Seriously, Apple turns out an interesting and exciting product, people praise it and the anti mac crowd comes out and trashes them. Computers are not a religion, they're tools. If you're happy with another OS then fine, use it and enjoy it.
While this article should've spawned positive discussions on this new Mac's possible uses, it pros and cons, it has partly turned into flamefest where people get trashed for say something less than "MS Windows XP is number one."
It's about a new Mac and a new direction for Apple, nothing more.
I'm still here, and I'm still waiting for you to say something intelligent.
Well, that's rather rude. Care to rephrase that?
Apple desktops will not replace PCs in any appreciable number in the next 5 years
Of course they won't. Why would they? I don't think Macs will ever be "mainstream" but IMO it doesn't matter.
Apple controls a very, very small part of the computer world and is still very profitable. There's lots of great software available for it. While they might never see more than a 10% marketshare they're still great machines, Mac OS X is IMO better than MS Windows XP and worth recommending. Choice is good. Sometimes Windows XP is the right choice, sometimes Macs and sometimes GNU/Linux. Choose on the merits of the product, not because it's the best seller. It's a computer not a religion. GM sells more cars than Honda but it doesn't make them better. Choices are vital. People that trash MS Windows and find no fault with Macs are just as ignorant as the reverse. Ok, maybe ignorant and with more money. =)
Which would rather edit digital video on: a new $500 PC or a new $500 Mac without buying any extra software? Which would use for inexpensive CAD (like AutoCAD LT): a new $500 PC or a new $500 Mac? The answers are of course differnet.
though Picasa is pretty good
Picasa is an excellent application, faster than iPhoto and thanks to Google free. Anyone who uses a digital camera and MS Windows should go grab a copy. I've used the web page creation part was very impressed. But it doesn't come with MS Windows and very few people (in respect to all the MS Windows home users) know about it. Now if MS bundled it with XP that would be different. Over the years Apple has purchased niche products similar to Picasa, rebadged and bundled it with their OS. It's not a bad idea.
Just because someone likes Macs doesn't mean they hate MS Windows. I just think XP is overrated and only as popular as it is through MS' dishonorable business dealings. Not that Apple is all that much better, MS was just smarter.
I don't disagree with you though I find your comment somewhat offensive, tainting an otherwise insightful comment.
Seriously, why doesn't MS just take some of their cash and fix the problems with MS Windows instead of publishing bearly believable FUD? I have to believe that they could make a great product since they have some very talented programmers in Redmond and extensive financial resources. All kidding aside, they're a smart bunch.
It wouldn't surprise me if they're just squeezing the last bit of life from MS Windows, will release the code to the public when their market share hits a certain low point, fired 98% of their work force and live a very, very profitable life off of their extensive patent portfolio.
Pushing FUD over fixing flaws is not a good sign for a product, a company or their users.
If you look on ebay the price of Mac Cubes are nuts. A typical Cube (now what, four years old?) sells for $500 to $700 and has atleast 40 bids. I have to wonder if someone at Apple finally realized the Cube was a very cool machine and cancelling it was a mistake.
Gates didn't make his money by making a better product, he made by making a mildly useable product and playing dirty. Will this Mac put them out of business? Of course not. Will it cut into their bottom line like GNU/Linux has: yes.
I think it's quite possible MS will be a completely different company in 10 years. I could see them dropping 95% of their employees, opening up all of their code for somekind of public use and living a long and very, very, very profitable life on their extensive patent portfolio.
Nothing will kill the beast of the Northwest but a $500 Mac will get their attention. And when something gets their attention, they react.
People like you are why people like me are afraid of Mac fanatics.
Hey AC, it's called "the right tool for the right job". This $500 Mac is simply much better than a typical $500 Dell. Apple is hardly perfect (they killed off HyperCard and the Newton, two really stupid moves). I personally wouldn't use one as my "daily" machine any more.
I'll recommend this Mac to my "low end computer" friends because I'm tired of fixing MS Windows. Also, I do everything but video editing on my Biostar iDeq running Ubuntu (one sweet distro). My eMac still gets used, just not that much by me.
