Pinkerton discusses the "why Camino instead of Firefox" issue:
What do you see as Camino's selling point vs. Safari and Firefox?
I like to think of Camino as the browser for everyone who isn't Steve Jobs. Safari is going to go in the direction that Jobs wants to take it. Sure, there are a lot of interesting things developing, but there are also a lot of interactions that people really don't care for. Camino provides them an excellent alternative and serves to keep Apple looking over its shoulder. We keep them honest and the end user reaps the benefits.
The selling point to Firefox is subtle, but obvious to people who have run the two. First and foremost, Camino is a browser built from the ground up for Mac OS X, integrating as much with the OS as possible. We have Address Book, Rendezvous, and Keychain integration which aren't even on the radar for Firefox. When we discuss features or UI, it's "Mac-first, Mac-only," not "How can we back-port this to Mac so that it will still work?" Our fundamental goal with Camino is to make the best Mac browser, not the best browser that happens to also run on the Mac.
Oh, I should add that Safari isn't an option for anyone on 10.1, and isn't really that good of an option on 10.2 (slower, some major bugs that have been fixed in 10.3-only versions, etc., IIRC), which really helps make an argument for Camino on those older OS versions.
I find Safari to be better on slow connections, but only because PithHelmet is so effective. Camino is typically faster (PB G4/800, 512 MB RAM) on anything better than a 56K dialup.
Both browsers have their rendering quirks, though both are Good Enough(tm) for government work. I prefer the interface of Camino overall, because I find it less visually jarring than the brushed-metal look of Safari (which, before anyone comments, looks downright *weird* in its Aqua "theme," with the brushed-metal look removed).
I still use Camino as my primary browser, though if there's something absolutely critical that I need to get to on a slow connection, I'll use Safari.
Also, Camino tends to play more nicely with sites that (stupidly) exclude browsers based on the user-agent string. Yes, you can change it in Safari, but Camino Just Works(tm) more often than not, and it's one less thing you have to mess with.
I can't really think of a good reason to recommend *against* either one, though. That says a lot for the current state of browsers on the Mac.
Dupe, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL
And right about here is where I got too lazy to continue. Go make up your own lyrics for the rest. Not that anyone remembers the original beyond the bass line anyway.;)
That he finally got caught after doing that some thirty-six times. Figure six times per month (every five days) for a six-month period...how the hell did he manage to screw that one up?
That's what happens when you read posts like this one while trying to tie up your yacht at the dock in the middle of Hurricane Frances. I'd provide a link but I can't seem to find any clips from that video on the Web. If you've seen any news in the last 36 hours, you'll know what video I'm talking about, though.;)
Keep in mind that heat is a byproduct of power consumption. Unless battery technology can keep up with processor technology, we'll reach the practical limits of power storage before we reach the limits of heat dissipation. I think the power draw of high-end laptops will be the limiting factor, rather than the heat dissipation.
Unless there's some really obvious stuff they're NOT doing at the moment?
There have been two or three schemes floated around in the last few years on the rumour sites that, as far as I can recall, never really went anywhere (or at least not to the extent that the rumour sites claimed). The most promising that comes to mind was some liquid-cooled setup with a tiny radiator, like a cross between heat pipes and a full water-cooling rig (which obviously would suck down far too much power for laptop use). I can't remember any more details than that, or a link, but yeah.
You've hit the nail on the head with the comments about the CPU. The key isn't necessarily better cooling technologies -- the key is getting the processor heat output down to manageable levels, and that's IBM's responsibility. Right now, I'd prefer they concentrate on getting over their 2.5 GHz speed hump, and then maybe they can start working on lower-power downclocked versions of the 2.0 GHz CPU. I think a 1.5 GHz G5 PowerBook would go over *really* well, despite the obvious disadvantage relative to the high-end laptop. The G5-in-a-laptop would a huge psychological boost for sales, even without performing on par with the desktops.
