Before Apple held back QuickTime 6, quite a few other companies reacted with horror to the MPEG LA proposed licensing terms as well. Those critical include On2, an provider of open source compression solutions, and the Internet Streaming Media Alliance of which Apple, Cisco, IBM, and Sun are members, amongst others.
In this case, Apple is in the right in standing against what amounts to an internet tax on end-users.
Did anyone else notice the crazy pop-up ads at that site? Is linuxgaming.com so desperate for cash that they have to spawn a pop-up every 15 seconds while we're on their site?
Sorry to see Loki go; Linux gaming will be worse off without them. Their code was good, just a bad business model. Not the first, won't be the last. Where is all the valuable programming talent from Loki going?
43% of Canadians support Québec separating? It'll be a cold day in hell before support reaches that level. And within Québec, it's LESS THAN HALF, otherwise they would have separated by now, since it's still a democratic country. Sure, it was a small margin last referendum, but still a greater margin than some people take to win. Interestingly, in the same way that Al Gore lost the US presidency, the current Québec provincial government won the last election due to the electoral system, even though they did not receive the most votes.
It wouldn't be at all workable... the animosity between federalist and seperatist sides is already just under the surface, and this would explode if Québec actually attempted to separate. Then there is the question of regions of Québec that are staunchly federalist and have said they will remain with Canada if Québec separates, and the Québec provincial government's reply that they would never allow regions to go if they wish. And the question that vast areas of the North of the province are populated mostly by natives that are also stongly federalist and would probably never agree to separate under any conditions. Plus the very thorny issue of Québec refusing to pay it's portion of the national debt or for federal properites in the province if they left...an stance which most of the rest of Canada is almost violently opposed to. And really, these issues are only the tip of the iceberg, there are issues of minority language rights, native rights, freedom of movement from Ontario to the Atlantic Provinces which could be held hostage, more attempts at mutiny in the Canadian military incited by seperatists, etc etc.
In short, a separate Québec would never exist as peacefully as Alaska does with a friendly neighbour, because there would be great animosity. People refuse to realise there is the very real possibility of a dirty, extended breakup even involving military action on the North American continent. This would be a disaster for us all.
If Linux companies had produced Linux-only or Linux-first games that were original and playable, most would still be in business. How can you compete by porting something that's already out for Windows, if most of your user base can already dual-boot into Windows and sees little reason to wait for the Linux version to come out? Not a good business plan, unfortunately.
Although not the most technically advanced game, Tux Racer is a good example of the possible success of Linux games. If even a simple Linux-only game as this can achieve as many fans as it has in the Linux market, larger projects that were creative and Linux first had a good chance of success. But a port of SimCity 3000 months after you could already play it on your computer in Windows? Good game, bad business.
Considering that Loki filed for bakrupcy in the summer, and 90% of companies that do aren't in existence just 1 year later, this is no surprise.
In hindsight and now knowing what the Linux gaming market is like, this was inevitable. The fact that most Linux users either dual-boot with Windows or have another x86 machine with Windows was the critical factor. As most of us Linuxheads are in the technically-savvy section of the computing market, and those users tend to be aware of new products & software faster and early adopters, why would they want to wait months for a game to come out for Liunx if they could play it today on their Windows partition? Even if our hearts were in the right place and we tried not to play a game until we bought the Linux version, obviously our desires exceeded our willpower otherwise Loki would still be with us.
This is unfortunately not good news for the rest of the Linux gaming industry (or what's left of it). The circumstances that made Loki die still exist, and I'm sure other Linux gaming companies are feeling them too. But our own use of x86 hardware - as much freedom and value as it has given us - is the very reason Linux gaming is faltering. Mac-porting companies are doing well, and even Amiga companies get good responses to their ports, all because they have captive audiences. It's the price we pay for inexpensive and abundant hardware.
Well, nice of you to give you $0.02 on the issue, too bad you don't seem to undertand it too well. Bill 101, the language law to which you refer, is a Québec provincial law that the federal Canadian goverment is not at all happy about. The Canadian government does have an official bilingualism policy, and enforces this to protect minority language rights (minority anglopone in Québec, and minority francophones in the rest of the country). These laws are not merely designed to please the people of Québec, but to protect the right to access to government servcies for english-speakers in Québec and the millions of Canadian french-speakers that have never lived in Québec at all.
