There are dozens of specialized Linux distributions on distrowatch designed for this purpose. Toss the disk in the old system, toss in the CD, format the drives and you're done. FreeNAS comes to mind, but I don't know if it has a BT client preinstalled.
Since 1999 the Mac has had a built-in program called Software Update that checks a server at Apple once a day/week/month as the user prefers and identifies all of the updates for all of the software that came with the box, and offers to install them for the user. Since Apple publishes a new revision of Mac OS X quarterly, and this is fed through Software Update, the Mac OS is a moving target. If you figure out a way to own every v10.4.2 Mac you had better enjoy it because in a few months the whole platform will move over to v10.4.3.
You're completely high if you think the majority of the MacOS X systems in the field are fully patched and up-to-date. 1 in 10. Tops. Apple charges for updates, that means that most production systems simply aren't updated.
When you compare that to the static target that Windows XP presented, with its hard-to-navigate Explorer-based updates which were themselves hacked, and XP SP2's life-span of like 4 straight years, it is like Microsoft is asking for it. The fact that there are more PC's than Macs only makes this even worse. They are not doing what needs to be done to serve the most basic needs of their customers.
If Windows Update, which is entirely automatic for security updates, is "hard-to-navigate" then you simply don't know what "easy-to-navigate" is. I just don't think MacOS's functionality here is dramatically superior. It's just that the vast majority of Windows systems (for a whole spate of reasons) aren't fully patched. 1 in 10. Tops. But that translates to A LOT more unpatched targets.
And you're describing SP2 as if MS hasn't released an update since then (or updated SP2 for that matter). I can assure you that they have. Please familiarize yourself with MS's release schedule before criticizing it. The biggest complaint that I have with MS is the (IMO) premature end of support for 2000. But Apple is even worse in this regard.
The only problem is that it only plays the movies if they are WMV.
Bitch to the Connect360 people. This has nothing to do with limitations of the 360, which can accept virtually any video source on a Windows Media Center PC.
My usual response to that is to challenge the speaker to do a base install of Windows and a base install of Linux or MacOS with a machine plugged into the raw internet. Then measure how many times each OS has been pwned before it's done installing.
I don't think it's possible to have a Windows or MacOS system "pwned" before it finishes installing. In fact, this test would be difficult to run on MacOSX as most Mac systems come with MacOS preloaded. I'm pointing this out because MacOS would win hands down. Windows is a big target, but has easy update tools (assuming users actually used them). Linux is a smaller target, but most distributions don't have easy update tools (and by that I mean a notifier that automatically tells you when you need to update, and separates out security patches from other updates). However I would argue that Linux users are (in general) much more savvy than their Windows counterparts and are much more likely to update their systems on their own.
You're also making a desktop target. Linux desktops tend to be less vulnerable to "pwnage" than always-on Linux servers, which are the usual target of hackers and rootkits.
I just tend to see these sorts of issues as apples and oranges. Spyware etc. targeting Windows desktops is a problem with SPYWARE, not with Windows per se. There will always be assholes out there willing to abuse ANY possible system.
On the other hand, why they can't make a small stipulation to sell X% of units raw to folks that are DIY'ers, is beyond me.. they could even sell it with a disclosure that they don't support ANY operating system in their contract, however their hardware has been tested with XYZ operating systems.
First off, a number of posters are saying the DIY market is dead. These people are retarded. If you look at the numbers, pc component sales to consumers have been increasing every year since about 1985. Who do you think are buying those $500 video cards? Yeah, fewer people are soldering together their own circuit boards and the "buzz" has gone off case-modding and other hardware enthusiast crap that was popular in the late 90's, early 2000's but it's still there. Geeks aren't becoming an endangered species in the United States. In fact, I argue that because of the recent tech boom, "geek culture" is more popular than even. And even if that weren't true, they're ignoring the burgeoning market in India and China. The DIY communities are huge there.
Secondly, the vendors do this already. Most of the major vendors have a line of PCs designed to be tinkered with. With Dell it's the XPS line, with HP it's currently the "d4790y" line (HP needs to work on branding). And if you read the fine print on their "pack-in licenses" Dell, HP, etc. tend to officially claim that the box there selling doesn't "officially" actually DO anything at all. If it actually turns on it's "officially" a bonus. I think this says a lot about the validity of pack-in licenses though this is mainly intended to fend off lawsuits from business customers when their PCs mangle important data.
I'm not discussion this issue with scientists, but with laymen. Laymen use the term "theory" to refer to speculative ideas. Global warming being caused by human activity isn't speculation, it's as well-established as almost anything in environmental science. It's a fact.
Our global warming is the same as Mars global warming.
NOW you're speculating. What makes you say this? How are the atmospheres of Mars and Earth similar? Are the temperatures actually going up, or is ice just melting?
Care to elaborate on how it is all human activity caused? Who is screwing up Mars? The rovers are not burning carbon fuel.
I already explained this in another post. The atmosphere of mars is much thinner than the atmosphere of Earth and is slowly bleeding away. This means additional UV is getting through to the ice which is causing it to melt somewhat. At least that's what I think is going on. Talk to an astronomer that specializes in planets.
Activation, WGA/WPA! You know, the spyware that phones home and won't run if you don't allow it to do so. I don't know about you but I believe in innocence before being proven guilty, however MS wants you to constantly prove your innocence.
Corporate versions that are volume licensed don't have this "feature" (this has a lot to do with imaging), so it doesn't have that big an effect on corporate users. And this is pretty much par for the course on commercial software. Adobe apps have been "calling home" for years. Apps like AutoCAD and 3D Studio Max has elaborate dongles. etc. I'm sure there are lots of commercial apps for the Mac that "call home" too.
The last price comparison I saw had the Mac as a better value than the PC it was compared to which was a Dell.
Read what I wrote. This is only true if you take into account all of the features of the Mac that nobody cares about, like the integrated webcam or Firewire. Most PCs offer far better expandability than Macs, something many Mac advocates often ignore. There are also glaring weaknesses in Mac desktop configurations, the most important being the incredibly poor graphics capabilities of most Macs.
but can you name one app for Windows which Macs don't have an equivalent app?
AutoCAD, which is the first app everyone mentions when this comes up.
The very first tyme I used XP, it was on a brand new Dell, it never finished booting up.
This always irritates me. Dell makes cheap commodity crap. There used to be company called Packard Bell that also made crap computers that always broke down, they were bought by NEC and they NEC stopped making desktops. If you're going to compare Apple to a PC ventor you should compare them to another BOUTIQUE vendor, like Alienware.
On this I totally agree with you!!! And the Mac Mini isn't any better. As far as I'm concerned they are both a waste of resources. Apple needs something expandable/upgradable between the iMac and the Mac Pro too.
