Oh yeah, the iPod is just as smooth as iTunes and more. It really is a cool as everyone says. It's simple, it works, it gets out of your way, and it does its job perfectly. Not only that but it looks good doing it. The best thing is that just about every software update for the iPod has improved how it works so it's almost like getting a new iPod every couple of months, with new games, functions, features, etc.
I use my iPod for listening to music but I can tell you that's only part of what I like it for. I am constantly using it to store information I need to shuttle from one computer to another. I have contact information on there so I can call up a persons phone number or address in a second. It is great for storing little notes such as directions or shopping lists. The best thing is that all of these features can be displayed without a computer, they appear on the iPod display. So no carrying around address books or little pieces of paper, I shove it all on the iPod. Now you are able to do voice recordings and store digital photographs on the iPod. Very cool additions that I can see a million uses for.
As far as getting a Macintosh I have always said that people should get the computer they feel most comfortable with. I can personally say that for me Macs have the perfect balance between simplicity and complexity. If you want to just stay in the GUI then pretty much is simple and just works, if you want to use the Terminal then everything is as geeky as you want it. It's a great balance and I enjoy both sides of Mac OS X.
I think I envy every single hearing people on planet because they can hear music that has beauty in it while i am, on other hand, a deaf person who cannot hear it
This is not to belittle your condition but instead to help you appreciate the beauty of music even though you can't hear it. Try playing a song in iTunes and turning on the Visualizer. Although you won't be able to hear the music the Visualizer does a great job of turning the audio into video. It's a great experience to have it set to full screen in a darkened room and just chill out and watch the colors dance across the screen.
Just to be on the safe side I perform a full backup of everything before I do any kind of major system software installation. It's just the smartest and safest thing to do.
So when Windows uses up all available memory, that's "bad", but when OS X does it, that's a "feature".
I have no idea how the memory management of Windows works but it's a pretty modern OS so I assume it is using many of the same tricks Mac OS X is using. If it's filling up memory with stale data and not moving the stale data because of memory leaks, poorly optimized code, etc. then it is a bad thing. If however it is able to utilize that memory well and catch stuff for speed and efficiency then it is a good thing.
So if those zealots are saying that Windows is bad without examining what it is doing and how it is working then they are just plain wrong to do so! One thing I do know is that Mac OS X is not simply wasting RAM, it is actively caching stuff and improving responsiveness by doing so. I would hope that Windows does similarly...:)
It also gives me severe migrane headaches and causes my mom to loose conciousness... scarey stuff
Yeah I've heard anecdotal stories about those side effects also. I'm not the kind of person who overreacts to health issues but I'm careful with stuff like this for the simple reason that as a chemist I am exposed to a lot of nasty stuff. My liver is already in danger from all the toxins I work with daily, I don't need to take chances with chemicals in my food. I don't pick through things but I also try to keep it simple.
I watch out for stuff like MSG, aspartame, etc. simply because why take a chance? I don't need these things and there are plenty of alternatives to them. Keep it simple with the stuff you put in your body and you can't go too wrong.
Now all of my MP3s are sorted into a million subdirectories based on artist and album information, all files are renamed to just the track number and the song title. I had all of my MP3 files in "Artist - Song Title.mp3" format and that is now all gone.
I don't know if the Windows iTunes is scriptable but the Mac version is fully scriptable through AppleScript. If it is scriptable then you can just script iTunes to run through your library and rename all the songs to your format. Again, it's a piece of cake on the Mac version but I have no idea how to do it with the Windows version.
A friend tells me on OSX, both mini version and large mode have the time slider.
Nope, in the mini version of the window on Mac OS X there is no time slider. It sounds like it is exactly the same on Windows as it is on Mac OS X
Another minor irritation is the inability to tell the length and number of multiple selections...On iTunes, selections must be added to a new playlist to see number of selections and total time of selections.
Send Apple this as a suggestion. Apple has been very receptive to user suggestions. Since it sounds like a good idea and they do similar things in other applications (iPhoto, the Finder) they may add it into a future version of iTunes.
