Maybe the next-gen of DVD players will drop WMA and pick up AAC w/FairPlay.
They can. Check out the next-gen of DVD players here. It's so advanced though it will only hook up to TV's with DVI input. You can get a composite video adapter though, for about $20.
I'm a switcher. I used to be die-hard Microsoft. In college I was introduced to UNIX and have run Linux as my desktop for the past 8 years. I also manage 40 Linux and FreeBSD servers at work. I love the middle click paste in X, and for a long time I used a three button mouse with no scroll wheel because I didn't want the wheel getting in the way of pasting. Eventually the desire for an LED mouse overcame me and I got a wheel. Over time I've had mice of all different button numberings, up to and including a Logitech with 8 buttons that made back and forward navigation in Firefox and Nautilus quite smooth.
Last April I bout an iBook intending to wipe it out and install Debian on it but gave OS X a try first. It was enough to convince me so in September I got a new iMac G5 replacing my custom built Debian workstation. Even though I still have the Logitech 8 button mouse, I haven't used it. I've got the Apple mouse that came with my iMac and to be quite honest, I don't really miss the extra buttons. The Mac interface is designed largly not to need a second button. Just about everything that I could have done on a right click I can do with keyboard shortcuts instead (which I highly prefer and are faster to execute anyway).
So go ahead and complain if you want to. The fact is, mouse buttons are a non-issue. If you use a Mac for a while you probably won't need extra buttons either. If you do though, any USB mouse will work.
On the contrary, I think that any time is the right time for the very same reason.
I bought my iBook in April of last year. A few months later they came out with new iBooks, and it would have cost me a few hundred bucks less to get a more powerful model if I had waited 4 months. But the Apple market is no different than any other. There are always upgrades that are not far away and if you're always waiting for the "optimum" time you'll never go.
The release of Tiger is "q2", which means any time between April and July. Panther is $130 as every release of OS X has been since the official release, so it follows that Tiger will be the same price. If you're waiting for the release of Tiger, just ask yourself this question: Am I willing to pay $130 to have a Mac 6 months early?
Just to let you know, my 1.0Ghz iBook is just fine for any task. Some programs take a little longer to open or compile on the iBook but other than that it does everything else just as good as my iMac G5 1.8Ghz.
If you're thinking about switching then I'd encourage you to just go for it now.
I tried portage on my iBook and I found it to be cumbersom, inadequate and intrusive. Darwinports on the otherhand is quick and easy to use, installs nicely, has tons of packages available and doesn't try to take over my system.
The Solaris operating system is being released under the terms of the OSI-approved, CDDL (Common Development and Distribution License). Millions of development hours worth of code and over 1,600 patents are being contributed to the open source community.
Don't they already give away phones, and have pay as you go services? We don't need a $25 chip for that.
Not that cell phone capabilities on inexpensive chips isn't welcomed, but your pitch seems a little skewed. I'm not very excited about new technologies that will let me do what has already been going on for years (which is why the Media PC is such a non-event). Dream a little about the possibilities of new technology! How about Spooner's phone from I, Robot? "Hey, cool bluetooth earpiece!", "No, that's my whole phone!" Or maybe Steve Jobs will decide to add this into the next iPod version. Now that's a little more exciting.
No, I quite unintentionally typed http:// and then pasted the full URL http://www.apple.com/macmini/ that I copied from the other tab creating the http://http://....
OS X doesn't have a runlevel 3 because being BSD based, it doesn't use runlevels.
That being said, you're understanding of what is going on is fairly faulty. Firstly, you'll have a really hard time loading the wrong drivers in OS X. Secondly, you can use OS X without the windowing server all you like. Holding cmd+S while booting will bring you into single user mode, or you can type >console in the login window to switch to a vty.
Well done! Keep on the good work. Anyway we can help?
Since you asked, yes, you canbuy something. I hate to feel like I'm pimping products here, but the more revenue we have in accross the board helps to improve all services, consumer, enterprise and anti-censorship proxies.
Anonymizer 2005 is $30/yr, which works out to be about $2.20/mo Total Net Shield is $100/yr, which works out to be about $8/mo.
Personally, I like TNS the best, and I use it at home.
I'm the sr. sysadmin for Anonymizer and we have a contract with VOA to provide free proxy service to Iran.
