I've been thinking about this whole SCO/Unix crap, and realized that, in all likelihood, SCO is going to lose because of a court case that dealt with a similar cloning incident.
The case was IBM's suit against Compaq for creating a clone of their IBM PC.
IBM lost primarily because the courts were ignorant at the time to the concepts of intellectual property that are commonplace now in the tech world. In my interpretation, the courts said that a "computer was a computer" and made little distinction between the uniqueness of the IBM PC and the ubiquity of the firmware and operating system it needed. In simpler terms, SCO may have an uphill battle because (1) Unix has been genericized by all the compatible versions and clones, and (2) SCO has waited too long to resolve this, and (3) remedies that SCO would desire through the courts would have grave financial and operational ramifications that could very well undermine the country's businesses' ability to conduct business if they had to drop what they are using, just to use an SCO product. (Never mind the monopolistic intent of SCO in this matter.)
Compare the PC clone wars to the Unix argument. If you as a development see (as in read) a piece of copyrighted Unix code, then whip out your computer and write up code that handles the same task as what you read without actually creating a copy of what you read, but only the ideas spawned from it, then you haven't violated a thing.
SCO must show that their code was truly and unmistakably copied (as in plagiarized) from their actual code base.
SCO will likely be unable to provide this proof because look and feel is not the argument, but the code's true origin is. In other words, just because some software looks like SCO's duck and walks like SCO's duck doesn't mean that it was created from any of SCO duck's DNA. The actual code to make a program is copyrightable, but as any book publisher can tell you, the idea of making the code is NOT copyrightable.
Unix design standards are like the design of the hammer. It is genericized enough now that copyright of the OS will be very hard to prove.
You might want to see this mildly humorous QuickTime movie on the official MER site detailing how the rovers get around without engineers having to shimmy the things around every other obstacle. The thing does it by itself--something the Russian lunar rovers didn't do.
Two words about the movie's beginning: Bullet time.
While MS might say so, I wonder a single UNIX application such as VPC could cause such a compromise to OS X. The only way I could think of a vunerability being effective is if VPC could relay instructions to OS X, and if OS X has an administrator account running, where a chance exists that root could be activated.
I think MS wants to be overreactive to the possibilities, rather than underestimate the potential, low as they may be.
Virtual PC emulates the hardware of an actual PC, complete with a video card, Ethernet NIC, a P2 processor, sound card, COM ports, and USB. This allows VPC to run practically any OS (except the old BeOS).
Because of this, folks, VPC has always been subceptible to malware attacks, particularly in Windows. If you can infect a real PC running Windows, then VPC running the same OS configurution is just as vunerable. Running Linux? Yep, you can get rooted if you don't configure it as you would any other box.
This new security update isn't very special in itself--it's perhaps that MS detected the vunerability better because it has access to the VPC source since they own the product now. A good question is whether the vunerability is in the virtual machine code or something that makes VPC more vunerable only in an environment running Windows.
The good news is that infections will only compromise the PC environment(s) in use. The Mac that is running VPC cannot be touched as it is effectively an invisible party to the VPC environments, nor can the Mac be used as a carrier as you can with some e-mail worms.
Not to say that someone might not try to exploit VPC's ability to use USB devices or its networking processes it shares with a Mac, or options such as shared folders (where a Mac folder is shared to Windows as if it were a networked folder).
Yep, I agree. That's how current solids and liquid fuels work.
But anything is impossible until its not. I don't have a real answer, since I'm just an enthusiast, not an engineer. A solid fuel has to be stoppable--the question is how could it be done and still be relightable? That's a nice new engineering question.
Unfortunately, once the Shuttle SRBs are lit, NOTHING can be done to abort until they are spent. Attempting to let them loose while powered may likely create a Challenger-esque ET destruction sequence, either by collision or imbalanced separations, leaving the Orbiter/ET to tumble.
Oh, yeah. While nice, hypergolics are ugly. But cryogenic fuels are worse.
