There's different software bundles between the "pro" Macs and the "consumer" Macs. All Macs include developer tools (though not pre-loaded, the installer is on the disk already and ready to load). The consumer models (Mini, eMac, iMac, iBook) include AppleWorks and Quicken 2005 in their bundle, along with some other home-focused stuff. The pro Macs (PowerMac, PowerBook) include the OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle basic versions (Omni will let you upgrade them to the current/pro versions pretty cheaply), and a "lite" version of QuickBooks. They all include a "test drive" version of MS Office 2004, and typically a game or two.
There's a few other differences in the software bundles, but that's the gist of it. I upgraded my copy of OmniGraffle and I do like it a lot better than I liked Visio.
Office is a "good to have" thing - and Microsoft Office 2004 is actually a pretty nice product - once it supports iSync (which it will with the expanded iSync under Tiger) I plan to switch my mail client from Mail.app to Entourage (the update will be free). You can also buy a fairly cheap "Student-Teacher Editio" of Office 2004 that is exactly the same as the regular version, but is intended for home use, and comes with three serial numbers for concurrent home usage. I haven't used any of the other office suites for the Mac, but I like MS Office enough to have no incentive.
Apple's iWork is a pretty good tool for many office functions, but there's no spreadsheet - it's just word processing/presentation. And if users need a database, FileMaker's the "standard" app and it's cross-platform as well.
They have the "up-to-date" program, and if it was ordered from today onwards, you can get Tiger for $9.95 and a coupon. So, assuming your order datestamp was 4/11, I'd say to cancel it and re-order today.
First of all, I support, use, and sell Linux in my daily work. I also do the same for Microsoft products, Novell products, and Apple products (whatever fits a client best). I don't really have an OS dog in this particular hunt.
That said, in my prior professional life I was a corporate-type IT manager. For two different companies over an 11-year period. During that time an old college friend of mine went to work for Computerworld as a reporter, and through her I met and occasionally worked with Laura DiDio back when she was covering the Novell beat for CW (old Google searches will probably turn up a quote or two from me in articles of hers). I can't directly speak of her attitudes now, because it's been a couple of years since I've spoken to her (I've talked to her about stuff since she joined Yankee, though). Here's my take on Laura, and where she's coming from:
Laura is not a tech geek like most of us are. She's also not specifically a fanboy of any particular company or technology. Laura's strength at CW was in insight - she did a good job of seeing through the fluff that companies were spewing and getting to the "real" impact behind it. Covering Novell back when Microsoft was first starting to take a big bite out of their business, she recognized then that it wasn't the superiority of the product that was winning the battle for Microsoft, it was the marketing. She also saw what Novell was doing wrong, but wasn't in a position to do much about it other than point it out in columns.
As an analyst, I'd say her work (that I've read) is usually solid. I don't agree with all her conclusions, but remember - her job is to figure out what mainstream business is doing and is interested in. It's not to rave about one platform or another. And since mainstream business is on Windows, converting would incur costs and complications that don't exist if they stay on Windows. Some companies would save money by moving to Linux - some would not. Sometimes it's worth it for a business. Sometimes it's not. And sometimes she's spot-on - sometimes she's not.
The folks who post flames about her and other analysts who say anything other than "Linux rocks and Windows sucks" regularly are giving Linux a bad name, Slashdot a bad name, and the whole open source/free software community a bad name. There are valid criticisms one can make of some of DiDio's work. Flaming the messenger personally because you don't agree with her professional conclusions - that's just stupid.
Too bad they didn't think to put windshield wipers on the rovers - then they'd have been fine until they ran out of wiper fluid!
(though I have a rather amusing picture in my mind right now of a rover stopping at an obstruction, only to be assailed by little green squeegee men looking for a handout...)
I think last year, some folks were wondering "what's going to happen without COMDEX? Well, the tech world kept on going, products still hit the market, and everything carried on fine without it.
Like a few people have said, the smaller, more focused shows are doing OK (Linuxworld out here in Boston seemed to be a hit, for instance), but I think the day of the giant "everything for everybody" show is over. N+I is dead for all practical purposes (I used to go to the Atlanta one), Macworld is pretty much down to one (though last years' Boston show was OK), and the only "biggie" left is CES for now.
Ultimately the Internet and the tech bust killed the trade show, but more importantly the maturity of the market has made the biggest impact. No COMDEX? Big deal.
Re:The clones were better than Apple's machines
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Re-Imagining Apple
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I was a big user of Power Computing clones back in the day - they had features I couldn't get in Apple kit, had good prices, and you could do BTO without a problem. The reliability was only so-so, but their support was always good and they were quick about getting me parts if I needed them.
Apple's reliability was also crap during that era, too - and their prices were a lot higher.
When it became obvious that MacOS 8 was really just being targeted at shutting down the cloners (at the time, most of the clone companies only had license rights up through 7.x, because 8 was originally supposed to be Copland) and that Apple was going to refuse all the license renewals, I wrote Steve Jobs a snippy e-mail complaining about it and telling him I expected to see their lunch eaten by NT.
A day later, he sent me an e-mail back explaining his rationale in what he was doing, and we agreed to disagree. You know, I'd say he was probably right after all...
Novell has the resources and expertise to make Linux a truly viable desktop OS for Joe Corporate User. That all said, I'm not sure they will be able to out-market Microsoft enough to make a dent - even with their new management that's come in over the last couple of years, Novell remains the prototypical company that would open up a sushi bar, and advertise it with a sign saying:
"Cold Raw Dead Fish for Sale!"
(and I'm a Novell Partner- i like Novell!)