Your post is wrong in so many ways. Let's count them:
The "concept of Québec" is not any more of a joke that "the concept of Illinois" is. Both exist, and maybe one or the other may not be respectable in your little world, but they are to just about everyone else on Plaent Earth.
If the only place in Montréal that looked clean to you was the "English part" then you haven't seen 75% of the city. I could equally go to your city and massively generalise about the entire state populace from the slummy areas too. Where are you from Anonymous Coward, Detroit?
"where people congragate with cigarette butts, and generally turning your town into a piece of Africa" I imagine you mean that to be derogatory. Too bad you've probably never seen most of Africa, which is a beautiful place
"I read somewhere that old-school racist English used to have the saying "Africa begins at Caleigh" but I never understood it until I saw Montreal." So now you agree with these Old School Racists? Forget what state, what century are you from? And it's spelled "Calais"
No, the subway is not "run by the English" if in fact one can even meaningfully distinguish between anglophones and francophones. Most people in Montréal are bilingual, and many have been brought up in both languages so that they speak each equally fluently, with no accent on either. And ethnically, most are from non-British and non-French backgrounds, but speak both. So while civil employees of the Société de transport de Montréal work in french, your distinction of "the English" or "the French" running it is a meaningless distinction common to those that don't understand the way cultures & languages work.
"though this cutie did hit on me in a pancake house [...] Would all my daughters be whores, all my sons never have a job, smoke away all the money I give them on cigarettes and die of aids from having their fudge packed by rich Americans?" Ego, derision... Ohhh, and people wonder why many people in other countries have a bad opinion of American tourists...
Foolish gereralisations like yours of "what Québec wants" and applying them to the entire population of Québec is the reason the country is in a constitutional mess to start with. Québec leaving would be culturally and politically the death of the rest of Canada as a separtate country from the US, since Canada's francophoness is by now one of the very few significant defining cultural factors from American culture. Political annexation / unification with the United States would only be a matter of time after Québec left: politicians are already talking about adopting the US$ (35% of Canadians agree) and harmonising Immigration, Security, and Foriegn Policy laws amongst others.
"Quebec wants all the support from Canada, including using its military and monetary systems, and have all Quebecers carry two passports"
What rubbish. If you are talking about seperatists in Québec (a minority) they would be most happy to #1 Have their own military, #2 Have plans to adopt the US dollar after succession and #3 would wish to only have a Québec passport, and not the Canadian one at all. If you are talking about the majority of Quebeckers, they would wish to keep their Canadian passposrts, money, and military. And of course they want support from the rest of the country, who dosen't?
"You dorks want out? [...] I voted yes to separation in the first referendum because I knew if you didn't get it [...] it would cost Canada even more to get rid of you. "
Please stay out of the Québec succession debate, as groundless anti-Québecois attitudes like that make the majority of the rest of Canadians look bad and only incite flame wars. You dork.
...est devenu un symbole pour tous les Canadiens, comme les symboles nationaux souvent commencent dans une région et deviennent nationaux. Voici un sommaire pour la Feuille d'Erable.
Il est aussi normal que les symboles du Québec deviendraient des symboles pour le tout le Canada, parce que la vallée du St-Lawrence a été origialment appelé "le Canada", et historiquement ont été le coeur de notre nation. En fait, les efforts du Parti Québecois est d'adopter nouveaux symboles pour le Québec qui sont différents des symboles du Canada (ex. "Je je des souviens" au lieu "La Belle Province", la Fleur de Lys, etc..) C'est intéressant par ce que comme ca, ils mettre leurs dos sur les propres symbols historiques du Québec en même temps.
[traduction] The Maple leaf is now a symbol of all Canadians, and it is quite normal for a regional symbol to become the symbol of a nation. Here is a short summary for the Maple Leaf situation.
It's normal that symbols for Québec would become national symbols, since the valley of the St Lawrence was originally called the region of "Canada", and has historically been the heart of the nation. In fact, the efforts of the Parti Québecois are to adopt new symbols for Québec that are different from those of Canada (eg. new license plates, the Fleur de Lys instead of the Maple Leaf) This is interesting because in doing so they are turning their backs on the original symbols of Québec itself.
(Not often one gets to speak le Beau Langage on Slashdot!)