The same goes for the iTunes Music Store. If you see something that should be changed or you want a feature or band added just send in feedback. Like I said, Apple has been very receptive to new ideas and user preferences. They have changed a number of things to suit their users.
Does the windows iTunes provide a way to convert the downloaded files to mp3 or wav or anything?
Well the most obvious way using only iTunes is to burn a CD of the tunes and then import the CD as MP3 or WAV. You set what format imported files take in the dropdown menu Preferences->Importing->Import Using
This will give you AAC, AIFF, MP3, or WAV files depending on the format chosen. The MP3 files may lose a bit of quality since the music started out as AAC, a lossy format, and ended up as MP3, a different lossy format. Going from one lossy format to another tends to cause some degradation but I hear it's not much in this case.
There's probably some software out there than can do a more direct conversion but no matter what there will always be some loss in quality going from AAC to MP3 or vice versa.
The artifical sweetner used in Diet Pepsi (and Diet Coke, for that matter), is aspartame, which is IMO much better.
NutraSweet is the brand name for aspartame. They are basically exactly the same chemical. No addictive properties in it, but it has been shown to break down into formaldehyde in conditions that exist for the soda bottles being shipped to stores. Formaldehyde is a nasty toxic substance that is used to preserve corpses and puts nice gaping holes in your liver.
Sugar on the other hand is perfectly digestible and is readily converted to useful chemicals in the body. Sure, if you eat too much you can get fat and a ton isn't healthy but if you don't pig out on it then it is perfectly safe. If you are a diabetic and can't have sugar then just have water or tea, both are way better for you than any kind of soda anyways.
IAAC (I am a chemist) and have done some research into aspartame. I don't trust it mainly because it got through a loophole in the Food & Drug Administration's regulations and so it was accepted with minimal testing and regulations. At least saccharin was properly tested and its very low incidence rate of cancer is known. The same goes for Splenda and several other sugar substitutes. Don't trust aspartame/NutraSweet, they are liable to find out it turns your brain to green goo after 20 years of eating it.
There used to be a folder called/LocalApps, which was where you'd install any non-system apps for shared use. It served the same role as/usr/local/bin in command-line Unix. I've often wondered why they did away with it.
Technically/Applications is the same thing as/LocalApps. None of the software installed in there is part of the system, think of the stuff in there as part of the distribution. Anything that is installed in there by Apple is only for the users. The system apps are pretty much all located in/System
I've gotta say, while I'm a Mac fan. Apple likes to eat up RAM like candy.
Hmm, yes and no. The philosophy of Mac OS X (and quite a few other operating systems, especially Unix-like ones) is that you should use as much RAM as you can. RAM access is usually much faster than hard drive access, so why not fill up RAM with stuff that you might possibly need from the hard drive at some point.
Memory management in Mac OS X goes like this: boot up, take up a good percentage of available RAM and place system stuff in there. Every time a window is created, make a backing store for faster and smoother access. If the user runs a program, load as much stuff related to that program as possible. If the user quits a program keep most of it in memory anyways, they might want it a minute later. They access the hard drive? Read into memory the next few sectors beyond what the user asked for simply because they may want them next.
All of this fills up RAM pretty quickly and makes the operating system look bloated. Actually though, it's highly efficient. It's usually much quicker to free up RAM then it is to fill it. Even in the case where you need to page out memory (store it back on disk to make room for something else), it's still not much slower than having the memory empty in the first place. This is why having more RAM makes Mac OS X faster, it uses the extra space to be more efficient.
To show you what I mean try launching Internet Explorer (or any other large program). Time how long it takes to launch, then quit it and start it again. Time how long it takes to launch for the second time. For IE I got 4 seconds for the first launch and then 2 seconds for every launch after that. This is because IE is now cached in RAM and doesn't need to be loaded from the hard drive to be launched.
So again, you are perfectly right in that Mac OS X takes up a lot of RAM. However this is actually a feature. After all RAM is pretty cheap now and I think most people would trade off a few bucks to have their system more responsive. On the other hand I do know that Mac OS X does cope decently with low-RAM situations. It can run just fine on a machine with 256 megs of RAM but it will seem slower than a similar machine with 512 megs of RAM. I'd say that 512 megs of RAM works well with Mac OS X, any less you see slowdowns, any more and you don't notice much improvement under normal use.
