"I don't know what world you live in, but people need access to sensitive data on their laptops -- espcially if they are in an area that doesn't have internet / communications availability.
You can take precautions such as encrypting the disk -- but many people can't do their jobs without access to that information.
Before computers, people often put files in their cars, or carried pen / pencil notebooks. The requirements to have that information available away from the office haven't changed."
I know what world you live it. It is the world of video games and powerpoint presentations with cute little pie charts.
In the 60s (the 40s and 50s were before my time) we got access to sensitive data by going to the office, passing an armed guard, signing in and sometimes using several keys or typing in combinations to get into certain rooms. Yes, you could take notebooks (paper ones) and pens and pencils with you in your car. You might also take a printout or so with sensitive data from one place to another, but that was pretty rare. There were telecommunications back then and you could even get to your data over those links, which were a lot more secure than todays WiFi and dial-up.
What changed is that computers became toys, and many of the people using them now know nothing about the underlying technology other than it's easier than using an adding machine. Ninety nine percent of the problem is that the boobs entrusted with these toys didn't take even common sense precautions with the physical security of the devices. Given the mindset of such people, there is zero hope that they would know enough to take the proper electronic precautions.
I maintain that if the data is REALLY important, and that includes all the examples given above, the the proper way to use a laptop is as a dumb terminal with a highly encrypted communications link back to the actual data. Such a link can happen over the Internet, or via a satellite link. There is really no excuse for carrying such data around, in the past, now, or in the future.
"Mossberg is no different than John Dvorac and Robert Cringely: he gets paid to make noise. At the end of the day he's a journalist and doesn't understand technology."
Maybe that's all there is to it, but I generally thought Mossberg stayed within his area of competence, I.E. end-user product reviews. Maybe I haven't been reading him long enough. This is a muddled folk-lorish rant going nowhere.
For one thing there is no mention of standards, open or otherwise. Both Apple devices and PCs use many of the same standards, which is why I can plug most (or at least many) cameras into either a PC running Windows or Linux or an Apple computer running Windows, Linux or OS X and expect to see it show up as a disk drive, without having to install any special camera software at all. That is in fact a requirement I apply to most computer gadgets I buy. Anything that _requires_ me to install software from some provided CD I'll pass over for something that I can just plug in and have work. I don't mind that vendors bundle software to make their products more attractive, I just want it to be optional. I've _never_ been disappointed by buying products that say on the box: "Works with Windows, OSX, and Linux", but I know from painful experience that a device that only says "Requires x version of Windows" will not work with Apple or Linux, and there is a good chance it won't work with Windows either unless my configuration matches closely that of some developers machine somewhere. The extra effort that a vendor has to go though to conform to _actual_ standards, as opposed to "tinker with it on configuration X until it works" pays off in the short term as added stability, and in the long term as the ability to in fact continue to use the device long after the programmer has left the company or the company has gone out of business or changed product direction.
Both models that Mossberg alludes to (and I've never heard the terms he uses before, "end-to-end" vs "component" to me aren't very descriptive of anything) are only as strong as their adherance to standards makes them. Can you imagine if Apple said that they only support Apple branded USB thumb drives? Fortunately the days of modem use are comming to a close, but I've never had more trouble with a device category than the brilliantly conceived "Winmodem" which saved about 3 cents on the manufacturing side and cost people untold countless hours of futzing to get it working. I've replaced a few $10 Winmodems simply becuase the company that supplied the drivers no longer existed. Why in the world would I want what would otherwise be firmware to be implemented as an extension of the operating system, other than OS lock-in? Mossberg's terminology hides the fact that Apple does this too by using one-of-a-kind sound hardware, power control hardware, etc.
The other thing that Mossbergs article misses, is that while Apple is often the leader in totally new technologies such as Firewire and USB, they end up being the follower after the technologies take hold and most devices are being certified specifically for Windows. The switch to Intel and the de-emphasis of Firewire represents a total capitulation to the Wintel duopoly. Primary blame goes to Microsoft and Intel of course, but sycophantic journalists such as Mossberg have done little to raise awareness of the long term costs to consumers when they ignore standards completely and focus only on who has the shiniest new toy. Consumers are ultimately to blame too, as they will only get better products if they hold out for them. The willingness of so many people to just buy the first thing that comes out, or the first thing they see on the shelf has resulted in almost universal mediocrity as I'm sure buyers of the new Apple products are going to find out. Welcome Apple users to the world of "Good Enough".
I am sick-up-and-fed with Yahoo mergers and co-branding exercises. Their services are here today and gone (or drastically changed) tomorrow. I've had domains through them, pagers, faxing deals, and they all end up useless at some point. They generally do a good job at first, but then they lose interest and the service (like their e-mail) gets dreadfully slow or parts of it stop working, get transferred to some third-party company or just disappear one day without notice.
It used to be that these moves had the same sense a Google or Microsoft moving into and then taking over some new market, but these days it has the feel of desperation to it. Can't develop their own stuff, so just grab onto anything to slow the slide to irrelevance.
Five minutes before seeing this article I was in the process of transferring my last domain from them. Good riddance, almost.
