I take a K-cup of whatever variety I've been liking lately (usually the Green Mountain Sumatran Reserve), and feed it into my Keurig one-cup system. Simple, fast, pretty good, and a fraction of the price of getting fancy-ass coffee out somewhere else.
I have been known to grind and brew from beans on occasion, but that's become rare since discovering the Keurig. I have one in my house and I bought another one for the office.
I ordered a BTO iMac G5 back in March '05, and wound up getting entirely the wrong unit (and as equipped, it was pretty much useless to me). I went through the process of getting an RMA, and they told me I'd have a replacement in a week or two (the usual build cycle then). I was OK with that, but wrote a nice e-mail to Steve asking him what the manufacturing breakdown was that let that happen, and that though I was fine with the goof, I hoped it was a rare case. I even explicitly said in the message that I wasn't expecting anything from Apple as a result - it was just to let him know it had happened, and hopefully it wouldn't be a regular problem.
A couple of hours later, one of his assistants called me. He had all the info on exactly what had happened to that sales order, and explained the whole thing to me. The next morning, my new iMac arrived at my office around 9AM, even before the pickup was ready to go of the old one.
No, they're the real deal. What I think happened is that DSL and cable put pricing pressure on T1 vendors, and the secondary costs all dropped as well. Higher-end services haven't dipped as sharply, I think (though I don't normally work with anything bigger than a bonded pair of T1 lines in my practice).
Frame is still a separate product, though I'm seeing less of it out there except in corporate internal networks for joining multiple facilities. I also have a couple of accounts where a T1 was brought in for voice delivery, and the leftover capacity after the phone lines were split out was given away for free to the data side (not truly free - they paid primo dollars for the voice service). It all varies.
When I bought my first T1 back in '99, it was about $1200 per month. It was from Shore.Net (now Primus), and it replaced a more expensive 256k circuit from UUnet. In 2001, I bought a second T1 from Sprint for about $950. Nowadays, I buy them for my clients (usually from Speakeasy) for around $400 or less. I'd say that's a pretty big price drop. A dual bonded T1 (as another poster mentioned) is under $800 - well lower than a single T1 cost a few years ago.
Sure, DSL is cheaper, but you get what you pay for to a certain point. Most importantly, ADSL is typically restricted to 768k max upload speed (I can get commercial cable Internet with 1.1 upload around here) unless you get SDSL (much pricier), and then you basically have a T1 without the service guarantees.
First of all, CDs are still how most music is sold. Second, most folks' existing music libraries are in CD form (except for the ones who still have vinyl). Third, Apple from the beginning has positioned the iTunes store as a tool to sell iPods (and last I heard, they were pretty good at selling iPods). The fact that they have 3/4 of the music download market and make some profit on it is a bonus. It doesn't matter how iPod users get their music per se, it only matters to Apple that they sell more digital music than anyone else (because that means that iPods are still king of the hill). And that's the case.
Digital music is convenient, and a nice way to get the occasional single or obscure album - and a nice way to get instant gratification as well (buy it now and download it, versus a trip to the store). Apple's DRM is pretty unobtrusive as DRM goes - I'd prefer unencumbered files, of course, but as these things go I understand why they do it and I don't mind it. I really couldn't give a damn about vendor lock-in - just to give you an example, my iTunes library is approximately 3500 songs, of which roughly 150 were downloaded from iTunes. Of those, about a dozen were free downloads as well. Most of that music was ripped from CD, with the CD filed away in a drawer to gather dust.
Point being, I'm really not worried about that music being DRM-encumbered. It's easy enough to get a usable copy of it on CD or into an additional format, I have no problems using it on my 3 Macs (work, home, and laptop), my wife's Mac, or my PC. It works with my iPod, my wife's Nano, and I can burn CDs all I want from it (not that I ever do). iTunes has the nicest interface of any jukebox manager I've tried, the iPod is nice, simple, and more than Good Enough, and it all Just Works.
I understand the folks who rail against vendor lock-in, and I don't think Apple is incapable of evil, but I think the iPod ecosystem is a good example of how DRM can be relatively benign if vendors keep the interest of the users in mind. I'd rather have a world without DRM entirely, but if it's going to exist (reality: we're stuck with it), I'd rather have it Apple-style than the way most everyone else want to make it.
When you look at Dell's strengths, it's always been in mainstream products (PCs, laptops, and servers), significant add-ons to them that get used as revenue boosters (printers, low-end network hardware), and to a lesser extent displays and now TVs. Other branded add-ons like the Axim PDAs and their various MP3 players have never really been a hit, because they're the type of consumer electronics that get bought in person - and Dell doesn't do that. It wouldn't shock me at some point to see Dell drop the PDA line, too.
They've had enough hiccups in recent months that the pressure to execute is probably building. Dell has never been about "cool", or innovation. They've always been a supply chain-oriented company who makes money by taking a proven technology, building it faster and cheaper than everyone else, and taking advantage of every inventory trick in the book to keep the balance sheet clean. That works great for computers, but virtually nobody would ever buy a MP3 player over the web from them based on that alone. And Dell can't do sexy like Apple can. No wonder Michael Dell always sounds so bitter when he talks about Apple. He's about as much of an Anti-Jobs as any tech CEO could possibly be.
I feel like I'm troll-feeding here, but unless your workflow is CS2-based, odds are your productivity app of choice is universal already. And if it is, you'll get a big performance boost from a Intel Mac vs. the same Mac's PPC-based predecessor. Why wouldn't a quad-Xeon Mac Pro be likely to blow the doors off a G5 quad, or at least be competitive/faster?
