* I have to sign up for iTunes to keep my computer updated!?
* I HAVE TO GIVE ITUNES MY CC# TO KEEP MY COMPUTER UPDATED!?
* I have to restart my computer to keep it updated? I thought this was Unix?
As of Lion, you sign in with an Apple ID. That is not iTunes, but iTunes also uses this ID. You do not need a credit card number to update your OS. That is only required for purchases in the App Store.
If the update involves a kernel, kernel extension, Aqua/Quartz or other core component modification then yes, you will need to reboot. You probably have to reboot for updates more often than in a modern Unix due to the GUI integration, but generally less so than in Windows.
Keyboard (external mac? keyboard)
* Why is the keyboard all fucked up? Two keys labeled delete? Is there some aversion to calling a backspace key a backspace key?
* Where the fuck did insert go!? You know some people actually use insert!
* For that matter where is num lock and scroll lock? Again, I use those keys!
* Why redesign the num pad into a Apple(TM) num pad and move all the keys around?
* The behavior of the home and end key is stupid! They jump to the end and beginging of the document instead of the end and begining of the line! What gives them the right?!
* They remove essential keys like insert but I have F1-F19!? And an eject key on a system that doesn't even have an optical drive? (not that they knew that about my system, so a small pass there.)
* Seriously? No Alt key? WTF, I thought this was UNIX! How the fuck am I supposed to use EMACS!?
It sounds like you are using the mini bluetooth wireless keyboard. You would probably prefer the full-size keyboard which has many of the keys you are concerned about.
The behavior of the home and end keys is the way they have historically always worked in computing. It was Microsoft that changed the behavior in Windows and got people used to the different behavior. It was also Microsoft that changed the behavior of the Control key from its original usage of sending actual control codes. Apple retains the original behavior and introduced the Command key which works like the Microsoft Control Key. To move to the Beginning / End of a line, use Command+Left or Right Arrow. As for Alt, this is actually more correctly referred to as the Meta key. The Option key on the Apple keyboard provides this functionality, and it's is conveniently in the exact same location as the Alt key on PC keyboards. Of course, if you hate the Apple keyboard so much, there's nothing stopping you from using any USB or Bluetooth keyboard with the Mac, they're all supported and OS X understands how to map PC-specific keys to their OS X equivalents.
OSX Windows
* WIndows present resize mouse cursors on some windows edges that cannot be resized! Inexcusable! I should be able to resize the window from any edge. And for god sakes, if I can't resize it from that edge don't show me a fucking resize cursor and make me think I'm losing my mind.
As of Mountain Lion you can resize any resizable windows from any corner. If you're getting a resize cursor than you should be able to resize it. I'm not sure why you're having this experience but if you are indeed experiencing a bug related to this it might be worth bringing up to Apple Support so that they can be made aware of it.
* What the hell is up with this full screen arrow. Useless shit. It removes all the windows from my other screens and throws up a lame gray background. Lame.
When you full screen an application, a virtual desktop for that application window is created on the fly. Your other windows are still there on their original desktop. You can still Opt-Tab back to them or use Mission Control/Expose. I don't understand
Nice troll. Here's the real text: (bolded emphasis mine)
A. Preinstalled and Single-Copy Apple Software License. Subject to the terms and conditions of
this License, unless you obtained the Apple Software from the Mac App Store or under a volume
license, maintenance or other written agreement from Apple, you are granted a limited, nonexclusive
license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple branded
computer at any one time. For example, these single-copy license terms apply to you if
you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware.
B. Mac App Store License. If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App
Store, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License and as permitted by the Mac App
Store Usage Rules set forth in the App Store Terms and Conditions (http://www.apple.com/legal/
itunes/ww/) (“Usage Rules”), you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license:
(i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of
the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded computer running OS X Lion or OS
X Snow Leopard (“Mac Computer”) that you own or control;
(ii) If you are a commercial enterprise or educational institution, to download, install, use
and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software for use either: (a) by a single individual on
each of the Mac Computer(s) that you own or control, or (b) by multiple individuals on a
single shared Mac Computer that you own or control. For example, a single employee
may use the Apple Software on both the employee’s desktop Mac Computer and laptop
Mac Computer, or multiple students may serially use the Apple Software on a single Mac
Computer located at a resource center or library; and
(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple
Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own
or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software
development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d)
personal, non-commercial use.