Last time I was in my local Walmart there were 3 Xbox 360s just sitting there on the shelf. No line was forming to buy them, nobody was clawing at the glass display case to get one. Most of the stories I heard about scarcity were in cities like Redmond (duh!), Silicon Valley stores (duh!), and big cities LA, NY, etc. So the shortages may have been the result of bad allocation, whether intentional or not.
I think the Apple switch to Intel will, in the long run be seen as a blunder, but the reasons are more complex than which chip is better or Steve's "Product roadmap" mantra.
Cell processors are going to be all over the place before long, and maybe Apple, if they are still around might want to revisit the decision at some point in the future. The real blunder will be if they discontinue dual mode binaries in order to increase uptake of the Intel systems. I expect that to come as a big "surprise" to current Apple users sometime in 2007.
It was one of the first three out there, and it reminds me so much of real IE users: much ado about being incompetent and using and incompetent browser. The title says it all.
"Webapps, however, are far more vulnerable: if a singe site - the one hosting the app - is offline, you'll already have the equivalent of a power blackout, despite the fact that both your own system and the rest of the internet are still functioning."
Well... except there are ways to build redundancy into applications that have that same fail-over property as power systems. While the average small business doesn't bother to implement these fail-over designs, large infrastructure companies do, or at least should, if they want to be the preferred service provider.
I expect that in the future as I am using e-mail and other applications that are on the Internet (or even housed in a small "black box" local device) that my data exists on at least two disk drives and that there are at least two processors capable of working with that data. Compare that with now, where everything is on my PC and where bumping the table at the wrong time or spilling my drink on it can have disastrous consequences unless _I_ have taken it on myself to do some sort of backup.
When you look not at what _can_ be done, but what is likely to actually happen, the more centralized services look better and better by comparison with desktop application.
"Lasers are high-tech and were a breakthrough in their time. The same with the microprocessor.
A cashier at Shop-Rite, who operates this high technology, makes $7.00/hr"
And more and more lately when I go to the grocery store people are checking themselves out without the help of a cashier. RFID devices could get us to the point where we just roll our cart up to the checkout place and are immediately presented with the bill.
Here is wisdom.
When I got out of computer science school many years ago I saw my job as (among other things) putting rooms full of people with adding machines out of work. I didn't lose any sleep over this, because I knew that this wouldn't happen over night. Most of those adding machine people would find other work, some of them would retire, some of them would die. It's very hard to make a case for doing things less efficiently when the option to do them more efficiently is before us.
This progress continued, and has continued over the years so that many other things (like running cash registers) can now be done by computers and their programs.
But a lot of regression has also taken place. Computers are used for so many things now, and some of those things are of questionable value (to me). It seems more and more that we have circled the barn and now we simply have rooms full of people with PCs on their desks instead of calculators. Furthermore, those PCs are a lot more difficult to maintain than the calculators were. The calculators were "plug and play" devices, while the computers only claim to be so.
I've worked in organizations where there were rooms full of people "repairing" PCs that no longer worked and that often meant re-installing software or vacuuming dust-bunnies out of the interior, and I think to myself "have we really made things better in the long run?"
I think of the last place I worked where there are dozens of programmers, and when you add in the QA people, documentations specialists and people that coordinate their activities, we are into the hundreds. That doesn't include those "repair" people, or the network administrators, or the guys that run cables from cubicle to cubicle, or wheel replacement PCs around on carts, nor does it include the people who go into the field to install the application (which is the farthest thing in the world from "plug and play"). And what does this incredibly complex system do? It keeps track of lists of people names and addresses and various other and sundry bits of information about them. That's it. There is no accounting aspect, or banking component, no artificial intelligence, no medical diagnosis, no space shuttle launch subsystem. Thousands of people to do dead simple stuff, that if it had to be done on bits of paper using pencils and typewriters could probably be done with fewer total resources.
While "we" in the computer industry have done a great number of things to save people time and energy we have more than made up for it in the time and energy wasting infrastructure that "we" claim is needed to accomplish it all.
The computer industry is way overdue for a re-think, or maybe it's a think that should have happened in the first place but didn't in our enthusiasm to have a computer on every flat surface on the planet. Steve Ballmer says we need a $100 PC. Bill Gates says that the computer is the network. Larry Ellison said that the PCs days are numbered, and hundreds of wealthy Open Source advocates running their own businesses agree that software should be free. So where is the disconnect between what these people say and how they make their living? Is there some mysterious "invisible hand" of technology that defeats the average user's desire for simplicity as well as the best efforts of these captains of industry? Or are they just lying to us?
My observation over the years is that hardware keeps getting better and better, by leaps and bounds, but software continues to get worse. Software has gotten bigger, slower, and harder to us
Don't be silly! 2002 was the year of desktop Linux. The vast majority of people are now happily using Linux on their desktop, and Microsoft is deparately trying to grab back market share with Vista. Plus, I've heard the new Apple computers will now dual boot to Linux. They have to, after all thats where all the applications are now. Windows, really is going to be relegated to controller applications for cell phones and CD players. Its days as a full-sized computer OS are numbered.
Oh... and Sony is going to buy Microsoft. I read it just today on Slashdot.
