly did not do this at all."
Oh yeah and one question regarding this point. So based on what you're telling me - if you have a widescreen monitor Mac OS X will setup all of your games to use widescreen? So then say an older game like say Starcraft will support widescreen display with an expanded battlefield and properly sized interface? Because the OS told it that it's using a widescreen monitor? That would be interesting to see. It's exactly what you are implying. On Windows it works like this: if you have a widescreen setup with a widescreen capable video card, then your desktop will work fine with it. Full screen applications such as games offer to support how ever many resolutions the developer chooses to support. So older games for example may not support widescreen because they are not widescreen aware. The hardware didn't exist at the time they were made. If a new game doesn't support widescreen it is because the developers chose not to support it.
We obviously have a different understanding of the term "just works". In the English language if you say something "just works" it means exactly that. It works properly without any conditions. You adding conditions to the phrase are attempting to reinvent the language. Which is why I'm calling you an Apple marketing tool. "Just works" doesn't mean, mostly, more often than something else, with devices that have drivers etc. It means exactly what those two words mean. And by the English language meaning of the phrase it is not correct to state that OS X "just works". By using that language you are implying exactly what the words mean. Mac OS X "it just works as long as proper conditions are met".
"It's not the driver's job to decide whether or not to scale the video. It's the OS's job to tell the driver what to do (and, optionally, the application's job to ask the OS to scale or not)."
So let me get this straight - it's the OS's responsibility to tell the underlying hardware what features it has? Even though the hardware may or may not support the feature? I be to differ. The driver on Windows exposes the hardware capabilities of the device to the operating system. So you don't have a situation where you have Windows attempting to force a 10 year old VGA card to do widescreen. You'd never have this problem on a Mac because you don't have to worry about old hardware. It's very easy for Apple to have the OS contain all of the information about any hardware it might need to run - after all Apple controls exactly that.."For most hardware, you just plug it in and "it just works"."
I would change that to "for some hardware you just plug in and it just works most of the time except for when it doesn't". Let me tell you a story about the Editorial department at a magazine a work for. We recently moved them up to OS X and guess what? All their digital voice recorders (USB devices) stopped working. Apparently there is no OS X support for them. And they are only about a year old. Wheee. It just didn't work and just hasn't worked and the staff has to just go out and buy new ones that do. Or the staff member that was taking pictures on their digital camera and tried to move it to the Production Macintosh. Oops, no Mac support for that camera. It just didn't work. Had to plug it into a PC to extract the photos. Now by my analysis the camera manufacturer would be to blame, but by your's it's obviously the fault of Apple since the OS should handle this automagically! After all it "just works" with other cameras why doesn't it "just work" with this one? Of course the Production camera's work because we bought them specifically to be Mac compatible, but really shouldn't the OS support any camera by your logic? Or maybe you can explain to my friend who ran a recent Apple update after which his wireless card no longer works? Would that be "just used to work"?
Do you realize how abysmally ignorant you sound spouting a marketing catch phrase over and over again? Do you work with Macs? I have 40 of them onsite here and have seen them screw the pooch often enough to realize that although the OS is good it has it's problems. It does not always "just work" and sometimes fixing the problem is far from trivial. Try dealing with font management on OS X in a print production environment. Holy shit I have I seen some weirdness. It's impossible to have a reasonable conversation about OS X or Macs in general because of this whole starry eyed "it just works" oh thanks my savior Jobs viewpoint. I've used Macs professionally for 16 years and am well versed in the good and bad points. Stop drooling on your MacBook and acting like an Apple marketing programmed robot.
Sure. Like Apple doesn't work with ATI or Nvidia on any of it's drivers. Apple supports a small subsection of hardware. Windows runs on a vast selection of hardware. I don't see this as being particularly comparable. And I really wish you would tell the Mac users at my office that I support that it "just works" because they call me for support when it "just isn't working". I use and work with OS X. It's a decent OS but it has it's problems and this bullshit "it just works" crap is getting seriously tired. It's like that "insanely great" crap all over again.
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Your brain stimulates the muscle nerves to move the muscles. So would you propose disconnecting them from the muscles to use them to control a video game?
Now in the case of someone with nerve damage - this is exactly what has been experimented with. So that the messages sent to formerly control a hand could control a prothstetic hand.
