In my eyes, it's easy to sympathize with both sides of the conflict. On one hand, I agree that obtaining music without paying for it just because the technology to do so is available is theft. Is it right to use a cable descrambler or coin-sized slugs to buy things from vending machines? And if the providers of cable television or of vending machines design technologies to prevent you from doing so, are they violating your rights?
On the otherhand, we see a sort of ideological war here. I'm not going to say who's right and whose wrong, but let us consider for a moment.
The music piracy came about supposedly because the prices for CDs are outrageously high, and a lot of the content is garbage. Therefore people did not believe that spending their money on the music was appropriate.
Now, people are going to consume music, no one is just going to stop using music. And some of the music is in demand and is not considered garbage. So here comes the Napster systems. Here hundreds of thousands of law abiding citizens are given the opportunity (and take the oportunity) to knowingly break the law, invest their money in online distribution and download the content which they want. In essense, the comsumers have voted with their money. They have stopped funnling money into an industry which is overcharging them and have instead funnled it into an emerging (albeit currently ilegal) industry. AND they have done this with enough force to get someone's attention. With extensive anti-piracy laws and the DMCA, the content industries are trying very hard to make it impossible for you to vote with your money. If you can't send your money to another form of content distribution except the ones that the industry approves, you have lost your ability to vote with your money.
Now let's see how this would play out with your vending machine example. Currently, consumers think that the price of candy in a vending machine is reasonable and it is not worth the effort to break the glass and steal the candy. However, if the price of candy in the machines suddenly went up to $6 a Snikers, there would be a sharp increase in the demand for metal slugs and crowbars. And the theft of candy would go up markedly. Consumers are not going to stop buying candy, they are just going to obtain it in new ways. In the consumer's eyes, it is cheaper AND and more efficient use of their resources to steal the candy (music) than it is to pay for it.
At heart we are all law abiding citizens (as proven by the fact that depite my ability to go online and download movies, I still pay $8.25 a ticket). If the industry want's to stop piracy, they need to start cutting back the price. And if that means not paying the actors and the producers as much, well, then that's what has to be done.
So then please explain the sales of iMacs and such? If the iMacs are selling as well as both Apple and other media sources claim, then theres a bit more than just 5% buying these things. And it isn't all just in the schools, a lot of schools are buying PC because it's cheaper.
I suggest you try it again, only this time, try using X.1. Yes OS X was dog slow. X.1 however made very very very noticable improvements to the point where the system was actualy usable. I alternately use both Windows, Mac OS X, Mac OSX 9 and Linux. I know how each one feels and responds, and each time, I just like going back to the mac. The computer just feels cleaner. One thing that's always bothered me about Windows is it feels clunky. Things just don't seem to be polished in windows. But I use it because I need to and because I like to play games. But most of my serious work gets done on my macs.
Anyways, excuse me for being rude, but you're dead wrong.
It's because OS-X is a 1969-era operating system (UNIX) written to run on top of an 1984 OS (MacOS) that still has its core components running on a 68000 simulator!
The UNIX underpinnings may stem from 1969, but all but the very basic parts of the code have been rewritten many times since then, for all versions of UNIX. Secondly, it is not written to run on top of the classic OS at all. It is a stand alone OS. NO OS 9 NEEDED. The only legacy from 1984 comes from interface designs. The code is all new. Classic support is an option, not a requirement. The 6800 code was phased out a while back. I have no idea where you got thatone from. And espesialy in X, there is no 6800 code at all.
Mac zealots love to say "windows is just a dos extender that runs on a 16-bit processor" but the real truth is that Mac is much,much worse.
That argument was killed with the advent of Win2K. Welcome to the year 2002, did you have a nice sleep Mr. VanWinkle?
Another reason they surf slowly is there's only one mouse button. I use my mousewheel all the time to scroll. If I only had one button, it would take longer.
If you can't live without a scroll wheel and 17 other buttons, go buy a fucking new mouse. I own a logitech, optical USB scroll twobutton mouse. Cost me $20, works natively with OS X, no drivers nessesary.
Finally, the most important reason is that most sites were optimized for Windows
The only way to optimize for windows is to use.exe and ActiveX items in your web page, very few pages use that. Most pages are optimized for a certain browser, not a cetain system.
User experience has a lot to do with how much you enjoy someplace. For example. You go out to a resaraunt. You pay much more money, you wait much longer but you get very good food and in general have good experience.
When you go to McDonalds, the food and the experience leave much to be desired, but eh speed and cost are great (comparatively). It's all in the user experience.
This is the stuff that psychologists study all the time, and I'm sure (knowing Steve Jobs has a habit of being unorthadox, for example, Apple had a Human Interface Guidlines manual for developing software) that somewhere in the vast world of Apple R&D someone asked a psychologist how much does the user experience impact a persons liking of a computer.
Apple doesn't just want you to use a computer. They want you to like it, and integrate it into your life.
While I as a mac user find Apple's tendency to over hype everything a tad annoying, but on the otherhand it's fun. There are loads of sites all over that contain rumours about the next product from apple. (www.mosr.com for example). Even here on/., when a new release is scheduled, we have a tendency to speculate wildly. And it's fun. It's all part of the experience of being a mac user. It's community. Sounds lame but it's true.
When was the last time you saw a rumor site about Dell, or Gateway, or even AMD? No one really cares about what new stuff their developing. Partly because we already know. AMD will turn out faster chips, Dell will turn out crapier machines and Gateway will market more windows boxes.
