You wouldn't get a warranty with the Opteron system, not that you get a great one with the Apple, but it's better than nothing.
Apple has by far the best warranty experience that I have ever encountered. All systems come with 90 days phone support ("I can't get OSX to do this" or "my machine is doing this") and a full year of hardware support, over the phone ("shit broke"). I have a Powerbook G4 I bought in August of last year, and the 2 times I had to call support on it (once for the screen, it was a known manufacturing issue with the 15"s at the time, the other to fix the casing that wasn't reassembled properly, just a bit loose was all, nothing major) I was on the phone for a total of less than 10 minutes, calling during "peak" times, and was on hold for less than 30 seconds before I was talking to a Mac Genious (Apple's tech people, not someone just reading off of a screen prompt). When I got off the phone, a box was on it's way to me and arrived the next day to send it in for repair, and I got the machine back a day and a half later. No computer company that I know of, except for business-grade support can match that. And Apple's AppleCare warranty, which extends phone support and hardware warranty to 3 years, is only ~$250, which is cheaper than about any level of support that anyone else offers, and for a hell of a lot better service
I always hate it when people do something like the person who wrote FairPlay "Because that's how it should be" or "Someone has no right to do {x} with their product". If Apple doesn't create iTunes for linux so that people can use iTMS in linux, tell them you would appreciate a client for linux. If they don't create a client, then don't use the damn service. See, iTMS is a SERVICE, not a right. If you want non-DRM'd music to stick on {x} device or {y} computer without telling Apple you're doing it, DON'T FUCKING USE THE SERVICE!!!! Get off your ass and go buy a damn cd, or even just sit there and wait a couple days and buy it from Amazon. Sure, those are inconvienient, but what did you do before iTMS? I have a friend that 128Kbit AAC is not high enough quality for him, and I have another that doesn't wish to have any part of DRM. For me, I'll just stick to paying my $0.99/song and listening to my DRM'd music on my iPod, on my computer, and over the LAN to where I work (on the university) from my laptop. Sure Apple knows that I have 2 computers on my account, but I rightly don't give a shit. Sure they know everything that I buy, but again, I give more telling information to the local grocer when I shop than I tell Apple, Apple only knows what music I listen to and when I buy it, the local grocer can project that I get paid every Friday (shop then), what brand of toilet paper I prefer, and that I like devil food cake. All in the name of convienience.
Take it or leave it, it's always been you're call. Things are either easy or hard, and one always has some sort of sacrifice.
You are missing the entire point of how Apple does things. They don't start a project and half-ass it using other programs to fill the gap, or put out something and say "oh, hey, by the way... you should use XMMS with [x] plugin to play these". That is why they ported iTunes to windows, with all of the functionality! There was no "You can use iTunes to download music, but you'll have to play it with this program, and then put them on your iPod with this other program". They tried that with MusicMatch, and it failed horribly. The only solution they could come up with was to do the entire thing start to finish themselves, which at this point they just aren't interested in working on for linux. It takes a lot of effort to get a jukebox/cd playing/music purchasing/cd burning/visualization program to work correctly on any platform, let alone one where the user is an über-geek that decided that they wanted to change this config file or that one, and not one where everything is either something they control (OS X), or something that another company controls mostly end to end (2000/XP).
The point of the parent is that although you CAN do this (boot linux with windows), if you call MS up and tell them that linux quit booting on you because NTLDR fucked up, they will just tell you to go to hell.
Just because the man in question had a hack that allowed him to sync his iPod (Mac ONLY) with windows, and now iTunes won't let him (I'm guessing it attempted to format it FAT32, and now its borked), and his hack (that could only handle the iPod with an HFS+ FS) doesn't work anymore. And he wants Apple to fix it. I don't really follow his logic, but perhaps he should find a mac to re-initialise it HFS, and go back to using his hack.
you CAN put songs on there without extra software, and copy them too!
Just to verify for yourself, open up a terminal (OSX), and type "cd/Volumes" then ls to see the iPod's name. go into this directory, and then cd into the directory of the iPod. then browse around and do whatever. All the software (iTunes) does, is make sure that iTunesDB and the files are in sync.
Then perhaps that is what needs to happen. I know when there is a security problem with OS X or with my RH9 box, i get notified. Of course, getting those DOES require registering, which is something most people just glaze over.
