I've never understood the whole "people buy two consoles argument." The money is made on the games and I doubt many people buy the same game in different console formats.
Personally, I've owned a PS2 for a while and just bought a Gamecube. I have the PS2 for SSX, Tony Hawk, etc. I bought the Gamecube primarily because it has the Gameboy player and I really wanted to be able to play the "classics" (Mario, Sonic, etc.) on a modern game console. I've never understood why the classic side scroller has disappeared with the advent of 3D consoles. I've never thought the game play was better on newer games as opposed to old games. But, I digress...
In short, games sell consoles and games make money for companies. Who puts out the better games will be the winner.
Sony has had the opportunity to really get ahead in the game so many times. The problem is, Sony's head looks at its ass and wonders who it is connected to.
Memory Stick was putting up a fight in the memory card arena when PS2 came out. If the PS2 had a memory stick slot, memory stick would be the dominiant card format today. However, they didn't do this, why? Same goes for most of their VAIO computers at the time. (I owned one, I know. It was also utter trash but thats a different story.)
Previously, Sony was pushing the MD format. All their car and home cd players as well as computers and the PS2 should have been able to play MD format is they wanted it to take off. Did they. Nope, MD was a completely separate entity that no one else inside Sony saw fit to support. SACD is shaping up to be the same story. They do have some support for it in their higher-end stereo equipment, but none for VAIOs and no chance of it for PS3.
Sony does a terrific job of coming up with what could be great stuff, but then can't even get the whole company to jump on board. How do they expect to get other companies to adopt their formats?
What I find most interesting is talk about how the Cell chip is going to get used not only in the PS3, but other stuff like PDAs, stereo equipment, etc. However, if that's the case, why isn't the company already showing greater cohesiveness. The Cell is somewhat open, deriving from PPC, and they could start driving other open stuff through the company, MPEG-4, AAC for Connect, etc. However, the Connect people are dredging up formats that have been otherwise left for dead. Why? It makes no sense. Sony consistently drops the ball on its own foot.
Sony is lucky to have the PlayStation, as its the only group that does decent work. The other groups should learn from them and then start following in their footsteps. Let the PS3 group set the technology to be used, and have the other groups use it.
Java is a native language when using Project Builder.
And Perl is native to TextEdit. Come on. When I say native language I mean compiles to bytecode that is native to the OS and does not need to run through a separate virtual machine.
Well, AC so probably trolling, but feel free to reread my comment. Nowhere did I mention that the Windows version wasn't free. Furthermore, the post I was replying to never mentioned that he was doing GPL development. Please understand that there are other licenses than the GPL and not all software is open source.
I'm well aware there are free solutions, but wxWidgets, FLTK, etc. don't come close to the quality and completeness of Qt.
Check out Qt (no not QuickTime). That toolkit provides an incredible amount of useful utilites and is very high quality. It runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. With a little bit of care, you can build applications that recompile to any of the aforementioned OSs.
As much as I respect Cocoa and Objective-C development on OS X, the one thing Apple really needs is a high quality C++ toolkit. Even though the benefits of Obj-C are worth it, it can be quite hard to convice developers to learn a completely different language to develop in (native language, so don't tell me Java). I'd really like to see Apple partner with Trolltech and include Qt by default in OS X and eliminate or reduce the fees for developers who target Qt/OS X.
the important thing is the applications, not the underlying toolkits and frameworks
Applications are created using the underlying toolkits and frameworks. The higher the quality of these frameworks, the better the applications will be. The easier the frameworks are to develop with, more applications will be developed more quickly.
Its a chicken and egg sort of thing where the egg definately comes first.
The answer is "not a number." Now, for all you who actually cared, lean in closely, I'm going to tell you how I came to this conclusion: KLINGONS ARE NOT FUCKING REAL!
I think the obvious prior art would something like the buttons on a remote control. As an example, take the Squeezebox. The longer you hold down an arrow button, the faster it scrolls through the list.
