Especially if you are continually doing for those five years whatever you intended to do with your Palm/PocketPC for those five years. It's not like the thing becomes obsolete; if you take notes, it will still take notes, if you read books, you can still read books...
The only problem is when external software fails to keep up, but that's not a failing of the device itself!
You come off as uninformed; but he's not a zealot. That's actually the truth he speaks.
Windows Product Activation: You can't use Windows without activating it, period Mac OS X functions, period. If you buy future releases, you get more features, but basic product functionality isn't restricted or denied because you never registered.
The email client for Mac is much more easily uninstallable. Just drag the program to the trash. Don't say the Windows method is easy when compared to that. The best you can say is it's possible.
Backup in Windows is impossible.
Try backing up all your user preferences and restore it Try backing up all your user preferences, then applying it to a new account, new machine, or a reinstalled machine. Try backing up all your documents; then apply them to a new account, new machine, or a reinstalled machine. Try *finding* all your preferences first, before you can back them up Try *finding* all your documents first, before you can back them up Try backing up your OS, install a new OS version, decide you don't like it, and then restore the previous OS. Impossible with Windows, not impossible with OS X
The only reason all of these things are possible in OS X? Preferences exist in ~/Library/Preferences General settings exist in ~/Library Documents exist in ~/Documents
System specific settings exist in/Library and/System/Library, depending on root level.
This makes it trivial to back up and restore. In Windows you need to go into Program Files, into the registry, and into the Windows directory to grab them all, and you cannot separate the data from the programs, the documents from the configuration.
Even worse, it's nearly impossible to selectively back up parts of your registry, applications, and profiles; you need to back it all up and restore them all at once (cloning) else nothing will work. Under OS X, you can back up your Applications; without preferences, they assume stock defaults. You can back up your preferences; without the Applications, nothing happens, but as soon as you install the Application (again) it will automatically pick up the old preferences. You can also back up your documents, and without the Applications they won't open, or will open in an alternative program.
You can, and quite easily, back up each as needed; you often only need to back up ~/Library and ~/Documents and have a fully functional 'image' of your system on any Mac you want; if you back up ~/Library, ~/Documents, and/Applications, you *will* have everything you ever need to mirror your environment on any Mac.
OS X, unlike Windows, cleanly separates applications from the OS, data from the executable, user from system, and preferences from documents. You can simply manage, backup, restore, and amend any of those without impacting anything else, quite unlike Windows. The parent poster was not being zealous at all, because it's true.
My friend with a Gateway (and even me, on my Win2k machine) cannot backup and restore his system without resorting to a Linux CD! Boot Knoppix or Debian, or whatever, run dd on the drive and copy it on a network drive, and reverse the process to restore it!
Windows doesn't have any ability to backup your system!
On a Mac, you only need to back up ~/,/Library, and/Applications. If you screw up, reinstall the OS and then reapply ~/,/Library, and/Applications, and you have an identical system. On Windows 2000, if you screw up and reinstall the OS, there is zero method to regain your prior OS. The only thing you can do is boot off a Linux CD and then reverse dd across the network and restore your image.
Not at all, not according to research models, actual case studies, and biological examples.
The study of networks, and scale free networks, has been applied to virus vaccination, and I do believe those results apply equally to the internet, or any other network. You don't need to immunize everyone, and you don't need to make all network nodes different, you just need to immunize hubs, and you just need to vary and protect vital hubs.
Here's a thought exercise: If you had 3 lans at work (one wireless, and two wired), you don't need to diversify every network to protect the entire place; You only need to protect three internal firewalls, three routers, one external firewall, and three DHCP machines to effectively protect up to 750 machines. Even better of course is the fact that all 750 machines don't have to be identical, since there will be the odd Linux server, Mac desktop or laptop for the graphic folks, and perhaps a Sun workstation or two here and there.
So it's not like you'd have to diversify to uselessness at all; just intelligently.
So essentially the point is "Can we develop something unexploitable?" which is, I think, impossible.
Standard, monoculture, or otherwise, I think it's impossible to develop something unexploitable. The nature of the problem is designing something flawless, and as soon as context, culture, needs, or environment changes, the design is no longer flawless.
False logic: You talk about the weakness of standards, which is valid, and then switch topics. The logic breaks when you do that.
