I'd say it's because the itunes and ipod thing is the most successful venture they've ever embarked on since the Mac Classic. The Apple fans basically love Apple and everything it stands for, including it's distinctive design principles, and apart from being a classic example of the "Apple" look and ideals, it is also creating a vital cash stream that can be used to fund further future projects. By keeping everything closed, restrictive and proprietory, Apple can maintain that edge and source of revenue. Anything that comes close to chipping away at that stranglehold will obviously be attacked by Apple fans, as it could wipe away some of the money that is streaming into Apple alone.
I personally also think it's sad. The Apple users are quick enough to diss Microsoft and it's DRM and lament how Microsoft could force everyone to use WMA. Whilst this thought also concerns me, I don't think Apple are behaving in an any less evil way than Microsoft, they just have something that no amount of damage limitation by the Microsoft PR wheels can provide - a friendly, cool geek chic image.
Apple have some serious problems if a glowing case is a killer feature. I heard that their desktop PC market is starting to slide, and that really the smart thing to do would be to concentrate on consumer electronics, ie. iPod, but this is *ridiculous*
No matter how good the case looks, if the machine isn't up to spec, who will buy it? This whole thing just smacks of desperation.
If the lights can be controlled by software (and I'm assuming it'd work in the same principle of one of the old Lite Brite toys), It'd be intersting to see whether any viruses could exploit this feature. I can just see a row of Apple computers with goatsex glowing on the side of them....
I would have been more interested if Dell had filed the patent, because at least then I'd have been able to have a cool looking case without having to run a toy OS.
Lol I love it! I didn't actually realise that it was Total Cost of '0'wnership;)
This is a very clever way of making a very valid point - I can forsee this report landing on a free IT purchaser's desks mixed in with all the "real" (or MS-funded) TCO reports, because it is so well designed.
And my favorite quote? "As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TC0 on the market." I love it!
Perhaps because they are attempting to develop a broadcast standard codec from the ground up, which I would speculate would require different goals and optimisations to the Ogg Theora project.
Sorry dude, but on the rare occasions I still have to boot into my Win partition, I get regular blue screens on Windows XP caused by running certain APPLICATIONS.
App crashes --> System grinds to a halt --> bluescreen
Point 1 - Bluescreens are NOT a thing of the past
Bonus point - What kind of shoddy operating system makes it possible for a badly behaved app to bring *everything* crashing down?
A lovely idea in principle, but in practice, it's not ever going to happen.
Taking my parents as an immediate example. They walk into a computer store and see a $399 PC all in with Windows installed. They walk around the corner and see an equivalent Mac around the 700ish price mark. You think they'd really care *that* much to spend an extra $300 on a machine they use to hassle me via email, check their family histories online and type the occasional letter to the bank?
However, just pretend that they have ridiculous amounts of cash to burn and purchase a Mac. The next day my father happens to walk to a newsagent, and sees on the shelf a computer magazine with a Cover CD of some new geneology software - full version... retails at $49! He buys the magazine, comes home, attempts to install his software, and at that point realises that it's Windows only. Macs may be easy to use from a UI perspective, but in a real world perspective, Macs are HARD to use. It's HARD to part with almost double the cost of a budget PC. It's HARD to find the varied range of software you find on a PC. It's HARD to upgrade when you want to add a little more zip to the machine. If something goes wrong (and yes, even Macs go wrong from time to time), my folks won't have a bunch of friends around the corner who know exactly how to fix that problem, or a friend with a CD crammed full of useful little fixer applications. At the end of the day, I just don't see how a Mac can be any less prone to attacks than a PC with Zonealarm, AVG Anti Virus, Firefox and Thunderbird installed.
And what about all of us geeks? Well unfortunately, I fear that Apple lose out here again. Yes, I am a geek. Yes, I am a cheap geek. I value the principles of "free" in both the beer and speech sense. I love the fact that I can regularly install little upgrades and bleeding edge software onto my Linux box. I love the fact that I can check out the code and see exactly what makes it tick. I love the fact that if I pay for any of this, it is usually through choice, and a project's little Paypal tip jar. I love the fact that the money I pay is going directly to the developers that write the applications that improve my life, rather than to a company that holds one hand with the RIAA behind it's back, and in all likelihood, would spend the majority of the cash on developing some nice new injection moulding techniques for the cases, rather than REALLY innovative software (yes yes I know about iTunes - but innovative SOFTWARE rather than just a shiny new UI would be nice. I've been able to play MP3s since before 1995 on my PC). And I smile when I see that Linux desktop share is projected to overtake Apple's within a couple of years.