I am very opinionated on this topic, and have been for quite some time. Most people who own a computer do not know about computer security. Ok, that's a given. My philosophy is that people should know enough that they realize that their computers need a little more protection than they ship with if they intend to put it online. Anyone who has a computer online without a hardware firewall or even software firewall is asking for trouble. In the case that a computer behind a firewall (hardware ones are secured out of the box, less password config), or software firewall would not be liable. Anyone who gets r00ted and their computer does something illegal, without protection, should be held liable for at least partial damage. Being stupid (ignorance) is not the answer. Just like everyone who drives has the responsibility to keep their vehicles safe, for the sake of other drivers, as soon as one plugs in the phone line and dials out to the internet or connects to a network on the internet, they have the responsibility to keep their computers safe.
In Tennessee, this is now state law; it's legal. As long as there is no oncoming traffic, and it's "safe", one on a motorcycle can legally run a red without a ticket. Pretty effective, and no major accidents yet. When they passed it (about a year ago), everyone was saying how there was going to be SO many more motorcycle accidents, but it's pretty clear now that usually when one is 1/10th the size or so of everything else, they pay a bit more attention. Kinda like me when I drove a festiva 4 years ago.
I really don't understand the concept that people have that upgrades like this should get a new major number. From the article, and your post, it's reasonably easy to tell that you aren't quite familiar with Apple's naming scheme. The X in OS X is not just some arbitrary set of letters like XP, but it is the version number. OS X should be said "oh-ess-ten" not "oh-ess-ex"; saying the latter is a giveaway that someone is not a mac person in conversation. Just because they added new features, fixed stuff, and made it generally faster doesnt mean it should be made MacOS XI (11 for those that havent caught on yet), since its really mostly the same operating system. Changing the name of the whole thing is a microsoft thing.
So was that a desktop class workstation or a workstation?
Point is, Apple was the first to make a desktop for ma and pa back home to plug in and use. Sure DEC had a 64-bit CPU, and AMD has the Opteron out, but in both cases, the target audience there is businesses, using these machines as workstations, not something to do some minor editing in iMovie, browse the intarweb, and chat with their friends.
Perhaps after you learn how to spell "Athlon", you will realise that Premiere will spawn a Quicktime rendering session in Classic, which runs like crap; especially on the G5, where there is no version of OS9.
When benchmarking systems, one must take into account what the people actually do on the systems in question day-to-day. No one in their right mind runs Premier on mac; it sucks so hard that Apple created their own editing software that blew it out of the water. As for Word, it is a Carbon App, meaning that it's really an OS9 app in sheep's clothing, and even the OS9 version sucks hard. I can say first hand that MS got the interface right on when they created Office for Mac, but they didn't optimise it at all... it's one of the slowest responding Apps on mac (again, Apple even created their own replacement, AppleWorks), but it still gets used by me because its beautiful, does things the Windows version wouldn't dream of doing, and I can live with a little lag when I'm typing.
As for Quake, most games on mac are ports of the PC games, and not at all optimised (Warcraft III anyone), Carbon-based apps most of the time, running much better in native OS9 than OSX, therefore they run like crap, even with the mac having an "equivalent" video card.
So yes, the only relevant benchmark IS photoshop, which Adobe has made strides to make run outstanding on OSX, as Apple has done with Final Cut Pro, giving it gasp dual processor support, even! One can show how much better a Yugo is than a Ferrari at gas mileage or parking, but if what your target audience is doesnt even use the features in question, the benchmark is pointless.
It's very similar to being pulled over for speeding or your wife walking in on you with your pants down... you still get a court date and a trial, but the other party has already seen what appeared to be something violating the law. After that point, it is your responsibility to prove that what you were doing might not necessarily have been what it appeared. If a netadmin sees my computer using a ton of bandwidth on kazaa's ports, then sends a request to my computer to see what i have shared, and sees a bunch of MP3's and a few DiVX movies, at that point I've been caught speeding, and must go to court to prove that I did or did not legitimately own them.
Well you see, that's the problem. There are so many students on resnet, and so few admins. If they spent the time to call up every student and smack them over the back of their hands for sharing files, an IT army would be required. It's much easier and more efficient to disconnect the fouling user, and wait around for them to call. Sure, it's nice to be able to put my PC online in my room, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of PCs available for FREE that are IT owned in labs for me to use. And lots of people use them. When you plug into the network, you take responsibility for your and your computer's actions on the network, period. Just because its a public institution doesn't mean the other 400 people living in my dorm should be able to swarm my computer with viruses and worms, and eat all the bandwidth for no reason. If they aren't knowledgeable enough to take care of it themselves, then someone has to, and that's what this is for.
