Just last night I was lamenting the fact that the Mac has no tools for
image editing and graphics creation like Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Cored Draw or Corel Photo-Paint,
web site creation like BBEdit, GoLive or Dreamweaver,
3d graphics like Bryce, Ray Dream Designer, Maya, or Lightwave 3d,
home or professional accounting like MYOB, Quickbooks, or Quicken
life sciences research like Blast, Imagene, LifeLab, or PolyLife
web servers like Apache or WebStar
Remote access like Timbuktu or Apple Remote
audio production like Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer...
Yeah. Macs are friggin' useless!
(And don't even get me started about how Macs don't even get mainstream products like Microsoft Office or access to most open source software written for BSD!)
See my reply in the post above for a more detailed discussion of what a rack-mounted mac would be good for.
Also, don't forget that you don't have to run Mac OS on a Macintosh. The PowerPC chips rock with Linux... an inexpensive "component" Macintosh could lead to some serious profit for Apple (e.g. sell a Rack-Mac with no OS for sub-$1000 price point).
I don't ever see that happening, however, as Steve Jobs' entire philosophy is the full user experience. There are lots of companies, though, who don't need the Mac OS but would love Apple quality and PowerPC performance.
I can attest to the need for less expensive rack-form Macintoshes. My day-job employer decided to pass on creating a massive Mac-based Linux cluster (1000+ machines), despite having one of the best cost to power ratios among all systems tested. One of the primary reasons was the form factor. We could cram way more processors into a rack using small ATX, (and later 1u black boxes) than with the beautiful but rack-hostile tupper-mac form factor. (We even toyed with building a wall of cubes, but they were just way too expensive!)
I can think of three major areas that cry out for an inexpensive rack-mac solution right off the bat:
Biotechnology/Bioinformatics
Bio-scientists have a long history with the Mac, but it's getting squeezed out in many companies because of management's perceived cost-benefit of PC boxes. As we start needing to process larger and larger amounts of genetic information, the need for a small form-factor mac increases.
Graphics/Video Production
Rack-Macs are needed in this industry, especially when using a render farm for 3d graphics!
Music Production / Performance
Anyone using a Mac to run a keyboard rig or show has long wanted a Rack Mac. Powerbooks are now powerful enough to do much of what is needed, but I'd love to have a 1 or 2 space Mac that didn't suffer CD/DVD speed problems from being mounted sideways. I'd also love to be able to put the Mac in the studio machine room rack and not lose use of the CD/DVD.
These are just a few examples, and yes, workarounds exist, but an out-of-the-box rack Mac solution (that didn't cost a premium) would be a great improvement!
This could have drastic financial implications for the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, CA and other tourist attractions relying on a gravity vortex! We must quash this research now!
I believe this is correct - the iPod OS is contained within the firmware, but it also relies on the iPod disk having a specific configuration, including the hidden music directory. Formatting the drive completely (as opposed to erasing the drive through the Mac OS or iTunes) will destroy the configuration that the iPod's OS expects. I suspect that anyone mucking around with the iPod in a non-Mac OS like Linux runs the risk of formatting the drive in a way that the iPod OS won't like.
Apple Knowledge Base Article 60983 provides information on how to restore a formatted iPod using iTunes. I don't suppose this will help anyone trying to use the iPod with a non-Mac system, but it gives some insight into how the iPod works.
If it were me, I'd want access to an iPod compatible Mac before I started trying to write iPod software for a different OS - it's too easy to cripple the unit with no way to restore it if the Mac's not there, plus it would be helpful to be able to watch the communication between the Mac and the iPod...
I had no idea that Hillary Rosen had a/. account! Welcome Hillary!
(BTW, you might want to revisit your music lit class - the classical composers were constantly "stealing" from each other, e.g. any "Variations on a theme..." piece. None of those compositions, including many of today's classic radio staples, would survive in our overly litigious music industry.)
As for getting the iPod to run on Linux, I agree with the post saying to check through the darwin code for HFS+.
The trick is going to be getting the mp3s into the appropriate folder for the iPod to recognize them. And while the iPod is mostly a 5 gig drive, formatting it will remove the mpeg playback software.
The problem to me is that, due to the incredibly long time it takes to level, that many bugs aren't found because there isn't a decent spread of levels on the test server... especially when the need to wipe characters appears (and I see that as a valid need from time to time).
My suggestion to Verant was to provide a randomization feature when a new test server character was created - go through the character creation as usual, but prior to the first world entry, the server comes up with a random level assignment and populates the character with an appropriate amount of coin and equipment for that level.
That way, Verant would get feedback from all levels, and could even weight the assignments based on the levels they were most interested in watching.
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Cool! Someone actually hates Macs enough to mod my reply down for being overrated!
You ROCK, anonymous Microsoft employee!