I'm sure their are numerous other examples of things where button behavior is determined by timing. The fact that patents like these are granted is unbelievable.
As an aside, would the patent office be less inundated with requests if it was more discriminating when handing them out. After all, it seems like if they give out patents like candy, companies will start submitting obvious ideas in search of a patent, whether the idea is really patentable or not.
I have a metric shitload of stuff installed on my G5. A lot of the standard Apple programs as well as big name 3rd-part developers (Microsoft, OmniGroup). I also install a lot of shareware, freeware apps from smaller groups or personal developers. Some of these aren't even out of beta.
I also have a whole range of UNIX tools installed, some from the Fink project and others hand compiled.
Needless to say, my G5 is anything but "specialized." In spite of this, the system stays remarkably clean and doesn't suffer the performance hit that Windows usually does when you get a bunch of installed software packages.
Mac OS X is without a doubt the best overall OS I have ever used, and I have firsthand experience with many operating systems.
When Microsoft does it, they don't give the computer manufacturer an option to remove it. When Apple does it, you are buying an Apple system from Apple, so they determine the features of the product. If Microsoft sold computer systems they could literally ship them with a kitchen sink and not cross any legal lines.
I hope, for your sake, that you are never confused about this argument again.
No, I bought a PowerBook so I could do development "on the road". Bundled apps include Xcode, Interface Builder, and all the fun UNIX tools.
I also have a G5, and I use that a far greater portion of the time, for obvious reasons. I'm sure I'd go into an install-frenzy if I were forced to leave the warm comfort of my cheese grater for any extended period of time.
Yes, I agree with you that it is a problem of poor management. I meticulously manage all my systems, however, despite this Windows has a slow degredation in performance over time. The pace is much worse for your typical user who doesn't get concerned with these things.
As an extreme case, I reformatted my sisters computer this past Christmas. On boot, here computer had over 70% CPU usage. She used it on a college campus and it was riddled with spyware. My fathers computer is similar, though nowhere near as sever. Maybe 15% CPU usage after boot. These machines are both 1GHz or better.
Now, I judge these things from a purely objective standpoint. Mac OS X can be used heavily, many applications installed, and it just keeps purring. My mom has a Mac, and as far as I have a say in it, my sister and dad will too when they decide to buy a new computer.
I run Linux, and I'd like to recommend it to non-techies, but at the moment that is not realistically feasible. In any case, it amazes me that people put up with drastically inferior products (Windows) when something so much better is available (Mac OS X). I'm convinced that this is due to the general ignorance and laziness of people who are unwilling to seek alternatives. It really bothers me.
After a year of distrusting the company somewhat, I began to gain an appreciation of how Microsoft worked, and to see it for what it was - a machine that was focused on building products that people wanted, as quickly and as well as they could. Note the "quickly" - this was what distinguished MS from Apple in the end - a focus on moving quickly, and beating the competition. Details like great design were not critical to most customers, so that didn't really make it into the products, except where it mattered to the customer.
I haven't read the whole thing, but I wanted to comment on this. His argument makes sense for a certain amount of time, but that time may come to a halt quickly. Microsoft's core business units (Windows and Office) are quickly becoming commodity prices. The efforts of Linux and OpenOffice are, in most respects, equaling the features found in Microsoft products. At the same time, the number any new features added often just bloat the product. When this happens, you have to start competing on quality.
Linux does this as an OS in the server room. However, as a mainstream desktop, Linux lacks in the quality department (ease of use, interface consistency). However, Windows isn't the greatest at these things either and open source should see a huge hole for stealing market share if people get behind efforts to improve the quality (UI, etc.) of the desktop product.
Apple has demonstrated the validity of the quality thinking, unfortunately they seem content to remain a niche market player. I really respect Apple for this, but would love to see Linux take a page from their quality book and read it to the mainstream.