OS X get some of its virus-proof nature from the fact that is was Unix (BSD) based. But there have been malware attacks against all Unix systems as far as I know. The fact that OSX ran on PowerPC hardware and had very little in common with Windows as far as operating system calls made it almost impossible (no, make that impossible) to write a program (be it a virus or an application) that could run in both environments without a recompile (or as OS X now does by gluing two different compiled version together).
But it will be a lot easier now. The instruction set being the same, all the cleaver virus writers have to do is avoid OS calls, which, for really really clever viruses is a good thing anyway. You can bet that the virus writers in trying to do this will probably scramble a few people hard drives along the way. But maybe you don't know this: the intent of many malware programs is to remain permanently undetected (as in "rootkit" a term invented primarily for Unix systems, not Windows) and the opportunities for such people just got 5% (or whatever Apple's market share is) better.
"So, while someone with your needs obviously gains little from running OS X, I think the average computer user gains a lot from OS X."
I totally agree. I still advise friends to try Apple computers (PLEASE! PLEASE! I'M so sick to death of helping them with their Windows machines!!)
But I no longer have quite the confidence in Apple (and maybe it is particularly in Steve) that I did for a while there.
The term "roadmap" gets used a lot as an explanation for why they suddenly switched to Intel. But everyone knows that Intel's roadmap has been a work of science fiction for several years. It is a marketing document, not a planning document. Like Microsoft did (and still does) for years, the idea is to scare off competition by saying "See what WE are going to be doing next year! You can't possibly keep up with us!" But AMD HAS kept up, and passed them in every area, while at the same time cutting costs.
What, in fact, Apple lacks is a road map of their own. Apple users don't have a clue what Apple might do next, which is why there are so many rumors and rumor sites about them. Just yesterday I read a long long article about why Apple hasn't penetrated the business market. The article had it all wrong in my opinion with which I can save you a lot of reading: Businesses like certainty. If they can't know everything about what you are planning they at least like to have a general idea, and with Apple that simply isn't the case.
The switch to Intel make zero sense, nada, zip, zilch, unless you start coming up (as some have) with really far-fetched notions such as Apple abandoning OS X or Hardware, or both. Besides, I think the cell based PowerPC processors that are the guts of the new Xbox and Playstation systems are fascinating. They have low power potential, multiprocessor potential, they are used in ruggedized military equipment, are the heart of some of the new supercomputers being built, and on and on. There is nothing bold and daring about the switch to Intel. Just the opposite, it is a capitulation to Windows: "We can never get the driver-writers on-board, so lets just look so much like Windows that Windows drivers will work for OS X". You can bet that's where this road is leading you, and the next step will be running Windows APs under OS X, and the next step after that is "Oh heck, Windows isn't that bad after all, lets just run Windows." Been there, done that with OS/2 and I ain't gonna go there again.
Essentially: Be prepared to re-frmat and re-install as often as something sneaks through.
And I think that is what Apple users are in store for in the long run. But as long as OS X is around (I'm not making any bets) it certainly IS an easier OS to use than Windows or Linux, I'm just not so sure it will remain as stable and virus-free as it is today for every long.
With regard to your Ubuntu test, after running Debian on my iBook for a couple of years I decided to try a recent PPC version of Ubuntu as well. Since I was familiar with Debian (and Ubuntu is based on Debian) I figured I'd have no trouble with it at all. But I hated it. It WAS slow. I have no idea why. At one point I put a normal DVD in there to see if it would play it (it didn't) and the machine practically ground to a halt. It was doing disk I/O like crazy with no feedback to me about what it was doing. Long after I had removed the DVD and gone on to other things the machine was mostly useless, being preoccupied with something other than me. After only a few hours I concluded that Ubuntu wasn't doing anything for me that I didn't already have with my Debian install, so I went back to Debian where there seems to be much less mysterious behavior.
I DO expect Ubuntu to continue to improve though (I think the PPC version is relatively new) and end-user improvements made in
"Please forgive me the stupid question--I haven't used a Mac for ten years now. But what would be the advantage of running Linux vs. the BSD-based MacOS X? "More stable"? I thought that's what MacOS X was famous for. "Nicer interface"? Same response. "
You forgot to mention FASTER, but in my experience Linux is AT LEAST as stable and has UI advantages too. My iBook 600 Mhz G3 running Debian Linux is in many respects more responsive than my year-old Powerbook 1.5 Ghz G4 running OS X. I'm sure if I were to run a benchmark measuring raw horsepower the Powerbook would still win, but for day to day web browsing, moving files around, etc, the iBook/Linux is the champ.
I've already made up my mind that this Powerbook will be my last Apple computer (unless they change... I'd seriously consider any laptop or desktop that manages to nicely package multiple PPC Cell processors for example) and as a corollary, this current version of OS X that I have will be the last version of OS X. I suspect that future versions of OS X will start to favor the Intel chips and may be slow, buggy, or feature-lacking for the PPC systems.
I have trouble thinking of any important ways in which the OS X user interface is superior to KDE if you are the type that likes lot and lots of doo-dads, in fact in many ways KDE has more of these "cute" features and allows a much greater degree of user customization that OS X (which by design seriously limits how much the user can change). But if I prefer a stripped down GUI I can get that too with Linux, or if I want to run the thing as a server I can get rid of the GUI completely and free up gobs of memory and disk space (oh, did I mention my iBook has 256M of memory while the Powerbook has a Gig?)