To escape the Earth's gravity and not be forcibly pulled back, you would have to leave at about 25,000 MPH, or about 7 mi/sec. That's a lot of energy to move a moon shuttle from Earth orbit. Note that it took the entire, very large third stage of the Saturn V rocket just to move the LM and CSM to the moon. If you have small payloads, like space probes, it's not so bad. But economically, there's a way to spread things around.
A space station still works great as a waypoint. It just wouldn't be practical to start your adventure to anywhere except the Moon from there. So, create a new shuttle that can better move men and supplies with much greater abort options (hint: Fly the shuttle by a new next-gen plane to near-space [62 mi) then pop the bastard from there with far less needed fuel and still keep an abort option as both orbiter and booster plane are glideable or have powered-flight capacity).
Such a station would indeed have at least two (backups, remember?) moon shuttles, flyable only in space. What? Fuel? Who says you need to use liquid fuels? Try solids that can be lit and relit in space. The fuel cores could be sent on shuttles without as much worry about volatility than liquids. There is one way to stop a burn in space--stop the oxidizer (you're in vacuum, figure it out). Hypogolic fuels (ones that dont need an igniter--they burn when two substances touch) are still a nice bet as well, and may be safer to upload in separate trips.
Let the moon itself be the fuel depot, optionally--there is probably a way to produce what is needed there.
From the moon, with its puny 1.47 mi/sec escape velocity, trips to anywhere work great and require less energy to achieve. Most importantly, astronauts would have TWO in-space safe-haven return locales in case things get ratty somewhere along the Earth-Moon transits.
Once you're in route to Mars, however, you better be able to make oxygen from a can of Spam, because rescue options would be pretty sparse.
I'm black, but I don't agree. "Whitey" didn't go to the moon. We all did--it was done with all the money of the USA's citizens. Just because James Brown didn't set foot on the moon first with a "Good God!" and a wail doesn't make the achievement any less important.
There are always problems that could use more attention. But don't mistake attention for money that you think should be flowing elsewhere. Our government didn't just meld billions of dollars into hardware to get us to the moon. That money was the cost to PAY for labor (jobs) to make the things and create the services that got us there.
In other words, space exploration, robots or no, create jobs. They just may not be the jobs you (and I speak generally) never pushed yourself to attain. That's another problem that's not the government's fault, but a self-attainment, supply-demand, and achievement thing.
At the same time, we can't all be rocket scientists. So, it would be nice to get our corporate sector in on the New Frontier to start the seed by sponsoring flights for new, future jobs. If the new Mars rover or the next flight to the moon is named the Verizon-Pepsi Moon Shuttle, and adds a few millon of non-tax dollars to get the ship there, then so be it.
If we can get Hilton Hotels, for instance, to put down some long-term funds to invest in a recreational/retirement resort on the moon, great. It would be the ultimate vacation, or even theraputic resort or hospise. Old folks with bad backs or arthritis will LOVE playing in 1/6th gravity, and also the funny sensation of going to Heaven before they die.
We will ALWAYS focus on matters on Earth. But exploration fosters new opportunities and jobs. I wish I could say that jobs are instantly created, but that is rarely true for any business. It takes time, but if individuals or governments or businesses aren't given reasons to consider investing, then jobs will never manifest. If we refused to move to space in the 1960s, imagine how tech-poor we all would be now because the space race wasn't around to create the technology we take for granted now, such as the computer I type on, the Internet (created from funding for our missile systems so no one nuke would stop our nukes from being set off during the Cold War) or the cell phone you speak on, or even the 911 system.
Remember that migration in the 17th Century that brought English settlers here to North America and launched a new economy, among other achievements that reciprocated around the world? Imagine how we can do that elsewhere, and what it can do to help make humanity that much more rich in resources that COULD attend to the usual needs of food, clothing and shelter that much more.
There's also the little matter of having a backup in case Earth gets hit by a large rock from space--it's happened before in all likelihood, and don't think that humanity is smart enough to survive it en masse. We need to all think like a Windows NT system admin--always have a backup plan.
Another geeky thing to enjoy is Maestro, software that allows anyone to download real data from both landers and observe in exhaustive detail what the JPL guys see (they use a much more complex version of the package). It's Java.
