The real reason this is of significance is because it is finally giving MS some very bad press for their security blunders.
Now, of course there will be dozens of MS apologists on this thread, and you can do a lot of apologizing about this bug, after all they got a patch out before there were any known uses of the exploit, and on the other hand this vulnerability leaves your computer more wide open than almost any that have come before, but I'm not interested in taking that debate any further, as that is what the rest of the thread is about.
The reason I think this story has become significant is because this bug is actually getting reported by large news organizations. Slashdot might run an article every time some script kiddie finds a new hole in IIS, but when is the last time you heard about that on your local news?
This bug, however, has actually been featured on all the big news organizations, thanks to the government statement. I saw a two-minute piece on it on CNN and a 30-second piece on Fox News, both feturing the governments warning that the patch would not be enough and everyone should disable UPnP on their machine. Flipping by CNN Headline News, I noticed the headline at the bottom, "Win XP hyper-vulnerable to hackers."
It is getting people to be concerned about security that will get something done about it; security isn't a selling point right now. When was the last time you saw an OS (besides OpenBSD) listing security as its top feature?
So think what you will about the impact of the bug itself, our government should be applauded for once for finally getting the media spotlight on security.
The patch to preventing things from automatically executing in MS internet tools 5/5.5 was released 9 months ago, although if the author was smarter s/he could have used the newer vulnerability in MS internet tools 5/5.5/6.0, which many still haven't patched.
In any event the worm is of interest only because it masquerades as a harmless.txt file in hopes of getting novice users to execute it, which thousands no doubt will, if past indications are of any relevance.
I think it is important, however, to point out that this one occurred through no fault of Microsoft; even the most ardent MS-basher has to admit they couldn't have seen this kind of trick coming (although they would only need to look back 2 articles to find another MS security flaw:)
Just a few comments for readers less familiar w/ AppleScript, first you should note that AppleScript Studio is not the only way to write AppleScript; Script Editor remains the default and what most home users will continue to use. AppleScript Studio, an extension for Project Builder, lets you add advanced interfaces built in Interface Builder to your scripts to make them much more capable and able to handle tasks that would previously have required a full-blown application. Your perl and shell scripts are still written in your text editor of choice (the wonderful BBEdit for most OS X users, although vi and emacs are of course used by many), and you can run your shell/perl scripts using Apple's great Script Menu.
Secondly, it is very possible to connect shell scripts to an AppleScript Studio project, you just have to call them in AppleScript, and you could go on to have your shell script run a perl script. Here is an example that comes with AS Studio; the interface is a dialog with a text field and the script executes the shell script the user types into the field:
(* Application.applescript *)
(* ==== Event Handlers ==== *)
on action theObject
set theResult to do shell script (contents of text field "input" of window "main") as string
set the contents of text view "output" of scroll view "output" of window "main" to theResult
set needs display of text view "output" of scroll view "output" of window "main" to true
end action
What Apple has done isn't terribly difficult. Any Linux distriution could acheive the same if they'd ditch a lot of the development and server utilities.
LOL! Doing something like this has been the holy grail of the open source desktop environments, and I think you trivialize both their work and Apple's work with that statement.
I also don't know where you get the idea that Apple "ditched development and server utilities". Yes, the DevTools are on a second disk, which you can optionally install. This isn't a bad idea since <gasp> many desktop users are not developers. So how are the server utilities crippled? The primary difference I see is that in OS X if I want to start up my Apache server with typical settings for serving my personal webpages, I open System Preferences, click on Sharing, and click the Start Web Sharing button, only needing to pop a terminal for tweaking the server, most of which I could probably do in a GUI text editor like BBEdit Lite.
Finally I must point out that having a system that they could mistake for a weird version of windows (not exactly the model interface itself) when used only for opening one application is not an achievement of the magnitude of having a system that they could have painlessly setup and configured all aspects of themselves.
If you want to setup servers, compile all your apps, muck around with source code, or uber-tune your window manager interface, then yeah, Linux (or bsd, or whatever) will be complicated. Take all that crap away, and setup a system with a standard graphical interface, and it can be just as easy and friendly as a Mac.