It's based off of PrivateSurfing (which you can try out for free at the Anonymizer homepage, sorry you can't surf/. with it...Rob hates me). Added features for the Iran proxy is full time SSL, URL encryption, Farsi language support, and we switch the proxy website about once a month (every time the Iranian government blocks us). We perform checks on the service from within Iran to see if our site is actually blocked (yes, it works), and we maintain a database of all known e-mail addresses that we can detect as being located in Iran. Every time we switch the proxy site we send an e-mail informing them of the new free proxy location so the citizens of Iran can find it. The sites are also broadcast via radio and TV into Iran by the VOA. To be honest, we're usually about a day behind the blocks, due mostly to time zone differences.
The systems that run the Iran proxies are dedicated and used quite heavily. Much more than any of the servers that we have for everything else. The loadav is pretty high, and we're working on upgrading them in the next few months to increase capacity.
Most of our customers are under NDA so I don't mention where I work much, but the VOA is one of our very few public contracts due to it's anti-censorship nature.
While I agree with your conclusion that what people want is a computer that "just works", and I'll also agree that Linux doesn't quite supply that yet, I'll also point out that neither does MS. Joe User can't fix a Windows problem any more than he can fix a Linux problem.
No computer is like that, and none ever will be. Computers are complex things, and work in complex ways. Joe User can't fix a problem even on the easiest computer to use, the Macintosh.
I worked at an elementary school doing support for the staff. Even though just about every Mac app that exists has a View->Customize Toolbar option, they all cry frantically for help when they accidently delete a toolbar icon by option clicking and dragging it away. People as a whole don't know how to use computers and refuse to learn. The best approach in software UI design I've seen is to simplify it as much as possible (note GNOME users, I said simplify, not stupify). Mac OS X does the best job I've seen, but what does Joe User do when he clicks the iChat icon and Safari runs instead? No, make no mistake. Joe User is incapable of using even the easiest to use computer.
Also, we have to admit that some of the critical software for Linux isn't as good as the software for Windows. Last night I discovered that KOffice's KSpread program won't let me make a non-contiguous selection. KWord doesn't feature paragraph grouping or widow and orphan control. I *want* to use the free software programs, but I find myself using Crossover Office to run MS Office because MS Office works. Its expensive, but it does the job.
Have you tried using OpenOffice? I don't know what paragraph grouping is, but I know that OOo supports the other features you're complaining about.
I use Firefox because there are some features I can get as extensions that I need that aren't in Safari, and I prefer to use Mail over Thunderbird. Apple's spam algorithm works a lot better than Thunderbird's.
Before switching to Mail when I bought my iBook, I used Mutt for years. If I weren't using Mail now I'd still be using Mutt, even on OS X.
since the submitter didn't provide a link, here it is: http://www.dvdfile.com/software/eggs/trilogy.html
Not only am I pissed off about the state of Star Wars, the fact that there was even a Star Wars story on/., that I clicked it, found out that this is all about a windows only binary -- not really an easter egg at all, but that link you posted crashes Safari!
Why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?
It scares me that you say things like that. Call me paranoid, but I make sure I know each and every system on my network and I make sure that I personally know how to administer the OS through the application. Anything less would be irresponsible.
You do NOT let outside users have access to production systems as root (or as any other user). When they ask, you tell them to stop smoking crack and make them tell you how to fix it. When they ask again, instead of root, give them the middle finger, and them make them tell you how to fix it.
You need to learn to do things on your own. Calling up the vendor and handing them root to fix your problems merely makes you vendor dependant, and in my opinion any SysAdmin who does that should be fired. If I were a manager, why would I continue to employ SysAdmins who only call the vendor every time there is a problem? I would be thinking to myself that not only am I paying this bozo a huge sallary, but I'll be paying for the support contract forever as well, and not just for one system, but for however many app servers you've got. Why not just hire someone for minimum wage to dial the vendor when there's a problem than pay someone who is suposedly highly trained but can do nothing for themselves?