I totally disagree that the Canadian government should have exclusive rights to the Maple Leaf Flag; if they do own the trademark they certainly only enfroce it rarely (and then only for commercial use). Marks the government actively protects involve the flag, but also involve other things such as a stylised "Government of Canada" script or departmental names in that script. In any event, it would be in their best interests to make the flag freely available since it is one of the few unifying sybols of such a diverse and regionalised country, and the more it is used the more Canadians will feel part of Canada and not swallowed up by the USA. Considering the goverment had a fairly successful program promoting and giving away the Maple Leaf flag freely (real flags and graphics), I'd say they agree.
That being said, it appears that the site in question is still using a Maple Leaf Flag with the "Health Canada" department name beside it, in a script and style very similar to that actually used by Health Canada. The federal government is within their rights to go after a pro-smoking group that is displaying the Health Canada department logo in any manner.
Normally I don't mind articles by Mr Katz, but this one is wrong in so many ways. Reading most of the 1,000+ posts here, it seems most Slashdotters likewise find it off-target
Let me say something first. I'm not a Mac user, and have never even owned a Mac: I use Windows every day. But as part of that group of "Harry and Martha Dubuques" who "isn't ready for it" as Katz says, I've been seriously thinking of getting my first Macintosh. And I think Katz is underestimating the Harry and Martha Dubuques of this world - how does he know what we're ready for? I guess he does and that's why he's running a successful computer company and little Stevie is not.
Katz also has the most narrow definition of success. Apparently, if you're not the monopoly, you're not successful. So Linux is also an abject failure because of market share? I would have to say in many respects, Linux is a great success despite a low market share. And so is Apple; our entire computing experiences - from our GUIs to software to hardware - have been heavily influenced by Apple, even if we've never used a Mac before. And as was recently and wisely stated, success in the computing industry is spelled "survival". From that perspective, Apple is not just successful, but flush with profits when other, more "successful" computer companies may not survive for much longer.
Katz seems to say that Apple focusses on being cool, while MS and Compaq focus on being functional. This thinking is wrong: cool and functional are not exclusive. Isn't it both cool and functional to burn the DVDs you want with ease? Isn't it both cool and functional to have a small computer that dosen't take up half your desk space? "But the middle class, for years abused and exploited by the arrogant tech industry [...] wants easy of use, safety, utility." And is this not exactly what Apple is giving them? How utilitarian is Apache? Or easy to use is iTunes? How much safer is a stable computer that is immune to 97% of viruses out there? The list of contraditions to Katz's arguments is endless.
Katz is right with one thing: Apple won't Take Over the World. They may never even achieve dominance on the desktop. But I don't give a rat's ass. So long as they survive and innovate that spells success to me.
"I am surprised that Apple hasn't stepped in to assist the FBSD group [...] and they have hired / are currently employing several FreeBSD coders. "
You have just answered your own concern. Let's spell it out: they pay *BSD coders to work on BSD as well as the Darwin/OSX implementations and that constitutes support.
Besides, if Apple took over sponsorship of any *BSD other than Darwin/OSX, the cries of "attempted hijacking!" would be heard throughout the land. They have to be careful to be seen as supportive without taking over.
... another copy in the endless stream of iMac look-alikes. Well, I think Apple Legal will leave these guys alone, since their advertising is zero and sales are likely to be close to that figure as well. It just wouldn't pay out more to go after them than they'd lose in legal fees. Plus, you can almost stick a fork in the old iMac- soon the new one hits store shelves.
OEone should stick to what they do best (which does not include promising vapourware) and give the internet device market 100% instead of trying to copy Apple.
OuiPapa, you either haven't actually used OS X (to which we must conclude that this is merely a troll) or you did use it, but didn't even bother looking in the Control Panels to turn the trackpad off, which would have solved your trackpad problem. Taking 2 minutes to install QuickKeys or any one of a multitude of Applescripts available would have solved your other problems. Heck, you could have even written a keymapping script that would run in the background with no noticeable delay. Or a quick search on Google would have given you tons of customizeable foreign-language maps for the Mac that you could modify; I've seen them work fine on iBooks.
So next time you decide to write a troll, try to make it a little more credible. Or, if you actually did by that iBook, why didn't you try it out beforehand? Maybe a larger PowerBook would have been better for you.