Besides that, since you generally don't pay a huge speed penalty in running apps through Rosetta (depends on the app, of course), if you need a newer Mac, why not buy the technology that's going to be shipped/supported far longer down the road, suck it up a little for now and use Rosetta, and get a big improvement when the universal upgrade ships? I really don't see that as enough of an deterrent to convince a diehard Mac user to change to Windows. With rare exceptions, Mac people are Mac people, period. The only thing that would get them to Windows is either force or no more Apple. And if I actually thought they'd be better served by generic x86 hardware and Windows, and I pushed them that way, the easiest thing my clients would do is probably find someone else who wouldn't push Windows on them.
Look, I don't hate Windows. And I've built most of my own x86 boxes over the years. I even own six Dells, including my home gaming PC and what's in my office. But c'mon - to really assert that there's no reason to buy an Intel-based Mac because G5 quads are faster with pre-universal software is silly. And to call anyone spending $40k on Intel Macs an idiot - that's just a troll, and a bad one at that.
And on a related note, I see no problem with delaying a non-time critical Xserve purchase to see what will replace it in Intel equivalent products. I've told the client that unless the Intel-based Xserve turns out to have a compelling feature (like onboard video freeing up both PCI slots, or on-board RAID for the built-in drive bays), to stick with the PPC version during the transition period that's likely to occur (there's usually an interval of a couple of weeks when you can order both models).
Traditionally, Intel chip announcements are "no-big-deal", but this is the first one of any significance in the Apple Era since the original iMac/MacBook Pro announcement in January. Traditionally, IBM and Motorola/Freescale only announced a G3/G4/G5 processor whenever Apple was ready to introduce a new model using it - since Apple was the largest PPC system maker, they had some clout in that area.
In the Intel world, Intel announces a chip family and that day the big Wintel vendors are already showing off their prototypes of "about-to-ship computers using it. Apple can't be as close to the vest as they traditionally have been regarding their plans anymore - for instance, it's a no-brainer that they'll speedbump their systems anytime Intel ships speedbumped versions of the same chip. Also, the announcement of a Mac Pro is now seen as inevitable at WWDC, since the chips to power it are officially on the market. Unlike years past, the speculation is focused this year on the little details - Xeon or Core 2 Duo? Completely redesigned case or minor refresh? The fact of the machine itself is more of a done deal.
Because this is the first WWDC in the post-Intel era, it'll be interesting to see what the buying trend is - for instance, I have one client who is holding off the two weeks until WWDC before buying either a G5 tower or Xserve - based on the system configs in play, that's about $40k in deferred revenue (on the other hand, another one just bought a G5 Quad). Part of the reason that Apple used to be so tight-lipped about announcements was to avoid these deferred purchases, so it'll be interesting to see what happens now.
I mostly drink either water, or coffee with just pinch of sugar in it (just enough to take a little bit of the edge off - less than half a small spoon's worth), But if I have the time, I'll make iced tea, and drink it unsweetened (and I almost always drink that in restaurants). When I absolutely must have a canned fizzy beverage, I usually go for Polar lemon seltzer - not too fizzy, and with just a little bit of lemon mixed in.
I do have one weakness when it comes to sodas - I like the old-school "real" root beers that are made with sugar instead of corn syrup. Once in a while I might have one (like about once per month or so) And about 2 Dr. Peppers a year. I really don't like traditional colas at all, so it's not tough to keep away from them.
It's not quite that, I think - I remember the Mini being available in three models at one point - a $499 (slower processor, 40GB drive, no wireless), a $599, and a $699 version. I don't remember the exact difference in configurations, but at the highest price point you got the faster processor, 80GB hard drive, a Superdrive, and wireless. It's just that now they've gone from 3 models to 2, and dropped the middle price point.
For those who are Apple consultants (like me), Specialists, or other folks with ASW (Apple Sales Web) access, it's already been posted there as a.dmg file with a pair of serial numbers that expire at year-end. One caution, though - I installed the update over a copy of 2.2 that I'd done the Rosetta hack on to make it run on my MacBook Pro - after I installed the new version it would not recognize my existing version's application password. I had to re-enter the ID and passwords for all the various Macs I manage - fortunately I had almost all of them written down!
Interestingly, installing the same update on my older PowerBook didn't cause any problems, and the whole list imported properly. Not a super big deal overall, except ARD gives you no way to save the usernames and passwords for transfer (moving the.plist doesn't work). I only have 40-odd machines to keep track of, but this could be an issue for folks with more who already put the older version on an Intel Mac.
That said, it is definitely an improvement on the older version. And, unlike most older ARD revs, it manages older client versions just fine. You give up the new encryption feature when you do so (no biggie if you connect via a VPN anyway), and I don't know what else yet, but it's reasonably slick thus far.
For those of you wondering "why does Apple charge for this when Windows gives you Remote Desktop for free?", ARD is not really analogous to Windows' Remote Desktop. To get what Windows gives you, just use any VNC viewer with the built-in VNC client on the Mac. ARD is intended for network administrators, and the remote control features are almost a bonus. Package management, reporting, and all that sort of fun stuff is what you get with ARD.
A couple of minor return nitpicks here for you - first of all, with Matrix SSL (an optional add-on to Chatter) I actually have very stable and efficient background processing of my email connection. The only real limitation is that you can't do data and voice at the same instant (not many devices seem able to do that). Also, the 700p is a very real product, with a scheduled Sprint launch in just under 2 months and all sorts of verification and detailed real specs available pre-intro. Yes, I'm speculating about the GSM/EDGE versions of them, but going by Palm's history it's obvious. The launch carrier gets an exclusive for the first 4-6 months, then other versions come out.
Palm isn't the greatest platform ever, but on a feature for feature comparison the Treo comes out fairly well as a convergence device. Keep in mind that the 650 is really last years' model, designed and released pre-3G networks and hamstrung by the aging Palm OS. That said it's still pretty close to the top, device-wise, until we have some more next-generation devices to replace it.