I own a Power Mac G4 MDD 2-processor system connected to an Apple 17-inch digital LCD display. On it, I have the TiVo-like device EyeTV, which allows me to watch conventional cable or antenna TV, and record any show, allowing me to save the programs later, burning them to DVD, as a QuickTime movie, or as a Video CD.
So, I've been waiting for video cards with HD tuners to arrive. It's inevitable. For one, getting this for me will be cheaper than getting a full HDTV for the time being, because I will not want to skimp on the type and size of TV I want for the household. Another reason is that my computer's screen, while not perfect as Apple's 23-in HD Cinema Display, is suitable enough for a clear, digital signal.
I suspect that El Gato or other companies will make and sell HD tuner video cards that also support conventional stuff (VGA, conventional TV tuners, etc.) just for the geeks. Most normals will simply drop into Best Buy, buy a TV, and be done with it. For me, however, I want all the mods, baby, and the ability to burn, burn, burn. A conventional HDTV, no matter how nice it looks, can't do it, and I don't want to add yet another computer connected to it to try to get recordings. I'm a one-computer kind of guy in daily use (though I collect plenty of them for nostalgia).
Finale is a music composition application, and, based on the article header and apologetic text throughout the vendor's page, it is an application late in coming.
That lateness won't make it easy to compete with any market or mind-share taken by the availability of products such as Symbolic Composer 5 (which appears to be shareware), and Apple's SoundTrack. The introduction of the new iLife application GarageBand, while not a full-featured composition tool, certainly can't help Finale in competition.
I'm sure you know of Darwin, which is the OS X OS core that runs on x86, so I won't discuss a Mac OS X port, per se. It will never happen, having a complete OS X version for x86, since Apple leverages its OS to sell its hardware, not software. Best example: the iTunes Music Store is built not to make money, but sell iPods.
Again, when it comes to buying a basic PC box, assembling it yourself and installing an OS, or buying a Mac box, you get what you pay for. There is a very good reason why Porsche doesn't offer a "build-it-yourself" option for their cars, and Apple feels the same way. Why are Macs a tad more expensive on average? Because they don't use the low-cost crappy commedity parts, and because they add the hardware they know many PC users may skip buying today but will eventually buy later (FireWire, a better video card, and other niceties). The only thing really unique in any Mac today is its chassis, motherboard and processor. The rest is the same stuff you find in any other PC.
The various UNIXes and clones out there all have their joys and laments, but none have hit the overall consistency, useability, and business software availability (Microsoft Office) than OS X--yet. You may be right--but not right now.
I understand truly about the joys of geekhood as well, and I don't think I should lose a point from my Geek License for suggesting that tinkering is a sin. In fact, unlike the original Mac OS (which was mostly closed up), I have gained far more repair and software options with the advent of OS X, since the UNIX side allows me to truly get under the hood of the damn thing in the few instances where it gets cranky or if I need to compile some app that's not included with OS X (like any other UNIX).
I generally agree. The speed that the Mac ports are handled do vary, but I tend that see that, while the PC version that arrived is already marked down, the game is usually not in the bargain bin yet, nowandays.
Yes, Battlefield 1942 is a good example of a great game not yet ported to Mac OS...but it might not be because of a lack of trying. There are still a few games out there that might be resisting a port due to a technical snafu, if not from good lawyers to negotiate the licensing of the port for Mac OS. Any PC game that heavily leverages the DirectPlay and DirectX tools from Microsoft could render a Mac port hard to do.
Another point you somewhat hit...while the PC version of the games do drop in price, the Mac versions of the games tend to stay at full price much, much longer, or hell, never even drop in price. What's up with that?
After hearing of many AMD processors popping louder than a lobster in a vat of boiling water, I considered a little liquid cooling to keep my rig from becoming an expensive piece of sand...
Makes sense to me, all you've said. Apologies if I sound like I am pigeonholing the typical Linux user.
But OS X is much like any other BSD. Don't want to pay Roxio for a burn app? Just use the exact same CD burn tools you're using now. Same is true for Apache and many, many other tools that are built in OS X as they are in Linux and BSD. Else, compile the darn things.
