My wife is a field rep for a company that services retailers, and my sister is going to her husbands' family for the actual day. So we just managed to have our own Thanksgiving two weeks early. I already did my maintenance work for them.
I installed all the following on my mom's computer:
Firefox (1.0, she already had an earlier one), Mozilla (1.5 to 1.72), all the OS updates she'd blown off, an Office service pack, and her shiny new iSight camera so she and my dad can videoconference with us up here - or more specifically with our toddler.
She's got an eMac. But even my Mac-using parents still tend to blow off updates unless I do the updates for them. It's just that the consequences of blowing off updates on MacOS X are not generally too severe - at least if you're behind a NAT router like they are.
If an update is critical I'll use ARD to remotely apply the update for them - it works pretty well even though 1.2 is kinda kludgy over a WAN.
That's sweet and all, but far from an iPod killer - or even much of a competitor, for that matter.
Geeks may love the Archos - but remember how everybody on Slashdot panned the iPod when it came out? Well, the iPod became a huge hit, and it wasn't because geeks loved it. It was because normal folks (the ones who are 99%+ of the market) saw the ads for it, saw the product, and said "I'll take one, please".
In other words, the market doesn't care if you can write software for the Archos, or load custom firmware, or change the skins. They don't give a flying fig if it uses MP3, AAC, WMA, or OGG as the standard format. They want their digital music player to work. Period. And by "work", I mean they want the sound to be good, the device to be simple and attractive, and they want the computer software that drives the library to be simple and capable. And until someone hits all those points better than Apple does, iPod will dominate the market.
In other words, that which was super-hot and world-transforming back in the late '90s gold rush is hot again?
Or is it that nowadays companies are actually simply using the Internet as a tool instead of trying to change the world? The companies that survived the meltdown are now (mostly) making money, and the new ones have learned from the lessons of the failed ones. Nobody blinks when Amazon makes a profit any more, after all.
Pr0n was what everybody was hunting for back in the days when the Internet was a novelty - but nowadays that's a wasted use of a search engine. It's not so much that the uses of the Internet have changed. It's more that the Internet isn't "shiny and new" anymore, so a lot of the things that were popular when it was a novelty aren't such a big deal any more.
Here on Slashdot, though, we just keep on chugging along...
Seriously, a bash script is not a thing to cause terror and panic in the Mac community, except possibly in the folks with no Unix background who may not understand the implications.
Basically, this script can cause Bad Things to happen, but only if you are silly enough to run it in the first place. The actual exploit, as it is, would be one of social engineering (convincing you to run the malware), not a technical one.
That's pretty important. From what we've seen, this can't remotely attack you. There's no unpatched vulnerability in MacOS X that it can use to insert itself into a running system without your knowledge. Were this a worm with an appropriate method of spreading, that would be different. But it's not that far removed from the classic Unix honor system virus as it stands.
The risk, as far as I can see, is that plenty of Mac users are even less technical than a bad Windows user - because they haven't had to know what's under the hood of their shiny new Mac. So they're inclined to type their admin password for just about anything without checking at all first. But that's a user education problem more than a technical one.
When this gets tethered to a remote attack is when I start worrying about it.
Absolutely (see the AC post for the legal part). The company that authorizes the dealer can give themselves the right to set MAP through a contract, but that's contract law basics. There's no criminal penalties involved in breaking the MAP rule - just the possible loss of authorization and (more likely) the loss of marketing funds.
If Apple said "thou shalt not sell the product for less than $$$", that would be illegal price fixing on their part - cases like this pop up in the news periodically. That's also one reason why prices in ads are sometimes left out and instead hyped as "TOO LOW TO MENTION!", because the actual price is below MAP.
(of course, usually they do that in ads just to hype the ad)
Ironically, gross margins on Apple products are so low for resellers that there's virtually no room to squeeze prices anyways on most of them.
And just to be straight-up on this: I don't sell any products in my business, let alone Apple ones. However, I am an ACN (Apple Consultants Network) member, and I do make a decent part of my living from supporting them.
They don't forbid selling below a price - that's illegal. What they do, though, is set a "minimum advertised price" for the product, and withhold advertising and co-op fund support if you break it.
Which is why resellers advertise bundles at the listed MAP - it gets them around the requirement and still lets them undersell in a way that passes Apple's muster.
First off, an eMac, the cheapest Mac available. Generally can be had in a decent config for $800.
If the eMac can sit near the stereo, problem solved. If your parents have a cell phone, get them upgraded to one with Bluetooth and install Salling Clicker on the cellphone - instant iTunes remote that works very well. There's your remote, and the bonus is that Salling Clicker doesn't require line of sight to operate like a typical remote. You either need Bluetooth as a BTO option on the Mac, or as a $30 dongle.
And if you want to control a stereo in the next room - well, that's what AirPort Express does nicely. I just installed a setup for a customer where they used one AirPort Extreme base station as the master (and hooked the cable modem up to it), and put Express stations all over the rest of the house to extend the network (with WDS) and access their stereos and printers around the house. Works great.
Just because you have the time/patience to set up and use Linux doesn't mean it's the answer to everyone. Parents (especially elderly ones) are not the target market for desktop Linux. We are.
Of course, my 29-month-old son is already a semi-capable Mac user (he has my wife's old G3 iMac) - he knows how to turn it on, pick a game to play, and put it to sleep when he's done playing. Then again, he occasionally has been known to mistake the slot-loading CD-ROM for a piggybank.
