I really liked the line, "Additionally, users of iTunes are limited to music from Apple's Music Store."
Those silly Mac/iPod users have been sitting around running iTunes and listening to iPods with no music on them for how many years now before the iTMS finally came out and provided music for them to listen to?
Just a matter of semantics, but Apple didn't shut anybody out.
What they didn't do was spend hundreds of programmer hrs and who-knows-how-many hours of testing adding up to $???? to get the latest version of Quicktime and iTunes running under an older OS that has a good chance of being on older hardware that may not be capable of running the software at anything resembling acceptible rates.
And then they'd have to deal with the headache of everyone using those underrated systems complaining about how horrible Apple software is...
As I see it, Apple did the smart thing.
BTW, MS may still be supporting Win98 and ME, but does all their latest software run on those OS's? If not, why do you expect Apple to be able to do it with a brand-new software package?
What some might call "eating up RAM like candy", others might call using all the resources at hand.
If you're running OS X, eventually most of your RAM will be getting used for something. It doesn't necessarily need that much RAM, but its not going purge anything from RAM until somebody else needs it -just in case it is needed again. Basically works like a cache.
You need to open up a terminal window and run top to see what's reeeally in use.
Bet they could increase performance significantly if they got rid of all this "gee-whiz" garbage.
I disagree. Most of the features you mention may decrease the performance of the computer (trivially IMO), but they can increase the performance of the user significantly -an oft ignored metric in determining "performance".
Notably missing is any mention of what apps are broken. Personally my experience has been the opposite. There's only one program I've tried that ran on my old Mac IIvx (68030, not even PPC) that won't run in OS X (using Classic, of course). That one requires the monitor to be either 16 colors or B/W, and I haven't figured out how to do that since the minimun seems to be 256 colors.
Oh well.
To be fair, I'm exluding things like utilities and OS hacks/enhancements that tend to be problematic in any kind of upgrade. If I included this category I'm sure I could break a lot of things (an old version of Norton Utilities will do wonders to an HFS+ drive).
he highly unlikely event that SCO are proven to have been wronged against, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll be throwing around invoices and chasing compensation from everybody.
So let's say a year ago I downloaded a SCO distributed copy of Linux that I'm still using. When I downloaded it, SCO was essentially telling me it was free -they sold it to me for $0.
So now SCO is going to send me an invoice saying they were wrong, it costs more?
I'm pretty sure that once you've sold something to someone (even if the cost was $0), you can't go back to them later and say, "Sorry, the price has changed and you now need to pay more for what I sold you!".
You're right, Word is a good example of a real-world app used by a lot of people. But when you do tests like Auto Summarize and Search and Replace, aren't you now doing comparisons based on operations that are rarely performed? If so, doesn't that negate the relavence of the tests as "real-world"?
As I mentioned in another post, one should also keep in mind that none of the tests used was multi-threaded (AFAIK -could be wrong). Thus the "dual G5" was really running as only a "single G5". The giveaway is to compare the dual 2 GHz results with the single 1.8 GHz results.
Now let's run all those tests simultaneously and see who really wins!
Someone should point out that the Mac was running on 2 CPUS not 1 like the Athlon 64 and Athlon FX
The Mac has two CPUs, but I'm not sure that both were actually being used in any of the tests. As far as I can tell, none of the tests used was multi-threaded, so will only use one CPU. A dead giveaway is when the dual 2 GHz system is just a little faster than the single 1.8 GHz.
Now if they were to run all tests simultaneously... that's a result I'd like to see.
aside from the ability to address more than four gigabytes of RAM, Apple users do not actually get any benefit from the G5 being a 64-bit CPU
Of course addressing more than 4 GB RAM is about the only real advantage of a 64 bit CPU at this stage -yes I realize there are some specialized apps that have been rewritten to take advantage of 64 bits, but they're still pretty rare.