Well, I did it using the software restore disks that Apple gives you with the system. You pop in the CD or DVD and double click the installer, it then reboots and walks you through the install process. Couldn't be easier.
Also, a software restore by default doesn't install the Classic OS 9 environment. So, you save a bit of disk space by getting rid of that. Of course you can always install that later, if you really want it.
I'm using Linux, Win2K and Mac OSX on the various machines.
Here's the deal:
Mac OSX - Set-up well by default and tends to stay that way even under heavy use. Keeps running smoothly.
Linux - Can be tough to maintain, but if you are using it you probably keep a pretty tight reign over things. This keeps it running smoothly.
Windows - Shitty default set-up and lax security leads to virusus and spyware running rampant after a few expeditions onto the Internet. Multitude of installed programs clutter up the filesystem. After a while starts to significantly slow down.
I'm guessing since you use Linux and Mac OS X, you don't use Windows too much, so you don't notice the slow down. I used to reformat Windows at least twice a year. Now I stick to OS X and Linux and am in heaven.
I don't know any of the specifics, but I can't think of any reason why they would need to assign public IP addresses to these wristbands. In all likelyhood, they've set up a wireless LAN and are dolling out private addresses set aside for self-contained networks. They could set up a NAT box with some nice interface if they really wanted external access to it.
So, your IPv4 addresses shouldn't take a hit. I do agree we should move to IPv6 though, but this instance is not justification.
..that Mac OSX users now think they know 'Nix, and that 'Nix users think they know Mac now?
Umm, no. The "average" Mac user only wants to use his/her computer efficiently. These people don't consider "knowing" the computer as more important than actually using it for work.
The only people who are big UNIX geeks running Mac OS X came from other *NIXes like Linux or BSD. These people have a right to assert they know UNIX because in most cases they do. In turn, anyone who can figure out UNIX can figure out the Mac overlay in no time at all. (hint: it's simple for a reason)
I have both a dual 2.0 GHz G5 and a 1.25 GHz 15" PowerBook G4. The G5 is without a doubt faster, but for the typical user and his/her uses, it doesn't offer much. The G5 excells at video encoding and also compiles larger code bases much faster. However, for typical uses (web browsing, word processing, etc.) there is not much of a performance gain.
As for your two-button mouse argument: TRY IT! I figured I wouldn't like it much, but I find it to work out quite well. Now, I always have one hand on the keyboard, which makes me operate my computer much more quickly and efficiently. My experiences with Apple lead me to believe that if they are doing something, there is usually a damn good reason for it, and that reason is usually right.
So, instead of loudly proclaiming your ignorance and demand Apple do things your way, I suggest you open your mind to "thinking different" and begin to realize that things can be better than the way you've been ingrained to beleive.
I'm not attempting to say you are wrong, as I have no experience with that model. However, I wanted to offer a second opinion.
I recently (January) purchased a 15" PowerBook and can say it is the coolest running laptop I have ever owned.
Previously I owned a Sony VIAO which was decent for temperature but had serious hardware failures 1 month out of the year long warranty (for which they wanted to charge me $2700 to repair). After that I bought an HP notebook, which was so hot that I'm sure I would have melted the skin off my legs had I ever set it there more than once beyond the first time.
Now, combined with wireless and my PB, I constantly recline on the couch in front of the TV with the laptop. No heat issues whatsoever. In fact, when I'm wearing jeans a barely notice much difference in temperature.
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I've never understood the whole "people buy two consoles argument." The money is made on the games and I doubt many people buy the same game in different console formats.
Personally, I've owned a PS2 for a while and just bought a Gamecube. I have the PS2 for SSX, Tony Hawk, etc. I bought the Gamecube primarily because it has the Gameboy player and I really wanted to be able to play the "classics" (Mario, Sonic, etc.) on a modern game console. I've never understood why the classic side scroller has disappeared with the advent of 3D consoles. I've never thought the game play was better on newer games as opposed to old games. But, I digress...