Speaking for myself only, I ride a bicycle rather often. It's my favorite aerobic exercise for the most part (at least for hour+ time periods), and I ride it on a stand indoors during the winter.
But for people with limited mobility, a bicycle is a poor choice, and when you need to carry lots of stuff or arrive in presentable work condition (not sweaty and such), it's also a poor choice.
A Segway kinda fills that niche - it's not for the long-distance commute, and it's an ecologically superior solution compared to a car for those short distances. If walking presents you with difficulty but standing is still manageable, then I can see the Segway being a good solution (as opposed to the $20k+ iBot). Remember, the reason Segway was called "Ginger" was because iBot was called "Fred". The two devices fill the same need in different, but complimentary ways.
Basically, I agree with you in that there's a place for bikes - and I ride them. But I still want a Segway, and I see uses for it that I can't easily fill with a bike. For an able-bodied person, Segway fills a niche between the car and the bike. I'd use it in place of my car a lot more than I'd use it in place of my bike.
Seriously, Segways aren't glued to the ground. Just because they can maneuver easily on the road or sidewalk doesn't mean you can take them anywhere at all without paying attention to what you're doing. If you radically shift the center of balance to one side, you risk toppling over. The gyros take care of front-to-back motion and basic instability, but but if you do something like drive a single wheel off a curb laterally, two things will almost certainly happen:
1 - your center of gravity will suddenly find itself moved to the outside of the wheel.
2 - you'll topple over.
Even though Segways are easy to ride and inherently very safe, they still require smart and careful operation to stay that way. Your friend's accident, from how you describe it, had nothing to do with agility and everything to do with careless riding. If he kept his wheel away from the curb, there would have been no problem.
I do hope he has recovered from the accident, and if he ever tries to ride one again he simply needs to mind the terrain. As for me, I do not own a Segway, but it's high on the list of Things To Get If I Ever Have A Major Windfall. Or if the price ever drops under $1500 or so - my office is about 5 miles away in the next town, and I could easily make the trip with one most days.
For years, I've been using the large messenger bag from Timbuk2. Unfortunately, though, they no longer offer the oilskin cloth they used to make them out of - a pity, because mine looked great, wore well, and didn't scream "laptop!" when you looked at it. I also have the padded laptop sleeve for it, in the same color scheme and fabric.
It's an absolutely cavernous bag - which is why this past year I partially switched. I still use the Timbuk2 bag when I have to haul a huge amount of stuff for work, and I keep my Wintel laptop in it. I have an Inspiron 600m and the sleeve holds it nicely - it worked well with my old TiBook as well.
My new main bag is an Incase backpack, which is the perfect size for my current PowerBook, some supplies, a notebook, my Palm, and my iPod. In other words, basically my whole office plus music. It's not as fancy as some of the other backpacks, but it fits well, and doesn't look "ultra-laptoppy" like the Kensington and Targus bags all do. And at $80, it was pretty reasonable compared to most of the other ones I've seen.
Incase also has a nice sling pack that holds a lot less, but still accommodates a mid-sized PowerBook or equivalent. If size is ever a concern it may be worth checking out.
I knew this was coming!
on
SUSE 9.2 Released
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
This announcement was inevitable. Because I just got around to installing 9.1 on test hardware from the kit Novell just sent me a few weeks ago.
From what I've seen of 9.1, though, it's maturing rapidly - and that's got to be good. Personally, I use it mainly on a VM under Virtual PC on my PowerBook. Performance is surprisingly good, and much better than XP under the same environment (with all the XP eye candy turned off). I also run it on a PC VMware VM, where it behaves well, and so on.
I do think the two releases per year target is kind of arbitrary and silly for the most part, though. Novell/SuSE should be concentrating on supporting and updating the existing release over a year or so, and then release a new version when enough spiffy new stuff is out there to justify it. Other than Bluetooth support, improved wireless, and some new apps I don't see a lot of real justification for this version.
Amen. Just the fact that Linux and OS X are being evaluated underscores two things:
1 - Windows, as it currently exists, is deeply flawed.
2 - While not perfect, there are viable competitors out there on the market with a story to tell.
As far as likelihood of adoption goes, I doubt either will displace Windows at AT&T, but if one of them did I think it would be likelier to me MacOS X - because Apple can deliver the full client/server/hardware package and has a more mature OS overall than you typically see with a desktop Linux. Plus, given the timeframe of the AT&T decision, Apple will be shipping Tiger, Linux will have added more incremental improvements (still kernel 2.6-based, but with more developed GUI/app suites), and Microsoft will still be developing Longhorn. Which helps all the competitors.
The major caveat to MacOS X for AT&T is probably that they would still most likely have a substantial investment in Microsoft technology with that platform - it's likely that they'd use the Microsoft Office suite for Mac, and keep their Windows 2000/2003 Server infrastructure (if that's what they've deployed), since the Mac supports AD.
If they're still on NT, though, the opportunity to wipe the slate clean is a real possibility, and gives Linux and MacOS X a better shot.
What's not included in this quickie poll are the "other" sources for music - for instance, I've downloaded some freebies through sites like Salon, bought tunes from They Might Be Giants and Livephish (artists' direct stores), and downloaded files from P2P that I already own, but on vinyl. With those it was easier to download than to analog-rip them, but it's still music that I own already.
And even though I don't share my purchases, I still run all my iTMS purchases through jHymn to remove the DRM before I start using them.
All together, my iTunes library is about 3100 songs in size. And I've still got plenty of CD's to rip - I was holding at about 2900 for a long time until I bought a bigger iPod this summer.
