Seriously, I think 3-5 years of primary use, and a year or two after that until it gets foisted off on one of the kids. That's a desktop. My laptops stay in use until they break, which is *usually* before they become old and pathetic.
All except this Blueberry iBook. Seems to be eternal -- damn well made. Outlasted a newer G4 iBook, which died of exposure to a very fine Peaberry coffee.
Now that it's no longer officially supported, it begins a new life as an Ubuntu playtoy.
I'm not going away mad -- I'm not even going away.
My secondhand iMac might very well be a candidate for Tiger, which rocks on the G5. But I'm thinking my trusty old iBook would probably explode the first time I hit F12 to bring up dashboard. A 300 MHz G3, 32 MB of RAM, and a 3 GB HD just ain't enough resources.
Panther runs passibly with Shadowkiller, all the eye candy turned off, a basic font set, and internationalization stripped by Monolingual. But disk management is a chore.
Besides, I'm intrigued by the community which has sprung up around Ubuntu. Reminds me of Mac in the Old Days.;-)
I was thinking of buying a really inexpensive laptop to get me to the Powerbook. Ubuntu seems to have decent power management (and I know this is the case with SUSE 9.3). Just something to bridge my long-suffering iBook and whatever Cupertino has in mind for 2006.
Then again, we'll see how the iBook does when I swap the Ubuntu live Cd for a full install tonight. I was quite surprised that the Gnome desktop actually feels perkier than Panther. Depends how slim I can get the install. With a sad little 3 gig drive, I need all the swap space I can get.
Oh, for heaven's sake. Apple going to Intel changes things a bit, but change is a constant process. Change needn't mean Linux is going away, anymore than Apple or BSD has withered under the stream of "[Insert OS here] is dying!" FUD forever flooding Slashdot.
MacTel means almost nothing to Linux unless Apple eventually releases OS X to beige boxes. Cupertino so far shows no concrete signs of doing so. Even if it happens, OS X for PC wouldn't be taps for the Penguin.
Linux and Mac are approaching the market from different directions. Linux' greatest growth potential is in governmental and corporate workplaces, and in the developing world where its cost makes it attractive.
Apple has a small portion of the installed desktop market -- nobody agreees how much -- and very little penetration in Linux' core market. While Apple's switch to Intel makes them somewhat more competitive in the short-term battle for desktop share, they have a LONG way to go back in the server room, in government offices, and anywhere plopping $140 down for an OS that may only run on premium-priced hardware is a financial burden.
I'm a huge Apple fan, but MacTel's supposed killer feature, dual-booting Windows, isn't even likely to be supported by Apple. That'll be a tough sell in the boardroom.
Meanwhile, the so-called developing world is starting to make the US and Europe look like Slow Company. This is likely where Linux will flourish in coming years.
Who will buy MacTel? Fairly well-heeled Westerners. Everyone else will use Linux and unlicensed copies of Windows.
Something else: there will be Mac hardcore abandoning the platform. They feel as if they're sleeping with the enemy when it comes to Intel. Many of them are furious that their rather substantial investment in PPC hardware won't run cutting-edge Mac software much longer, Universal Binaries be damned. Mac software developers won't optimize for Power very long. It's over.
I'll stay with Mac. I really enjoy OS X, and I need several commercial applications not likely to run on Linux anytime soon. I don't wish to own a Windows box or even dual-boot.
But I know that means I'll be buying new hardware in the near future -- an Intel-based Mac laptop first, and then a replacement for my PowerMac.
In the meantime, I'm uninstalling OS X on my older Mac gear. Tiger left two of my machines behind. They'll be converted to PPC Linux. There's already an Ubuntu Live CD in my Bluberry iBook.
The moment Steve Jobs showed the Intel logo, I knew that my dual G5 would one day be running Linux. In three years, I'll have more Linux machines than boxes running OS X.
MacTel's impact on Linux is a lot more complex than most pundits are giving credit. And far less drastic.
Sure, if you're the type of friend who likes to get calls at 8pm on a Sunday night saying "Hey, I bought this USB video conversion thingy and want to edit my home movies, but the software doesn't install. How can I transfer my movies from my video camera to my PC and then burn a DVD of it?"
No kidding. For active computer-using friends, I'm more likely now to help them secure Windows. Only the very casual email-and-browser folks get Linux -- usually SUSE and KDE.
But now I'm recommending Mac. A lot. It's cheap enough for anyone, is as secure as one could expect, and you can plug damn near anything into it without drama. Perfect.
Switched three friends, and none have called with problems since.