In short, games sell consoles and games make money for companies. Who puts out the better games will be the winner.
A recent attempt to fuse the tectonic plates failed and caused the oceans to drain into fault lines. We are keeping the oceans for ourselves!
Sony has had the opportunity to really get ahead in the game so many times. The problem is, Sony's head looks at its ass and wonders who it is connected to.
Memory Stick was putting up a fight in the memory card arena when PS2 came out. If the PS2 had a memory stick slot, memory stick would be the dominiant card format today. However, they didn't do this, why? Same goes for most of their VAIO computers at the time. (I owned one, I know. It was also utter trash but thats a different story.)
Previously, Sony was pushing the MD format. All their car and home cd players as well as computers and the PS2 should have been able to play MD format is they wanted it to take off. Did they. Nope, MD was a completely separate entity that no one else inside Sony saw fit to support. SACD is shaping up to be the same story. They do have some support for it in their higher-end stereo equipment, but none for VAIOs and no chance of it for PS3.
Sony does a terrific job of coming up with what could be great stuff, but then can't even get the whole company to jump on board. How do they expect to get other companies to adopt their formats?
What I find most interesting is talk about how the Cell chip is going to get used not only in the PS3, but other stuff like PDAs, stereo equipment, etc. However, if that's the case, why isn't the company already showing greater cohesiveness. The Cell is somewhat open, deriving from PPC, and they could start driving other open stuff through the company, MPEG-4, AAC for Connect, etc. However, the Connect people are dredging up formats that have been otherwise left for dead. Why? It makes no sense. Sony consistently drops the ball on its own foot.
Sony is lucky to have the PlayStation, as its the only group that does decent work. The other groups should learn from them and then start following in their footsteps. Let the PS3 group set the technology to be used, and have the other groups use it.
Java is a native language when using Project Builder.
And Perl is native to TextEdit. Come on. When I say native language I mean compiles to bytecode that is native to the OS and does not need to run through a separate virtual machine.
Well, AC so probably trolling, but feel free to reread my comment. Nowhere did I mention that the Windows version wasn't free. Furthermore, the post I was replying to never mentioned that he was doing GPL development. Please understand that there are other licenses than the GPL and not all software is open source.
I'm well aware there are free solutions, but wxWidgets, FLTK, etc. don't come close to the quality and completeness of Qt.
Check out Qt (no not QuickTime). That toolkit provides an incredible amount of useful utilites and is very high quality. It runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. With a little bit of care, you can build applications that recompile to any of the aforementioned OSs.
As much as I respect Cocoa and Objective-C development on OS X, the one thing Apple really needs is a high quality C++ toolkit. Even though the benefits of Obj-C are worth it, it can be quite hard to convice developers to learn a completely different language to develop in (native language, so don't tell me Java). I'd really like to see Apple partner with Trolltech and include Qt by default in OS X and eliminate or reduce the fees for developers who target Qt/OS X.
the important thing is the applications, not the underlying toolkits and frameworks
Applications are created using the underlying toolkits and frameworks. The higher the quality of these frameworks, the better the applications will be. The easier the frameworks are to develop with, more applications will be developed more quickly.
Its a chicken and egg sort of thing where the egg definately comes first.
The answer is "not a number." Now, for all you who actually cared, lean in closely, I'm going to tell you how I came to this conclusion: KLINGONS ARE NOT FUCKING REAL!
System.out.println("10 PRINT \"Hell\"");
System.out.println("GOTO 10");
I think the obvious prior art would something like the buttons on a remote control. As an example, take the Squeezebox. The longer you hold down an arrow button, the faster it scrolls through the list.
I'm sure their are numerous other examples of things where button behavior is determined by timing. The fact that patents like these are granted is unbelievable.
As an aside, would the patent office be less inundated with requests if it was more discriminating when handing them out. After all, it seems like if they give out patents like candy, companies will start submitting obvious ideas in search of a patent, whether the idea is really patentable or not.