Then again, a dual-1 GHz G4 laptop would be an interesting idea, too...
In everyone's clamouring for a G5 PowerBook, a lot of people have said that this iMac proves a G5 PowerBook could be coming soon.
Joswiak does a great job of explaining exactly why that won't be happening:
There's still a luxury we have in two inches that we don't have in a fraction of an inch, if you think about how much space there really is in the bottom of a PowerBook... Certainly we were trying to learn from the iMac, but not like, "Oh, there's this breakthrough now, expect it next month.
I want a G5 PowerBook as bad as the next guy, but I'm a realist about it. If we see one by MWSF in January I'll be VERY impressed.
Fascinating interview overall. Anything that gives insight into Apple's collective thought process is worthwhile for the rest of the tech industry to keep an eye on.
I read inaccurate news. I read mistakes in references. The only difference here is that it can be malicious.
...and mistakes can be corrected by anyone who knows better. This, to me, is why something like Wikipedia is so great. I don't do a lot of factual editing there, but I certainly won't hesitate to do copyediting, which I must say is rather lacking in a lot of so-called "mainstream" Internet news outlets.
It would also be interesting to see if this can make a difference to the long term effect of all the high power electromagnetic radiation that we are covering ourselves with! (emphasis added -ed)
I think you meant high-frequency. The set of definitions of "high-power" wouldn't appear to include cell fone transmitters.
But until there's some hard scientific evidence for negative medical effects of long-term exposure to RF, I'm remaining on the "RF isn't going to hurt you" side of the fence.
The Sunbird Project is a redesign of the Mozilla Calendar component. Our goal is to produce a cross platform standalone calendar application based on Mozilla's XUL user interface language. At the moment the "Sunbird" name is a project name. It is not official and may change in the future.
I remember not so long ago a news about some researchers that managed to create a conductive plastic; it was a remarkably better conductor than cooper.
References, please.
I worked in the field of conductive polymers for a year, and I'm fairly familiar with what the state of the art was in 2002-3, and let me assure you, nothing that's been developed at this point is remotely close to being as conductive as copper.
There has been some minor success with organic (polymer) semiconductors, but you're not going to be seeing any plastic wiring in a laptop any time soon. Even if it is perfected in the next five years -- which it won't be -- copper is still going to be several orders of magnitude cheaper, and thus more cost-efficient.
Yeah. Look out for Magneto. They're going to have to find a new material for his jail cell. And he won't even need a scary shape-shifter girl to inject a guard with 10 cc of liquid iron the night before to break out this time...
Try some software that makes link lights obsolete. Added benefits include not having to contort yourself into a position where you can see behind the operating computer and a fun little gross traffic logging feature.
As for the upper limit, well after the computer has been used for 4 years and it's now running more demanding applicatons, one can stick in a single, cheap, low-end 4GB DDR DIMM and suddenly have the thing perform vastly better.
And in four years, there will probably be RAM chips that allow this iMac to go past the 2 GB limit.
Fourteen years ago, nobody thought you'd be able to put 128 MB RAM in an SE/30, either. Or 196 MB in a Performa 630-series. Or 132 MB in an LC 575.
Heck, to cite a more recent example, no one thought you'd be able to cram 512 MB RAM into a 7200, or 768 MB into a beige G3. But you can.
Go check Apple's official specs for those machines. They *still* don't list the true RAM capabilities, but rather the factory specs.
I'm not worried about the G5 iMac in four years. Someone will figure something out for when you need a gig of RAM just to run the damned OS (says the crotchety old veteran who remembers running everything he needed in 4 MB RAM with 2 MB left over).
Well, in their defence (?), the thing *does* cost $1900 already. Can you imagine what a screen with a three-inch larger diagonal would have bumped the price up to?
Great. A laptop that only a two-year-old can type on. Those of us with normal-sized hands can look forward to cramping, RSI, and other fun medical issues.