To be honest, I feel that for Apple to succeed, they need to learn how to cut the elitist attitude. Stop producing overpriced machines in funky colored perspex! Stop loading your desktop PC equivalents with a million and one interfaces that the average Joe will never use. How about directing the legendary Apple ease of use at the PC? How many people do you think would choose to purchase an Apple DE that you could install on a PC? Apple vs Microsoft is a battle that I feel sure that Apple could still win. However, Apple vs IBM/PC clones et all is just stupidity. If I was Steve Jobs, I'd take a long hard look at the figures, and I'd bet the farm that there is a lot more money to be made from selling operating system software and related applications for a system that already exists in droves in the real world, than building overprice proprietory systems that not many people care about/can afford.
I would also make a gag about the Mac being the computer of choice for the gay, the metrosexual and boutiques, but I feel that the points I'm making are far too worthwhile to be modded down.
An interesting point with the MSN CD thing. You'd think that if Microsoft were really using their noodles, they would include the service pack everywhere they could - if you make it a compulsory install when you install an MSN CD, Office CD or whatever - I'm sure you'd reach a hell of a lot more users than you would just by placing it up for download....
Unfortunately, it doesn't really do a lot to protect against spyware. It's mostly a pretty front end to remind you to a) install a virus checker, b) install a firewall (or enable the default Windows firewall - and given the Microsoft security track record, who in their right mind would rely on that?!) and c) reboot your machine after you've installed an update. This last reminder is particularly annoying as it pops up from the system tray approximately every 10 minutes, with the default dialog option set to reboot. In the middle of typing something? Just hit enter right at the moment that the reboot reminder box pops up? Tough - you're rebooting whether you relike it or not! Poor poor POOR UI design there, Bill...
Firstly, the data is mostly numbers in particular time slots on certain days. These require manipulation, and the most straightforward way to do this is in a spreadsheet environment.
Secondly, ease of use - it's easier to train a relatively new user to use Excel for mathematical functions and for some data analysis, rather than to train a relatively new user in Excel for mathematical work, and Access for data analysis.
Okay, so I always seem to be posting this in reply to any Excel clone news whatsoever, but I still feel it's a totally valid point, and whilst this is the case I shall continue to post it.
What about the Macros? Surely this is one of the most important parts of Excel, and could even be one of the things that makes it such an indespensable tool for many companies. It gives it the freedom to move outside of the solely number crunching arena, and into a million and one other places.
It's all very well having a new Excel clone for linux that can retain my conditional formatting better than ever, but 99% of the sheets I use here involve macros to open many.csv files, process the data in a particular way and then dump it all into pivot tables that are linked to other Excel spreadsheets. These are business critical, and until these work 100%, with no additional effort (some of the people that have to use these sheets are barely computer literate at all), there is no way on God's earth that I can persuade the IT department to switch over to an alternative.
I guess at the end of the day, lockdown isn't lockdown after all when there isn't a viable alternative.
Yeah yeah yeah I know it was a huge technological advancement, but at the time, am I *really* the only one that just didn't like to play it at all? IMHO, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and even Blood were much more enjoyable FPS romps.
For my money, Quake seemed dull, the graphics oddly cubic, and the action and atmosphere was almost non existent - and that was back in 1996.. I dread to think what I'd feel now!
I just think a major part of an FPS is atmosphere. Doom had it in spades, and I guess that just set my expectations of what the brother of Doom should be way too high....
You for one may decide to use it, but on the other hand, I for one will continue to purchase my CDs for 6.99 for CD-Wow (average of 11 tracks at 6.99 is 64pence a track) with the added bonuses of
a - Better sound quality
b - no restrictions on how many different devices I play it on
c - no restrictions on how many times I can rip it
d - the possibility of ripping it to the (superior) ogg format.
e - the artist getting a bigger cut of my money
f - casing, and cover art
So when you buy a CD, you get more for less. Hmmmmm so tell em again, exactly why is iTunes such a great deal?
Modern distros that use the latest versions of KDE and (especially) Gnome feel considerably heavier than before or even than Windows XP/2k3.
Why does it seem that lately, approximately once a week, an article appears on the front page of./ with a subtle troll inside it? Are the KDE zealots really getting that desperate?