Message to Steve Ballmer - if I really wanted to specialize in stolen music, I'd be using Windows. There's a lot more good piracy tools on your platform!
Well, WiFi is probably more of a niche for a PDA than Bluetooth for the most part. WiFi support (probably just 802.11b) will only get you networking over a short distance wherever a network is available, and it sucks power rather quickly. Odds are, though, that you're more likely to use WiFi with your laptop.
A PDA, OTOH, needs mainly to talk to it's "mothership" desktop, or to a cell phone, or some other "personal" device. Right up Bluetooth's alley. In fact, probably the best way to think of Bluetooth on a PDA is as an expansion port that just happens to be wireless.
I use Bluetooth to sync my Palm and my PowerBook, to connect my cell phone to my Jabra headset, to iSync everything, to connect my iMac to peripherals, and in a pinch I use Bluetooth to get GPRS internet access with my cell phone from my PowerBook when I don't have any other form of access available. I also have used my cell phone with the Palm (a Tungsten T) the same way.
And though I don't use it as much, I have a Dell laptop with Bluetooth, and the cordless phone at my office uses it both to talk to the base station and to sync with a PC.
OTOH I have a Pocket PC as well (an iPaq 1935), and I use a Sandisk SDIO WiFi card with it. Very rarely. There's just not much I'd do with it that isn't better served by the laptop, and the SDIO card sucks power so quickly you can practically see the power meter drop.
Mind you, I'm not dumping on WiFi. It's great, and useful, but it's just good for one thing - networking. In PDA's that's enough of a niche compared to what you can do with Bluetooth that I'd rather have Bluetooth in my PDA given a choice of only one.
Laundry room, upstairs. That's the one that the cats mostly use.
But we also have one downstairs in the bathroom there, because one of our cats is so stupid that if he gets the urge down there and there's no litter box handy, he forgets to go upstairs. We learned that one the hard way.
But he's pretty old, so once he's gone we'll probably be able to get rid of it.
Of course, the best way to deal with the problem of smelly cat crap is to use a hooded litter box with odor-controlling litter (the silica crystals work great with a little baking soda mixed in), and scoop regularly - like every day.
I upped my iDisk to 235MB (the max), since I don't even use the mail account. Between the iDisk (which I use heavily), and the sync features, I'm perfectly happy paying my $100 per year for the service.
Granted, I have one referral credit as well (so I'm actually paying $79.95), but between iSync, the disk space, and all the goodies I've been able to download I've gotten very good value from my.Mac account. I thinkk the $100 asking price is the absolute most I'd pay, but it's good for starters at least.
The only thing I'd like to see addressed is easier integration of other data sources into iSync. I know that's something that Tiger is supposed to address, but I'd really like to see iSync support devices other than Palm (discounting for now the somewhat kludgy PocketMac suite of tools), and support some easy way of doing DIY sync modules. Plus I'd like to see Entourage supported in iSync by either Apple or Microsoft. That would add a little more value.
I have one of those leather wallets, kinda generic. It has two currency compartments, four credit card slots on each side, and an area behind the card slots to stash "other" cards and stuff.
First off, I keep almost everything I will ever need in my wallet, because I tend to lose stuff if I don't. So mine is probably more crammed than the average geek's wallet may be.
Anyhow, the list:
In the back currency compartment I keep receipts until I can file them. Right now I have a couple of customer checks I have to deposit on the way home today, and an ATM receipt. Everything else I had has already been filed. The front currency compartment has about $70 or so in it.
On the left side of the wallet, the card slots have my credit cards from the big home improvement warehouses, my medical card, my every day credit card, and my drivers' license. In the miscellaneous pocket behind it are my library card, a couple of membership cards from organizations I belong to, a couple of discount cards from local stores, and my wholesale club membership cards.
The other side of the wallet has my two business credit cards in the top slot, followed my my personal Amex, another credit card, and both my home and business ATM cards. Behind them are a few of my business cards, a grocery store discount card, and my membership card at a local private social club I belong to - it's one of the ones that you can just wave at the sensor to unlock the door.
All together I'd say the wallet weighs in around 8 ounces. I used to use the heavy-duty nylon wallets, but they tended to wear out a lot faster than the leather ones do. I've had this one for about four years or so. I think I'll get about another two out of it, from the look of things.
In a related note, my keychain's also kinda overstuffed - it has my car key, remote, house key, office key, outside building key for after-hours building access, a Kryptonite lock key (not the kind that can be picked with a pen), a pocket electrician's Leatherman, and a little LCD flashlight. And that's after I took some non-critical keys off and put them on a separate keyring.
In other words, I need to get rid of some more stuff!
I'd like to see the quality of downloads be a little bit higher - other than that I can live with the DRM limitations they impose.
(Of course, I've been known to feed my files through jHymn...)
The biggest shortcoming I have found on an ongoing basis to the iTMS is that some of the really good back catalog stuff hasn't made it there so far. That's probably more due to label issues than lack of demand. For instance, theough the iTMS has Elvis Costello's most recent stuff, his older albums and compilations haven't made it there. There's virtually no Zappa (last time I checked), and though Dan Zanes has his children's music on iTMS, none of his work with the Del Fuegos is available whatsoever. All back-catalog stuff, but that's what makes a music store "comprehensive".
They Might Be Giants, on the other hand, have some iTMS-exclusive music available, as well as just about everything else they've released.