I'm not a manager, but I am the lead SysAdmin for an Internet services company. We have about 40 servers and about half as many networking devices (managed switches, firewalls, load balancers, etc). Whenever we get a new type of device we do end up calling the vendor quite a bit, but we always make sure they teach us the solution and we impliment it. Over six months or so as I learn all the ins and outs and bugs of the device we no longer need to contact the vendor. I have a team of three people, and if one of them gave a vendor the root or enable password on any of our devices I'd have them fired for network security breach, and if they weren't taking proper steps to learn a new device on their own I'd have them fired for incompetence and replaced. There are too many smart people out there to keep employed dumb ones, especially for the price tag SysAdmins deserve.
How do you schedule recordings? Do you tell it to record every Saturday at 6 for an hour? Or do you tell it to record CSI (just an example)?
I tell it to record Enterprise. It does the rest. And I don't quite get how the interface can be easier than pressing the record button and then selecting "one show" or "all instances of this show".
And you're the second person who mentioned DirecTivo. See the comments I made to him.
Right, but then it's through a sattalite dish company, which would cost me $200 to get started with, the cost of the Tivo, and then the added subscription cost. All that, and I don't even get local channels (not to mention that the only reason I have cable or a DVR for that matter is so I don't miss Enterprise, which only plays on the local UPN affiliate). Even if the sat provider out here has local channels, it's probably only NBC, CBS and ABC, in which case I still miss out on Enterprise.
I like the idea of Tivo, and you have to give them credit for being first to market. But the problem with both Tivo and ReplayTV is that they're greedy.
Here's what I mean. Both Tivo and ReplayTV set-top boxes cost somewhere between $100 and $300. You also have to subscribe $13/month in order to make full use of it. Otherwise it's just a glorified VCR (and not very glorified at that). The other option to bypass the $13/mo charge is to pay a "lifetime of the unit" fee of $300. Then you'll finally get the good stuff like "record all episodes of this show" (called Season Pass by Tivo).
On the other hand, most cable companies offer a DVR service for only $10/mo. I got one from Cox, and it's practically identical to the Tivo, except all those features you don't get unless you pay the subscription for with the Tivo, I get for only $10 with my DVR.
To break it down: Tivo/Replay box ~ $250 service = $13/mo
Cable Co box = $0 service = $10
And, you get all of the worthwhile features. Of course, my cable company doesn't let me program my DVR over the Internet, but I'm not sure that feature is quite worth shelling out several hundred bucks right off the bat and an extra $3/month.
The moral of the story: why the hell would anyone want a Tivo when your cable company gives you a better deal? I posed exactly this question to both Tivo and ReplayTV. Tivo never responded, and ReplayTV apologized and offered me two months free service. I'm not sure they understand English.
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They can. Check out the next-gen of DVD players here. It's so advanced though it will only hook up to TV's with DVI input. You can get a composite video adapter though, for about $20.
I'm a switcher. I used to be die-hard Microsoft. In college I was introduced to UNIX and have run Linux as my desktop for the past 8 years. I also manage 40 Linux and FreeBSD servers at work. I love the middle click paste in X, and for a long time I used a three button mouse with no scroll wheel because I didn't want the wheel getting in the way of pasting. Eventually the desire for an LED mouse overcame me and I got a wheel. Over time I've had mice of all different button numberings, up to and including a Logitech with 8 buttons that made back and forward navigation in Firefox and Nautilus quite smooth.
Last April I bout an iBook intending to wipe it out and install Debian on it but gave OS X a try first. It was enough to convince me so in September I got a new iMac G5 replacing my custom built Debian workstation. Even though I still have the Logitech 8 button mouse, I haven't used it. I've got the Apple mouse that came with my iMac and to be quite honest, I don't really miss the extra buttons. The Mac interface is designed largly not to need a second button. Just about everything that I could have done on a right click I can do with keyboard shortcuts instead (which I highly prefer and are faster to execute anyway).
So go ahead and complain if you want to. The fact is, mouse buttons are a non-issue. If you use a Mac for a while you probably won't need extra buttons either. If you do though, any USB mouse will work.
On the contrary, I think that any time is the right time for the very same reason.
I bought my iBook in April of last year. A few months later they came out with new iBooks, and it would have cost me a few hundred bucks less to get a more powerful model if I had waited 4 months. But the Apple market is no different than any other. There are always upgrades that are not far away and if you're always waiting for the "optimum" time you'll never go.
