The cost issue is why we have tons of USB ports and maybe one or two firewire ports on a machine.
Or because Firewire devices can be daisy-chained.:)
I think it actually has to do with USB being more general purpose, accepting peripherals like mice, kb, speakers, printers, and even some of the same stuff Firewire is used for. Firewire on the other hand is only used where it performs best, which is only a few different types of devices.
Hmm. Last I checked AIX and Solaris and HP-UX supported 128 CPUs or more. They all scale pretty well. So either he's talking about the desktop OS, where more than 2 CPUs is pretty new, or there's something new here. I don't believe there's any reason at all to assume Grand Central has the slightest BIT to do with scalable architectures (which Intel's obviously isn't) , or merely "support" for many processors which probably wouldn't be given a fancy name and all.
I'd guess that it's not really something new; the basic problem of making programming for multiple CPUs "easy" has been around since the 1980s and it's still not "easy" -- oddly enough, you still have to think about concurrency, locks, multiple threads, etc. Why is this hard to grasp for so many people?
YES, machines with many processors have existed for decades. NO, using all of them isn't hard... on a server.
The problem is that on a desktop, you run fewer simultaneous processes, and often just ONE that you expect to use all available resources. THAT IS HARD. Where do you get off thinking this is easy? You think it's EASY to get something like Oracle to use twelve processors efficiently?
Go find me an example of something "easy", and USEFUL, with 128 concurrent threads, not processes, please.
As to the guy's benchmarks, they seem fairly reasonable to me. I don't think it's unreasonable to include things like vectors and hashmap implementations when talking about the speed of a language - and the benchmarks this guy was countering did the same thing. _All_ the benchmarks I've seen look like crap. Hypothetically speaking, _if_ the run time compiled/optimized code could theoretically outperform statically compiled/optimized code, but the overhead of a more robust standard library implementation hampered it's performance, wouldn't you be a _little_ curious of that? I think you and I both know how complicated and/or impossible a question like "Is Java faster than C++" is, so how could ten or fifteen little micro benchmarks answer it?
You're also confused on my motivation, I think. I really don't care what your motivation is/was. I'm after facts.
It's not uncommon to see a factor of two difference in performance. Is it common to see unbiased, scientific comparisons of the two running equivalent, real world tasks? Has it been done? Do we have anything besides junk micro-benchmarks? Is that just a phrase that's been repeated for years on the internet? I'm not kidding with you. When I hear stuff like that, I can't help but ask for details.
I don't hate Java. Um... good? It's pretty silly to get all emotional over programming languages.
I was arguing against the idea that it's so much faster than C++ that nobody measures it anymore. Which dumbass said that? Are you sure the idea wasn't that it's often fast enough where it's not worth the effort to port to C++ just to find out? But, if someone has, I'd be interested to know.
Even if Java would outpace C++ if it was let to run for longer or something, we'd still be left with the conclusion that there are some tasks C++ is faster for (which is all I was trying to establish). Well, you're right, there are tasks that C++ can perform better than Java. Why didn't you just say that?;) In the end, both can produce well optimized code, but I haven't read anything suggesting that the structure of either language enables fundamentally better optimizations than the other.
I don't know, doesn't much of Java's optimization come from being able to profile a running program continuously and recompile the 'hotspots' on the fly? Isn't the HotSpot VM _exactly_ what lead to claims of Java being as fast as C++ in the first place? The author of the benchmarks doesn't mention or seem to be aware of this.
Wouldn't a more objective comparison show Java's throughput over time while running these tests? The way he munges the source bothers me as well. Instead of subjectively modifying the code so it seems 'fair', shouldn't the tests include little or no calls to standard libraries or other classes? Or, if you are going to compare those things, do a baseline as I suggest, then call the following tests what they are.. a Vector vs. HashMap or whatever comparison.
Reasonably often you'll see people write an initial solution in Java, find it runs a bit too slow, and quickly port it to C++ (or pre-emptively switch to C++ if they think they'll be near the time limit). It's not uncommon to see a factor of two difference in performance. Where do you see this? The 2x gains and 'quick' Java->C++ ports that is, not the preemptive bit, I could care less about all this subjective garbage.
In any case, your contention that Java is so much faster that nobody does benchmarks anymore is unsupported and wrong. That benchmark you provided is crap.
Look, I'm just picking on you because it feels like you're comparing two cars by the HP number on the sticker instead of looking at a full dyno chart:P
I think he's overestimating the quality of our rural landlines quite a a bit.. Where I grew up in Maine for instance, to this day, the best you can get out of dial up is 24.4kbit, and we don't have cable.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't your line have to be AT LEAST capable of 56k (or 53333, whatever) in order to handle DSL? Something about the distance to a central office or something? Wouldn't that affect most of rural America? My little podunk town can't be the only one out there with no broadband AND cruddy phone lines. Seriously, where in rural America can you get 56k and no cable TV?
