You can only run their software on their hardware.
There are several flavors of linux (yellowdog, mandrake, linux-ppc, to name three) which will run on Apple hardware. Older mac hardware has had BSD ported to it also, iirc.
Darwin has been hacked up to run on non-Apple hardware, though since it's not shipped that way from Apple you probably will say it doesn't count.
Adobe software (Illustrator, Acrobat, et al) that reads PDF files will open any file if it has PDF data in it regardless of filetype/creatorcode info (because that info could be lost in a cross-platform file transfer). I've never used Quark, but I'm guessing that it is not even looking in the file for the telltale "%PDF" header unless the file is already marked by the OS as a pdf.
What I'm getting at is that this is an oversight in Quark, not the MacOS.
That HTML file, if dragged over the Internet Explorer icon, would have opened just fine. The mac didn't know which of your many HTML-reading programs to open it with, because the files metadata was not there (thanks to a less-advanced OS), but that doesn't mean you can't open it.
Also, macs have supported custom icons (for files, programs, folders, just about everything except maybe some certain system files) since long before windows did so your claims about icons are also dead wrong.
Like any platform, the mac has it's flaws. But lets stick to facts from now on, ok?
from the salon article:
The trouble is, even if some court orders Microsoft to throw Real Player into the Windows package, it doesn't make much difference if most users can't figure out how to switch the default player of music files from Windows Media to Real. When Joe User clicks on a music file, even if he likes Real Player and prefers to use it, Windows Media Player will open and play the file. Unless Joe is a power user or an extremely persistent fellow, he will eventually give up on Real. The competitor's software will sit on the hard drive, unused, while Microsoft takes over yet another market.
When the author resorted to this argument, they lost some credibility. RealPlayer asks you, repeatedly, if it can set itself to be the default player for ALL of it's supported media types.
I agree that file typing via.3 extensions sucks, and I agree that microsoft's interface for changing it sucks.
But I think RealPlayer making itself the default program for mp3 files (which nobody in their right mind wants) is more of a problem than other media types defaulting to WindowsMedia player.
Afterall, what do you really want to use RealPlayer for besides playing their propritary file format (which will be asigned to it anyway!)?
I realize it CAN play other files, and it makes an attempt to set itself as the default program for other types of files, I just don't think anyone actually wants to use it for those.
I mean, to play mp3s I could use winamp (for free) or I could use RealPlayer (pay or be subjected to annoying ads).
The only game I've played on both DC and PS2 is DOA2 (and DOA2:HC for ps2, but it's pretty simmilar). The DC version looks way better, mainly due to the softer edges. Some of the graphics in the PS2 version look really bad. Still, the ps2 version ('hardcore') has more characters, and thats cool. Would adding a little antialiasing have killed them though?
Apple had bigger problems a few years ago when the powerbook 5300 batteries went up in flames. They had to recall every powerbook 5300 to modify it so it could use a different (non-firestarting) battery.
Apple's having charger issues too now, as posted below.
What's funny is first, he overuses the $ sign like mad, and perl is so well known to be unreadable. I bet you're just bitter because you don't understand it.
Why don't you go read one of the numerous "learning perl" pages and come back when you understand the subject your talking about.
OT: Did you guys see the online petition to fire Jon Katz [petitiononline.com]? Somebody has brass.... Wow... 22 names! I guess you showed them!
I'd sugest if you care so much about katz you go disable him in your prefs. The option is there, you just need an account. Seems like you'd have an account since you care so much about/. you are making petitions about it, but whatever....
"I'm sorry you find the truth about Apples advertising strategy inflamatory."
My "flaimbait" comment had nothing to do with Apple's advertising and a lot to do with your smug implication that savy mac users are few and far between. I'm one of those users, and I know a lot of others. I was insulted on a personal level, and a group level, by your baseless claim.
Also, about the advertising: The mac is marketed as a "supercomputer" as well as being easy to use. Apple is trying to appeal to a broad group of people. That doesn't exclude savy people, it just includes the computer-ignorant masses with them. Macs are marketed to everybody.