Am playing with NeoOffice. Installed without incident, and seems to be functional. First impression: uses a lot more memory than Word.
I have the same document -- a Word file -- open in both programs. It's a simple resume with very little formatting. Open Office has rendered a bulleted list with odd symbols instead of bullets. The header styles are gone. It's otherwise accurate.
NeoOffice is using 17 threads and 112 MB of memory. Word has 7 threads open and is consuming 33 MB.
I'll have to tinker with it a bit before making a judgement. Im glad to have any sort of free, useful office suite, however.
... you can't really compare Open Office and MS Office, since OO doesn't run natively on OS X.
I will say that Word opens nearly instantly on this platform. It's up in about a second -- perhaps a bit less -- and feels lighter than most of the "minimalist" word processor alternatives I've tried.
My Windows box isn't as muscular as the Mac, but I can't imagine it takes much longer to open Word there. A couple or three seconds, tops.
No doubt that MS Office is bloatware. My Office folder is 486 MB. Outrageous.
But I gotta wonder what is wrong with the reviewer's test computers.
I really like Gnome and still maintain a Linux box. It gets used at work -- a dual boot on the WinTel machine necessary for running my employer's software.
But I came to the gradual realization that I was spending more time configuring my Linux OS than I was actually working on it. Someone gave me a secondahnd iBook about this time. When OS x came along -- in all its 10.0 awfulness -- I switched and have been quite happy.
Not a thing wrong with Linux. But I ran out of time to mess with it. Installing a program shouldn't be an ordeal, and standard media types should alll play flawlessly out of the bix.
We really don't need the other three reasons (which are all valid). Laptop sales topped desktops this year. Apple ain't got a next-generation PPC mobility chip in the pipeline.
"Hello, Intel? Steve here. Look, if you'll save our asses with a new Powerbook chip, we'll give you a market for 64-bit desktop Pentiums. Deal? Great!"
> I have scuba dived since 1982 and I am rarely limited by the amount of O2 I have handy. The limiting factor for any diving to any real depth (>30 feet say) is the amount of residual nitrogen in your blood stream.
I'm also a longtime diver, and the article struck me as silly.
As you note, nitrogen saturation is our primary limitation at depth. There's Nitrox and Trimix, but exotic gasses are only so useful. This proposed breathing system seems to be proposing a high-oxygen mixture. Oxygen becomes toxic at high doeses. Fabulous.
My favorite part, though, is the claim that tanks become "unbalanced" as they empty. I've never noticed this effect.
> I fail to see how this can have a SIGNIFICANT impact to Apple's install-base in the short term, and only see good things in the long term.
In the short term, it will discourage elective, big-ticket purchases of PPC Macs. Why by a new "dream" Powerbook or Powermac now, when it won't be Apple's current-generation technology in twelve months?
Apple is blunting the force of this with universal binaries (which makes me, as a recent Powermac G5 customer, feel a little better about life today). Our PPC hardware won't become elegantly engineered paperweights in 2006, but they won't be bleeding edge, either.
Jobs was smart to trot out reassuring voices from Adobe and Microsoft to let PPC customers know that future products won't leave them behind. But my planned Powerbook purchase just got bumped to next year.
Long term -- who knows? Certainly, the *big* payoff in the next 12 months will be greatly improved laptops. Apple's alliance with Intel assures the company that it will keep pace with emerging mobile technologies.
The big deal, though, must certainly be Intel and Apple's unspoken multimedia future. That Pentium D chip seems to be tweaked for digital delivery. I expect both companies will become HD content vendors in the near future. Intel will produce for the Windows program, and Apple will supply its own. They'll use Apple's infrastructure and Intel's hardware.
Jobs has probably decided the immediate discomfort of platform shift is substantially outweighed by the promise of a future media markplace.
And, as I'm sure others have pointed out, Apple isn't ready to let you load OS X on generic hardware. One of the reasons OS X is such a pleasure to use is its hardware compatibility. All that goes away if Tiger gets stuffed into a $299 Microtel box.
worked for an out sourced call center for Earthlink in late 03. At that time, Earthlink didn't support Linux at all. I had about 3 calls about people wanting to set up Kppp, but I was told by my supervisor to not say anything but "Earthlink does not support any linux distribution"
Way Back When (tm), some tech actually took the time to mail me a FAQ on configuring Linux for Earthlink. If I remember properly, it was keyed to RH5.
It was an Earthlink document, so there must have been at least some informal Linux support at one point.
Maybe there's finally something to this hoary old rumor -- and it's not just an Intel chip for some new non-PC appliance.