(side note: TMBG now sells soundboard mixes of their shows via their own website - as unencumbered MP3 files)
So there's a lot of variety on iTMS (the biggest of the online stores, but still all kinds of stuff they don't offer yet. That's the biggest shortcoming that I can think of. Of course, I haven't used anything else for buying music, but the iTunes/iPod combo Just Works. I've had no incentive to try anything else. My Limewire usage, OTOH, has all but vanished as a result, though I've downloaded a couple of rarities that I couldn't find online through legit channels.
I think that the success of iTMS has proved one thing: if you make it easy enough for the average person to buy music online legally, they will do so.
I keep my Lexar 512MB JumpDrive (in)secure safely tucked away in my pocket, rather than make a fashion statement from it. Silly me. I thought the only fashion statement they made was the ever popular "the wearer of this is a dork" statement.
Things have come a long way, though. A couple of years ago, I bought a mess o' them to use at my old company for DR documentation and remote access tools - they were DiskOnKey 128MB units that were fairly hefty and cost about $130 each. A bargain at the time. My 512MB JumpDrive cost me about $60 and is less than 1/4 the dimensions. And a couple of months ago, Microsoft sent me a free 128MB flash disk as some kind of suck-up to their partners.
The article mentions how some folks are using them as promotional items - at the rate the prices are plummeting I may even consider having a batch printed up next year.
What to keep on them? Well, my 512MB drive has a whole mess of Mac and PC troubleshooting tools on it, a copy of SP2, a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD, and installers for a few anti-spyware programs. And I still have a couple of hundred megs free. IF floppies weren't already dying, these would have killed them.
Love the Mini ITX - ixnay on the CF hard drive. I'd say go with a 2.5" laptop drive, they're cheap, and many Mini-ITX cases have the brackets to take them already. If not, it's easy to adapt it in. Lower power draw than the standard 3.5" drive, and it's not a major performance hit. You'll wear out a CF drive as a server with any kind of real activity.
Or just use a laptop in the first place. Any old midrange Pentium will do (use one with a real mobile processor, though - not one with a desktop chip). Or an old PowerBook G4 would be real slick, either running Linux or MacOS X Server.
My own home box is a Mini-ITX running E-Smith. It's based on an older RedHat version, with nice wizards and web-based management.
My understanding is that if they leave during or after rumspringa, that's fine - they're still family and all. But if they recommit to the church and then drop out, they are shunned as a result.
Basically, I think it's a case of until they choose to commit to the Amish life as adults, departure is OK. Obviously not hoped for, but OK. But once you're in, you're expected to remain.
You can always use an aftermarket - I use one now on my iMac at home. But here's why internal's better: no dongle on the back, integrated into the system, and it leaves the external port free for later.
Plus it just plain looks better. I'm of the opinion that Apple should either include Bluetooth standard on every Mac or make it a customer-installable part.
I like it a lot, based on initial impression. It also looks to be a lot more user-serviceable than the previous generation (where all you could swap out was the AirPort/Extreme card and the one RAM slot). That's nice.
I see they kept the PowerMac/iMac performance differential in part by using a 3x multiplier instead of the 2x that the PowerMacs use. That's OK - a 533 or 600 MHz FSB is still zippy.
The question I have is really about upgrades. Most importantly, can this model finally take an aftermarket internal Bluetooth module? All the previous versions only offer Bluetooth as a BTO option through the Apple Store online (except when it's standard equipment like on the PowerBooks). If you don't buy it at build time, you have to buy a 3rd party USB dongle. With access to the insides, that is now hopefully a thing of the past.
Will more VRAM be available as a BTO option? Right now, all 3 models ship with 64MB, and in my brief look online there did not appear to be an upgrade option. If the iMac is going to sell at all in the gaming market, there will probably need to be a 128MB option available. I wouldn't count on a better graphics processor, though, anytime soon. Apple likes to underpower the iMacs.
With this out there, will the eMac see a minor speedbump anytime soon? The two have traditionally had pretty much the same motherboard design - I don't expect a G5 eMac anytime soon, but maybe we'll get a 1.5 GHz G4 at some point now.
Most importantly, will normal human beings actually be able to buy these in stores anytime this year, or are we going to have to wait for the Tooth Fairy to deliver more G5 chips?
I figure it this way: If Real wants to put their music on the iPod, they're free to sell their songs in one of two formats that are guaranteed compatible:
- Unprotected MP3 files - Unprotected AAC files
All Real has to do is that simple action, and not only will the songs transfer just fine, but users could even use iTunes to manage them! How transparent is that?
What? You say Real wants to just wrap their DRM with Apple's DRM? Oh well, never mind. Screw them.
Apple's built a closed ecosystem, but one that supports both major consumer desktop platforms, and can support externally-created files. So I really don't see a problem here. If you want to have totally unencumbered files, you can either buy CDs and rip them (because all the iTunes encoders are DRM-free), or buy them online from Apple - if you choose to do that, though, you pay a little less and get DRM-encumbered tracks that are not quite as good as a real CD would provide.
Of course, then you can run those tracks through Hymn, but that's besides the point.
Interestingly, many of the 5.8 GHz phones (like the one I use at home, it's an AT&T) actually only receive from the base station at 5.8 GHz. In order to save on their power budget, they transmit back in the good old 2.4 GHz band.
Though they do play much nicer with 802.11x than older generation stuff did.
In general, I've seen that newer phones coexist nicely, and also 802.11g devices seem to be less interference-prone than 802.11b. Also, 900MHz phones play pretty nicely because they aren't even in the same neighborhood.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife is a field rep for a company that services retailers, and my sister is going to her husbands' family for the actual day. So we just managed to have our own Thanksgiving two weeks early. I already did my maintenance work for them.