Also, by "tethering" I was referring to using a phone for Internet, be it by cable or Bluetooth. Sorry about the misunderstanding. The reason to use a cabled phone would be for slightly higher speeds (depending on the network) and potentially the ability to charge the phone while it's in use. But I used to use my old T616 phone as a Bluetooth modem regularly (pre-EV/DO). It was nice and convenient, if pokey.
Depends on what you call convergence. I call convergence a handheld that's reasonably small, handles data and voice, gives me real-time access to my e-mail, and serves as an effective adjunct to my laptop. And I call that a GSM Treo 650 - which I've owned for the better part of a year. With the addition of a quality IMAP-based e-mail client instead of Versamail, the Treo gets messages as they arrive, can do real background processing, and give me easy access and editing of all my accumulated information. If I wanted to, I could use the built-in camera to take pictures, and capture lo-res video to my SD card.
To me, that's convergence. The only thing it lacks is support for the higher-speed cellular broadband standards (and enough internal RAM), but the Treo 700w (Windows Mobile-based) works with the CDMA EV/DO service from Verizon, and the forthcoming 700p (PalmOS) is expected to work with Sprint's EV/DO network. GSM EDGE versions of both are slated to arrive pretty soon as well.
And the Blackberry that's covered here? That's the tip of the iceberg. The CTIA Wireless show is in Vegas less than two weeks from now. And there's sure to be quite a few relevant announcements there. I'm holding my breath for a ExpressCard-based EV/DO card, though - My MacBook Pro is on order and I'd rather use a card than tether a phone (I use a PC5220 card from Verizon right now with my existing PowerBook).
The ultimate definition? Convergence is a state of mind. And when your device does all the things you need, it matches that.
It's not that radical a concept, really. There's a big difference between the reality of a given individual, and tendencies in a larger population. Given isolation (physical or, for that matter, cultural), and genetic variation will start to express itself - perhaps resulting in real differences between groups. Are humans evolving in ways molded by culture and environment? Absolutely. Is it too slow for us to readily detect? Yup. But you can look at just the surface physical differences between racial groups and see evidence that this has happened in the past. Natural selection has caused groups of humans to adapt to their surroundings.
Brains adapt, too. We just need to be careful in applying generalizations to humans, though. Because, as you said, any individual could fall anywhere on the bell curve. Just because a statistical tendency may exist in a particular group due to evolutionary pressures doesn't mean that one person is better or worse. Individuals should be judged as individuals, regardless.
That said, though, we're all still members of the same species - that won't change anytime soon. Despite the physical differences between, say, a Boston Terrier and a Newfie, they are both still dogs and could produce offspring if they somehow were able to mate (though the results would likely be rather odd!). Ashkenazis may be smart, and Swedes may be good at digesting cow's milk, but that doesn't mean that hypothetical little Ingrid Goldstein can't turn out to be a moron who farts for hours after eating ice cream.
That's actually the model from October, when they first came out with the iMacs with built-in iSight cameras. Each model got a 100 MHz speedbump at the time. When Apple canned the 17" iMac G5 about a month ago, they chopped $200 off the price of the 20". But I think it's really a "while supplies last" kind of deal.
In the short term, at least, some folks will still need G5 Macs - mainly because of incompatibilities. From what I've seen so far, clients of mine who replace G4 systems with Core Duo Macs (mainly either old iMac G4s or PowerBooks) are reacting with a "wow", while the G5 owners who've tried Core Duo boxes are more in the "meh" category.
It's never been that (at least for most people). The advantage of Mac OS X is that it is less vulnerable than Windows (making Windows an easier target), and that Apple made decisions in the design process that mean that the typical consequences of a flaw are less severe. In recent years, Microsoft has attempted to harden Windows further and reduce their exposure - in W2K3 Server, for instance, they've done a pretty good job of it.
Even if Apple magically pulls some sort of super OS-jujitsu that reverses their market share and Microsoft's, the basic architecture will stay the same underneath - and that means Apple will have their relative advantages intact for the foreseeable future. Windows is, as its heart, an OS that has traded off many security options for ease of access and ease of programming. Apple had the advantage of seeing what was already happening to Windows when they made their decisions about how OS X would be designed, plus the system it was derived from was pretty robust to begin with.
There will be viruses that attack Mac OS X. Some will do a pretty good job of attacking. I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long to get there. But I'm also not expecting it ever to compare to Windows in that regard.
My favorite energy dring was always Whoopass from Jones Soda. I bought some from Thinkgeek a few years ago, and it's been around ever since. I always keep a few cans in the fridge at my office. But mainly I drink coffee - I used to brew it (which was way too wasteful) or buy it from Dunkin' Donuts, but last fall I picked up a Keurig single-serve coffeemaker and it simply rocks. A week ago I bought a second one for the office, too.
If you buy the coffee from your local Bed & Bath or Linens n Things, you can use the coupons that are in the paper almost every week to lower the price of coffee even more. Otherwise just get it from Amazon every once in a while, or directly from Keurig.
For regular energy drinks, though, I stick with Whoopass (and an occasional dose of the Bawls mints). Thinkgeek was cheaper for shipping than buying it directly from Jones, but last time I looked they weren't stocking it.
In a perfect world, you and your employer are both responsible for training. You would need to find out what you needed to learn, show the initiative to plan it, and take the time out of Real Life to attend some classes and do the work necessary to advance your career.
In return, the employer would reimburse you for your training, and recognize your increased expertise with more money and respect as your skills grew.
The reality is that this sounds like a far-from ideal employer that also got burned last time they paid for someone's certification and then lost them. So you'd probably have to take most of the initiative to advance your skillset. It's worth it - and you can learn a lot of stuff pretty cheaply just with the combination of a couple of middling boxes with plenty of RAM, VMware, and a subscription to the MS Action Pack along with a few books. For a pretty small investment of time and probably a couple of thousand dollars, you can teach yourself enough to know, at the very least, whether you want to stay on the sysadmin side of the business, and at best you can get a great head start on an MCSE (If you want one). It also makes for a very low-pressure way to learn more off-hours when you want to.