The grant set forth in Section 2B(iii) above does not permit you to use the virtualized copies or
instances of the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal
sharing or other similar types of services.
Step two is about approaching companies like Pandora, Netflix, and Google and make them this offer: if you pay us a lot of money, data transferred from your service won't count in the data cap calculation. They want to be paid two times for a single user's network usage. It's so obvious to me that this is what they are working on and it's disgusting.
Indeed. It appears that's exactly what they plan on doing.
"BARCELONA—AT&T Inc. said it is considering a way to let the providers of mobile services pay for the cost of the data traffic associated with things like streaming movies and smartphone applications, opening up a new round of debate over the rules of the mobile Internet. "
Imagine if, along with bundling Opera with the Wii, Nintendo FORBID anyone from running any other browser on their OS at all, and required EVERY game to be approved by Nintendo before it could be allowed to run. Apple's doing EXACTLY THAT.
Funny how nobody complains about game consoles, network appliances, or any other propriety electronic device being a closed platform. It's only evil if Apple does it?
For Unix shell scripting purposes (and I know the Slashdot crowd may scoff at this but), nothing compares to KSH. It has many features not found in Bash and most other shells, such as coprocesses, associative arrays, compound variables, floating point arithmetic, discipline functions, etc. It's also fully extensible and posix compliant. For GUI scripts, almost all commercial Unixes include dtksh, which provides access to much of the Xt and Motif APIs. A TK version of ksh also exists.
KSH just gets a bad rep because Unix vendors insist on only supplying an ancient version (ksh88), or its clone (pdksh) that lacks all of the functionality and behavior of the original. As a result most people have never used a modern version of the shell.
Of there's a right tool for the right job. Depending on the nature of the task one might also want to consider perl, python, or some other scripting technology.
The Macintosh is not an open platform in the way that PCs are. Apple has every right to restrict their software product(s) (in this case, the OS) to their hardware if they want to. Much the same way that Nintendo can say that you can't play Wii games on anything but a Wii, or IBM can say you can't run AIX on anything that isn't an RS/6000 or pSeries.
take a look at the OEM vista costs, or the costs for home, or student discount All of which are crippled versions. With OS/X, everyone gets the same version with all of the features for far less the price of the most crippled home version of Vista ($129 vs $199 for vista home basic.) To get anywhere close to the features that come with OS/X you have buy premium, which is $239 retail.
I tried to price out desktop hardware while debating buying a macbookpro and ended up with https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.asp?ID=522277 , $800 cheaper than the lowend macbook pro but has a quad core 2.4ghz(OCable to 3.6ghz on air), 4gigs of ram, top end video card, etc. Desktop != Laptop. Laptop hardware is always more expensive, regardless of oem. Find me a laptop of similar quality and specs for a cheaper price and then we'll talk.
You aren't renting the OS, you're buying software. According to Microsoft you are renting their software. Have you read the EULA? At least when I buy OS/X, I can run it until the end of time if I want to. If I ever need to reinstall for whatever reason, I can do so freely. With Vista, I have to call Microsoft and get permission to run it any time I change out a hardware component. And what happens when Vista is EOL and Microsoft decides to no longer activate it anymore? You're just renting the software until that time.
Apple is currently replacing these cards. There is a thread on the WoW support forums discussing this.
This problem is not unique to the cards from Apple or to the Mac Pro. I purchased the ATI x1900 G5 edition for my PowerMac G5 directly from ATI and ran into the exact same problem. Unfortunately there is no SMCFanControl for PPC Macs.
Mac Pro owners who have the luxury of going through Apple for their replacement cards should consider themselves lucky, as unlike ATI/AMD Apple actually cares about their customers. My experience with getting a replacement card to a month and a half going through ATI's warranty process; during which I was lucky to still have the 6600 the machine came with or else I would have been without a machine during that time.
I haven't played too many other MMORPGs, but I can say there's no "real skill" to be concerned about in WoW, WoW and other MMORPGs that follow it's style are all about time invested, not skill. There's no skill involved in farming/grinding.
So why shouldn't someone be able to buy gold? You're not really buying the gold, you're buying time. If you choose to spend all day farming in the game, that's you're choice. If someone else chooses to spend that day working a job and is willing to spend some of that money earned to catch up in the game, I say more power to them.