Use the "right tool for the right job" and this "mini mac" is the right tool for the "low end" computer crowd. A $500 Mac is a great thing.
I stopped reading your post at "some nasty thing."
My next door neighbor bought a low end Dell for $500 six months ago that was basicly unusable as sold. With only 128M of RAM and onboard video it felt like a PIII. Only a CD-ROM drive too. A $40 stick of 256M memory doubled the speed and a $100 DVD-RW made it much nicer. Of course it still had XP Home, an OS that is clearly inferior to Mac OS X.
Don't just compare the hardware. Look at the total package. Think about iMoive compared to MS' Moive Maker (somewhat usable be not even close to iMoive), think about how Macs rarely crash, how iPhoto a dream to use. The value is in the hardware and the software. That's what makes Macs better than MS Windows boxes in this case.
I don't hate MS Windows. In fact I admin for a small company and Win 2k server with Terminal Services is really good. I can serve off a dozen windows sessions with only a 256k line (needed to access our accounting software). RDP is a great strength for MS. So, not all MS Windows products suck, it's just Macs are better for most desktop users that don't need to use a MS Windows app. This time next year I hope to move to Macs on the desktop but will still use TS. Best of both worlds.
I've got an eMac 700MHz G4 next to me and while it's no "screamer" it is quite usable. This Mac IMO is aimed at the low end market, as in nongamers. The web browsing, Quicken and solitaire crowds will be IMO quite happy with this new Mac. The fact that they're not getting a new virus every week alone makes it worth while. Apps like iMoive (IMO the best "easy to use" video editing software ever made) and iPhoto will work at acceptable speeds. Not blazing fast but quite acceptable for the average user (something you're clearly not since I would put you in the "well past the average power user" crowd).
The other big benefit is two of these will fit into a 1U rack space. Disabling the GUI will make it a very quick micro web server. BSD is so nice.
Real hardcore Mac users that use apps like Final Cut and Photoshop on a daily basis will be (should be) disappointed in this machine, but it was never meant for them. Apple would much rather sell them something else. =)
Just like some people couldn't use an iBook because of speed and pay extra for a PowerBook, so is the same thing with this "mini mac".
It was the sound of a huge brick dropping from Bill Gate's back end.
A $500 Mac IMO would be a biggest thing since the introduction of the PowerPC, iMac or iPod. It will rip through the computer world like a wildfire. The unreal power of OS X and a Mac for the price of some nasty thing from Dell? Oh, it's too good to be true. The only thing that would make it better is if it was like the Mac Cube and silent. That would throw the computer world for a spin. Imagine all the uses: small web server farms, MS Windows owners buying one with a KVM to run along side their MS Windows box. Jobs has pull off some pretty stunts and this without a doubt would be in his top 10. I will buy three the first day they come out; one for my daughter (she loves my wife's Mac and hates to share), one for my folks (playing admin for their MS Window's box sucks and one for me to run Ubuntu and MOL (hey, I had a ton of great Classic apps that still do the job).
If someone says they're also bring back HyperCard I'll know it's a dream. If this new Mac is real Mac is back!
So if only 30 of them were servers distributing copyrighted material, what were the other 170 machines for?
Top five reasons:
5. Because they had a great selection of porn.
4. The video cards on FBI desktops suck.
3. John Ashcroft needed to build a Beowulf cluster to decode the "Bible code".
2. Because the cases had clear sides and cool colored lights (sorry, "lights of color").
1. One big ass FBI lan party!
Race track announcer: "And it's a dead heat. They're checking the electron microscope and the winner is... number three, in a quantum finish." Prof. Farnsworth: "No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it." [Crumples his ticket]
Don't accuse newssites and innocent surfers of being 'abusers'...
I really don't think they mean to label visitors as being "abusers". It seems more like a poorly worded statement written in great haste (no doubt as their server was smoking and their ISP was freaking out). The site is cohosted hosted with theplanet.com and I'm pretty sure ipodlinix.org will either have to pay for the extra bandwidth use caused by this/. article or atleast shut down for a while. Money I'm sure they don't have. To add insult to injury their front index page is dynamically generated via php causing an extra, much unneeded load on the server.
