Today's lesson is that when some companies say "No Mac support," they mean, "It works, but we're too fucking cheap/lazy to support Mac users."
I put three of these drives in graphite G4s at one of my clients, and they work fine. The only problem is that stupid thick front plate on the drive tray that prevents the Mac's spring-loaded, swing-down bezel panel from closing fully. You can just carefully remove the moving portion and the spring, unless you're one of those mythical Mac users who buys the Mac for its looks instead of what you can do with it.
~Philly
Just a crappy cassette adapter?
on
Pods Unite
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Damn, that sucks. Especially when the commercial kinda makes it look (to my unfamiliar-with-VW eye) like the iPod is a little better integrated with the stereo than that. Oh well.
Depending on what kind of stereo you've got, you may be able to get an auxiliary input cable adapter. I got one from XMFanstore for the OEM stereo in my car, which has an unused aux connector for a CD changer-- the adapter I bought just ends in female RCA jacks, so you can hook up pretty much any audio input to it. Maybe one of these days I'll be in the mood to take the center console apart and pull the stereo out to connect that cable. Until then, I'm using a crappy cassette adapter.:-(
Another product I'll be getting when it's available is this RF iPod remote control. I plan to run the cable to a storage compartment in the console, so the iPod will be out of sight/the way but I'll still be able to control it.
I agree with the "Why aren't they putting God damned input jacks on car stereos yet?" sentiment. What we really need are car stereos and MP3 players with Bluetooth, so they can connect that way. Of course, then you'd have short battery life without plugging the MP3 player into an auto power adapter-- but at least pretty much every car has someplace to plug one of those in.
Even Macs come with Software REstore disks so eh shuitpupupadf
Macs come with both restore disks (for the bundled apps and Classic system folder) AND a full installer for the OS. To restore a Mac's hard drive to out-of-the-box condition, you first must install the OS from the CD, and then use the restore disk for the other stuff.
Also, OS X installations are universal-- if you install OS X to a FireWire HD, any Mac of the same vintage or older, desktop or laptop, will be able to boot from that installation and have full functionality of all its devices. Macs are a total breeze to prep and roll out in quantity because of this-- you don't need umpteen different disk images to cover different flavors of hardware, just one created on the newest Mac you've got.
As far as I know, this was true for Mac OS 8.x and 9.x as well. I rolled out machines that way for years and never had a problem.
Yup, it's Patriot Games, which I just happened to randomly pull off my bookshelf and begin rereading this week. Jack talks about it at some length with someone from one of the British intelligence agencies.
At one time, Quark was close to if not the best layout app there was, and everyone used it for that reason. Then the market was sewn up, and everyone created customized workflows and Quark-specific add-ons.
Then Quark got lazy because they knew no matter what they did, people were pretty much bound to them. Licensing is a major pain in the ass, and they nickel and dime you at every turn. New versions are few and far between, and usually lack really compelling new features. the n.0 releases are buggy shit. Up go prices, down goes quality of the product and customer support. There are a great many people who hate Quark with a passion for these reasons, but they must use it anyway because it's the standard. Sound like anyone else we know?
Now Adobe has come up with InDesign, which is IMHO a much better mousetrap. If you've used any of the other common Adobe apps, it takes about five minutes to get the hang of InDesign. Between the ease of use and the fact that InDesign has been OS X native practically forever, it's been steadily winning the hearts and minds of designers.
Quark 6.0 is late and lousy, and the upgrade cost is big bucks (there was a very, *very* brief window where purchasers of 5.0 would get 6.0 free). They've welded in a product-activation scheme that's sure to piss people off. From what I've heard, site licensees need some sort of keyserver software to manage the licensing. I'm sure that will be fun to deal with when my clients start rolling it out. I can already imagine some glitch that wrongfully locks everyone out of Quark for a day and sends their productivity plummeting.
Anyway, plenty of people are getting pissed off enough at all this to switch to InDesign if at all possible. The only thing Quark has going for it now is that people are generally lazy and very resistant to change-- otherwise InDesign would already be king of the mountain, despite a few remaining issues in 2.x that need to be resolved.
Incidentally, it does, however, cover uses such as the Mac OS' Location Manager, which switches network-related settings according to the user's location.
Location Manager is one of the coolest features the old Mac OS had. I always wondered why Microsoft didn't shamelessly copy it, considering what a pain in the ass it was to change network settings in Windows (especially in the days when you had to reboot for them to take effect)-- it never occurred to me that Microsoft actually might respect someone else's (especially Apple's) patent instead of ignoring it and figuring their army of lawyers will protect them from any repercussions.