I was thinking of getting a 20gig Archos player, but the reviews I've seen on it are no where near as good as for the iPod. Maybe I'm going overboard with the "must... have... maximum... storage" attitude. Or I could wait for either A) the rest of the industry to copy the iPod (which is probably inevitable but could take up to a year including a good interface) or B) Apple to come out with a 10gig or larger iPod (maybe less than 6 months now)
But I'm not sure the XPod syncing will be as good as the Apple system. In the end, I guess it comes down to whether or not I have a Mac right now. And since I don't... I think I'm actually considering getting one. Eeek!
Hoo-ray for small miracles, an actual judge with sense not to be bamboozled by 300 lawyers (and a complicit prosecution) in a case involving MS. I think Apple, Red Hat, et al. deserve credit where credit is due in this by effectively presenting to the court why this would've been a bad deal. C|net also has an updated story on this, sugesting the possibility of a greater-than $1B penalty for MS now from Judge Motz' comments.
But this case, like the antitrust case, is not yet over. While we can't do anything to influence the next flimsy settlement for price-gouging MS will probably try to come out with here, maybe we can make a difference in the antitrust case by writing the DoJ. Public comment period ends January 28, 2002. Do write, but polite & reasoned letters only, please.
"How long can Apple last?" Gimme a break, I was hoping for at least an "Apple/BSD is dyeing" header on/.
"Do enough people really buy these things to keep Apple afloat" Apparently, and even profitable
"Until you can play Counter-Strike on an iMac, I can't take them seriously" I guess if games are what it takes for you to take a platform seriously instead of real apps that help you get work done, you take the Xbox a lot more seriously than Linux.
Many people here seem to be having the same reaction to this iMac as mine to the first one: What were they thinking?!? The iMac is, and never has been the machine for me, nor do I suspect that the majority of roll-your-own open source users here on/. would find something so non-customizable appealing either.
I don't think I'll get this new iMac, I need a bit more out of my computer. But I'm obviously not one of the 6,000,000+ people that bought one of the original iMacs either, so I'm not going to judge this new one on the basis of if whether I would buy it or not. Would I recommend it to my family or friends? You bet, it seems practical and cool. At least more so than the first time I ever saw an iMac.
People, people! Everyone snickering that 'heads will roll' or the pink slips are coming for someone at Time might as well realise the laugh's on you. This is not like the MWNY2001 ATI leak, since the freakin' magazine was in some 24hr newsstands here in Canada as of late Sunday night. Everyone (at Time and Apple) knew that was going to be the case, and Apple obviosuly decided to let it slip to a limited number of slobbering news junkies 12 hours before the keynote rather than have the hype diffused and postponed to next week's Time cover.
The fact that it was 'leaked' and they're still talking about it all over web is testament to the fact that it didn't really damage publicity any, and may have even added to it.
"For Harry Homeowner, it's a weird-lookin' contraption that costs twice as much as the equivalent PC. "
Don't you read the freakin' articles before posting? They say right in it "You can buy a PC with a flat-panel display and a built-in DVD burner for around $1,800, the same as the equivalent iMac." as well as "...A DVD burner is squeezed into the high-end $1,800 model. While it's hard to come up with a perfect Apple-to-PC comparison, a top-of-the-line Dell Dimension 8200, with a flat-panel monitor and DVD burner (plus a faster Pentium 4 processor and much larger hard drive), costs $2,200..."
How does this cost twice as much? Like you said, you "could be wrong"...
This will probably be modded down to 1, but here goes:
For political reasons, it's obvious why MS would never port Office to Linux; we might as well be arguing for cars that run on water from an oil company. It would be much more likely that they would make a port to a UNIX instead. Decidedly, even this possibility is remote since even the largest *NIXes (FreeBSD, Solaris, etc) neither are in the habit of being used in environments where Office is needed nor do they have enough market share to financially justify porting.
The only way Office (and therefore desktop viability) will ever come to Linux is if MS is broken up - a virtual impossibility now - or somehow forced by the courts to release their code: and only the latter by enough of us writing in and expressing our concerns on the case. If you ever want to have the option to use Office on Linux, don't just complain, write.
But lots of users that are coming from open source software alternatives (like the KDE webrowser, Konqueror) would be more familiar with and prefer those X-Windows versions. It's all about choice - you may choose MSIE and Word but others (especially in this forum for idealogical reasons) would not. Everyone can be remain happy.