The thing is, in WoW, you may be level 1, but you start massively "uber" compared to similar level enemies. The wolves and kobolds in Northshire do 1 hp per attack, ffs. Not 1d6 or anything. Just 1 to 1. You have massive hp for your level, you hit several _times_ harder than any enemy, your hp regens right back in no time (which is why so few people appreciate a Paladin or Priest early), travel times are short, your equipment is perfectly adequate without any grinding or farming, etc. The only way to die even if you wanted to is to herd a small army of enemies or jump off Teldrassil if you're an elf. _Totally_ uber. Can we say WoW fanboy?
All of this applies to only the first 20 levels of the game -- which just happens to be the level cap for trial accounts.
After level 20 the game becomes a tedious grind to reach level cap. There is nothing worthwile to do prior to level cap because anything you work hard for is going to be obsoleted in a couple of levels. It's just a long boring grind of "go kill 8 orcs," "ok now go kill 10 tigers..." Rinse. Repeat.
Once you reach level cap, there's nothing for the casual player to do. At this point you not only have to commit a tremendous amount of time to accomplish anything worthwhile, but you also have to find 20 - 40 friends to do it with you.
If you are lucky enough to get into a raid it can take hours. God forbid you have to take a piss in the middle of it. When it's all said and done you're still going to walk out empty handed 90% of the time, as only a few good items ever drop and you may potentially be rolling against the entire raid for them. So you dedicate hours getting people together and hours in the dungeon just so you can play a lottery?
As someone who has a full time career, takes night classes and has other responsibilities I had to give up playing at level 60 because I felt stuck. There was nothing I could do as I only had a few hours to play each week and you practically have to set aside half a day or longer, several nights a week, to accomplish anything. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but my time is valuable to me and I can think of better ways of spending it.
Patients on life support? Is this the new "it's for the chilllldren!" in the software industry? Hospitals and life-support systems seem to come up really often when validation scenarios like this are discussed, yet, I have never, EVER heard of a patient dying because Windows crashed. I suspect this might be due to medical equipment manufacturers not quite being dumber than a bag of hammers and therefore not using Windows in life-critical situations.
Perhaps not life support, but I was interested in getting LASIK surgery at one time. I went to a presentation given by a doctor that came highly recommended from some of the locals. When they were showing off the actual laser equipment that performed the surgery, it turned out the machine was controlled entirely from a PC workstation running Windows NT. I asked one of the doctors what would happen if the controller "blue-screened" during the procedure and was told they would have to contact the developers and research that and get back to me. I never received a reply, and they never received my business! I'm not taking any chances with my eyes, I'll stick with glasses.
"[...] Microsoft fans are overconfident in the Windows OS because Microsoft once commanded 92% of dekstop operating system market share, a number that has since fallen to around 70%. About 200 million people own Windows PCs. But Apple owns more than 90% of the worldwide music player market (compared with Microsoft's roughly 0%), representing some 30 million people. [...]"
Linux (free, doesn't have to worry about profits or budgets, has been eating MS's lunch for years on the server-side, and is starting to make some moves on the desktop side, has had several high-profile Apple fans defect to it in the last couple of months alone).
I still won't be buying an XBOX 360. Until I have the convenience of being able to go to the store and grab one off of the shelf, and there is at least more than one game I'm interesting in playing available for it, I'm not interested.
For that matter, the $500 price on the PS3 is the price to eBay sellers who will be camping out and buying every unit available (all 10 or so) during the first few months of its release. The general public can expect to pay much more per unit.
No, they are not just a hardware company. They produce a platform, which includes software and hardware. Anyway, as someone else pointed out, it wasn't even Jobs who said that.
People who work in media related fields tend to consider Apple software to be among the best in it's class (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, etc.). Check out the reviews sometimes. If they didn't care about their software, they wouldn't invest so much in software development. (Anybody remember the hack jobs IBM released for OS/2?)
Speaking of Steve Jobs quotes: "My opinion is that the only two computer companies that are software-driven are Apple and NeXT, and I wonder about Apple." -- Fortune, Aug. 26, 1991
Also, considering the fact the Apple doesn't make most of the components inside their computers and that the only significant distinguishing factor between a modern Macintosh and a PC is the software, I would say, at the very least, that makes them as much as a software company as a hardware one.
Constantin Gonzalez of Sun Micrososystems said it best: "It's about the system. No more, no less. There's no hardware without software, no software without hardware, and no solution without service. All has to fit together." Of course he was talking about Sun but I think that statement also fits Apple's perspective well.