The release of Tiger is "q2", which means any time between April and July. Panther is $130 as every release of OS X has been since the official release, so it follows that Tiger will be the same price. If you're waiting for the release of Tiger, just ask yourself this question: Am I willing to pay $130 to have a Mac 6 months early?
Just to let you know, my 1.0Ghz iBook is just fine for any task. Some programs take a little longer to open or compile on the iBook but other than that it does everything else just as good as my iMac G5 1.8Ghz.
If you're thinking about switching then I'd encourage you to just go for it now.
I tried portage on my iBook and I found it to be cumbersom, inadequate and intrusive. Darwinports on the otherhand is quick and easy to use, installs nicely, has tons of packages available and doesn't try to take over my system.
Ha! Suck it, SCO!
Don't they already give away phones, and have pay as you go services? We don't need a $25 chip for that.
Not that cell phone capabilities on inexpensive chips isn't welcomed, but your pitch seems a little skewed. I'm not very excited about new technologies that will let me do what has already been going on for years (which is why the Media PC is such a non-event). Dream a little about the possibilities of new technology! How about Spooner's phone from I, Robot? "Hey, cool bluetooth earpiece!", "No, that's my whole phone!" Or maybe Steve Jobs will decide to add this into the next iPod version. Now that's a little more exciting.
But can you guess which new app Jobs will announce at the WWDC '06? It's only a matter of time.
No, I quite unintentionally typed http:// and then pasted the full URL http://www.apple.com/macmini/ that I copied from the other tab creating the http://http://....
Some days I just feel dumb.
Of course, you'd think I'd be smart enough to create a proper link.
Mac mini.
I was just pointing out that text only is not a "mode", that's the real OS. The graphical stuff is just an extra program that runs on top of it.
You should learn more about UNIX. It'll enrich your life. But be prepared, it's nothing like you expect.
OS X doesn't have a runlevel 3 because being BSD based, it doesn't use runlevels.
That being said, you're understanding of what is going on is fairly faulty. Firstly, you'll have a really hard time loading the wrong drivers in OS X. Secondly, you can use OS X without the windowing server all you like. Holding cmd+S while booting will bring you into single user mode, or you can type >console in the login window to switch to a vty.
Since you asked, yes, you canbuy something. I hate to feel like I'm pimping products here, but the more revenue we have in accross the board helps to improve all services, consumer, enterprise and anti-censorship proxies.
Anonymizer 2005 is $30/yr, which works out to be about $2.20/mo
Total Net Shield is $100/yr, which works out to be about $8/mo.
Personally, I like TNS the best, and I use it at home.
I'm the sr. sysadmin for Anonymizer and we have a contract with VOA to provide free proxy service to Iran.
/. with it...Rob hates me). Added features for the Iran proxy is full time SSL, URL encryption, Farsi language support, and we switch the proxy website about once a month (every time the Iranian government blocks us). We perform checks on the service from within Iran to see if our site is actually blocked (yes, it works), and we maintain a database of all known e-mail addresses that we can detect as being located in Iran. Every time we switch the proxy site we send an e-mail informing them of the new free proxy location so the citizens of Iran can find it. The sites are also broadcast via radio and TV into Iran by the VOA. To be honest, we're usually about a day behind the blocks, due mostly to time zone differences.
It's based off of PrivateSurfing (which you can try out for free at the Anonymizer homepage, sorry you can't surf
The systems that run the Iran proxies are dedicated and used quite heavily. Much more than any of the servers that we have for everything else. The loadav is pretty high, and we're working on upgrading them in the next few months to increase capacity.
Most of our customers are under NDA so I don't mention where I work much, but the VOA is one of our very few public contracts due to it's anti-censorship nature.
When can I get a Safari one?
All you have to do is download the cert and drop it in Keychain.
No computer is like that, and none ever will be. Computers are complex things, and work in complex ways. Joe User can't fix a problem even on the easiest computer to use, the Macintosh.
I worked at an elementary school doing support for the staff. Even though just about every Mac app that exists has a View->Customize Toolbar option, they all cry frantically for help when they accidently delete a toolbar icon by option clicking and dragging it away. People as a whole don't know how to use computers and refuse to learn. The best approach in software UI design I've seen is to simplify it as much as possible (note GNOME users, I said simplify, not stupify). Mac OS X does the best job I've seen, but what does Joe User do when he clicks the iChat icon and Safari runs instead? No, make no mistake. Joe User is incapable of using even the easiest to use computer.