I have a metric shitload of stuff installed on my G5. A lot of the standard Apple programs as well as big name 3rd-part developers (Microsoft, OmniGroup). I also install a lot of shareware, freeware apps from smaller groups or personal developers. Some of these aren't even out of beta.
I also have a whole range of UNIX tools installed, some from the Fink project and others hand compiled.
Needless to say, my G5 is anything but "specialized." In spite of this, the system stays remarkably clean and doesn't suffer the performance hit that Windows usually does when you get a bunch of installed software packages.
Mac OS X is without a doubt the best overall OS I have ever used, and I have firsthand experience with many operating systems.
It is simple:
When Microsoft does it, they don't give the computer manufacturer an option to remove it. When Apple does it, you are buying an Apple system from Apple, so they determine the features of the product. If Microsoft sold computer systems they could literally ship them with a kitchen sink and not cross any legal lines.
I hope, for your sake, that you are never confused about this argument again.
No, I bought a PowerBook so I could do development "on the road". Bundled apps include Xcode, Interface Builder, and all the fun UNIX tools.
I also have a G5, and I use that a far greater portion of the time, for obvious reasons. I'm sure I'd go into an install-frenzy if I were forced to leave the warm comfort of my cheese grater for any extended period of time.
Yes, I agree with you that it is a problem of poor management. I meticulously manage all my systems, however, despite this Windows has a slow degredation in performance over time. The pace is much worse for your typical user who doesn't get concerned with these things.
As an extreme case, I reformatted my sisters computer this past Christmas. On boot, here computer had over 70% CPU usage. She used it on a college campus and it was riddled with spyware. My fathers computer is similar, though nowhere near as sever. Maybe 15% CPU usage after boot. These machines are both 1GHz or better.
Now, I judge these things from a purely objective standpoint. Mac OS X can be used heavily, many applications installed, and it just keeps purring. My mom has a Mac, and as far as I have a say in it, my sister and dad will too when they decide to buy a new computer.
I run Linux, and I'd like to recommend it to non-techies, but at the moment that is not realistically feasible. In any case, it amazes me that people put up with drastically inferior products (Windows) when something so much better is available (Mac OS X). I'm convinced that this is due to the general ignorance and laziness of people who are unwilling to seek alternatives. It really bothers me.
After a year of distrusting the company somewhat, I began to gain an appreciation of how Microsoft worked, and to see it for what it was - a machine that was focused on building products that people wanted, as quickly and as well as they could. Note the "quickly" - this was what distinguished MS from Apple in the end - a focus on moving quickly, and beating the competition. Details like great design were not critical to most customers, so that didn't really make it into the products, except where it mattered to the customer.
I haven't read the whole thing, but I wanted to comment on this. His argument makes sense for a certain amount of time, but that time may come to a halt quickly. Microsoft's core business units (Windows and Office) are quickly becoming commodity prices. The efforts of Linux and OpenOffice are, in most respects, equaling the features found in Microsoft products. At the same time, the number any new features added often just bloat the product. When this happens, you have to start competing on quality.
Linux does this as an OS in the server room. However, as a mainstream desktop, Linux lacks in the quality department (ease of use, interface consistency). However, Windows isn't the greatest at these things either and open source should see a huge hole for stealing market share if people get behind efforts to improve the quality (UI, etc.) of the desktop product.
Apple has demonstrated the validity of the quality thinking, unfortunately they seem content to remain a niche market player. I really respect Apple for this, but would love to see Linux take a page from their quality book and read it to the mainstream.
I've never re-installed any of my Windows 2000 machines. Ever.
I'm one step ahead of you. I am never again installing Windows. Ever.
Well, I did it using the software restore disks that Apple gives you with the system. You pop in the CD or DVD and double click the installer, it then reboots and walks you through the install process. Couldn't be easier.