Slashdot Mirror
Before Apple held back QuickTime 6, quite a few other companies reacted with horror to the MPEG LA proposed licensing terms as well. Those critical include On2, an provider of open source compression solutions, and the Internet Streaming Media Alliance of which Apple, Cisco, IBM, and Sun are members, amongst others.
In this case, Apple is in the right in standing against what amounts to an internet tax on end-users.
Did anyone else notice the crazy pop-up ads at that site? Is linuxgaming.com so desperate for cash that they have to spawn a pop-up every 15 seconds while we're on their site?
Sorry to see Loki go; Linux gaming will be worse off without them. Their code was good, just a bad business model. Not the first, won't be the last. Where is all the valuable programming talent from Loki going?
43% of Canadians support Québec separating? It'll be a cold day in hell before support reaches that level. And within Québec, it's LESS THAN HALF, otherwise they would have separated by now, since it's still a democratic country. Sure, it was a small margin last referendum, but still a greater margin than some people take to win. Interestingly, in the same way that Al Gore lost the US presidency, the current Québec provincial government won the last election due to the electoral system, even though they did not receive the most votes.
I imagine if you're all for Québec's right to self-determination, you're also supportive of the separation of the Second Republic of Texas, of Alaskan Nationhood, the restoration of the Sovereign Kingdom of Hawaii, the California Republic, Puerto Rican independence, and the formation of Cascadia from what's left of the United States of America.
It wouldn't be at all workable... the animosity between federalist and seperatist sides is already just under the surface, and this would explode if Québec actually attempted to separate. Then there is the question of regions of Québec that are staunchly federalist and have said they will remain with Canada if Québec separates, and the Québec provincial government's reply that they would never allow regions to go if they wish. And the question that vast areas of the North of the province are populated mostly by natives that are also stongly federalist and would probably never agree to separate under any conditions. Plus the very thorny issue of Québec refusing to pay it's portion of the national debt or for federal properites in the province if they left ...an stance which most of the rest of Canada is almost violently opposed to. And really, these issues are only the tip of the iceberg, there are issues of minority language rights, native rights, freedom of movement from Ontario to the Atlantic Provinces which could be held hostage, more attempts at mutiny in the Canadian military incited by seperatists, etc etc.
In short, a separate Québec would never exist as peacefully as Alaska does with a friendly neighbour, because there would be great animosity. People refuse to realise there is the very real possibility of a dirty, extended breakup even involving military action on the North American continent. This would be a disaster for us all.
If Linux companies had produced Linux-only or Linux-first games that were original and playable, most would still be in business. How can you compete by porting something that's already out for Windows, if most of your user base can already dual-boot into Windows and sees little reason to wait for the Linux version to come out? Not a good business plan, unfortunately.
Although not the most technically advanced game, Tux Racer is a good example of the possible success of Linux games. If even a simple Linux-only game as this can achieve as many fans as it has in the Linux market, larger projects that were creative and Linux first had a good chance of success. But a port of SimCity 3000 months after you could already play it on your computer in Windows? Good game, bad business.
Considering that Loki filed for bakrupcy in the summer, and 90% of companies that do aren't in existence just 1 year later, this is no surprise.
In hindsight and now knowing what the Linux gaming market is like, this was inevitable. The fact that most Linux users either dual-boot with Windows or have another x86 machine with Windows was the critical factor. As most of us Linuxheads are in the technically-savvy section of the computing market, and those users tend to be aware of new products & software faster and early adopters, why would they want to wait months for a game to come out for Liunx if they could play it today on their Windows partition? Even if our hearts were in the right place and we tried not to play a game until we bought the Linux version, obviously our desires exceeded our willpower otherwise Loki would still be with us.
This is unfortunately not good news for the rest of the Linux gaming industry (or what's left of it). The circumstances that made Loki die still exist, and I'm sure other Linux gaming companies are feeling them too. But our own use of x86 hardware - as much freedom and value as it has given us - is the very reason Linux gaming is faltering. Mac-porting companies are doing well, and even Amiga companies get good responses to their ports, all because they have captive audiences. It's the price we pay for inexpensive and abundant hardware.