You talk about the difficulty of diversity in an extremely exaggerated and unrealistic manner as a solution against standards and monoculture, when the realistic solution is neither.
In real life, you have competing *standards*. DVD-R and DVD+R. Blueray and HD-DVD. uPnP and Zeroconf. POP and IMAP. And often times, in real life, you don't settle for *one* standard, you accept multiple. Of course there are exceptions, like HTTP and BIND or TCP/IP protocols, but your argument has no bearing on reality otherwise.
So you then talk about diversity being impractical, without supplying any logic whatsover. You just assume because encouraging *no* standards is impractical, that diversity is impractical. They are different.
Support multiple standards, support open standards, and their implementation is not impractical, highly or otherwise. That is the whole reason standards exist!
Use different hardware and OSes to protect a company is not 'highly impractical' NetBSD on x86 for firewalls. Solaris on Sparc for servers. Linux on Itanium for compute nodes. OS X on PPC for desktops.
This is *natural* because each environment and tool have different strengths and weaknesses. It's like having multiple tools in a tool chest!
You wouldn't use Linux and Itanium for *everything*. Nor would you use OS X on PPC, or Solaris on Sparc. Nor *should* you use Windows on x86. It makes you too vulnerable and weak, and you sacrifice the strengths of each platform and environment!
Why is arguing against monopolies arguing against standards or arguing against compatibility?
The presence of a monopoly *guarantees* a standard, but does not guarantee compatibility. Microsoft can (and has, accidentally) broken compatibility between various versions and flavors of it's various programs.
The absence of a monopoly does not have any bearing on standards or compatibility. It is, in fact, preferred for there to be a standard in the absence of monopoly; witness the DVD standard, the CD standard, the various interface standards...? It means that people can talk and interact sanely when no one individual has control.
If you mean diversity argues against standards and compatibility? I don't think that holds either.
Philips, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, IBM, Apple, Dell, RCA, Aiwa, and Kenwood all adhere to the CD standard, and thus a CD that can play in one can play in all, without there existing a monoculture or a monopoly. The same holds true of paper, nails, DVDs, and many other things. Of course some products are crappier than other products, which affect compatibility and quality, but it's not due to lack of monoculture, since Microsoft decisively also has crappy products and crappy quality as well.
Diversity means competition.
Last I recalled, competition meant progress, and growth, as well as strength and robustness. If one product/method/attempt fails, then another can succeed. If one is suboptimal, and alternative may be optimal.
In a monoculture, none of that applies. You can't have difference without choice, you can't have competing theories without choice, you can't have flexible strengths without choice.
LOL, you know, I forgot that Photoshop for Windows was so clunky! I've been using Photoshop on a Mac for 6 years, now, and only sparsely on the PC platform.
Elements isn't Photoshop, but Photoshop is Elements : )
Having used both over many years, Elements feels like they cut down last year's Photoshop by removing masks, CIE, CMYK, LAB, and channel *interfaces*, but the core program and code is, I'm sure, 100% identical.
So Elements can and will still happily open Photoshop files, but just not provide you the interface tools to manipulate images in LAB, in CIE, or CMYK, or play with masks or channels.
The neat thing is that if you're good at Photoshop and know how to use masks and channels... you can easily 'trick' Elements by playing with layers, additive and subtractive modes, and color curves, to play with masks or channels.
So if you're used to Photoshop, Elements is trivially easy; it's the same.
And if you're not used to either GIMP or Photoshop... well, Photoshop has multiple years of UI experience behind it.
I love my iPod, and I love convincing other people to get iPods, because they usually reciprocate: They love their iPods too.
If you have 10gb of legitimate music, then an iPod is a trivially worthwhile purchase: I have 4.5gb of legitimate music, which translates to roughly $3,000 of CDs. 10gb then is $6,000 of CDs.
A $299 device that makes available all your music, especially if it's $6,000 worth of music, is so totally worth it : )
If you don't renew the subscription to iLife or OS X, the software doesn't stop working!.Mac does, but it's known to be a subscription from the beginning.
Vs Microsoft's attempts to lease, which *would* stop the software from workgin!
This Wired article from this Slashdot article talks about cost, performance, and ease of use. There are also links to an O'Reilly article too.