Plus, IIRC, the OS that ships with the G5 does have some math libraries rewritten to be 64 bit. So no, the Mac OS isn't taking full advantage of the 64 bit CPU, but it is using the most important features.
Apple [snip], said they were the FIRST 64bit personal desktops
and
I think 2 companies that had already released opteron based workstations
So what's incorrect? Apple says theirs is the first desktop, the fact that 64 bit workstations were released earlier doesn't make that statement false.
Now we could argue about wether Apple's dual 2 GHz boxes could be considered workstations or the AMD systems are personal computers, but I hate those semantic arguments.
I've even seen claims from that Apple has "The World's first 64-bit processor!".
I'm assuming that's tongue-in-cheek. I don't know anyone who's made such a claim.
Sure, this system sounds like it's the real deal, but it doesn't change the fact that the article in question is from a less-than-objective source
So go look at the authoritative sources. Do they say anything different (with regard to specs, costs, etc)? They don't from what I've seen, but if you know different, please let me know.
Among those professions you listed, who doesn't use a hammer and screwdriver?
However the carpenter may be much more efficient using a nail-gun for much of the work, and may need more than one kind of hammer depending on what kind of rough vs. finish work is being done.
OTOH the painter has little use for a nail-gun, but will need several different kinds of brushes and rollers. The electrician an plumber also have specialized tools that make them much more productive, and are not found in your "basic" tool set.
Yes, I agree an analysis has to be made to see what the cost benefit is of having multiple types of systems, but I don't think anyone is well served by the oft-stated assumption that one-size fits all for computing services across a wide array of disciplines (secretary-accountant-CEO-marketing).
Which you then need to manually re-mount every time you log in.
Try opening the Help Viewer and typing "Connecting to servers when you log in" into the search field. It takes two steps to do what you want (I'm assuming you're using Jaguar, don't know if it works for earlier versions).
Have to say, I do miss the simple checkbox that did the job in earlier Mac OS's.
Would it be best if I could give our people who do graphics Macs, and run our website off Linux, and provide the accounting department with the latest and greatest version of Excel? You bet, they would all love it. But then I'd have to staff the FTE to keep up with three different systems' worth of problems and patches and interoperability quirks and maintain up to date expertise in all of them.
That's the attitude that baffles me. Instead of giving the users the best tools to do their jobs better and faster, give them all the same tools so IT can do their job better and faster. Is that really a cost effective way to operate a business?
Sounds like a construction company where the carpenter, the plumber, the electrician, and the painter are all given the same basic set of tools and told to build a house.
"SGI finding code that they had to remove actually will add doubts."
I guess its all a matter of perspective, but SGI didn't find any code I'm aware of that they had to remove. They didn't find any code that was infringing anyone's copyright. What they found was code SCO thinks is infringing, but they think is not. The fact that its easier to remove it than argue about it doesn't change that fact.
You're right, but AFAIK SGI had no reason to believe the code they removed infringed any copyrights. So they had no reason to remove it until SCO pointed it out. I'm going to assume IBM is taking a look through the code, but how are they supposed to know what SCO thinks is infringing and fix it without some cooperation from SCO?
If they can read it easily, you can read it easily.
And so can your neighbor, and they guy who just walked by, and...
If a company can inventory an antire warehouse so easily using this technology, how hard would it be for a high-tech thief to inventory a few houses to find the best mark?
There are privacy issues beyond just companies tracking peoples' purchasing habits.
I agree, they should be easily identified and removed. Ideally they would be attached much like price tags are on clothing for easy removal. Unfortunately I see that also removing some of the potential benefit when it comes to preventing shoplifting.
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I really liked the line, "Additionally, users of iTunes are limited to music from Apple's Music Store."
Those silly Mac/iPod users have been sitting around running iTunes and listening to iPods with no music on them for how many years now before the iTMS finally came out and provided music for them to listen to?
but how many Joe users are actually going to install those?
LOL. A lot of Mac users already have and don't even know it!