Well, nice of you to give you $0.02 on the issue, too bad you don't seem to undertand it too well. Bill 101, the language law to which you refer, is a Québec provincial law that the federal Canadian goverment is not at all happy about. The Canadian government does have an official bilingualism policy, and enforces this to protect minority language rights (minority anglopone in Québec, and minority francophones in the rest of the country). These laws are not merely designed to please the people of Québec, but to protect the right to access to government servcies for english-speakers in Québec and the millions of Canadian french-speakers that have never lived in Québec at all.
And it's "Vive le Québec" - "Viva" is not french.
The "concept of Québec" is not any more of a joke that "the concept of Illinois" is. Both exist, and maybe one or the other may not be respectable in your little world, but they are to just about everyone else on Plaent Earth.
If the only place in Montréal that looked clean to you was the "English part" then you haven't seen 75% of the city. I could equally go to your city and massively generalise about the entire state populace from the slummy areas too. Where are you from Anonymous Coward, Detroit?
"where people congragate with cigarette butts, and generally turning your town into a piece of Africa" I imagine you mean that to be derogatory. Too bad you've probably never seen most of Africa, which is a beautiful place
"I read somewhere that old-school racist English used to have the saying "Africa begins at Caleigh" but I never understood it until I saw Montreal." So now you agree with these Old School Racists? Forget what state, what century are you from? And it's spelled "Calais"
No, the subway is not "run by the English" if in fact one can even meaningfully distinguish between anglophones and francophones. Most people in Montréal are bilingual, and many have been brought up in both languages so that they speak each equally fluently, with no accent on either. And ethnically, most are from non-British and non-French backgrounds, but speak both. So while civil employees of the Société de transport de Montréal work in french, your distinction of "the English" or "the French" running it is a meaningless distinction common to those that don't understand the way cultures & languages work.
"though this cutie did hit on me in a pancake house [...] Would all my daughters be whores, all my sons never have a job, smoke away all the money I give them on cigarettes and die of aids from having their fudge packed by rich Americans?" Ego, derision... Ohhh, and people wonder why many people in other countries have a bad opinion of American tourists...
What rubbish. If you are talking about seperatists in Québec (a minority) they would be most happy to #1 Have their own military, #2 Have plans to adopt the US dollar after succession and #3 would wish to only have a Québec passport, and not the Canadian one at all. If you are talking about the majority of Quebeckers, they would wish to keep their Canadian passposrts, money, and military. And of course they want support from the rest of the country, who dosen't?
Please stay out of the Québec succession debate, as groundless anti-Québecois attitudes like that make the majority of the rest of Canadians look bad and only incite flame wars. You dork.
...est devenu un symbole pour tous les Canadiens, comme les symboles nationaux souvent commencent dans une région et deviennent nationaux. Voici un sommaire pour la Feuille d'Erable.
Il est aussi normal que les symboles du Québec deviendraient des symboles pour le tout le Canada, parce que la vallée du St-Lawrence a été origialment appelé "le Canada", et historiquement ont été le coeur de notre nation. En fait, les efforts du Parti Québecois est d'adopter nouveaux symboles pour le Québec qui sont différents des symboles du Canada (ex. "Je je des souviens" au lieu "La Belle Province", la Fleur de Lys, etc..) C'est intéressant par ce que comme ca, ils mettre leurs dos sur les propres symbols historiques du Québec en même temps.
[traduction] The Maple leaf is now a symbol of all Canadians, and it is quite normal for a regional symbol to become the symbol of a nation. Here is a short summary for the Maple Leaf situation.
It's normal that symbols for Québec would become national symbols, since the valley of the St Lawrence was originally called the region of "Canada", and has historically been the heart of the nation. In fact, the efforts of the Parti Québecois are to adopt new symbols for Québec that are different from those of Canada (eg. new license plates, the Fleur de Lys instead of the Maple Leaf) This is interesting because in doing so they are turning their backs on the original symbols of Québec itself.
(Not often one gets to speak le Beau Langage on Slashdot!)