Or you could build Mac OS X, and have a system that lets you do the vast majority of your work easily, including GUI tools for development and servers, and lets you pop a terminal for any tweaks you might need to do under the hood. Lets face the fact that Linux can not be as easy as Mac OS X in terms of total experience, that's not what it was designed for, although open source desktop environments may get it there one day.
I agree that it is arrogant to say that open source will never catch up to commercial software for desktop applications, but I hope you understand how far behind it is in the desktop arena, and I think many readers do not.
First and foremost, we must consider the interface. Here we are talking about OS X/XP vs KDE/GNOME. If you have used all four you can attest to the fact that KDE/GNOME have come a very long way, but are still very far behind, and if we strictly talk about KDE/GNOME vs OS X (since the play-doh theme in XP has shaken what faith I had in MS' interfaces), you must admit that the open source desktop environments are 2-3 years behind. Now what troubles me more is that readers are in denial about this, and this lack of understanding about what the experience needs to be stemming from the fact that OSS OSes are used primarily by programmers/admins/etc. prevents open source desktop environments from competing. Even you say,
KDE already deliver all the stuff Jordan Hubbard was talking about, even before OSX was on the shelves.
I hope this is not meant to insinuate that the KDE experience is comparable to the OS X experience. I actually read a post that said that Apple should, "port Aqua to X windows". If you think that you can run the Aqua interface on top of XFree86 (or one with comparable features, not just a bunch of pretty pixmaps, which is what the Mozilla organization seems to thing Aqua is, most unfortunately for those of us who want to use Mozilla for OS X), the future of OSS desktops is doomed.
Now, while I find the "open source is doomed forever" attitude unfair, if we take a look at where desktop functinality is right now, open source has lost. As I said, KDE and GNOME are not even competitive with OS X, the GIMP is nowhere near being competitive with Photoshop, nothing is competitive with Final Cut Pro or Premier/After Effects, nor are there substitues for the iApps (simple, but still extremely funcitonal consumer-level apps), there are very few games brought to open source operating systems, although Apple has a problem with this too, they manage to get a port of virtually all the top-shelf games, apps like Maya that used to be the domain of UNIX-like OSes are now on OS X, eliminating the need for a Photoshop Mac and a Maya SGI on your desk, and finally I must say that open source office products are competitive with MS Office, but must also admit that Office v.X is truly a very powerful suite and the best availible tool, although still only worth a fraction of its $500 price tag.
So to summarize my points, open source software for the desktop is currently not in the same league with the commercial software, but it could get there if more effort was focused on it, and it is completely reasonable for Hubbard to go with Apple and focus solely on making the best possible software, as open source solutions, even though they may become an extremely viable 3rd desktop platform one day, probably will never reach an elegance of interface of Apple products.
A major problem that users of alternative browsers will encounter is that many webmasters use JavaScripts that only enable advanced features or let users view the site at all if they have an IE USER_AGENT, thus forcing people to spoof their USER_AGENT and killing server stats for alternative browsers. I have personally seen sites like this where I go to a page and it doesn't work/doesn't work correctly, then I change my USER_AGENT to IE, hit reload, and the site works perfectly.
A good solution to this problem is having the browser identify itself to the HTTP server as what it really is (so that it will be logged correctly) and identify itself to JavaScripts as another browser (so that the site will work correctly). This feature is in the prerelease versions of OmniWeb 4.1.
Your virus scanner will do little good when someone can cause your computer do download and run any executable the malicious website owner wants... all they need do is make your computer run a file that isn't a known virus and won't set off any of the general protection features in an antivirus program, which should still allow them to completely ravage your files.
Didn't read the story, did ya troll? The exploit is another one that allows a content type to be set that will cause executable code to download and execute without user intervention.
Or you can sign up for a free web ADC membership and d/l the developer tools for free, although they are sometimes posted a few weeks after they are available on CD.
I don't think anyone should knock IE for being terrible, because it is a worthy effort, especially since Netscape stopped trying (although that really was MS' fault) and Mozilla doesn't have a usable UI yet. But there are much better alternatives out there. In OnmiWeb I can not only turn off scripting, I can leave it on and set "Scripts can only open new windows: in response to being clicked" or "Scripts can only open new windows: never." In addition to a bunch of other great privacy options such as deleting cookies on quit, running applets only when clicked on, built-in browser masquerading, just to name a few. Also noteworthy is the fact that other browsers don't need this feature because no one else in willing to expose thier users to the security exploits inherent in ActiveX. Even the Mac version of IE ships with ActiveX disabled. IE suffers from the mediocrity that plagues all MS products; that doesn't make it bad, but most people want to go for something better.