Apple users used to be able to brag about the superiority of their computers which lasted for years and years while poor PC users had to be constantly upgrading their hardware to keep up with software changes or their software to keep up with hardware changes. Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. It has only been a couple years since Apple users stopped complaining about the demise of OS 9 (isn't that what it was called?) Now every few months we have to listen to weeks worth of speculation regarding whether the next machine will have Firewire ports, or Bluetooth, or can I get EVDO, not to mention, of course, which processor will be in the thing and how fast all the applications vendors (well all 4 or 5 of them anyway) will jump on the next bandwagon.
No thanks to all the buggy virus-targeted Intel hardware, and no thanks to an OS built for that hardware. I switched to Apple so I could get a Unix based OS on a non-Intel platform, and I'll switch away from Apple for the same reason. Hasta la vista Stevie!
Well, my iBook is 4 years old, BUT had the battery replaced by Apple midway during that time, and it only holds a charge for 3-4 minutes. I guess my alternative would have been to keep the original battery and risk it exploding.
I'm glad I didn't have the urge to get one of these. They replaced the innards of my iBook last year, something like 2 years after it started acting up. I think it took a lawsuit to get them to do the right thing. Does that mean the Macbook problems are even worse? The whole time I was having trouble with the iBook their support system was telling people to replace memory, re-install the OS and a dozen other time-wasting exercises hoping that you would just give up and go away, which is in fact what I finally did.
I'll say this though, the surprise announcement that they were replacing iBooks and finally having one that worked reliably DID convince me to spring for a Powerbook G4. I think I'll just stick with it until there is independent verification (not from Apple) that these new systems are stable. Much more likely that by then I'll be tempted by a dual-core AMD from Acer etc that are already hitting the shelves.
"(As an aside, interestingly enough, I was surprised to find Microsoft's virtual server technology STILL does not offer hypervisor services... to give some perspective as to how far behind that puts them in "getting it", I worked on virtualized VM boxes on IBM 360 mainframes in school back in the mid-70s! These systems were implemented with hypervisor. Wow!)"
Same here (except I was out of school)...
What people your age, my age, and older get to witness is Microsoft and the PC world continually re-invent the wheel and calling it new. You would think they would have caught up by now, but I'm beginning to think they will never catch up because the mainframe stuff isn't standing still either, whereas some of the PC stuff has gotten so complex and poorly designed that it seems destined for a meltdown.
What I don't get is why would anyone want to run a stable, malware resistant OS with a reputation for poor user interfaces (Linux) UNDER an OS with a widely accepted user interface that is unstable, virus prone, and not know for great multitasking or multiprocessor support (Windows)? Running Windows clients under Linux VM makes a lot more sense.
But since they just bought this technology a year or two ago, maybe they are approaching the point where management is asking them what use it is.
I think though, that we are passing, or have passed, the point where Open Source advocates should be thought of as asking for any favors, with respect to dress code, or otherwise.
As a mainframe systems programmer in the 70s I, on occasion, wore pony tails and sandals to work. It was symbolic that I was important enough to the company that I could thumb my nose at any dress codes. Those days may be over (for me anyway) but that has nothing to do with Open Source.
Companies and government organizations that want to be lead around via a ring through their nose (or lower extremities) by Microsoft should feel free to do so. Microsoft is only so glad to oblige (substitute IBM, Apple, Dell, HP or your own favorite IT dinosaur). If Open Source doesn't represent a competitive advantage to companies that adopt it, then screw Open Source. Don't do us any favors please!
As to dress, I wore my hair long and wore jeans and sandals to work because it was comfortable, not because it was fashionable, and not really for the statement that it made. I wore suits when it was called for too. These days I'm sure there are many dot-net programmers dressing like pigs and still toeing the Microsoft party-line. The two issues are unrelated, and always will be.
Sometimes I think Microsoft enjoys rubing it in that they have their customers by the balls. And if you are in the PR business, bad new is better than no news about the company you represent. It keeps people hooked into the mythology that Microsoft is some great national treasure that we all have to be worried about.
I'm dubious about this number. How many millions of lines of code is Windows supposed to be now? And they are going to rewrite sixty percent of it before sometime next year? How fast can these people crank out code? This sounds like another PR stunt to me.
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't know what world you live in, but people need access to sensitive data on their laptops -- espcially if they are in an area that doesn't have internet / communications availability.
You can take precautions such as encrypting the disk -- but many people can't do their jobs without access to that information.
Before computers, people often put files in their cars, or carried pen / pencil notebooks. The requirements to have that information available away from the office haven't changed."
I know what world you live it. It is the world of video games and powerpoint presentations with cute little pie charts.
In the 60s (the 40s and 50s were before my time) we got access to sensitive data by going to the office, passing an armed guard, signing in and sometimes using several keys or typing in combinations to get into certain rooms. Yes, you could take notebooks (paper ones) and pens and pencils with you in your car. You might also take a printout or so with sensitive data from one place to another, but that was pretty rare. There were telecommunications back then and you could even get to your data over those links, which were a lot more secure than todays WiFi and dial-up.
