All of this crap was included in my 'technology fees' every semester. Though, I lived off campus and (aside from using wireless, and the school's E-Mail system) I had no use for it. Half of the computers in the labs were on the fritz anyway; surely if I were forced to do my day-to-day assignments there I'd be afraid of data loss.
"why are my school tuition fees being spent on frivilous sundries benefiting 3rd party companies instead of improving my schools educational resources"
Better question is how come that money isn't spent equally on diverse platforms (i.e. Mac, Linux, Sun, whatever). Instead, MS buys out the entire college.
At my school the technology desk used to send Mac users to me whenever they needed help setting up their wireless connection or accessing the school network. I had no problem with that, because their alternative policy was "not Windows, not supported." To the school's credit though not everyone was incredibly closed-minded. I guess this is what happens though when corporate interests become infused with curriculum and budgeting.
I think this is the most overlooked thing about the new iMacs. Except for the graphics chip, virtually everything can be swapped and replaced. Who knows, third party manufactures may offer CPU upgrades for it in the future. It's really the first all-in-one Mac that I might be comfortable owning.
BTW: why aren't we seeing commercials for it on TV yet?
I switched a little over two years ago from maybe 19 years of DOS/Windows/Linux/VMS/c64 use. To echo what many others have said here, the switch is really not that difficult. Within a day or two I was pretty much at home.
What really helps is having a friend or two who have been avid Mac users, not so much for technical difficulties, but to quickly find out the most common ways, or the most popular apps that can accomplish a specific task. For example, you're likely to find a ton of FTP apps on Versiontracker, but a friend can give you an idea of which you should check out first, instead of wading through 20 different programs that suck. Or, if you have a pretty thorough knowledge of UNIX you may find yourself heading straight to the Terminal, when it may be easier (and in some cases even necessary) to accomplish something through the GUI.
Also it doesn't hurt to hang out in a heavily populated Mac chat room for a while. You can ask questions when needed, but also observe others' frequently asked questions, whose answers may be of use to you in the future. You'll also get a feeling of what's 'hot' in the Mac community when it comes to apps, news sites, grievances, conflicts, hardware support -- whatever.
Get used to not needing to periodically reinstall your operating system every six months. In fact, get used to not even feeling the need to do a clean install when an OS X upgrade is released -- I haven't since 10.1.5, and my system is still speedy (and functional).
The one-button mouse thing is a matter of preference. On my iBook I'm perfectly happy with the one-button configuration, and I find myself always accidently hitting the right mouse button when using friends' x86 laptops. At home on my PowerMac however, I use a 4-button Logitech dual optical mouse, primarily for gaming. Otherwise I'd probably still be using the included mouse, though the scroll wheel has become pretty addictive.
My last suggestion would be to immediately start seeing your computer as a tool for creation. Let's be honest: the Windows world has its share of creativity apps, but it can't escape its origins as a platform of choice for bourgeoisie corporate America; Windows does not particularly inspire or encourage one to be creative. Jobs on the other hand has been pushing the 'digital lifestyle' for quite some time now, and the idea that computers can be used for individual expression and creation with the iLife suite. Don't be afraid to splurge on a DV cam and let your hidden creative talents surface; iMovie, Garageband, and iDVD come packed in with OS X. I had absolutely no interest in video creation until I started playing with iMovie, and saw how easy it could be. When iMovie no longer met my needs I moved onto Final Cut Express, and have become quite fond of it as well, creating a couple pretty impressive projects.
Once you grow a bit fonder of Macs, it might not hurt to buy some older, pre-OS X machines. Start learning a bit about the intricacies of old-world Macs, and even 68k machines. Install Linux or BSD on a couple of them; become familiar with older versions of MacOS. It's kind of like the x86 world; you'll understand so much more about where Macs are today if you have a solid historical framework of where they've been. Of course, this is not necessary, but if you want to become a Mac Geek it truly helps. Not to mention you may be in a position some day where you need to have Macs running OS 8.1, BSD machines, OS X machines, and Windows machines all talking to one another.
1) Most people who claim they just buy the boxes to install Linux on them or mod them will very likely purchase at least one game. They're also likely to buy accessories. On top of that, I wonder if MS is still taking a loss on the Xbox, since the hardware is so antiquated at this point.