Why not do something semi-revolutionary and incorporate a keyboard like the FrodPad into it instead of trying to shoehorn an entire QWERTY layout in there?
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Pinkerton discusses the "why Camino instead of Firefox" issue:
p
Oh, I should add that Safari isn't an option for anyone on 10.1, and isn't really that good of an option on 10.2 (slower, some major bugs that have been fixed in 10.3-only versions, etc., IIRC), which really helps make an argument for Camino on those older OS versions.
p
I find Safari to be better on slow connections, but only because PithHelmet is so effective. Camino is typically faster (PB G4/800, 512 MB RAM) on anything better than a 56K dialup.
Both browsers have their rendering quirks, though both are Good Enough(tm) for government work. I prefer the interface of Camino overall, because I find it less visually jarring than the brushed-metal look of Safari (which, before anyone comments, looks downright *weird* in its Aqua "theme," with the brushed-metal look removed).
I still use Camino as my primary browser, though if there's something absolutely critical that I need to get to on a slow connection, I'll use Safari.
Also, Camino tends to play more nicely with sites that (stupidly) exclude browsers based on the user-agent string. Yes, you can change it in Safari, but Camino Just Works(tm) more often than not, and it's one less thing you have to mess with.
I can't really think of a good reason to recommend *against* either one, though. That says a lot for the current state of browsers on the Mac.
p
Here.
;)
Dupe, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL
Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL
Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL
Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL, Dupe, Dupe, Dupe of URL
And right about here is where I got too lazy to continue. Go make up your own lyrics for the rest. Not that anyone remembers the original beyond the bass line anyway.
(Shameless ripoff of Duke of Earl)
Clearly Apple could release a PowerMac G5, but it wouldn't be as thin and light as the 12" G4.
Which is why they can't release a PowerBook G5 yet.
p
The funniest part?
That he finally got caught after doing that some thirty-six times. Figure six times per month (every five days) for a six-month period...how the hell did he manage to screw that one up?
Not a real bright one, I think.
p
Laughing On Rolling Floor.
;)
That's what happens when you read posts like this one while trying to tie up your yacht at the dock in the middle of Hurricane Frances. I'd provide a link but I can't seem to find any clips from that video on the Web. If you've seen any news in the last 36 hours, you'll know what video I'm talking about, though.
p
This has also been covered briefly on Engadget and more thoroughly on BoingBoing, where links to the original article and the District Attorney's report are provided.
p
If that article is so broken, why don't you fix it? You can, after all...
p
I wonder when will Apple be building fanless Macs again?
As soon as The Steve gets out of recuperation and asserts his Iron Will on the otherwise-sound engineering process.
Just like he did with the first four Macintosh models, a mistake which cost consumers dearly due to having to replace heat-damaged parts.
I like Jobs as a businessman, but he's a terrible engineer.
p
Keep in mind that heat is a byproduct of power consumption. Unless battery technology can keep up with processor technology, we'll reach the practical limits of power storage before we reach the limits of heat dissipation. I think the power draw of high-end laptops will be the limiting factor, rather than the heat dissipation.
p
Unless there's some really obvious stuff they're NOT doing at the moment?
There have been two or three schemes floated around in the last few years on the rumour sites that, as far as I can recall, never really went anywhere (or at least not to the extent that the rumour sites claimed). The most promising that comes to mind was some liquid-cooled setup with a tiny radiator, like a cross between heat pipes and a full water-cooling rig (which obviously would suck down far too much power for laptop use). I can't remember any more details than that, or a link, but yeah.
You've hit the nail on the head with the comments about the CPU. The key isn't necessarily better cooling technologies -- the key is getting the processor heat output down to manageable levels, and that's IBM's responsibility. Right now, I'd prefer they concentrate on getting over their 2.5 GHz speed hump, and then maybe they can start working on lower-power downclocked versions of the 2.0 GHz CPU. I think a 1.5 GHz G5 PowerBook would go over *really* well, despite the obvious disadvantage relative to the high-end laptop. The G5-in-a-laptop would a huge psychological boost for sales, even without performing on par with the desktops.