Finally VT has a page up with PDF slides: page 7 talks about, without proof, it being (at the time) the cheapest at $5.2 million for 1,100 nodes and achieving the highest performance/price.
If you believe their assertion, then if the G5 XServe Compute Node were available at the time, they could have shrunk their facility by three quarters, since 3-4 XServes fit in the space of one G5 PowerMac: 1,100 nodes of XServe == 300 nodes of PowerMac, in terms of volume, so you have a much smaller facility.
Oh! This is an article on the price vs performance considerations VT had to face. Essentially Dell, IBM, and Sun were too expensive with Opteron, Opteron, PPC, and Sparc solutions, respectively. As well as not being able to delivery on a timely manner!
I think you are confused, and mixing up usability with ease of use.
The iPod has *both*, so maybe that explains the confusion.
But it's always good to pay for usability. Usability *never* changes no matter how practiced you become. A iPod 1 foot tall will always remain 1 foot tall, and will remain as unusable a month after purchase as when new. An iPod the shape of a pointy five sized star, no matter how small, is just as unusable no matter how much effort you put into it.
The fact that the iPod is both usable *and* easy to learn is a testament to it's design:
It's smooth, rounded, corners, makes it easy to slip into and fish out of a pocket. That's usability. It's light weight is usability. It's simple charge via Firewire is usability. It's simple scroll wheel with large embedded buttons is usability; it's the ability to use it without looking, and has nothing to do with ease of learning. It's hard protective aluminum shell is usability, not ease of learning. It's ability to boot is usability. It's ability to play Solitaire, Breakout!, and Missile Command is usability. It's ability to act as a normal Firewire drive is usability. It's ability to scroll through your collection quickly is usability. The layout of the five buttons to up, down, left, right, and center is usability; the ability to use all the buttons with only two fingers, your thumb and index finger, is usability, and not ease of learning.
Ease of learning? That's figuring out that the scroll wheel controls volume, contrast, seek, games, and menu selection in different contexts: That Apple overloads the scroll wheel in five situations, and you learning which five, is ease of learning. Or that Apple overloads the 'action' button to toggle selections, the games, and switch modes between seek and volume, that's ease of learning. Or, difficulty, I suppose.
It depends on what you're paying for: Service? Support? Design? Usability? Per formance? Functionality? Real estate? Cooling? Electricity?
VIrginia Tech found Macs were cheaper than the competition, and that's with hulking huge G5 PowerMacs. Imagine the same cluster, but with G5 XServes:
1/4 the size 1/4 the real estate costs better servicability better management tools greater diversity of possible nodes (XServe RAIDs, XServe Compute Node, and XServe) Same price
So for the same reason that the G5 cluster was cheaper than a similar Linux cluster, a G5 XServe cluster will be cheaper than a similar Linux cluster; however, if you target *specific* costs, some things may be cheaper, and others will be more expensive.
For example, how much will BLAST + XGrid cost you?
Slashdot Mirror
What are you talking about?
A link, a name, a reference would be useful.
What, just because I'm a satisfied customer twice over (two gens of iPods) I'm an Apple marketing drone?
Whatever happened to satisfied customers, anecdotal references, and recommendations? Or are those invalid because the iPod is so popular now?
You can replace #2 with an iPod, if you're clever, *and* get a nifty MP3 player in the bargain!
Everything, and everyone, is biased.
:)
If you want life to reflect *your* biases... start your own site
Especially if you are continually doing for those five years whatever you intended to do with your Palm/PocketPC for those five years. It's not like the thing becomes obsolete; if you take notes, it will still take notes, if you read books, you can still read books...
The only problem is when external software fails to keep up, but that's not a failing of the device itself!
Use 10gb of it as portable storage and backup.
Me, I keep a spare OS copy and backup of my user directory on my iPod. At 16mb/s, it's fast enough for light emergency usage.
It's cheaper ^^
I have $3k of music.
I spent $299 on an iPod.
Trivial insurance; and it's cheaper than a 100 disc CD changer! And it's smaller! And it's easier to use, program, and sort.
If you don't want a CD changer... it's easier than carrying around 14 CDs of mp3s ^^
You come off as uninformed; but he's not a zealot. That's actually the truth he speaks.