That might be a system I'd actually buy. The Mac Mini is too limited for me. The showstopper is the 2.5" hard drive and NON-EXPANDABLE video. The Mac Pro is grossly overpriced. Right now the only attractive options in the Apple line for me are the Macbooks, which I can get cheaper OEM.
In part my distaste for Macs goes back to MacOS 9, which generally sucked ass. Especially compared to Windows 2000. Also, at that time anyway, Apple technical support was truly awful. Especially for developers. I remember having to pay thousands of dollars just to get a list of fucking error codes, that wasn't complete (like ALL of Apple's documentation). Things got a bit better in MacOS X, but it ran so slow on G3 and G4 hardware that I basically ignored it. Things are much better now, but the painful transition form MacOS 9 always left a bad taste in my mouth.
So you replaced a professional workstation with an entry-level desktop PC and you had problems? I'm shocked. As I said before, your Windows IT staff is obviously incompetent.
That was my point. I can sell these boxes when we decide to upgrade them. If they were PCs, then they'd be headed towards a landfill, or maybe a donation to a local school - maybe. We've got a stack of old Pentium II-based PCs in our basement that we can't get anyone to take. But people are always asking about the same-age G3 I have lying around. I could get $100 for it in a heartbeat
Your point was that Macs have better resale value than desktop PCs. That's absolutely true, but I would argue it has a lot to do with the high initial price of Macs and the proprietary nature of their hardware. The "cheap Mac" market was, for a long time, the "used Mac" market and so there was a very brisk business in older Macs. This is going to go away. The Mac Mini is the first "cheap Mac", and it sells quite well. Mac hardware is also much more "commodity" now than it used to be, this is especially true with the laptops which are just rebadged ASUSTek and Quanta laptops. You can buy the exact same system running Windows for about $500 less in Korea. Hobbyists have already figured out you can get the Intel version of MacOS X running on a lot of PCs, lack of drivers is the only significant issue. These factors will serve to weaken the used Mac market.
We've got a stack of old PentiumII-based PCs in our basement that we can't get anyone to take.
Look into a computer recycling center, they'll pick them up for free.
As I said to another poster, I'm very interested in this but I can't seem to find any documentation. How do I get this running in Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Novell Linux? Is there anyone that has a bundled solution?
I bet you make fun of people who proselytize what you call "religion", don't you?
If they claim their religions are established facts determined by scientific study, analysis, and peer review then yeah, I WOULD make fun of them. Religious people rarely make such claims, and when they do they deserve to be derided (like "Scientology").
How does your blind faith explain the shrinking ice caps on Mars?
How about: Mars is a completely different planet (different size, different orbit, different atmosphere, etc.) so climate shifts there don't directly translate to Earth. It is my understanding that the atmosphere of Mars is slowly "leaking away". If this is the case then is means more UV is getting to the ice (Is it really ice or something else in the polar caps? I don't remember) and melting it.
And I doubt you'd understand the irony of ever learning that Newtonian physics has actually been replaced by relativistic physics, since Newtonian physics only applies to a small subset of reality.
Except that the exact opposite is the case. Relativity is primarily about gravity, and we are normally only are interested in gravitational effects on celestial objects. Quantum mechanics deal largely with the atomic and subatomic scale. But for "regular" calculations here on Earth, we still largely use Newtonian mechanics. At least according to the physicists I know. I'm not a physicist.
Oh, you mean like Harvard? Surely the whole institution has been bought out, lock stock and barrel, by Shell.
The citation from "Harvard" was about how global warming during the Cretaceous was due to volcanism. It was/is a totally irrelevant non-sequitor. All the rest of your references were from financial journals or right-wing web sites. Point to some credible peer-reviewed studies supporting your position. Can't? That's because there aren't any.
Every post you make shows incredible skepticism for the idea that oil companies (primarily Exxon/Mobile, not Shell) pay scientists to forge research on global warming. This isn't speculation, it's fact. There have been a number of confessions. It's also a fact that alternative energy companies have cooked up nonsense about the efficacy of their technologies and bribed scientists to do it. Wind and solar seem particularly susceptible to this. There are shady studies funded by the corn industry claiming that alcohol is the next great fuel.
As shocking as it may seem to you, energy companies DO manipulate energy research. Oil companies do the most manipulation because they have the most money.
You've got some some interesting facts to share? Post them. Otherwise, pipe down.
You aren't interested in facts. Others mentioned the recent landmark UN study which you derided as inaccurate and biased and you claimed that the vast majority of scientists rejected it (with no sources whatsoever). You own stock in/work for/are affiliated with the petroleum industry. Or maybe you just love your Hummer. We get it.
*I* tend to advocate nuclear power. Mainly because I think it's the best available solution, but also because I invest money in General Electric. I'm willing to admit my biases.
Obviously, someone with a better grasp of the situation than yourself.
You seem to think that Cretaceous period of global warming caused by massive volcanism is equivalent to the modern period of global warming caused by human endeavor. You don't seem to grasp that the atmosphere was completely different. GEOGRAPHY was completely different. The climate was completely different. And you're comparing a warming trend over MILLIONS of years to a warming trend over DECADES. You simply do not know what the fuck you're talking about.
The case against runaway global warming appears to be substantial.
Only to Anonymous Cowards reposting right-wing talking points. All of your references are to FINANCIAL journals or right-wing web sites. Many of the individuals cited are OIL INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS or are clearly in their pocket, like Senator James Inhofe.
Comparing CO2 levels now to CO2 levels during the Cretaceous is beyond stupid. Do you have ANY idea how much has changed? Can you even grasp that WE (humans) wouldn't want to live in the same climate?
but to me it seems a shakey bet to wager so much wealth on the chance that a) global warming is manmade, b) global warming is reversible by a change in our behavior, and c) we are better off with a cooler planet. Any of those three is, right now, a crapshoot;
It's not a crap shoot.
The current global warming trend is caused by human activity, primarily the use of fossil fuels. That is an absolute fact. It's about as well established as Newtonian physics at this point.
And even if it weren't, what about acid raid, air pollution, the asthma epidemic, ground water contamination, oil spills, species destruction, etc. All problems caused by fossil fuels. Are you going to claim that acid rain doesn't exist? That air pollution hasn't caused an epidemic of asthma and other breathing problems?
There are plenty of great reasons to reduce or eliminate use of fossil fuels besides global warming.
for example, a warmer planet will enliven a great deal of otherwise useless tundra.
Have you thought this through even a little bit? Have you considered what would happen to tropical areas (they're turning into deserts)? Or the devastation this will cause to global coastlines (where most people live)? The destruction of habitat that would lead to a (bigger) mass extinction? Climatological shifts tend to be what causes massive extinctions. If that's what we're seeing here it doesn't bode well for the future of the human race. Many people don't seem to grasp how closely the world is to the edge of mass starvation.