There would seem to be no compelling reason to use software update for a patch that's for a still-developers-only product.
How about this reason: To test the new Software Update control panel?
I have only given my downloaded copy of Panther a cursory playing-with on my spare G4, but I can tell you that Software Update is quite different from the one in Jaguar-- you can opt to have the computer automatically install "important" updates, and there are a few other changes that have been made.
Claris divested itself of all products except for FileMaker, and changed its name to FileMaker, Inc.
The only other major (IIRC) Claris product was ClarisWorks, which became AppleWorks. Well, unless you count Claris Emailer, which is and ancestor of the Mac version of Outlook Express, and the grandfather of Entourage-- the Emailer developers went and got jobs at Microsoft.
The relative lack of expandability (there are only two drive bays, for example, and both are already in used by default - one HD, one optical media)
Wrong. You get one optical, but there are two bays for SATA hard drives. So you have one unused bay. What I don't like is that there is no ATA backwards-compatibility, so it looks like I'll be buying an external FireWire case for the hard drive in my G4 now, if I want to keep it. I don't think you have the option of adding an ATA PCI card, either, because you'd have a tough time running the cable to the drive bay without interfering with the cooling zone setup.
NINE FANS! Holy crap Apple, what the HELL were you thinking?! I mean, nine fans. That's NINE moving parts. And if any of them fail, presumably that's the end of a $3,000 computer.
I'll tell you what they were thinking: Nine fans spinning slowly and quietly move as much air as the two or three fast-spinning, deafening fans in the average PC these days.
Also, your $3000 G5 will be much better designed than the average PC. Have you seen the clear insert in behind the removable side panel that divides the cooling zones? That's not there just to look cool, it is there to properly duct the airflow to where it is needed in the mcahine. I read in one article that the computer will not even power on if THAT is not in its proper place-- so I'm feeling rather certain that Apple has taken fan failure into account, and if necessary you'll either get a warning and have a minute to do a graceful shutdown manually, or the computer will promptly, gracefully (or not) shut down on its own.
*Doing* drugs is one thing, but when your life practically revolves around them, that's a whole different animal. Robert Downey, Jr. is just about the worst example you could give. His drug problems were threatening the production schedule of Ally McBeal, so he immediately got the boot:
"Arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance in Los Angeles after he was found wandering in an alley. He was fired from the TV series "Ally McBeal" (1997) by producer David E. Kelley after the arrest. [24 April 2001]"
He was also subject to daily drug tests while filming "Two Girls and a Guy," says the IMDB bio page on him.
I think it was smart for the makers of T3 to not gamble on Furlong.
Actually, all he'd have to do is show her is chest. Recall, he cut out the skin on his chest to remove the first damaged power supply. He didn't grow back that skin.
Yup, you got me-- forgot about that. Which makes it even more of an annoyance, he just had to pull up his shirt.
If that's the case, when The Terminator in T3 pulls out his power supply at the end of the movie in order to terminate the T-X, he would have had no more power, thus he would have shutdown - permanently. Correct?
Yes. While we're at it, let's take dissection of that ending further:
-Two power supplies, right next to each other, so it's possible to damage both in a single shot? Yeah, great design.
-Yes, he did permanently shut down... but it's plausible that he had enough residual power in his system for the few seconds it took to jam it in the T-X's mouth. After the holocaust, we again see the Terminator-- at least his skull and some torso-- and we see the red glow fade from his eye.
-How did that explosion of his power cell leave no trace of the supposedly stronger and better T-X, but left a large, recognizable chunk of the T-800, who was 2 feet away when it detonated?
-Crystal Peak was bored into a mountain. The T-800's final position was rather far inside that mountain. But in the final shot when we see his eye glow fade out, he looks like he's outside-- the mountain has apparently been blasted out of existence. If a nuke hit close enough to do that to the mountain, wouldn't it either kill John and Kate, or at the very least really mess up the elevator shaft down to the shelter if not cave it in entirely and seal them in there?
~Philly
(A copy of this message has been posted to alt.nerd.obsessive)
even though those two clueless cops didn't recognize that they were hauling an imposter
Well come on, the guy answered the door and was fine. Why would a cop in 2004 have reason to suspect that it was actually a highly advanced killing machine from the future in a clever disguise? I think they may have figured something was up when the T-X killed both of them and then proceeeded to drive the cop car from the rear seat, with her arm still through the midsection of the cop in the driver's seat. Didn't you see them still slumped over when the car pulled up? I thought for sure Kate would've noticed THAT and run away, which would have made a LOT more sense IMHO. It seems pretty fucking stupid to me that the T-X would unmask herself prior to termination of the target she was trying to fool.