Since/. is a commercial site and attempts to generate revenue from advertising IMO the responsible and moral thing to do would be to try to do something to minimize it's impact on smaller sites. Maybe
offer to mirror the site for a few days. In short, is it fair for/. to make money for every page view while the FOSS project site in question loses what little money they have for every corresponding page view? IMO, no.
/. atleast needs to think about warning sites that they will be "featured" in an article and offer to use a site caching service like Coral. Or warn the site to "Coralize" themselves quickly to minimize damage.
Huh? Clear Channel only controls 8% of radio stations nationwide.
Clear Channel owns stations in 248 of the 250 top markets. They own as many as seven stations in the same market. You quote a number of 8% but that includes all AM and FM stations, commercial and noncommercial in the US, FM station classes A (10 to 100 watts) through C (25k to 100k watt) and all AM stations, both "clear channel" and those that power down at sunset. It's a very safe bet that all CC stations are either FM C class and AM "clear channel" so "8%" is a wildly inaccurate representation of their true penetration upon the radio landscape or their total listener market share.
CC owns 1,240 AM and FM stations in the US, over 30 TV stations, operates and/or exclusively books 135 live entertainment venues including the Super Bowl halftime shows and controls a very large share of all the outdoor billboards. These radio stations are fully automated and no one at the station is allowed to open a live microphone for any reason, which translates into zero local control over programming.
So few are controlling the FM airwaves? I've got about 20 stations across my FM dial. More being added all the time.... Clear Channel controls none of them.
The total number of commercial radio stations (according to the FCC's web site) has only grown by 3.87% over the last four years. Hardly "all the time".
Sept 2004: (AM RADIO = 4770) + (FM RADIO = 6217) = 10987
Sept. 2000: (AM RADIO = 4685) + (FM RADIO = 5892) = 10577
As for CC control of stations in your market, what market would that be?
Radio stations are charged by the FCC with serving the local community in which they operate. CC, IMO, clearly fails at this.
"Contributed"? Hmmm, "contributed" to the betterment of communications and to the benefit of the general public: nothing.
Affordable broadband ? I don't see it. He's stopped competition in that industry.
I don't think he's actively stopped it as so much as he hasn't encourged it. IMO, affordable broadband came about from the healthy competition between regionalish telephone and cable companies. He could have done more though. Much more.
He's 'DESTROYED' radio with monopolies like Clear Channel.
Oh man, has he ever messsed up the FM band. Between allowing so very few to control the FM air waves and killing off Low Power FM he has set back competition to something like AM in the 1940s when your only real two choices were NBC "Red" and NBC "Blue". Point to you on that one.
So here's a toast to those that think everything should be allowed by corporate america without regard of the greater public good.
Well said. While your post is "fiery" it's, IMO, hardly worthy of the "troll" rating.
Firefox isn't perfect but please, bitch about one of it's few real problems and some bullshit ones. Someone please show Mr. Torr a clue-by-four please?
What's keeping someone from starting a web site that tracks "local wireless informal gatherings" with time, date and place? I mean bring a laptop with a big external HD or desktop with an AC-DC converter, hang out at the locale McDonald's (or someplace without so many cameras) and start trading. With the advent of mini ITX and nano ITX boards it won't be long before you could build a "trading" box for $200USD that's interfaced and discretely controlled with a cheapo Palm to control it and see what others have. Car clubs and hot rodders have been gathering like this for decades.
What about dorms that just trade locally via wireless connections? Bury a $50 wireless router in a false ceiling or drop it in a sheetrocked wall. When you're finished hook back up to the campus network. The RIAA/MPAA is going to have bitch of a time shutting down these types of local wireless networks.
I'll bet that Ken Lay of Enron, who stole billions of dollars from millions of CA residents won't do half that time.
Stealing CC numbers is a bad thing and needs to be punished but let's face it, in the US we have a criminal injustice system that favors rich, white people who steal large amounts of money and have access to lots of lawyers. Everyone else gets caught up in the great meat grinder of "justice".
Once upon a time there as a reason for.gov but that time has long since past. Unless the US Govt plans on being the government of the world ICANN needs end the.gov domain. Is there a legitimate reason for keeping it?