Ultimately, if you want to stay in the field and you want to stay with this employer you'll have to show them the folly of their training-miserly ways. Picking up some good AD kung-fu is part of the puzzle - and if need be it'll be a good way to brush up for the job interview with your next employer!
In this business the unfortunate reality is that while you can have a life, it's tough to keep up if you do. I'm lucky now - working for myself I can designate some time for the "keeping up" during the workweek, but when the customers want me they get me, even if I've set up downtime (I do charge a lot more for any off-hours work, and as a result I don't have to deal with things too often outside of the workday at least). So you can have a life - but it helps if you really, really like IT work. In general, though, formal training is something that the employer should provide some time for, but you should be willing to pitch in as well. And the homework and studying is something you're on your own for. It's partly to help in your day-to-day work, but it's also career advancement as well. Both parties gain, so both parties (should) give.
One relevant example from my old career: when I was an IT manager (prior to my old company getting bought and shrunken - part of why I'm on my own now) I had a staff with three techs. I had the training budget to send them all to class if I wanted, but I would only do so if they were willing to spend some of their personal time in pursuit of the goal as well. Typically I'd allow up to a day out of the office per week over a period of a couple of months during that, pay for everything including materials, and pay for the testing. I wouldn't send folks out for things like a 2-week bootcamp or anything of that sort. Was that the most progressive training policy around? No, but it was a reasonable and fair one, balancing my interests (as manager and company representative) with the interests of my employees. Of six people who worked for me during the five years I was there, only one never took us up on the training offer (the person liked their limited function and wasn't really interested in advancing), one left after a year to transfer back to their old department, and the other four went to classes. Of them, I lost one a month after they got their MCSE - they went to a dot-com for over $25k more than I was paying. Neither that nor the dot-com lasted. Go figure.
If Apple manages to make it to Microsoft's market share numbers, you'll have a point. Because then, Apple would control hardware and software for the entire marketplace. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. Nor is it likely to ever happen. Right now, Apple may have a monopoly on Macintosh computers, but since that's a piddling 4% or so of the total computer marketplace the economies of scale necessary to make it worthwhile for Apple to license the OS just aren't there.
Microsoft was a software-only company from day 1 - that's what their economic model was based on. And the marketplace was much smaller, too. As the market grew, so did Microsoft, until the days of OS/2 and Windows 3.0 (when, I suspect, most of the people posting in this thread about how unfair Apple's monopoly is were still in diapers) - the future of who would dominate the PC biz was very much up in the air until Windows 3.0. It wasn't great, but it was Good Enough, and the timing was right. Times are different now.
Why should Apple be "the Microsoft of the Mac OS world" when they can be the Microsoft, the IBM, the Compaq, and everybody else, too? And make gobs of cash doing so?
I hope so - with that problem solved, the MacBook Pro would make an ideal laptop for my purposes. Now all we need is for EMC to announce that VMware Workstation will be available for the Intel Macs (should be easy enough - it already runs on Linux) and these could be darn close to perfect!
I won't miss FW800 (I'm glad they at least kept FW400), but the loss of CardBus kinda sucks. I use my PowerBook on the road constantly, and I depend on my Verizon Wireless EVDO card, which is the only CardBus device I've ever really used. Checking the VZW site, they don't appear to have any cards in the new form factor so far, which means that I won't be upgrading until I can find a way to accommodate that.
Otherwise, the MacBook Pro is looking like one slick piece of hardware.
Actually, FIleMaker was a NIH Apple product. It was originally developed by Nashoba Systems, and marketed by Forethought - the same folks who gave the world PowerPoint.
Even AppleWorks/ClarisWorks got it's start outside Apple - ClarisWorks was developed by a couple of developers who had originally created what became AppleWorks/GS (the GUI version for the Apple IIgs), left Claris to write what then became ClarisWorks for the Mac, and were re-acquired into the fold after building the product. One of those nice, incestuous Valley tales. The idea with Claris was to set up a wholly owned, but independent company to produce great Mac software at a time when a lot of 3rd party developers were shying away. It was also supposed to sell Windows software when appropriate - there was even a Windows version of ClarisWorks that was fairly popular.
There have been things developed entirely in-house, though - notably QuickTime, the defunct HyperCard, and the new iWork apps.
I took an English class back in my freshman year at Northeastern, and a friend of mine was in the class with me. I was a Poli Sci major, my friend was an accounting major, so the class was a little easier for me, and she and I would study together. For the midterm, we were supposed to read and analyze the Dorothy Parker novella "Big Blonde".
Well, I basically blew it off. My friend, on the other hand, worked very hard on it, spend several days with the story, and wrote the analysis exactly as requested. Finally, the day before the paper was due, I got around to reading it (i read very fast):
I thought it sucked. Excruciatingly so. So, faced with a dilemma, I simply wrote a scathing report that opened with the sentence: "Early on in Big Blonde, Dorothy Parker's protagonist contemplates suicide. Had she only gone through with it, I would have been spared the agony of reading the rest of this hideous excuse for a story".
I went on like that for several pages. It seemed right. My friend looked at the paper with horror before I handed it in, but I felt good about it.
A few days later, they were handed back. My friend got a B-, if I recall. I didn't get a grade. Just a request to meet with the professor. When I did, after class, she simply said to me "this wasn't what I asked for - why did you write it?". At which point I spent about 15 minutes explaining and defending my criticism.
I got an A. And I think that was one of the only classes I aced that year, too.