2) Using the machine itself adds to its geek chic, and makes it seem attractive to friends and colleagues, who very likely will not mod the box, or install Linux, but simply purchase retail software for it. This works to Microsoft's advantage since they receive publicity; by supporting them even through piracy one is still popularizing the machine and its 'coolness' factor, which will eventually lead to legitimate game sales.
I refuse to give Microsoft any of my money, which is why I've been using Logitech mice for quite some time. I'm quite happy with my mouseman dual optical. It's also the same reason I refuse to buy an Xbox, even if they do supposedly take a 'loss' for every unit. Why do you want to help the beast grow?
Every penny you give them is another they use to reenforce their digital hegemony, and battles against alternatives. People on Slashdot should know better.
Bearing in mind how cheaply one can acquire an x86 PC capable of reasonable performance (no app run over remote desktop will ever be *fast*), this has to be the most efficient way for users of low-powered macs to run Windows apps.
Unless you don't want another desktop cluttering your room or house, and the noise, heat, and power consumption associated with it. Or if you work away from home on a regular basis, and need to have access to both Windows and OS X on your laptop.
Literally months go by sometimes before I need to do anything with Windows. An emulator is much better suited for someone like me than another PC I'd rarely use.
. . . who took the makers of Streambox Ripper to court because it allowed one to convert Real Audio files to WAV, MP3, AIFF, etc.
Hypocrites.
This (along with other questionable practices) is why a lot of people are rooting for Apple, even though Real would ordinarily have the moral high ground.
And well, historically Apple has made some pretty cool and innovative products, while Real has done nothing particularly interesting.
I dunno, I think Real Player for OS X is probably the only version that doesn't suck. Actually, the only reason this little squabble between Apple and Real bothers me is because it could potentially mean the end of Real Player for OS X.
So why is it that OpenOffice for Aqua is so far off? Come on people- stop bitching, step up to the plate!
Maybe they're like me and anticipating that Apple will create a word processor and spreadsheet program equally as good as Keynote. Word is the only MS app I'm hanging onto, and I have no use for Excel.
With the former developers of Gobe Productive now working for Apple we might see something happen soon.
A lowly tech writer would be someone working for peanuts at relatively unknown magazines, newspapers, and news sites. Suzanne Ross just writes news releases disguised as 'articles' for MS (do a search for her name on research.microsoft.com, she has a slew of articles to her name).
Students or not, I find it interesting that three Asian researchers get no credit in the article, while Cohen gets the spotlight. Mentioning their names in the article wouldn't have required much effort. If I were Cohen's colleagues I'd be a bit upset after doing equal, if not more work than him but receiving no recognition from my employer. Something tells me that if they weren't 'foreigners' they'd be sharing equal time with Cohen.
And no, most people quickly reviewing a news blurb aren't going to hunt down the paper on Cohen's website to find out who his other colleagues are.
So we have 3 PhDs working for Microsoft and a doctoral student working at Microsoft doing research, and its Microsoft stealing credit?
If I were reading an academic paper on linguistics, and discovered it was made possible by a research grant from General Mills, do you think I'd give General Mills credit, or the author(s) of the article?
Troll. And you have a fairly low UID compared to most I see in these threads
Oh no! Just a hint, if you're going to argue try not to begin with strong statements, then end with something really moronic. It kind of destroys the credibility you were working to build.
So basically MS is taking credit for work largely done by three Asian graduate students? Kind of like three Ph.D. students at Harvard finding a cure for AIDS, and then Harvard claiming it's their discovery.
Cohen's colleagues get zero name recognition in the MS article. Kind of awkward don't you think? It comes off as if the other workers' contributions are insignificant.
The parent is still very informative. We wouldn't have even known about the other contributors if it weren't for him.
And anyone who has worked under a big-name advisor on a project knows they have a tendency to take credit for more than they actually did, especially when foreign students are involved.
I can't wait to see how many people abuse this whenever (if ever) it's integrated into Microsoft's lame Movie Maker program. Prepare knock-offs of Ah-Ha's "Take on Me" video in 3, 2, 1 . ..
And you know some obnoxious dad who films every moment of his kid's life will just love this. Prepare to be bored whenever your friend of family member sends you his oh-not-so interesting home movies saturated with this, and other effects (sometimes better is less, okay?)
That said, it looks kind of cool, though I suspect it has been done before.