I know some Mac users that are very good at photoshop and other apps, but couldn't find their way to the "Extentions Folder", much less some security control panel, if they tried.
And I know a lot of windows users like that too.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the mac platform. I can find my way to the "Extentions Folder", and I also know a good deal about windows and linux. But when it comes down to best desktop OS... I still pick the mac. It doesn't have so much to do with being able to understand something more complicated; it's apprecieating something elegant. Granted, I spend a good deal of time on my mac using NiftyTelnet SSH to connect the my linux server, but I still like being on the mac.
I can honestly say that I don't know any savvy Mac users (not syaing they don't exist, just that I don't know any), and unfortunately the Mac isn't marketed towards savvy users.
The default user can sudo, for one thing.
So, in theory, a malicious program could wait until it can record the user's password and then use that to become root.
Or maybe I understand sudo wrong.
So, if pirated copies do show up they can just say "Oh, the copy protection worked. This must be from the insecure UK version." Just like the Australian version of the Charley Pride CD. Clever.
If they wanted to do a decent test, the "copy protected" (in quotes because we all know it won't stop anyone) version of the cd should contain slightly different versions of songs (ie run a song 10 seconds longer etc) so they can tell the source of the tracks traded online.
Either (a) they're doing this and we just don't know or (b) they are stupid and wasting an oppurtunity to test if people are pirating their pirate-proof cd's. Just based on the fact that there are several releases of this new album, I'd imagine option (a) is correct.
I thought it was sort of amusing that the German version, the one with the strongest copy protection, could still be played in macs. I assume that means that with the right software linux could probably do it too (i doubt it's a hardware thing since apple doesn't make their own drives).
I wonder if you can use the scanner to save prints, or if it's only usable for their security system.
It would suck to have one of these and not be able to scan in other people's prints, and play with the resulting images.
Apple's voiceprint secuirty is like that: The only way to "save" a voiceprint is to create another user in the Multiple Users control panel. They built a whole extension for vioce recognition, you'd think they'd make it accessible to more than one place!
I'm sure someone will make a linux driver with all imaginable options. Right? Right?
That sort of means they make money off every transaction, doesn't it?
No. For small ammounts of money on personal accounts even receiving money is free. Also, with their new ATM/MasterCard option, you can spend money in your paypal account without fees (there is a $1 fee if you use an ATM but if you just run the card as a creditcard it's free).
I agree. PayPal is a revolutionary service. With their new ATM/MasterCard that pulls directly from my paypal balance, I think I might start using their service for offline commerce too.
I wonder how profitable (if at all) they are. Fees are only charged when you receive money from another paypal user, so a lot of people use the service entirely for free.
For the same reason other people think the internet is dangerous. And for the same reason there is a "Flat Earth Society" (whose public project's include creating propaganda about life on mars!). And for the same reason Curious George got elected. I could go on....
The article talks about "circumvention" being ilegal under the DMCA. Well, that means it is now ilegal to run a cable from your cd player to your audio-in on your soundcard. Because once you're to that point, you only need to hit record!
I raised this point in an earlier artcle, and there was some speculation that the copy-protection is actually in the music; that even if I held I mic to a speaker and recorded it the copy-protection would still be there and mp3 encoders would still choke on it.
This (from the article) clears all that up:
SunnComm embeds a technology, called MediaCloq, into a CD to make the CD's directory structure invisible so it cannot be read by a personal computer. For instance, the names of the tracks do not appear on a computer's screen, and as a result, the music cannot be ripped and transferred to a desktop. The CD, however, will still play in an ordinary CD player, according to SunnComm. Jacobs said what sets his company apart from competitors is that SunnComm does not alter the music itself because the company's technology leaves the tunes untouched.
So while some copy protection technology (from other companies) modifies the music, the technology is question does not. This makes circumvention trivial.
I think it would be very difficult to embed copy-protection signals in the actual music, without causing the music to sound noticably different. But even if that was achived, I'm 100% certain that some sort of filter software to remove the protection will be written. Sure, the software will be ilegal, but if the author can make it high-profile enough maybe it will get spread around like DeCSS.