I've seen their new Open Enterprise Server (the SuSE/NetWare fusion) and it's tremendously impressive - I spent time in a class on it last week. The current NLD (based on SuSE 9.0) is a good solid desktop, which I run on one of my Dell boxes. Somebody out there is going to make Linux into a truly viable desktop player, and it'll probably be Novell in spite of their poor marketing skills.
I just hope that NLD doesn't turn out to be the "only" shot at a widespread penetration of the corporate desktop for Linux in general. Linux is doing just fine on the back end, but on the desktop right now the only real "alternative" is Apple - we need a good Linux-based Third Option to really start nibbling away at Windows.
Technically, you aren't "required" to give him any notice at all. If you'd like, you could simply not show up for work tomorrow and he has no recourse whatsoever. Without a contract stating otherwise, your employment is "at will", meaning essentially that you could be terminated tomorrow for no reason, and you can leave anytime you want.
That all said, as a practical matter you need to ask yourself how much this job mean to you, and how badly do you want a good reference (or if you need one). Two weeks is the accepted standard for most jobs, and sometimes it can be more or less depending on circumstances. I spent six years (from '92 to '98) at an advertising agency where I was the systems manager, and although I had people working for me when I decided to move on, I gave six weeks' notice, trained the person who was designated my replacement, and answered occasional questions for no cost for a while afterwards.
On the other hand, they treated me very well, gave me glowing recommendations, and even gave me the PowerBook I was using there as a going-away gift. So in a way it depends on how you want to treat your bridges. If your current employer is someone you want to be able to turn to in the future, and who treated you OK, then you shouldn't have a problem going beyond two weeks. And your new employer should understand that you're trying to do the Right Thing. OTOH, if the current employer just plain sucks (and from reading your question I suspect they do), then you give 'em 2 weeks, collect your accrued vacation, and get the heck out. If they want you available for work afterwards, fine - quote them a price for services that you feel is reasonable and tell them that you can help out after-hours.
If they don't like it, screw 'em. You fulfilled the extent of your obligations to the current employer by showing up.
Yeah, but the days of plain old "viruses" are pretty much over. Nowadays, most malware seems to be targeted at turning Windows boxes into zombies - and that's where the reward is (because those zombies are being monetized). So a successful Windows exploit can return potentially millions of machines, while a Mac exploit will return a fraction of that number.
Combined with the substantially greater effort needed to attack the Mac, that's why nobody's doing it so far. If Apple starts nibbling away more market share (as some indicators say they might be doing), you may see an increase in activity, but again - it makes the most sense to fish where the fish are.
Yes, a major reason it's safer is because OS X isn't targeted often due to the low market presence. But it's also a matter of effort versus payoff. By default, MacOS X has a much smaller attack surface than Windows, and even compared to most "stock" Linux distros. Virtually all server services are turned off by default on the Mac. Root is disabled. So to find a vulnerability and attack it takes a lot of effort, and then if you do so there are fewer Macs to take advantage of. So why not target Windows - it's easier!
I do know of people who've had their MacOS X systems compromised - but only among MacOS X Server users who've turned on services without knowing the implications, and then running them without the benefit of a firewall (because "everyone knows Macs are secure". Through bad setup and misconfiguration it's pretty easy to turn a server into "just another Unix box" that's just as vulnerable as any unpatched Linux server.
But that's not the default, and that's not how the client works. Hence at this time, Symantec is just blowing smoke and wondering why they don't sell any copies of NAV and Systemworks for Mac anymore.
Absolutely nothing. But if you re-rip them to a computer, you will start noticing a little degradation - it's pretty much inevitable when you take songs originally encoded with a form of lossy compression and then rip them again into another lossy file.
I've been using jHymn on my iTMS purchases since it became available. I don't share my music with others, or do anything against the "rules" with my files - except, of course, for removing the DRM. I just feel better about keeping my purchases around without it.
One clarification for you - Apple's wireless mouse isn't "QuickRF"-based (like all the $30ish wireless mice), it's actually a Bluetooth mouse. Granted, non-Apple Bluetooth mice generally include a Bluetooth USB dongle as well, but $69 is pretty much in line with what I've seen most third-party Bluetooth mice sell for.
My office is in the same huge complex in Beverly as the Groove offices - so if Microsoft pumps money and bodies in there, it'll just make it more difficult to park than it already is!
Other than that, it's really not too big a deal in my eyes. Microsoft's been pumping money into Groove for a few years now, and Groove has been putting all their development efforts into Windows for a long time (it was originally supposed to be a multiplatform product). Maybe Groove will become more than a niche product now?
I think there are useful applications for humans in LEO, and maybe even for lunar exploration. I think, though that the Space Shuttle is a lousy tool for the task. Given the huge limitations it has and the enormous cost of operating the dwindling fleet of them, we can easily do better. There are plenty of designs that NASA hasn't put any energy into pursuing because all the money goes into the ISS and shuttle fleet.
I do think that the ISS can be made to serve a useful purpose, and is a decent platform on which real science can be done. But it and the shuttle are kind of intertwined (the ISS's modules were designed to be ferried up by the shuttle, and it was intended for shuttles to do much of the personnel rotation). Right now the ISS is a boondoggle, bigger and more expensive than Skylab and Mir were, but not much more useful.
What I want to see is humans doing the jobs for which they are best designed. Long-duration spaceflight isn't one of them.
Sure, debris in space is hazardous to the shuttle. It's also hazardous to everything else up there, too - including any other manned vehicles we might put up, the ISS, and the entire constellation of satellites in LEO.
If we're going to stop sending shuttles up, that's not the best reason - the reason to get rid of the shuttles is because they're too expensive, too unreliable, and too inherently flawed for what they can do. Not because they might get punctured by space debris.