Simple, those are stand-alone operating systems that can be fully functional without any GNU software packages. In fact, GNU software isn't even included in the base installation of Solaris, AIX or HP-UX. It comes packaged on a seperate CD to be installed as an option.
Without GNU, Linux would not be functional. Without GNU or other third party software, there would be no boot loader, no C libraries, no compiler, no userland or shell, no init, etc. A kernel is just a piece of the whole, albeit an important piece.
Why is it such a big deal to simply give credit where is due?
No, the PowerPC processor family is a derivative of the POWER4, with some features removed and a SIMD unit added. The POWER5 is a different chip.
According to IBM:...the PowerPC was based on POWER, but with a number of differences.... PowerPC 900 family The 64-bit PowerPC 970, a single-core version of the POWER4...
Dragon Quest is probably an acquired taste. The original Dragon Warrior on the NES was my introduction to the genre and as such, has set the standard for me as far as what I expect from a console fantasy RPG. Fancy graphics are a plus but mean nothing without good game play.
The great thing about Dragon Quest is that it gives the option of exploration as well as the incentive -- something that is largely absent in most "modern" RPGs I've played. Most other so-called RPGs restrict you to the story. You don't have options to search or work for better equipment and abilities, you're given them when the story dictates it. They always follow the same formula: story, dungeon, next town/location, buy the next weapon/armor upgrade (which doesn't actually do anything for you but was just put in to make it feel more role-playing), repeat. Anyone who plays these games is going to play every scenario under the exact same constraints as everyone else because of the strict linear gameplay and lack of options for customization. Two different people playing Dragon Quest can be at the same scenario with completely different equipment, levels, skills and abilities depending on how they played the game. Dragon Quest gives you choices, perhaps at the expense of an epic storyline, but it makes the gameplay very enjoyable. If you'd rather watch an interactive movie, might I suggest a post-SNES Final Fantasy game.
I just filled out their suggestion form: Product offered violates Amazon.com's policy on items that can be listed for sale.
Items that infringe upon an individual's privacy. Amazon.com holds personal privacy in the highest regard. Therefore, items that infringe upon, or have potential to infringe upon, an individual's privacy are prohibited.
OS X is a complete operating system. KDE/GNOME are much smaller projects by comparison.
If you want to consider the age of a software project to include all projects in which it was derived, then to be fair what everyone now refers to as "Linux" technically began in 1984 with the GNU project http://www.gnu.org/.
I hear what you are saying. However, what about those of us who got into it because it really was what we enjoyed doing? I started programming when I was 5 years old. Computers and technology were my life. Now, I've been unemployed for a year and don't see much light at the end of the tunnel because of the state of the job market.
Unfortunately, I was never taken seriously by any company I worked for as nobody seemed to want a true geek. Everybody wanted these sterotypical golf-playing bmw-driving business-degreed types that got into IT to jump on the bandwagon. I lost my job to people who had no tech skill whatsoever but knew how to suck up to upper-management. Companies don't want technically-minded people for tech positions, they want to put salesmen in these positions.
I never expected to get rich off of any dot-com boom. All I wanted was a career doing what I loved. Now I've been forced to look into other careers. I've accepted this, and it may even been a blessing in disguise in the long run. However, what really burns me up is all the skills I spent my life learning are now wasted.
Slashdot Mirror
* I have to sign up for iTunes to keep my computer updated!? * I HAVE TO GIVE ITUNES MY CC# TO KEEP MY COMPUTER UPDATED!? * I have to restart my computer to keep it updated? I thought this was Unix?
As of Lion, you sign in with an Apple ID. That is not iTunes, but iTunes also uses this ID. You do not need a credit card number to update your OS. That is only required for purchases in the App Store. If the update involves a kernel, kernel extension, Aqua/Quartz or other core component modification then yes, you will need to reboot. You probably have to reboot for updates more often than in a modern Unix due to the GUI integration, but generally less so than in Windows.
Keyboard (external mac? keyboard) * Why is the keyboard all fucked up? Two keys labeled delete? Is there some aversion to calling a backspace key a backspace key? * Where the fuck did insert go!? You know some people actually use insert! * For that matter where is num lock and scroll lock? Again, I use those keys! * Why redesign the num pad into a Apple(TM) num pad and move all the keys around? * The behavior of the home and end key is stupid! They jump to the end and beginging of the document instead of the end and begining of the line! What gives them the right?! * They remove essential keys like insert but I have F1-F19!? And an eject key on a system that doesn't even have an optical drive? (not that they knew that about my system, so a small pass there.) * Seriously? No Alt key? WTF, I thought this was UNIX! How the fuck am I supposed to use EMACS!?