Okay here's the major weakness - after the machine chugged away processing the SP2 installation for approximately 45 minutes, it suddenly decided it couldn't find files that apparently existed.
This stuck the whole routine in a loop, and forced me to reboot, at which point, my XP installation was trashed and could not even be recognised by a Windows XP recovery CD.
Yeah this sucks, and beta software is unstable, but surely not THIS unstable?
Since installing SP2, I've found the most annoying thing is the box that pops up constantly when you need to reboot your machine - especially since it is set to "reboot" as default. So you'll be tapping along on xchat, hit enter to send a message, but at that point, the little reboot window has decided to maximise itself from the system tray as it will do approximately every 15 minutes. As you hit enter, rather than sending your message, you are confirming a reboot. 30 seconds later, everything's shut down - including the loss of unsaved documents..... Now does this really seem usable to you?
Add to that that most of the firewalls and virus checkers I have tested it with are not recognised by the new security tool (which is hardly a tool, as it does nothing more than show you if you have the software installed in the first place), and the fact that SP2 has made a clunky operating system even S-L-O-W-E-R, and I have to wonder exactly *why* it's taken so long for Microsoft to produce a poor firewall, a splash screen to show you whether you have a virus checker and firewall enabled, and an irritating popup to constantly remind you to reboot your machine after installing an update. *sigh*
Not really - the key here is that it searches *your* hard drive - ie.. rather than randomly pulling up camping websites, it would show you a list of your bookmarked camping websites. It only shows relevent information that has been created by the user, not generalised information, so I'd say it's a world apart from bonsai buddy.
Slashdot Mirror
Alternative Coralized link: Herehttp://www.liberatedgames.com.nyud.net:8090/ga melisting.php
Is that paraphrasing? Because when I look at it, all I see is "Real gets flamed over iPod campaign"
I'd say it's because the itunes and ipod thing is the most successful venture they've ever embarked on since the Mac Classic. The Apple fans basically love Apple and everything it stands for, including it's distinctive design principles, and apart from being a classic example of the "Apple" look and ideals, it is also creating a vital cash stream that can be used to fund further future projects. By keeping everything closed, restrictive and proprietory, Apple can maintain that edge and source of revenue. Anything that comes close to chipping away at that stranglehold will obviously be attacked by Apple fans, as it could wipe away some of the money that is streaming into Apple alone.
I personally also think it's sad. The Apple users are quick enough to diss Microsoft and it's DRM and lament how Microsoft could force everyone to use WMA. Whilst this thought also concerns me, I don't think Apple are behaving in an any less evil way than Microsoft, they just have something that no amount of damage limitation by the Microsoft PR wheels can provide - a friendly, cool geek chic image.
Linux + Mpg123 would do the job nicely
Just script it to open the file, play back the predetermined segments and capture the audio to sequentially numbered sound files.
Easy!
Apple have some serious problems if a glowing case is a killer feature. I heard that their desktop PC market is starting to slide, and that really the smart thing to do would be to concentrate on consumer electronics, ie. iPod, but this is *ridiculous*
No matter how good the case looks, if the machine isn't up to spec, who will buy it? This whole thing just smacks of desperation.
If the lights can be controlled by software (and I'm assuming it'd work in the same principle of one of the old Lite Brite toys), It'd be intersting to see whether any viruses could exploit this feature. I can just see a row of Apple computers with goatsex glowing on the side of them....
I would have been more interested if Dell had filed the patent, because at least then I'd have been able to have a cool looking case without having to run a toy OS.
Lol I love it! I didn't actually realise that it was Total Cost of '0'wnership ;)
This is a very clever way of making a very valid point - I can forsee this report landing on a free IT purchaser's desks mixed in with all the "real" (or MS-funded) TCO reports, because it is so well designed.
And my favorite quote? "As clearly demonstrated, other than the toy OS Mac OS X, Windows has the lowest TC0 on the market." I love it!
Perhaps because they are attempting to develop a broadcast standard codec from the ground up, which I would speculate would require different goals and optimisations to the Ogg Theora project.
Sorry dude, but on the rare occasions I still have to boot into my Win partition, I get regular blue screens on Windows XP caused by running certain APPLICATIONS.
App crashes --> System grinds to a halt --> bluescreen
Point 1 - Bluescreens are NOT a thing of the past
Bonus point - What kind of shoddy operating system makes it possible for a badly behaved app to bring *everything* crashing down?