Absolutely wrong. I am a student at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and they here take P2P and such quite seriously. If you are found to be sharing files that are against copyright (which, by the way, you are PUBLICLY sharing, so they are quite legally allowed to look at it), you get disconnected. All they do is see who the users of P2P are by looking at the network traffic, then take a little app and have it see what you have shared, if anything. Then its nothing major for them to link your MAC address to you IP address, which here is also linked to your NetID, which identifies you as you. When one plugs into the network, there is a TOS agreement that you have to click through to register your computer and get on the internet. Part of that is that they can do what as far as the network goes with your computer to ensure copyright law and security.
I for one have no qualms about them scanning the hell out of my system, or blocking P2P traffic (we have a port shaper that allows only 1% of available bandwidth to recognized P2P ports on the network), since BEFORE these policies were implemented, the campus connection was painfully slow. I'm not talking ISDN slow, rather, 14.4Kbps slow. And this is only 3-4000 students being served by an OC-48. After it was implemented, web browsing was increased dramatically (downloads to other universities and large corps went back up to 3-5Mbit, like it should be), and overall everyone was happier. People are stupid, get over it. When stupid people get together in large masses (the ResNet is one huge LAN), everything is multiplied exponentially... virus problems, worms, and bandwidth usage. It may be "evil", but its a necessary one.
The greater reason for having an on-off switch is not so that it can go into a "low power mode", but rather, so you can put it in a state where YOU decided to let it work again. If it just ahd a sensor (which it does, the laser strobes a few times a second when not in use to detect motion), then when i tossed it in my backpack to take with me, it would constantly turn on and waste battery (which my current one does, so i resort to putting one battery in upside down). Having an on-off switch was one of the first things i thought my current wireless mouse could use (its a MS Blue optical wireless). Not to mention that this one is bluetooth, so I could just flip the switch, put my TiBook in its case, and when i got to class not have to set anything up, just flip the mouse back on. Nice.
Good, now go to Dell or HPaq and try the same trick. You can't do it, and it's because of Gates' arm twisting.
There is a reason for that, as well. Dell and HP have a CONTRACT with Microsoft, that lets them purchase the Windows licenses that they sell on their PC's for much, MUCH cheaper than you would purchase it for retail ($30-60, generally). This is the reason that you are able to go and purchase these computers, with all software, for not much more than a retail copy of Windows.
They had a choice, sell their computers for less cost, thus increasing their market share and brand name, but restrict the abilities of consumers to purchase a computer to be including or discluding a copy of Windows, or to sell the computers for much more, thus selling less and making it seem like they are overpriced.
$400 HP computer - $199 copy of Windows does not a $200 computer make.
They were just ansy to talk about their Radeon 9600 again. They start out the article telling about how the 9600 is a much more expensive and more capable card, and that it is not really in the same bracket that the FX5200 is in, yet the entire thing seems to brag about how much better the 9600 is doing. If they wanted to put the 9600 into the review, they should have at least included an NVidia card that was comparable to it, if only to not make NVidia look bad. If a potential buyer were looking over this review, and didn't read the disclaimer at the beginning, he would be very turned off to this card's performance, which really isn't that bad for the price.
Companies REALLY should think about what they are reviewing before they throw something together to review it. That's my flame for the day.
The reason they are.exe's is because they are SELF-EXTRACTING ZIP files. While this may be yet another way they try to make sure you are running Windows, it does make sense.
"Why not just make them a.zip you say?" Well, a lot of people want to just double click, then open. That is the target audience.
Of course, if you want to just continue bashing Microsoft without even looking at what it is, go right ahead. Everyone else here on/. seems to think that's the best route.
Actually, most of the time, it is not the retailer that demands of those; but the manufacturer. The merchandise marked "DO NOT RETURN TO STORE" is most of the time not able to be sent back to the manufacturer BY the store, and the store has to end up eating the costs then. Stores like Wal-Mart, with millions of dollars in sales a day can eat some costs no problem, however, stores like Office Depot with sales of $10-15K/day (this is about average for my store, granted there are days we make $25K, but some we only make $5K) cannot. I know it's a pain in the arse to deal with, but it really is not the fault of the store, although most of the time the manager will take back the merchandise anyhow just to make the customer happy.
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Powerpoint is the second coming... Jobs uses Keynote =).