QT and WMP are pretty stable and easy to use apps, but RealPlayer is, and always has been, buggy as hell, especially considering it doesn't even get the kind of workout the other two do because it is mostly for streaming video and nothing else (yes you can encode videos in the RealMedia codec, but why on earth would you want to when it produces by far the worst video of the commercial codecs?)
The macro (VB script) is a very useful feature of any spreadsheet program
But how many people need macros embedded in documents? And the real problem is that VBScript has may too much power. The macro language needs no access to the system beyond Office files.
All Microsoft has to do is tell the outlook team to go over to their Macintosh Business Unit and steal this dialog. This could at least stop the smartest 60% of users from spreading these things. And how about another warning about running script files? Last time I checked there weren't too many people using script attachments for legitimate purposes. Of course making the two most popular versions of your internet software automatically execute files doesn't help either. Yes, users should have patched their software, but just go to any site that tracks browser usage and you'll see that most people are running a vulnerable version of MS Outlook/Explorer; once you let that much vulnerable software out of the bag, it's hard to get it all back in.
I would also like to know how the worm was labeled as non-destructive if it, "will try to delete files of common anti-virus and firewall products. If the files are in use and cannot be deleted, the worm will create the file %SYSTEM%\Wininit.ini, which causes the files to be deleted when the computer restarts." Granted it doesn't try to fry your BIOS chip, but I last time I checked anything that deleted files was destructive.
They ship with both; it will be interesting to see which one the school chooses to teach, or if they let the kids pick most of the time
Too bad, however, that Star Office/Open Office never came thru with a mac version...you bet you boots Microsoft will want to "give special deals" to those schools as part of their settlement.
Well, it is possible to run OpenOffice on a rootless XFree86 in X, but I doubt many schools will opt for that. But the iBooks do come with a software bundle, so they will already have AppleWorks (which should be more than they need already); hopefully they will not waste the money to get MS Office. Why districts shell out $249 so that they can have some features most businesspeople, let alone middle-schoolers, will never use.
It is assumed to be next spring; if you remember Steve's clock metaphor that is when midnight will be and the transition is supposed to be complete (so I had better have my Photoshop 7, Adobe!) and assumably when Macs will start up in X by default. If is also thought to be when 10.2 will be released, although recently it has been rumored that 10.2 won't be until summer and we will see 10.1.2 and 10.1.3 first, but we know how reliable rumors have been since the second coming of Jobs;)
Completely agree with you, just wanted to point out that the iBook's retail price is $1299; right now there is a $100 instant rebate, and there is always the $50 discount for students and schools, so they are paying no more than $1149, and I would assume that they are getting a volume discount.
I won't argue about whether or not hey should be getting laptops, but if they are going to, iBooks seem to be a very logical choice; would you rather that they hadn't come from behind and beat Dell?
While Apple computers are great machines and can do a lot of things very well, most of the world relies on PCs to do their work
If you are using a PC at work, it is probably mostly for Office (and Solitare, but it has a quick learning curve), and the Mac and Windows versions of Office have near identical commands, so I don't see the issue, beyond the time it will take them to use the start menu.
Let's also consider the issue of support for these computers.
Part of this contract is that Apple will provide the training. The iBook is designed to be an extremely durable computer for people to keep in their backpacks and possibly drop, and Macs in general have a much lower TCO, so support would be less of an issue anyway.
They're not giving them away, Actually the school has to pay for those ibooks
Will someone please explain to me how you can read the headline, "Maine buys 38,600 ibooks for Public Schools" and infer that they were giving them away!