You are so right!
Just last night I was lamenting the fact that the Mac has no tools for
image editing and graphics creation like Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Cored Draw or Corel Photo-Paint,
web site creation like BBEdit, GoLive or Dreamweaver,
3d graphics like Bryce, Ray Dream Designer, Maya, or Lightwave 3d,
home or professional accounting like MYOB, Quickbooks, or Quicken
life sciences research like Blast, Imagene, LifeLab, or PolyLife
web servers like Apache or WebStar
Remote access like Timbuktu or Apple Remote
audio production like Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer...
Yeah. Macs are friggin' useless!
(And don't even get me started about how Macs don't even get mainstream products like Microsoft Office or access to most open source software written for BSD!)
See my reply in the post above for a more detailed discussion of what a rack-mounted mac would be good for.
Also, don't forget that you don't have to run Mac OS on a Macintosh. The PowerPC chips rock with Linux... an inexpensive "component" Macintosh could lead to some serious profit for Apple (e.g. sell a Rack-Mac with no OS for sub-$1000 price point).
I don't ever see that happening, however, as Steve Jobs' entire philosophy is the full user experience. There are lots of companies, though, who don't need the Mac OS but would love Apple quality and PowerPC performance.
I can attest to the need for less expensive rack-form Macintoshes. My day-job employer decided to pass on creating a massive Mac-based Linux cluster (1000+ machines), despite having one of the best cost to power ratios among all systems tested. One of the primary reasons was the form factor. We could cram way more processors into a rack using small ATX, (and later 1u black boxes) than with the beautiful but rack-hostile tupper-mac form factor. (We even toyed with building a wall of cubes, but they were just way too expensive!)
I can think of three major areas that cry out for an inexpensive rack-mac solution right off the bat:
Biotechnology/Bioinformatics
Bio-scientists have a long history with the Mac, but it's getting squeezed out in many companies because of management's perceived cost-benefit of PC boxes. As we start needing to process larger and larger amounts of genetic information, the need for a small form-factor mac increases.
Graphics/Video Production
Rack-Macs are needed in this industry, especially when using a render farm for 3d graphics!
Music Production / Performance
Anyone using a Mac to run a keyboard rig or show has long wanted a Rack Mac. Powerbooks are now powerful enough to do much of what is needed, but I'd love to have a 1 or 2 space Mac that didn't suffer CD/DVD speed problems from being mounted sideways. I'd also love to be able to put the Mac in the studio machine room rack and not lose use of the CD/DVD.
These are just a few examples, and yes, workarounds exist, but an out-of-the-box rack Mac solution (that didn't cost a premium) would be a great improvement!
This could have drastic financial implications for the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, CA and other tourist attractions relying on a gravity vortex! We must quash this research now!
I believe this is correct - the iPod OS is contained within the firmware, but it also relies on the iPod disk having a specific configuration, including the hidden music directory. Formatting the drive completely (as opposed to erasing the drive through the Mac OS or iTunes) will destroy the configuration that the iPod's OS expects. I suspect that anyone mucking around with the iPod in a non-Mac OS like Linux runs the risk of formatting the drive in a way that the iPod OS won't like.
Apple Knowledge Base Article 60983 provides information on how to restore a formatted iPod using iTunes. I don't suppose this will help anyone trying to use the iPod with a non-Mac system, but it gives some insight into how the iPod works.
If it were me, I'd want access to an iPod compatible Mac before I started trying to write iPod software for a different OS - it's too easy to cripple the unit with no way to restore it if the Mac's not there, plus it would be helpful to be able to watch the communication between the Mac and the iPod...
I had no idea that Hillary Rosen had a /. account! Welcome Hillary!
(BTW, you might want to revisit your music lit class - the classical composers were constantly "stealing" from each other, e.g. any "Variations on a theme..." piece. None of those compositions, including many of today's classic radio staples, would survive in our overly litigious music industry.)
As for getting the iPod to run on Linux, I agree with the post saying to check through the darwin code for HFS+.
The trick is going to be getting the mp3s into the appropriate folder for the iPod to recognize them. And while the iPod is mostly a 5 gig drive, formatting it will remove the mpeg playback software.
No, no, no...
Al Gore invented trees. Or was that just a media distortion?
The problem to me is that, due to the incredibly long time it takes to level, that many bugs aren't found because there isn't a decent spread of levels on the test server... especially when the need to wipe characters appears (and I see that as a valid need from time to time).
My suggestion to Verant was to provide a randomization feature when a new test server character was created - go through the character creation as usual, but prior to the first world entry, the server comes up with a random level assignment and populates the character with an appropriate amount of coin and equipment for that level.
That way, Verant would get feedback from all levels, and could even weight the assignments based on the levels they were most interested in watching.