From our standpoint, we are designing the software for the 99 percent of the people who don't want to steal the music but instead (want to) use it for whatever means--for whatever personal use that's allowed by the artist and the record label. The software was designed for those people, not for the 1 percent who are going to take the lock cutters and cut the lock off and steal music in an unauthorized way
OK how are they designing it for those people? Will those people get some new enjoyment from listening to a cd that's copy protected? Or will they only be frusturated that they can't record tracks of their new cd onto the mix cd they're making with their new PC?
More and more consumers are embracing mp3's and cd-r's. It's not just 'hackers' (someone needs to have the hacker vs. cracker talk with Mr. Jacobs because he's a little confused) anymore. If copy protection becomes widespread, these companies will alienaite a much larger portion of their customer base than they realize. Think how many people own portable mp3 players! Consumers like options, and this technology only gives you less options.
No, but most religions would frown on that. So his thinking is that the directors are atheists. I think this is wrong, however, because not believing in a religion is not the same as atheism. (Right?)
Ragardless, lots 'adult' film stars conder themselves to be religious and lots of productions are backed by religious people.
Us Athiests have enough problems as it is, with the president claiming we're not real citizens and all, so I just don't like porn getting blamed on us too.
They're considered by many to be Exodus's chief competition. Watch these guys get huge.
Did anyone else read the post?
Note that filing for protection from creditors while reorganizing is not the same as hanging up a big "closed" sign -- Exodus is still operating, and hopefully will be able to keep the LEDs turned on for a good long while
Slashdot Mirror
You can only run their software on their hardware.
There are several flavors of linux (yellowdog, mandrake, linux-ppc, to name three) which will run on Apple hardware. Older mac hardware has had BSD ported to it also, iirc.
Darwin has been hacked up to run on non-Apple hardware, though since it's not shipped that way from Apple you probably will say it doesn't count.
Adobe software (Illustrator, Acrobat, et al) that reads PDF files will open any file if it has PDF data in it regardless of filetype/creatorcode info (because that info could be lost in a cross-platform file transfer). I've never used Quark, but I'm guessing that it is not even looking in the file for the telltale "%PDF" header unless the file is already marked by the OS as a pdf.
What I'm getting at is that this is an oversight in Quark, not the MacOS.
All you gotta do is try!
That HTML file, if dragged over the Internet Explorer icon, would have opened just fine. The mac didn't know which of your many HTML-reading programs to open it with, because the files metadata was not there (thanks to a less-advanced OS), but that doesn't mean you can't open it.
Also, macs have supported custom icons (for files, programs, folders, just about everything except maybe some certain system files) since long before windows did so your claims about icons are also dead wrong.
Like any platform, the mac has it's flaws. But lets stick to facts from now on, ok?
from the salon article:
.3 extensions sucks, and I agree that microsoft's interface for changing it sucks.
The trouble is, even if some court orders Microsoft to throw Real Player into the Windows package, it doesn't make much difference if most users can't figure out how to switch the default player of music files from Windows Media to Real. When Joe User clicks on a music file, even if he likes Real Player and prefers to use it, Windows Media Player will open and play the file. Unless Joe is a power user or an extremely persistent fellow, he will eventually give up on Real. The competitor's software will sit on the hard drive, unused, while Microsoft takes over yet another market.
When the author resorted to this argument, they lost some credibility. RealPlayer asks you, repeatedly, if it can set itself to be the default player for ALL of it's supported media types.
I agree that file typing via
But I think RealPlayer making itself the default program for mp3 files (which nobody in their right mind wants) is more of a problem than other media types defaulting to WindowsMedia player.
Afterall, what do you really want to use RealPlayer for besides playing their propritary file format (which will be asigned to it anyway!)?
I realize it CAN play other files, and it makes an attempt to set itself as the default program for other types of files, I just don't think anyone actually wants to use it for those.
I mean, to play mp3s I could use winamp (for free) or I could use RealPlayer (pay or be subjected to annoying ads).
The only game I've played on both DC and PS2 is DOA2 (and DOA2:HC for ps2, but it's pretty simmilar). The DC version looks way better, mainly due to the softer edges. Some of the graphics in the PS2 version look really bad. Still, the ps2 version ('hardcore') has more characters, and thats cool. Would adding a little antialiasing have killed them though?