Also they did not sell laptops, they sold the entire solution, with networking, hardware, and support. If a company wanted to put in a bid to provide a solution using Linux laptops they were more than free to do so, but there are several advantages Apple had in a contract for wireless labs:
Apple has been doing wireless in all its products longer than any other major vendor
Apple has the most hassle-free 802.11b software and hardware
iBooks are made to be very durable and fit into backpacks
The cost savings running Linux are much lower on laptops
The Mac's extremely low TCO gives them an advantage in offering support and repair
iBooks are a great deal right now, at $1199, plus a $50 educational discount, and they no doublt got a substantial volume discount
Didn't you understand what the author was saying? Of course the features of those products have been handed down to new software; that is what always happens. QuickTime is different because it, not a product derived from it, is still around and still innovating.
most features found in QuickTime today such as streaming capability and portal functionality were derived from RealMedia's software
1. That isn't "most features" that is one feature (two if you rally consider "portal functionality" a feature). 2. QuickTime's streaming technology is drastically different from Real's; It uses some of the same codecs as non-streaming video and really helps blur the line between streaming and non-streaming video, making the different versions of the video much easier to manage. QuickTime also uses the RTSP standard. 3.QuickTime's streaming technology delivers at least 4x the clarity of the same video encoded with the Real codec at the same bitrate, so in any event you have to admit that QT streaming video runs circles around Real and WM 4. QuickTime Streaming Server is open source, so you can go look at the "guts" yourself and stop your reflexive Apple-bashing
Oh yes, QuickTime has brought about a revolution in digital media!
True; the sarcastic parts of your post seem to be more accurate.
And nobody has ever duplicated it or surpassed it since!
I think a large part of the article was about how many people have duplicated it. QT still ships with the best codecs, integrates more technologies, and lets content creators do more, so player notwithstanding it is still the best video technology.
It's a media format wrapper (not a codec like MPEG...
That is why it was such a revolutionary technology, although Apple does take a role in the development of some of QT's important codecs, the reason QT allowed multimedia to spread was that it allowed you to deal with codecs transparenttly, even today most people still just think they're dealing with QuickTime video whether it is compressed with the Video or Sorenson codecs, nor will they be aware if the audio is uncompressed, MP3, PureVoice, or QDesign, or even if the author switches codecs midstream (do that with your "equivalent if not better tools").
QuickTime didn't start a revolution. It didn't change the world.
Yeah, that multimedia thing never really caught on.
The author has a very valid point: QuickTime is one of the very few technologies that was responsible for the explosion of a technology and is still the premier technology for it. Don't try to tell me that there are better technologies for multimedia content delivery; real multimedia professionals are not using MPEG or Real, and WM is almost as big a joke as the current Real codec. Today, Cleaner and the Sorenson codec are the Photoshop of high quality web multimedia, sure there are GIMPs of web multimedia, but don't try to say they are better.
I know many/.ers can't use real QuickTime, and I really think Apple should create a Linux version, but lets not have a bunch of sour grapes.
Go after the content creation market, which they own. It is definitely an uphill battle, but the fact that Apple drives the creative market has often allowed them to force the market to use a cross platform solution; if graphic design was done on Windows, we might all be using a web page format that you can only use in IE.
How far along are these guys, as compared by lets say Pixar or some of the other well known CG shops?
Pixar probably pushes more ultra-high resolution CG than any other house, and therefore they own one hell of a farm, athough they don't use much in the way of OSS. You can read about their latest hardware (purchased this spring) on Sun's site, basically they have 250 SunFire 3800's, with 8 750MHz SunSparc IIIs, 16GB of RAM, and 108GB of disk space each, plus some addtional disk space, for a total of 1.5THz processing power, 4TB of ram, and 27TB of disk space.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, of course there will be dozens of MS apologists on this thread, and you can do a lot of apologizing about this bug, after all they got a patch out before there were any known uses of the exploit, and on the other hand this vulnerability leaves your computer more wide open than almost any that have come before, but I'm not interested in taking that debate any further, as that is what the rest of the thread is about.
The reason I think this story has become significant is because this bug is actually getting reported by large news organizations. Slashdot might run an article every time some script kiddie finds a new hole in IIS, but when is the last time you heard about that on your local news?
This bug, however, has actually been featured on all the big news organizations, thanks to the government statement. I saw a two-minute piece on it on CNN and a 30-second piece on Fox News, both feturing the governments warning that the patch would not be enough and everyone should disable UPnP on their machine. Flipping by CNN Headline News, I noticed the headline at the bottom, "Win XP hyper-vulnerable to hackers."
It is getting people to be concerned about security that will get something done about it; security isn't a selling point right now. When was the last time you saw an OS (besides OpenBSD) listing security as its top feature?