/Library and /System/Library, depending on root level.
/Applications, you *will* have everything you ever need to mirror your environment on any Mac.
/Library, and /Applications. If you screw up, reinstall the OS and then reapply ~/, /Library, and /Applications, and you have an identical system. On Windows 2000, if you screw up and reinstall the OS, there is zero method to regain your prior OS. The only thing you can do is boot off a Linux CD and then reverse dd across the network and restore your image.
Windows Product Activation: You can't use Windows without activating it, period
Mac OS X functions, period. If you buy future releases, you get more features, but basic product functionality isn't restricted or denied because you never registered.
The email client for Mac is much more easily uninstallable. Just drag the program to the trash. Don't say the Windows method is easy when compared to that. The best you can say is it's possible.
Backup in Windows is impossible.
Try backing up all your user preferences and restore it
Try backing up all your user preferences, then applying it to a new account, new machine, or a reinstalled machine.
Try backing up all your documents; then apply them to a new account, new machine, or a reinstalled machine.
Try *finding* all your preferences first, before you can back them up
Try *finding* all your documents first, before you can back them up
Try backing up your OS, install a new OS version, decide you don't like it, and then restore the previous OS. Impossible with Windows, not impossible with OS X
The only reason all of these things are possible in OS X?
Preferences exist in ~/Library/Preferences
General settings exist in ~/Library
Documents exist in ~/Documents
System specific settings exist in
This makes it trivial to back up and restore. In Windows you need to go into Program Files, into the registry, and into the Windows directory to grab them all, and you cannot separate the data from the programs, the documents from the configuration.
Even worse, it's nearly impossible to selectively back up parts of your registry, applications, and profiles; you need to back it all up and restore them all at once (cloning) else nothing will work. Under OS X, you can back up your Applications; without preferences, they assume stock defaults. You can back up your preferences; without the Applications, nothing happens, but as soon as you install the Application (again) it will automatically pick up the old preferences. You can also back up your documents, and without the Applications they won't open, or will open in an alternative program.
You can, and quite easily, back up each as needed; you often only need to back up ~/Library and ~/Documents and have a fully functional 'image' of your system on any Mac you want; if you back up ~/Library, ~/Documents, and
OS X, unlike Windows, cleanly separates applications from the OS, data from the executable, user from system, and preferences from documents. You can simply manage, backup, restore, and amend any of those without impacting anything else, quite unlike Windows. The parent poster was not being zealous at all, because it's true.
My friend with a Gateway (and even me, on my Win2k machine) cannot backup and restore his system without resorting to a Linux CD! Boot Knoppix or Debian, or whatever, run dd on the drive and copy it on a network drive, and reverse the process to restore it!
Windows doesn't have any ability to backup your system!
On a Mac, you only need to back up ~/,
That basic configuration ability is still there, in XML files, plists, and rc files in /etc
But once you get spoiled with things that work, the sudden desire to configure starts to wane... because you don't *NEED* to.
You can, if you like, but it's no longer necessary to get the system running, unlike Linux.
Good point!
Sometimes I do learn things at Slashdot : )
Not at all, not according to research models, actual case studies, and biological examples.
The study of networks, and scale free networks, has been applied to virus vaccination, and I do believe those results apply equally to the internet, or any other network. You don't need to immunize everyone, and you don't need to make all network nodes different, you just need to immunize hubs, and you just need to vary and protect vital hubs.
Here's a thought exercise: If you had 3 lans at work (one wireless, and two wired), you don't need to diversify every network to protect the entire place; You only need to protect three internal firewalls, three routers, one external firewall, and three DHCP machines to effectively protect up to 750 machines. Even better of course is the fact that all 750 machines don't have to be identical, since there will be the odd Linux server, Mac desktop or laptop for the graphic folks, and perhaps a Sun workstation or two here and there.
So it's not like you'd have to diversify to uselessness at all; just intelligently.
So essentially the point is "Can we develop something unexploitable?" which is, I think, impossible.
Standard, monoculture, or otherwise, I think it's impossible to develop something unexploitable. The nature of the problem is designing something flawless, and as soon as context, culture, needs, or environment changes, the design is no longer flawless.