You could, but you'd probably get a faster download speed if you downloaded Release Candidate 2 from www.microsoft.com
A lovely idea in principle, but in practice, it's not ever going to happen.
Taking my parents as an immediate example. They walk into a computer store and see a $399 PC all in with Windows installed. They walk around the corner and see an equivalent Mac around the 700ish price mark. You think they'd really care *that* much to spend an extra $300 on a machine they use to hassle me via email, check their family histories online and type the occasional letter to the bank?
However, just pretend that they have ridiculous amounts of cash to burn and purchase a Mac. The next day my father happens to walk to a newsagent, and sees on the shelf a computer magazine with a Cover CD of some new geneology software - full version... retails at $49! He buys the magazine, comes home, attempts to install his software, and at that point realises that it's Windows only. Macs may be easy to use from a UI perspective, but in a real world perspective, Macs are HARD to use. It's HARD to part with almost double the cost of a budget PC. It's HARD to find the varied range of software you find on a PC. It's HARD to upgrade when you want to add a little more zip to the machine. If something goes wrong (and yes, even Macs go wrong from time to time), my folks won't have a bunch of friends around the corner who know exactly how to fix that problem, or a friend with a CD crammed full of useful little fixer applications. At the end of the day, I just don't see how a Mac can be any less prone to attacks than a PC with Zonealarm, AVG Anti Virus, Firefox and Thunderbird installed.
And what about all of us geeks? Well unfortunately, I fear that Apple lose out here again. Yes, I am a geek. Yes, I am a cheap geek. I value the principles of "free" in both the beer and speech sense. I love the fact that I can regularly install little upgrades and bleeding edge software onto my Linux box. I love the fact that I can check out the code and see exactly what makes it tick. I love the fact that if I pay for any of this, it is usually through choice, and a project's little Paypal tip jar. I love the fact that the money I pay is going directly to the developers that write the applications that improve my life, rather than to a company that holds one hand with the RIAA behind it's back, and in all likelihood, would spend the majority of the cash on developing some nice new injection moulding techniques for the cases, rather than REALLY innovative software (yes yes I know about iTunes - but innovative SOFTWARE rather than just a shiny new UI would be nice. I've been able to play MP3s since before 1995 on my PC). And I smile when I see that Linux desktop share is projected to overtake Apple's within a couple of years.
To be honest, I feel that for Apple to succeed, they need to learn how to cut the elitist attitude. Stop producing overpriced machines in funky colored perspex! Stop loading your desktop PC equivalents with a million and one interfaces that the average Joe will never use. How about directing the legendary Apple ease of use at the PC? How many people do you think would choose to purchase an Apple DE that you could install on a PC? Apple vs Microsoft is a battle that I feel sure that Apple could still win. However, Apple vs IBM/PC clones et all is just stupidity. If I was Steve Jobs, I'd take a long hard look at the figures, and I'd bet the farm that there is a lot more money to be made from selling operating system software and related applications for a system that already exists in droves in the real world, than building overprice proprietory systems that not many people care about/can afford.
I would also make a gag about the Mac being the computer of choice for the gay, the metrosexual and boutiques, but I feel that the points I'm making are far too worthwhile to be modded down.
An interesting point with the MSN CD thing. You'd think that if Microsoft were really using their noodles, they would include the service pack everywhere they could - if you make it a compulsory install when you install an MSN CD, Office CD or whatever - I'm sure you'd reach a hell of a lot more users than you would just by placing it up for download....
Unfortunately, it doesn't really do a lot to protect against spyware. It's mostly a pretty front end to remind you to a) install a virus checker, b) install a firewall (or enable the default Windows firewall - and given the Microsoft security track record, who in their right mind would rely on that?!) and c) reboot your machine after you've installed an update. This last reminder is particularly annoying as it pops up from the system tray approximately every 10 minutes, with the default dialog option set to reboot. In the middle of typing something? Just hit enter right at the moment that the reboot reminder box pops up? Tough - you're rebooting whether you relike it or not! Poor poor POOR UI design there, Bill...
A good point, but there are two issues here.
Firstly, the data is mostly numbers in particular time slots on certain days. These require manipulation, and the most straightforward way to do this is in a spreadsheet environment.