So think what you will about the impact of the bug itself, our government should be applauded for once for finally getting the media spotlight on security.
The patch to preventing things from automatically executing in MS internet tools 5/5.5 was released 9 months ago, although if the author was smarter s/he could have used the newer vulnerability in MS internet tools 5/5.5/6.0, which many still haven't patched.
In any event the worm is of interest only because it masquerades as a harmless .txt file in hopes of getting novice users to execute it, which thousands no doubt will, if past indications are of any relevance.
I think it is important, however, to point out that this one occurred through no fault of Microsoft; even the most ardent MS-basher has to admit they couldn't have seen this kind of trick coming (although they would only need to look back 2 articles to find another MS security flaw :)
Well, this looks just like a .txt in Outlook, which is why it is so clever (for another stupid email worm).
You have no idea how happy I was when C|Net ran an article a few weeks ago that contained the phrase, "beleagured PC makers Gateway, Compaq and HP" ;)
Secondly, it is very possible to connect shell scripts to an AppleScript Studio project, you just have to call them in AppleScript, and you could go on to have your shell script run a perl script. Here is an example that comes with AS Studio; the interface is a dialog with a text field and the script executes the shell script the user types into the field:
(* Application.applescript *)
(* ==== Event Handlers ==== *)
on action theObject
set theResult to do shell script (contents of text field "input" of window "main") as string
set the contents of text view "output" of scroll view "output" of window "main" to theResult
set needs display of text view "output" of scroll view "output" of window "main" to true
end action
(* © Copyright 2001 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved. *)
LOL! Doing something like this has been the holy grail of the open source desktop environments, and I think you trivialize both their work and Apple's work with that statement.
I also don't know where you get the idea that Apple "ditched development and server utilities". Yes, the DevTools are on a second disk, which you can optionally install. This isn't a bad idea since <gasp> many desktop users are not developers. So how are the server utilities crippled? The primary difference I see is that in OS X if I want to start up my Apache server with typical settings for serving my personal webpages, I open System Preferences, click on Sharing, and click the Start Web Sharing button, only needing to pop a terminal for tweaking the server, most of which I could probably do in a GUI text editor like BBEdit Lite.
Finally I must point out that having a system that they could mistake for a weird version of windows (not exactly the model interface itself) when used only for opening one application is not an achievement of the magnitude of having a system that they could have painlessly setup and configured all aspects of themselves.
If you want to setup servers, compile all your apps, muck around with source code, or uber-tune your window manager interface, then yeah, Linux (or bsd, or whatever) will be complicated. Take all that crap away, and setup a system with a standard graphical interface, and it can be just as easy and friendly as a Mac.
Or you could build Mac OS X, and have a system that lets you do the vast majority of your work easily, including GUI tools for development and servers, and lets you pop a terminal for any tweaks you might need to do under the hood. Lets face the fact that Linux can not be as easy as Mac OS X in terms of total experience, that's not what it was designed for, although open source desktop environments may get it there one day.
First and foremost, we must consider the interface. Here we are talking about OS X/XP vs KDE/GNOME. If you have used all four you can attest to the fact that KDE/GNOME have come a very long way, but are still very far behind, and if we strictly talk about KDE/GNOME vs OS X (since the play-doh theme in XP has shaken what faith I had in MS' interfaces), you must admit that the open source desktop environments are 2-3 years behind. Now what troubles me more is that readers are in denial about this, and this lack of understanding about what the experience needs to be stemming from the fact that OSS OSes are used primarily by programmers/admins/etc. prevents open source desktop environments from competing. Even you say,
KDE already deliver all the stuff Jordan Hubbard was talking about, even before OSX was on the shelves.
I hope this is not meant to insinuate that the KDE experience is comparable to the OS X experience. I actually read a post that said that Apple should, "port Aqua to X windows". If you think that you can run the Aqua interface on top of XFree86 (or one with comparable features, not just a bunch of pretty pixmaps, which is what the Mozilla organization seems to thing Aqua is, most unfortunately for those of us who want to use Mozilla for OS X), the future of OSS desktops is doomed.