Yeah, this one is pretty obscure. I think it's listed as the "prototype" for later sports games, but I still don't get it. Where's Madden? Maybe they just wanted an Amiga game.
The only people mucking with this package are the source and the repository maintainers.
Who are all unpaid volunteers. And even if they were full-time paid employees they're not perfect. Yes, maintainers DO upload broken packages. I know, I've done it. And I've downloaded broken packages from repositories as well. And you're assuming that the repositories are tamper-proof vaults. They're not. With a little bit of cleverness anyone who wants to can dig into the Debian repositories and start mucking with packages. I know, I've done it. I don't know how it works with Gentoo, but I bet it's even easier. I've never made packages for Red Hat.
If you don't like Windows, don't like it. But don't throw up straw men, like the notion that Windows is "insecure" because it doesn't use a central software repository for some software, to justify your dislike.
#1 is a constant thorn in their side, as they can't even curb Windows OS counterfeiting because there is no secure distribution chain.
This exists in Vista, for what it's worth.
Whatever excuse they have for being higher priced, less functional and more inconvenient does not matter to me at all in my purchase.
You're not using Windows for lots of other reasons (you mentioned cost, so I assume you don't like paying for software) and are tossing in your perception that package management is vastly better in Linux. You're wrong, but I'm not going to convince you of that.
Tell me something, is your ideal state a place where the vast majority of crimes are solved?
These technologies will not lead to "the vast majority of crimes being solved". I'd argue that this is literally impossible. With new "crimes" being added to the books every day enforcement becomes a progressive target. Of all crimes committed, fewer are prosecuted each day due to this simple fact. In the United States at least, virtually every citizen commits several crimes every day due to the byzantine legal system we have here.
Nor will these technologies lead to the elimination of street crime.
Where innocent people are no longer convicted because any lawyer with half his wits about him can access video/GPS info and have the charges dropped?
You're assuming this sort of information is available to defense attorneys. At least in the United States, you are wrong. This information is not made available to the defense unless the prosecution chooses to give it to them. Nor do defense attorneys have the ability to compel businesses to release this information. Nor will they ever get this power. None of this technology will be use to help defense attorneys in any way.
Where the knowledge of the fact that you WILL get caught on camera becomes in itself a major deterrence for violent crime - at least in public?
How will this deter anyone? They'll keep wearing masks. And this assumes that public assaults were a major problem to begin with. They're not for the simple reason even if there aren't cameras around, there could well be witnesses. This will only affect desperate idiots that aren't thinking about what they're doing, and it's not going to "deter" them at all.
Where no one bothers to steal your car anymore because the police instantly know where it is and where it has been over the past hours/days?
This is called LoJack and ha been available for years commercially, no need to involve the government. And yeah, cars still get stolen because the thieves aren't completely stupid and know how to disable the GPS systems. What do you want to bet they can do the same with anything the government installs? This is beside the fact that both the US and UK governments have specifically said implementation of such systems is not for theft deterrent but for generic vehicle tracking.
Yes I agree that all these systems can be abused.
he point is not that they CAN be abused, but that they WILL be widely abused. They're widely abused RIGHT NOW. This can only be justified in the wake of major quality of life improvements for citizens in general. These technologies will not improve quality of life. They will not deter desperate crack addicts. They will not deter professional criminals. They WILL make people distrust and hate the police (more).
Right now, they ARE being used to create "profiles" of political dissidents for targeted harassment and arrest. They ARE being used to create blacklists to keep political activists from foreign nations from entering the US and UK, and tossing them out if they're already there. They WILL be used to create permanent classes of "undesirables" whose every movement and action is tracked at all times and who will be imprisoned or killed if they "fall off the radar". There is pending legislation in the United States for this RIGHT NOW.
Macs can make media creators more productive. The systemwide color-management tools and some of the media authoring software are unique. If you told our sound and video people you were taking away their Macs, they'd probably leave too. That doesn't mean the Macs have to integrate perfectly with the rest of the enterprise; it just means the extra expense of supporting them is justified by their benefits in this application.
There are excellent color management tools available for Windows and lots of good media authoring packages. I have found that graphic professionals are largely still using Macs due to momentum. They used Photoshop and Avid on the Mac and don't want to switch to something else. Sound is a different story. Hands down, Windows is better for sound processing and has been for many years now. Yeah, Pro Tools is cool but there are other excellent Windows tools (like Cubase) and you can get ProTools for Windows. And it runs better (at least the 7 series does). And there is a much wider variety of hardware. Again, lots of people in studios used Pro Tools on OS9 and are still running off that momentum.
Apple isn't stupid either and have continued to produce the excellent Mac Pro workstations for this market. And I'll fully admit that the Apple systems are better base systems for most of these tasks that high-end systems for Dell, HP, etc. But they really don't compare to boutique PCs lovingly soundproofed, water cooled, and optimized for the studio. You don't see that at Apple and it's why studios have been drifting away from the Mac platform.
I really don't think you will find management wants all the intelligent users leaving because they "better damn well do" what some tinhorn IT dictator tells them. Remember, they, not you, are generating the revenue.
Different companies have different cultures. Tech companies have lots of people that can fall on their feet, and often don't care too much about security. I'm not working for a tech company right now, though I have in the past. Do you really want the IT staff at your bank letting users do whatever they want? Really? How about at the defense department? There have always been "IT dictatorships", but in the same way 9/11 changed politics, the Internet-enabled workplace has placed a new emphasis on security (of all kinds) that did not exist before. There are also new accounting rules to consider, like Sarbane-Oxley. All of this leads to a need for tighter IT control of hardware and software. I could also talk about the need for greater manageability and how tightly-integrated systems can improve productivity, and how Macs tend to break much of that.
Not the grandparent poster, but I work at a major news radio station with a dozen Macs and about a hundred-fifty PCs. The PCs - Dells and HPs, all 1-4 years old - are frequently breaking, picking up spyware, etc., including assorted hardware issues, and require a staff of 3 full time IT people. I maintain the Macs, in addition to my duties as assistant chief engineer (fixing transmitters, consoles, wiring, etc.) The Macs are all circa-2001 G4s (from single 867 MHz up to dual 1.25 GHz, but nothing all that fancy). They run 24-hours a day doing multitrack audio production, and have no problems, whatsoever. I'm even not running antivirus on them, and have the default settings on the firewall.
They're single-use computers running, what, Pro Tools and NOTHING ELSE right? Haven't been upgraded in years either (quite obviously), right? I can assure you that Windows PCs operated in this fashion (used to run 1 app, no upgrades of any kind once stable, etc.) also tend to be quite stable. Or maybe your Windows IT staff is just incompetent.
Additionally, I purchased them all three years ago, used, for between $400-600, and sold our aging G3s (really Powermac 7600s with G3 upgrades) for $100-150 each.
You can find much faster obsolete Windows boxes for less. Look on Ebay.