Contrary to timothy's garage sale remark, you can still buy brand new dreamcasts on Amazon.
The CNN story says you can buy the browser on Amazon too; I couldn't find it though.
Apple had bigger problems a few years ago when the powerbook 5300 batteries went up in flames. They had to recall every powerbook 5300 to modify it so it could use a different (non-firestarting) battery.
Apple's having charger issues too now, as posted below.
What's funny is first, he overuses the $ sign like mad, and perl is so well known to be unreadable.
/. you are making petitions about it, but whatever....
I bet you're just bitter because you don't understand it.
Why don't you go read one of the numerous "learning perl" pages and come back when you understand the subject your talking about.
OT: Did you guys see the online petition to fire Jon Katz [petitiononline.com]? Somebody has brass....
Wow... 22 names! I guess you showed them!
I'd sugest if you care so much about katz you go disable him in your prefs. The option is there, you just need an account. Seems like you'd have an account since you care so much about
I think the keyword here is 'Attempt'
I think the keyword is Astroturf.
From billmaly's story submission:
It looks like Microsoft may be trying to do the right thing from a security standpoint, at least on paper."
How does this stuff make it to slashdot's front page? C'mon, this is just blatant astroturfing!
"I'm sorry you find the truth about Apples advertising strategy inflamatory."
My "flaimbait" comment had nothing to do with Apple's advertising and a lot to do with your smug implication that savy mac users are few and far between. I'm one of those users, and I know a lot of others. I was insulted on a personal level, and a group level, by your baseless claim.
Also, about the advertising: The mac is marketed as a "supercomputer" as well as being easy to use. Apple is trying to appeal to a broad group of people. That doesn't exclude savy people, it just includes the computer-ignorant masses with them. Macs are marketed to everybody.
I know some Mac users that are very good at photoshop and other apps, but couldn't find their way to the "Extentions Folder", much less some security control panel, if they tried.
And I know a lot of windows users like that too.
Personally, I'm a big fan of the mac platform. I can find my way to the "Extentions Folder", and I also know a good deal about windows and linux. But when it comes down to best desktop OS... I still pick the mac. It doesn't have so much to do with being able to understand something more complicated; it's apprecieating something elegant. Granted, I spend a good deal of time on my mac using NiftyTelnet SSH to connect the my linux server, but I still like being on the mac.
I can honestly say that I don't know any savvy Mac users (not syaing they don't exist, just that I don't know any), and unfortunately the Mac isn't marketed towards savvy users.
(Score:-1, Flaimbait)
The default user can sudo, for one thing.
So, in theory, a malicious program could wait until it can record the user's password and then use that to become root.
Or maybe I understand sudo wrong.
Not true.
Microsoft has a large mac software division that makes IE as well as Office for Mac and some other software.
In fact, microsoft's mac division has more mac programmers than anywhere else but Apple (or so I read in a macworld article a few months back).
So, if pirated copies do show up they can just say "Oh, the copy protection worked. This must be from the insecure UK version." Just like the Australian version of the Charley Pride CD. Clever.
If they wanted to do a decent test, the "copy protected" (in quotes because we all know it won't stop anyone) version of the cd should contain slightly different versions of songs (ie run a song 10 seconds longer etc) so they can tell the source of the tracks traded online.
Either (a) they're doing this and we just don't know or (b) they are stupid and wasting an oppurtunity to test if people are pirating their pirate-proof cd's. Just based on the fact that there are several releases of this new album, I'd imagine option (a) is correct.
I thought it was sort of amusing that the German version, the one with the strongest copy protection, could still be played in macs. I assume that means that with the right software linux could probably do it too (i doubt it's a hardware thing since apple doesn't make their own drives).
"The Afghan Mujahedin are the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers of America." Ronald Reagan, March 2000.
Could anyone provide a source and/or some context behind this quote? I'm quite interested.
I wonder if you can use the scanner to save prints, or if it's only usable for their security system.
It would suck to have one of these and not be able to scan in other people's prints, and play with the resulting images.