Then again, a dual-1 GHz G4 laptop would be an interesting idea, too...
p
Joswiak does a great job of explaining exactly why that won't be happening:
I want a G5 PowerBook as bad as the next guy, but I'm a realist about it. If we see one by MWSF in January I'll be VERY impressed.
Fascinating interview overall. Anything that gives insight into Apple's collective thought process is worthwhile for the rest of the tech industry to keep an eye on.
p
I read inaccurate news. I read mistakes in references. The only difference here is that it can be malicious.
...and mistakes can be corrected by anyone who knows better. This, to me, is why something like Wikipedia is so great. I don't do a lot of factual editing there, but I certainly won't hesitate to do copyediting, which I must say is rather lacking in a lot of so-called "mainstream" Internet news outlets.
p
It would also be interesting to see if this can make a difference to the long term effect of all the high power electromagnetic radiation that we are covering ourselves with! (emphasis added -ed)
I think you meant high-frequency. The set of definitions of "high-power" wouldn't appear to include cell fone transmitters.
But until there's some hard scientific evidence for negative medical effects of long-term exposure to RF, I'm remaining on the "RF isn't going to hurt you" side of the fence.
p
Description of the Sender ID Framework from Microsoft.
It would be so much nicer if people writing/editing these stories would link to stuff that isn't blindingly obvious to everyone.
p
For those of you who don't know (from the project page):
I remember not so long ago a news about some researchers that managed to create a conductive plastic; it was a remarkably better conductor than cooper.
References, please.
I worked in the field of conductive polymers for a year, and I'm fairly familiar with what the state of the art was in 2002-3, and let me assure you, nothing that's been developed at this point is remotely close to being as conductive as copper.
There has been some minor success with organic (polymer) semiconductors, but you're not going to be seeing any plastic wiring in a laptop any time soon. Even if it is perfected in the next five years -- which it won't be -- copper is still going to be several orders of magnitude cheaper, and thus more cost-efficient.
p
Yeah. Look out for Magneto. They're going to have to find a new material for his jail cell. And he won't even need a scary shape-shifter girl to inject a guard with 10 cc of liquid iron the night before to break out this time...
p
OK, I'll bite.
:)
What the hell does that say, and what language is it in?
p
Here's your link.
p
Try some software that makes link lights obsolete. Added benefits include not having to contort yourself into a position where you can see behind the operating computer and a fun little gross traffic logging feature.
p
As for the upper limit, well after the computer has been used for 4 years and it's now running more demanding applicatons, one can stick in a single, cheap, low-end 4GB DDR DIMM and suddenly have the thing perform vastly better.
And in four years, there will probably be RAM chips that allow this iMac to go past the 2 GB limit.
Fourteen years ago, nobody thought you'd be able to put 128 MB RAM in an SE/30, either. Or 196 MB in a Performa 630-series. Or 132 MB in an LC 575.
Heck, to cite a more recent example, no one thought you'd be able to cram 512 MB RAM into a 7200, or 768 MB into a beige G3. But you can.
Go check Apple's official specs for those machines. They *still* don't list the true RAM capabilities, but rather the factory specs.
I'm not worried about the G5 iMac in four years. Someone will figure something out for when you need a gig of RAM just to run the damned OS (says the crotchety old veteran who remembers running everything he needed in 4 MB RAM with 2 MB left over).
p
Well, in their defence (?), the thing *does* cost $1900 already. Can you imagine what a screen with a three-inch larger diagonal would have bumped the price up to?
(Yes, I think this is too expensive.)
p
Great. A laptop that only a two-year-old can type on. Those of us with normal-sized hands can look forward to cramping, RSI, and other fun medical issues.
Why not do something semi-revolutionary and incorporate a keyboard like the FrodPad into it instead of trying to shoehorn an entire QWERTY layout in there?
p