Well one way is to continue to use a depreciated API way past its guaranteed date. Apple usually give tons of advance warning for when an API is going to get pulled but some programmers ignore that warning. Then one OS update Apple pulls the API and hey, the program doesn't work so well any more!:)
Another way to cheat is to get funky with the data manipulated with the API. Many APIs have convenience functions built-in to manipulate data files. When someone goes around those functions they can put the data into a state where the APIs no longer work "as advertised".
Finally you can do weird stuff with programming such as doing odd casts and other manipulation of data structures. There is no programming environment invented yet that will completely insulate someone from doing something truly stupid. For example Carbon and Cocoa can be programmed using C, the ultimate unchecked language where it's easy to have a one-off or similar error. Problems can be caused by developers who don't understand and/or care about the consequences of their poor programming.
No matter what, with an OS upgrade some programs are bound to break. It's a testament to Apple that a good deal of programs from as far back as Mac OS 6 or 7 still can run on newer machines, even if they are in the Classic environment.
Well what you've done was stupid from the first place: once you've heard the noise...
This is a new form of the "copying a 200 meg file" troll. Basically this same troll is being posted multiple times across Slashdot. Like most trolls the post makes no sense but I guess the trolls figure that the dumber they sound the better the troll. Go figure...
This actually is a big concern for me though. I don't want to have to do a clean install of this OS. To save all my data, reinstall all my applications, etc.
You can do a clean install of just the operating system and still keep all of your data. It's called an "archive install".
As for the Applications you'll either have to reinstall what doesn't come with Mac OS or you can probably just move them to your local Applications folder (~/Applications/) before the install and then move them back to/Applications/ afterward. Make sure that you don't overwrite any of the stuff already in/Applications. Also, any programs that install stuff outside of/Applications/ might have problems but most Mac programs don't do that.
Because it can be dangerous to your karma to post 'bad' things about the Mac.
Nah, it's called tact. You can post anything on just about any topic and if you use some tact then you won't get modded down and you might even get modded up. I've posted negatively on a lot of sensitive topics here and only rarely gotten modded down.
Besides is karma really that big of a deal? My karma was pegged at 50 when they stopped using numbers and I know I've gotten way more good than bad since then. Nothing really bad will happen if you get a few down moderations, it would take some serious trolling and being an insensitive asshole to get to the point where your posts are below 1. Life won't end if you get a few down moderations, people should really stop caring about it.
I tried repairing permissions last night while booting from a CD; some of the things it repaired were in SecurityAgent.app. However, it didn't help the problem.
Oh one thing that I didn't notice at first. You can't repair permissions while booted from a CD. The Repair Permissions function only repairs your current boot volume, so if you boot from a CD it will fail to do any repairs at all.
Boot from your normal boot volume and then run Disk Utility and repair the permissions. That might help things.
That is, of course, why I said most instead of all. I have nothing but respect to anyone who stands up and argues a point rationally and doesn't hide behind Anonymous Coward.
On the other hand the nameless flamers, trolls, and other crap-spewers are the lowest of the low. If you can't contribute something valid and cogent to the conversation then your comments will be duly routed to/dev/null.
Re:Sheesh, and people complain about apple's BMs (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wed Oct 15, '03 10:34 AM (#7219304)
So by any real world standards, the athlon systems beat the G5.
Anyone else notice that the majority of the anti-Apple sentiments are being posted by Anonymous Cowards and the majority of neutral- and pro-Apple sentiments are being posted by actual accounts? Hmm, it seems like the Apple bashers aren't willing to put their names behind their ideas, wonder why that is...
Of course, anyone who chooses whether or not to use OS X based on benchmarks is an idiot. You either like the Mac OS and environment or you don't. To say that one shouldn't buy a G5 because there *might* be a faster computer would be foolish.
Bravo, well said. I've been trying to get this point across for years. Except for a few intensive number crunching applications who cares about this % faster or this % less expensive. Pretty much all computers out there now will do the job for the average joe shmoe. It all comes down to what kind of system you enjoy using and fits your style and needs.