Now, while I find the "open source is doomed forever" attitude unfair, if we take a look at where desktop functinality is right now, open source has lost. As I said, KDE and GNOME are not even competitive with OS X, the GIMP is nowhere near being competitive with Photoshop, nothing is competitive with Final Cut Pro or Premier/After Effects, nor are there substitues for the iApps (simple, but still extremely funcitonal consumer-level apps), there are very few games brought to open source operating systems, although Apple has a problem with this too, they manage to get a port of virtually all the top-shelf games, apps like Maya that used to be the domain of UNIX-like OSes are now on OS X, eliminating the need for a Photoshop Mac and a Maya SGI on your desk, and finally I must say that open source office products are competitive with MS Office, but must also admit that Office v.X is truly a very powerful suite and the best availible tool, although still only worth a fraction of its $500 price tag.
So to summarize my points, open source software for the desktop is currently not in the same league with the commercial software, but it could get there if more effort was focused on it, and it is completely reasonable for Hubbard to go with Apple and focus solely on making the best possible software, as open source solutions, even though they may become an extremely viable 3rd desktop platform one day, probably will never reach an elegance of interface of Apple products.
A good solution to this problem is having the browser identify itself to the HTTP server as what it really is (so that it will be logged correctly) and identify itself to JavaScripts as another browser (so that the site will work correctly). This feature is in the prerelease versions of OmniWeb 4.1.
IE is free on both platforms it is offered on; you can get a free copy of IE without buying any MS products.
Your virus scanner will do little good when someone can cause your computer do download and run any executable the malicious website owner wants... all they need do is make your computer run a file that isn't a known virus and won't set off any of the general protection features in an antivirus program, which should still allow them to completely ravage your files.
Didn't read the story, did ya troll? The exploit is another one that allows a content type to be set that will cause executable code to download and execute without user intervention.
Or you can sign up for a free web ADC membership and d/l the developer tools for free, although they are sometimes posted a few weeks after they are available on CD.
I don't think anyone should knock IE for being terrible, because it is a worthy effort, especially since Netscape stopped trying (although that really was MS' fault) and Mozilla doesn't have a usable UI yet. But there are much better alternatives out there. In OnmiWeb I can not only turn off scripting, I can leave it on and set "Scripts can only open new windows: in response to being clicked" or "Scripts can only open new windows: never." In addition to a bunch of other great privacy options such as deleting cookies on quit, running applets only when clicked on, built-in browser masquerading, just to name a few. Also noteworthy is the fact that other browsers don't need this feature because no one else in willing to expose thier users to the security exploits inherent in ActiveX. Even the Mac version of IE ships with ActiveX disabled. IE suffers from the mediocrity that plagues all MS products; that doesn't make it bad, but most people want to go for something better.
QT and WMP are pretty stable and easy to use apps, but RealPlayer is, and always has been, buggy as hell, especially considering it doesn't even get the kind of workout the other two do because it is mostly for streaming video and nothing else (yes you can encode videos in the RealMedia codec, but why on earth would you want to when it produces by far the worst video of the commercial codecs?)
But how many people need macros embedded in documents? And the real problem is that VBScript has may too much power. The macro language needs no access to the system beyond Office files.
I would also like to know how the worm was labeled as non-destructive if it, "will try to delete files of common anti-virus and firewall products. If the files are in use and cannot be deleted, the worm will create the file %SYSTEM%\Wininit.ini, which causes the files to be deleted when the computer restarts." Granted it doesn't try to fry your BIOS chip, but I last time I checked anything that deleted files was destructive.
They ship with both; it will be interesting to see which one the school chooses to teach, or if they let the kids pick most of the time
Too bad, however, that Star Office/Open Office never came thru with a mac version...you bet you boots Microsoft will want to "give special deals" to those schools as part of their settlement.
Well, it is possible to run OpenOffice on a rootless XFree86 in X, but I doubt many schools will opt for that. But the iBooks do come with a software bundle, so they will already have AppleWorks (which should be more than they need already); hopefully they will not waste the money to get MS Office. Why districts shell out $249 so that they can have some features most businesspeople, let alone middle-schoolers, will never use.