Secondly, ease of use - it's easier to train a relatively new user to use Excel for mathematical functions and for some data analysis, rather than to train a relatively new user in Excel for mathematical work, and Access for data analysis.
Okay, so I always seem to be posting this in reply to any Excel clone news whatsoever, but I still feel it's a totally valid point, and whilst this is the case I shall continue to post it.
.csv files, process the data in a particular way and then dump it all into pivot tables that are linked to other Excel spreadsheets. These are business critical, and until these work 100%, with no additional effort (some of the people that have to use these sheets are barely computer literate at all), there is no way on God's earth that I can persuade the IT department to switch over to an alternative.
What about the Macros? Surely this is one of the most important parts of Excel, and could even be one of the things that makes it such an indespensable tool for many companies. It gives it the freedom to move outside of the solely number crunching arena, and into a million and one other places.
It's all very well having a new Excel clone for linux that can retain my conditional formatting better than ever, but 99% of the sheets I use here involve macros to open many
I guess at the end of the day, lockdown isn't lockdown after all when there isn't a viable alternative.
Gawd! If I was unfortunate enough to own an Amiga, I'd rather play the legendary Stunt Car Racer! :)
Yeah yeah yeah I know it was a huge technological advancement, but at the time, am I *really* the only one that just didn't like to play it at all? IMHO, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and even Blood were much more enjoyable FPS romps.
For my money, Quake seemed dull, the graphics oddly cubic, and the action and atmosphere was almost non existent - and that was back in 1996.. I dread to think what I'd feel now!
I just think a major part of an FPS is atmosphere. Doom had it in spades, and I guess that just set my expectations of what the brother of Doom should be way too high....
Umm was this duped less than 12 hours ago?
Worm Developed for Nokia Series-60 Phones
You for one may decide to use it, but on the other hand, I for one will continue to purchase my CDs for 6.99 for CD-Wow (average of 11 tracks at 6.99 is 64pence a track) with the added bonuses of
a - Better sound quality
b - no restrictions on how many different devices I play it on
c - no restrictions on how many times I can rip it
d - the possibility of ripping it to the (superior) ogg format.
e - the artist getting a bigger cut of my money
f - casing, and cover art
So when you buy a CD, you get more for less. Hmmmmm so tell em again, exactly why is iTunes such a great deal?
Modern distros that use the latest versions of KDE and (especially) Gnome feel considerably heavier than before or even than Windows XP/2k3.
Why does it seem that lately, approximately once a week, an article appears on the front page of ./ with a subtle troll inside it? Are the KDE zealots really getting that desperate?
Hmmm so I disable my firewall to install SP2 which meanwhile leaves my ports wide open to the kind of viruses that SP2 is designed to prevent?
Grrrrreeeat
Okay here's the major weakness - after the machine chugged away processing the SP2 installation for approximately 45 minutes, it suddenly decided it couldn't find files that apparently existed.
This stuck the whole routine in a loop, and forced me to reboot, at which point, my XP installation was trashed and could not even be recognised by a Windows XP recovery CD.
Yeah this sucks, and beta software is unstable, but surely not THIS unstable?
Since installing SP2, I've found the most annoying thing is the box that pops up constantly when you need to reboot your machine - especially since it is set to "reboot" as default. So you'll be tapping along on xchat, hit enter to send a message, but at that point, the little reboot window has decided to maximise itself from the system tray as it will do approximately every 15 minutes. As you hit enter, rather than sending your message, you are confirming a reboot. 30 seconds later, everything's shut down - including the loss of unsaved documents..... Now does this really seem usable to you?
Add to that that most of the firewalls and virus checkers I have tested it with are not recognised by the new security tool (which is hardly a tool, as it does nothing more than show you if you have the software installed in the first place), and the fact that SP2 has made a clunky operating system even S-L-O-W-E-R, and I have to wonder exactly *why* it's taken so long for Microsoft to produce a poor firewall, a splash screen to show you whether you have a virus checker and firewall enabled, and an irritating popup to constantly remind you to reboot your machine after installing an update. *sigh*
I've tried Service Pack 2 and it's a car wreck. From my experiences, it looks like Service Pack 2 won't install on *any* key - pirated or not.
Not really - the key here is that it searches *your* hard drive - ie.. rather than randomly pulling up camping websites, it would show you a list of your bookmarked camping websites. It only shows relevent information that has been created by the user, not generalised information, so I'd say it's a world apart from bonsai buddy.