I installed all the following on my mom's computer:
Firefox (1.0, she already had an earlier one), Mozilla (1.5 to 1.72), all the OS updates she'd blown off, an Office service pack, and her shiny new iSight camera so she and my dad can videoconference with us up here - or more specifically with our toddler.
She's got an eMac. But even my Mac-using parents still tend to blow off updates unless I do the updates for them. It's just that the consequences of blowing off updates on MacOS X are not generally too severe - at least if you're behind a NAT router like they are.
If an update is critical I'll use ARD to remotely apply the update for them - it works pretty well even though 1.2 is kinda kludgy over a WAN.
That's sweet and all, but far from an iPod killer - or even much of a competitor, for that matter.
Geeks may love the Archos - but remember how everybody on Slashdot panned the iPod when it came out? Well, the iPod became a huge hit, and it wasn't because geeks loved it. It was because normal folks (the ones who are 99%+ of the market) saw the ads for it, saw the product, and said "I'll take one, please".
In other words, the market doesn't care if you can write software for the Archos, or load custom firmware, or change the skins. They don't give a flying fig if it uses MP3, AAC, WMA, or OGG as the standard format. They want their digital music player to work. Period. And by "work", I mean they want the sound to be good, the device to be simple and attractive, and they want the computer software that drives the library to be simple and capable. And until someone hits all those points better than Apple does, iPod will dominate the market.
In other words, that which was super-hot and world-transforming back in the late '90s gold rush is hot again?
Or is it that nowadays companies are actually simply using the Internet as a tool instead of trying to change the world? The companies that survived the meltdown are now (mostly) making money, and the new ones have learned from the lessons of the failed ones. Nobody blinks when Amazon makes a profit any more, after all.
Pr0n was what everybody was hunting for back in the days when the Internet was a novelty - but nowadays that's a wasted use of a search engine. It's not so much that the uses of the Internet have changed. It's more that the Internet isn't "shiny and new" anymore, so a lot of the things that were popular when it was a novelty aren't such a big deal any more.
Here on Slashdot, though, we just keep on chugging along...
A rootkit for MacOS X! What ever shall we do now?
Seriously, a bash script is not a thing to cause terror and panic in the Mac community, except possibly in the folks with no Unix background who may not understand the implications.
Basically, this script can cause Bad Things to happen, but only if you are silly enough to run it in the first place. The actual exploit, as it is, would be one of social engineering (convincing you to run the malware), not a technical one.
That's pretty important. From what we've seen, this can't remotely attack you. There's no unpatched vulnerability in MacOS X that it can use to insert itself into a running system without your knowledge. Were this a worm with an appropriate method of spreading, that would be different. But it's not that far removed from the classic Unix honor system virus as it stands.
The risk, as far as I can see, is that plenty of Mac users are even less technical than a bad Windows user - because they haven't had to know what's under the hood of their shiny new Mac. So they're inclined to type their admin password for just about anything without checking at all first. But that's a user education problem more than a technical one.
When this gets tethered to a remote attack is when I start worrying about it.
Absolutely (see the AC post for the legal part). The company that authorizes the dealer can give themselves the right to set MAP through a contract, but that's contract law basics. There's no criminal penalties involved in breaking the MAP rule - just the possible loss of authorization and (more likely) the loss of marketing funds.
If Apple said "thou shalt not sell the product for less than $$$", that would be illegal price fixing on their part - cases like this pop up in the news periodically. That's also one reason why prices in ads are sometimes left out and instead hyped as "TOO LOW TO MENTION!", because the actual price is below MAP.
(of course, usually they do that in ads just to hype the ad)
Ironically, gross margins on Apple products are so low for resellers that there's virtually no room to squeeze prices anyways on most of them.
And just to be straight-up on this: I don't sell any products in my business, let alone Apple ones. However, I am an ACN (Apple Consultants Network) member, and I do make a decent part of my living from supporting them.
They don't forbid selling below a price - that's illegal. What they do, though, is set a "minimum advertised price" for the product, and withhold advertising and co-op fund support if you break it.
Which is why resellers advertise bundles at the listed MAP - it gets them around the requirement and still lets them undersell in a way that passes Apple's muster.
Here's the cheapest/easiest way to give back:
First off, an eMac, the cheapest Mac available. Generally can be had in a decent config for $800.
If the eMac can sit near the stereo, problem solved. If your parents have a cell phone, get them upgraded to one with Bluetooth and install Salling Clicker on the cellphone - instant iTunes remote that works very well. There's your remote, and the bonus is that Salling Clicker doesn't require line of sight to operate like a typical remote. You either need Bluetooth as a BTO option on the Mac, or as a $30 dongle.
And if you want to control a stereo in the next room - well, that's what AirPort Express does nicely. I just installed a setup for a customer where they used one AirPort Extreme base station as the master (and hooked the cable modem up to it), and put Express stations all over the rest of the house to extend the network (with WDS) and access their stereos and printers around the house. Works great.
Just because you have the time/patience to set up and use Linux doesn't mean it's the answer to everyone. Parents (especially elderly ones) are not the target market for desktop Linux. We are.
Of course, my 29-month-old son is already a semi-capable Mac user (he has my wife's old G3 iMac) - he knows how to turn it on, pick a game to play, and put it to sleep when he's done playing. Then again, he occasionally has been known to mistake the slot-loading CD-ROM for a piggybank.
Speaking for myself only, I ride a bicycle rather often. It's my favorite aerobic exercise for the most part (at least for hour+ time periods), and I ride it on a stand indoors during the winter.