The big question is - if you could directly control a controller via your brain, would it be a big improvement over using your brain to control your hand which moves the controller? You think "left" and the controller moves left - that's what you are doing anyway. The big difference is that you can already control your hands without conciously thinking about it. Any neural interface would require retraining of your brain, just as people with brain damage often need to retrain their brains to control their bodies.
I love how you get moderated "flamebait" and "overrated". Some serious Blizzard fanboys out there.
I played WoW from April of 05 to about Feb 06. During the course of that time I saw the performance (at least on my server) get worse. Last December saw the return of login queues sometimes lasting an hour or more. Given that I have only 2 or 3 hours on most nights to play, I really didn't enjoy the wait. Not to mention that I couldn't play something else while in queue because the WoW login screen was using my 3D card. I had a lvl 60 character, a 43 and a couple near 30. I was in a good guild with great people. Ultimately though I didn't care to revolve my gaming time around end game raids and found there was hardly anything worth doing at level 60 except for those raids. PVP at level 60 was a joke due to epic itemization. Bascially forget about it unless you have time to be in a core group. Spending an hour to log in and then waiting another hour to get into a battleground was hardly appealing either.
In December I took a break to play City of Villains. My WoW account was still open (3 month play plan) but I found myself logging in less and less.
About two months ago I started playing EQ2 after trying out the trial. SOE has made a lot of big changes to the game since launch and I'm really enjoying it. In some areas it is way ahead of WoW (i.e. guild system, player housing, crafting). There is a ton of content and the although the player base is smaller there certainly are less dicks, griefers and ego-bloated epenis wavers.
I noticed that a few replies were the typical "that's because no one plays EQ2" response. Well, before WoW's millions, a couple hundred thousand players was considered a respectable amount for a MMO. Keep in mind that you are also talking about 150+ servers for WoW and something like 10 for EQ2. No it's not as populated as WoW. You won't see a scene like prime time at the Iron Forge AH in EQ2.
I'm not trying to say "everyone quit and play EQ2" - what I am trying to say is that if you are no longer having fun in WoW - take a look at some other games. There are a lot of great games out and most have some sort of free trial to check them out. I just got sick of being frustrated when I wanted to be entertained and moved on from WoW.
I think the point is that in your example while they would still meet the 2 kobolds, Oblivion they would be tough kobolds and yet still be the exactly same kobolds as you fought earlier. So they would be level 15 kobolds in the spot where you fought level 1 kobolds.
I think most games scale the difficulty by moving you to new encounter areas of greater difficulty.
Something like World of Warcraft would be terrible if you had to be afraid of dying running through a low level zone. The point is if you need to go through parts of the game you have already more or less completed you don't need to have it be dangerous the 75th time you run through the zone.
I'm not saying one approach is better than the other, just different takes on it. Although it does seem weird that the entire world levels with you in Oblivion - so even though you gain kick ass abilities those Kobolds are just as tough as they always were. Read the comments under Oscuro's mod for
the thoughts behind why it was implemented. You'll note that he made some of the game actually harder - didn't just make it a easy game.
I can think of a "handful" of features men have that women don't.
Although there are a couple of handfuls of features that women have that men don't.
"Biggest problem: Wrong expectations. People heard "god game" and were thinking of something akin to Populous or, if they're younger, some RTS game. Of course, they were disappointed."
The biggest problem with Black and White was that it was two separate games badly merged together. The creature training and play was pretty innovative. It was wed to a sort of thrown together version of Populous.
I don't think the problem was one of expectations - the prerelease hype was entirely around the creature aspect of the game. I definately wasn't expecting a traditional RTS from Black and White and what we got was entirely too much of a traditional RTS.
It felt like the developers loved the idea of the pet and spent 90% of their time on it and then when the release deadline grew near they said "oh shit we need a game to go around this concept".
The article notes that the device has software fixes for the games to support the 3 display mode. World of Warcraft is one of the games they tested with it and they said it ran fine (unlike Oblivion which was slow).
Maybe Chuck Norris was using this product.