False logic: You talk about the weakness of standards, which is valid, and then switch topics. The logic breaks when you do that.
You talk about the difficulty of diversity in an extremely exaggerated and unrealistic manner as a solution against standards and monoculture, when the realistic solution is neither.
In real life, you have competing *standards*. DVD-R and DVD+R. Blueray and HD-DVD. uPnP and Zeroconf. POP and IMAP. And often times, in real life, you don't settle for *one* standard, you accept multiple. Of course there are exceptions, like HTTP and BIND or TCP/IP protocols, but your argument has no bearing on reality otherwise.
So you then talk about diversity being impractical, without supplying any logic whatsover. You just assume because encouraging *no* standards is impractical, that diversity is impractical. They are different.
Support multiple standards, support open standards, and their implementation is not impractical, highly or otherwise. That is the whole reason standards exist!
Use different hardware and OSes to protect a company is not 'highly impractical' NetBSD on x86 for firewalls. Solaris on Sparc for servers. Linux on Itanium for compute nodes. OS X on PPC for desktops.
This is *natural* because each environment and tool have different strengths and weaknesses. It's like having multiple tools in a tool chest!
You wouldn't use Linux and Itanium for *everything*. Nor would you use OS X on PPC, or Solaris on Sparc. Nor *should* you use Windows on x86. It makes you too vulnerable and weak, and you sacrifice the strengths of each platform and environment!
Why is arguing against monopolies arguing against standards or arguing against compatibility?
The presence of a monopoly *guarantees* a standard, but does not guarantee compatibility. Microsoft can (and has, accidentally) broken compatibility between various versions and flavors of it's various programs.
The absence of a monopoly does not have any bearing on standards or compatibility. It is, in fact, preferred for there to be a standard in the absence of monopoly; witness the DVD standard, the CD standard, the various interface standards...? It means that people can talk and interact sanely when no one individual has control.
If you mean diversity argues against standards and compatibility? I don't think that holds either.
Philips, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, IBM, Apple, Dell, RCA, Aiwa, and Kenwood all adhere to the CD standard, and thus a CD that can play in one can play in all, without there existing a monoculture or a monopoly. The same holds true of paper, nails, DVDs, and many other things. Of course some products are crappier than other products, which affect compatibility and quality, but it's not due to lack of monoculture, since Microsoft decisively also has crappy products and crappy quality as well.
Diversity means competition.
Last I recalled, competition meant progress, and growth, as well as strength and robustness. If one product/method/attempt fails, then another can succeed. If one is suboptimal, and alternative may be optimal.
In a monoculture, none of that applies. You can't have difference without choice, you can't have competing theories without choice, you can't have flexible strengths without choice.
You just have no choice.
Words have meaning; like ampfea, they have purpose and value and associative and connotative meaning.
Making up words is easy, but not the point. It's the actually conveyance of the idea that's difficult.
Ampfea is easy to explain: Any meeting place for electronic artists, but *arbitrary* words are not.
I suspect you use arbitrary when you really mean flexible, adaptive, creative, and fluid. Human interaction isn't arbitrary at all ^^
LOL, you know, I forgot that Photoshop for Windows was so clunky! I've been using Photoshop on a Mac for 6 years, now, and only sparsely on the PC platform.
Elements isn't Photoshop, but Photoshop is Elements : )
Having used both over many years, Elements feels like they cut down last year's Photoshop by removing masks, CIE, CMYK, LAB, and channel *interfaces*, but the core program and code is, I'm sure, 100% identical.
So Elements can and will still happily open Photoshop files, but just not provide you the interface tools to manipulate images in LAB, in CIE, or CMYK, or play with masks or channels.
The neat thing is that if you're good at Photoshop and know how to use masks and channels... you can easily 'trick' Elements by playing with layers, additive and subtractive modes, and color curves, to play with masks or channels.
So if you're used to Photoshop, Elements is trivially easy; it's the same.
And if you're not used to either GIMP or Photoshop... well, Photoshop has multiple years of UI experience behind it.
Why do you think I'll get tired of my iPod?
But if in the same 3 years I also buy another 60 CDs? At $20 each? $1200 of music, right?
It's not a static thing. If I buy a new device, it must be *more* convenient, *more* portable, and more *efficient*.