But for people with limited mobility, a bicycle is a poor choice, and when you need to carry lots of stuff or arrive in presentable work condition (not sweaty and such), it's also a poor choice.
A Segway kinda fills that niche - it's not for the long-distance commute, and it's an ecologically superior solution compared to a car for those short distances. If walking presents you with difficulty but standing is still manageable, then I can see the Segway being a good solution (as opposed to the $20k+ iBot). Remember, the reason Segway was called "Ginger" was because iBot was called "Fred". The two devices fill the same need in different, but complimentary ways.
Basically, I agree with you in that there's a place for bikes - and I ride them. But I still want a Segway, and I see uses for it that I can't easily fill with a bike. For an able-bodied person, Segway fills a niche between the car and the bike. I'd use it in place of my car a lot more than I'd use it in place of my bike.
For some reason, I'm not shocked by that...
Seriously, Segways aren't glued to the ground. Just because they can maneuver easily on the road or sidewalk doesn't mean you can take them anywhere at all without paying attention to what you're doing. If you radically shift the center of balance to one side, you risk toppling over. The gyros take care of front-to-back motion and basic instability, but but if you do something like drive a single wheel off a curb laterally, two things will almost certainly happen:
1 - your center of gravity will suddenly find itself moved to the outside of the wheel.
2 - you'll topple over.
Even though Segways are easy to ride and inherently very safe, they still require smart and careful operation to stay that way. Your friend's accident, from how you describe it, had nothing to do with agility and everything to do with careless riding. If he kept his wheel away from the curb, there would have been no problem.
I do hope he has recovered from the accident, and if he ever tries to ride one again he simply needs to mind the terrain. As for me, I do not own a Segway, but it's high on the list of Things To Get If I Ever Have A Major Windfall. Or if the price ever drops under $1500 or so - my office is about 5 miles away in the next town, and I could easily make the trip with one most days.
For years, I've been using the large messenger bag from Timbuk2. Unfortunately, though, they no longer offer the oilskin cloth they used to make them out of - a pity, because mine looked great, wore well, and didn't scream "laptop!" when you looked at it. I also have the padded laptop sleeve for it, in the same color scheme and fabric.
It's an absolutely cavernous bag - which is why this past year I partially switched. I still use the Timbuk2 bag when I have to haul a huge amount of stuff for work, and I keep my Wintel laptop in it. I have an Inspiron 600m and the sleeve holds it nicely - it worked well with my old TiBook as well.
My new main bag is an Incase backpack, which is the perfect size for my current PowerBook, some supplies, a notebook, my Palm, and my iPod. In other words, basically my whole office plus music. It's not as fancy as some of the other backpacks, but it fits well, and doesn't look "ultra-laptoppy" like the Kensington and Targus bags all do. And at $80, it was pretty reasonable compared to most of the other ones I've seen.
Incase also has a nice sling pack that holds a lot less, but still accommodates a mid-sized PowerBook or equivalent. If size is ever a concern it may be worth checking out.
This announcement was inevitable. Because I just got around to installing 9.1 on test hardware from the kit Novell just sent me a few weeks ago.
From what I've seen of 9.1, though, it's maturing rapidly - and that's got to be good. Personally, I use it mainly on a VM under Virtual PC on my PowerBook. Performance is surprisingly good, and much better than XP under the same environment (with all the XP eye candy turned off). I also run it on a PC VMware VM, where it behaves well, and so on.
I do think the two releases per year target is kind of arbitrary and silly for the most part, though. Novell/SuSE should be concentrating on supporting and updating the existing release over a year or so, and then release a new version when enough spiffy new stuff is out there to justify it. Other than Bluetooth support, improved wireless, and some new apps I don't see a lot of real justification for this version.
Amen. Just the fact that Linux and OS X are being evaluated underscores two things:
1 - Windows, as it currently exists, is deeply flawed.
2 - While not perfect, there are viable competitors out there on the market with a story to tell.
As far as likelihood of adoption goes, I doubt either will displace Windows at AT&T, but if one of them did I think it would be likelier to me MacOS X - because Apple can deliver the full client/server/hardware package and has a more mature OS overall than you typically see with a desktop Linux. Plus, given the timeframe of the AT&T decision, Apple will be shipping Tiger, Linux will have added more incremental improvements (still kernel 2.6-based, but with more developed GUI/app suites), and Microsoft will still be developing Longhorn. Which helps all the competitors.
The major caveat to MacOS X for AT&T is probably that they would still most likely have a substantial investment in Microsoft technology with that platform - it's likely that they'd use the Microsoft Office suite for Mac, and keep their Windows 2000/2003 Server infrastructure (if that's what they've deployed), since the Mac supports AD.
If they're still on NT, though, the opportunity to wipe the slate clean is a real possibility, and gives Linux and MacOS X a better shot.
1 - Less than 1%. But there are a handful.
2 - About 10% - maybe a hair less
3 - 0% that I'm aware of.
4 - Over 85%, easily.
5 - Under 5% - making up the rest.
What's not included in this quickie poll are the "other" sources for music - for instance, I've downloaded some freebies through sites like Salon, bought tunes from They Might Be Giants and Livephish (artists' direct stores), and downloaded files from P2P that I already own, but on vinyl. With those it was easier to download than to analog-rip them, but it's still music that I own already.
And even though I don't share my purchases, I still run all my iTMS purchases through jHymn to remove the DRM before I start using them.
All together, my iTunes library is about 3100 songs in size. And I've still got plenty of CD's to rip - I was holding at about 2900 for a long time until I bought a bigger iPod this summer.