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I take a K-cup of whatever variety I've been liking lately (usually the Green Mountain Sumatran Reserve), and feed it into my Keurig one-cup system. Simple, fast, pretty good, and a fraction of the price of getting fancy-ass coffee out somewhere else.
I have been known to grind and brew from beans on occasion, but that's become rare since discovering the Keurig. I have one in my house and I bought another one for the office.
I ordered a BTO iMac G5 back in March '05, and wound up getting entirely the wrong unit (and as equipped, it was pretty much useless to me). I went through the process of getting an RMA, and they told me I'd have a replacement in a week or two (the usual build cycle then). I was OK with that, but wrote a nice e-mail to Steve asking him what the manufacturing breakdown was that let that happen, and that though I was fine with the goof, I hoped it was a rare case. I even explicitly said in the message that I wasn't expecting anything from Apple as a result - it was just to let him know it had happened, and hopefully it wouldn't be a regular problem.
A couple of hours later, one of his assistants called me. He had all the info on exactly what had happened to that sales order, and explained the whole thing to me. The next morning, my new iMac arrived at my office around 9AM, even before the pickup was ready to go of the old one.
No, they're the real deal. What I think happened is that DSL and cable put pricing pressure on T1 vendors, and the secondary costs all dropped as well. Higher-end services haven't dipped as sharply, I think (though I don't normally work with anything bigger than a bonded pair of T1 lines in my practice).
Frame is still a separate product, though I'm seeing less of it out there except in corporate internal networks for joining multiple facilities. I also have a couple of accounts where a T1 was brought in for voice delivery, and the leftover capacity after the phone lines were split out was given away for free to the data side (not truly free - they paid primo dollars for the voice service). It all varies.
When I bought my first T1 back in '99, it was about $1200 per month. It was from Shore.Net (now Primus), and it replaced a more expensive 256k circuit from UUnet. In 2001, I bought a second T1 from Sprint for about $950. Nowadays, I buy them for my clients (usually from Speakeasy) for around $400 or less. I'd say that's a pretty big price drop. A dual bonded T1 (as another poster mentioned) is under $800 - well lower than a single T1 cost a few years ago.
Sure, DSL is cheaper, but you get what you pay for to a certain point. Most importantly, ADSL is typically restricted to 768k max upload speed (I can get commercial cable Internet with 1.1 upload around here) unless you get SDSL (much pricier), and then you basically have a T1 without the service guarantees.
First of all, CDs are still how most music is sold. Second, most folks' existing music libraries are in CD form (except for the ones who still have vinyl). Third, Apple from the beginning has positioned the iTunes store as a tool to sell iPods (and last I heard, they were pretty good at selling iPods). The fact that they have 3/4 of the music download market and make some profit on it is a bonus. It doesn't matter how iPod users get their music per se, it only matters to Apple that they sell more digital music than anyone else (because that means that iPods are still king of the hill). And that's the case.
Digital music is convenient, and a nice way to get the occasional single or obscure album - and a nice way to get instant gratification as well (buy it now and download it, versus a trip to the store). Apple's DRM is pretty unobtrusive as DRM goes - I'd prefer unencumbered files, of course, but as these things go I understand why they do it and I don't mind it. I really couldn't give a damn about vendor lock-in - just to give you an example, my iTunes library is approximately 3500 songs, of which roughly 150 were downloaded from iTunes. Of those, about a dozen were free downloads as well. Most of that music was ripped from CD, with the CD filed away in a drawer to gather dust.
Point being, I'm really not worried about that music being DRM-encumbered. It's easy enough to get a usable copy of it on CD or into an additional format, I have no problems using it on my 3 Macs (work, home, and laptop), my wife's Mac, or my PC. It works with my iPod, my wife's Nano, and I can burn CDs all I want from it (not that I ever do). iTunes has the nicest interface of any jukebox manager I've tried, the iPod is nice, simple, and more than Good Enough, and it all Just Works.
I understand the folks who rail against vendor lock-in, and I don't think Apple is incapable of evil, but I think the iPod ecosystem is a good example of how DRM can be relatively benign if vendors keep the interest of the users in mind. I'd rather have a world without DRM entirely, but if it's going to exist (reality: we're stuck with it), I'd rather have it Apple-style than the way most everyone else want to make it.
When you look at Dell's strengths, it's always been in mainstream products (PCs, laptops, and servers), significant add-ons to them that get used as revenue boosters (printers, low-end network hardware), and to a lesser extent displays and now TVs. Other branded add-ons like the Axim PDAs and their various MP3 players have never really been a hit, because they're the type of consumer electronics that get bought in person - and Dell doesn't do that. It wouldn't shock me at some point to see Dell drop the PDA line, too.
They've had enough hiccups in recent months that the pressure to execute is probably building. Dell has never been about "cool", or innovation. They've always been a supply chain-oriented company who makes money by taking a proven technology, building it faster and cheaper than everyone else, and taking advantage of every inventory trick in the book to keep the balance sheet clean. That works great for computers, but virtually nobody would ever buy a MP3 player over the web from them based on that alone. And Dell can't do sexy like Apple can. No wonder Michael Dell always sounds so bitter when he talks about Apple. He's about as much of an Anti-Jobs as any tech CEO could possibly be.
I feel like I'm troll-feeding here, but unless your workflow is CS2-based, odds are your productivity app of choice is universal already. And if it is, you'll get a big performance boost from a Intel Mac vs. the same Mac's PPC-based predecessor. Why wouldn't a quad-Xeon Mac Pro be likely to blow the doors off a G5 quad, or at least be competitive/faster?
Besides that, since you generally don't pay a huge speed penalty in running apps through Rosetta (depends on the app, of course), if you need a newer Mac, why not buy the technology that's going to be shipped/supported far longer down the road, suck it up a little for now and use Rosetta, and get a big improvement when the universal upgrade ships? I really don't see that as enough of an deterrent to convince a diehard Mac user to change to Windows. With rare exceptions, Mac people are Mac people, period. The only thing that would get them to Windows is either force or no more Apple. And if I actually thought they'd be better served by generic x86 hardware and Windows, and I pushed them that way, the easiest thing my clients would do is probably find someone else who wouldn't push Windows on them.