Quite honestly most any GNU/Linux distro will slow them way down (assuming their not using a hardware keyboard capture device). If they get get physical access to your machine you're screwed reguardless of the OS.
Yes it is. It basicly sucks all the O2 out of the area killing the fire and anyone in the room. This is why it was a bad idea. Halon systems can only be placed in specially built rooms and can never be used in an office space. My boss was a moron.
At a former place of employment I was in an office with numerous pieces of computer equipment. Overnight a capacitor in a UPS blew, created lots of smoke but the fire alarm didn't go off. Got into work the next day to find everything fine except one UPS and a nasty smell. The boss wasn't pleased that the alarms didn't go off and waxed on about how the company could've lost a lot of equipment. His solution: install an automatic halon fire extinguisher system in our office. And no, no one would install it.
Slashdot Mirror
While this article should've spawned positive discussions on this new Mac's possible uses, it pros and cons, it has partly turned into flamefest where people get trashed for say something less than "MS Windows XP is number one."
It's about a new Mac and a new direction for Apple, nothing more.
Well, that's rather rude. Care to rephrase that?
Apple desktops will not replace PCs in any appreciable number in the next 5 years
Of course they won't. Why would they? I don't think Macs will ever be "mainstream" but IMO it doesn't matter.
Apple controls a very, very small part of the computer world and is still very profitable. There's lots of great software available for it. While they might never see more than a 10% marketshare they're still great machines, Mac OS X is IMO better than MS Windows XP and worth recommending. Choice is good. Sometimes Windows XP is the right choice, sometimes Macs and sometimes GNU/Linux. Choose on the merits of the product, not because it's the best seller. It's a computer not a religion. GM sells more cars than Honda but it doesn't make them better. Choices are vital. People that trash MS Windows and find no fault with Macs are just as ignorant as the reverse. Ok, maybe ignorant and with more money. =)
Which would rather edit digital video on: a new $500 PC or a new $500 Mac without buying any extra software? Which would use for inexpensive CAD (like AutoCAD LT): a new $500 PC or a new $500 Mac? The answers are of course differnet.
though Picasa is pretty good
Picasa is an excellent application, faster than iPhoto and thanks to Google free. Anyone who uses a digital camera and MS Windows should go grab a copy. I've used the web page creation part was very impressed. But it doesn't come with MS Windows and very few people (in respect to all the MS Windows home users) know about it. Now if MS bundled it with XP that would be different. Over the years Apple has purchased niche products similar to Picasa, rebadged and bundled it with their OS. It's not a bad idea.
Just because someone likes Macs doesn't mean they hate MS Windows. I just think XP is overrated and only as popular as it is through MS' dishonorable business dealings. Not that Apple is all that much better, MS was just smarter.
I don't disagree with you though I find your comment somewhat offensive, tainting an otherwise insightful comment.
It wouldn't surprise me if they're just squeezing the last bit of life from MS Windows, will release the code to the public when their market share hits a certain low point, fired 98% of their work force and live a very, very profitable life off of their extensive patent portfolio.
Pushing FUD over fixing flaws is not a good sign for a product, a company or their users.
If you look on ebay the price of Mac Cubes are nuts. A typical Cube (now what, four years old?) sells for $500 to $700 and has atleast 40 bids. I have to wonder if someone at Apple finally realized the Cube was a very cool machine and cancelling it was a mistake.
The article quotes a price of 40K Baht or about $1 USD. You can get a eMac for less. I wonder why so much?
Gates didn't make his money by making a better product, he made by making a mildly useable product and playing dirty. Will this Mac put them out of business? Of course not. Will it cut into their bottom line like GNU/Linux has: yes.
I think it's quite possible MS will be a completely different company in 10 years. I could see them dropping 95% of their employees, opening up all of their code for somekind of public use and living a long and very, very, very profitable life on their extensive patent portfolio.
Nothing will kill the beast of the Northwest but a $500 Mac will get their attention. And when something gets their attention, they react.
Hey AC, it's called "the right tool for the right job". This $500 Mac is simply much better than a typical $500 Dell. Apple is hardly perfect (they killed off HyperCard and the Newton, two really stupid moves). I personally wouldn't use one as my "daily" machine any more.