Meanwhile, what we (meaning any terrestrial space agency, not just the US) should be doing is preparing the next suitable for LEO vehicle that can solve most of the shuttle's flaws, and then used unmanned rockets to get cargo into space.
Well, without resume-flapping, I'll give you the basic chronology of what I've used for work and when:
In the '80s (the latter half) I started in the business. Until '92, I worked mainly for resellers of one sort or another, and I owned a 286 and a Mac SE. I used them about 50/50 - I played more games on the Mac, and used the PC for my college work (I still miss PFS: Professional Write - my ATF word processor)
Then, in '92 I was plucked from my job at an Apple reseller and wound up as the network manager for an ad agency. I was there until '98 - I used Mac clients (we still had a handful of 68k Macs when I left), and NT servers that I'd put in. The only Apple server there was an Apple WGS 95, which actually ran A/UX instead of MacOS.
In '98 I left and went to run IT for an insurance company, and that was 100% Windows. I still had a Mac at home, but I found myself doing a lot more stuff on the Windows PC I kept home - it was just easier to deal with that way.
But when MacOS X came out, I was a quick convert - I'd already been using Linux since about '94 or so, so I was comfortable with the Unix underpinnings. And now that I'm on my own, I find that about half my business is Mac-related. That gives me an incentive to use the platform heavily. But my time spent using Windows as a primary platform was kind of an interlude for me - five+ years from '98 to '03. I was already comfortable with alternatives before then, and I never dropped one entirely for the other.
I think if you're only used to Windows, it's a leap to jump to MacOS X (or Linux, or any other OS for that matter). But if you've used other platforms before, it's pretty easy to make a switch from any one to another. It's kind of like knowing human languages - if you only know one language, it's typically fairly tough to learn a second. But once you know two, learning more isn't as difficult as that second one was.
Interesting anecdote to this - virtually my entire extended family (both sets of parents, and both my sister's family and my wife's sister's family) are all Mac users. And my house is a three-Mac house as well - My wife and I both have G4 iMacs, and my preschooler has an old G3 iMac he plays games on (of course, my home server runs Linux, and I have a couple of Windows PCs as well). So, even though my wife has a Windows laptop (for her job), we're a pretty bad example overall of platform neutrality since everybody in the family is a Mac user.
I'm a three-Leatherman person myself - I've got the Radio Shack version of the Micra (instead of a scissor, it has a plier/wire stripper) on my keychain, a Wave (my personal favorite) that I keep at my office and take along in my kit when I head to a client and expect a tool to be needed, and I have an old PST 2 that was a groomsmen's gift at a friend's wedding many years ago. That one stays in my car at all times.
One thing about all the Leatherman tools is that they seem to hold a blade really well. I've chopped through some nasty stuff in particular with my Wave, and it's held up great over the years I've had it so far.
And I've also got an old Topeak MacGuyver tool that I keep on my bike. Comes in handy at times - it's difficult to use but it's got darn near everything on it and it's lightweight.
A productive OS for me is one where I can use all the tools I want to use for my work, and have access to everything I need. Since my work consists of delivering support for multiple platforms and such, my main desktop is a PowerBook running MacOS X 10.3.8. I can run all the basic tools I need, run Virtual PC for a lot of the Windows/Linux stuff, and I can connect remotely via RDP, ARD, VNC, or SSH to machines running other OS combos I have in my lab.
So I'm a MacOS X person by choice and preference. But, with a little tweaking I can feel comfortable and productive on whatever OS I need to sit down with. For me, I think a more valid statement is "I use MacOS X because it lets me use less of my brain on the computer, and more on the task at hand". But if I'd been using Windows as my primary OS for my whole career, I'd probably feel the opposite way about Macs.
If the price goes up on iTunes, I'll go back to illegal downloads. Simple. Right now, I buy 3-4 CDs per year, and another 5 or so albums via iTunes (counting singles as part of that). I buy all my singles via iTunes. Before iTunes, if I wanted a single but not the rest of the crap on an album, I simply found it on Limewire. If necessary, I'll return there.
But since the iTMS went on-line, I haven't downloaded anything that wasn't paid for. That's revenue that the labels wouldn't have gotten from me any other way.
Multiply that attitude times a couple of million, and we're talking about a serious hurting to be placed on the recording industry if they refuse to Get It.
You know, selective quoting can eviscerate almost any argument.
Just FYI, the iMac with external VGA output came out in 2000 (the DV series), but Apple switched their desktops to VGA as standard back in 1998 - with the PowerBook G3 and the first PowerMac G3 (blue&white). That's about when extended resolutions beyond regular old XGA started to become common in the PC world.
One other correction for you - VGA dates back to 1987. It was "invented" by IBM with the PS/2 series - if I recall, the introduction was in late February. The following month, Apple came out with the Macintosh II. Strangely, it used an HD-15 connector. The same one you're saying trailed the market.
You sound like a person who hasn't used a Mac since the Bad Old Days just before PowerPC chips came about.
And DVI was just a niche connection until the last year or so - when LCD panels finally came down in price to normal levels. ADC goes back to 2000.
When you have to distort the space-time continuum to bash Apple is when it's a good time for a discussion to end. And I'm dropping out of this troll session now. Ciao.
Think about timing. ADC was there before DVI took off in the market - DVI monitors and cards were few and far between. Apple was trying (misguided though it was) to create a connector that did everything in a single cable. It didn't work. And after Apple realized it, they moved to DVI. They were also the first company to standardize on LCDs - which was part of why they did the ADC thing in the first place.