Yes and in my world there is no "it just works" dept. It's a bullshit term that was made to sound oh so cute by Apple. And you are a tool for using it quotes an all. I don't consider it to be a siginificant attribute of any operating system. I consider it to be an invented term in the context of how you are using. It is entirely subjective. For example if a Windows user or a Linux user has an expectation of how some function is performed and it doesn't work that way on Mac OS X it will not "just work" for them. I have users who can't grasp the concept that when you close all of the windows the application stays open. They don't grasp that the top menu bar changes when you are on different applications. For them, this doesn't work, no matter how many times I've told them how it works. One of these people has used Macs all his life. Previous to OS X I would get a call at least once a month where he would say he can't open program X because he was out of memory but he says that he has closed all of his applications. Of course he has just closed the windows and not quit the application so his memory is still being used by the applications. Now this guy has used Macs for 15 years and he still doesn't get that one concept. It's not "just working" for him, it causes him confusion.
Bottom line, it's a stupid marketing term spun by Jobs that is completely overused and helps to create false impressions of the reliability of the operating system. I glad you like it so much, I'm sick of having to explain to users who are confused because their OS isn't "just working" like it does for the smarmy man in the turtleneck.
As a long time Heroes of Might and Magic player I was disappointed to hear that the new game would be protected with Starforce. I have a personal boycott on Starforce and do not purchase any games protected with it.
I will however wait until Heroes 5 is released because I don't trust Ubisoft not to use something as insidious as Starforce in protecting their games.
I can't comment on the paticulars of the medical software but that accounting software looks like a toy compared to enterprise level Windows ones.
Just because there is "an option" on the Mac doesn't mean it compares with industry leading software on other platforms.
If you market your OS as being the one that "just works" the user base that believes that is going to install anything with the Apple logo on it assuming it "just works". Never mind that it's a beta which by it's very nature might "just not work". Never mind that the software is doing some very technical magic that the average Mac user has no clue as to what's going on (partition? boot record?).
Apple probably shouldn't have released the software until it was ready for prime time but of course they wanted to make a media splash with it.
Personally I find the whole nature of the error to be pretty hilarious.
It's a Mac. It's Apple software. That combination is supposed to "just work".
I think among the average user these days the term beta has lost it's original meaning. The days when "backup before installing beta software" was common sense are apparently long gone.
I don't know if this is the difference between business and consumer support. I have heard that there is a big difference but I've never dealt with consumer support. I guess the big difference is that if you are spending a lot of money with Dell and support trys to give you the run around you can call your account exec and bitch to them. I've only had to do that once and I got a call back from the proper support 15 minutes later. Of course for the sales person it's in his best interest to make me happy both with him and with Dell because that will lead to more commision down the road.
My point is simple. Using the term "just works" in reference to OS X is simply a marketing spin term. And I find it an insulting one when things "just don't work".
Just like calling the Mac "insanely great" when some aspects were "insanely stupid" (the extension debacle in OS 9 and lower comes to mind).
The term is bandied about so much it's just ridiculous. You paint a magical picture of the perfect operating system, when it has plenty of issues. I'm not, nor have I been arguing Windows is better, just that at least with Windows you don't have a retarded level of evangelism that gushes about things "just working" and ignores what doesn't. As someone who uses Mac's in business I find that starry-eyed attitude irritating. Most of the people I see with it are consumer's who never dealt with Macs in a production environment.
We'll never agree on this - you think it's a valid "attribute" of an operating system, I think it's a subjective term that orginated in marketing and glosses over any deficiencies in the OS.
Uh no. There are plenty of other industries that have specific software that doesn't run on Mac. What about large scale "Enterprise level" CRM applications? The same for accounting servers? Hospital applications?
You mean smell like popcorn?
"If you can point me to a document or documents standardizing terms like "Web 2.0", "enterprise", "solution", "mission-critical", "partner", etc., then I will admit my criticism of corporate speak is wrong."
Lol n00b! Like you even understand the Internets.
Web 2.0: This is when Microsoft made the new Internets with Internet Explorer. Because the bearded old people who made Web 1.0 all died and no one can understand UNIX any more without them.
enterprise: Ever heard of Star Trak????? This was teh first shuttle spaceship, it lasted 3 years out a five year mission then crashed into Florida.
solution: if you had contacts you would realize this is what you put in your eyes to keep them wet, but nope you sure are to be a four-eyed geek! oh noes the nerds!
mission-critical: the movie with Tom Cruise doing spy stuff. Come on this is really important to know about because of the terrorists. How can you do security if you don't know the secrets?
partner: yeah no wonder you don't know - cus you never had one! except your hand!
omgwtfbbqroflcopterslollercoasters
The gold level business support is actually quite excellent. I haven't had any problems with understanding the support staff or getting replacement parts shipped out and in the office next day. Ditto for the onsite support. And if I do have problems (has happened once in 5 years) a quick call to my acccount manager got them jumping.