The only purpose that scene really served was to force Kate to believe what John and the T-800 were telling her, but that doesn't make it any less dumb. The T-800 could have just done the 'tear off my arm skin and show the skeptic my endoskeleton' trick that worked in T2.
There are at least two series of books that pick up where T2 left off (I guess nobody thought there would be a T3). Both are very good, IMHO, and answer quite a few questions that may have been gnawing at Terminator fans of the "alt.nerd.obsessive" type since they saw the first movie. If you're hungry for backstory, continuation of the Terminator saga, and/or an account of what really happened on August 29, 1997, you ought to give both of these series a read.
The New John Connor Chronicles series, by Russell Blackford. I've read only the first book of this series, but a second one is already out and a third is due in a month.
T2 series, by S.M. Stirling. I've read the first two of this series, and the third is on its way to me now.
James Cameron has no connection with these books other than getting credit (and presumably, some sort of royalties) for originally creating the main characters and the world they inhabit. Having said that, though, the books do achieve a Cameronesque level of story detail, and they do dovetail perfectly with the films-- I don't recall coming across any discrepancies that made me stop reading and say, "Huh?"
She had the "expressionless, emotionless" thing down pat. I mean, to the point where (right after watching the movie), she looked a little strange to me when I saw a "normal" photo of her.
They really did not touch the whole aspect of her using her sexuality to manipulate people to aid her in furthering her mission, which is kind of a shame. I mean, in T2 the T-1000 used the cop disguise for all it was worth. In T3, we barely see a glimpse of it and even then we don't see how it turns out.
Where the hell is Edward Furlong anyway? I bet he needs the work.
According to IMDB's T3 trivia page, they wanted Furlong to reprise the John Connor role, but he was too drug-addled to do it.
I haven't seen him in anything good in years, so he probably wanted to do it (especially since it's the role that made him famous) but they probably didn't want to gamble on him going off on a bender in the middle of production.
Lee's system, called "soft walls", would first gently resist the pilot, and then become increasingly forceful until it prevailed.
My question is, why use any yoke feedback at all? All modern passenger planes are fly-by-wire, aren't they? Let the hijacker turn the yoke left all he wants, the computer can override that and go right without having to "fight" for control of the plane.
If you really want to let the pilot know that the computer is overriding him, how about a "Neener neener neener" indicator light, or something?
Seriously, this sounds like a good idea, but I can't help but think of the video of that Airbus crash, where (IIRC) the pilot made a low-altitude pass during a demonstration flight, and the computer kicked into landing mode and locked out pilot input. If they ever roll this sort of thing out, it had better have been tested six ways from Sunday for all manner of stupid glitches beforehand.
Yes, but instead of a service rep coming out to take care of the printer, the printer gets sent in for service.
And I'm talking about doing it with lower-cost printers that ordinary consumers would use, not high-end/high-volume models that you'd see in places that live or die by their ability to crank out prints/copies.
What if there was a company that rented out printers? They ship you one with brand new ink/toner, you use it until it's out, and then ship the printer back. It gets cleaned, serviced and has the consumables replaced, and is then sent on to another customer. If you go for a long-term contract with them, they cross-ship you a replacement printer when you get a low-toner warning.
Sure, it seems kind of insane, but so does a printer that costs less money than the set of replacement ink cartridges it requires.
Too bad the bubble has burst-- if this were still the mid-90's, someone might have been crazy enough to work out any issues I haven't thought of here and taken a shot at actually doing it.
I was referring to the ones shown on stage. These are unlikely to be repeated in a manner that the Wintel zealots will accept as valid until some prerelease G5s make their way into the hands of "trusted" hardware reviewers.
One of the companies whose software was used for one of the bakeoffs has a page on their site talking about how their demo was fair.
Slashdot Mirror
"The bad: No Mac support." Opps, nevermind.
Today's lesson is that when some companies say "No Mac support," they mean, "It works, but we're too fucking cheap/lazy to support Mac users."
I put three of these drives in graphite G4s at one of my clients, and they work fine. The only problem is that stupid thick front plate on the drive tray that prevents the Mac's spring-loaded, swing-down bezel panel from closing fully. You can just carefully remove the moving portion and the spring, unless you're one of those mythical Mac users who buys the Mac for its looks instead of what you can do with it.