Just note that not everyone (not even here on/.) are whizzes that can build anything they need or tinker for hours. How much do you consider your time is worth? Some of us just want to buy something, use it, and take the remaining time in the date to do something else, like, hell--I don't know--date or something.
The largest flaw of the article involves the availability of games for Mac OS X. The writer admittedly didn't know of many, so I'll list a few, past, present, and near future. Games that cannot play with their PC or Linux counterparts in a multiplayer mode will be marked with the number sign (#)
-Return to Castle Wolfenstein (original; the Enemy Territory MP expansion is not yet available) (Multiplayer DOTH ROCK.) - Diablo 2 (including all expansions) - WarCraft 3 (including all expansions) - Neverwinter Nights (original; expansions not yet available, but can be hacked to work) - Baldurs Gate II - Icewind Dale - Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Star Wars: Jedi Academy - Lara Croft: Angel of Darkness - No One Lives Forever 1 and 2 - Halo - Soldier of Fortune 2 - Dungeon Siege (#) (Legends of Arranna expansion not yet available. This game is made in part by Microsoft and uses proprietary software to make MP work for PCs) - SimCity 4 - The Sims (including all expansions, excluding Online) - Splinter Cell (coming soon) - Command & Conquer: Generals - Star Wars: Battlegrounds - Call of Duty (coming soon) - Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Spearhead expansion (new editions not yet available) - Unreal - Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 - Quake 3 (duh--its the engine for most of the games listed)
About the only big game that never hit the Macintosh in recent years was Half-Life. I built a PC just to try that baby out, and I wasn't disappointed.
Usually, you have to wait 2-6 months for a successful PC game to be ported by companies such as Aspyr, but the wait is usually worth it because the game has been patched and runs much smoother than when it was first introduced on the PC.
I jokingly consider PC players as my beta testers, since a PC game that sucks ("Bloodrayne" notwithstanding--that turd got through the quality control somehow) is never ported to Mac OS X.
So, if you gotta play everything, the Mac isn't for you. If you want to enjoy the best of the games in a year, it's a sure bet it'll be ported soon.
Some companies, like Blizzard, ship boxes that contain both the Mac and PC versions of the game, such as WarCraft 3.
If you've been under a rock and haven't read much about OS X, still view Linux as a strong desktop OS, but hate having to fight to get the latest software, hardware, or other common computer accessories working without a call to your other Linux buddies, you should get a kick out of this article.
While the author disavows the article to a degree, it may be of great use to Linux and other UNIX users who haven't a clue of the true nature of OS X beneath its GUI interface. From the kernel, to a typical Mac's boot firmware, to its BSD origins, this is probably one of the better free web-accessible summaries that Linux geeks could appreciate.
OK, it might not make you switch, but note that this guy admits to using OS X for only 3 years or so, and he's gained quite an understanding of it.
...is that while everyone is salivating (justifiably) at the possibility of lower-cost iPods, that no one seems to be wondering much about the other new hardware Apple may announce at the Macworld keynote on 1/6, especially an updated, faster, cheaper G5, and God knows what else that the CEO may surprise us with.
Yep, a good year for Jobs, and good year for Apple and Pixar as well. Give the man a cookie.
Despite the change of venue, the bot, nor the scientists who created it, are going to get laid.
Hell, Tarzan had fewer cycles than the box they have swinging from tree to tree, but rain is the only way that box or its makers are going to get wet...
Slashdot Mirror
I've been thinking about this whole SCO/Unix crap, and realized that, in all likelihood, SCO is going to lose because of a court case that dealt with a similar cloning incident.
The case was IBM's suit against Compaq for creating a clone of their IBM PC.