What changed is that computers became toys, and many of the people using them now know nothing about the underlying technology other than it's easier than using an adding machine. Ninety nine percent of the problem is that the boobs entrusted with these toys didn't take even common sense precautions with the physical security of the devices. Given the mindset of such people, there is zero hope that they would know enough to take the proper electronic precautions.
I maintain that if the data is REALLY important, and that includes all the examples given above, the the proper way to use a laptop is as a dumb terminal with a highly encrypted communications link back to the actual data. Such a link can happen over the Internet, or via a satellite link. There is really no excuse for carrying such data around, in the past, now, or in the future.
"Heck, you can't hardly find a mother board these days without sound and network not built in."
I won't not fail to come back and not read this post when I don't have less time on my hands to not figure out what it doesn't say.
Or something.
"Mossberg is no different than John Dvorac and Robert Cringely: he gets paid to make noise. At the end of the day he's a journalist and doesn't understand technology."
Maybe that's all there is to it, but I generally thought Mossberg stayed within his area of competence, I.E. end-user product reviews. Maybe I haven't been reading him long enough. This is a muddled folk-lorish rant going nowhere.
For one thing there is no mention of standards, open or otherwise. Both Apple devices and PCs use many of the same standards, which is why I can plug most (or at least many) cameras into either a PC running Windows or Linux or an Apple computer running Windows, Linux or OS X and expect to see it show up as a disk drive, without having to install any special camera software at all. That is in fact a requirement I apply to most computer gadgets I buy. Anything that _requires_ me to install software from some provided CD I'll pass over for something that I can just plug in and have work. I don't mind that vendors bundle software to make their products more attractive, I just want it to be optional. I've _never_ been disappointed by buying products that say on the box: "Works with Windows, OSX, and Linux", but I know from painful experience that a device that only says "Requires x version of Windows" will not work with Apple or Linux, and there is a good chance it won't work with Windows either unless my configuration matches closely that of some developers machine somewhere. The extra effort that a vendor has to go though to conform to _actual_ standards, as opposed to "tinker with it on configuration X until it works" pays off in the short term as added stability, and in the long term as the ability to in fact continue to use the device long after the programmer has left the company or the company has gone out of business or changed product direction.
Both models that Mossberg alludes to (and I've never heard the terms he uses before, "end-to-end" vs "component" to me aren't very descriptive of anything) are only as strong as their adherance to standards makes them. Can you imagine if Apple said that they only support Apple branded USB thumb drives? Fortunately the days of modem use are comming to a close, but I've never had more trouble with a device category than the brilliantly conceived "Winmodem" which saved about 3 cents on the manufacturing side and cost people untold countless hours of futzing to get it working. I've replaced a few $10 Winmodems simply becuase the company that supplied the drivers no longer existed. Why in the world would I want what would otherwise be firmware to be implemented as an extension of the operating system, other than OS lock-in? Mossberg's terminology hides the fact that Apple does this too by using one-of-a-kind sound hardware, power control hardware, etc.
The other thing that Mossbergs article misses, is that while Apple is often the leader in totally new technologies such as Firewire and USB, they end up being the follower after the technologies take hold and most devices are being certified specifically for Windows. The switch to Intel and the de-emphasis of Firewire represents a total capitulation to the Wintel duopoly. Primary blame goes to Microsoft and Intel of course, but sycophantic journalists such as Mossberg have done little to raise awareness of the long term costs to consumers when they ignore standards completely and focus only on who has the shiniest new toy. Consumers are ultimately to blame too, as they will only get better products if they hold out for them. The willingness of so many people to just buy the first thing that comes out, or the first thing they see on the shelf has resulted in almost universal mediocrity as I'm sure buyers of the new Apple products are going to find out. Welcome Apple users to the world of "Good Enough".
ALC ...and any other A-list languages as I think of them.
Algol
Ada
I am sick-up-and-fed with Yahoo mergers and co-branding exercises. Their services are here today and gone (or drastically changed) tomorrow. I've had domains through them, pagers, faxing deals, and they all end up useless at some point. They generally do a good job at first, but then they lose interest and the service (like their e-mail) gets dreadfully slow or parts of it stop working, get transferred to some third-party company or just disappear one day without notice.
It used to be that these moves had the same sense a Google or Microsoft moving into and then taking over some new market, but these days it has the feel of desperation to it. Can't develop their own stuff, so just grab onto anything to slow the slide to irrelevance.
Five minutes before seeing this article I was in the process of transferring my last domain from them. Good riddance, almost.
Last time I was in my local Walmart there were 3 Xbox 360s just sitting there on the shelf. No line was forming to buy them, nobody was clawing at the glass display case to get one. Most of the stories I heard about scarcity were in cities like Redmond (duh!), Silicon Valley stores (duh!), and big cities LA, NY, etc. So the shortages may have been the result of bad allocation, whether intentional or not.
I think the Apple switch to Intel will, in the long run be seen as a blunder, but the reasons are more complex than which chip is better or Steve's "Product roadmap" mantra.