The 15-pin monitor was a similar idea. Again, Apple introduced it at about the same time VGA first arrived. Unlike VGA, though, Apple built sense pins onto their video cards and used it to automatically drive monitors that recognized them at the desired resolution. Later on, the PC world discovered the VESA standard, enabling autosensing there, too - and after they did Apple joined them and moved to VGA connectors. ADB was a useful way of connecting keyboards, mice, joysticks, and the like and it allowed for daisy-chaining, auto-detection, and hot plugging. Before USB made it possible on the PC side. And once USB was out there, Apple switched over. It wasn't idiotic, it was way better than the (then) PC state-of-the-art of single-device dedicated PS/2 connectors.
My point here is this. When Apple does something that's different, it's usually because the PC world hasn't gone there yet. If the industry matches it, they join them. ADB would still be around if the only keyboard/mouse alternative were PS/2 (single-purpose ports that can't be hot-plugged). Had DVI not become popular, we'd probably still have ADC. And I'm sure Macs would still use SCSI drives if ATA and SATA hadn't gotten good.
USB was available on most PC's ever since the LX chipset. But it didn't have even rudimentary support until Windows 98 (I think about two devices were supported with Windows 95 OSR2). That was also about the same time Apple came out with the iMac and switched everything to USB at once. Sure, it's no big deal now, but in the PC world most systems still give you a PS/2 mouse and keyboard.
Yeah, they use their own firmware in their own drives - wah. It's been done in the PC world, too - but Apple likes to mix their cake exactly to their recipe, and that's just the way it is. You can't easily disassemble a Powerbook, either. Is that a conspiracy?
Oh yeah - I forgot to mention this. Apple supports a lot of external DVD burners with iDVD. They did it through an "easter egg" in earlier versions, but now they support them natively in iDVD 5. I don't miss the hardware button for ejecting discs when I'm using my Mac, because unlike on my PC I can reliably get the drive to open and close with a keystroke.
What you've misinterpreted as "fanboyism" is something else. Apple hasn't made all infallible technical decisions. But when they do something different, it's usually because they feel they've got a better way. Not just to be proprietary. Not just to charge more. Because it's better than what the Wintel hordes were doing then. When the industry-standard way is Good Enough, they use it. As they should.
Do you think using PowerPC processors is something they're doing because they want to charge more, too? Or is it perhaps because that was the fruit of their deal with Motorola and IBM when they wanted a migration path from 68k?
No - that's not why every generic card wouldn't work in a Mac. It's because the firmware was typically processor-specific on a (PCI, AGP, etc.) card back in the day. 68k/PPC chips use a different endian mode than x86 does, and so if you didn't put appropriate firmware on the card, it wouldn't work. There are cards out there nowadays that work on both platforms just fine (for instance, a lot of ATA controllers work just fine cross-platform - same with networking cards and plenty of other stuff).
In some cases, the card would work fine if there were an OS-specific driver for it. The vendor's decision not to write one isn't Apple's fault.
I'm not striving for unrestrained Apple fanboydom here, but let's get real. The fact that Apple doesn't build generic x86 computers that are interchangeable doesn't make them proprietary - they've just made different architectural choices that impact what will work with their products. NuBus wasn't proprietary, for instance - it was industry standard. It just wasn't used by x86 vendors. But it was technically superior to 8/16 bit ISA, so Apple used it until it made more sense to move to PCI. They also used SCSI to gain an technical advantage over older-generation PC drive technology - there were clear speed advantages to SCSI for a long time until newer ATA implementations caught up. At which point Apple switched and lowered their costs in doing so.
They also helped drive the move to USB, popularized Firewire, added standard Ethernet on everything before any x86 vendors, and added a dedicated slot and antenna for wireless before anyone.
There's plenty of useful stuff to rip on Apple about without the misinformed "proprietary hardware" red herring.
Up here in Verizon land, they sell DSL for $30/month. And there are a handful of slightly cheaper "naked DSL" providers out there, too - but I'm not really up to speed on them.
I pay $70 for a Speakeasy setup with 1.5 down, 768 up, and a pair of static IP addresses. Since my wife has a home office that she needs to VPN to the main office from, and I self-host my website and e-mail, it's well worth it. If all I needed was surfing speed, I'd use the Verizon plan.
Panera came about when the old Boston-based Au Bon Pain bought St Louis Bread and renamed it to Panera. After a few years, they realized that the Panera concept had a lot more life to it than the original one did, so they sold off the Au Bon Pain brand (which remained in Boston, mainly selling at mall food court-type stores), and went gangbusters with the Panera brand. And at some point after the sale, they moved Panera back to St Louis.
We've got several of them near my home - pretty good food, great sourdough bread, and decent ambiance - the kind of place you might hang out at for a while with your laptop.
Given the minimal cost of providing wireless Internet service, it's surprising more restaurant/cafes don't offer it for free. I, for one, would go to a Panera over, say, a Starbucks for exactly that reason.
(Of course, given that I have a Verizon EV/DO card for my PowerBook it makes the whole WiFi thing kind of redundant most of the time on the road...)
One other thing to consider (though for web serving it's not as big a deal):
If you choose to use OS X Server instead of the included client version, it'll set you back $500 (for the 10-client version) or $1000 (for the unlimited-client). For the money, you get more/better tools built-in plus more robust AFP/SMB services and other goodies (the price differentiation is only for concurrent AFP sessions). You don't need MacOS X Server to run a mini as a web server, but it could be a Good Thing, and it's bundled for free when you buy an Xserve.
Of course, if you're not running MacOS X (some version) on it, then what's the point of using Mac hardware? You might as well pick up a Shuttle SFF box and run Linux.