Look, I don't hate Windows. And I've built most of my own x86 boxes over the years. I even own six Dells, including my home gaming PC and what's in my office. But c'mon - to really assert that there's no reason to buy an Intel-based Mac because G5 quads are faster with pre-universal software is silly. And to call anyone spending $40k on Intel Macs an idiot - that's just a troll, and a bad one at that.
And on a related note, I see no problem with delaying a non-time critical Xserve purchase to see what will replace it in Intel equivalent products. I've told the client that unless the Intel-based Xserve turns out to have a compelling feature (like onboard video freeing up both PCI slots, or on-board RAID for the built-in drive bays), to stick with the PPC version during the transition period that's likely to occur (there's usually an interval of a couple of weeks when you can order both models).
Traditionally, Intel chip announcements are "no-big-deal", but this is the first one of any significance in the Apple Era since the original iMac/MacBook Pro announcement in January. Traditionally, IBM and Motorola/Freescale only announced a G3/G4/G5 processor whenever Apple was ready to introduce a new model using it - since Apple was the largest PPC system maker, they had some clout in that area.
In the Intel world, Intel announces a chip family and that day the big Wintel vendors are already showing off their prototypes of "about-to-ship computers using it. Apple can't be as close to the vest as they traditionally have been regarding their plans anymore - for instance, it's a no-brainer that they'll speedbump their systems anytime Intel ships speedbumped versions of the same chip. Also, the announcement of a Mac Pro is now seen as inevitable at WWDC, since the chips to power it are officially on the market. Unlike years past, the speculation is focused this year on the little details - Xeon or Core 2 Duo? Completely redesigned case or minor refresh? The fact of the machine itself is more of a done deal.
Because this is the first WWDC in the post-Intel era, it'll be interesting to see what the buying trend is - for instance, I have one client who is holding off the two weeks until WWDC before buying either a G5 tower or Xserve - based on the system configs in play, that's about $40k in deferred revenue (on the other hand, another one just bought a G5 Quad). Part of the reason that Apple used to be so tight-lipped about announcements was to avoid these deferred purchases, so it'll be interesting to see what happens now.
Yep - he's the Rambam from Kinky's books. I don't recall all the details, but they go way back and there's a confirmation on Rambam's agency website.
I mostly drink either water, or coffee with just pinch of sugar in it (just enough to take a little bit of the edge off - less than half a small spoon's worth), But if I have the time, I'll make iced tea, and drink it unsweetened (and I almost always drink that in restaurants). When I absolutely must have a canned fizzy beverage, I usually go for Polar lemon seltzer - not too fizzy, and with just a little bit of lemon mixed in.
I do have one weakness when it comes to sodas - I like the old-school "real" root beers that are made with sugar instead of corn syrup. Once in a while I might have one (like about once per month or so) And about 2 Dr. Peppers a year. I really don't like traditional colas at all, so it's not tough to keep away from them.
It's not quite that, I think - I remember the Mini being available in three models at one point - a $499 (slower processor, 40GB drive, no wireless), a $599, and a $699 version. I don't remember the exact difference in configurations, but at the highest price point you got the faster processor, 80GB hard drive, a Superdrive, and wireless. It's just that now they've gone from 3 models to 2, and dropped the middle price point.
Now there's yet another thing to drive up the price of oil! Just what we needed!
(yes, that was sarcastic...)
For those who are Apple consultants (like me), Specialists, or other folks with ASW (Apple Sales Web) access, it's already been posted there as a .dmg file with a pair of serial numbers that expire at year-end. One caution, though - I installed the update over a copy of 2.2 that I'd done the Rosetta hack on to make it run on my MacBook Pro - after I installed the new version it would not recognize my existing version's application password. I had to re-enter the ID and passwords for all the various Macs I manage - fortunately I had almost all of them written down!
.plist doesn't work). I only have 40-odd machines to keep track of, but this could be an issue for folks with more who already put the older version on an Intel Mac.
Interestingly, installing the same update on my older PowerBook didn't cause any problems, and the whole list imported properly. Not a super big deal overall, except ARD gives you no way to save the usernames and passwords for transfer (moving the
That said, it is definitely an improvement on the older version. And, unlike most older ARD revs, it manages older client versions just fine. You give up the new encryption feature when you do so (no biggie if you connect via a VPN anyway), and I don't know what else yet, but it's reasonably slick thus far.
For those of you wondering "why does Apple charge for this when Windows gives you Remote Desktop for free?", ARD is not really analogous to Windows' Remote Desktop. To get what Windows gives you, just use any VNC viewer with the built-in VNC client on the Mac. ARD is intended for network administrators, and the remote control features are almost a bonus. Package management, reporting, and all that sort of fun stuff is what you get with ARD.
A couple of minor return nitpicks here for you - first of all, with Matrix SSL (an optional add-on to Chatter) I actually have very stable and efficient background processing of my email connection. The only real limitation is that you can't do data and voice at the same instant (not many devices seem able to do that). Also, the 700p is a very real product, with a scheduled Sprint launch in just under 2 months and all sorts of verification and detailed real specs available pre-intro. Yes, I'm speculating about the GSM/EDGE versions of them, but going by Palm's history it's obvious. The launch carrier gets an exclusive for the first 4-6 months, then other versions come out.
Palm isn't the greatest platform ever, but on a feature for feature comparison the Treo comes out fairly well as a convergence device. Keep in mind that the 650 is really last years' model, designed and released pre-3G networks and hamstrung by the aging Palm OS. That said it's still pretty close to the top, device-wise, until we have some more next-generation devices to replace it.