Mac, Windows, Linux, BSD, BeOS. Intel, AMD, Motorola, IBM. Alienware, Dell, Apple, HP. Who cares, just use what works for you and don't piss in other people's Cheerios.
Wow, you are obviously a brave person to call someone a fanboy, hiding behind that anonymous coward catch-all there.
While the grandparent post is definitely someone who at least admires Macs this does not make them an automatic fanboy. Apple was blasted for posting benchmark results that were in their favor, now that someone posts that the G5 got "trounced" we are not allowed to examine the test methods? Simply examining the test methods and pointing out possible problems does not make a person a fanboy.
Besides, no matter what kind of fan the grandparent poster, hype7, is at least he had the courage to post using a real account instead of hiding behind the ubiquitous anonymous coward...
Re:hmmm idea
on
Skittlebrau
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Everclear is the purest form of ethanol available at your local Beverage Plus. It is strong enough to knock you on your ass and is that way for one reason: it was fermented from grains specifically for that purpose.
Actually the purest ethanol you will get from fermentation will be about 20% ethanol, coming from a pure mixture of sugar (glucose and/or fructose) and water. You would have to use a special high-alcohol yeast called turbo yeast.
So how is Everlear produced? They ferment grain (because it's a lot cheaper than grapes and easier to ferment than potatoes) to the highest percent alcohol and then distill it. It is distilled to 190 proof (95% ethanol). This is the highest proof you can get because the ethanol and water form an azeotropic mixture, there will always be a little water in the mixture no matter how much you distill it. Chemists can make a purer ethanol but not by a regular form of distillation.
By the way, the flavor of distilled beverages comes about in two ways. In making a distilled beverage you either pot distill it, a process in which you do a very impure distillation. This allows a lot of chemicals, including flavor and color, to come over into the ethanol and water mixture. Pot distillation is simple but it can keep some very dangerous chemicals (such as methanol) and off-flavors if not done properly. You often have to double or triple distill (repeat the process two or three times) in order to make a decent product.
The second way to make a distilled beverage is to fractionally distill (a special type of distillation) the mixture to produce "pure" alcohol (190 proof, 95% ethanol) and then water it down to the proper proof and add in flavors. This is the way most hard alcohols are made today because it is much more efficient and it produces a very consistent product.
$5 million for the G5s. Now let's add in the price of those racks they sit on. Let's add in the price of the cooling system, the network equipment, cables, power supply.
I run netatalk on my Linux server and keep my home directory mounted via AFP on my Mac.
You might want to scrap netatalk entirely. Mac OS X and Linux both natively support NFS, it's probably a better option. Here's a link to more information.
I wasn't aware of it until I set Console to launch when crashes occur, but now I see the crash occurs every time I authenticate - immediately upon login, or when unlocking my keychain, or unlocking System Preferences, and probably other times.
Hmm, try repairing your keychain by using Keychain First Aid. If you don't have it then information and a download can be found here. It might clear up authentication problems.
As you said Panther is coming out soon enough and maybe it's just best to move on to it. From what I've seen Panther is going to be a nice step up from Jaguar (10.2), probably even more of a step up than Jaguar was from Puma (10.1).
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Oh yeah, the iPod is just as smooth as iTunes and more. It really is a cool as everyone says. It's simple, it works, it gets out of your way, and it does its job perfectly. Not only that but it looks good doing it. The best thing is that just about every software update for the iPod has improved how it works so it's almost like getting a new iPod every couple of months, with new games, functions, features, etc.
I use my iPod for listening to music but I can tell you that's only part of what I like it for. I am constantly using it to store information I need to shuttle from one computer to another. I have contact information on there so I can call up a persons phone number or address in a second. It is great for storing little notes such as directions or shopping lists. The best thing is that all of these features can be displayed without a computer, they appear on the iPod display. So no carrying around address books or little pieces of paper, I shove it all on the iPod. Now you are able to do voice recordings and store digital photographs on the iPod. Very cool additions that I can see a million uses for.