From what I hear their standard support sucks ass. I guess it's a "you get what you pay for" situation.
The gamers who ARE IT managers such as myself have way to much experience with Dell to buy one to use for gaming.
Unfortunately for Dell, we also know that Alienware is overpriced.
While I can agree that for standard uses they are good deals, I really don't think they are the best option for gamers or system tweakers by a long shot.
We run Dell's for all of our Windows computers at work, so I'm pretty familiar with them. Here's a few things I've noticed:
1. You may have problems replacing a power supply, fan or swapping the motherboard with a standard off the shelf PC part. They tend to have proprietary connectors.
2. Depending on the model you buy you may not have an AGP or PCI Express X16 slot, which means no video upgrade.
3. Most models (especially the cheaper ones) have limited RAM expansion. Typically this is 2 DIMM slots, both of which are usually filled when you buy it (unless you specify otherwise).
4. If you like AMD processors you are out of luck.
Lately I've found that rather than build my own, it's actually cheap to go with a system from a boutique shop such as ibuypower.com. You can pick the specific components you want and can generally choose from a number of highly rated motherboards and cases. I did a cost compare with between buying parts from New Egg versus buying a system from ibuypower.com and it was cheaper to for me buy it built - plus you can get a warranty.
I too handle Dell servers and desktops at work. What is proprietary you ask? Ok here is my experience:
1. Power supply. The Dell (at least Optiplex and Dimensions I've used) power supply is not standard. You cannot mount an off the shelf power supply because the power cord connector will be blocked by the Dell case.
2. Case connector. The connector that attaches to the motherboard for power switch, reset, speaker etc. is in one solid block which plugs directly into the motherboard. Now the ordering of connectors on the block will not plug into an off the shelf motherboard. So you are generally out of luck if you want to use a non-Dell motherboard with a Dell case. You CAN cut the block off and rewire seperate connectors to allow connection to a different motherboard, but it's hardly worth the effort.
3. Fan. The fan connector that plugs into the motherboard is not standard. Replacing the fan with an off the shelf generic one will not let you connect the fan connector to the Dell motherboard. This means that the Dell bios will think the fan has failed.
Small things, but things that mean replacing a cheap part (power supply, fan) will not be as simple as going to the store. Also a major upgrade such as a motherboard swap is more of a pain than it should be.
You are correct in that add in boards and drives are not proprietary but you may find that Dell skimps in some ways on their motherboards. For example, the mid range Optiplex computers have no AGP slot and no PCI Express X16 slot. So no way you can add in a video card, you are stuck with onboard. Also most Dell desktops have only 2 DIMM slots compared to 3 or 4 on most standard motherboards. You also will need to pay a bit more if you want to get say 1 512MB DIMM versus 2 256MB DIMMS - in order to leave a slot open for future expansion.
I have no problem will Dell's in the business environment. At least their business sales and support is excellent. As a home gaming system, there are much better (and cheaper) options.
"They ogle expensive, flashy machines ... and they buy expensive, flashy machines."
Uh yeah whatever. I think a lot of hardcore gamers are more concerned about the performance then the flashy looks. They like quality parts, they like to be able to upgrade without worrying about proprietary parts (Dell I'm looking at you).
Alienware just seems overpriced to me. But then I'm not the type that would by a Falcon Northwest computer either. I'm looking for performance for the price. While I may spend more than average on a video card and extra RAM, I'm not seeking that last 10% performance boost that doubles the cost.
Who really does pay for those $5000 showcase computers that get raved at in magazines like Maximum PC? I always get the feeling that they are put out there more as advertising than actual product. The big rigs get exposure and the fan boys drool over them, but odds are they are buying something a couple notches below.
"You keep ignoring this video card issue as a perfect example. The card supports scaling. Mac OS can tell it to scale. Whether or not Windows can tell it to, it clearly did not.