Cell processors are going to be all over the place before long, and maybe Apple, if they are still around might want to revisit the decision at some point in the future. The real blunder will be if they discontinue dual mode binaries in order to increase uptake of the Intel systems. I expect that to come as a big "surprise" to current Apple users sometime in 2007.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-803097827 6585778440&q=daredevil&pl=true
It was one of the first three out there, and it reminds me so much of real IE users: much ado about being incompetent and using and incompetent browser. The title says it all.
I'm guessing that someone who is "hooked on phonics" was trying to say anachronism.
"Webapps, however, are far more vulnerable: if a singe site - the one hosting the app - is offline, you'll already have the equivalent of a power blackout, despite the fact that both your own system and the rest of the internet are still functioning."
Well... except there are ways to build redundancy into applications that have that same fail-over property as power systems. While the average small business doesn't bother to implement these fail-over designs, large infrastructure companies do, or at least should, if they want to be the preferred service provider.
I expect that in the future as I am using e-mail and other applications that are on the Internet (or even housed in a small "black box" local device) that my data exists on at least two disk drives and that there are at least two processors capable of working with that data. Compare that with now, where everything is on my PC and where bumping the table at the wrong time or spilling my drink on it can have disastrous consequences unless _I_ have taken it on myself to do some sort of backup.
When you look not at what _can_ be done, but what is likely to actually happen, the more centralized services look better and better by comparison with desktop application.
"Lasers are high-tech and were a breakthrough in their time. The same with the microprocessor.
A cashier at Shop-Rite, who operates this high technology, makes $7.00/hr"
And more and more lately when I go to the grocery store people are checking themselves out without the help of a cashier. RFID devices could get us to the point where we just roll our cart up to the checkout place and are immediately presented with the bill.
Here is wisdom.
When I got out of computer science school many years ago I saw my job as (among other things) putting rooms full of people with adding machines out of work. I didn't lose any sleep over this, because I knew that this wouldn't happen over night. Most of those adding machine people would find other work, some of them would retire, some of them would die. It's very hard to make a case for doing things less efficiently when the option to do them more efficiently is before us.
This progress continued, and has continued over the years so that many other things (like running cash registers) can now be done by computers and their programs.
But a lot of regression has also taken place. Computers are used for so many things now, and some of those things are of questionable value (to me). It seems more and more that we have circled the barn and now we simply have rooms full of people with PCs on their desks instead of calculators. Furthermore, those PCs are a lot more difficult to maintain than the calculators were. The calculators were "plug and play" devices, while the computers only claim to be so.
I've worked in organizations where there were rooms full of people "repairing" PCs that no longer worked and that often meant re-installing software or vacuuming dust-bunnies out of the interior, and I think to myself "have we really made things better in the long run?"
I think of the last place I worked where there are dozens of programmers, and when you add in the QA people, documentations specialists and people that coordinate their activities, we are into the hundreds. That doesn't include those "repair" people, or the network administrators, or the guys that run cables from cubicle to cubicle, or wheel replacement PCs around on carts, nor does it include the people who go into the field to install the application (which is the farthest thing in the world from "plug and play"). And what does this incredibly complex system do? It keeps track of lists of people names and addresses and various other and sundry bits of information about them. That's it. There is no accounting aspect, or banking component, no artificial intelligence, no medical diagnosis, no space shuttle launch subsystem. Thousands of people to do dead simple stuff, that if it had to be done on bits of paper using pencils and typewriters could probably be done with fewer total resources.
While "we" in the computer industry have done a great number of things to save people time and energy we have more than made up for it in the time and energy wasting infrastructure that "we" claim is needed to accomplish it all.
The computer industry is way overdue for a re-think, or maybe it's a think that should have happened in the first place but didn't in our enthusiasm to have a computer on every flat surface on the planet. Steve Ballmer says we need a $100 PC. Bill Gates says that the computer is the network. Larry Ellison said that the PCs days are numbered, and hundreds of wealthy Open Source advocates running their own businesses agree that software should be free. So where is the disconnect between what these people say and how they make their living? Is there some mysterious "invisible hand" of technology that defeats the average user's desire for simplicity as well as the best efforts of these captains of industry? Or are they just lying to us?
My observation over the years is that hardware keeps getting better and better, by leaps and bounds, but software continues to get worse. Software has gotten bigger, slower, and harder to us
So far I haven't had any luck though:
"wget http://www.abc.com/"
I'm just getting a lot of junk, no shows so far.
I hope they get this fixed soon!
"So, is this the year of Desktop Linux?"
Don't be silly! 2002 was the year of desktop Linux. The vast majority of people are now happily using Linux on their desktop, and Microsoft is deparately trying to grab back market share with Vista. Plus, I've heard the new Apple computers will now dual boot to Linux. They have to, after all thats where all the applications are now. Windows, really is going to be relegated to controller applications for cell phones and CD players. Its days as a full-sized computer OS are numbered.
Oh... and Sony is going to buy Microsoft. I read it just today on Slashdot.
the next time some Apple fanboi tells me that the move to Intel poses no additional threat to OS X users.
Having the same instruction set on two computers sure as hell eliminates a major obstacle to spread.