I totally disagree that the Canadian government should have exclusive rights to the Maple Leaf Flag; if they do own the trademark they certainly only enfroce it rarely (and then only for commercial use). Marks the government actively protects involve the flag, but also involve other things such as a stylised "Government of Canada" script or departmental names in that script. In any event, it would be in their best interests to make the flag freely available since it is one of the few unifying sybols of such a diverse and regionalised country, and the more it is used the more Canadians will feel part of Canada and not swallowed up by the USA. Considering the goverment had a fairly successful program promoting and giving away the Maple Leaf flag freely (real flags and graphics), I'd say they agree.
That being said, it appears that the site in question is still using a Maple Leaf Flag with the "Health Canada" department name beside it, in a script and style very similar to that actually used by Health Canada. The federal government is within their rights to go after a pro-smoking group that is displaying the Health Canada department logo in any manner.
Normally I don't mind articles by Mr Katz, but this one is wrong in so many ways. Reading most of the 1,000+ posts here, it seems most Slashdotters likewise find it off-target
Let me say something first. I'm not a Mac user, and have never even owned a Mac: I use Windows every day. But as part of that group of "Harry and Martha Dubuques" who "isn't ready for it" as Katz says, I've been seriously thinking of getting my first Macintosh. And I think Katz is underestimating the Harry and Martha Dubuques of this world - how does he know what we're ready for? I guess he does and that's why he's running a successful computer company and little Stevie is not.
Katz also has the most narrow definition of success. Apparently, if you're not the monopoly, you're not successful. So Linux is also an abject failure because of market share? I would have to say in many respects, Linux is a great success despite a low market share. And so is Apple; our entire computing experiences - from our GUIs to software to hardware - have been heavily influenced by Apple, even if we've never used a Mac before. And as was recently and wisely stated, success in the computing industry is spelled "survival". From that perspective, Apple is not just successful, but flush with profits when other, more "successful" computer companies may not survive for much longer.
Katz seems to say that Apple focusses on being cool, while MS and Compaq focus on being functional. This thinking is wrong: cool and functional are not exclusive. Isn't it both cool and functional to burn the DVDs you want with ease? Isn't it both cool and functional to have a small computer that dosen't take up half your desk space? "But the middle class, for years abused and exploited by the arrogant tech industry [...] wants easy of use, safety, utility." And is this not exactly what Apple is giving them? How utilitarian is Apache? Or easy to use is iTunes? How much safer is a stable computer that is immune to 97% of viruses out there? The list of contraditions to Katz's arguments is endless.
Katz is right with one thing: Apple won't Take Over the World. They may never even achieve dominance on the desktop. But I don't give a rat's ass. So long as they survive and innovate that spells success to me.
"I am surprised that Apple hasn't stepped in to assist the FBSD group [...] and they have hired / are currently employing several FreeBSD coders. "
You have just answered your own concern. Let's spell it out: they pay *BSD coders to work on BSD as well as the Darwin/OSX implementations and that constitutes support.
Besides, if Apple took over sponsorship of any *BSD other than Darwin/OSX, the cries of "attempted hijacking!" would be heard throughout the land. They have to be careful to be seen as supportive without taking over.
Yeah, I think it's cuter than any iMac too! I think I'll pick one up in my new car and show it to my girlfriend. Finally, someone with my tastes!
... another copy in the endless stream of iMac look-alikes. Well, I think Apple Legal will leave these guys alone, since their advertising is zero and sales are likely to be close to that figure as well. It just wouldn't pay out more to go after them than they'd lose in legal fees. Plus, you can almost stick a fork in the old iMac- soon the new one hits store shelves.
OEone should stick to what they do best (which does not include promising vapourware) and give the internet device market 100% instead of trying to copy Apple.
OuiPapa, you either haven't actually used OS X (to which we must conclude that this is merely a troll) or you did use it, but didn't even bother looking in the Control Panels to turn the trackpad off, which would have solved your trackpad problem. Taking 2 minutes to install QuickKeys or any one of a multitude of Applescripts available would have solved your other problems. Heck, you could have even written a keymapping script that would run in the background with no noticeable delay. Or a quick search on Google would have given you tons of customizeable foreign-language maps for the Mac that you could modify; I've seen them work fine on iBooks.
So next time you decide to write a troll, try to make it a little more credible. Or, if you actually did by that iBook, why didn't you try it out beforehand? Maybe a larger PowerBook would have been better for you.