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There's different software bundles between the "pro" Macs and the "consumer" Macs. All Macs include developer tools (though not pre-loaded, the installer is on the disk already and ready to load). The consumer models (Mini, eMac, iMac, iBook) include AppleWorks and Quicken 2005 in their bundle, along with some other home-focused stuff. The pro Macs (PowerMac, PowerBook) include the OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle basic versions (Omni will let you upgrade them to the current/pro versions pretty cheaply), and a "lite" version of QuickBooks. They all include a "test drive" version of MS Office 2004, and typically a game or two.
There's a few other differences in the software bundles, but that's the gist of it. I upgraded my copy of OmniGraffle and I do like it a lot better than I liked Visio.
Office is a "good to have" thing - and Microsoft Office 2004 is actually a pretty nice product - once it supports iSync (which it will with the expanded iSync under Tiger) I plan to switch my mail client from Mail.app to Entourage (the update will be free). You can also buy a fairly cheap "Student-Teacher Editio" of Office 2004 that is exactly the same as the regular version, but is intended for home use, and comes with three serial numbers for concurrent home usage. I haven't used any of the other office suites for the Mac, but I like MS Office enough to have no incentive.
Apple's iWork is a pretty good tool for many office functions, but there's no spreadsheet - it's just word processing/presentation. And if users need a database, FileMaker's the "standard" app and it's cross-platform as well.
They have the "up-to-date" program, and if it was ordered from today onwards, you can get Tiger for $9.95 and a coupon. So, assuming your order datestamp was 4/11, I'd say to cancel it and re-order today.
First of all, I support, use, and sell Linux in my daily work. I also do the same for Microsoft products, Novell products, and Apple products (whatever fits a client best). I don't really have an OS dog in this particular hunt.
That said, in my prior professional life I was a corporate-type IT manager. For two different companies over an 11-year period. During that time an old college friend of mine went to work for Computerworld as a reporter, and through her I met and occasionally worked with Laura DiDio back when she was covering the Novell beat for CW (old Google searches will probably turn up a quote or two from me in articles of hers). I can't directly speak of her attitudes now, because it's been a couple of years since I've spoken to her (I've talked to her about stuff since she joined Yankee, though). Here's my take on Laura, and where she's coming from:
Laura is not a tech geek like most of us are. She's also not specifically a fanboy of any particular company or technology. Laura's strength at CW was in insight - she did a good job of seeing through the fluff that companies were spewing and getting to the "real" impact behind it. Covering Novell back when Microsoft was first starting to take a big bite out of their business, she recognized then that it wasn't the superiority of the product that was winning the battle for Microsoft, it was the marketing. She also saw what Novell was doing wrong, but wasn't in a position to do much about it other than point it out in columns.
As an analyst, I'd say her work (that I've read) is usually solid. I don't agree with all her conclusions, but remember - her job is to figure out what mainstream business is doing and is interested in. It's not to rave about one platform or another. And since mainstream business is on Windows, converting would incur costs and complications that don't exist if they stay on Windows. Some companies would save money by moving to Linux - some would not. Sometimes it's worth it for a business. Sometimes it's not. And sometimes she's spot-on - sometimes she's not.
The folks who post flames about her and other analysts who say anything other than "Linux rocks and Windows sucks" regularly are giving Linux a bad name, Slashdot a bad name, and the whole open source/free software community a bad name. There are valid criticisms one can make of some of DiDio's work. Flaming the messenger personally because you don't agree with her professional conclusions - that's just stupid.
Even Rob Enderle deserves better.
OK, maybe that's going a little too far...
Too bad they didn't think to put windshield wipers on the rovers - then they'd have been fine until they ran out of wiper fluid!
(though I have a rather amusing picture in my mind right now of a rover stopping at an obstruction, only to be assailed by little green squeegee men looking for a handout...)
I think last year, some folks were wondering "what's going to happen without COMDEX? Well, the tech world kept on going, products still hit the market, and everything carried on fine without it.
Like a few people have said, the smaller, more focused shows are doing OK (Linuxworld out here in Boston seemed to be a hit, for instance), but I think the day of the giant "everything for everybody" show is over. N+I is dead for all practical purposes (I used to go to the Atlanta one), Macworld is pretty much down to one (though last years' Boston show was OK), and the only "biggie" left is CES for now.
Ultimately the Internet and the tech bust killed the trade show, but more importantly the maturity of the market has made the biggest impact. No COMDEX? Big deal.
I was a big user of Power Computing clones back in the day - they had features I couldn't get in Apple kit, had good prices, and you could do BTO without a problem. The reliability was only so-so, but their support was always good and they were quick about getting me parts if I needed them.
Apple's reliability was also crap during that era, too - and their prices were a lot higher.
When it became obvious that MacOS 8 was really just being targeted at shutting down the cloners (at the time, most of the clone companies only had license rights up through 7.x, because 8 was originally supposed to be Copland) and that Apple was going to refuse all the license renewals, I wrote Steve Jobs a snippy e-mail complaining about it and telling him I expected to see their lunch eaten by NT.
A day later, he sent me an e-mail back explaining his rationale in what he was doing, and we agreed to disagree. You know, I'd say he was probably right after all...
Novell has the resources and expertise to make Linux a truly viable desktop OS for Joe Corporate User. That all said, I'm not sure they will be able to out-market Microsoft enough to make a dent - even with their new management that's come in over the last couple of years, Novell remains the prototypical company that would open up a sushi bar, and advertise it with a sign saying:
"Cold Raw Dead Fish for Sale!"
(and I'm a Novell Partner- i like Novell!)