If the phone system didn't get upgraded during the AOL boom, it sure as hell ain't happening today. It might be cheaper than running fiber or cable I guess:\
Are you sure his 300 lines weren't parsing the XML, and looking for a keyword in a specific location & context?
I don't know the whole situation, but if some PHB made the decision (right or wrong) to go with a XML based format, one might think you should at least exercise due diligence and parse it correctly, which that grep simply isn't doing:\
I think I'd have to side with the other guy, unless more information comes to light.
Simply incredible. You must be commended for your outstanding commitment to Slashdot's "never read the article before posting" policy. You went far above and beyond your duties, and greatly exceeded your peers. You deserve a _fucking_ medal for not only skipping the article, but neglecting to read both the summary AND headline. In doing so, you managed to net +5 insightful moderator points.
Keep up the good work, Slashdot needs more committed members like you.
P.S. This article has NOTHING to do with games. Also, your Cringely link, with juicy lines such as
The truth is that there is no IT "profession." makes me want to throw up.
Does Apple really make a 'disposable' anything? I wouldn't even call the Mini that. If they'd built a mini in a mini-atx case or something yes.. but not as it is.
I think it's like asking BMW to make a budget car. What would you expect of it?? Why would BMW enthusiasts buy one if it didn't have 10-way adjustable seats and junk. You just can't put all that much into a $10,000 car, or a sub $500 PC. Why would Apple or BMW want to compete in that market? Beats me.. both would have to entirely change gears to start selling that junk in large quantities, and they seem to be doing just fine in their particular markets.
If so, think VMware or Xen built straight into the image or early parts of boot... virtualization and absolute rollbacks for the masses. VMware ESXi is exactly this. A 32MB ESX install they deliver in the form of a USB stick you plug into the motherboard (on the inside of the server). The USB key might just be Dell's implementation, but I'd prefer that over something soldered into the motherboard. I think I'd still like to see a second internal slot though.
I know you can buy them from Dell, I'm not sure who else at the moment. That's the R900 configure page in case the link gets broken.
Anyway... this is neat and all, but it doesn't really bring virtualization to the masses anymore than say, all the free virt. software from VMware, Microsoft, Xen, Sun, etc, and a whole slew of other cheap/free desktop virt. software I forgot to mention. Maybe I just don't get your drift:\
after
May 05 02:20:14 I have read it, and that is exactly how it comes across May 05 02:20:42 CronoCloud: Then I'm sorry you have that opinion because that was never the point and I really fail to see how you can read it that way. It's pretty clear this IRC log isn't the whole picture. Looks like someone trying to throw shit at a fan.
Some vendors like Sun and IBM give the key management stations away for free if you use encryption Who gives them away for free? IBM, SUN, or HP? Enterprise grade encrypting tape drives cost as much as a SUV anyway, so I wouldn't think they're above this tactic, I just haven't heard of it.
The cheap end, LTO4 encryption, is still way too new. Search the links for LTO... Give it a year or so before major backup software natively supports it well. If you just want your tape library managing the encryption keys, well, have at it I guess. IBM SUN
I think the best bet for cheap, solid tape encryption at the moment would be with HP. I don't believe they have high end drives to fuss about, so they're all about LTO4. HP
Damn dude, they didn't do to well with the $600 platform, and you'd have them push this into mid range PC pricing. I mean hell, it'd cost at least as much as a cheap laptop, look at all the features!:)
Cut them some slack at least, it does have Gig E, the regular controllers are BT and can fully control A/V playback, and the hard drive is user-replaceable, with instructions in the manual. Ain't perfect, but I spent enough as it is already.
People using Linux on BigIron(tm) bank on 24/7/365/25years uptime.
If you own a piece of Big Iron and run Linux on it, it's going to be virtualized.
And, clearly, you know better how to run a bank's systems than they do, despite having run them this way for, what, 30 years? 40? First, how are you trying to say big banks have been running for 30, or 40 years? The last two posters were specifically talking about Linux, which obviously hasn't been used in big banks or anywhere for 30 years. Second, IF a big bank is running Linux on this "BigIron", you can almost bet your ass it's an IBM mainframe we're talking about. That being the case, it would be running 'virtualized', PERIOD. They most likely even have multiple physical mainframes to fail over to, regardless of what the first poster thinks about having expensive idle hardware sitting around. Sure they're expensive, this is why - big financial institutions & the govt have TONS of money.
I'm sorry, all this talk of a "big bank" running Linux of all things all by itself 24/7/365 on some big piece of hardware that's soooo expensive you couldn't buy a second one is just too hysterical.
Big storage vendors are expected to charge less for maintenance now? Where, What, Huh?
Seriously, it's not like an enterprise disk array owner can just stop over at Best Buy, pick up a new drive and pop it in whenever he feels like it.
Sure the price of DISKS will go down but you know the cost of having some monkey stop by the data center to replace a failed DMX drive isn't going anywhere.