As far as getting a Macintosh I have always said that people should get the computer they feel most comfortable with. I can personally say that for me Macs have the perfect balance between simplicity and complexity. If you want to just stay in the GUI then pretty much is simple and just works, if you want to use the Terminal then everything is as geeky as you want it. It's a great balance and I enjoy both sides of Mac OS X.
This is not to belittle your condition but instead to help you appreciate the beauty of music even though you can't hear it. Try playing a song in iTunes and turning on the Visualizer. Although you won't be able to hear the music the Visualizer does a great job of turning the audio into video. It's a great experience to have it set to full screen in a darkened room and just chill out and watch the colors dance across the screen.
You can't? Last time I looked you could package any music as an mp3, aac, wav, or aiff and the iPod would happily play it without a hitch.
Ahh, good to know. Thanks.
Just to be on the safe side I perform a full backup of everything before I do any kind of major system software installation. It's just the smartest and safest thing to do.
I have no idea how the memory management of Windows works but it's a pretty modern OS so I assume it is using many of the same tricks Mac OS X is using. If it's filling up memory with stale data and not moving the stale data because of memory leaks, poorly optimized code, etc. then it is a bad thing. If however it is able to utilize that memory well and catch stuff for speed and efficiency then it is a good thing.
So if those zealots are saying that Windows is bad without examining what it is doing and how it is working then they are just plain wrong to do so! One thing I do know is that Mac OS X is not simply wasting RAM, it is actively caching stuff and improving responsiveness by doing so. I would hope that Windows does similarly...
Yeah I've heard anecdotal stories about those side effects also. I'm not the kind of person who overreacts to health issues but I'm careful with stuff like this for the simple reason that as a chemist I am exposed to a lot of nasty stuff. My liver is already in danger from all the toxins I work with daily, I don't need to take chances with chemicals in my food. I don't pick through things but I also try to keep it simple.
I watch out for stuff like MSG, aspartame, etc. simply because why take a chance? I don't need these things and there are plenty of alternatives to them. Keep it simple with the stuff you put in your body and you can't go too wrong.
I don't know if the Windows iTunes is scriptable but the Mac version is fully scriptable through AppleScript. If it is scriptable then you can just script iTunes to run through your library and rename all the songs to your format. Again, it's a piece of cake on the Mac version but I have no idea how to do it with the Windows version.
Nope, in the mini version of the window on Mac OS X there is no time slider. It sounds like it is exactly the same on Windows as it is on Mac OS X
Send Apple this as a suggestion. Apple has been very receptive to user suggestions. Since it sounds like a good idea and they do similar things in other applications (iPhoto, the Finder) they may add it into a future version of iTunes.
The same goes for the iTunes Music Store. If you see something that should be changed or you want a feature or band added just send in feedback. Like I said, Apple has been very receptive to new ideas and user preferences. They have changed a number of things to suit their users.
Well the most obvious way using only iTunes is to burn a CD of the tunes and then import the CD as MP3 or WAV. You set what format imported files take in the dropdown menu Preferences->Importing->Import Using
This will give you AAC, AIFF, MP3, or WAV files depending on the format chosen. The MP3 files may lose a bit of quality since the music started out as AAC, a lossy format, and ended up as MP3, a different lossy format. Going from one lossy format to another tends to cause some degradation but I hear it's not much in this case.
There's probably some software out there than can do a more direct conversion but no matter what there will always be some loss in quality going from AAC to MP3 or vice versa.
NutraSweet is the brand name for aspartame. They are basically exactly the same chemical. No addictive properties in it, but it has been shown to break down into formaldehyde in conditions that exist for the soda bottles being shipped to stores. Formaldehyde is a nasty toxic substance that is used to preserve corpses and puts nice gaping holes in your liver.
Sugar on the other hand is perfectly digestible and is readily converted to useful chemicals in the body. Sure, if you eat too much you can get fat and a ton isn't healthy but if you don't pig out on it then it is perfectly safe. If you are a diabetic and can't have sugar then just have water or tea, both are way better for you than any kind of soda anyways.