~Philly
Damn, that sucks. Especially when the commercial kinda makes it look (to my unfamiliar-with-VW eye) like the iPod is a little better integrated with the stereo than that. Oh well.
:-(
Depending on what kind of stereo you've got, you may be able to get an auxiliary input cable adapter. I got one from XMFanstore for the OEM stereo in my car, which has an unused aux connector for a CD changer-- the adapter I bought just ends in female RCA jacks, so you can hook up pretty much any audio input to it. Maybe one of these days I'll be in the mood to take the center console apart and pull the stereo out to connect that cable. Until then, I'm using a crappy cassette adapter.
Another product I'll be getting when it's available is this RF iPod remote control. I plan to run the cable to a storage compartment in the console, so the iPod will be out of sight/the way but I'll still be able to control it.
I agree with the "Why aren't they putting God damned input jacks on car stereos yet?" sentiment. What we really need are car stereos and MP3 players with Bluetooth, so they can connect that way. Of course, then you'd have short battery life without plugging the MP3 player into an auto power adapter-- but at least pretty much every car has someplace to plug one of those in.
~Philly
Even Macs come with Software REstore disks so eh shuitpupupadf
Macs come with both restore disks (for the bundled apps and Classic system folder) AND a full installer for the OS. To restore a Mac's hard drive to out-of-the-box condition, you first must install the OS from the CD, and then use the restore disk for the other stuff.
Also, OS X installations are universal-- if you install OS X to a FireWire HD, any Mac of the same vintage or older, desktop or laptop, will be able to boot from that installation and have full functionality of all its devices. Macs are a total breeze to prep and roll out in quantity because of this-- you don't need umpteen different disk images to cover different flavors of hardware, just one created on the newest Mac you've got.
As far as I know, this was true for Mac OS 8.x and 9.x as well. I rolled out machines that way for years and never had a problem.
~Philly
Yup, it's Patriot Games, which I just happened to randomly pull off my bookshelf and begin rereading this week. Jack talks about it at some length with someone from one of the British intelligence agencies.
~Philly
The OS X-native AOL client uses Netscape's Gecko as its browser render engine.
~Philly
At one time, Quark was close to if not the best layout app there was, and everyone used it for that reason. Then the market was sewn up, and everyone created customized workflows and Quark-specific add-ons.
Then Quark got lazy because they knew no matter what they did, people were pretty much bound to them. Licensing is a major pain in the ass, and they nickel and dime you at every turn. New versions are few and far between, and usually lack really compelling new features. the n.0 releases are buggy shit. Up go prices, down goes quality of the product and customer support. There are a great many people who hate Quark with a passion for these reasons, but they must use it anyway because it's the standard. Sound like anyone else we know?
Now Adobe has come up with InDesign, which is IMHO a much better mousetrap. If you've used any of the other common Adobe apps, it takes about five minutes to get the hang of InDesign. Between the ease of use and the fact that InDesign has been OS X native practically forever, it's been steadily winning the hearts and minds of designers.
Quark 6.0 is late and lousy, and the upgrade cost is big bucks (there was a very, *very* brief window where purchasers of 5.0 would get 6.0 free). They've welded in a product-activation scheme that's sure to piss people off. From what I've heard, site licensees need some sort of keyserver software to manage the licensing. I'm sure that will be fun to deal with when my clients start rolling it out. I can already imagine some glitch that wrongfully locks everyone out of Quark for a day and sends their productivity plummeting.
Anyway, plenty of people are getting pissed off enough at all this to switch to InDesign if at all possible. The only thing Quark has going for it now is that people are generally lazy and very resistant to change-- otherwise InDesign would already be king of the mountain, despite a few remaining issues in 2.x that need to be resolved.
~Philly
I'm pretty sure you were kidding, but it really may happen.
Incidentally, it does, however, cover uses such as the Mac OS' Location Manager, which switches network-related settings according to the user's location.
Location Manager is one of the coolest features the old Mac OS had. I always wondered why Microsoft didn't shamelessly copy it, considering what a pain in the ass it was to change network settings in Windows (especially in the days when you had to reboot for them to take effect)-- it never occurred to me that Microsoft actually might respect someone else's (especially Apple's) patent instead of ignoring it and figuring their army of lawyers will protect them from any repercussions.
~Philly
There would seem to be no compelling reason to use software update for a patch that's for a still-developers-only product.
How about this reason: To test the new Software Update control panel?