An intelligent OS should be able to query the driver to find out if it supports a feature. If it does, it uses it, if it doesn't, and the feature is reasonable to implement in software, it should do that, entirely transparently to the user and the application. Windows clearly did not do this at all."
Oh yeah and one question regarding this point. So based on what you're telling me - if you have a widescreen monitor Mac OS X will setup all of your games to use widescreen? So then say an older game like say Starcraft will support widescreen display with an expanded battlefield and properly sized interface? Because the OS told it that it's using a widescreen monitor? That would be interesting to see. It's exactly what you are implying.
On Windows it works like this: if you have a widescreen setup with a widescreen capable video card, then your desktop will work fine with it. Full screen applications such as games offer to support how ever many resolutions the developer chooses to support. So older games for example may not support widescreen because they are not widescreen aware. The hardware didn't exist at the time they were made. If a new game doesn't support widescreen it is because the developers chose not to support it.
We obviously have a different understanding of the term "just works". In the English language if you say something "just works" it means exactly that. It works properly without any conditions. You adding conditions to the phrase are attempting to reinvent the language. Which is why I'm calling you an Apple marketing tool. "Just works" doesn't mean, mostly, more often than something else, with devices that have drivers etc. It means exactly what those two words mean. And by the English language meaning of the phrase it is not correct to state that OS X "just works". By using that language you are implying exactly what the words mean.
Mac OS X "it just works as long as proper conditions are met".
"It's not the driver's job to decide whether or not to scale the video. It's the OS's job to tell the driver what to do (and, optionally, the application's job to ask the OS to scale or not)."
."For most hardware, you just plug it in and "it just works"."
So let me get this straight - it's the OS's responsibility to tell the underlying hardware what features it has? Even though the hardware may or may not support the feature? I be to differ. The driver on Windows exposes the hardware capabilities of the device to the operating system. So you don't have a situation where you have Windows attempting to force a 10 year old VGA card to do widescreen. You'd never have this problem on a Mac because you don't have to worry about old hardware. It's very easy for Apple to have the OS contain all of the information about any hardware it might need to run - after all Apple controls exactly that.
I would change that to "for some hardware you just plug in and it just works most of the time except for when it doesn't".
Let me tell you a story about the Editorial department at a magazine a work for. We recently moved them up to OS X and guess what? All their digital voice recorders (USB devices) stopped working. Apparently there is no OS X support for them. And they are only about a year old. Wheee. It just didn't work and just hasn't worked and the staff has to just go out and buy new ones that do.
Or the staff member that was taking pictures on their digital camera and tried to move it to the Production Macintosh. Oops, no Mac support for that camera. It just didn't work. Had to plug it into a PC to extract the photos. Now by my analysis the camera manufacturer would be to blame, but by your's it's obviously the fault of Apple since the OS should handle this automagically! After all it "just works" with other cameras why doesn't it "just work" with this one? Of course the Production camera's work because we bought them specifically to be Mac compatible, but really shouldn't the OS support any camera by your logic?
Or maybe you can explain to my friend who ran a recent Apple update after which his wireless card no longer works? Would that be "just used to work"?
Do you realize how abysmally ignorant you sound spouting a marketing catch phrase over and over again? Do you work with Macs? I have 40 of them onsite here and have seen them screw the pooch often enough to realize that although the OS is good it has it's problems. It does not always "just work" and sometimes fixing the problem is far from trivial. Try dealing with font management on OS X in a print production environment. Holy shit I have I seen some weirdness.
It's impossible to have a reasonable conversation about OS X or Macs in general because of this whole starry eyed "it just works" oh thanks my savior Jobs viewpoint.
I've used Macs professionally for 16 years and am well versed in the good and bad points. Stop drooling on your MacBook and acting like an Apple marketing programmed robot.
Sure. Like Apple doesn't work with ATI or Nvidia on any of it's drivers.
Apple supports a small subsection of hardware. Windows runs on a vast selection of hardware. I don't see this as being particularly comparable.
And I really wish you would tell the Mac users at my office that I support that it "just works" because they call me for support when it "just isn't working".
I use and work with OS X. It's a decent OS but it has it's problems and this bullshit "it just works" crap is getting seriously tired. It's like that "insanely great" crap all over again.