Supposedly the maintenance from Xiotech is going to be $1 on these things. Gimmick, sure, but in theory that's where the savings are supposed to come from.
Hold up just a tick. Are you saying the original Warcraft's were unoriginal? Warcraft, Dune, WCII, and C&C were the pioneers of RTS IMHO. Even now, the latest C&C and WC have their own distinctive feel. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Starcraft was the first RTS to nail three fully different unit structures. Most other RTS games of the time had two unit structures with only slight variations between them. There are plenty of innovative gems from the late 90's RTS explosion, but Blizzard and Westwood were already established players and lead the way for the most part.
Alright, EA/Westwood really phoned it in with Tiberian Sun, and although Red Alert was a great game all around, the mechanics really didn't change much from Tiberian Dawn. Still, these two franchises are not around today because they simply borrowed from other's ideas.
People need to stop thinking that 'I don't have a program that uses 16 cores (16 real threads), so I don't need a 16 core system).' On a desktop PC, the IO system is going to be the source of contention a far more often than the processor(s). How often do most people run several CPU bound tasks simultaneously on a desktop anyway? Extremely rarely.
Imagine splitting the CPU cycles of 1 core for all these tasks, and sharing them fairly, against splitting the cycles of 2..4..16 cores. If the CPUs you currently have aren't being heavily utilized, then having more of them isn't going to give you any perceptible improvements. This is really a matter of scaling horizontally as opposed to vertically, and they both suit entirely different workloads. The average workload of a desktop PC is shifting slowly in one direction, and not much at all in the other.
Boy, are you ever proving the original article right. Come on, baby, give me more of that hot Apple Fanboy wrath. Do we need to look up what wrath means now? Please do.
Your bluetooth mouse is not on the trackpad. Right, so you can bitch about the trackpad, which sucks on all laptops, and will most likely always suck, or buy a wireless mouse like everyone else.
It's a passive-aggressive attempt to avoid admitting that an issue exists. BTW: You got control-click and command click mixed up, which kind of helps me prove my point, no? Go look up passive-aggressive while your at it, and I've already told you I use a BT mouse, so is it a stretch to assume I use that particular key combination so rarely that I forget what key does it? Right click is not necessary to use Mac OS X. I'm more accustomed to it, so I have mine turned on although I'm completely proficient when my wife is logged on with her single button mighty mouse configuration, as well as on her MacBook when the mouse isn't handy. The biggest reason I need two or more buttons is for games, and they don't accommodate trackpads well to begin with. Therefore, I recommend a BT mouse. It makes sense after all, no?
Yeah, it takes OS X 3 seconds to wake from sleep instead of 10 seconds in Vista or XP. But then Finder utterly freezes for 4 minutes trying to connect to a network that no longer exists. Then when Finder's done, it's.mac's turn to freeze for several minutes because the network connection on the train is somewhat unreliable. (They can't both freeze at the same time, they have to take turns.)
I'm pretty OS-neutral, but I'd much rather have a Windows machine that can cope with network changes than a Mac that freezes constantly.
What do you mean a network that doesn't exist? An NFS or CIFS mount? I've never had these problems, but I don't have any remote file shares mounted at home either. The only problems I've had with.Mac are related to syncing, but I can imagine how a slow link could possibly lead to UI delays. Out of curiosity, what have you tried to troubleshoot these issues?
How isn't it? Either way, it's a hardware or low-level driver fault that puts the OS into a state where it can't continue-- it's the same damn thing. The only difference is that Windows gives some vaguely useful debugging information when it happens, and OS X opts for the user-friendly option of just saying "please restart."
And from my experience, as well, they're both about equally common on both OSes.
"Yah, that was sarcasm." Is it really necessary for me to say I was being sarcastic? Of course they are nearly the same thing, what's the point? When someone's computer locks up, it's locked up. BSODs aren't the butt of so many jokes because they are BLUE, but because they were so common, particularly in Win95-98. No one needs to be told a kernel panic is the same as a BSOD to understand how frustrating it is.
Ok, if you can't admit the Dock sucks, then you're one of those Mac users we're talking about. The Dock sucks, Finder really sucks, printer support sucks. There are lots of things in OS X that suck. (Not to say the Windows/Linux solution is any better. For instance, Linux printer support sucks even more than Apple's. And none of the systems allow you to simply drag&drop a stalled print job from one printer to another-- that sucks all-around!)
What are you talking about? The Dock works FINE for me! I'm really having a hard time understanding your frustration here. I really like my dock, and I have quite a bit of experience with many different OS interfaces. I don't know what to say to you. It's not the end-all-be-all UI, but what the heck is so wrong with it? Printer support obviously lags behind Windows, but it wasn't hard for me to find one that works with Macs (and Linux). Drag & drop to another printer is a good idea, but may be difficult given that the print queue is not always local. There's really no way to guarantee you wouldn't have two prints when all is said and done.