I've seen their new Open Enterprise Server (the SuSE/NetWare fusion) and it's tremendously impressive - I spent time in a class on it last week. The current NLD (based on SuSE 9.0) is a good solid desktop, which I run on one of my Dell boxes. Somebody out there is going to make Linux into a truly viable desktop player, and it'll probably be Novell in spite of their poor marketing skills.
I just hope that NLD doesn't turn out to be the "only" shot at a widespread penetration of the corporate desktop for Linux in general. Linux is doing just fine on the back end, but on the desktop right now the only real "alternative" is Apple - we need a good Linux-based Third Option to really start nibbling away at Windows.
Technically, you aren't "required" to give him any notice at all. If you'd like, you could simply not show up for work tomorrow and he has no recourse whatsoever. Without a contract stating otherwise, your employment is "at will", meaning essentially that you could be terminated tomorrow for no reason, and you can leave anytime you want.
That all said, as a practical matter you need to ask yourself how much this job mean to you, and how badly do you want a good reference (or if you need one). Two weeks is the accepted standard for most jobs, and sometimes it can be more or less depending on circumstances. I spent six years (from '92 to '98) at an advertising agency where I was the systems manager, and although I had people working for me when I decided to move on, I gave six weeks' notice, trained the person who was designated my replacement, and answered occasional questions for no cost for a while afterwards.
On the other hand, they treated me very well, gave me glowing recommendations, and even gave me the PowerBook I was using there as a going-away gift. So in a way it depends on how you want to treat your bridges. If your current employer is someone you want to be able to turn to in the future, and who treated you OK, then you shouldn't have a problem going beyond two weeks. And your new employer should understand that you're trying to do the Right Thing. OTOH, if the current employer just plain sucks (and from reading your question I suspect they do), then you give 'em 2 weeks, collect your accrued vacation, and get the heck out. If they want you available for work afterwards, fine - quote them a price for services that you feel is reasonable and tell them that you can help out after-hours.
If they don't like it, screw 'em. You fulfilled the extent of your obligations to the current employer by showing up.
Yeah, but the days of plain old "viruses" are pretty much over. Nowadays, most malware seems to be targeted at turning Windows boxes into zombies - and that's where the reward is (because those zombies are being monetized). So a successful Windows exploit can return potentially millions of machines, while a Mac exploit will return a fraction of that number.
Combined with the substantially greater effort needed to attack the Mac, that's why nobody's doing it so far. If Apple starts nibbling away more market share (as some indicators say they might be doing), you may see an increase in activity, but again - it makes the most sense to fish where the fish are.
Yes, a major reason it's safer is because OS X isn't targeted often due to the low market presence. But it's also a matter of effort versus payoff. By default, MacOS X has a much smaller attack surface than Windows, and even compared to most "stock" Linux distros. Virtually all server services are turned off by default on the Mac. Root is disabled. So to find a vulnerability and attack it takes a lot of effort, and then if you do so there are fewer Macs to take advantage of. So why not target Windows - it's easier!
I do know of people who've had their MacOS X systems compromised - but only among MacOS X Server users who've turned on services without knowing the implications, and then running them without the benefit of a firewall (because "everyone knows Macs are secure". Through bad setup and misconfiguration it's pretty easy to turn a server into "just another Unix box" that's just as vulnerable as any unpatched Linux server.
But that's not the default, and that's not how the client works. Hence at this time, Symantec is just blowing smoke and wondering why they don't sell any copies of NAV and Systemworks for Mac anymore.
Absolutely nothing. But if you re-rip them to a computer, you will start noticing a little degradation - it's pretty much inevitable when you take songs originally encoded with a form of lossy compression and then rip them again into another lossy file.
I've been using jHymn on my iTMS purchases since it became available. I don't share my music with others, or do anything against the "rules" with my files - except, of course, for removing the DRM. I just feel better about keeping my purchases around without it.
One clarification for you - Apple's wireless mouse isn't "QuickRF"-based (like all the $30ish wireless mice), it's actually a Bluetooth mouse. Granted, non-Apple Bluetooth mice generally include a Bluetooth USB dongle as well, but $69 is pretty much in line with what I've seen most third-party Bluetooth mice sell for.
My office is in the same huge complex in Beverly as the Groove offices - so if Microsoft pumps money and bodies in there, it'll just make it more difficult to park than it already is!
Other than that, it's really not too big a deal in my eyes. Microsoft's been pumping money into Groove for a few years now, and Groove has been putting all their development efforts into Windows for a long time (it was originally supposed to be a multiplatform product). Maybe Groove will become more than a niche product now?
I think there are useful applications for humans in LEO, and maybe even for lunar exploration. I think, though that the Space Shuttle is a lousy tool for the task. Given the huge limitations it has and the enormous cost of operating the dwindling fleet of them, we can easily do better. There are plenty of designs that NASA hasn't put any energy into pursuing because all the money goes into the ISS and shuttle fleet.
I do think that the ISS can be made to serve a useful purpose, and is a decent platform on which real science can be done. But it and the shuttle are kind of intertwined (the ISS's modules were designed to be ferried up by the shuttle, and it was intended for shuttles to do much of the personnel rotation). Right now the ISS is a boondoggle, bigger and more expensive than Skylab and Mir were, but not much more useful.
What I want to see is humans doing the jobs for which they are best designed. Long-duration spaceflight isn't one of them.
Sure, debris in space is hazardous to the shuttle. It's also hazardous to everything else up there, too - including any other manned vehicles we might put up, the ISS, and the entire constellation of satellites in LEO.
If we're going to stop sending shuttles up, that's not the best reason - the reason to get rid of the shuttles is because they're too expensive, too unreliable, and too inherently flawed for what they can do. Not because they might get punctured by space debris.