Yeah, but not supported and will not run are two different things. I'm pretty sure you can install YDL 4.0 on old-world machines, just not with Terrasoft's help.
That said, I think that's a dumb move on their part. I'd imagine half (if not more) of YDL users are running it on old machines that either can't support OS X, or run it too sluggishly to bother. The beige G3s are still powerful machines. If you can still install Fedora on a circa-1994 Pentium, you should be able to put YDL on a G3 from 1998.
Except with multiplayer games, where after a couple generations the on-line community is completely dead; once you beat the game in single user mode that's pretty much it.
But yeah, I still enjoy playing the original UT over all others -- even though my machine is capable of playing 2003 and 2004 acceptably.
When you start going back to older games you basically deal with a few gems, but past that you're wading through a lot of crap that's hit or miss, and probably not worth wasting even $5 on.
I guess in my original post I wasn't specific enough, mainly because the story is about Doom 3. What I'm really hoping for are FPS games that are aimed for the low and mid range. As it stands now, every new FPS release requires some kind of hardware upgrade. Why does the FPS genre have to be constantly pushed to technical limits?
just wanted to point out that "conductive" means that something absorbs/transfers heat easily. A heat sink is very heat conductive. Blankets, on the other hand, are heat insulators.
Hehe, thanks. I actually suspected I used the wrong word after posting.
Doom 3 looks cool, but I probably won't play it for a couple years.
Not just because the Mac version hasn't been released, but because my system works fine for 99% of the tasks I need it to, and probably will continue to for some time. I've upgraded the graphics card already (when UT2003 was released), and I'll probably add dual 1.3ghz G4s at some point. Even then, Doom will probably still perform poorly.
And it's really not a Mac thing. If I were a PC user I'd be responding the same way. It seems to me there has to be a market out there for games that perform well on mid-range computers. There is probably a market for computer gamers who aren't interested in shelling out hundreds of dollars every year -- for one game. Technical limitations shouldn't, and really don't stop one from producing a fun game. This is one of the reasons I enjoy playing emus far more than the latest releases; all the 3D crap gets out of hand sometimes.
A company needs to emerge, or a company like ID should seriously think of creating one kick-ass game targeted at low/mid-range systems; something people with 3 year old systems want just as bad as those with the latest and greatest. I think it's possible.
Older hardware still has a lot of life in it. I remember Sierra games released in the early 90s could still run on PCJrs released in the early 80s. A good game doesn't mean forcing people to splurge on expensive hardware. What I'm talking about here is a game just as well-developed and thought out as Doom 3, but targeted to run on older and newer hardware.
I don't think it's crazy. If anything it would generate more customers, especially if marketed correctly. There's people who enjoy the FPS genre, but aren't interested in the teenage upgrade cycle. Consoles are an answer to a certain extent, but FPS have rarely been executed correctly on them.
Oh, BTW -- places like MaMall regularly sell the last generation of G3 iBooks for about $699. Not a bad price in my opinion, especially if you want a cheap machine to experience OS X on.
Mine regularly lasts close to 6 hours on the battery, at least while doing non-intensive tasks and keeping the brightness at a reasonable level. Not to mention it never heats up to an unbearable level, even on a summer day; I've heard its fan come on maybe 5 or 6 times since I've owned it, and its usually been when I had it on a heat conductive surface (like a blanket or thick carpet).
Nothing beats Apple laptops in my opinion, especially in the low-end. Something comparable to a 12" iBook in size, weight, and battery life, ends up costing $1500 in the PC world (at least when I checked out the Thinkpads).
What about stuff you wouldn't buy . . . period.
on
The File Sharing Database
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I'm sure there's tons of people who would switch to OpenOffice, Gimp, or Linux if there was no way to pirate a copy of Office, Photoshop, or Windows.
The average person who pirates Photoshop uses it to crop pictures and some minor editing. They wouldn't pay for it if it couldn't be pirated, they'd just use something else.
How many mp3s have you downloaded just for background noise, but wouldn't waste even a dollar on? Probably lots.
Liking something is a lot different than liking something so much to spend hard earned money on it -- at least to me.
While you're petitioning for a change of the IT color scheme I'd like to bring attention to this purple monstrosity.
And to those saying the parent is offtopic, this color scheme is the equivalent to a 14 year old's Geocities page with white text on yellow background. It's just a bad design choice.