You're certainly showing that Mac users aren't stuck-up snobs! Christ.
Stuck up? Please, read this in the politest voice you can imagine, now go on and explain why the dock should be used just like a Windows task bar. Thanks in advance.
Look, the real reason is that it's historical. Historically, Macintosh applications don't quit (i.e. remove themselves from memory) until you select Quit from the file menu, regardless of how many windows they have open. Now some Macintosh applications will actually behave like Windows applications in this area, but most still follow the old conventions. There's no reason to believe that the Windows/Linux way of doing this is "superior" to the Macintosh way.
Wonderful explanation. So, it is an old model, still in use today, there are no clearly superior alternatives available... what's wrong with it again? I only wish it were more consistent, such that if the application wasn't on my dock to begin with, it should go away when I close the last window.
I have a right mouse button on my Bluetooth mouse. I can also click the trackpad button with two fingers on the trackpad. Then there's command-click, which has been used to bring up a context menu on Macs since the introduction of OS X AFAIK. NO, multi-touch isn't an admission of a so-called "issue". Everything PCs do differently than Macs are not "issues". Goes the other way too. Multi-button support in OS X is important because most UNIX platforms rely on many-button mice. UNIX software often needs more mice buttons than Windows ever did. So, was adding a third button to PC mice a few years back addressing an "issue"? No, and adding multi-button support in OS X is not either. Why don't you lay it all down here and tell us what your issues really are?
Quit being so defensive about the very real shortcomings of Apple's hardware Hardy-har-har, OK, put down your sword, then I'll put down mine.
Tell you what... I'll stop "dismissing them as non-issues" soon as you admit they might actually be non-issues. Lets see how well that works out.
Your whole post is passive-aggressive, was it meant to be a joke? "You spelled "right mouse button on laptops" in a really strange way there." "hacks that Apple has come up" "defensiveness that brings out the Mac bashers baying for blood" Oh, THAT'S the order this happens in? "lost in the feeding frenzy" "very real shortcomings" "doesn't suck as much" "don't suck as badly" "move on" Them's fight'n words, punk.
Anyone else amused that one of the biggest selling points of new Intel Macs is the ability to run Windows and access all of the programs that aren't available on the Mac?
Biggest selling point to which audience? Those who are trapped in their particular OS because of software dependancies? That is amusing now?
I've concluded that Macs are no more or less irritating*, crash prone**, or prone to dumb design ideas*** than are PCs.
Give some examples please. The biggest example that comes to my mind are sleep and hibernation modes. Mac desktops and laptops both come out of sleep quicker and connect to my wireless network far quicker than any PC I've ever had. My dell laptops take a full minute or two to connect to my WAP from wakeup. As for hibernation, I wont speak for Vista, but XP and back are absolutely f'ing horrible, while Macs do it flawlessly. Blame it on 3rd party software, USB devices, docks, whatever, Windows hibernation sucks and we all know it.
I've given the Mac a good run, and arguably am more knowledgeable than most users. I have taken the time to understand the ways that things work on the Mac. I doubt that I would buy another.
*AHEM* I would like to argue that point. Although, if you've TOUCHED a Mac you are more knowledgeable than most PC users, but it takes more than that to give a fair comparison. Two of your three following points paint a fairly clear picture of a diehard Windows user who borrowed an old Mac for a week and bitches about how different from Windows it is. Been there, seen that. Your Mac experience was doomed before you even laid hands on it.
No Delete key, but a key marked "delete" which actually backspaces. Yes, I know there is some multiple key combination that will delete stuff, but I still believe that pressing a key marked "delete" should cause things to be deleted.
Maybe on your laptop this is true, but not on any full Mac keyboard. The shortcut is Fn-delete, FYI. There are keys to delete forward and backwards on full Mac keyboards. The "delete" key DOES cause things to be deleted, where do you get off saying it doesn't? Here, this a nice article on the subject. Does deleting an object from a document make more sense than "backspacing" it? I thought so. This is what made me laugh when you said "I have taken the time to understand the ways that things work on the Mac." ORLY?
"Kernel Panic" is exactly the same as the "Blue Screen of Death".
Oh, really???? Yah, that was sarcasm.
In my experience the Mac crashes more often than my XP machine. And then there have been programs that just stop working for no apparent reason.
In my experience XP crashes more often than my iMac. And then there have been programs that just stop working for no apparent reason. I'm not being sarcastic, that's the honest-to-God truth. You have to realize how silly either of those statements are. You also know which of us is in the majority;)
The Dock irritates me no end on this small 12" screen. I'll take the Windows task bar any day. Simpler is better.
Make the dock smaller, turn on auto-hide? It's a 12" screen, deal with it. Have you seen a Start Menu on a 12" screen?? I'll forgive you only because the Dock options are so hidden. It's under "System Preferences", then "Dock", then use the "Dock Size" slider, and "Automatically hide and show the Dock" checkbox. Yah, I was being sarca.... never mind.