IBM lost primarily because the courts were ignorant at the time to the concepts of intellectual property that are commonplace now in the tech world. In my interpretation, the courts said that a "computer was a computer" and made little distinction between the uniqueness of the IBM PC and the ubiquity of the firmware and operating system it needed. In simpler terms, SCO may have an uphill battle because (1) Unix has been genericized by all the compatible versions and clones, and (2) SCO has waited too long to resolve this, and (3) remedies that SCO would desire through the courts would have grave financial and operational ramifications that could very well undermine the country's businesses' ability to conduct business if they had to drop what they are using, just to use an SCO product. (Never mind the monopolistic intent of SCO in this matter.)
Compare the PC clone wars to the Unix argument. If you as a development see (as in read) a piece of copyrighted Unix code, then whip out your computer and write up code that handles the same task as what you read without actually creating a copy of what you read, but only the ideas spawned from it, then you haven't violated a thing.
SCO must show that their code was truly and unmistakably copied (as in plagiarized) from their actual code base.
SCO will likely be unable to provide this proof because look and feel is not the argument, but the code's true origin is. In other words, just because some software looks like SCO's duck and walks like SCO's duck doesn't mean that it was created from any of SCO duck's DNA. The actual code to make a program is copyrightable, but as any book publisher can tell you, the idea of making the code is NOT copyrightable.
Unix design standards are like the design of the hammer. It is genericized enough now that copyright of the OS will be very hard to prove.
(IANAL)
A marvel of agriculture...
Seedless corn!
Actually, Larry Ellison reminded me of a dark demon after some little monk kid.
That, or some James Bond villain, named "Zodiac" or something (credit to Jack at As the Apple Turns for that one).
Oh! Catan, not Satan.
For some reason I thought that this topic was just a rehash of a past Microsoft acquisition...
These wonderful utilities are versatile, come in many sizes, and assure me that my @!$%@&! PC never, ever gives me an error message again!
You might want to see this mildly humorous QuickTime movie on the official MER site detailing how the rovers get around without engineers having to shimmy the things around every other obstacle. The thing does it by itself--something the Russian lunar rovers didn't do.
Two words about the movie's beginning: Bullet time.
While MS might say so, I wonder a single UNIX application such as VPC could cause such a compromise to OS X. The only way I could think of a vunerability being effective is if VPC could relay instructions to OS X, and if OS X has an administrator account running, where a chance exists that root could be activated.
I think MS wants to be overreactive to the possibilities, rather than underestimate the potential, low as they may be.
Virtual PC emulates the hardware of an actual PC, complete with a video card, Ethernet NIC, a P2 processor, sound card, COM ports, and USB. This allows VPC to run practically any OS (except the old BeOS).
Because of this, folks, VPC has always been subceptible to malware attacks, particularly in Windows. If you can infect a real PC running Windows, then VPC running the same OS configurution is just as vunerable. Running Linux? Yep, you can get rooted if you don't configure it as you would any other box.
This new security update isn't very special in itself--it's perhaps that MS detected the vunerability better because it has access to the VPC source since they own the product now. A good question is whether the vunerability is in the virtual machine code or something that makes VPC more vunerable only in an environment running Windows.
The good news is that infections will only compromise the PC environment(s) in use. The Mac that is running VPC cannot be touched as it is effectively an invisible party to the VPC environments, nor can the Mac be used as a carrier as you can with some e-mail worms.
Not to say that someone might not try to exploit VPC's ability to use USB devices or its networking processes it shares with a Mac, or options such as shared folders (where a Mac folder is shared to Windows as if it were a networked folder).
More questionable euro-band music like "Der Kommisar"--and they want us to make COPIES of it, too!
/snicker
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we're getting duped into being viruses for perpetuating bad music!
Yep, I agree. That's how current solids and liquid fuels work.
But anything is impossible until its not. I don't have a real answer, since I'm just an enthusiast, not an engineer. A solid fuel has to be stoppable--the question is how could it be done and still be relightable? That's a nice new engineering question.
Unfortunately, once the Shuttle SRBs are lit, NOTHING can be done to abort until they are spent. Attempting to let them loose while powered may likely create a Challenger-esque ET destruction sequence, either by collision or imbalanced separations, leaving the Orbiter/ET to tumble.
Oh, yeah. While nice, hypergolics are ugly. But cryogenic fuels are worse.