Also, by "tethering" I was referring to using a phone for Internet, be it by cable or Bluetooth. Sorry about the misunderstanding. The reason to use a cabled phone would be for slightly higher speeds (depending on the network) and potentially the ability to charge the phone while it's in use. But I used to use my old T616 phone as a Bluetooth modem regularly (pre-EV/DO). It was nice and convenient, if pokey.
Depends on what you call convergence. I call convergence a handheld that's reasonably small, handles data and voice, gives me real-time access to my e-mail, and serves as an effective adjunct to my laptop. And I call that a GSM Treo 650 - which I've owned for the better part of a year. With the addition of a quality IMAP-based e-mail client instead of Versamail, the Treo gets messages as they arrive, can do real background processing, and give me easy access and editing of all my accumulated information. If I wanted to, I could use the built-in camera to take pictures, and capture lo-res video to my SD card.
To me, that's convergence. The only thing it lacks is support for the higher-speed cellular broadband standards (and enough internal RAM), but the Treo 700w (Windows Mobile-based) works with the CDMA EV/DO service from Verizon, and the forthcoming 700p (PalmOS) is expected to work with Sprint's EV/DO network. GSM EDGE versions of both are slated to arrive pretty soon as well.
And the Blackberry that's covered here? That's the tip of the iceberg. The CTIA Wireless show is in Vegas less than two weeks from now. And there's sure to be quite a few relevant announcements there. I'm holding my breath for a ExpressCard-based EV/DO card, though - My MacBook Pro is on order and I'd rather use a card than tether a phone (I use a PC5220 card from Verizon right now with my existing PowerBook).
The ultimate definition? Convergence is a state of mind. And when your device does all the things you need, it matches that.
It's not that radical a concept, really. There's a big difference between the reality of a given individual, and tendencies in a larger population. Given isolation (physical or, for that matter, cultural), and genetic variation will start to express itself - perhaps resulting in real differences between groups. Are humans evolving in ways molded by culture and environment? Absolutely. Is it too slow for us to readily detect? Yup. But you can look at just the surface physical differences between racial groups and see evidence that this has happened in the past. Natural selection has caused groups of humans to adapt to their surroundings.
Brains adapt, too. We just need to be careful in applying generalizations to humans, though. Because, as you said, any individual could fall anywhere on the bell curve. Just because a statistical tendency may exist in a particular group due to evolutionary pressures doesn't mean that one person is better or worse. Individuals should be judged as individuals, regardless.
That said, though, we're all still members of the same species - that won't change anytime soon. Despite the physical differences between, say, a Boston Terrier and a Newfie, they are both still dogs and could produce offspring if they somehow were able to mate (though the results would likely be rather odd!). Ashkenazis may be smart, and Swedes may be good at digesting cow's milk, but that doesn't mean that hypothetical little Ingrid Goldstein can't turn out to be a moron who farts for hours after eating ice cream.
That's actually the model from October, when they first came out with the iMacs with built-in iSight cameras. Each model got a 100 MHz speedbump at the time. When Apple canned the 17" iMac G5 about a month ago, they chopped $200 off the price of the 20". But I think it's really a "while supplies last" kind of deal.
In the short term, at least, some folks will still need G5 Macs - mainly because of incompatibilities. From what I've seen so far, clients of mine who replace G4 systems with Core Duo Macs (mainly either old iMac G4s or PowerBooks) are reacting with a "wow", while the G5 owners who've tried Core Duo boxes are more in the "meh" category.
It's never been that (at least for most people). The advantage of Mac OS X is that it is less vulnerable than Windows (making Windows an easier target), and that Apple made decisions in the design process that mean that the typical consequences of a flaw are less severe. In recent years, Microsoft has attempted to harden Windows further and reduce their exposure - in W2K3 Server, for instance, they've done a pretty good job of it.
Even if Apple magically pulls some sort of super OS-jujitsu that reverses their market share and Microsoft's, the basic architecture will stay the same underneath - and that means Apple will have their relative advantages intact for the foreseeable future. Windows is, as its heart, an OS that has traded off many security options for ease of access and ease of programming. Apple had the advantage of seeing what was already happening to Windows when they made their decisions about how OS X would be designed, plus the system it was derived from was pretty robust to begin with.
There will be viruses that attack Mac OS X. Some will do a pretty good job of attacking. I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long to get there. But I'm also not expecting it ever to compare to Windows in that regard.
My favorite energy dring was always Whoopass from Jones Soda. I bought some from Thinkgeek a few years ago, and it's been around ever since. I always keep a few cans in the fridge at my office. But mainly I drink coffee - I used to brew it (which was way too wasteful) or buy it from Dunkin' Donuts, but last fall I picked up a Keurig single-serve coffeemaker and it simply rocks. A week ago I bought a second one for the office, too.
If you buy the coffee from your local Bed & Bath or Linens n Things, you can use the coupons that are in the paper almost every week to lower the price of coffee even more. Otherwise just get it from Amazon every once in a while, or directly from Keurig.
For regular energy drinks, though, I stick with Whoopass (and an occasional dose of the Bawls mints). Thinkgeek was cheaper for shipping than buying it directly from Jones, but last time I looked they weren't stocking it.
In a perfect world, you and your employer are both responsible for training. You would need to find out what you needed to learn, show the initiative to plan it, and take the time out of Real Life to attend some classes and do the work necessary to advance your career.
In return, the employer would reimburse you for your training, and recognize your increased expertise with more money and respect as your skills grew.