It also drives me crazy that the Mac defaults to leaving all apps running forever instead of shutting them down when you click the "close" button.
Not ALL apps work this way. Why in God's name does it drive you crazy anyway? The dock is not a task bar, quit dragging dumb Windows habits into this. Again, "I have taken the time to understand the ways that things work on the Mac" is hyst
Fake websites are only part of the problem. My aunt (not very computer literate) recently got scammed on ebay, but not from a fake site. The seller forged a fake email from ebay that described how to finish the transaction via Western Union:\
She is new to the internet, and to her WU sounded like an acceptable means of making the payment. She's never had to wire money before, and didn't understand the risks. So yes, WU should have set off all kinds of alarms, but you've got to consider many people have a different sense of trust. When she showed me the email from ebay in her yahoo inbox, I was shocked. It was too damned good. Yahoo let it in with a forged domain,...@ebay.com not gobbeldygookfoobar-ebay.com, there were no misspellings, and it looked very real even to me, other than the bad advice.
So anyway, I'm not completely sold on this being solely the end user's responsibility to verify everything, even websites. A beginner wouldn't even know what https is or what the address bar is telling them. There are lots of things we could do to make the internet safer for beginners. Many of us had it easy when we got started on the net, maybe we gave out our IP address in a chat room and got win-nuked, or have been the recipient of an email bomb, or had an IRC room stolen. Now, beginners are getting duped and scammed out of real money all too often, and we look down on them because it's so easy for _us_ to distinguish what's trustworthy or not.
I mean really, next thing you know someone would suggest that all fliers take off their shoes, turn over nail clippers, and not carry shampoo or extra lap-top batteries. People would never put up with stuff like that. I thought you were being sarcastic in a different way for a second, because so many people still bring that junk through checkpoints, slowing us all down.
I heard something to that effect too, and I'd trust their real life testing over any mathematical theory. It doesn't take into account that many asshats will stop mid plane to stow their luggage closer to the front, and people like to switch seats.
Performance isn't the only issue at hand here. There's also reliability, integration, management, etc. I'm not intimately familiar with IBM mainframe technology, but I've learned enough from people who are to know these are incredibly reliable, and trusted machines. That's why they are used in financial industries, not merely their ability to handle large loads.
If you were to suggest to to a mainframe guy that he needs to upgrade to a cluster of Unix boxes, you'd get the same look you'd give someone suggesting you should upgrade to a rack of Dell servers. You all think the others are f'ing nuts for different reasons.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it actually has to do with USB being more general purpose, accepting peripherals like mice, kb, speakers, printers, and even some of the same stuff Firewire is used for. Firewire on the other hand is only used where it performs best, which is only a few different types of devices.
YES, machines with many processors have existed for decades.
NO, using all of them isn't hard... on a server.
The problem is that on a desktop, you run fewer simultaneous processes, and often just ONE that you expect to use all available resources.
THAT IS HARD. Where do you get off thinking this is easy? You think it's EASY to get something like Oracle to use twelve processors efficiently?
Go find me an example of something "easy", and USEFUL, with 128 concurrent threads, not processes, please.
Has it been done?
Do we have anything besides junk micro-benchmarks? Is that just a phrase that's been repeated for years on the internet?
I'm not kidding with you. When I hear stuff like that, I can't help but ask for details. I don't hate Java. Um... good? It's pretty silly to get all emotional over programming languages. I was arguing against the idea that it's so much faster than C++ that nobody measures it anymore. Which dumbass said that? Are you sure the idea wasn't that it's often fast enough where it's not worth the effort to port to C++ just to find out?
But, if someone has, I'd be interested to know. Even if Java would outpace C++ if it was let to run for longer or something, we'd still be left with the conclusion that there are some tasks C++ is faster for (which is all I was trying to establish). Well, you're right, there are tasks that C++ can perform better than Java. Why didn't you just say that?
In the end, both can produce well optimized code, but I haven't read anything suggesting that the structure of either language enables fundamentally better optimizations than the other.
Wouldn't a more objective comparison show Java's throughput over time while running these tests? The way he munges the source bothers me as well. Instead of subjectively modifying the code so it seems 'fair', shouldn't the tests include little or no calls to standard libraries or other classes? Or, if you are going to compare those things, do a baseline as I suggest, then call the following tests what they are.. a Vector vs. HashMap or whatever comparison. Reasonably often you'll see people write an initial solution in Java, find it runs a bit too slow, and quickly port it to C++ (or pre-emptively switch to C++ if they think they'll be near the time limit). It's not uncommon to see a factor of two difference in performance. Where do you see this? The 2x gains and 'quick' Java->C++ ports that is, not the preemptive bit, I could care less about all this subjective garbage. In any case, your contention that Java is so much faster that nobody does benchmarks anymore is unsupported and wrong. That benchmark you provided is crap.