Meanwhile, what we (meaning any terrestrial space agency, not just the US) should be doing is preparing the next suitable for LEO vehicle that can solve most of the shuttle's flaws, and then used unmanned rockets to get cargo into space.
Well, without resume-flapping, I'll give you the basic chronology of what I've used for work and when:
In the '80s (the latter half) I started in the business. Until '92, I worked mainly for resellers of one sort or another, and I owned a 286 and a Mac SE. I used them about 50/50 - I played more games on the Mac, and used the PC for my college work (I still miss PFS: Professional Write - my ATF word processor)
Then, in '92 I was plucked from my job at an Apple reseller and wound up as the network manager for an ad agency. I was there until '98 - I used Mac clients (we still had a handful of 68k Macs when I left), and NT servers that I'd put in. The only Apple server there was an Apple WGS 95, which actually ran A/UX instead of MacOS.
In '98 I left and went to run IT for an insurance company, and that was 100% Windows. I still had a Mac at home, but I found myself doing a lot more stuff on the Windows PC I kept home - it was just easier to deal with that way.
But when MacOS X came out, I was a quick convert - I'd already been using Linux since about '94 or so, so I was comfortable with the Unix underpinnings. And now that I'm on my own, I find that about half my business is Mac-related. That gives me an incentive to use the platform heavily. But my time spent using Windows as a primary platform was kind of an interlude for me - five+ years from '98 to '03. I was already comfortable with alternatives before then, and I never dropped one entirely for the other.
I think if you're only used to Windows, it's a leap to jump to MacOS X (or Linux, or any other OS for that matter). But if you've used other platforms before, it's pretty easy to make a switch from any one to another. It's kind of like knowing human languages - if you only know one language, it's typically fairly tough to learn a second. But once you know two, learning more isn't as difficult as that second one was.
Interesting anecdote to this - virtually my entire extended family (both sets of parents, and both my sister's family and my wife's sister's family) are all Mac users. And my house is a three-Mac house as well - My wife and I both have G4 iMacs, and my preschooler has an old G3 iMac he plays games on (of course, my home server runs Linux, and I have a couple of Windows PCs as well). So, even though my wife has a Windows laptop (for her job), we're a pretty bad example overall of platform neutrality since everybody in the family is a Mac user.
I'm a three-Leatherman person myself - I've got the Radio Shack version of the Micra (instead of a scissor, it has a plier/wire stripper) on my keychain, a Wave (my personal favorite) that I keep at my office and take along in my kit when I head to a client and expect a tool to be needed, and I have an old PST 2 that was a groomsmen's gift at a friend's wedding many years ago. That one stays in my car at all times.
One thing about all the Leatherman tools is that they seem to hold a blade really well. I've chopped through some nasty stuff in particular with my Wave, and it's held up great over the years I've had it so far.
And I've also got an old Topeak MacGuyver tool that I keep on my bike. Comes in handy at times - it's difficult to use but it's got darn near everything on it and it's lightweight.
A productive OS for me is one where I can use all the tools I want to use for my work, and have access to everything I need. Since my work consists of delivering support for multiple platforms and such, my main desktop is a PowerBook running MacOS X 10.3.8. I can run all the basic tools I need, run Virtual PC for a lot of the Windows/Linux stuff, and I can connect remotely via RDP, ARD, VNC, or SSH to machines running other OS combos I have in my lab.
So I'm a MacOS X person by choice and preference. But, with a little tweaking I can feel comfortable and productive on whatever OS I need to sit down with. For me, I think a more valid statement is "I use MacOS X because it lets me use less of my brain on the computer, and more on the task at hand". But if I'd been using Windows as my primary OS for my whole career, I'd probably feel the opposite way about Macs.
If the price goes up on iTunes, I'll go back to illegal downloads. Simple. Right now, I buy 3-4 CDs per year, and another 5 or so albums via iTunes (counting singles as part of that). I buy all my singles via iTunes. Before iTunes, if I wanted a single but not the rest of the crap on an album, I simply found it on Limewire. If necessary, I'll return there.
But since the iTMS went on-line, I haven't downloaded anything that wasn't paid for. That's revenue that the labels wouldn't have gotten from me any other way.
Multiply that attitude times a couple of million, and we're talking about a serious hurting to be placed on the recording industry if they refuse to Get It.
You know, selective quoting can eviscerate almost any argument.
Just FYI, the iMac with external VGA output came out in 2000 (the DV series), but Apple switched their desktops to VGA as standard back in 1998 - with the PowerBook G3 and the first PowerMac G3 (blue&white). That's about when extended resolutions beyond regular old XGA started to become common in the PC world.
One other correction for you - VGA dates back to 1987. It was "invented" by IBM with the PS/2 series - if I recall, the introduction was in late February. The following month, Apple came out with the Macintosh II. Strangely, it used an HD-15 connector. The same one you're saying trailed the market.
You sound like a person who hasn't used a Mac since the Bad Old Days just before PowerPC chips came about.
And DVI was just a niche connection until the last year or so - when LCD panels finally came down in price to normal levels. ADC goes back to 2000.
When you have to distort the space-time continuum to bash Apple is when it's a good time for a discussion to end. And I'm dropping out of this troll session now. Ciao.
Think about timing. ADC was there before DVI took off in the market - DVI monitors and cards were few and far between. Apple was trying (misguided though it was) to create a connector that did everything in a single cable. It didn't work. And after Apple realized it, they moved to DVI. They were also the first company to standardize on LCDs - which was part of why they did the ADC thing in the first place.