Well, for anyone who actually cares I find these links interesting:
d ows_timeline/
What happened to Sun software on Intel:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=566
What the possible future might hold for the Apple - MS feud:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/05/apple_win
"Ever heard of a virus on Linux?"
Why, yes I have Jocktard:
http://www.viruslibrary.com/virusinfo/Linux.htm
OS X get some of its virus-proof nature from the fact that is was Unix (BSD) based. But there have been malware attacks against all Unix systems as far as I know. The fact that OSX ran on PowerPC hardware and had very little in common with Windows as far as operating system calls made it almost impossible (no, make that impossible) to write a program (be it a virus or an application) that could run in both environments without a recompile (or as OS X now does by gluing two different compiled version together).
But it will be a lot easier now. The instruction set being the same, all the cleaver virus writers have to do is avoid OS calls, which, for really really clever viruses is a good thing anyway. You can bet that the virus writers in trying to do this will probably scramble a few people hard drives along the way. But maybe you don't know this: the intent of many malware programs is to remain permanently undetected (as in "rootkit" a term invented primarily for Unix systems, not Windows) and the opportunities for such people just got 5% (or whatever Apple's market share is) better.
"So, while someone with your needs obviously gains little from running OS X, I think the average computer user gains a lot from OS X."
I totally agree. I still advise friends to try Apple computers (PLEASE! PLEASE! I'M so sick to death of helping them with their Windows machines!!)
But I no longer have quite the confidence in Apple (and maybe it is particularly in Steve) that I did for a while there.
The term "roadmap" gets used a lot as an explanation for why they suddenly switched to Intel. But everyone knows that Intel's roadmap has been a work of science fiction for several years. It is a marketing document, not a planning document. Like Microsoft did (and still does) for years, the idea is to scare off competition by saying "See what WE are going to be doing next year! You can't possibly keep up with us!" But AMD HAS kept up, and passed them in every area, while at the same time cutting costs.
What, in fact, Apple lacks is a road map of their own. Apple users don't have a clue what Apple might do next, which is why there are so many rumors and rumor sites about them. Just yesterday I read a long long article about why Apple hasn't penetrated the business market. The article had it all wrong in my opinion with which I can save you a lot of reading: Businesses like certainty. If they can't know everything about what you are planning they at least like to have a general idea, and with Apple that simply isn't the case.
The switch to Intel make zero sense, nada, zip, zilch, unless you start coming up (as some have) with really far-fetched notions such as Apple abandoning OS X or Hardware, or both. Besides, I think the cell based PowerPC processors that are the guts of the new Xbox and Playstation systems are fascinating. They have low power potential, multiprocessor potential, they are used in ruggedized military equipment, are the heart of some of the new supercomputers being built, and on and on. There is nothing bold and daring about the switch to Intel. Just the opposite, it is a capitulation to Windows: "We can never get the driver-writers on-board, so lets just look so much like Windows that Windows drivers will work for OS X". You can bet that's where this road is leading you, and the next step will be running Windows APs under OS X, and the next step after that is "Oh heck, Windows isn't that bad after all, lets just run Windows." Been there, done that with OS/2 and I ain't gonna go there again.
Read what Microsoft says about malware:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1945808,00.as p
Essentially: Be prepared to re-frmat and re-install as often as something sneaks through.
And I think that is what Apple users are in store for in the long run. But as long as OS X is around (I'm not making any bets) it certainly IS an easier OS to use than Windows or Linux, I'm just not so sure it will remain as stable and virus-free as it is today for every long.
With regard to your Ubuntu test, after running Debian on my iBook for a couple of years I decided to try a recent PPC version of Ubuntu as well. Since I was familiar with Debian (and Ubuntu is based on Debian) I figured I'd have no trouble with it at all. But I hated it. It WAS slow. I have no idea why. At one point I put a normal DVD in there to see if it would play it (it didn't) and the machine practically ground to a halt. It was doing disk I/O like crazy with no feedback to me about what it was doing. Long after I had removed the DVD and gone on to other things the machine was mostly useless, being preoccupied with something other than me. After only a few hours I concluded that Ubuntu wasn't doing anything for me that I didn't already have with my Debian install, so I went back to Debian where there seems to be much less mysterious behavior.
I DO expect Ubuntu to continue to improve though (I think the PPC version is relatively new) and end-user improvements made in
"Please forgive me the stupid question--I haven't used a Mac for ten years now.
But what would be the advantage of running Linux vs. the BSD-based MacOS X?
"More stable"? I thought that's what MacOS X was famous for. "Nicer interface"? Same response. "
You forgot to mention FASTER, but in my experience Linux is AT LEAST as stable and has UI advantages too. My iBook 600 Mhz G3 running Debian Linux is in many respects more responsive than my year-old Powerbook 1.5 Ghz G4 running OS X. I'm sure if I were to run a benchmark measuring raw horsepower the Powerbook would still win, but for day to day web browsing, moving files around, etc, the iBook/Linux is the champ.
I've already made up my mind that this Powerbook will be my last Apple computer (unless they change... I'd seriously consider any laptop or desktop that manages to nicely package multiple PPC Cell processors for example) and as a corollary, this current version of OS X that I have will be the last version of OS X. I suspect that future versions of OS X will start to favor the Intel chips and may be slow, buggy, or feature-lacking for the PPC systems.