Look, I'm just picking on you because it feels like you're comparing two cars by the HP number on the sticker instead of looking at a full dyno chart
I think he's overestimating the quality of our rural landlines quite a a bit.. Where I grew up in Maine for instance, to this day, the best you can get out of dial up is 24.4kbit, and we don't have cable.
:\
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't your line have to be AT LEAST capable of 56k (or 53333, whatever) in order to handle DSL? Something about the distance to a central office or something? Wouldn't that affect most of rural America?
My little podunk town can't be the only one out there with no broadband AND cruddy phone lines. Seriously, where in rural America can you get 56k and no cable TV?
If the phone system didn't get upgraded during the AOL boom, it sure as hell ain't happening today.
It might be cheaper than running fiber or cable I guess
Are you sure his 300 lines weren't parsing the XML, and looking for a keyword in a specific location & context?
:\
I don't know the whole situation, but if some PHB made the decision (right or wrong) to go with a XML based format, one might think you should at least exercise due diligence and parse it correctly, which that grep simply isn't doing
I think I'd have to side with the other guy, unless more information comes to light.
Keep up the good work, Slashdot needs more committed members like you.
P.S.
This article has NOTHING to do with games. Also, your Cringely link, with juicy lines such as The truth is that there is no IT "profession." makes me want to throw up.
Jesus, tap dancing, Christ...
Does Apple really make a 'disposable' anything? I wouldn't even call the Mini that. If they'd built a mini in a mini-atx case or something yes.. but not as it is.
I think it's like asking BMW to make a budget car. What would you expect of it?? Why would BMW enthusiasts buy one if it didn't have 10-way adjustable seats and junk. You just can't put all that much into a $10,000 car, or a sub $500 PC. Why would Apple or BMW want to compete in that market? Beats me.. both would have to entirely change gears to start selling that junk in large quantities, and they seem to be doing just fine in their particular markets.
I know you can buy them from Dell, I'm not sure who else at the moment. That's the R900 configure page in case the link gets broken.
Anyway... this is neat and all, but it doesn't really bring virtualization to the masses anymore than say, all the free virt. software from VMware, Microsoft, Xen, Sun, etc, and a whole slew of other cheap/free desktop virt. software I forgot to mention. Maybe I just don't get your drift
after May 05 02:20:14 I have read it, and that is exactly how it comes across
May 05 02:20:42 CronoCloud: Then I'm sorry you have that opinion because that was never the point and I really fail to see how you can read it that way. It's pretty clear this IRC log isn't the whole picture. Looks like someone trying to throw shit at a fan.
Enterprise grade encrypting tape drives cost as much as a SUV anyway, so I wouldn't think they're above this tactic, I just haven't heard of it.
The cheap end, LTO4 encryption, is still way too new. Search the links for LTO... Give it a year or so before major backup software natively supports it well. If you just want your tape library managing the encryption keys, well, have at it I guess.
IBM
SUN
I think the best bet for cheap, solid tape encryption at the moment would be with HP. I don't believe they have high end drives to fuss about, so they're all about LTO4.
HP
Damn dude, they didn't do to well with the $600 platform, and you'd have them push this into mid range PC pricing. I mean hell, it'd cost at least as much as a cheap laptop, look at all the features! :)
Cut them some slack at least, it does have Gig E, the regular controllers are BT and can fully control A/V playback, and the hard drive is user-replaceable, with instructions in the manual. Ain't perfect, but I spent enough as it is already.
Second, IF a big bank is running Linux on this "BigIron", you can almost bet your ass it's an IBM mainframe we're talking about. That being the case, it would be running 'virtualized', PERIOD. They most likely even have multiple physical mainframes to fail over to, regardless of what the first poster thinks about having expensive idle hardware sitting around. Sure they're expensive, this is why - big financial institutions & the govt have TONS of money.
I'm sorry, all this talk of a "big bank" running Linux of all things all by itself 24/7/365 on some big piece of hardware that's soooo expensive you couldn't buy a second one is just too hysterical.
Big storage vendors are expected to charge less for maintenance now? Where, What, Huh?
Seriously, it's not like an enterprise disk array owner can just stop over at Best Buy, pick up a new drive and pop it in whenever he feels like it.
Sure the price of DISKS will go down but you know the cost of having some monkey stop by the data center to replace a failed DMX drive isn't going anywhere.
Supposedly the maintenance from Xiotech is going to be $1 on these things. Gimmick, sure, but in theory that's where the savings are supposed to come from.
Hold up just a tick. Are you saying the original Warcraft's were unoriginal? Warcraft, Dune, WCII, and C&C were the pioneers of RTS IMHO. Even now, the latest C&C and WC have their own distinctive feel. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Starcraft was the first RTS to nail three fully different unit structures. Most other RTS games of the time had two unit structures with only slight variations between them. There are plenty of innovative gems from the late 90's RTS explosion, but Blizzard and Westwood were already established players and lead the way for the most part.