Apple's voiceprint secuirty is like that: The only way to "save" a voiceprint is to create another user in the Multiple Users control panel. They built a whole extension for vioce recognition, you'd think they'd make it accessible to more than one place!
I'm sure someone will make a linux driver with all imaginable options. Right? Right?
This is some of the best news I've heard in some time.
Thank you, Mr. Keker.
That sort of means they make money off every transaction, doesn't it?
No. For small ammounts of money on personal accounts even receiving money is free. Also, with their new ATM/MasterCard option, you can spend money in your paypal account without fees (there is a $1 fee if you use an ATM but if you just run the card as a creditcard it's free).
They're going to fold in 12-18 months just like all the others now.
I doubt it.
They have 10 million users and are the standard payment method for online auctions.
I agree. PayPal is a revolutionary service. With their new ATM/MasterCard that pulls directly from my paypal balance, I think I might start using their service for offline commerce too.
I wonder how profitable (if at all) they are. Fees are only charged when you receive money from another paypal user, so a lot of people use the service entirely for free.
Why do people think hydrogen is so dangerous?
For the same reason other people think the internet is dangerous. And for the same reason there is a "Flat Earth Society" (whose public project's include creating propaganda about life on mars!). And for the same reason Curious George got elected. I could go on....
What can be heard can be recorded.
Oops.
The article talks about "circumvention" being ilegal under the DMCA. Well, that means it is now ilegal to run a cable from your cd player to your audio-in on your soundcard. Because once you're to that point, you only need to hit record!
I raised this point in an earlier artcle, and there was some speculation that the copy-protection is actually in the music; that even if I held I mic to a speaker and recorded it the copy-protection would still be there and mp3 encoders would still choke on it.
This (from the article) clears all that up:
SunnComm embeds a technology, called MediaCloq, into a CD to make the CD's directory structure invisible so it cannot be read by a personal computer. For instance, the names of the tracks do not appear on a computer's screen, and as a result, the music cannot be ripped and transferred to a desktop. The CD, however, will still play in an ordinary CD player, according to SunnComm. Jacobs said what sets his company apart from competitors is that SunnComm does not alter the music itself because the company's technology leaves the tunes untouched.
So while some copy protection technology (from other companies) modifies the music, the technology is question does not. This makes circumvention trivial.
I think it would be very difficult to embed copy-protection signals in the actual music, without causing the music to sound noticably different. But even if that was achived, I'm 100% certain that some sort of filter software to remove the protection will be written. Sure, the software will be ilegal, but if the author can make it high-profile enough maybe it will get spread around like DeCSS.
From our standpoint, we are designing the software for the 99 percent of the people who don't want to steal the music but instead (want to) use it for whatever means--for whatever personal use that's allowed by the artist and the record label. The software was designed for those people, not for the 1 percent who are going to take the lock cutters and cut the lock off and steal music in an unauthorized way
OK how are they designing it for those people? Will those people get some new enjoyment from listening to a cd that's copy protected? Or will they only be frusturated that they can't record tracks of their new cd onto the mix cd they're making with their new PC?
More and more consumers are embracing mp3's and cd-r's. It's not just 'hackers' (someone needs to have the hacker vs. cracker talk with Mr. Jacobs because he's a little confused) anymore. If copy protection becomes widespread, these companies will alienaite a much larger portion of their customer base than they realize. Think how many people own portable mp3 players! Consumers like options, and this technology only gives you less options.
No, but most religions would frown on that. So his thinking is that the directors are atheists. I think this is wrong, however, because not believing in a religion is not the same as atheism. (Right?)
Ragardless, lots 'adult' film stars conder themselves to be religious and lots of productions are backed by religious people.
Us Athiests have enough problems as it is, with the president claiming we're not real citizens and all, so I just don't like porn getting blamed on us too.
They're considered by many to be Exodus's chief competition. Watch these guys get huge.
Did anyone else read the post?
Note that filing for protection from creditors while reorganizing is not the same as hanging up a big "closed" sign -- Exodus is still operating, and hopefully will be able to keep the LEDs turned on for a good long while