I have only given my downloaded copy of Panther a cursory playing-with on my spare G4, but I can tell you that Software Update is quite different from the one in Jaguar-- you can opt to have the computer automatically install "important" updates, and there are a few other changes that have been made.
~Philly
with a fault on the battery of the powerbook
Ah, yes, the PowerBook 5300. So much fun to mock Apple over this-- even eight years later, nobody ever seems to get tired of it.
Well, guess who made those faulty PowerBook batteries? Sony!
~Philly
Claris divested itself of all products except for FileMaker, and changed its name to FileMaker, Inc.
The only other major (IIRC) Claris product was ClarisWorks, which became AppleWorks. Well, unless you count Claris Emailer, which is and ancestor of the Mac version of Outlook Express, and the grandfather of Entourage-- the Emailer developers went and got jobs at Microsoft.
~Philly
It's going to take much more than just a tinfoil beanie to counteract this. I'm talking full-body coverage here, people!
~Philly
The relative lack of expandability (there are only two drive bays, for example, and both are already in used by default - one HD, one optical media)
Wrong. You get one optical, but there are two bays for SATA hard drives. So you have one unused bay. What I don't like is that there is no ATA backwards-compatibility, so it looks like I'll be buying an external FireWire case for the hard drive in my G4 now, if I want to keep it. I don't think you have the option of adding an ATA PCI card, either, because you'd have a tough time running the cable to the drive bay without interfering with the cooling zone setup.
NINE FANS! Holy crap Apple, what the HELL were you thinking?! I mean, nine fans. That's NINE moving parts. And if any of them fail, presumably that's the end of a $3,000 computer.
I'll tell you what they were thinking: Nine fans spinning slowly and quietly move as much air as the two or three fast-spinning, deafening fans in the average PC these days.
Also, your $3000 G5 will be much better designed than the average PC. Have you seen the clear insert in behind the removable side panel that divides the cooling zones? That's not there just to look cool, it is there to properly duct the airflow to where it is needed in the mcahine. I read in one article that the computer will not even power on if THAT is not in its proper place-- so I'm feeling rather certain that Apple has taken fan failure into account, and if necessary you'll either get a warning and have a minute to do a graceful shutdown manually, or the computer will promptly, gracefully (or not) shut down on its own.
~Philly
*Doing* drugs is one thing, but when your life practically revolves around them, that's a whole different animal. Robert Downey, Jr. is just about the worst example you could give. His drug problems were threatening the production schedule of Ally McBeal, so he immediately got the boot:
"Arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance in Los Angeles after he was found wandering in an alley. He was fired from the TV series "Ally McBeal" (1997) by producer David E. Kelley after the arrest. [24 April 2001]"
He was also subject to daily drug tests while filming "Two Girls and a Guy," says the IMDB bio page on him.
I think it was smart for the makers of T3 to not gamble on Furlong.
~Philly
Actually, all he'd have to do is show her is chest. Recall, he cut out the skin on his chest to remove the first damaged power supply. He didn't grow back that skin.
Yup, you got me-- forgot about that. Which makes it even more of an annoyance, he just had to pull up his shirt.
If that's the case, when The Terminator in T3 pulls out his power supply at the end of the movie in order to terminate the T-X, he would have had no more power, thus he would have shutdown - permanently. Correct?
Yes. While we're at it, let's take dissection of that ending further:
-Two power supplies, right next to each other, so it's possible to damage both in a single shot? Yeah, great design.
-Yes, he did permanently shut down... but it's plausible that he had enough residual power in his system for the few seconds it took to jam it in the T-X's mouth. After the holocaust, we again see the Terminator-- at least his skull and some torso-- and we see the red glow fade from his eye.
-How did that explosion of his power cell leave no trace of the supposedly stronger and better T-X, but left a large, recognizable chunk of the T-800, who was 2 feet away when it detonated?
-Crystal Peak was bored into a mountain. The T-800's final position was rather far inside that mountain. But in the final shot when we see his eye glow fade out, he looks like he's outside-- the mountain has apparently been blasted out of existence. If a nuke hit close enough to do that to the mountain, wouldn't it either kill John and Kate, or at the very least really mess up the elevator shaft down to the shelter if not cave it in entirely and seal them in there?