It is assumed to be next spring; if you remember Steve's clock metaphor that is when midnight will be and the transition is supposed to be complete (so I had better have my Photoshop 7, Adobe!) and assumably when Macs will start up in X by default. If is also thought to be when 10.2 will be released, although recently it has been rumored that 10.2 won't be until summer and we will see 10.1.2 and 10.1.3 first, but we know how reliable rumors have been since the second coming of Jobs ;)
Completely agree with you, just wanted to point out that the iBook's retail price is $1299; right now there is a $100 instant rebate, and there is always the $50 discount for students and schools, so they are paying no more than $1149, and I would assume that they are getting a volume discount.
While Apple computers are great machines and can do a lot of things very well, most of the world relies on PCs to do their work
If you are using a PC at work, it is probably mostly for Office (and Solitare, but it has a quick learning curve), and the Mac and Windows versions of Office have near identical commands, so I don't see the issue, beyond the time it will take them to use the start menu.
Let's also consider the issue of support for these computers.
Part of this contract is that Apple will provide the training. The iBook is designed to be an extremely durable computer for people to keep in their backpacks and possibly drop, and Macs in general have a much lower TCO, so support would be less of an issue anyway.
Will someone please explain to me how you can read the headline, "Maine buys 38,600 ibooks for Public Schools" and infer that they were giving them away!
Also they did not sell laptops, they sold the entire solution, with networking, hardware, and support. If a company wanted to put in a bid to provide a solution using Linux laptops they were more than free to do so, but there are several advantages Apple had in a contract for wireless labs:
Didn't you understand what the author was saying? Of course the features of those products have been handed down to new software; that is what always happens. QuickTime is different because it, not a product derived from it, is still around and still innovating.
1. That isn't "most features" that is one feature (two if you rally consider "portal functionality" a feature).
2. QuickTime's streaming technology is drastically different from Real's; It uses some of the same codecs as non-streaming video and really helps blur the line between streaming and non-streaming video, making the different versions of the video much easier to manage. QuickTime also uses the RTSP standard.
3.QuickTime's streaming technology delivers at least 4x the clarity of the same video encoded with the Real codec at the same bitrate, so in any event you have to admit that QT streaming video runs circles around Real and WM
4. QuickTime Streaming Server is open source, so you can go look at the "guts" yourself and stop your reflexive Apple-bashing
Oh yes, QuickTime has brought about a revolution in digital media!
True; the sarcastic parts of your post seem to be more accurate.
And nobody has ever duplicated it or surpassed it since!
I think a large part of the article was about how many people have duplicated it. QT still ships with the best codecs, integrates more technologies, and lets content creators do more, so player notwithstanding it is still the best video technology.
It's a media format wrapper (not a codec like MPEG...
That is why it was such a revolutionary technology, although Apple does take a role in the development of some of QT's important codecs, the reason QT allowed multimedia to spread was that it allowed you to deal with codecs transparenttly, even today most people still just think they're dealing with QuickTime video whether it is compressed with the Video or Sorenson codecs, nor will they be aware if the audio is uncompressed, MP3, PureVoice, or QDesign, or even if the author switches codecs midstream (do that with your "equivalent if not better tools").
QuickTime didn't start a revolution. It didn't change the world.
Yeah, that multimedia thing never really caught on.
The author has a very valid point: QuickTime is one of the very few technologies that was responsible for the explosion of a technology and is still the premier technology for it. Don't try to tell me that there are better technologies for multimedia content delivery; real multimedia professionals are not using MPEG or Real, and WM is almost as big a joke as the current Real codec. Today, Cleaner and the Sorenson codec are the Photoshop of high quality web multimedia, sure there are GIMPs of web multimedia, but don't try to say they are better.
I know many /.ers can't use real QuickTime, and I really think Apple should create a Linux version, but lets not have a bunch of sour grapes.
Go after the content creation market, which they own. It is definitely an uphill battle, but the fact that Apple drives the creative market has often allowed them to force the market to use a cross platform solution; if graphic design was done on Windows, we might all be using a web page format that you can only use in IE.
Pixar probably pushes more ultra-high resolution CG than any other house, and therefore they own one hell of a farm, athough they don't use much in the way of OSS. You can read about their latest hardware (purchased this spring) on Sun's site, basically they have 250 SunFire 3800's, with 8 750MHz SunSparc IIIs, 16GB of RAM, and 108GB of disk space each, plus some addtional disk space, for a total of 1.5THz processing power, 4TB of ram, and 27TB of disk space.