Maybe Apple has decided this is the Perfect Moment (tm) to leverage all the R&D they've put into OS X. They could do this, without destroying PPC hardware sales, by incorporating Transitive Technologies "Dynamite" technology -- if it works as rumored.
IF (a big "if") Dynamite really will run PPC binaries on x86 at something like 80% native speeds, then they could release OS X for PC into the wild without making third-party developers' heads explode. Apple can then pitch the ultimate switch: liberate yourselves from Windows on your existing hardware. Get OS X goodness right now without buying new application software or selling your Dell. You needn't suffer the relative inconvenience of Linux. Run practically anything and say goodbye to Windows malware (yeah, I know, Mac malware would follow).
"Near native" speeds will never do for true Mac partisans. They'll keep buying Apple PPC hardware, which will move upstream as performance gear. But 80% performance would be a great trade for those who don't know any better or who want off Windows right away.
Assuming Mac binaries will run passibly on OS X for PC, there will be little reason for Mac developers to port. And that's cool: Apple will suggest that if you love your new Mac experience, buy Apple hardware next time and run all the programs you're buying for OS X PC your speedy new cell processor or G5-based Powermac.
Meantime, Apple goes after Dell's price point with a new line of slick-looking, inexpensive x86 PCs. They'd be cheaper than the existing iBook/eMac/iBook boxes. All come with an integral iPod dock.
Apple gets to have most of its cake and eat it, too.
I have to agree: Spotlight is by no means perfect (or mature), but I use it every day with good results. I'm confident enough now to redice my mail archive to a single folder, and I've stopped wasting time arranging my Documents and Pictures directories. Just shove the file in. You'll be able to find it later.
But, like you, I'm on a dual G5. Am running a striped RAID array and an external USB drive.
The problem with podcasting is music licensing: if you put music on a recording and distribute it, you're liable for ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC royalties. And this is reasonable. The composers wrote the songs, joined the association, and deserve to be paid for their work.
Who has the infrastructure to account and pay for this sort of stuff? Professional broadcasters, mostly.
This assumes the music was written by an association composer. Perhaps you have some unsigned band that has granted you permission to use their material. You're clean.
Beyond music, there's spoken word. Performances have value, but many of the podcasts I've heard were more akin to written blogs than produced audio programming.
What Apple could do here, if they're so inclined, is to swing a podcast deal with their labels. Music purchased from the iTunes store would be licensed for personal use as it is now and non-commercial podcasting. If iTunes could be retooled to record voice-overs -- and it sounds if that may be coming -- you could build a podcast within iTunes and distribute it via Apple's music store. The podcasts would be playable through iTunes.
Apple's motivation in this is twofold: it would encourage podcasters to use Apple's platform and purchase their library through the Apple Store, and the podcast songs would be clickable. Listeners could buy whatever they like as they hear it.
It's a proprietary solution, but would finesse the licensing issue and make music podcasting more accessable.
Slashdot Mirror
Until it breaks? ;-)
Seriously, I think 3-5 years of primary use, and a year or two after that until it gets foisted off on one of the kids. That's a desktop. My laptops stay in use until they break, which is *usually* before they become old and pathetic.
All except this Blueberry iBook. Seems to be eternal -- damn well made. Outlasted a newer G4 iBook, which died of exposure to a very fine Peaberry coffee.
Now that it's no longer officially supported, it begins a new life as an Ubuntu playtoy.
My secondhand iMac might very well be a candidate for Tiger, which rocks on the G5. But I'm thinking my trusty old iBook would probably explode the first time I hit F12 to bring up dashboard. A 300 MHz G3, 32 MB of RAM, and a 3 GB HD just ain't enough resources.
Panther runs passibly with Shadowkiller, all the eye candy turned off, a basic font set, and internationalization stripped by Monolingual. But disk management is a chore.
Besides, I'm intrigued by the community which has sprung up around Ubuntu. Reminds me of Mac in the Old Days. ;-)
Thanks.
Then again, we'll see how the iBook does when I swap the Ubuntu live Cd for a full install tonight. I was quite surprised that the Gnome desktop actually feels perkier than Panther. Depends how slim I can get the install. With a sad little 3 gig drive, I need all the swap space I can get.
I'd have purchased a Powerbook this year. Gets pushed off until Intel is inside.
You need the humor Force, my son.
The Dark Alliance gathers.
MacTel means almost nothing to Linux unless Apple eventually releases OS X to beige boxes. Cupertino so far shows no concrete signs of doing so. Even if it happens, OS X for PC wouldn't be taps for the Penguin.