Alright, EA/Westwood really phoned it in with Tiberian Sun, and although Red Alert was a great game all around, the mechanics really didn't change much from Tiberian Dawn. Still, these two franchises are not around today because they simply borrowed from other's ideas.
You left out FCP (SCSI over FC), which also isn't going away anytime soon, and is responsible for good share of the apparent SCSI "deaths".
:)
SCSI will be around for a VERY long time!
Yeah, it takes OS X 3 seconds to wake from sleep instead of 10 seconds in Vista or XP. But then Finder utterly freezes for 4 minutes trying to connect to a network that no longer exists. Then when Finder's done, it's .mac's turn to freeze for several minutes because the network connection on the train is somewhat unreliable. (They can't both freeze at the same time, they have to take turns.)
I'm pretty OS-neutral, but I'd much rather have a Windows machine that can cope with network changes than a Mac that freezes constantly.
What do you mean a network that doesn't exist? An NFS or CIFS mount? I've never had these problems, but I don't have any remote file shares mounted at home either. The only problems I've had with .Mac are related to syncing, but I can imagine how a slow link could possibly lead to UI delays. Out of curiosity, what have you tried to troubleshoot these issues?
How isn't it? Either way, it's a hardware or low-level driver fault that puts the OS into a state where it can't continue-- it's the same damn thing. The only difference is that Windows gives some vaguely useful debugging information when it happens, and OS X opts for the user-friendly option of just saying "please restart."
And from my experience, as well, they're both about equally common on both OSes.
"Yah, that was sarcasm." Is it really necessary for me to say I was being sarcastic? Of course they are nearly the same thing, what's the point? When someone's computer locks up, it's locked up. BSODs aren't the butt of so many jokes because they are BLUE, but because they were so common, particularly in Win95-98. No one needs to be told a kernel panic is the same as a BSOD to understand how frustrating it is.
Ok, if you can't admit the Dock sucks, then you're one of those Mac users we're talking about. The Dock sucks, Finder really sucks, printer support sucks. There are lots of things in OS X that suck. (Not to say the Windows/Linux solution is any better. For instance, Linux printer support sucks even more than Apple's. And none of the systems allow you to simply drag&drop a stalled print job from one printer to another-- that sucks all-around!)
What are you talking about? The Dock works FINE for me! I'm really having a hard time understanding your frustration here. I really like my dock, and I have quite a bit of experience with many different OS interfaces. I don't know what to say to you. It's not the end-all-be-all UI, but what the heck is so wrong with it?
Printer support obviously lags behind Windows, but it wasn't hard for me to find one that works with Macs (and Linux).
Drag & drop to another printer is a good idea, but may be difficult given that the print queue is not always local. There's really no way to guarantee you wouldn't have two prints when all is said and done.
You're certainly showing that Mac users aren't stuck-up snobs! Christ.
Stuck up? Please, read this in the politest voice you can imagine, now go on and explain why the dock should be used just like a Windows task bar. Thanks in advance.
Look, the real reason is that it's historical. Historically, Macintosh applications don't quit (i.e. remove themselves from memory) until you select Quit from the file menu, regardless of how many windows they have open. Now some Macintosh applications will actually behave like Windows applications in this area, but most still follow the old conventions. There's no reason to believe that the Windows/Linux way of doing this is "superior" to the Macintosh way.
Wonderful explanation. So, it is an old model, still in use today, there are no clearly superior alternatives available... what's wrong with it again?
I only wish it were more consistent, such that if the application wasn't on my dock to begin with, it should go away when I close the last window.
In fact, with all the DLL caching and such t
NO, multi-touch isn't an admission of a so-called "issue". Everything PCs do differently than Macs are not "issues". Goes the other way too.
Multi-button support in OS X is important because most UNIX platforms rely on many-button mice. UNIX software often needs more mice buttons than Windows ever did.
So, was adding a third button to PC mice a few years back addressing an "issue"? No, and adding multi-button support in OS X is not either.
Why don't you lay it all down here and tell us what your issues really are? Quit being so defensive about the very real shortcomings of Apple's hardware Hardy-har-har, OK, put down your sword, then I'll put down mine.
Tell you what... I'll stop "dismissing them as non-issues" soon as you admit they might actually be non-issues.
Lets see how well that works out.
Your whole post is passive-aggressive, was it meant to be a joke?
"You spelled "right mouse button on laptops" in a really strange way there."
"hacks that Apple has come up"
"defensiveness that brings out the Mac bashers baying for blood" Oh, THAT'S the order this happens in?
"lost in the feeding frenzy"
"very real shortcomings"
"doesn't suck as much"
"don't suck as badly"
"move on" Them's fight'n words, punk.
Anyone else amused that one of the biggest selling points of new Intel Macs is the ability to run Windows and access all of the programs that aren't available on the Mac?
Biggest selling point to which audience? Those who are trapped in their particular OS because of software dependancies? That is amusing now?