If you expect me to just go out on the interweb and install any old binary package I find on a website, then you are friggin nuts. That's the kind of thing people did back in the 90's and is antiquated, insecure, and a PITA to boot. Nobody with half a brain does that these days. All software that goes on my machines is either developed by me, or comes down, cryptographically signed from my distro deployment channels (portage in my case) and is tested and verified within acceptable limits as running on my system, with an integrated bug tracking system I can use to look up or report any bugs for that package on my platform.
If you think just because it's sitting in a Portage repository it's secure and bug-free, you're crazy. APT is cool. Portage is cool. But experience has taught me and anyone who has used Linux for any length of time that the software in repositories is not bug-free, especially when you have to add third-party repositories to get the software you want (I've had to do this on every version of Linux I've ever used). You're also totally discounting the fact that not all Linux software is packaged in repositories. You might actually have to manually compile something once in awhile.
Just because you have this limitation of only installing software one particular way does not mean that other methods are "insecure". BTW, The Windows Installers can be cryptographically signed, there is bug tracking in the Event viewer, and the installers generate logs. Microsoft distributes free and open source (Orca and Wix) packaging tools, and there are a number of commercial solutions.
Of course, if Microsoft DID supply a central repository of software for free download or purchase Linux zealots would immediately accuse them of a "monopoly" on software distribution for Windows and "locking out" those software vendors that aren't willing to use their packaging tools.
It seems to me there are jurisdictional issues as well, as MySpaoce is clearly "interstate commerce". I think MySpace could successfully argue in court that this sort of thing is properly regulated on the Federal level. Congress is pretty reactionary too, but I suspect that they would get help from the telcoms there lobbying against this sort of legislation.
People do not seem to understand that as soon as a technology becomes available, it gets used. it simply WAS NOT POSSIBLE to implement the passport system described because it was very expensive to create and maintain large databases. In the 1990's there was a technology revolution that made it possible, for the first time, to easily create an maintain large databases and information tracking systems. Now that the tools are available, they are being used. "Terrorism", "border security", etc. are just meaningless excuses. They doing it because they CAN do it and it makes law enforcement's job a little easier. Everyone, all over the world, who has access to this sort of technology is rolling it out.
Fighting this legally is pointless. This system, or something extremely similar, WILL be implemented throughout the 1st world. People concerned about it should instead focus on ways to circumvent or interrupt the system. Poisoning the databases with bad information is a good place to start, and I think in the long term is the best solution.
Start with yourself. ALWAYS write down incorrect information on forms, everywhere. Identify your bank account with a code phrase (many US banks now offer this, I don't know about UK banks). Don't "sign up" for anything. Avoid using credit cards, use cash whenever possible. Use prepaid cellphones you buy in Wal-mart with cash. And most importantly, obtain a false identification and use it whenever practical.
In the long run, form dummy companies for the sole purpose of generating utterly false information that you seed to other organizations. Steal the identities of government officials. Report government officials as child molesters to anonymous tip lines. Stage mock crimes in front of surveillance cameras. Set up webcams that point directly into the homes of government officials. etc.
Any other supposed rights (freedom of speech, freedom to vote, freedom to chase girls, a.k.a. freedom to pursue happiness) are fictions created by the mind of man as he negotiates his way in the company of other humans.
That's a pretty atheistic perspective. From a religious perspective the universe was created ultimately to serve the interests of man and/or God. Remember that the Declaration of Independence states that we "endowed by our Creator" with certain rights. This is a religious perspective. That's why the term "God-given rights" is probably more accurate than "natural rights".
Um, no. Adobe has cross-platform licensing options available for all of its major (read "expensive") products. MS Office is not nearly as expensive. No other product is nearly as likely to be used by both sets of users.
No they don't. This is only available for volume licensing for certain products, and I think the minimum number of licenses is around 500. If you want to buy just 10 copies of Acrobat, for example, you have to buy them individually "off the shelf", and those versions AREN'T cross-licensed. So you're still going to have to buy 20 copies for 10 users. And even if you were right about Adobe, this doesn't apply to many other apps. The very fact that you said "no other product" tells be you have limited experience at various job sites. He listed a half-dozen apps that have no analog on MacOS and it didn't even register.
I don't know about all of the others, since I've never worked in an environment that has Macs and those other products together, but if you wanted things to work smoothly in a real multi-platform environment, you probably wouldn't be using exclusively Microsoft on your servers anyway
But he DOESN'T want a multi-platform environment; you're the one selling it. And the idea that you'll have to redo your entire IT infrastructure from scratch to accommodate Macs isn't very compelling.
Frankly, I'm still waiting for that compelling reason to switch to Macs. So far I've heard:
1) Viruses, spyware, etc.
A real problem, but greatly alleviated by not giving users Administrator rights. Sure, they can't install software or add hardware, but you don't want them doing that anyway (see below).
2) Users will be more productive.
Patently false. There is a dearth of software on Macs, and what their is tends to run slower on Macs. In fact, the vast majority of business apps aren't available for the Mac.
3) Macs give you better "bang-for-the-buck" in terms of hardware.
Macs remain overpriced. Mac zealots like to point out that Mac systems often have lots of features not widely available (as far as I'm aware, there is no hardware feature unique to any Mac system) on Windows desktops. This is largely because there is little demand for those features, like Firewire, Wifi on desktops, remote controls, etc. This is especially true in the business world.
The main advantage of Apple systems is their asthetics, which is far and away the major argument I've heard for putting them in business. Sales staff want pretty laptops when they go out on sales calls, etc.
Side note: iMacs are an incredible ripoff, especially in the business world. Monitors generally outlast desktops, often by nearly double, and iMacs force you to ugrade both. Basically the iMac is a way for Apple to gouge (more) on monitors by "integrating" them and then jacking up the price.
Users will know things you don't. After all, they actually use the software you support every single day. Provided you have enough knowledge to keep your network secure, this is not a problem, but a good thing. It means your company doesn't only hire CorpoSheep (tm) who meekly do only what they're told.
You seem to expect most users to be their own IT staff. You probably work at an organization where the users are very technically-savvy. In most organizations this is not the case, and will not be the case. In many organizations users are not competent to install software or do anything but the most basic configuration. I have users that can't remember 5 character passwords and can't log onto a domain on their own. The notion that I might have to deal with non-recoverable passwords on Macs terrifies me. I have users that can't figure out how to plug things into USB ports, don't know what a network cable looks like, and will break the pins on VGA cables trying to plug monitors in. The fact that most Apple peripherals are external, which means users may be constantly plugging and unplugging things, terrifies me.
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get a totally custom based solution
There are dozens of specialized Linux distributions on distrowatch designed for this purpose. Toss the disk in the old system, toss in the CD, format the drives and you're done. FreeNAS comes to mind, but I don't know if it has a BT client preinstalled.