Linux and Mac are approaching the market from different directions. Linux' greatest growth potential is in governmental and corporate workplaces, and in the developing world where its cost makes it attractive.
Apple has a small portion of the installed desktop market -- nobody agreees how much -- and very little penetration in Linux' core market. While Apple's switch to Intel makes them somewhat more competitive in the short-term battle for desktop share, they have a LONG way to go back in the server room, in government offices, and anywhere plopping $140 down for an OS that may only run on premium-priced hardware is a financial burden.
I'm a huge Apple fan, but MacTel's supposed killer feature, dual-booting Windows, isn't even likely to be supported by Apple. That'll be a tough sell in the boardroom.
Meanwhile, the so-called developing world is starting to make the US and Europe look like Slow Company. This is likely where Linux will flourish in coming years.
Who will buy MacTel? Fairly well-heeled Westerners. Everyone else will use Linux and unlicensed copies of Windows.
Something else: there will be Mac hardcore abandoning the platform. They feel as if they're sleeping with the enemy when it comes to Intel. Many of them are furious that their rather substantial investment in PPC hardware won't run cutting-edge Mac software much longer, Universal Binaries be damned. Mac software developers won't optimize for Power very long. It's over.
I'll stay with Mac. I really enjoy OS X, and I need several commercial applications not likely to run on Linux anytime soon. I don't wish to own a Windows box or even dual-boot.
But I know that means I'll be buying new hardware in the near future -- an Intel-based Mac laptop first, and then a replacement for my PowerMac.
In the meantime, I'm uninstalling OS X on my older Mac gear. Tiger left two of my machines behind. They'll be converted to PPC Linux. There's already an Ubuntu Live CD in my Bluberry iBook.
The moment Steve Jobs showed the Intel logo, I knew that my dual G5 would one day be running Linux. In three years, I'll have more Linux machines than boxes running OS X.
MacTel's impact on Linux is a lot more complex than most pundits are giving credit. And far less drastic.
How important *is* your Slashdot nick? We won't hold those 419 appeals against you when you get home. Promise.
No kidding. For active computer-using friends, I'm more likely now to help them secure Windows. Only the very casual email-and-browser folks get Linux -- usually SUSE and KDE.
But now I'm recommending Mac. A lot. It's cheap enough for anyone, is as secure as one could expect, and you can plug damn near anything into it without drama. Perfect.
Switched three friends, and none have called with problems since.
I have the same document -- a Word file -- open in both programs. It's a simple resume with very little formatting. Open Office has rendered a bulleted list with odd symbols instead of bullets. The header styles are gone. It's otherwise accurate.
NeoOffice is using 17 threads and 112 MB of memory. Word has 7 threads open and is consuming 33 MB.
I'll have to tinker with it a bit before making a judgement. Im glad to have any sort of free, useful office suite, however.
To be fair, iWork weighs in at 586MB. That's for a glorified word processor and presentation -- no spreadsheet or PIM.
I will -- thanks. Was aware of the program, but didn't consider it for my comment since it isn't strictly OO.o.
I will say that Word opens nearly instantly on this platform. It's up in about a second -- perhaps a bit less -- and feels lighter than most of the "minimalist" word processor alternatives I've tried.
My Windows box isn't as muscular as the Mac, but I can't imagine it takes much longer to open Word there. A couple or three seconds, tops.
No doubt that MS Office is bloatware. My Office folder is 486 MB. Outrageous.
But I gotta wonder what is wrong with the reviewer's test computers.
But I came to the gradual realization that I was spending more time configuring my Linux OS than I was actually working on it. Someone gave me a secondahnd iBook about this time. When OS x came along -- in all its 10.0 awfulness -- I switched and have been quite happy.
Not a thing wrong with Linux. But I ran out of time to mess with it. Installing a program shouldn't be an ordeal, and standard media types should alll play flawlessly out of the bix.
... a computer case my kids won't touch. All except Stumpy. He'll mess with anything.
We really don't need the other three reasons (which are all valid). Laptop sales topped desktops this year. Apple ain't got a next-generation PPC mobility chip in the pipeline.
"Hello, Intel? Steve here. Look, if you'll save our asses with a new Powerbook chip, we'll give you a market for 64-bit desktop Pentiums. Deal? Great!"
I know you're kidding, but are you really sure you want THIS administration to decide what constitutes "intelligent" programming?
I'm also a longtime diver, and the article struck me as silly.
As you note, nitrogen saturation is our primary limitation at depth. There's Nitrox and Trimix, but exotic gasses are only so useful. This proposed breathing system seems to be proposing a high-oxygen mixture. Oxygen becomes toxic at high doeses. Fabulous.