So if I have 4.5gb of music now, I can imagine in 3 years owning another 3gb... which would not yet tax my iPod...
But in 6 years? Yeah, I'll need a new iPod : )
The first half of your calculation is correct.
I have roughly 100 physical CDs
All of them are compressed!
So one iPod, $300 later, and I'm carrying all my music, all 100 CDs, with me.
I love my iPod, and I love convincing other people to get iPods, because they usually reciprocate: They love their iPods too.
If you have 10gb of legitimate music, then an iPod is a trivially worthwhile purchase: I have 4.5gb of legitimate music, which translates to roughly $3,000 of CDs. 10gb then is $6,000 of CDs.
A $299 device that makes available all your music, especially if it's $6,000 worth of music, is so totally worth it : )
They have as much right to use this as anyone else does. It's the definition of the GPL and BSD licenses, isn't it?
Especially if they roll in bug fixes, enhancements, and new distributions (IBM Linux? Blue Linux?)
If you don't renew the subscription to iLife or OS X, the software doesn't stop working! .Mac does, but it's known to be a subscription from the beginning.
Vs Microsoft's attempts to lease, which *would* stop the software from workgin!
This Wired article from this Slashdot article talks about cost, performance, and ease of use. There are also links to an O'Reilly article too.
Finally VT has a page up with PDF slides: page 7 talks about, without proof, it being (at the time) the cheapest at $5.2 million for 1,100 nodes and achieving the highest performance/price.
If you believe their assertion, then if the G5 XServe Compute Node were available at the time, they could have shrunk their facility by three quarters, since 3-4 XServes fit in the space of one G5 PowerMac: 1,100 nodes of XServe == 300 nodes of PowerMac, in terms of volume, so you have a much smaller facility.
Oh! This is an article on the price vs performance considerations VT had to face. Essentially Dell, IBM, and Sun were too expensive with Opteron, Opteron, PPC, and Sparc solutions, respectively. As well as not being able to delivery on a timely manner!
I think you are confused, and mixing up usability with ease of use.
The iPod has *both*, so maybe that explains the confusion.
But it's always good to pay for usability. Usability *never* changes no matter how practiced you become. A iPod 1 foot tall will always remain 1 foot tall, and will remain as unusable a month after purchase as when new. An iPod the shape of a pointy five sized star, no matter how small, is just as unusable no matter how much effort you put into it.
The fact that the iPod is both usable *and* easy to learn is a testament to it's design:
It's smooth, rounded, corners, makes it easy to slip into and fish out of a pocket. That's usability.
It's light weight is usability.
It's simple charge via Firewire is usability.
It's simple scroll wheel with large embedded buttons is usability; it's the ability to use it without looking, and has nothing to do with ease of learning.
It's hard protective aluminum shell is usability, not ease of learning.
It's ability to boot is usability.
It's ability to play Solitaire, Breakout!, and Missile Command is usability.
It's ability to act as a normal Firewire drive is usability.
It's ability to scroll through your collection quickly is usability.
The layout of the five buttons to up, down, left, right, and center is usability; the ability to use all the buttons with only two fingers, your thumb and index finger, is usability, and not ease of learning.
Ease of learning? That's figuring out that the scroll wheel controls volume, contrast, seek, games, and menu selection in different contexts: That Apple overloads the scroll wheel in five situations, and you learning which five, is ease of learning. Or that Apple overloads the 'action' button to toggle selections, the games, and switch modes between seek and volume, that's ease of learning. Or, difficulty, I suppose.
It depends on what you're paying for:r formance?
Service?
Support?
Design?
Usability?
Pe
Functionality?
Real estate?
Cooling?
Electricity?
VIrginia Tech found Macs were cheaper than the competition, and that's with hulking huge G5 PowerMacs. Imagine the same cluster, but with G5 XServes:
1/4 the size
1/4 the real estate costs
better servicability
better management tools
greater diversity of possible nodes (XServe RAIDs, XServe Compute Node, and XServe)
Same price
So for the same reason that the G5 cluster was cheaper than a similar Linux cluster, a G5 XServe cluster will be cheaper than a similar Linux cluster; however, if you target *specific* costs, some things may be cheaper, and others will be more expensive.
For example, how much will BLAST + XGrid cost you?