To escape the Earth's gravity and not be forcibly pulled back, you would have to leave at about 25,000 MPH, or about 7 mi/sec. That's a lot of energy to move a moon shuttle from Earth orbit. Note that it took the entire, very large third stage of the Saturn V rocket just to move the LM and CSM to the moon. If you have small payloads, like space probes, it's not so bad. But economically, there's a way to spread things around.
A space station still works great as a waypoint. It just wouldn't be practical to start your adventure to anywhere except the Moon from there. So, create a new shuttle that can better move men and supplies with much greater abort options (hint: Fly the shuttle by a new next-gen plane to near-space [62 mi) then pop the bastard from there with far less needed fuel and still keep an abort option as both orbiter and booster plane are glideable or have powered-flight capacity).
Such a station would indeed have at least two (backups, remember?) moon shuttles, flyable only in space. What? Fuel? Who says you need to use liquid fuels? Try solids that can be lit and relit in space. The fuel cores could be sent on shuttles without as much worry about volatility than liquids. There is one way to stop a burn in space--stop the oxidizer (you're in vacuum, figure it out). Hypogolic fuels (ones that dont need an igniter--they burn when two substances touch) are still a nice bet as well, and may be safer to upload in separate trips.
Let the moon itself be the fuel depot, optionally--there is probably a way to produce what is needed there.
From the moon, with its puny 1.47 mi/sec escape velocity, trips to anywhere work great and require less energy to achieve. Most importantly, astronauts would have TWO in-space safe-haven return locales in case things get ratty somewhere along the Earth-Moon transits.
Once you're in route to Mars, however, you better be able to make oxygen from a can of Spam, because rescue options would be pretty sparse.
I'm black, but I don't agree. "Whitey" didn't go to the moon. We all did--it was done with all the money of the USA's citizens. Just because James Brown didn't set foot on the moon first with a "Good God!" and a wail doesn't make the achievement any less important.
There are always problems that could use more attention. But don't mistake attention for money that you think should be flowing elsewhere. Our government didn't just meld billions of dollars into hardware to get us to the moon. That money was the cost to PAY for labor (jobs) to make the things and create the services that got us there.
In other words, space exploration, robots or no, create jobs. They just may not be the jobs you (and I speak generally) never pushed yourself to attain. That's another problem that's not the government's fault, but a self-attainment, supply-demand, and achievement thing.
At the same time, we can't all be rocket scientists. So, it would be nice to get our corporate sector in on the New Frontier to start the seed by sponsoring flights for new, future jobs. If the new Mars rover or the next flight to the moon is named the Verizon-Pepsi Moon Shuttle, and adds a few millon of non-tax dollars to get the ship there, then so be it.
If we can get Hilton Hotels, for instance, to put down some long-term funds to invest in a recreational/retirement resort on the moon, great. It would be the ultimate vacation, or even theraputic resort or hospise. Old folks with bad backs or arthritis will LOVE playing in 1/6th gravity, and also the funny sensation of going to Heaven before they die.
We will ALWAYS focus on matters on Earth. But exploration fosters new opportunities and jobs. I wish I could say that jobs are instantly created, but that is rarely true for any business. It takes time, but if individuals or governments or businesses aren't given reasons to consider investing, then jobs will never manifest. If we refused to move to space in the 1960s, imagine how tech-poor we all would be now because the space race wasn't around to create the technology we take for granted now, such as the computer I type on, the Internet (created from funding for our missile systems so no one nuke would stop our nukes from being set off during the Cold War) or the cell phone you speak on, or even the 911 system.
Remember that migration in the 17th Century that brought English settlers here to North America and launched a new economy, among other achievements that reciprocated around the world? Imagine how we can do that elsewhere, and what it can do to help make humanity that much more rich in resources that COULD attend to the usual needs of food, clothing and shelter that much more.
There's also the little matter of having a backup in case Earth gets hit by a large rock from space--it's happened before in all likelihood, and don't think that humanity is smart enough to survive it en masse. We need to all think like a Windows NT system admin--always have a backup plan.
An RSS feed from NASA?
Your wish is their command.