Since 1999 the Mac has had a built-in program called Software Update that checks a server at Apple once a day/week/month as the user prefers and identifies all of the updates for all of the software that came with the box, and offers to install them for the user. Since Apple publishes a new revision of Mac OS X quarterly, and this is fed through Software Update, the Mac OS is a moving target. If you figure out a way to own every v10.4.2 Mac you had better enjoy it because in a few months the whole platform will move over to v10.4.3.
You're completely high if you think the majority of the MacOS X systems in the field are fully patched and up-to-date. 1 in 10. Tops. Apple charges for updates, that means that most production systems simply aren't updated.
When you compare that to the static target that Windows XP presented, with its hard-to-navigate Explorer-based updates which were themselves hacked, and XP SP2's life-span of like 4 straight years, it is like Microsoft is asking for it. The fact that there are more PC's than Macs only makes this even worse. They are not doing what needs to be done to serve the most basic needs of their customers.
If Windows Update, which is entirely automatic for security updates, is "hard-to-navigate" then you simply don't know what "easy-to-navigate" is. I just don't think MacOS's functionality here is dramatically superior. It's just that the vast majority of Windows systems (for a whole spate of reasons) aren't fully patched. 1 in 10. Tops. But that translates to A LOT more unpatched targets.
And you're describing SP2 as if MS hasn't released an update since then (or updated SP2 for that matter). I can assure you that they have. Please familiarize yourself with MS's release schedule before criticizing it. The biggest complaint that I have with MS is the (IMO) premature end of support for 2000. But Apple is even worse in this regard.
The only problem is that it only plays the movies if they are WMV.
Bitch to the Connect360 people. This has nothing to do with limitations of the 360, which can accept virtually any video source on a Windows Media Center PC.
My usual response to that is to challenge the speaker to do a base install of Windows and a base install of Linux or MacOS with a machine plugged into the raw internet. Then measure how many times each OS has been pwned before it's done installing.
I don't think it's possible to have a Windows or MacOS system "pwned" before it finishes installing. In fact, this test would be difficult to run on MacOSX as most Mac systems come with MacOS preloaded. I'm pointing this out because MacOS would win hands down. Windows is a big target, but has easy update tools (assuming users actually used them). Linux is a smaller target, but most distributions don't have easy update tools (and by that I mean a notifier that automatically tells you when you need to update, and separates out security patches from other updates). However I would argue that Linux users are (in general) much more savvy than their Windows counterparts and are much more likely to update their systems on their own.
You're also making a desktop target. Linux desktops tend to be less vulnerable to "pwnage" than always-on Linux servers, which are the usual target of hackers and rootkits.
I just tend to see these sorts of issues as apples and oranges. Spyware etc. targeting Windows desktops is a problem with SPYWARE, not with Windows per se. There will always be assholes out there willing to abuse ANY possible system.
On the other hand, why they can't make a small stipulation to sell X% of units raw to folks that are DIY'ers, is beyond me.. they could even sell it with a disclosure that they don't support ANY operating system in their contract, however their hardware has been tested with XYZ operating systems.
First off, a number of posters are saying the DIY market is dead. These people are retarded. If you look at the numbers, pc component sales to consumers have been increasing every year since about 1985. Who do you think are buying those $500 video cards? Yeah, fewer people are soldering together their own circuit boards and the "buzz" has gone off case-modding and other hardware enthusiast crap that was popular in the late 90's, early 2000's but it's still there. Geeks aren't becoming an endangered species in the United States. In fact, I argue that because of the recent tech boom, "geek culture" is more popular than even. And even if that weren't true, they're ignoring the burgeoning market in India and China. The DIY communities are huge there.
Secondly, the vendors do this already. Most of the major vendors have a line of PCs designed to be tinkered with. With Dell it's the XPS line, with HP it's currently the "d4790y" line (HP needs to work on branding). And if you read the fine print on their "pack-in licenses" Dell, HP, etc. tend to officially claim that the box there selling doesn't "officially" actually DO anything at all. If it actually turns on it's "officially" a bonus. I think this says a lot about the validity of pack-in licenses though this is mainly intended to fend off lawsuits from business customers when their PCs mangle important data.
Stating a theory as a fact is bad science.
I'm not discussion this issue with scientists, but with laymen. Laymen use the term "theory" to refer to speculative ideas. Global warming being caused by human activity isn't speculation, it's as well-established as almost anything in environmental science. It's a fact.
Our global warming is the same as Mars global warming.
NOW you're speculating. What makes you say this? How are the atmospheres of Mars and Earth similar? Are the temperatures actually going up, or is ice just melting?
Care to elaborate on how it is all human activity caused? Who is screwing up Mars?
The rovers are not burning carbon fuel.
I already explained this in another post. The atmosphere of mars is much thinner than the atmosphere of Earth and is slowly bleeding away. This means additional UV is getting through to the ice which is causing it to melt somewhat. At least that's what I think is going on. Talk to an astronomer that specializes in planets.
Activation, WGA/WPA! You know, the spyware that phones home and won't run if you don't allow it to do so. I don't know about you but I believe in innocence before being proven guilty, however MS wants you to constantly prove your innocence.
Corporate versions that are volume licensed don't have this "feature" (this has a lot to do with imaging), so it doesn't have that big an effect on corporate users. And this is pretty much par for the course on commercial software. Adobe apps have been "calling home" for years. Apps like AutoCAD and 3D Studio Max has elaborate dongles. etc. I'm sure there are lots of commercial apps for the Mac that "call home" too.
The last price comparison I saw had the Mac as a better value than the PC it was compared to which was a Dell.
Read what I wrote. This is only true if you take into account all of the features of the Mac that nobody cares about, like the integrated webcam or Firewire. Most PCs offer far better expandability than Macs, something many Mac advocates often ignore. There are also glaring weaknesses in Mac desktop configurations, the most important being the incredibly poor graphics capabilities of most Macs.
but can you name one app for Windows which Macs don't have an equivalent app?
AutoCAD, which is the first app everyone mentions when this comes up.
The very first tyme I used XP, it was on a brand new Dell, it never finished booting up.
This always irritates me. Dell makes cheap commodity crap. There used to be company called Packard Bell that also made crap computers that always broke down, they were bought by NEC and they NEC stopped making desktops. If you're going to compare Apple to a PC ventor you should compare them to another BOUTIQUE vendor, like Alienware.
On this I totally agree with you!!! And the Mac Mini isn't any better. As far as I'm concerned they are both a waste of resources. Apple needs something expandable/upgradable between the iMac and the Mac Pro too.
That might be a system I'd actually buy. The Mac Mini is too limited for me. The showstopper is the 2.5" hard drive and NON-EXPANDABLE video. The Mac Pro is grossly overpriced. Right now the only attractive options in the Apple line for me are the Macbooks, which I can get cheaper OEM.