I'll recommend this Mac to my "low end computer" friends because I'm tired of fixing MS Windows. Also, I do everything but video editing on my Biostar iDeq running Ubuntu (one sweet distro). My eMac still gets used, just not that much by me.
Use the "right tool for the right job" and this "mini mac" is the right tool for the "low end" computer crowd. A $500 Mac is a great thing.
My next door neighbor bought a low end Dell for $500 six months ago that was basicly unusable as sold. With only 128M of RAM and onboard video it felt like a PIII. Only a CD-ROM drive too. A $40 stick of 256M memory doubled the speed and a $100 DVD-RW made it much nicer. Of course it still had XP Home, an OS that is clearly inferior to Mac OS X.
Don't just compare the hardware. Look at the total package. Think about iMoive compared to MS' Moive Maker (somewhat usable be not even close to iMoive), think about how Macs rarely crash, how iPhoto a dream to use. The value is in the hardware and the software. That's what makes Macs better than MS Windows boxes in this case.
I don't hate MS Windows. In fact I admin for a small company and Win 2k server with Terminal Services is really good. I can serve off a dozen windows sessions with only a 256k line (needed to access our accounting software). RDP is a great strength for MS. So, not all MS Windows products suck, it's just Macs are better for most desktop users that don't need to use a MS Windows app. This time next year I hope to move to Macs on the desktop but will still use TS. Best of both worlds.
The other big benefit is two of these will fit into a 1U rack space. Disabling the GUI will make it a very quick micro web server. BSD is so nice.
Real hardcore Mac users that use apps like Final Cut and Photoshop on a daily basis will be (should be) disappointed in this machine, but it was never meant for them. Apple would much rather sell them something else. =)
Just like some people couldn't use an iBook because of speed and pay extra for a PowerBook, so is the same thing with this "mini mac".
A $500 Mac IMO would be a biggest thing since the introduction of the PowerPC, iMac or iPod. It will rip through the computer world like a wildfire. The unreal power of OS X and a Mac for the price of some nasty thing from Dell? Oh, it's too good to be true. The only thing that would make it better is if it was like the Mac Cube and silent. That would throw the computer world for a spin. Imagine all the uses: small web server farms, MS Windows owners buying one with a KVM to run along side their MS Windows box. Jobs has pull off some pretty stunts and this without a doubt would be in his top 10. I will buy three the first day they come out; one for my daughter (she loves my wife's Mac and hates to share), one for my folks (playing admin for their MS Window's box sucks and one for me to run Ubuntu and MOL (hey, I had a ton of great Classic apps that still do the job).
If someone says they're also bring back HyperCard I'll know it's a dream. If this new Mac is real Mac is back!
Top five reasons:
5. Because they had a great selection of porn.
4. The video cards on FBI desktops suck.
3. John Ashcroft needed to build a Beowulf cluster to decode the "Bible code".
2. Because the cases had clear sides and cool colored lights (sorry, "lights of color").
1. One big ass FBI lan party!
Race track announcer: "And it's a dead heat. They're checking the electron microscope and the winner is... number three, in a quantum finish."
Prof. Farnsworth: "No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it." [Crumples his ticket]
I really don't think they mean to label visitors as being "abusers". It seems more like a poorly worded statement written in great haste (no doubt as their server was smoking and their ISP was freaking out). The site is cohosted hosted with theplanet.com and I'm pretty sure ipodlinix.org will either have to pay for the extra bandwidth use caused by this /. article or atleast shut down for a while. Money I'm sure they don't have. To add insult to injury their front index page is dynamically generated via php causing an extra, much unneeded load on the server.
Since /. is a commercial site and attempts to generate revenue from advertising IMO the responsible and moral thing to do would be to try to do something to minimize it's impact on smaller sites. Maybe
offer to mirror the site for a few days. In short, is it fair for /. to make money for every page view while the FOSS project site in question loses what little money they have for every corresponding page view? IMO, no.
... unless I had a chance at getting a tie. =)
An explaination in RMS' own words.