The reality is that this sounds like a far-from ideal employer that also got burned last time they paid for someone's certification and then lost them. So you'd probably have to take most of the initiative to advance your skillset. It's worth it - and you can learn a lot of stuff pretty cheaply just with the combination of a couple of middling boxes with plenty of RAM, VMware, and a subscription to the MS Action Pack along with a few books. For a pretty small investment of time and probably a couple of thousand dollars, you can teach yourself enough to know, at the very least, whether you want to stay on the sysadmin side of the business, and at best you can get a great head start on an MCSE (If you want one). It also makes for a very low-pressure way to learn more off-hours when you want to.
Ultimately, if you want to stay in the field and you want to stay with this employer you'll have to show them the folly of their training-miserly ways. Picking up some good AD kung-fu is part of the puzzle - and if need be it'll be a good way to brush up for the job interview with your next employer!
In this business the unfortunate reality is that while you can have a life, it's tough to keep up if you do. I'm lucky now - working for myself I can designate some time for the "keeping up" during the workweek, but when the customers want me they get me, even if I've set up downtime (I do charge a lot more for any off-hours work, and as a result I don't have to deal with things too often outside of the workday at least). So you can have a life - but it helps if you really, really like IT work. In general, though, formal training is something that the employer should provide some time for, but you should be willing to pitch in as well. And the homework and studying is something you're on your own for. It's partly to help in your day-to-day work, but it's also career advancement as well. Both parties gain, so both parties (should) give.
One relevant example from my old career: when I was an IT manager (prior to my old company getting bought and shrunken - part of why I'm on my own now) I had a staff with three techs. I had the training budget to send them all to class if I wanted, but I would only do so if they were willing to spend some of their personal time in pursuit of the goal as well. Typically I'd allow up to a day out of the office per week over a period of a couple of months during that, pay for everything including materials, and pay for the testing. I wouldn't send folks out for things like a 2-week bootcamp or anything of that sort. Was that the most progressive training policy around? No, but it was a reasonable and fair one, balancing my interests (as manager and company representative) with the interests of my employees. Of six people who worked for me during the five years I was there, only one never took us up on the training offer (the person liked their limited function and wasn't really interested in advancing), one left after a year to transfer back to their old department, and the other four went to classes. Of them, I lost one a month after they got their MCSE - they went to a dot-com for over $25k more than I was paying. Neither that nor the dot-com lasted. Go figure.
If Apple manages to make it to Microsoft's market share numbers, you'll have a point. Because then, Apple would control hardware and software for the entire marketplace. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. Nor is it likely to ever happen. Right now, Apple may have a monopoly on Macintosh computers, but since that's a piddling 4% or so of the total computer marketplace the economies of scale necessary to make it worthwhile for Apple to license the OS just aren't there.
Microsoft was a software-only company from day 1 - that's what their economic model was based on. And the marketplace was much smaller, too. As the market grew, so did Microsoft, until the days of OS/2 and Windows 3.0 (when, I suspect, most of the people posting in this thread about how unfair Apple's monopoly is were still in diapers) - the future of who would dominate the PC biz was very much up in the air until Windows 3.0. It wasn't great, but it was Good Enough, and the timing was right. Times are different now.
Why should Apple be "the Microsoft of the Mac OS world" when they can be the Microsoft, the IBM, the Compaq, and everybody else, too? And make gobs of cash doing so?
I hope so - with that problem solved, the MacBook Pro would make an ideal laptop for my purposes. Now all we need is for EMC to announce that VMware Workstation will be available for the Intel Macs (should be easy enough - it already runs on Linux) and these could be darn close to perfect!
I won't miss FW800 (I'm glad they at least kept FW400), but the loss of CardBus kinda sucks. I use my PowerBook on the road constantly, and I depend on my Verizon Wireless EVDO card, which is the only CardBus device I've ever really used. Checking the VZW site, they don't appear to have any cards in the new form factor so far, which means that I won't be upgrading until I can find a way to accommodate that.
Otherwise, the MacBook Pro is looking like one slick piece of hardware.
Actually, FIleMaker was a NIH Apple product. It was originally developed by Nashoba Systems, and marketed by Forethought - the same folks who gave the world PowerPoint.
Even AppleWorks/ClarisWorks got it's start outside Apple - ClarisWorks was developed by a couple of developers who had originally created what became AppleWorks/GS (the GUI version for the Apple IIgs), left Claris to write what then became ClarisWorks for the Mac, and were re-acquired into the fold after building the product. One of those nice, incestuous Valley tales. The idea with Claris was to set up a wholly owned, but independent company to produce great Mac software at a time when a lot of 3rd party developers were shying away. It was also supposed to sell Windows software when appropriate - there was even a Windows version of ClarisWorks that was fairly popular.
There have been things developed entirely in-house, though - notably QuickTime, the defunct HyperCard, and the new iWork apps.
I took an English class back in my freshman year at Northeastern, and a friend of mine was in the class with me. I was a Poli Sci major, my friend was an accounting major, so the class was a little easier for me, and she and I would study together. For the midterm, we were supposed to read and analyze the Dorothy Parker novella "Big Blonde".
Well, I basically blew it off. My friend, on the other hand, worked very hard on it, spend several days with the story, and wrote the analysis exactly as requested. Finally, the day before the paper was due, I got around to reading it (i read very fast):
I thought it sucked. Excruciatingly so. So, faced with a dilemma, I simply wrote a scathing report that opened with the sentence: "Early on in Big Blonde, Dorothy Parker's protagonist contemplates suicide. Had she only gone through with it, I would have been spared the agony of reading the rest of this hideous excuse for a story".
I went on like that for several pages. It seemed right. My friend looked at the paper with horror before I handed it in, but I felt good about it.
A few days later, they were handed back. My friend got a B-, if I recall. I didn't get a grade. Just a request to meet with the professor. When I did, after class, she simply said to me "this wasn't what I asked for - why did you write it?". At which point I spent about 15 minutes explaining and defending my criticism.
I got an A. And I think that was one of the only classes I aced that year, too.