In part my distaste for Macs goes back to MacOS 9, which generally sucked ass. Especially compared to Windows 2000. Also, at that time anyway, Apple technical support was truly awful. Especially for developers. I remember having to pay thousands of dollars just to get a list of fucking error codes, that wasn't complete (like ALL of Apple's documentation). Things got a bit better in MacOS X, but it ran so slow on G3 and G4 hardware that I basically ignored it. Things are much better now, but the painful transition form MacOS 9 always left a bad taste in my mouth.
a Dell GX270 with twice the RAM
So you replaced a professional workstation with an entry-level desktop PC and you had problems? I'm shocked. As I said before, your Windows IT staff is obviously incompetent.
That was my point. I can sell these boxes when we decide to upgrade them. If they were PCs, then they'd be headed towards a landfill, or maybe a donation to a local school - maybe. We've got a stack of old Pentium II-based PCs in our basement that we can't get anyone to take. But people are always asking about the same-age G3 I have lying around. I could get $100 for it in a heartbeat
Your point was that Macs have better resale value than desktop PCs. That's absolutely true, but I would argue it has a lot to do with the high initial price of Macs and the proprietary nature of their hardware. The "cheap Mac" market was, for a long time, the "used Mac" market and so there was a very brisk business in older Macs. This is going to go away. The Mac Mini is the first "cheap Mac", and it sells quite well. Mac hardware is also much more "commodity" now than it used to be, this is especially true with the laptops which are just rebadged ASUSTek and Quanta laptops. You can buy the exact same system running Windows for about $500 less in Korea. Hobbyists have already figured out you can get the Intel version of MacOS X running on a lot of PCs, lack of drivers is the only significant issue. These factors will serve to weaken the used Mac market.
We've got a stack of old PentiumII-based PCs in our basement that we can't get anyone to take.
Look into a computer recycling center, they'll pick them up for free.
As I said to another poster, I'm very interested in this but I can't seem to find any documentation. How do I get this running in Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Novell Linux? Is there anyone that has a bundled solution?
I bet you make fun of people who proselytize what you call "religion", don't you?
If they claim their religions are established facts determined by scientific study, analysis, and peer review then yeah, I WOULD make fun of them. Religious people rarely make such claims, and when they do they deserve to be derided (like "Scientology").
How does your blind faith explain the shrinking ice caps on Mars?
How about: Mars is a completely different planet (different size, different orbit, different atmosphere, etc.) so climate shifts there don't directly translate to Earth. It is my understanding that the atmosphere of Mars is slowly "leaking away". If this is the case then is means more UV is getting to the ice (Is it really ice or something else in the polar caps? I don't remember) and melting it.
And I doubt you'd understand the irony of ever learning that Newtonian physics has actually been replaced by relativistic physics, since Newtonian physics only applies to a small subset of reality.
Except that the exact opposite is the case. Relativity is primarily about gravity, and we are normally only are interested in gravitational effects on celestial objects. Quantum mechanics deal largely with the atomic and subatomic scale. But for "regular" calculations here on Earth, we still largely use Newtonian mechanics. At least according to the physicists I know. I'm not a physicist.
Oh, you mean like Harvard? Surely the whole institution has been bought out, lock stock and barrel, by Shell.
The citation from "Harvard" was about how global warming during the Cretaceous was due to volcanism. It was/is a totally irrelevant non-sequitor. All the rest of your references were from financial journals or right-wing web sites. Point to some credible peer-reviewed studies supporting your position. Can't? That's because there aren't any.
Every post you make shows incredible skepticism for the idea that oil companies (primarily Exxon/Mobile, not Shell) pay scientists to forge research on global warming. This isn't speculation, it's fact. There have been a number of confessions. It's also a fact that alternative energy companies have cooked up nonsense about the efficacy of their technologies and bribed scientists to do it. Wind and solar seem particularly susceptible to this. There are shady studies funded by the corn industry claiming that alcohol is the next great fuel.
As shocking as it may seem to you, energy companies DO manipulate energy research. Oil companies do the most manipulation because they have the most money.
You've got some some interesting facts to share? Post them. Otherwise, pipe down.
You aren't interested in facts. Others mentioned the recent landmark UN study which you derided as inaccurate and biased and you claimed that the vast majority of scientists rejected it (with no sources whatsoever). You own stock in/work for/are affiliated with the petroleum industry. Or maybe you just love your Hummer. We get it.
*I* tend to advocate nuclear power. Mainly because I think it's the best available solution, but also because I invest money in General Electric. I'm willing to admit my biases.
Obviously, someone with a better grasp of the situation than yourself.
You seem to think that Cretaceous period of global warming caused by massive volcanism is equivalent to the modern period of global warming caused by human endeavor. You don't seem to grasp that the atmosphere was completely different. GEOGRAPHY was completely different. The climate was completely different. And you're comparing a warming trend over MILLIONS of years to a warming trend over DECADES. You simply do not know what the fuck you're talking about.
The case against runaway global warming appears to be substantial.
Only to Anonymous Cowards reposting right-wing talking points. All of your references are to FINANCIAL journals or right-wing web sites. Many of the individuals cited are OIL INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS or are clearly in their pocket, like Senator James Inhofe.
Comparing CO2 levels now to CO2 levels during the Cretaceous is beyond stupid. Do you have ANY idea how much has changed? Can you even grasp that WE (humans) wouldn't want to live in the same climate?
Who modded this propagandistic nonsense up?
but to me it seems a shakey bet to wager so much wealth on the chance that a) global warming is manmade, b) global warming is reversible by a change in our behavior, and c) we are better off with a cooler planet. Any of those three is, right now, a crapshoot;
It's not a crap shoot.
The current global warming trend is caused by human activity, primarily the use of fossil fuels. That is an absolute fact. It's about as well established as Newtonian physics at this point.
And even if it weren't, what about acid raid, air pollution, the asthma epidemic, ground water contamination, oil spills, species destruction, etc. All problems caused by fossil fuels. Are you going to claim that acid rain doesn't exist? That air pollution hasn't caused an epidemic of asthma and other breathing problems?
There are plenty of great reasons to reduce or eliminate use of fossil fuels besides global warming.
for example, a warmer planet will enliven a great deal of otherwise useless tundra.
Have you thought this through even a little bit? Have you considered what would happen to tropical areas (they're turning into deserts)? Or the devastation this will cause to global coastlines (where most people live)? The destruction of habitat that would lead to a (bigger) mass extinction? Climatological shifts tend to be what causes massive extinctions. If that's what we're seeing here it doesn't bode well for the future of the human race. Many people don't seem to grasp how closely the world is to the edge of mass starvation.
Yeah, this one is pretty obscure. I think it's listed as the "prototype" for later sports games, but I still don't get it. Where's Madden? Maybe they just wanted an Amiga game.