Just a matter of semantics, but Apple didn't shut anybody out.
What they didn't do was spend hundreds of programmer hrs and who-knows-how-many hours of testing adding up to $???? to get the latest version of Quicktime and iTunes running under an older OS that has a good chance of being on older hardware that may not be capable of running the software at anything resembling acceptible rates.
And then they'd have to deal with the headache of everyone using those underrated systems complaining about how horrible Apple software is...
As I see it, Apple did the smart thing.
BTW, MS may still be supporting Win98 and ME, but does all their latest software run on those OS's? If not, why do you expect Apple to be able to do it with a brand-new software package?
What some might call "eating up RAM like candy", others might call using all the resources at hand.
If you're running OS X, eventually most of your RAM will be getting used for something. It doesn't necessarily need that much RAM, but its not going purge anything from RAM until somebody else needs it -just in case it is needed again. Basically works like a cache.
You need to open up a terminal window and run top to see what's reeeally in use.
Bet they could increase performance significantly if they got rid of all this "gee-whiz" garbage.
I disagree. Most of the features you mention may decrease the performance of the computer (trivially IMO), but they can increase the performance of the user significantly -an oft ignored metric in determining "performance".
Notably missing is any mention of what apps are broken. Personally my experience has been the opposite. There's only one program I've tried that ran on my old Mac IIvx (68030, not even PPC) that won't run in OS X (using Classic, of course). That one requires the monitor to be either 16 colors or B/W, and I haven't figured out how to do that since the minimun seems to be 256 colors.
Oh well.
To be fair, I'm exluding things like utilities and OS hacks/enhancements that tend to be problematic in any kind of upgrade. If I included this category I'm sure I could break a lot of things (an old version of Norton Utilities will do wonders to an HFS+ drive).
he highly unlikely event that SCO are proven to have been wronged against, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll be throwing around invoices and chasing compensation from everybody.
So let's say a year ago I downloaded a SCO distributed copy of Linux that I'm still using. When I downloaded it, SCO was essentially telling me it was free -they sold it to me for $0.
So now SCO is going to send me an invoice saying they were wrong, it costs more?
I'm pretty sure that once you've sold something to someone (even if the cost was $0), you can't go back to them later and say, "Sorry, the price has changed and you now need to pay more for what I sold you!".
You're right, Word is a good example of a real-world app used by a lot of people. But when you do tests like Auto Summarize and Search and Replace, aren't you now doing comparisons based on operations that are rarely performed? If so, doesn't that negate the relavence of the tests as "real-world"?
As I mentioned in another post, one should also keep in mind that none of the tests used was multi-threaded (AFAIK -could be wrong). Thus the "dual G5" was really running as only a "single G5". The giveaway is to compare the dual 2 GHz results with the single 1.8 GHz results.
Now let's run all those tests simultaneously and see who really wins!
Someone should point out that the Mac was running on 2 CPUS not 1 like the Athlon 64 and Athlon FX
The Mac has two CPUs, but I'm not sure that both were actually being used in any of the tests. As far as I can tell, none of the tests used was multi-threaded, so will only use one CPU. A dead giveaway is when the dual 2 GHz system is just a little faster than the single 1.8 GHz.
Now if they were to run all tests simultaneously... that's a result I'd like to see.
No problems running them here!
aside from the ability to address more than four gigabytes of RAM, Apple users do not actually get any benefit from the G5 being a 64-bit CPU
Of course addressing more than 4 GB RAM is about the only real advantage of a 64 bit CPU at this stage -yes I realize there are some specialized apps that have been rewritten to take advantage of 64 bits, but they're still pretty rare.
Plus, IIRC, the OS that ships with the G5 does have some math libraries rewritten to be 64 bit. So no, the Mac OS isn't taking full advantage of the 64 bit CPU, but it is using the most important features.
Not only will the G4 (at least a Mac running an Apple OS) run older PPC code, it also runs even older 68k code.