~Philly
(A copy of this message has been posted to alt.nerd.obsessive)
Please?
even though those two clueless cops didn't recognize that they were hauling an imposter
Well come on, the guy answered the door and was fine. Why would a cop in 2004 have reason to suspect that it was actually a highly advanced killing machine from the future in a clever disguise? I think they may have figured something was up when the T-X killed both of them and then proceeeded to drive the cop car from the rear seat, with her arm still through the midsection of the cop in the driver's seat. Didn't you see them still slumped over when the car pulled up? I thought for sure Kate would've noticed THAT and run away, which would have made a LOT more sense IMHO. It seems pretty fucking stupid to me that the T-X would unmask herself prior to termination of the target she was trying to fool.
The only purpose that scene really served was to force Kate to believe what John and the T-800 were telling her, but that doesn't make it any less dumb. The T-800 could have just done the 'tear off my arm skin and show the skeptic my endoskeleton' trick that worked in T2.
~Philly
There are at least two series of books that pick up where T2 left off (I guess nobody thought there would be a T3). Both are very good, IMHO, and answer quite a few questions that may have been gnawing at Terminator fans of the "alt.nerd.obsessive" type since they saw the first movie. If you're hungry for backstory, continuation of the Terminator saga, and/or an account of what really happened on August 29, 1997, you ought to give both of these series a read.
The New John Connor Chronicles series, by Russell Blackford.
I've read only the first book of this series, but a second one is already out and a third is due in a month.
T2 series, by S.M. Stirling.
I've read the first two of this series, and the third is on its way to me now.
James Cameron has no connection with these books other than getting credit (and presumably, some sort of royalties) for originally creating the main characters and the world they inhabit. Having said that, though, the books do achieve a Cameronesque level of story detail, and they do dovetail perfectly with the films-- I don't recall coming across any discrepancies that made me stop reading and say, "Huh?"
~Philly
Was she convincing, or too over the top?
She had the "expressionless, emotionless" thing down pat. I mean, to the point where (right after watching the movie), she looked a little strange to me when I saw a "normal" photo of her.
They really did not touch the whole aspect of her using her sexuality to manipulate people to aid her in furthering her mission, which is kind of a shame. I mean, in T2 the T-1000 used the cop disguise for all it was worth. In T3, we barely see a glimpse of it and even then we don't see how it turns out.
~Philly
Where the hell is Edward Furlong anyway? I bet he needs the work.
According to IMDB's T3 trivia page, they wanted Furlong to reprise the John Connor role, but he was too drug-addled to do it.
I haven't seen him in anything good in years, so he probably wanted to do it (especially since it's the role that made him famous) but they probably didn't want to gamble on him going off on a bender in the middle of production.
~Philly
---->---7mph->--
---->---8mph->--
---->---9mph->--
That won't work. You'll just get some stupid old lady in the fast lane, walking backwards at 2mph with her blinker on.
~Philly
From the article:
Lee's system, called "soft walls", would first gently resist the pilot, and then become increasingly forceful until it prevailed.
My question is, why use any yoke feedback at all? All modern passenger planes are fly-by-wire, aren't they? Let the hijacker turn the yoke left all he wants, the computer can override that and go right without having to "fight" for control of the plane.
If you really want to let the pilot know that the computer is overriding him, how about a "Neener neener neener" indicator light, or something?
Seriously, this sounds like a good idea, but I can't help but think of the video of that Airbus crash, where (IIRC) the pilot made a low-altitude pass during a demonstration flight, and the computer kicked into landing mode and locked out pilot input. If they ever roll this sort of thing out, it had better have been tested six ways from Sunday for all manner of stupid glitches beforehand.
~Philly
Yes, but instead of a service rep coming out to take care of the printer, the printer gets sent in for service.
And I'm talking about doing it with lower-cost printers that ordinary consumers would use, not high-end/high-volume models that you'd see in places that live or die by their ability to crank out prints/copies.
~Philly
What if there was a company that rented out printers? They ship you one with brand new ink/toner, you use it until it's out, and then ship the printer back. It gets cleaned, serviced and has the consumables replaced, and is then sent on to another customer. If you go for a long-term contract with them, they cross-ship you a replacement printer when you get a low-toner warning.
Sure, it seems kind of insane, but so does a printer that costs less money than the set of replacement ink cartridges it requires.
Too bad the bubble has burst-- if this were still the mid-90's, someone might have been crazy enough to work out any issues I haven't thought of here and taken a shot at actually doing it.
~Philly
I was referring to the ones shown on stage. These are unlikely to be repeated in a manner that the Wintel zealots will accept as valid until some prerelease G5s make their way into the hands of "trusted" hardware reviewers.
One of the companies whose software was used for one of the bakeoffs has a page on their site talking about how their demo was fair.
~Philly