Apple has by far the best warranty experience that I have ever encountered. All systems come with 90 days phone support ("I can't get OSX to do this" or "my machine is doing this") and a full year of hardware support, over the phone ("shit broke"). I have a Powerbook G4 I bought in August of last year, and the 2 times I had to call support on it (once for the screen, it was a known manufacturing issue with the 15"s at the time, the other to fix the casing that wasn't reassembled properly, just a bit loose was all, nothing major) I was on the phone for a total of less than 10 minutes, calling during "peak" times, and was on hold for less than 30 seconds before I was talking to a Mac Genious (Apple's tech people, not someone just reading off of a screen prompt). When I got off the phone, a box was on it's way to me and arrived the next day to send it in for repair, and I got the machine back a day and a half later. No computer company that I know of, except for business-grade support can match that. And Apple's AppleCare warranty, which extends phone support and hardware warranty to 3 years, is only ~$250, which is cheaper than about any level of support that anyone else offers, and for a hell of a lot better service
I always hate it when people do something like the person who wrote FairPlay "Because that's how it should be" or "Someone has no right to do {x} with their product". If Apple doesn't create iTunes for linux so that people can use iTMS in linux, tell them you would appreciate a client for linux. If they don't create a client, then don't use the damn service. See, iTMS is a SERVICE, not a right. If you want non-DRM'd music to stick on {x} device or {y} computer without telling Apple you're doing it, DON'T FUCKING USE THE SERVICE!!!! Get off your ass and go buy a damn cd, or even just sit there and wait a couple days and buy it from Amazon. Sure, those are inconvienient, but what did you do before iTMS? I have a friend that 128Kbit AAC is not high enough quality for him, and I have another that doesn't wish to have any part of DRM. For me, I'll just stick to paying my $0.99/song and listening to my DRM'd music on my iPod, on my computer, and over the LAN to where I work (on the university) from my laptop. Sure Apple knows that I have 2 computers on my account, but I rightly don't give a shit. Sure they know everything that I buy, but again, I give more telling information to the local grocer when I shop than I tell Apple, Apple only knows what music I listen to and when I buy it, the local grocer can project that I get paid every Friday (shop then), what brand of toilet paper I prefer, and that I like devil food cake. All in the name of convienience.
Take it or leave it, it's always been you're call. Things are either easy or hard, and one always has some sort of sacrifice.
You are missing the entire point of how Apple does things. They don't start a project and half-ass it using other programs to fill the gap, or put out something and say "oh, hey, by the way... you should use XMMS with [x] plugin to play these". That is why they ported iTunes to windows, with all of the functionality! There was no "You can use iTunes to download music, but you'll have to play it with this program, and then put them on your iPod with this other program". They tried that with MusicMatch, and it failed horribly. The only solution they could come up with was to do the entire thing start to finish themselves, which at this point they just aren't interested in working on for linux. It takes a lot of effort to get a jukebox/cd playing/music purchasing/cd burning/visualization program to work correctly on any platform, let alone one where the user is an über-geek that decided that they wanted to change this config file or that one, and not one where everything is either something they control (OS X), or something that another company controls mostly end to end (2000/XP).
Here in Knoxville, TN, it was 1C and snowing all day. Think about that one more time...
:-(
1C and snowing... the Gods hate us.
It snowed about 6 inches worth today, but none of it stuck around, it all melted. Talk about torture
The point of the parent is that although you CAN do this (boot linux with windows), if you call MS up and tell them that linux quit booting on you because NTLDR fucked up, they will just tell you to go to hell.
Just because the man in question had a hack that allowed him to sync his iPod (Mac ONLY) with windows, and now iTunes won't let him (I'm guessing it attempted to format it FAT32, and now its borked), and his hack (that could only handle the iPod with an HFS+ FS) doesn't work anymore. And he wants Apple to fix it. I don't really follow his logic, but perhaps he should find a mac to re-initialise it HFS, and go back to using his hack.
you CAN put songs on there without extra software, and copy them too!
/Volumes" then ls to see the iPod's name. go into this directory, and then cd into the directory of the iPod. then browse around and do whatever. All the software (iTunes) does, is make sure that iTunesDB and the files are in sync.
Just to verify for yourself, open up a terminal (OSX), and type "cd
Then perhaps that is what needs to happen. I know when there is a security problem with OS X or with my RH9 box, i get notified. Of course, getting those DOES require registering, which is something most people just glaze over.