Have you tried using OpenOffice? I don't know what paragraph grouping is, but I know that OOo supports the other features you're complaining about.
You mean second only to Safari/Mail/Address Book/iChat integration.
I don't.
I use Firefox because there are some features I can get as extensions that I need that aren't in Safari, and I prefer to use Mail over Thunderbird. Apple's spam algorithm works a lot better than Thunderbird's.
Before switching to Mail when I bought my iBook, I used Mutt for years. If I weren't using Mail now I'd still be using Mutt, even on OS X.
Not only am I pissed off about the state of Star Wars, the fact that there was even a Star Wars story on
Why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?
It scares me that you say things like that. Call me paranoid, but I make sure I know each and every system on my network and I make sure that I personally know how to administer the OS through the application. Anything less would be irresponsible.
You do NOT let outside users have access to production systems as root (or as any other user). When they ask, you tell them to stop smoking crack and make them tell you how to fix it. When they ask again, instead of root, give them the middle finger, and them make them tell you how to fix it.
You need to learn to do things on your own. Calling up the vendor and handing them root to fix your problems merely makes you vendor dependant, and in my opinion any SysAdmin who does that should be fired. If I were a manager, why would I continue to employ SysAdmins who only call the vendor every time there is a problem? I would be thinking to myself that not only am I paying this bozo a huge sallary, but I'll be paying for the support contract forever as well, and not just for one system, but for however many app servers you've got. Why not just hire someone for minimum wage to dial the vendor when there's a problem than pay someone who is suposedly highly trained but can do nothing for themselves?
I'm not a manager, but I am the lead SysAdmin for an Internet services company. We have about 40 servers and about half as many networking devices (managed switches, firewalls, load balancers, etc). Whenever we get a new type of device we do end up calling the vendor quite a bit, but we always make sure they teach us the solution and we impliment it. Over six months or so as I learn all the ins and outs and bugs of the device we no longer need to contact the vendor. I have a team of three people, and if one of them gave a vendor the root or enable password on any of our devices I'd have them fired for network security breach, and if they weren't taking proper steps to learn a new device on their own I'd have them fired for incompetence and replaced. There are too many smart people out there to keep employed dumb ones, especially for the price tag SysAdmins deserve.
I tell it to record Enterprise. It does the rest. And I don't quite get how the interface can be easier than pressing the record button and then selecting "one show" or "all instances of this show".
And you're the second person who mentioned DirecTivo. See the comments I made to him.
Sattalite sucks.
Right, but then it's through a sattalite dish company, which would cost me $200 to get started with, the cost of the Tivo, and then the added subscription cost. All that, and I don't even get local channels (not to mention that the only reason I have cable or a DVR for that matter is so I don't miss Enterprise, which only plays on the local UPN affiliate). Even if the sat provider out here has local channels, it's probably only NBC, CBS and ABC, in which case I still miss out on Enterprise.
I like the idea of Tivo, and you have to give them credit for being first to market. But the problem with both Tivo and ReplayTV is that they're greedy.
Here's what I mean. Both Tivo and ReplayTV set-top boxes cost somewhere between $100 and $300. You also have to subscribe $13/month in order to make full use of it. Otherwise it's just a glorified VCR (and not very glorified at that). The other option to bypass the $13/mo charge is to pay a "lifetime of the unit" fee of $300. Then you'll finally get the good stuff like "record all episodes of this show" (called Season Pass by Tivo).
On the other hand, most cable companies offer a DVR service for only $10/mo. I got one from Cox, and it's practically identical to the Tivo, except all those features you don't get unless you pay the subscription for with the Tivo, I get for only $10 with my DVR.
To break it down:
Tivo/Replay
box ~ $250
service = $13/mo
Cable Co
box = $0
service = $10
And, you get all of the worthwhile features. Of course, my cable company doesn't let me program my DVR over the Internet, but I'm not sure that feature is quite worth shelling out several hundred bucks right off the bat and an extra $3/month.
The moral of the story: why the hell would anyone want a Tivo when your cable company gives you a better deal? I posed exactly this question to both Tivo and ReplayTV. Tivo never responded, and ReplayTV apologized and offered me two months free service. I'm not sure they understand English.