I was thinking of getting a 20gig Archos player, but the reviews I've seen on it are no where near as good as for the iPod. Maybe I'm going overboard with the "must... have... maximum... storage" attitude. Or I could wait for either A) the rest of the industry to copy the iPod (which is probably inevitable but could take up to a year including a good interface) or B) Apple to come out with a 10gig or larger iPod (maybe less than 6 months now)
But I'm not sure the XPod syncing will be as good as the Apple system. In the end, I guess it comes down to whether or not I have a Mac right now. And since I don't... I think I'm actually considering getting one. Eeek!
Hoo-ray for small miracles, an actual judge with sense not to be bamboozled by 300 lawyers (and a complicit prosecution) in a case involving MS. I think Apple, Red Hat, et al. deserve credit where credit is due in this by effectively presenting to the court why this would've been a bad deal. C|net also has an updated story on this, sugesting the possibility of a greater-than $1B penalty for MS now from Judge Motz' comments.
But this case, like the antitrust case, is not yet over. While we can't do anything to influence the next flimsy settlement for price-gouging MS will probably try to come out with here, maybe we can make a difference in the antitrust case by writing the DoJ. Public comment period ends January 28, 2002. Do write, but polite & reasoned letters only, please.
How is the parent post not a Troll?
"How long can Apple last?" Gimme a break, I was hoping for at least an "Apple/BSD is dyeing" header on /.
"Do enough people really buy these things to keep Apple afloat" Apparently, and even profitable
"Until you can play Counter-Strike on an iMac, I can't take them seriously" I guess if games are what it takes for you to take a platform seriously instead of real apps that help you get work done, you take the Xbox a lot more seriously than Linux.
Many people here seem to be having the same reaction to this iMac as mine to the first one: What were they thinking?!? The iMac is, and never has been the machine for me, nor do I suspect that the majority of roll-your-own open source users here on /. would find something so non-customizable appealing either.
I don't think I'll get this new iMac, I need a bit more out of my computer. But I'm obviously not one of the 6,000,000+ people that bought one of the original iMacs either, so I'm not going to judge this new one on the basis of if whether I would buy it or not. Would I recommend it to my family or friends? You bet, it seems practical and cool. At least more so than the first time I ever saw an iMac.
People, people! Everyone snickering that 'heads will roll' or the pink slips are coming for someone at Time might as well realise the laugh's on you. This is not like the MWNY2001 ATI leak, since the freakin' magazine was in some 24hr newsstands here in Canada as of late Sunday night. Everyone (at Time and Apple) knew that was going to be the case, and Apple obviosuly decided to let it slip to a limited number of slobbering news junkies 12 hours before the keynote rather than have the hype diffused and postponed to next week's Time cover.
The fact that it was 'leaked' and they're still talking about it all over web is testament to the fact that it didn't really damage publicity any, and may have even added to it.
"For Harry Homeowner, it's a weird-lookin' contraption that costs twice as much as the equivalent PC. "
Don't you read the freakin' articles before posting? They say right in it "You can buy a PC with a flat-panel display and a built-in DVD burner for around $1,800, the same as the equivalent iMac." as well as "...A DVD burner is squeezed into the high-end $1,800 model. While it's hard to come up with a perfect Apple-to-PC comparison, a top-of-the-line Dell Dimension 8200, with a flat-panel monitor and DVD burner (plus a faster Pentium 4 processor and much larger hard drive), costs $2,200..."
How does this cost twice as much? Like you said, you "could be wrong"...
This will probably be modded down to 1, but here goes:
For political reasons, it's obvious why MS would never port Office to Linux; we might as well be arguing for cars that run on water from an oil company. It would be much more likely that they would make a port to a UNIX instead. Decidedly, even this possibility is remote since even the largest *NIXes (FreeBSD, Solaris, etc) neither are in the habit of being used in environments where Office is needed nor do they have enough market share to financially justify porting.
The only way Office (and therefore desktop viability) will ever come to Linux is if MS is broken up - a virtual impossibility now - or somehow forced by the courts to release their code: and only the latter by enough of us writing in and expressing our concerns on the case. If you ever want to have the option to use Office on Linux, don't just complain, write.
But lots of users that are coming from open source software alternatives (like the KDE webrowser, Konqueror) would be more familiar with and prefer those X-Windows versions. It's all about choice - you may choose MSIE and Word but others (especially in this forum for idealogical reasons) would not. Everyone can be remain happy.