Most news sites are too damn slow for news on the rovers. Hell, Spirit was fully up and running over two days ago.
Visit the official MER web site from JPL for at least better day-to-day detail.
Another geeky thing to enjoy is Maestro, software that allows anyone to download real data from both landers and observe in exhaustive detail what the JPL guys see (they use a much more complex version of the package). It's Java.
I own a Power Mac G4 MDD 2-processor system connected to an Apple 17-inch digital LCD display. On it, I have the TiVo-like device EyeTV, which allows me to watch conventional cable or antenna TV, and record any show, allowing me to save the programs later, burning them to DVD, as a QuickTime movie, or as a Video CD.
So, I've been waiting for video cards with HD tuners to arrive. It's inevitable. For one, getting this for me will be cheaper than getting a full HDTV for the time being, because I will not want to skimp on the type and size of TV I want for the household. Another reason is that my computer's screen, while not perfect as Apple's 23-in HD Cinema Display, is suitable enough for a clear, digital signal.
I suspect that El Gato or other companies will make and sell HD tuner video cards that also support conventional stuff (VGA, conventional TV tuners, etc.) just for the geeks. Most normals will simply drop into Best Buy, buy a TV, and be done with it. For me, however, I want all the mods, baby, and the ability to burn, burn, burn. A conventional HDTV, no matter how nice it looks, can't do it, and I don't want to add yet another computer connected to it to try to get recordings. I'm a one-computer kind of guy in daily use (though I collect plenty of them for nostalgia).
Finale is a music composition application, and, based on the article header and apologetic text throughout the vendor's page, it is an application late in coming.
That lateness won't make it easy to compete with any market or mind-share taken by the availability of products such as Symbolic Composer 5 (which appears to be shareware), and Apple's SoundTrack. The introduction of the new iLife application GarageBand, while not a full-featured composition tool, certainly can't help Finale in competition.
(Disclaimer: IANAMusician)
Whoo-hoo!!
With all my wiring, now I am the Beowulf cluster!
I'm sure you know of Darwin, which is the OS X OS core that runs on x86, so I won't discuss a Mac OS X port, per se. It will never happen, having a complete OS X version for x86, since Apple leverages its OS to sell its hardware, not software. Best example: the iTunes Music Store is built not to make money, but sell iPods.
Again, when it comes to buying a basic PC box, assembling it yourself and installing an OS, or buying a Mac box, you get what you pay for. There is a very good reason why Porsche doesn't offer a "build-it-yourself" option for their cars, and Apple feels the same way. Why are Macs a tad more expensive on average? Because they don't use the low-cost crappy commedity parts, and because they add the hardware they know many PC users may skip buying today but will eventually buy later (FireWire, a better video card, and other niceties). The only thing really unique in any Mac today is its chassis, motherboard and processor. The rest is the same stuff you find in any other PC.
The various UNIXes and clones out there all have their joys and laments, but none have hit the overall consistency, useability, and business software availability (Microsoft Office) than OS X--yet. You may be right--but not right now.
I understand truly about the joys of geekhood as well, and I don't think I should lose a point from my Geek License for suggesting that tinkering is a sin. In fact, unlike the original Mac OS (which was mostly closed up), I have gained far more repair and software options with the advent of OS X, since the UNIX side allows me to truly get under the hood of the damn thing in the few instances where it gets cranky or if I need to compile some app that's not included with OS X (like any other UNIX).
I generally agree. The speed that the Mac ports are handled do vary, but I tend that see that, while the PC version that arrived is already marked down, the game is usually not in the bargain bin yet, nowandays.
Yes, Battlefield 1942 is a good example of a great game not yet ported to Mac OS...but it might not be because of a lack of trying. There are still a few games out there that might be resisting a port due to a technical snafu, if not from good lawyers to negotiate the licensing of the port for Mac OS. Any PC game that heavily leverages the DirectPlay and DirectX tools from Microsoft could render a Mac port hard to do.
Another point you somewhat hit...while the PC version of the games do drop in price, the Mac versions of the games tend to stay at full price much, much longer, or hell, never even drop in price. What's up with that?