It sounds like you are using the mini bluetooth wireless keyboard. You would probably prefer the full-size keyboard which has many of the keys you are concerned about. The behavior of the home and end keys is the way they have historically always worked in computing. It was Microsoft that changed the behavior in Windows and got people used to the different behavior. It was also Microsoft that changed the behavior of the Control key from its original usage of sending actual control codes. Apple retains the original behavior and introduced the Command key which works like the Microsoft Control Key. To move to the Beginning / End of a line, use Command+Left or Right Arrow. As for Alt, this is actually more correctly referred to as the Meta key. The Option key on the Apple keyboard provides this functionality, and it's is conveniently in the exact same location as the Alt key on PC keyboards. Of course, if you hate the Apple keyboard so much, there's nothing stopping you from using any USB or Bluetooth keyboard with the Mac, they're all supported and OS X understands how to map PC-specific keys to their OS X equivalents.
OSX Windows * WIndows present resize mouse cursors on some windows edges that cannot be resized! Inexcusable! I should be able to resize the window from any edge. And for god sakes, if I can't resize it from that edge don't show me a fucking resize cursor and make me think I'm losing my mind.
As of Mountain Lion you can resize any resizable windows from any corner. If you're getting a resize cursor than you should be able to resize it. I'm not sure why you're having this experience but if you are indeed experiencing a bug related to this it might be worth bringing up to Apple Support so that they can be made aware of it.
* What the hell is up with this full screen arrow. Useless shit. It removes all the windows from my other screens and throws up a lame gray background. Lame.
When you full screen an application, a virtual desktop for that application window is created on the fly. Your other windows are still there on their original desktop. You can still Opt-Tab back to them or use Mission Control/Expose. I don't understand
Nice troll. Here's the real text: (bolded emphasis mine)
A. Preinstalled and Single-Copy Apple Software License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you obtained the Apple Software from the Mac App Store or under a volume license, maintenance or other written agreement from Apple, you are granted a limited, nonexclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple branded computer at any one time. For example, these single-copy license terms apply to you if you obtained the Apple Software preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware.
B. Mac App Store License. If you obtained a license for the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, then subject to the terms and conditions of this License and as permitted by the Mac App Store Usage Rules set forth in the App Store Terms and Conditions (http://www.apple.com/legal/ itunes/ww/) (“Usage Rules”), you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license: (i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded computer running OS X Lion or OS X Snow Leopard (“Mac Computer”) that you own or control;
(ii) If you are a commercial enterprise or educational institution, to download, install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software for use either: (a) by a single individual on each of the Mac Computer(s) that you own or control, or (b) by multiple individuals on a single shared Mac Computer that you own or control. For example, a single employee may use the Apple Software on both the employee’s desktop Mac Computer and laptop Mac Computer, or multiple students may serially use the Apple Software on a single Mac Computer located at a resource center or library; and
(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d) personal, non-commercial use.
The grant set forth in Section 2B(iii) above does not permit you to use the virtualized copies or instances of the Apple Software in connection with service bureau, time-sharing, terminal sharing or other similar types of services.
Source: http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1082.pdf
Step two is about approaching companies like Pandora, Netflix, and Google and make them this offer: if you pay us a lot of money, data transferred from your service won't count in the data cap calculation. They want to be paid two times for a single user's network usage. It's so obvious to me that this is what they are working on and it's disgusting.
Indeed. It appears that's exactly what they plan on doing.
"BARCELONA—AT&T Inc. said it is considering a way to let the providers of mobile services pay for the cost of the data traffic associated with things like streaming movies and smartphone applications, opening up a new round of debate over the rules of the mobile Internet. "
AT&T May Try Billing App Makers
Supposedly they are: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/its-official-steam-coming-linux
Imagine if, along with bundling Opera with the Wii, Nintendo FORBID anyone from running any other browser on their OS at all, and required EVERY game to be approved by Nintendo before it could be allowed to run. Apple's doing EXACTLY THAT.
Funny how nobody complains about game consoles, network appliances, or any other propriety electronic device being a closed platform. It's only evil if Apple does it?
Does ksh have Unicode support? I switched to bash to get that.