Message to Steve Ballmer - if I really wanted to specialize in stolen music, I'd be using Windows. There's a lot more good piracy tools on your platform!
Well, WiFi is probably more of a niche for a PDA than Bluetooth for the most part. WiFi support (probably just 802.11b) will only get you networking over a short distance wherever a network is available, and it sucks power rather quickly. Odds are, though, that you're more likely to use WiFi with your laptop.
A PDA, OTOH, needs mainly to talk to it's "mothership" desktop, or to a cell phone, or some other "personal" device. Right up Bluetooth's alley. In fact, probably the best way to think of Bluetooth on a PDA is as an expansion port that just happens to be wireless.
I use Bluetooth to sync my Palm and my PowerBook, to connect my cell phone to my Jabra headset, to iSync everything, to connect my iMac to peripherals, and in a pinch I use Bluetooth to get GPRS internet access with my cell phone from my PowerBook when I don't have any other form of access available. I also have used my cell phone with the Palm (a Tungsten T) the same way.
And though I don't use it as much, I have a Dell laptop with Bluetooth, and the cordless phone at my office uses it both to talk to the base station and to sync with a PC.
OTOH I have a Pocket PC as well (an iPaq 1935), and I use a Sandisk SDIO WiFi card with it. Very rarely. There's just not much I'd do with it that isn't better served by the laptop, and the SDIO card sucks power so quickly you can practically see the power meter drop.
Mind you, I'm not dumping on WiFi. It's great, and useful, but it's just good for one thing - networking. In PDA's that's enough of a niche compared to what you can do with Bluetooth that I'd rather have Bluetooth in my PDA given a choice of only one.
Laundry room, upstairs. That's the one that the cats mostly use.
But we also have one downstairs in the bathroom there, because one of our cats is so stupid that if he gets the urge down there and there's no litter box handy, he forgets to go upstairs. We learned that one the hard way.
But he's pretty old, so once he's gone we'll probably be able to get rid of it.
Of course, the best way to deal with the problem of smelly cat crap is to use a hooded litter box with odor-controlling litter (the silica crystals work great with a little baking soda mixed in), and scoop regularly - like every day.
I upped my iDisk to 235MB (the max), since I don't even use the mail account. Between the iDisk (which I use heavily), and the sync features, I'm perfectly happy paying my $100 per year for the service.
.Mac account. I thinkk the $100 asking price is the absolute most I'd pay, but it's good for starters at least.
Granted, I have one referral credit as well (so I'm actually paying $79.95), but between iSync, the disk space, and all the goodies I've been able to download I've gotten very good value from my
The only thing I'd like to see addressed is easier integration of other data sources into iSync. I know that's something that Tiger is supposed to address, but I'd really like to see iSync support devices other than Palm (discounting for now the somewhat kludgy PocketMac suite of tools), and support some easy way of doing DIY sync modules. Plus I'd like to see Entourage supported in iSync by either Apple or Microsoft. That would add a little more value.
I have one of those leather wallets, kinda generic. It has two currency compartments, four credit card slots on each side, and an area behind the card slots to stash "other" cards and stuff.
First off, I keep almost everything I will ever need in my wallet, because I tend to lose stuff if I don't. So mine is probably more crammed than the average geek's wallet may be.
Anyhow, the list:
In the back currency compartment I keep receipts until I can file them. Right now I have a couple of customer checks I have to deposit on the way home today, and an ATM receipt. Everything else I had has already been filed. The front currency compartment has about $70 or so in it.
On the left side of the wallet, the card slots have my credit cards from the big home improvement warehouses, my medical card, my every day credit card, and my drivers' license. In the miscellaneous pocket behind it are my library card, a couple of membership cards from organizations I belong to, a couple of discount cards from local stores, and my wholesale club membership cards.
The other side of the wallet has my two business credit cards in the top slot, followed my my personal Amex, another credit card, and both my home and business ATM cards. Behind them are a few of my business cards, a grocery store discount card, and my membership card at a local private social club I belong to - it's one of the ones that you can just wave at the sensor to unlock the door.
All together I'd say the wallet weighs in around 8 ounces. I used to use the heavy-duty nylon wallets, but they tended to wear out a lot faster than the leather ones do. I've had this one for about four years or so. I think I'll get about another two out of it, from the look of things.
In a related note, my keychain's also kinda overstuffed - it has my car key, remote, house key, office key, outside building key for after-hours building access, a Kryptonite lock key (not the kind that can be picked with a pen), a pocket electrician's Leatherman, and a little LCD flashlight. And that's after I took some non-critical keys off and put them on a separate keyring.
In other words, I need to get rid of some more stuff!
I'd like to see the quality of downloads be a little bit higher - other than that I can live with the DRM limitations they impose.
(Of course, I've been known to feed my files through jHymn...)
The biggest shortcoming I have found on an ongoing basis to the iTMS is that some of the really good back catalog stuff hasn't made it there so far. That's probably more due to label issues than lack of demand. For instance, theough the iTMS has Elvis Costello's most recent stuff, his older albums and compilations haven't made it there. There's virtually no Zappa (last time I checked), and though Dan Zanes has his children's music on iTMS, none of his work with the Del Fuegos is available whatsoever. All back-catalog stuff, but that's what makes a music store "comprehensive".
They Might Be Giants, on the other hand, have some iTMS-exclusive music available, as well as just about everything else they've released.