My favorite part, though, is the claim that tanks become "unbalanced" as they empty. I've never noticed this effect.
In the short term, it will discourage elective, big-ticket purchases of PPC Macs. Why by a new "dream" Powerbook or Powermac now, when it won't be Apple's current-generation technology in twelve months?
Apple is blunting the force of this with universal binaries (which makes me, as a recent Powermac G5 customer, feel a little better about life today). Our PPC hardware won't become elegantly engineered paperweights in 2006, but they won't be bleeding edge, either.
Jobs was smart to trot out reassuring voices from Adobe and Microsoft to let PPC customers know that future products won't leave them behind. But my planned Powerbook purchase just got bumped to next year.
Long term -- who knows? Certainly, the *big* payoff in the next 12 months will be greatly improved laptops. Apple's alliance with Intel assures the company that it will keep pace with emerging mobile technologies.
The big deal, though, must certainly be Intel and Apple's unspoken multimedia future. That Pentium D chip seems to be tweaked for digital delivery. I expect both companies will become HD content vendors in the near future. Intel will produce for the Windows program, and Apple will supply its own. They'll use Apple's infrastructure and Intel's hardware.
Jobs has probably decided the immediate discomfort of platform shift is substantially outweighed by the promise of a future media markplace.
And, as I'm sure others have pointed out, Apple isn't ready to let you load OS X on generic hardware. One of the reasons OS X is such a pleasure to use is its hardware compatibility. All that goes away if Tiger gets stuffed into a $299 Microtel box.
Or "their," more likely. Judging from all the zombienets.
Way Back When (tm), some tech actually took the time to mail me a FAQ on configuring Linux for Earthlink. If I remember properly, it was keyed to RH5.
It was an Earthlink document, so there must have been at least some informal Linux support at one point.
Maybe there's finally something to this hoary old rumor -- and it's not just an Intel chip for some new non-PC appliance.
Maybe Apple has decided this is the Perfect Moment (tm) to leverage all the R&D they've put into OS X. They could do this, without destroying PPC hardware sales, by incorporating Transitive Technologies "Dynamite" technology -- if it works as rumored.
IF (a big "if") Dynamite really will run PPC binaries on x86 at something like 80% native speeds, then they could release OS X for PC into the wild without making third-party developers' heads explode. Apple can then pitch the ultimate switch: liberate yourselves from Windows on your existing hardware. Get OS X goodness right now without buying new application software or selling your Dell. You needn't suffer the relative inconvenience of Linux. Run practically anything and say goodbye to Windows malware (yeah, I know, Mac malware would follow).
"Near native" speeds will never do for true Mac partisans. They'll keep buying Apple PPC hardware, which will move upstream as performance gear. But 80% performance would be a great trade for those who don't know any better or who want off Windows right away.
Assuming Mac binaries will run passibly on OS X for PC, there will be little reason for Mac developers to port. And that's cool: Apple will suggest that if you love your new Mac experience, buy Apple hardware next time and run all the programs you're buying for OS X PC your speedy new cell processor or G5-based Powermac.
Meantime, Apple goes after Dell's price point with a new line of slick-looking, inexpensive x86 PCs. They'd be cheaper than the existing iBook/eMac/iBook boxes. All come with an integral iPod dock.
Apple gets to have most of its cake and eat it, too.
Just an idea. If I were Steve Jobs, I'd go ahead.
But I could almost buy an iBook for the price of the Archos. Looks like a great device, but -- ouch -- the price!
But, like you, I'm on a dual G5. Am running a striped RAID array and an external USB drive.
Beats Find.
Who has the infrastructure to account and pay for this sort of stuff? Professional broadcasters, mostly.
This assumes the music was written by an association composer. Perhaps you have some unsigned band that has granted you permission to use their material. You're clean.
Beyond music, there's spoken word. Performances have value, but many of the podcasts I've heard were more akin to written blogs than produced audio programming.
What Apple could do here, if they're so inclined, is to swing a podcast deal with their labels. Music purchased from the iTunes store would be licensed for personal use as it is now and non-commercial podcasting. If iTunes could be retooled to record voice-overs -- and it sounds if that may be coming -- you could build a podcast within iTunes and distribute it via Apple's music store. The podcasts would be playable through iTunes.
Apple's motivation in this is twofold: it would encourage podcasters to use Apple's platform and purchase their library through the Apple Store, and the podcast songs would be clickable. Listeners could buy whatever they like as they hear it.
It's a proprietary solution, but would finesse the licensing issue and make music podcasting more accessable.