Slashdot Mirror
All of this crap was included in my 'technology fees' every semester. Though, I lived off campus and (aside from using wireless, and the school's E-Mail system) I had no use for it. Half of the computers in the labs were on the fritz anyway; surely if I were forced to do my day-to-day assignments there I'd be afraid of data loss.
"why are my school tuition fees being spent on frivilous sundries benefiting 3rd party companies instead of improving my schools educational resources"
Better question is how come that money isn't spent equally on diverse platforms (i.e. Mac, Linux, Sun, whatever). Instead, MS buys out the entire college.
At my school the technology desk used to send Mac users to me whenever they needed help setting up their wireless connection or accessing the school network. I had no problem with that, because their alternative policy was "not Windows, not supported." To the school's credit though not everyone was incredibly closed-minded. I guess this is what happens though when corporate interests become infused with curriculum and budgeting.
I wrote them a complaint after graduation.
I think this is the most overlooked thing about the new iMacs. Except for the graphics chip, virtually everything can be swapped and replaced. Who knows, third party manufactures may offer CPU upgrades for it in the future. It's really the first all-in-one Mac that I might be comfortable owning.
BTW: why aren't we seeing commercials for it on TV yet?
I switched a little over two years ago from maybe 19 years of DOS/Windows/Linux/VMS/c64 use. To echo what many others have said here, the switch is really not that difficult. Within a day or two I was pretty much at home.
What really helps is having a friend or two who have been avid Mac users, not so much for technical difficulties, but to quickly find out the most common ways, or the most popular apps that can accomplish a specific task. For example, you're likely to find a ton of FTP apps on Versiontracker, but a friend can give you an idea of which you should check out first, instead of wading through 20 different programs that suck. Or, if you have a pretty thorough knowledge of UNIX you may find yourself heading straight to the Terminal, when it may be easier (and in some cases even necessary) to accomplish something through the GUI.
Also it doesn't hurt to hang out in a heavily populated Mac chat room for a while. You can ask questions when needed, but also observe others' frequently asked questions, whose answers may be of use to you in the future. You'll also get a feeling of what's 'hot' in the Mac community when it comes to apps, news sites, grievances, conflicts, hardware support -- whatever.
Get used to not needing to periodically reinstall your operating system every six months. In fact, get used to not even feeling the need to do a clean install when an OS X upgrade is released -- I haven't since 10.1.5, and my system is still speedy (and functional).
The one-button mouse thing is a matter of preference. On my iBook I'm perfectly happy with the one-button configuration, and I find myself always accidently hitting the right mouse button when using friends' x86 laptops. At home on my PowerMac however, I use a 4-button Logitech dual optical mouse, primarily for gaming. Otherwise I'd probably still be using the included mouse, though the scroll wheel has become pretty addictive.
My last suggestion would be to immediately start seeing your computer as a tool for creation. Let's be honest: the Windows world has its share of creativity apps, but it can't escape its origins as a platform of choice for bourgeoisie corporate America; Windows does not particularly inspire or encourage one to be creative. Jobs on the other hand has been pushing the 'digital lifestyle' for quite some time now, and the idea that computers can be used for individual expression and creation with the iLife suite. Don't be afraid to splurge on a DV cam and let your hidden creative talents surface; iMovie, Garageband, and iDVD come packed in with OS X. I had absolutely no interest in video creation until I started playing with iMovie, and saw how easy it could be. When iMovie no longer met my needs I moved onto Final Cut Express, and have become quite fond of it as well, creating a couple pretty impressive projects.
Once you grow a bit fonder of Macs, it might not hurt to buy some older, pre-OS X machines. Start learning a bit about the intricacies of old-world Macs, and even 68k machines. Install Linux or BSD on a couple of them; become familiar with older versions of MacOS. It's kind of like the x86 world; you'll understand so much more about where Macs are today if you have a solid historical framework of where they've been. Of course, this is not necessary, but if you want to become a Mac Geek it truly helps. Not to mention you may be in a position some day where you need to have Macs running OS 8.1, BSD machines, OS X machines, and Windows machines all talking to one another.
Except for two things:
1) Most people who claim they just buy the boxes to install Linux on them or mod them will very likely purchase at least one game. They're also likely to buy accessories. On top of that, I wonder if MS is still taking a loss on the Xbox, since the hardware is so antiquated at this point.