Apple [snip], said they were the FIRST 64bit personal desktops
and
I think 2 companies that had already released opteron based workstations
So what's incorrect? Apple says theirs is the first desktop, the fact that 64 bit workstations were released earlier doesn't make that statement false.
Now we could argue about wether Apple's dual 2 GHz boxes could be considered workstations or the AMD systems are personal computers, but I hate those semantic arguments.
OK, spec out the equivalent of the top-of-the-line iMac. Keep in mind one important hardware specification is the systems footprint on a desk.
Hardware's cheap. Well-engineered systems are not.
I've even seen claims from that Apple has "The World's first 64-bit processor!".
I'm assuming that's tongue-in-cheek. I don't know anyone who's made such a claim.
Sure, this system sounds like it's the real deal, but it doesn't change the fact that the article in question is from a less-than-objective source
So go look at the authoritative sources. Do they say anything different (with regard to specs, costs, etc)? They don't from what I've seen, but if you know different, please let me know.
if an individual unit cost more than a few bucks...
Why limit yourself?
I'd expect a discount even if I was buying 1000 pencils.
Of course I'm cheap (no, not that kind of cheap!).
Among those professions you listed, who doesn't use a hammer and screwdriver?
However the carpenter may be much more efficient using a nail-gun for much of the work, and may need more than one kind of hammer depending on what kind of rough vs. finish work is being done.
OTOH the painter has little use for a nail-gun, but will need several different kinds of brushes and rollers. The electrician an plumber also have specialized tools that make them much more productive, and are not found in your "basic" tool set.
Yes, I agree an analysis has to be made to see what the cost benefit is of having multiple types of systems, but I don't think anyone is well served by the oft-stated assumption that one-size fits all for computing services across a wide array of disciplines (secretary-accountant-CEO-marketing).
Which you then need to manually re-mount every time you log in.
Try opening the Help Viewer and typing "Connecting to servers when you log in" into the search field. It takes two steps to do what you want (I'm assuming you're using Jaguar, don't know if it works for earlier versions).
Have to say, I do miss the simple checkbox that did the job in earlier Mac OS's.
Would it be best if I could give our people who do graphics Macs, and run our website off Linux, and provide the accounting department with the latest and greatest version of Excel? You bet, they would all love it. But then I'd have to staff the FTE to keep up with three different systems' worth of problems and patches and interoperability quirks and maintain up to date expertise in all of them.
That's the attitude that baffles me. Instead of giving the users the best tools to do their jobs better and faster, give them all the same tools so IT can do their job better and faster. Is that really a cost effective way to operate a business?
Sounds like a construction company where the carpenter, the plumber, the electrician, and the painter are all given the same basic set of tools and told to build a house.
Also, don't forget that just because its copyrighted doesn't mean it can't be copied.
Feel free to copy this message however you want.
"SGI finding code that they had to remove actually will add doubts."
I guess its all a matter of perspective, but SGI didn't find any code I'm aware of that they had to remove. They didn't find any code that was infringing anyone's copyright. What they found was code SCO thinks is infringing, but they think is not. The fact that its easier to remove it than argue about it doesn't change that fact.
You're right, but AFAIK SGI had no reason to believe the code they removed infringed any copyrights. So they had no reason to remove it until SCO pointed it out. I'm going to assume IBM is taking a look through the code, but how are they supposed to know what SCO thinks is infringing and fix it without some cooperation from SCO?
If they can read it easily, you can read it easily.
And so can your neighbor, and they guy who just walked by, and...
If a company can inventory an antire warehouse so easily using this technology, how hard would it be for a high-tech thief to inventory a few houses to find the best mark?
There are privacy issues beyond just companies tracking peoples' purchasing habits.
I agree, they should be easily identified and removed. Ideally they would be attached much like price tags are on clothing for easy removal. Unfortunately I see that also removing some of the potential benefit when it comes to preventing shoplifting.