Also, a software restore by default doesn't install the Classic OS 9 environment. So, you save a bit of disk space by getting rid of that. Of course you can always install that later, if you really want it.
I'm using Linux, Win2K and Mac OSX on the various machines.
Here's the deal:
Mac OSX - Set-up well by default and tends to stay that way even under heavy use. Keeps running smoothly.
Linux - Can be tough to maintain, but if you are using it you probably keep a pretty tight reign over things. This keeps it running smoothly.
Windows - Shitty default set-up and lax security leads to virusus and spyware running rampant after a few expeditions onto the Internet. Multitude of installed programs clutter up the filesystem. After a while starts to significantly slow down.
I'm guessing since you use Linux and Mac OS X, you don't use Windows too much, so you don't notice the slow down. I used to reformat Windows at least twice a year. Now I stick to OS X and Linux and am in heaven.
Well, I decided to reformat my PowerBook's drive just for the experience. It wasn't at all necessary, as it is with Windows after a few months of use.
Heres my list of programs installed since the reformat a month ago:
LaunchBar
Yep, thats the beauty of the Mac: a rock solid system that doesn't necessetate reformating, and a good suite of software preloaded.
I wonder how they'll get a wifi tracker out of a kids stomach?
12 - 18 hours and lots of solid food to make the exit more... uh... bearable.
I don't know any of the specifics, but I can't think of any reason why they would need to assign public IP addresses to these wristbands. In all likelyhood, they've set up a wireless LAN and are dolling out private addresses set aside for self-contained networks. They could set up a NAT box with some nice interface if they really wanted external access to it.
So, your IPv4 addresses shouldn't take a hit. I do agree we should move to IPv6 though, but this instance is not justification.
Exaclty, I don't understand, can some one explain this?
I'll take a shot: There are other people in the world besides you. These people think and act differently than you.
I think that about covers it.
..that Mac OSX users now think they know 'Nix, and that 'Nix users think they know Mac now?
Umm, no. The "average" Mac user only wants to use his/her computer efficiently. These people don't consider "knowing" the computer as more important than actually using it for work.
The only people who are big UNIX geeks running Mac OS X came from other *NIXes like Linux or BSD. These people have a right to assert they know UNIX because in most cases they do. In turn, anyone who can figure out UNIX can figure out the Mac overlay in no time at all. (hint: it's simple for a reason)
I suspect you were trolling, and I bit.
your ignorance.
I have both a dual 2.0 GHz G5 and a 1.25 GHz 15" PowerBook G4. The G5 is without a doubt faster, but for the typical user and his/her uses, it doesn't offer much. The G5 excells at video encoding and also compiles larger code bases much faster. However, for typical uses (web browsing, word processing, etc.) there is not much of a performance gain.
As for your two-button mouse argument: TRY IT! I figured I wouldn't like it much, but I find it to work out quite well. Now, I always have one hand on the keyboard, which makes me operate my computer much more quickly and efficiently. My experiences with Apple lead me to believe that if they are doing something, there is usually a damn good reason for it, and that reason is usually right.
So, instead of loudly proclaiming your ignorance and demand Apple do things your way, I suggest you open your mind to "thinking different" and begin to realize that things can be better than the way you've been ingrained to beleive.
I'm not attempting to say you are wrong, as I have no experience with that model. However, I wanted to offer a second opinion.
I recently (January) purchased a 15" PowerBook and can say it is the coolest running laptop I have ever owned.
Previously I owned a Sony VIAO which was decent for temperature but had serious hardware failures 1 month out of the year long warranty (for which they wanted to charge me $2700 to repair). After that I bought an HP notebook, which was so hot that I'm sure I would have melted the skin off my legs had I ever set it there more than once beyond the first time.
Now, combined with wireless and my PB, I constantly recline on the couch in front of the TV with the laptop. No heat issues whatsoever. In fact, when I'm wearing jeans a barely notice much difference in temperature.