IAAC (I am a chemist) and have done some research into aspartame. I don't trust it mainly because it got through a loophole in the Food & Drug Administration's regulations and so it was accepted with minimal testing and regulations. At least saccharin was properly tested and its very low incidence rate of cancer is known. The same goes for Splenda and several other sugar substitutes. Don't trust aspartame/NutraSweet, they are liable to find out it turns your brain to green goo after 20 years of eating it.
I thought the same thing but then I saw that it's only Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Sierra Mist.
No thanks, I don't like the taste of Pepsi and NutraSweet leaves a nasty aftertaste. I'll just keep on buying my iTMS songs with my own money.
Technically
Hmm, yes and no. The philosophy of Mac OS X (and quite a few other operating systems, especially Unix-like ones) is that you should use as much RAM as you can. RAM access is usually much faster than hard drive access, so why not fill up RAM with stuff that you might possibly need from the hard drive at some point.
Memory management in Mac OS X goes like this: boot up, take up a good percentage of available RAM and place system stuff in there. Every time a window is created, make a backing store for faster and smoother access. If the user runs a program, load as much stuff related to that program as possible. If the user quits a program keep most of it in memory anyways, they might want it a minute later. They access the hard drive? Read into memory the next few sectors beyond what the user asked for simply because they may want them next.
All of this fills up RAM pretty quickly and makes the operating system look bloated. Actually though, it's highly efficient. It's usually much quicker to free up RAM then it is to fill it. Even in the case where you need to page out memory (store it back on disk to make room for something else), it's still not much slower than having the memory empty in the first place. This is why having more RAM makes Mac OS X faster, it uses the extra space to be more efficient.
To show you what I mean try launching Internet Explorer (or any other large program). Time how long it takes to launch, then quit it and start it again. Time how long it takes to launch for the second time. For IE I got 4 seconds for the first launch and then 2 seconds for every launch after that. This is because IE is now cached in RAM and doesn't need to be loaded from the hard drive to be launched.
So again, you are perfectly right in that Mac OS X takes up a lot of RAM. However this is actually a feature. After all RAM is pretty cheap now and I think most people would trade off a few bucks to have their system more responsive. On the other hand I do know that Mac OS X does cope decently with low-RAM situations. It can run just fine on a machine with 256 megs of RAM but it will seem slower than a similar machine with 512 megs of RAM. I'd say that 512 megs of RAM works well with Mac OS X, any less you see slowdowns, any more and you don't notice much improvement under normal use.
Well one way is to continue to use a depreciated API way past its guaranteed date. Apple usually give tons of advance warning for when an API is going to get pulled but some programmers ignore that warning. Then one OS update Apple pulls the API and hey, the program doesn't work so well any more!
Another way to cheat is to get funky with the data manipulated with the API. Many APIs have convenience functions built-in to manipulate data files. When someone goes around those functions they can put the data into a state where the APIs no longer work "as advertised".
Finally you can do weird stuff with programming such as doing odd casts and other manipulation of data structures. There is no programming environment invented yet that will completely insulate someone from doing something truly stupid. For example Carbon and Cocoa can be programmed using C, the ultimate unchecked language where it's easy to have a one-off or similar error. Problems can be caused by developers who don't understand and/or care about the consequences of their poor programming.
No matter what, with an OS upgrade some programs are bound to break. It's a testament to Apple that a good deal of programs from as far back as Mac OS 6 or 7 still can run on newer machines, even if they are in the Classic environment.
This is a new form of the "copying a 200 meg file" troll. Basically this same troll is being posted multiple times across Slashdot. Like most trolls the post makes no sense but I guess the trolls figure that the dumber they sound the better the troll. Go figure...
You can do a clean install of just the operating system and still keep all of your data. It's called an "archive install".
As for the Applications you'll either have to reinstall what doesn't come with Mac OS or you can probably just move them to your local Applications folder (~/Applications/) before the install and then move them back to
Nah, it's called tact. You can post anything on just about any topic and if you use some tact then you won't get modded down and you might even get modded up. I've posted negatively on a lot of sensitive topics here and only rarely gotten modded down.