The only people mucking with this package are the source and the repository maintainers.
Who are all unpaid volunteers. And even if they were full-time paid employees they're not perfect. Yes, maintainers DO upload broken packages. I know, I've done it. And I've downloaded broken packages from repositories as well. And you're assuming that the repositories are tamper-proof vaults. They're not. With a little bit of cleverness anyone who wants to can dig into the Debian repositories and start mucking with packages. I know, I've done it. I don't know how it works with Gentoo, but I bet it's even easier. I've never made packages for Red Hat.
If you don't like Windows, don't like it. But don't throw up straw men, like the notion that Windows is "insecure" because it doesn't use a central software repository for some software, to justify your dislike.
#1 is a constant thorn in their side, as they can't even curb Windows OS counterfeiting because there is no secure distribution chain.
This exists in Vista, for what it's worth.
Whatever excuse they have for being higher priced, less functional and more inconvenient does not matter to me at all in my purchase.
You're not using Windows for lots of other reasons (you mentioned cost, so I assume you don't like paying for software) and are tossing in your perception that package management is vastly better in Linux. You're wrong, but I'm not going to convince you of that.
Tell me something, is your ideal state a place where the vast majority of crimes are solved?
These technologies will not lead to "the vast majority of crimes being solved". I'd argue that this is literally impossible. With new "crimes" being added to the books every day enforcement becomes a progressive target. Of all crimes committed, fewer are prosecuted each day due to this simple fact. In the United States at least, virtually every citizen commits several crimes every day due to the byzantine legal system we have here.
Nor will these technologies lead to the elimination of street crime.
Where innocent people are no longer convicted because any lawyer with half his wits about him can access video/GPS info and have the charges dropped?
You're assuming this sort of information is available to defense attorneys. At least in the United States, you are wrong. This information is not made available to the defense unless the prosecution chooses to give it to them. Nor do defense attorneys have the ability to compel businesses to release this information. Nor will they ever get this power. None of this technology will be use to help defense attorneys in any way.
Where the knowledge of the fact that you WILL get caught on camera becomes in itself a major deterrence for violent crime - at least in public?
How will this deter anyone? They'll keep wearing masks. And this assumes that public assaults were a major problem to begin with. They're not for the simple reason even if there aren't cameras around, there could well be witnesses. This will only affect desperate idiots that aren't thinking about what they're doing, and it's not going to "deter" them at all.
Where no one bothers to steal your car anymore because the police instantly know where it is and where it has been over the past hours/days?
This is called LoJack and ha been available for years commercially, no need to involve the government. And yeah, cars still get stolen because the thieves aren't completely stupid and know how to disable the GPS systems. What do you want to bet they can do the same with anything the government installs? This is beside the fact that both the US and UK governments have specifically said implementation of such systems is not for theft deterrent but for generic vehicle tracking.
Yes I agree that all these systems can be abused.
he point is not that they CAN be abused, but that they WILL be widely abused. They're widely abused RIGHT NOW. This can only be justified in the wake of major quality of life improvements for citizens in general. These technologies will not improve quality of life. They will not deter desperate crack addicts. They will not deter professional criminals. They WILL make people distrust and hate the police (more).
Right now, they ARE being used to create "profiles" of political dissidents for targeted harassment and arrest. They ARE being used to create blacklists to keep political activists from foreign nations from entering the US and UK, and tossing them out if they're already there. They WILL be used to create permanent classes of "undesirables" whose every movement and action is tracked at all times and who will be imprisoned or killed if they "fall off the radar". There is pending legislation in the United States for this RIGHT NOW.
Macs can make media creators more productive. The systemwide color-management tools and some of the media authoring software are unique. If you told our sound and video people you were taking away their Macs, they'd probably leave too. That doesn't mean the Macs have to integrate perfectly with the rest of the enterprise; it just means the extra expense of supporting them is justified by their benefits in this application.
There are excellent color management tools available for Windows and lots of good media authoring packages. I have found that graphic professionals are largely still using Macs due to momentum. They used Photoshop and Avid on the Mac and don't want to switch to something else. Sound is a different story. Hands down, Windows is better for sound processing and has been for many years now. Yeah, Pro Tools is cool but there are other excellent Windows tools (like Cubase) and you can get ProTools for Windows. And it runs better (at least the 7 series does). And there is a much wider variety of hardware. Again, lots of people in studios used Pro Tools on OS9 and are still running off that momentum.
Apple isn't stupid either and have continued to produce the excellent Mac Pro workstations for this market. And I'll fully admit that the Apple systems are better base systems for most of these tasks that high-end systems for Dell, HP, etc. But they really don't compare to boutique PCs lovingly soundproofed, water cooled, and optimized for the studio. You don't see that at Apple and it's why studios have been drifting away from the Mac platform.
I really don't think you will find management wants all the intelligent users leaving because they "better damn well do" what some tinhorn IT dictator tells them. Remember, they, not you, are generating the revenue.
Different companies have different cultures. Tech companies have lots of people that can fall on their feet, and often don't care too much about security. I'm not working for a tech company right now, though I have in the past. Do you really want the IT staff at your bank letting users do whatever they want? Really? How about at the defense department? There have always been "IT dictatorships", but in the same way 9/11 changed politics, the Internet-enabled workplace has placed a new emphasis on security (of all kinds) that did not exist before. There are also new accounting rules to consider, like Sarbane-Oxley. All of this leads to a need for tighter IT control of hardware and software. I could also talk about the need for greater manageability and how tightly-integrated systems can improve productivity, and how Macs tend to break much of that.
Athena is free.
How do I get this? There appears to be no way to download MIT's Linux-Athena distribution.
Not the grandparent poster, but I work at a major news radio station with a dozen Macs and about a hundred-fifty PCs. The PCs - Dells and HPs, all 1-4 years old - are frequently breaking, picking up spyware, etc., including assorted hardware issues, and require a staff of 3 full time IT people. I maintain the Macs, in addition to my duties as assistant chief engineer (fixing transmitters, consoles, wiring, etc.) The Macs are all circa-2001 G4s (from single 867 MHz up to dual 1.25 GHz, but nothing all that fancy). They run 24-hours a day doing multitrack audio production, and have no problems, whatsoever. I'm even not running antivirus on them, and have the default settings on the firewall.
They're single-use computers running, what, Pro Tools and NOTHING ELSE right? Haven't been upgraded in years either (quite obviously), right? I can assure you that Windows PCs operated in this fashion (used to run 1 app, no upgrades of any kind once stable, etc.) also tend to be quite stable. Or maybe your Windows IT staff is just incompetent.
Additionally, I purchased them all three years ago, used, for between $400-600, and sold our aging G3s (really Powermac 7600s with G3 upgrades) for $100-150 each.