In ksh93, you can print unicode characters with printf:
$ echo ${.sh.version}
Version JMP 93t+ 2010-03-05
$ whence -v printf
printf is a shell builtin
$ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 printf "\u[00AE]\n"
®
For Unix shell scripting purposes (and I know the Slashdot crowd may scoff at this but), nothing compares to KSH. It has many features not found in Bash and most other shells, such as coprocesses, associative arrays, compound variables, floating point arithmetic, discipline functions, etc. It's also fully extensible and posix compliant. For GUI scripts, almost all commercial Unixes include dtksh, which provides access to much of the Xt and Motif APIs. A TK version of ksh also exists.
KSH just gets a bad rep because Unix vendors insist on only supplying an ancient version (ksh88), or its clone (pdksh) that lacks all of the functionality and behavior of the original. As a result most people have never used a modern version of the shell.
Of there's a right tool for the right job. Depending on the nature of the task one might also want to consider perl, python, or some other scripting technology.
The Macintosh is not an open platform in the way that PCs are. Apple has every right to restrict their software product(s) (in this case, the OS) to their hardware if they want to. Much the same way that Nintendo can say that you can't play Wii games on anything but a Wii, or IBM can say you can't run AIX on anything that isn't an RS/6000 or pSeries.
Apple is currently replacing these cards.
There is a thread on the WoW support forums discussing this.
This problem is not unique to the cards from Apple or to the Mac Pro. I purchased the ATI x1900 G5 edition for my PowerMac G5 directly from ATI and ran into the exact same problem. Unfortunately there is no SMCFanControl for PPC Macs.
Mac Pro owners who have the luxury of going through Apple for their replacement cards should consider themselves lucky, as unlike ATI/AMD Apple actually cares about their customers. My experience with getting a replacement card to a month and a half going through ATI's warranty process; during which I was lucky to still have the 6600 the machine came with or else I would have been without a machine during that time.
I haven't played too many other MMORPGs, but I can say there's no "real skill" to be concerned about in WoW,
WoW and other MMORPGs that follow it's style are all about time invested, not skill. There's no skill involved in farming/grinding.
So why shouldn't someone be able to buy gold? You're not really buying the gold, you're buying time. If you choose to spend all day farming in the game, that's you're choice. If someone else chooses to spend that day working a job and is willing to spend some of that money earned to catch up in the game, I say more power to them.
All of this applies to only the first 20 levels of the game -- which just happens to be the level cap for trial accounts.
After level 20 the game becomes a tedious grind to reach level cap. There is nothing worthwile to do prior to level cap because anything you work hard for is going to be obsoleted in a couple of levels. It's just a long boring grind of "go kill 8 orcs," "ok now go kill 10 tigers..." Rinse. Repeat.
Once you reach level cap, there's nothing for the casual player to do. At this point you not only have to commit a tremendous amount of time to accomplish anything worthwhile, but you also have to find 20 - 40 friends to do it with you.
If you are lucky enough to get into a raid it can take hours. God forbid you have to take a piss in the middle of it. When it's all said and done you're still going to walk out empty handed 90% of the time, as only a few good items ever drop and you may potentially be rolling against the entire raid for them. So you dedicate hours getting people together and hours in the dungeon just so you can play a lottery?
As someone who has a full time career, takes night classes and has other responsibilities I had to give up playing at level 60 because I felt stuck. There was nothing I could do as I only had a few hours to play each week and you practically have to set aside half a day or longer, several nights a week, to accomplish anything. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but my time is valuable to me and I can think of better ways of spending it.
Perhaps not life support, but I was interested in getting LASIK surgery at one time. I went to a presentation given by a doctor that came highly recommended from some of the locals. When they were showing off the actual laser equipment that performed the surgery, it turned out the machine was controlled entirely from a PC workstation running Windows NT. I asked one of the doctors what would happen if the controller "blue-screened" during the procedure and was told they would have to contact the developers and research that and get back to me. I never received a reply, and they never received my business! I'm not taking any chances with my eyes, I'll stick with glasses.
"[...] Microsoft fans are overconfident in the Windows OS because Microsoft once commanded 92% of dekstop operating system market share, a number that has since fallen to around 70%. About 200 million people own Windows PCs. But Apple owns more than 90% of the worldwide music player market (compared with Microsoft's roughly 0%), representing some 30 million people. [...]"
What was the executive meeting for that one? "Hey, boss! Let's insult the hell out of our target market!"
They probably went to the Sony school of marketing.