Besides is karma really that big of a deal? My karma was pegged at 50 when they stopped using numbers and I know I've gotten way more good than bad since then. Nothing really bad will happen if you get a few down moderations, it would take some serious trolling and being an insensitive asshole to get to the point where your posts are below 1. Life won't end if you get a few down moderations, people should really stop caring about it.
Oh one thing that I didn't notice at first. You can't repair permissions while booted from a CD. The Repair Permissions function only repairs your current boot volume, so if you boot from a CD it will fail to do any repairs at all.
Boot from your normal boot volume and then run Disk Utility and repair the permissions. That might help things.
That is, of course, why I said most instead of all. I have nothing but respect to anyone who stands up and argues a point rationally and doesn't hide behind Anonymous Coward.
On the other hand the nameless flamers, trolls, and other crap-spewers are the lowest of the low. If you can't contribute something valid and cogent to the conversation then your comments will be duly routed to
Anyone else notice that the majority of the anti-Apple sentiments are being posted by Anonymous Cowards and the majority of neutral- and pro-Apple sentiments are being posted by actual accounts? Hmm, it seems like the Apple bashers aren't willing to put their names behind their ideas, wonder why that is...
Bravo, well said. I've been trying to get this point across for years. Except for a few intensive number crunching applications who cares about this % faster or this % less expensive. Pretty much all computers out there now will do the job for the average joe shmoe. It all comes down to what kind of system you enjoy using and fits your style and needs.
Mac, Windows, Linux, BSD, BeOS. Intel, AMD, Motorola, IBM. Alienware, Dell, Apple, HP. Who cares, just use what works for you and don't piss in other people's Cheerios.
Wow, you are obviously a brave person to call someone a fanboy, hiding behind that anonymous coward catch-all there.
While the grandparent post is definitely someone who at least admires Macs this does not make them an automatic fanboy. Apple was blasted for posting benchmark results that were in their favor, now that someone posts that the G5 got "trounced" we are not allowed to examine the test methods? Simply examining the test methods and pointing out possible problems does not make a person a fanboy.
Besides, no matter what kind of fan the grandparent poster, hype7, is at least he had the courage to post using a real account instead of hiding behind the ubiquitous anonymous coward...
Actually the purest ethanol you will get from fermentation will be about 20% ethanol, coming from a pure mixture of sugar (glucose and/or fructose) and water. You would have to use a special high-alcohol yeast called turbo yeast.
So how is Everlear produced? They ferment grain (because it's a lot cheaper than grapes and easier to ferment than potatoes) to the highest percent alcohol and then distill it. It is distilled to 190 proof (95% ethanol). This is the highest proof you can get because the ethanol and water form an azeotropic mixture, there will always be a little water in the mixture no matter how much you distill it. Chemists can make a purer ethanol but not by a regular form of distillation.
By the way, the flavor of distilled beverages comes about in two ways. In making a distilled beverage you either pot distill it, a process in which you do a very impure distillation. This allows a lot of chemicals, including flavor and color, to come over into the ethanol and water mixture. Pot distillation is simple but it can keep some very dangerous chemicals (such as methanol) and off-flavors if not done properly. You often have to double or triple distill (repeat the process two or three times) in order to make a decent product.
The second way to make a distilled beverage is to fractionally distill (a special type of distillation) the mixture to produce "pure" alcohol (190 proof, 95% ethanol) and then water it down to the proper proof and add in flavors. This is the way most hard alcohols are made today because it is much more efficient and it produces a very consistent product.
If you take a look at the PDF of the slide presentation on the VT cluster, on page 7 there is this statement:
So it's $5.2 million for the whole thing, including infrastructure and all.
You might want to scrap netatalk entirely. Mac OS X and Linux both natively support NFS, it's probably a better option. Here's a link to more information.
Hmm, try repairing your keychain by using Keychain First Aid. If you don't have it then information and a download can be found here. It might clear up authentication problems.
As you said Panther is coming out soon enough and maybe it's just best to move on to it. From what I've seen Panther is going to be a nice step up from Jaguar (10.2), probably even more of a step up than Jaguar was from Puma (10.1).