(side note: TMBG now sells soundboard mixes of their shows via their own website - as unencumbered MP3 files)
So there's a lot of variety on iTMS (the biggest of the online stores, but still all kinds of stuff they don't offer yet. That's the biggest shortcoming that I can think of. Of course, I haven't used anything else for buying music, but the iTunes/iPod combo Just Works. I've had no incentive to try anything else. My Limewire usage, OTOH, has all but vanished as a result, though I've downloaded a couple of rarities that I couldn't find online through legit channels.
I think that the success of iTMS has proved one thing: if you make it easy enough for the average person to buy music online legally, they will do so.
I keep my Lexar 512MB JumpDrive (in)secure safely tucked away in my pocket, rather than make a fashion statement from it. Silly me. I thought the only fashion statement they made was the ever popular "the wearer of this is a dork" statement.
Things have come a long way, though. A couple of years ago, I bought a mess o' them to use at my old company for DR documentation and remote access tools - they were DiskOnKey 128MB units that were fairly hefty and cost about $130 each. A bargain at the time. My 512MB JumpDrive cost me about $60 and is less than 1/4 the dimensions. And a couple of months ago, Microsoft sent me a free 128MB flash disk as some kind of suck-up to their partners.
The article mentions how some folks are using them as promotional items - at the rate the prices are plummeting I may even consider having a batch printed up next year.
What to keep on them? Well, my 512MB drive has a whole mess of Mac and PC troubleshooting tools on it, a copy of SP2, a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD, and installers for a few anti-spyware programs. And I still have a couple of hundred megs free. IF floppies weren't already dying, these would have killed them.
Love the Mini ITX - ixnay on the CF hard drive. I'd say go with a 2.5" laptop drive, they're cheap, and many Mini-ITX cases have the brackets to take them already. If not, it's easy to adapt it in. Lower power draw than the standard 3.5" drive, and it's not a major performance hit. You'll wear out a CF drive as a server with any kind of real activity.
Or just use a laptop in the first place. Any old midrange Pentium will do (use one with a real mobile processor, though - not one with a desktop chip). Or an old PowerBook G4 would be real slick, either running Linux or MacOS X Server.
My own home box is a Mini-ITX running E-Smith. It's based on an older RedHat version, with nice wizards and web-based management.
My understanding is that if they leave during or after rumspringa, that's fine - they're still family and all. But if they recommit to the church and then drop out, they are shunned as a result.
Basically, I think it's a case of until they choose to commit to the Amish life as adults, departure is OK. Obviously not hoped for, but OK. But once you're in, you're expected to remain.
That said, most are said to stay in their faith.
You can always use an aftermarket - I use one now on my iMac at home. But here's why internal's better: no dongle on the back, integrated into the system, and it leaves the external port free for later.
Plus it just plain looks better. I'm of the opinion that Apple should either include Bluetooth standard on every Mac or make it a customer-installable part.
I like it a lot, based on initial impression. It also looks to be a lot more user-serviceable than the previous generation (where all you could swap out was the AirPort/Extreme card and the one RAM slot). That's nice.
I see they kept the PowerMac/iMac performance differential in part by using a 3x multiplier instead of the 2x that the PowerMacs use. That's OK - a 533 or 600 MHz FSB is still zippy.
The question I have is really about upgrades. Most importantly, can this model finally take an aftermarket internal Bluetooth module? All the previous versions only offer Bluetooth as a BTO option through the Apple Store online (except when it's standard equipment like on the PowerBooks). If you don't buy it at build time, you have to buy a 3rd party USB dongle. With access to the insides, that is now hopefully a thing of the past.
Will more VRAM be available as a BTO option? Right now, all 3 models ship with 64MB, and in my brief look online there did not appear to be an upgrade option. If the iMac is going to sell at all in the gaming market, there will probably need to be a 128MB option available. I wouldn't count on a better graphics processor, though, anytime soon. Apple likes to underpower the iMacs.
With this out there, will the eMac see a minor speedbump anytime soon? The two have traditionally had pretty much the same motherboard design - I don't expect a G5 eMac anytime soon, but maybe we'll get a 1.5 GHz G4 at some point now.
Most importantly, will normal human beings actually be able to buy these in stores anytime this year, or are we going to have to wait for the Tooth Fairy to deliver more G5 chips?
I figure it this way: If Real wants to put their music on the iPod, they're free to sell their songs in one of two formats that are guaranteed compatible:
- Unprotected MP3 files
- Unprotected AAC files
All Real has to do is that simple action, and not only will the songs transfer just fine, but users could even use iTunes to manage them! How transparent is that?
What? You say Real wants to just wrap their DRM with Apple's DRM? Oh well, never mind. Screw them.
Apple's built a closed ecosystem, but one that supports both major consumer desktop platforms, and can support externally-created files. So I really don't see a problem here. If you want to have totally unencumbered files, you can either buy CDs and rip them (because all the iTunes encoders are DRM-free), or buy them online from Apple - if you choose to do that, though, you pay a little less and get DRM-encumbered tracks that are not quite as good as a real CD would provide.
Of course, then you can run those tracks through Hymn, but that's besides the point.
Interestingly, many of the 5.8 GHz phones (like the one I use at home, it's an AT&T) actually only receive from the base station at 5.8 GHz. In order to save on their power budget, they transmit back in the good old 2.4 GHz band.
Though they do play much nicer with 802.11x than older generation stuff did.
In general, I've seen that newer phones coexist nicely, and also 802.11g devices seem to be less interference-prone than 802.11b. Also, 900MHz phones play pretty nicely because they aren't even in the same neighborhood.