2) Using the machine itself adds to its geek chic, and makes it seem attractive to friends and colleagues, who very likely will not mod the box, or install Linux, but simply purchase retail software for it. This works to Microsoft's advantage since they receive publicity; by supporting them even through piracy one is still popularizing the machine and its 'coolness' factor, which will eventually lead to legitimate game sales.
I refuse to give Microsoft any of my money, which is why I've been using Logitech mice for quite some time. I'm quite happy with my mouseman dual optical. It's also the same reason I refuse to buy an Xbox, even if they do supposedly take a 'loss' for every unit. Why do you want to help the beast grow?
Every penny you give them is another they use to reenforce their digital hegemony, and battles against alternatives. People on Slashdot should know better.
The only problem is ZTerm doesn't support ssh or telnet.
Additionally, being able to transfer files with Zmodem would be great as well. Though I think this is pushing things too far.
Literally months go by sometimes before I need to do anything with Windows. An emulator is much better suited for someone like me than another PC I'd rarely use.
When the guy is SPEAKING in English. Do people have that hard of a time understanding an accent?
Good to see they included the Belkin voice recorders with these, though I wonder why they didn't go with iTalks instead.
1 minute of voice recording on the iPod takes just one meg, so you could probably keep an entire semester's worth of lectures on an iPod.
There's a PPC chip in every Gamecube as well.
. . . who took the makers of Streambox Ripper to court because it allowed one to convert Real Audio files to WAV, MP3, AIFF, etc.
Hypocrites.
This (along with other questionable practices) is why a lot of people are rooting for Apple, even though Real would ordinarily have the moral high ground.
And well, historically Apple has made some pretty cool and innovative products, while Real has done nothing particularly interesting.
I dunno, I think Real Player for OS X is probably the only version that doesn't suck. Actually, the only reason this little squabble between Apple and Real bothers me is because it could potentially mean the end of Real Player for OS X.
And their jukebox -- who cares?
With the former developers of Gobe Productive now working for Apple we might see something happen soon.
A lowly tech writer would be someone working for peanuts at relatively unknown magazines, newspapers, and news sites. Suzanne Ross just writes news releases disguised as 'articles' for MS (do a search for her name on research.microsoft.com, she has a slew of articles to her name).
Students or not, I find it interesting that three Asian researchers get no credit in the article, while Cohen gets the spotlight. Mentioning their names in the article wouldn't have required much effort. If I were Cohen's colleagues I'd be a bit upset after doing equal, if not more work than him but receiving no recognition from my employer. Something tells me that if they weren't 'foreigners' they'd be sharing equal time with Cohen.
And no, most people quickly reviewing a news blurb aren't going to hunt down the paper on Cohen's website to find out who his other colleagues are.
So we have 3 PhDs working for Microsoft and a doctoral student working at Microsoft doing research, and its Microsoft stealing credit?
If I were reading an academic paper on linguistics, and discovered it was made possible by a research grant from General Mills, do you think I'd give General Mills credit, or the author(s) of the article?
Troll. And you have a fairly low UID compared to most I see in these threads
Oh no! Just a hint, if you're going to argue try not to begin with strong statements, then end with something really moronic. It kind of destroys the credibility you were working to build.
So basically MS is taking credit for work largely done by three Asian graduate students? Kind of like three Ph.D. students at Harvard finding a cure for AIDS, and then Harvard claiming it's their discovery.
Cohen's colleagues get zero name recognition in the MS article. Kind of awkward don't you think? It comes off as if the other workers' contributions are insignificant.
The parent is still very informative. We wouldn't have even known about the other contributors if it weren't for him.
And anyone who has worked under a big-name advisor on a project knows they have a tendency to take credit for more than they actually did, especially when foreign students are involved.
I can't wait to see how many people abuse this whenever (if ever) it's integrated into Microsoft's lame Movie Maker program. Prepare knock-offs of Ah-Ha's "Take on Me" video in 3, 2, 1 . . .
And you know some obnoxious dad who films every moment of his kid's life will just love this. Prepare to be bored whenever your friend of family member sends you his oh-not-so interesting home movies saturated with this, and other effects (sometimes better is less, okay?)