I have trouble thinking of any important ways in which the OS X user interface is superior to KDE if you are the type that likes lot and lots of doo-dads, in fact in many ways KDE has more of these "cute" features and allows a much greater degree of user customization that OS X (which by design seriously limits how much the user can change). But if I prefer a stripped down GUI I can get that too with Linux, or if I want to run the thing as a server I can get rid of the GUI completely and free up gobs of memory and disk space (oh, did I mention my iBook has 256M of memory while the Powerbook has a Gig?)
Apple users used to be able to brag about the superiority of their computers which lasted for years and years while poor PC users had to be constantly upgrading their hardware to keep up with software changes or their software to keep up with hardware changes. Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. It has only been a couple years since Apple users stopped complaining about the demise of OS 9 (isn't that what it was called?) Now every few months we have to listen to weeks worth of speculation regarding whether the next machine will have Firewire ports, or Bluetooth, or can I get EVDO, not to mention, of course, which processor will be in the thing and how fast all the applications vendors (well all 4 or 5 of them anyway) will jump on the next bandwagon.
No thanks to all the buggy virus-targeted Intel hardware, and no thanks to an OS built for that hardware. I switched to Apple so I could get a Unix based OS on a non-Intel platform, and I'll switch away from Apple for the same reason. Hasta la vista Stevie!
PS: Astroturfers... start your engines.
The battery I have now is the replacement. The original was recalled by Apple, and it was they, not I, who said there was a risk of it exploding.
.mac web page isn't working. Genius.
Um, your
Well, my iBook is 4 years old, BUT had the battery replaced by Apple midway during that time, and it only holds a charge for 3-4 minutes. I guess my alternative would have been to keep the original battery and risk it exploding.
I'm glad I didn't have the urge to get one of these. They replaced the innards of my iBook last year, something like 2 years after it started acting up. I think it took a lawsuit to get them to do the right thing. Does that mean the Macbook problems are even worse? The whole time I was having trouble with the iBook their support system was telling people to replace memory, re-install the OS and a dozen other time-wasting exercises hoping that you would just give up and go away, which is in fact what I finally did.
I'll say this though, the surprise announcement that they were replacing iBooks and finally having one that worked reliably DID convince me to spring for a Powerbook G4. I think I'll just stick with it until there is independent verification (not from Apple) that these new systems are stable. Much more likely that by then I'll be tempted by a dual-core AMD from Acer etc that are already hitting the shelves.
"(As an aside, interestingly enough, I was surprised to find Microsoft's virtual server technology STILL does not offer hypervisor services... to give some perspective as to how far behind that puts them in "getting it", I worked on virtualized VM boxes on IBM 360 mainframes in school back in the mid-70s! These systems were implemented with hypervisor. Wow!)"
Same here (except I was out of school)...
What people your age, my age, and older get to witness is Microsoft and the PC world continually re-invent the wheel and calling it new. You would think they would have caught up by now, but I'm beginning to think they will never catch up because the mainframe stuff isn't standing still either, whereas some of the PC stuff has gotten so complex and poorly designed that it seems destined for a meltdown.
What I don't get is why would anyone want to run a stable, malware resistant OS with a reputation for poor user interfaces (Linux) UNDER an OS with a widely accepted user interface that is unstable, virus prone, and not know for great multitasking or multiprocessor support (Windows)? Running Windows clients under Linux VM makes a lot more sense.
But since they just bought this technology a year or two ago, maybe they are approaching the point where management is asking them what use it is.
Hey dude! Dig my new photo:
http://macbeach.googlepages.com/snap2.jpg
I think though, that we are passing, or have passed, the point where Open Source advocates should be thought of as asking for any favors, with respect to dress code, or otherwise.
As a mainframe systems programmer in the 70s I, on occasion, wore pony tails and sandals to work. It was symbolic that I was important enough to the company that I could thumb my nose at any dress codes. Those days may be over (for me anyway) but that has nothing to do with Open Source.
Companies and government organizations that want to be lead around via a ring through their nose (or lower extremities) by Microsoft should feel free to do so. Microsoft is only so glad to oblige (substitute IBM, Apple, Dell, HP or your own favorite IT dinosaur). If Open Source doesn't represent a competitive advantage to companies that adopt it, then screw Open Source. Don't do us any favors please!
As to dress, I wore my hair long and wore jeans and sandals to work because it was comfortable, not because it was fashionable, and not really for the statement that it made. I wore suits when it was called for too. These days I'm sure there are many dot-net programmers dressing like pigs and still toeing the Microsoft party-line. The two issues are unrelated, and always will be.
Sometimes I think Microsoft enjoys rubing it in that they have their customers by the balls. And if you are in the PR business, bad new is better than no news about the company you represent. It keeps people hooked into the mythology that Microsoft is some great national treasure that we all have to be worried about.
that discovered that Mars has gravity?
I'm dubious about this number. How many millions of lines of code is Windows supposed to be now? And they are going to rewrite sixty percent of it before sometime next year? How fast can these people crank out code? This sounds like another PR stunt to me.