Clear Channel owns stations in 248 of the 250 top markets. They own as many as seven stations in the same market. You quote a number of 8% but that includes all AM and FM stations, commercial and noncommercial in the US, FM station classes A (10 to 100 watts) through C (25k to 100k watt) and all AM stations, both "clear channel" and those that power down at sunset. It's a very safe bet that all CC stations are either FM C class and AM "clear channel" so "8%" is a wildly inaccurate representation of their true penetration upon the radio landscape or their total listener market share.
CC owns 1,240 AM and FM stations in the US, over 30 TV stations, operates and/or exclusively books 135 live entertainment venues including the Super Bowl halftime shows and controls a very large share of all the outdoor billboards. These radio stations are fully automated and no one at the station is allowed to open a live microphone for any reason, which translates into zero local control over programming.
They are also active in political censorship (see "List of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel" and were very active in getting the FCC to kill LPFM (low power fm).
So few are controlling the FM airwaves? I've got about 20 stations across my FM dial. More being added all the time. ... Clear Channel controls none of them.
The total number of commercial radio stations (according to the FCC's web site) has only grown by 3.87% over the last four years. Hardly "all the time".
Sept 2004: (AM RADIO = 4770) + (FM RADIO = 6217) = 10987
Sept. 2000: (AM RADIO = 4685) + (FM RADIO = 5892) = 10577
As for CC control of stations in your market, what market would that be?
Radio stations are charged by the FCC with serving the local community in which they operate. CC, IMO, clearly fails at this.
Yes, yes he is.
I don't know what he's contributed.
"Contributed"? Hmmm, "contributed" to the betterment of communications and to the benefit of the general public: nothing.
Affordable broadband ? I don't see it. He's stopped competition in that industry.
I don't think he's actively stopped it as so much as he hasn't encourged it. IMO, affordable broadband came about from the healthy competition between regionalish telephone and cable companies. He could have done more though. Much more.
He's 'DESTROYED' radio with monopolies like Clear Channel.
Oh man, has he ever messsed up the FM band. Between allowing so very few to control the FM air waves and killing off Low Power FM he has set back competition to something like AM in the 1940s when your only real two choices were NBC "Red" and NBC "Blue". Point to you on that one.
So here's a toast to those that think everything should be allowed by corporate america without regard of the greater public good.
Well said. While your post is "fiery" it's, IMO, hardly worthy of the "troll" rating.
What, like www.windowsupdate.com points to v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com?
Firefox isn't perfect but please, bitch about one of it's few real problems and some bullshit ones. Someone please show Mr. Torr a clue-by-four please?
What's keeping someone from starting a web site that tracks "local wireless informal gatherings" with time, date and place? I mean bring a laptop with a big external HD or desktop with an AC-DC converter, hang out at the locale McDonald's (or someplace without so many cameras) and start trading. With the advent of mini ITX and nano ITX boards it won't be long before you could build a "trading" box for $200USD that's interfaced and discretely controlled with a cheapo Palm to control it and see what others have. Car clubs and hot rodders have been gathering like this for decades.
What about dorms that just trade locally via wireless connections? Bury a $50 wireless router in a false ceiling or drop it in a sheetrocked wall. When you're finished hook back up to the campus network. The RIAA/MPAA is going to have bitch of a time shutting down these types of local wireless networks.
People will beat them. Resistance is futile.
Stealing CC numbers is a bad thing and needs to be punished but let's face it, in the US we have a criminal injustice system that favors rich, white people who steal large amounts of money and have access to lots of lawyers. Everyone else gets caught up in the great meat grinder of "justice".
Check out: frontline: the plea
While adding domains let's remove this one.
Does this mean dns servers in China won't recognize *.tw.asia?
Security-Enhanced Linux
SELinux for Distributions
The UnOfficial SELinux FAQ
Quite honestly most any GNU/Linux distro will slow them way down (assuming their not using a hardware keyboard capture device). If they get get physical access to your machine you're screwed reguardless of the OS.
Yes it is. It basicly sucks all the O2 out of the area killing the fire and anyone in the room. This is why it was a bad idea. Halon systems can only be placed in specially built rooms and can never be used in an office space. My boss was a moron.
Worst. Idea. Ever.