That said, it looks kind of cool, though I suspect it has been done before.
Yeah, but not supported and will not run are two different things. I'm pretty sure you can install YDL 4.0 on old-world machines, just not with Terrasoft's help.
That said, I think that's a dumb move on their part. I'd imagine half (if not more) of YDL users are running it on old machines that either can't support OS X, or run it too sluggishly to bother. The beige G3s are still powerful machines. If you can still install Fedora on a circa-1994 Pentium, you should be able to put YDL on a G3 from 1998.
Except with multiplayer games, where after a couple generations the on-line community is completely dead; once you beat the game in single user mode that's pretty much it.
But yeah, I still enjoy playing the original UT over all others -- even though my machine is capable of playing 2003 and 2004 acceptably.
When you start going back to older games you basically deal with a few gems, but past that you're wading through a lot of crap that's hit or miss, and probably not worth wasting even $5 on.
I guess in my original post I wasn't specific enough, mainly because the story is about Doom 3. What I'm really hoping for are FPS games that are aimed for the low and mid range. As it stands now, every new FPS release requires some kind of hardware upgrade. Why does the FPS genre have to be constantly pushed to technical limits?
just wanted to point out that "conductive" means that something absorbs/transfers heat easily. A heat sink is very heat conductive. Blankets, on the other hand, are heat insulators.
Hehe, thanks. I actually suspected I used the wrong word after posting.
Doom 3 looks cool, but I probably won't play it for a couple years.
Not just because the Mac version hasn't been released, but because my system works fine for 99% of the tasks I need it to, and probably will continue to for some time. I've upgraded the graphics card already (when UT2003 was released), and I'll probably add dual 1.3ghz G4s at some point. Even then, Doom will probably still perform poorly.
And it's really not a Mac thing. If I were a PC user I'd be responding the same way. It seems to me there has to be a market out there for games that perform well on mid-range computers. There is probably a market for computer gamers who aren't interested in shelling out hundreds of dollars every year -- for one game. Technical limitations shouldn't, and really don't stop one from producing a fun game. This is one of the reasons I enjoy playing emus far more than the latest releases; all the 3D crap gets out of hand sometimes.
A company needs to emerge, or a company like ID should seriously think of creating one kick-ass game targeted at low/mid-range systems; something people with 3 year old systems want just as bad as those with the latest and greatest. I think it's possible.
Older hardware still has a lot of life in it. I remember Sierra games released in the early 90s could still run on PCJrs released in the early 80s. A good game doesn't mean forcing people to splurge on expensive hardware. What I'm talking about here is a game just as well-developed and thought out as Doom 3, but targeted to run on older and newer hardware.
I don't think it's crazy. If anything it would generate more customers, especially if marketed correctly. There's people who enjoy the FPS genre, but aren't interested in the teenage upgrade cycle. Consoles are an answer to a certain extent, but FPS have rarely been executed correctly on them.
Oh, BTW -- places like MaMall regularly sell the last generation of G3 iBooks for about $699. Not a bad price in my opinion, especially if you want a cheap machine to experience OS X on.
Mine regularly lasts close to 6 hours on the battery, at least while doing non-intensive tasks and keeping the brightness at a reasonable level. Not to mention it never heats up to an unbearable level, even on a summer day; I've heard its fan come on maybe 5 or 6 times since I've owned it, and its usually been when I had it on a heat conductive surface (like a blanket or thick carpet).
Nothing beats Apple laptops in my opinion, especially in the low-end. Something comparable to a 12" iBook in size, weight, and battery life, ends up costing $1500 in the PC world (at least when I checked out the Thinkpads).
I'm sure there's tons of people who would switch to OpenOffice, Gimp, or Linux if there was no way to pirate a copy of Office, Photoshop, or Windows.
The average person who pirates Photoshop uses it to crop pictures and some minor editing. They wouldn't pay for it if it couldn't be pirated, they'd just use something else.
How many mp3s have you downloaded just for background noise, but wouldn't waste even a dollar on? Probably lots.
Liking something is a lot different than liking something so much to spend hard earned money on it -- at least to me.
While you're petitioning for a change of the IT color scheme I'd like to bring attention to this purple monstrosity.
And to those saying the parent is offtopic, this color scheme is the equivalent to a 14 year old's Geocities page with white text on yellow background. It's just a bad design choice.