I still won't be buying an XBOX 360. Until I have the convenience of being able to go to the store and grab one off of the shelf, and there is at least more than one game I'm interesting in playing available for it, I'm not interested.
For that matter, the $500 price on the PS3 is the price to eBay sellers who will be camping out and buying every unit available (all 10 or so) during the first few months of its release. The general public can expect to pay much more per unit.
No, they are not just a hardware company. They produce a platform, which includes software and hardware. Anyway, as someone else pointed out, it wasn't even Jobs who said that.
People who work in media related fields tend to consider Apple software to be among the best in it's class (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, etc.). Check out the reviews sometimes. If they didn't care about their software, they wouldn't invest so much in software development. (Anybody remember the hack jobs IBM released for OS/2?)
Speaking of Steve Jobs quotes:
"My opinion is that the only two computer companies that are software-driven are Apple and NeXT, and I wonder about Apple."
-- Fortune, Aug. 26, 1991
Also, considering the fact the Apple doesn't make most of the components inside their computers and that the only significant distinguishing factor between a modern Macintosh and a PC is the software, I would say, at the very least, that makes them as much as a software company as a hardware one.
Constantin Gonzalez of Sun Micrososystems said it best: "It's about the system. No more, no less. There's no hardware without software, no software without hardware, and no solution without service. All has to fit together." Of course he was talking about Sun but I think that statement also fits Apple's perspective well.
Simple, those are stand-alone operating systems that can be fully functional without any GNU software packages. In fact, GNU software isn't even included in the base installation of Solaris, AIX or HP-UX. It comes packaged on a seperate CD to be installed as an option.
Without GNU, Linux would not be functional. Without GNU or other third party software, there would be no boot loader, no C libraries, no compiler, no userland or shell, no init, etc. A kernel is just a piece of the whole, albeit an important piece.
Why is it such a big deal to simply give credit where is due?
No, the PowerPC processor family is a derivative of the POWER4, with some features removed and a SIMD unit added. The POWER5 is a different chip.
...the PowerPC was based on POWER, but with a number of differences. ... PowerPC 900 family
According to IBM:
The 64-bit PowerPC 970, a single-core version of the POWER4...
Dragon Quest is probably an acquired taste. The original Dragon Warrior on the NES was my introduction to the genre and as such, has set the standard for me as far as what I expect from a console fantasy RPG. Fancy graphics are a plus but mean nothing without good game play.
The great thing about Dragon Quest is that it gives the option of exploration as well as the incentive -- something that is largely absent in most "modern" RPGs I've played. Most other so-called RPGs restrict you to the story. You don't have options to search or work for better equipment and abilities, you're given them when the story dictates it.
They always follow the same formula: story, dungeon, next town/location, buy the next weapon/armor upgrade (which doesn't actually do anything for you but was just put in to make it feel more role-playing), repeat. Anyone who plays these games is going to play every scenario under the exact same constraints as everyone else because of the strict linear gameplay and lack of options for customization. Two different people playing Dragon Quest can be at the same scenario with completely different equipment, levels, skills and abilities depending on how they played the game. Dragon Quest gives you choices, perhaps at the expense of an epic storyline, but it makes the gameplay very enjoyable. If you'd rather watch an interactive movie, might I suggest a post-SNES Final Fantasy game.
OS X is a complete operating system. KDE/GNOME are much smaller projects by comparison. If you want to consider the age of a software project to include all projects in which it was derived, then to be fair what everyone now refers to as "Linux" technically began in 1984 with the GNU project http://www.gnu.org/.
I hear what you are saying. However, what about those of us who got into it because it really was what we enjoyed doing? I started programming when I was 5 years old. Computers and technology were my life. Now, I've been unemployed for a year and don't see much light at the end of the tunnel because of the state of the job market.
Unfortunately, I was never taken seriously by any company I worked for as nobody seemed to want a true geek. Everybody wanted these sterotypical golf-playing bmw-driving business-degreed types that got into IT to jump on the bandwagon. I lost my job to people who had no tech skill whatsoever but knew how to suck up to upper-management. Companies don't want technically-minded people for tech positions, they want to put salesmen in these positions.
I never expected to get rich off of any dot-com boom. All I wanted was a career doing what I loved. Now I've been forced to look into other careers. I've accepted this, and it may even been a blessing in disguise in the long run. However, what really burns me up is all the skills I spent my life learning are now wasted.