I am very opinionated on this topic, and have been for quite some time. Most people who own a computer do not know about computer security. Ok, that's a given. My philosophy is that people should know enough that they realize that their computers need a little more protection than they ship with if they intend to put it online. Anyone who has a computer online without a hardware firewall or even software firewall is asking for trouble. In the case that a computer behind a firewall (hardware ones are secured out of the box, less password config), or software firewall would not be liable. Anyone who gets r00ted and their computer does something illegal, without protection, should be held liable for at least partial damage. Being stupid (ignorance) is not the answer. Just like everyone who drives has the responsibility to keep their vehicles safe, for the sake of other drivers, as soon as one plugs in the phone line and dials out to the internet or connects to a network on the internet, they have the responsibility to keep their computers safe.
In Tennessee, this is now state law; it's legal. As long as there is no oncoming traffic, and it's "safe", one on a motorcycle can legally run a red without a ticket. Pretty effective, and no major accidents yet. When they passed it (about a year ago), everyone was saying how there was going to be SO many more motorcycle accidents, but it's pretty clear now that usually when one is 1/10th the size or so of everything else, they pay a bit more attention. Kinda like me when I drove a festiva 4 years ago.
I really don't understand the concept that people have that upgrades like this should get a new major number. From the article, and your post, it's reasonably easy to tell that you aren't quite familiar with Apple's naming scheme. The X in OS X is not just some arbitrary set of letters like XP, but it is the version number. OS X should be said "oh-ess-ten" not "oh-ess-ex"; saying the latter is a giveaway that someone is not a mac person in conversation. Just because they added new features, fixed stuff, and made it generally faster doesnt mean it should be made MacOS XI (11 for those that havent caught on yet), since its really mostly the same operating system. Changing the name of the whole thing is a microsoft thing.
So was that a desktop class workstation or a workstation?
Point is, Apple was the first to make a desktop for ma and pa back home to plug in and use. Sure DEC had a 64-bit CPU, and AMD has the Opteron out, but in both cases, the target audience there is businesses, using these machines as workstations, not something to do some minor editing in iMovie, browse the intarweb, and chat with their friends.
Perhaps after you learn how to spell "Athlon", you will realise that Premiere will spawn a Quicktime rendering session in Classic, which runs like crap; especially on the G5, where there is no version of OS9.
When benchmarking systems, one must take into account what the people actually do on the systems in question day-to-day. No one in their right mind runs Premier on mac; it sucks so hard that Apple created their own editing software that blew it out of the water. As for Word, it is a Carbon App, meaning that it's really an OS9 app in sheep's clothing, and even the OS9 version sucks hard. I can say first hand that MS got the interface right on when they created Office for Mac, but they didn't optimise it at all... it's one of the slowest responding Apps on mac (again, Apple even created their own replacement, AppleWorks), but it still gets used by me because its beautiful, does things the Windows version wouldn't dream of doing, and I can live with a little lag when I'm typing.
As for Quake, most games on mac are ports of the PC games, and not at all optimised (Warcraft III anyone), Carbon-based apps most of the time, running much better in native OS9 than OSX, therefore they run like crap, even with the mac having an "equivalent" video card.
So yes, the only relevant benchmark IS photoshop, which Adobe has made strides to make run outstanding on OSX, as Apple has done with Final Cut Pro, giving it gasp dual processor support, even! One can show how much better a Yugo is than a Ferrari at gas mileage or parking, but if what your target audience is doesnt even use the features in question, the benchmark is pointless.
It's very similar to being pulled over for speeding or your wife walking in on you with your pants down... you still get a court date and a trial, but the other party has already seen what appeared to be something violating the law. After that point, it is your responsibility to prove that what you were doing might not necessarily have been what it appeared. If a netadmin sees my computer using a ton of bandwidth on kazaa's ports, then sends a request to my computer to see what i have shared, and sees a bunch of MP3's and a few DiVX movies, at that point I've been caught speeding, and must go to court to prove that I did or did not legitimately own them.
Well you see, that's the problem. There are so many students on resnet, and so few admins. If they spent the time to call up every student and smack them over the back of their hands for sharing files, an IT army would be required. It's much easier and more efficient to disconnect the fouling user, and wait around for them to call. Sure, it's nice to be able to put my PC online in my room, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of PCs available for FREE that are IT owned in labs for me to use. And lots of people use them. When you plug into the network, you take responsibility for your and your computer's actions on the network, period. Just because its a public institution doesn't mean the other 400 people living in my dorm should be able to swarm my computer with viruses and worms, and eat all the bandwidth for no reason. If they aren't knowledgeable enough to take care of it themselves, then someone has to, and that's what this is for.