You can find much faster obsolete Windows boxes for less. Look on Ebay.
If you expect me to just go out on the interweb and install any old binary package I find on a website, then you are friggin nuts. That's the kind of thing people did back in the 90's and is antiquated, insecure, and a PITA to boot. Nobody with half a brain does that these days. All software that goes on my machines is either developed by me, or comes down, cryptographically signed from my distro deployment channels (portage in my case) and is tested and verified within acceptable limits as running on my system, with an integrated bug tracking system I can use to look up or report any bugs for that package on my platform.
If you think just because it's sitting in a Portage repository it's secure and bug-free, you're crazy. APT is cool. Portage is cool. But experience has taught me and anyone who has used Linux for any length of time that the software in repositories is not bug-free, especially when you have to add third-party repositories to get the software you want (I've had to do this on every version of Linux I've ever used). You're also totally discounting the fact that not all Linux software is packaged in repositories. You might actually have to manually compile something once in awhile.
Just because you have this limitation of only installing software one particular way does not mean that other methods are "insecure". BTW, The Windows Installers can be cryptographically signed, there is bug tracking in the Event viewer, and the installers generate logs. Microsoft distributes free and open source (Orca and Wix) packaging tools, and there are a number of commercial solutions.
Of course, if Microsoft DID supply a central repository of software for free download or purchase Linux zealots would immediately accuse them of a "monopoly" on software distribution for Windows and "locking out" those software vendors that aren't willing to use their packaging tools.
It seems to me there are jurisdictional issues as well, as MySpaoce is clearly "interstate commerce". I think MySpace could successfully argue in court that this sort of thing is properly regulated on the Federal level. Congress is pretty reactionary too, but I suspect that they would get help from the telcoms there lobbying against this sort of legislation.
Please mod the parent up.
People do not seem to understand that as soon as a technology becomes available, it gets used. it simply WAS NOT POSSIBLE to implement the passport system described because it was very expensive to create and maintain large databases. In the 1990's there was a technology revolution that made it possible, for the first time, to easily create an maintain large databases and information tracking systems. Now that the tools are available, they are being used. "Terrorism", "border security", etc. are just meaningless excuses. They doing it because they CAN do it and it makes law enforcement's job a little easier. Everyone, all over the world, who has access to this sort of technology is rolling it out.
Fighting this legally is pointless. This system, or something extremely similar, WILL be implemented throughout the 1st world. People concerned about it should instead focus on ways to circumvent or interrupt the system. Poisoning the databases with bad information is a good place to start, and I think in the long term is the best solution.
Start with yourself. ALWAYS write down incorrect information on forms, everywhere. Identify your bank account with a code phrase (many US banks now offer this, I don't know about UK banks). Don't "sign up" for anything. Avoid using credit cards, use cash whenever possible. Use prepaid cellphones you buy in Wal-mart with cash. And most importantly, obtain a false identification and use it whenever practical.
In the long run, form dummy companies for the sole purpose of generating utterly false information that you seed to other organizations. Steal the identities of government officials. Report government officials as child molesters to anonymous tip lines. Stage mock crimes in front of surveillance cameras. Set up webcams that point directly into the homes of government officials. etc.
Any other supposed rights (freedom of speech, freedom to vote, freedom to chase girls, a.k.a. freedom to pursue happiness) are fictions created by the mind of man as he negotiates his way in the company of other humans.
That's a pretty atheistic perspective. From a religious perspective the universe was created ultimately to serve the interests of man and/or God. Remember that the Declaration of Independence states that we "endowed by our Creator" with certain rights. This is a religious perspective. That's why the term "God-given rights" is probably more accurate than "natural rights".
Please mod the parent up. This is a really keen insight into one of the (many) problems with software compatibility on Linux.
Um, no. Adobe has cross-platform licensing options available for all of its major (read "expensive") products. MS Office is not nearly as expensive. No other product is nearly as likely to be used by both sets of users.
No they don't. This is only available for volume licensing for certain products, and I think the minimum number of licenses is around 500. If you want to buy just 10 copies of Acrobat, for example, you have to buy them individually "off the shelf", and those versions AREN'T cross-licensed. So you're still going to have to buy 20 copies for 10 users. And even if you were right about Adobe, this doesn't apply to many other apps. The very fact that you said "no other product" tells be you have limited experience at various job sites. He listed a half-dozen apps that have no analog on MacOS and it didn't even register.
I don't know about all of the others, since I've never worked in an environment that has Macs and those other products together, but if you wanted things to work smoothly in a real multi-platform environment, you probably wouldn't be using exclusively Microsoft on your servers anyway
But he DOESN'T want a multi-platform environment; you're the one selling it. And the idea that you'll have to redo your entire IT infrastructure from scratch to accommodate Macs isn't very compelling.
Frankly, I'm still waiting for that compelling reason to switch to Macs. So far I've heard:
1) Viruses, spyware, etc.
A real problem, but greatly alleviated by not giving users Administrator rights. Sure, they can't install software or add hardware, but you don't want them doing that anyway (see below).
2) Users will be more productive.
Patently false. There is a dearth of software on Macs, and what their is tends to run slower on Macs. In fact, the vast majority of business apps aren't available for the Mac.
3) Macs give you better "bang-for-the-buck" in terms of hardware.
Macs remain overpriced. Mac zealots like to point out that Mac systems often have lots of features not widely available (as far as I'm aware, there is no hardware feature unique to any Mac system) on Windows desktops. This is largely because there is little demand for those features, like Firewire, Wifi on desktops, remote controls, etc. This is especially true in the business world.
The main advantage of Apple systems is their asthetics, which is far and away the major argument I've heard for putting them in business. Sales staff want pretty laptops when they go out on sales calls, etc.
Side note: iMacs are an incredible ripoff, especially in the business world. Monitors generally outlast desktops, often by nearly double, and iMacs force you to ugrade both. Basically the iMac is a way for Apple to gouge (more) on monitors by "integrating" them and then jacking up the price.
Users will know things you don't. After all, they actually use the software you support every single day. Provided you have enough knowledge to keep your network secure, this is not a problem, but a good thing. It means your company doesn't only hire CorpoSheep (tm) who meekly do only what they're told.
You seem to expect most users to be their own IT staff. You probably work at an organization where the users are very technically-savvy. In most organizations this is not the case, and will not be the case. In many organizations users are not competent to install software or do anything but the most basic configuration. I have users that can't remember 5 character passwords and can't log onto a domain on their own. The notion that I might have to deal with non-recoverable passwords on Macs terrifies me. I have users that can't figure out how to plug things into USB ports, don't know what a network cable looks like, and will break the pins on VGA cables trying to plug monitors in. The fact that most Apple peripherals are external, which means users may be constantly plugging and unplugging things, terrifies me.
And yeah, MY users better damn well do what t