/tongue-in-cheek
After hearing of many AMD processors popping louder than a lobster in a vat of boiling water, I considered a little liquid cooling to keep my rig from becoming an expensive piece of sand...
Makes sense to me, all you've said. Apologies if I sound like I am pigeonholing the typical Linux user.
/.) are whizzes that can build anything they need or tinker for hours. How much do you consider your time is worth? Some of us just want to buy something, use it, and take the remaining time in the date to do something else, like, hell--I don't know--date or something.
But OS X is much like any other BSD. Don't want to pay Roxio for a burn app? Just use the exact same CD burn tools you're using now. Same is true for Apache and many, many other tools that are built in OS X as they are in Linux and BSD. Else, compile the darn things.
Just note that not everyone (not even here on
The largest flaw of the article involves the availability of games for Mac OS X. The writer admittedly didn't know of many, so I'll list a few, past, present, and near future. Games that cannot play with their PC or Linux counterparts in a multiplayer mode will be marked with the number sign (#)
-Return to Castle Wolfenstein (original; the Enemy Territory MP expansion is not yet available) (Multiplayer DOTH ROCK.)
- Diablo 2 (including all expansions)
- WarCraft 3 (including all expansions)
- Neverwinter Nights (original; expansions not yet available, but can be hacked to work)
- Baldurs Gate II
- Icewind Dale
- Star Wars: Jedi Knight II
- Star Wars: Jedi Academy
- Lara Croft: Angel of Darkness
- No One Lives Forever 1 and 2
- Halo
- Soldier of Fortune 2
- Dungeon Siege (#) (Legends of Arranna expansion not yet available. This game is made in part by Microsoft and uses proprietary software to make MP work for PCs)
- SimCity 4
- The Sims (including all expansions, excluding Online)
- Splinter Cell (coming soon)
- Command & Conquer: Generals
- Star Wars: Battlegrounds
- Call of Duty (coming soon)
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Spearhead expansion (new editions not yet available)
- Unreal
- Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004
- Quake 3 (duh--its the engine for most of the games listed)
About the only big game that never hit the Macintosh in recent years was Half-Life. I built a PC just to try that baby out, and I wasn't disappointed.
Usually, you have to wait 2-6 months for a successful PC game to be ported by companies such as Aspyr, but the wait is usually worth it because the game has been patched and runs much smoother than when it was first introduced on the PC.
I jokingly consider PC players as my beta testers, since a PC game that sucks ("Bloodrayne" notwithstanding--that turd got through the quality control somehow) is never ported to Mac OS X.
So, if you gotta play everything, the Mac isn't for you. If you want to enjoy the best of the games in a year, it's a sure bet it'll be ported soon.
Some companies, like Blizzard, ship boxes that contain both the Mac and PC versions of the game, such as WarCraft 3.
If you've been under a rock and haven't read much about OS X, still view Linux as a strong desktop OS, but hate having to fight to get the latest software, hardware, or other common computer accessories working without a call to your other Linux buddies, you should get a kick out of this article.
While the author disavows the article to a degree, it may be of great use to Linux and other UNIX users who haven't a clue of the true nature of OS X beneath its GUI interface. From the kernel, to a typical Mac's boot firmware, to its BSD origins, this is probably one of the better free web-accessible summaries that Linux geeks could appreciate.
OK, it might not make you switch, but note that this guy admits to using OS X for only 3 years or so, and he's gained quite an understanding of it.
Will OS X work for you best? YMMV.
...is that while everyone is salivating (justifiably) at the possibility of lower-cost iPods, that no one seems to be wondering much about the other new hardware Apple may announce at the Macworld keynote on 1/6, especially an updated, faster, cheaper G5, and God knows what else that the CEO may surprise us with.
Yep, a good year for Jobs, and good year for Apple and Pixar as well. Give the man a cookie.
Despite the change of venue, the bot, nor the scientists who created it, are going to get laid.
Hell, Tarzan had fewer cycles than the box they have swinging from tree to tree, but rain is the only way that box or its makers are going to get wet...