Absolutely wrong. I am a student at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and they here take P2P and such quite seriously. If you are found to be sharing files that are against copyright (which, by the way, you are PUBLICLY sharing, so they are quite legally allowed to look at it), you get disconnected. All they do is see who the users of P2P are by looking at the network traffic, then take a little app and have it see what you have shared, if anything. Then its nothing major for them to link your MAC address to you IP address, which here is also linked to your NetID, which identifies you as you. When one plugs into the network, there is a TOS agreement that you have to click through to register your computer and get on the internet. Part of that is that they can do what as far as the network goes with your computer to ensure copyright law and security.
I for one have no qualms about them scanning the hell out of my system, or blocking P2P traffic (we have a port shaper that allows only 1% of available bandwidth to recognized P2P ports on the network), since BEFORE these policies were implemented, the campus connection was painfully slow. I'm not talking ISDN slow, rather, 14.4Kbps slow. And this is only 3-4000 students being served by an OC-48. After it was implemented, web browsing was increased dramatically (downloads to other universities and large corps went back up to 3-5Mbit, like it should be), and overall everyone was happier. People are stupid, get over it. When stupid people get together in large masses (the ResNet is one huge LAN), everything is multiplied exponentially... virus problems, worms, and bandwidth usage. It may be "evil", but its a necessary one.
The greater reason for having an on-off switch is not so that it can go into a "low power mode", but rather, so you can put it in a state where YOU decided to let it work again. If it just ahd a sensor (which it does, the laser strobes a few times a second when not in use to detect motion), then when i tossed it in my backpack to take with me, it would constantly turn on and waste battery (which my current one does, so i resort to putting one battery in upside down). Having an on-off switch was one of the first things i thought my current wireless mouse could use (its a MS Blue optical wireless). Not to mention that this one is bluetooth, so I could just flip the switch, put my TiBook in its case, and when i got to class not have to set anything up, just flip the mouse back on. Nice.
It detects it and goes offline. At least, APC units do. No harm, no foul... or so they say. I got curious once myself and tried it.
Good, now go to Dell or HPaq and try the same trick. You can't do it, and it's because of Gates' arm twisting.
There is a reason for that, as well. Dell and HP have a CONTRACT with Microsoft, that lets them purchase the Windows licenses that they sell on their PC's for much, MUCH cheaper than you would purchase it for retail ($30-60, generally). This is the reason that you are able to go and purchase these computers, with all software, for not much more than a retail copy of Windows.
They had a choice, sell their computers for less cost, thus increasing their market share and brand name, but restrict the abilities of consumers to purchase a computer to be including or discluding a copy of Windows, or to sell the computers for much more, thus selling less and making it seem like they are overpriced.
$400 HP computer - $199 copy of Windows does not a $200 computer make.
They were just ansy to talk about their Radeon 9600 again. They start out the article telling about how the 9600 is a much more expensive and more capable card, and that it is not really in the same bracket that the FX5200 is in, yet the entire thing seems to brag about how much better the 9600 is doing. If they wanted to put the 9600 into the review, they should have at least included an NVidia card that was comparable to it, if only to not make NVidia look bad. If a potential buyer were looking over this review, and didn't read the disclaimer at the beginning, he would be very turned off to this card's performance, which really isn't that bad for the price.
Companies REALLY should think about what they are reviewing before they throw something together to review it.
That's my flame for the day.
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+1 Insightful
Another mirror available here.
;-P
I survived one slashdotting already, who thinks it can take another? No takers? Awww.... come on!
Really though, try me
The reason they are .exe's is because they are SELF-EXTRACTING ZIP files. While this may be yet another way they try to make sure you are running Windows, it does make sense.
.zip you say?" Well, a lot of people want to just double click, then open. That is the target audience.
/. seems to think that's the best route.
"Why not just make them a
Of course, if you want to just continue bashing Microsoft without even looking at what it is, go right ahead. Everyone else here on
haha... When I read that "even if it does cure cancer..." it really does make sense when applied to an Xbox, if you consider MS cancer. =P
Actually, most of the time, it is not the retailer that demands of those; but the manufacturer. The merchandise marked "DO NOT RETURN TO STORE" is most of the time not able to be sent back to the manufacturer BY the store, and the store has to end up eating the costs then. Stores like Wal-Mart, with millions of dollars in sales a day can eat some costs no problem, however, stores like Office Depot with sales of $10-15K/day (this is about average for my store, granted there are days we make $25K, but some we only make $5K) cannot. I know it's a pain in the arse to deal with, but it really is not the fault of the store, although most of the time the manager will take back the merchandise anyhow just to make the customer happy.
Just my $0.02.