The 15-pin monitor was a similar idea. Again, Apple introduced it at about the same time VGA first arrived. Unlike VGA, though, Apple built sense pins onto their video cards and used it to automatically drive monitors that recognized them at the desired resolution. Later on, the PC world discovered the VESA standard, enabling autosensing there, too - and after they did Apple joined them and moved to VGA connectors. ADB was a useful way of connecting keyboards, mice, joysticks, and the like and it allowed for daisy-chaining, auto-detection, and hot plugging. Before USB made it possible on the PC side. And once USB was out there, Apple switched over. It wasn't idiotic, it was way better than the (then) PC state-of-the-art of single-device dedicated PS/2 connectors.
My point here is this. When Apple does something that's different, it's usually because the PC world hasn't gone there yet. If the industry matches it, they join them. ADB would still be around if the only keyboard/mouse alternative were PS/2 (single-purpose ports that can't be hot-plugged). Had DVI not become popular, we'd probably still have ADC. And I'm sure Macs would still use SCSI drives if ATA and SATA hadn't gotten good.
USB was available on most PC's ever since the LX chipset. But it didn't have even rudimentary support until Windows 98 (I think about two devices were supported with Windows 95 OSR2). That was also about the same time Apple came out with the iMac and switched everything to USB at once. Sure, it's no big deal now, but in the PC world most systems still give you a PS/2 mouse and keyboard.
Yeah, they use their own firmware in their own drives - wah. It's been done in the PC world, too - but Apple likes to mix their cake exactly to their recipe, and that's just the way it is. You can't easily disassemble a Powerbook, either. Is that a conspiracy?
Oh yeah - I forgot to mention this. Apple supports a lot of external DVD burners with iDVD. They did it through an "easter egg" in earlier versions, but now they support them natively in iDVD 5. I don't miss the hardware button for ejecting discs when I'm using my Mac, because unlike on my PC I can reliably get the drive to open and close with a keystroke.
What you've misinterpreted as "fanboyism" is something else. Apple hasn't made all infallible technical decisions. But when they do something different, it's usually because they feel they've got a better way. Not just to be proprietary. Not just to charge more. Because it's better than what the Wintel hordes were doing then. When the industry-standard way is Good Enough, they use it. As they should.
Do you think using PowerPC processors is something they're doing because they want to charge more, too? Or is it perhaps because that was the fruit of their deal with Motorola and IBM when they wanted a migration path from 68k?
No - that's not why every generic card wouldn't work in a Mac. It's because the firmware was typically processor-specific on a (PCI, AGP, etc.) card back in the day. 68k/PPC chips use a different endian mode than x86 does, and so if you didn't put appropriate firmware on the card, it wouldn't work. There are cards out there nowadays that work on both platforms just fine (for instance, a lot of ATA controllers work just fine cross-platform - same with networking cards and plenty of other stuff).
;-)
In some cases, the card would work fine if there were an OS-specific driver for it. The vendor's decision not to write one isn't Apple's fault.
I'm not striving for unrestrained Apple fanboydom here, but let's get real. The fact that Apple doesn't build generic x86 computers that are interchangeable doesn't make them proprietary - they've just made different architectural choices that impact what will work with their products. NuBus wasn't proprietary, for instance - it was industry standard. It just wasn't used by x86 vendors. But it was technically superior to 8/16 bit ISA, so Apple used it until it made more sense to move to PCI. They also used SCSI to gain an technical advantage over older-generation PC drive technology - there were clear speed advantages to SCSI for a long time until newer ATA implementations caught up. At which point Apple switched and lowered their costs in doing so.
They also helped drive the move to USB, popularized Firewire, added standard Ethernet on everything before any x86 vendors, and added a dedicated slot and antenna for wireless before anyone.
There's plenty of useful stuff to rip on Apple about without the misinformed "proprietary hardware" red herring.
There. I feel much better now
Up here in Verizon land, they sell DSL for $30/month. And there are a handful of slightly cheaper "naked DSL" providers out there, too - but I'm not really up to speed on them.
I pay $70 for a Speakeasy setup with 1.5 down, 768 up, and a pair of static IP addresses. Since my wife has a home office that she needs to VPN to the main office from, and I self-host my website and e-mail, it's well worth it. If all I needed was surfing speed, I'd use the Verizon plan.
Panera came about when the old Boston-based Au Bon Pain bought St Louis Bread and renamed it to Panera. After a few years, they realized that the Panera concept had a lot more life to it than the original one did, so they sold off the Au Bon Pain brand (which remained in Boston, mainly selling at mall food court-type stores), and went gangbusters with the Panera brand. And at some point after the sale, they moved Panera back to St Louis.
We've got several of them near my home - pretty good food, great sourdough bread, and decent ambiance - the kind of place you might hang out at for a while with your laptop.
Given the minimal cost of providing wireless Internet service, it's surprising more restaurant/cafes don't offer it for free. I, for one, would go to a Panera over, say, a Starbucks for exactly that reason.
(Of course, given that I have a Verizon EV/DO card for my PowerBook it makes the whole WiFi thing kind of redundant most of the time on the road...)
One other thing to consider (though for web serving it's not as big a deal):
If you choose to use OS X Server instead of the included client version, it'll set you back $500 (for the 10-client version) or $1000 (for the unlimited-client). For the money, you get more/better tools built-in plus more robust AFP/SMB services and other goodies (the price differentiation is only for concurrent AFP sessions). You don't need MacOS X Server to run a mini as a web server, but it could be a Good Thing, and it's bundled for free when you buy an Xserve.
Of course, if you're not running MacOS X (some version) on it, then what's the point of using Mac hardware? You might as well pick up a Shuttle SFF box and run Linux.