I've concluded that Macs are no more or less irritating*, crash prone**, or prone to dumb design ideas*** than are PCs.
Give some examples please. The biggest example that comes to my mind are sleep and hibernation modes. Mac desktops and laptops both come out of sleep quicker and connect to my wireless network far quicker than any PC I've ever had. My dell laptops take a full minute or two to connect to my WAP from wakeup. As for hibernation, I wont speak for Vista, but XP and back are absolutely f'ing horrible, while Macs do it flawlessly. Blame it on 3rd party software, USB devices, docks, whatever, Windows hibernation sucks and we all know it.
I've given the Mac a good run, and arguably am more knowledgeable than most users. I have taken the time to understand the ways that things work on the Mac. I doubt that I would buy another.
*AHEM* I would like to argue that point. Although, if you've TOUCHED a Mac you are more knowledgeable than most PC users, but it takes more than that to give a fair comparison. Two of your three following points paint a fairly clear picture of a diehard Windows user who borrowed an old Mac for a week and bitches about how different from Windows it is. Been there, seen that. Your Mac experience was doomed before you even laid hands on it.
No Delete key, but a key marked "delete" which actually backspaces. Yes, I know there is some multiple key combination that will delete stuff, but I still believe that pressing a key marked "delete" should cause things to be deleted.
Maybe on your laptop this is true, but not on any full Mac keyboard. The shortcut is Fn-delete, FYI. There are keys to delete forward and backwards on full Mac keyboards. The "delete" key DOES cause things to be deleted, where do you get off saying it doesn't?
Here, this a nice article on the subject. Does deleting an object from a document make more sense than "backspacing" it? I thought so. This is what made me laugh when you said "I have taken the time to understand the ways that things work on the Mac." ORLY?
"Kernel Panic" is exactly the same as the "Blue Screen of Death".
Oh, really???? Yah, that was sarcasm.
In my experience the Mac crashes more often than my XP machine. And then there have been programs that just stop working for no apparent reason.
In my experience XP crashes more often than my iMac. And then there have been programs that just stop working for no apparent reason. ;)
I'm not being sarcastic, that's the honest-to-God truth. You have to realize how silly either of those statements are. You also know which of us is in the majority
The Dock irritates me no end on this small 12" screen. I'll take the Windows task bar any day. Simpler is better.
Make the dock smaller, turn on auto-hide? It's a 12" screen, deal with it. Have you seen a Start Menu on a 12" screen??
I'll forgive you only because the Dock options are so hidden.
It's under "System Preferences", then "Dock", then use the "Dock Size" slider, and "Automatically hide and show the Dock" checkbox.
Yah, I was being sarca.... never mind.
It also drives me crazy that the Mac defaults to leaving all apps running forever instead of shutting them down when you click the "close" button.
Not ALL apps work this way. Why in God's name does it drive you crazy anyway? The dock is not a task bar, quit dragging dumb Windows habits into this. Again, "I have taken the time to understand the ways that things work on the Mac" is hyst
Fake websites are only part of the problem. My aunt (not very computer literate) recently got scammed on ebay, but not from a fake site. The seller forged a fake email from ebay that described how to finish the transaction via Western Union :\
...@ebay.com not gobbeldygookfoobar-ebay.com, there were no misspellings, and it looked very real even to me, other than the bad advice.
She is new to the internet, and to her WU sounded like an acceptable means of making the payment. She's never had to wire money before, and didn't understand the risks. So yes, WU should have set off all kinds of alarms, but you've got to consider many people have a different sense of trust. When she showed me the email from ebay in her yahoo inbox, I was shocked. It was too damned good. Yahoo let it in with a forged domain,
So anyway, I'm not completely sold on this being solely the end user's responsibility to verify everything, even websites. A beginner wouldn't even know what https is or what the address bar is telling them. There are lots of things we could do to make the internet safer for beginners. Many of us had it easy when we got started on the net, maybe we gave out our IP address in a chat room and got win-nuked, or have been the recipient of an email bomb, or had an IRC room stolen. Now, beginners are getting duped and scammed out of real money all too often, and we look down on them because it's so easy for _us_ to distinguish what's trustworthy or not.
Ah... thanks.
I heard something to that effect too, and I'd trust their real life testing over any mathematical theory. It doesn't take into account that many asshats will stop mid plane to stow their luggage closer to the front, and people like to switch seats.
Performance isn't the only issue at hand here. There's also reliability, integration, management, etc. I'm not intimately familiar with IBM mainframe technology, but I've learned enough from people who are to know these are incredibly reliable, and trusted machines. That's why they are used in financial industries, not merely their ability to handle large loads.
If you were to suggest to to a mainframe guy that he needs to upgrade to a cluster of Unix boxes, you'd get the same look you'd give someone suggesting you should upgrade to a rack of Dell servers. You all think the others are f'ing nuts for different reasons.