But what will apple turn out? Will the next computer from apple litteraly be a notebook type of computer (anyone remember watching inspector gadget?) Will they revisit their handheld with a Newton II? Will they make a iCorder, the newest digital camera? We all enjoy the hype of apple, even when they let us down. It's fun. We expect nothing less of apple.
but realistically speaking the only people who buy Macs are people who have always bought Macs.
Would you believe me if I told you that using my 300 mhtz iBook and OS X beta, I convinced a one time hardcore Linux on x86 junkie to consider buying a mac? Would you still believe me if I told you he is currently saving to buy a mac? Well it doesn't matter if you do or don't because he is. So your statement is very wrong. Lot's more people are buying macs, and not just long time mac users.
To start with, I will ask the same question of you I ask everyone else that bitches about OS X (by the way, if so many peole here seem to own and use macs, why do they still only have 7% of the market? I think some of you are lying!) are you using X or X.1? If you haven't yet installed X.1, do so NOW! You will notice a definate speed difference to a usable level (faster than KDE on linux in many cases).
You my friend must be doing something wrong because I put OS X.1 on my 300Mhz iBook. (192 megs of RAM) and had very little problem making it useable.
How can it be that Apple, with all its resources, is not able to come up with a faster OS than the Linux PPC distros, which have so few people and so little money supporting them?
I guess you don't recall early versions of Linux do you? Those were dog slow, you could get more done in DOS than you could in an early versionof Linux. OS X is the same way. This is a new operating system (yes it has a developed core, but the core is only part of the whole system). This means that it's going to be slow in the initial release. So why didn't Apple wait till t was fully developed efore releasing. 1) the consumers were screaming for blood, X was delayed far too much. 2) They needed to get app support. What good does it do apple to release a super fast OS but have no application support. This way, apple can produce newer and faster versions, and continue to gain application support.
one might think that a useful, quick OS that worked on even older Mac hardware would also make money but that's not the direction they chose. It's telling how they decided not to support older machines and yet within months users (presumably in their spare time) had come out with software that enabled OSX on those same unsupported machines. So it wasn't that hard--but it wasn't in Apple's interest, so they didn't do it.
Actualy, the reason that support for pre-G3 was discontinued was because of the same reason that support for the 68k processor was discontinued with 7.0. The older hardware support lags the system and wieghs it down. Ever wonder why Windows is so bloated? Cause it never eliminates support for older systems (you would all scream bloody murder if it did). Apple does want people to buy G4s. Because alot of mac users are still using very old machines. As I type this I am on a machine from 1996, originaly 180Mhtz with 16 megs of ram and a 1.5 gig HD. currently it runs OS 9.2 after only a memory upgrade, a cache and processor upgrade, and a hardrive for good measure. And I have the plans for, (and have doen with an old machine at my school) turned and old LC into a machine that can run OS 8 (havn't tried 9 yet). Admitedly, not well, but it does run it.
My point is that old support is something that has to be left to the people that want it. You can not assume that someone wants old support automaticaly. But those that do will find a way.
This to me is what the beauty of open source is all about--a focus on the software, not on the business politics.
You champion the virtues of open source and then critisize the company for not doing everythign for the consumer? Isn't part of open source the ability to make stuff run where it isn't originaly designed to run? So then why critisize a company for letting the comsumers do their own compatability fixes?
Not to be rude, but what did you expect? Even if you have the fastest Rev A iMac, that's still only what? 300 or 350 Mhtz? No kidding it's going to be slow, even a good version of Linux would be slow on that once the GUI kicked in.
Just out of curiosity. Were you using os X or X.1? X had about the same speed as the beta, which is to say, lousy. But X.1, even on my 300 Mhtz iBook had a noticable speed increase. IE only took 5-7 seconds to load, depending on what else I was doing. That still isn't great but it's better than before, and it will only get better
And, at least in Wired News tests, OS X didn't mimic 9.2's habit of locking up completely, requiring the Mac's power cord and/or battery to be removed in order to reboot it -- hardly a satisfying user experience. -as quoted from the article
Last I checked, the reset button worked just as well for desktop macs as it does for a regular PC. And for laptops, a simple control-command-power press will reboot everytime, no matter how badly crashed.
Actualy, doing both would be the best way to go. See, if the guys in the WhiteHouse don't listen to you, but congress does, something can be done about it. Wanna know why? Cause congress controls all the government's money and any offices not specificaly mentioned in the constitution.
The reason we have the CIO is cause congress passed a law creating his job and the rules of his job, and congress funneled money in his direction. If you write to congress and congress decides they don't like what the CIO is doing, they can just cut his funding or destroy his job completely.
1) To force online voting every citizen would have to have a computer and an internet connection. Either that or every district would have to have terminals available for voters.
Every district already has terminals availible for voters. How do you think you vote currently? All this would do is change the lever (hole puncher, pencil, chad maker etc etc etc) into a computer. Not much different than the current voting system.
2) An absolute secure system would need to be built. An online voting system would be priority one for most hackers.
I'm sure any system that we would trust secret government communiqués to, we can trust our vote.
3) A system for insuring that people are who they say they are would be needed. Bioinformatics would have to be involved. Otherwise what is to stop somebody from selling their votes?
Don't you see, that's what the passport would do!
Anyways, the real flaw with instituting a nationwide online voting system is that it's unconstitutional. The rules and regulations, the where, the when, the how of voting for the president is determined by each state. Theoreticaly speaking, a state could have one voting area in the middle of a land fill and the forms could be on paper, marked with crayon. The only reason it isn't like this is because that makes no sense to the state. States want their say in the government, so the more power they have voting wise, the more say they have. Hence they try to make it easier to vote.
I am about to fill out a apply for a patent on the method of applying for a patent through the US Patent Office. I shall document all the possible methods and ad in a clause to include variations on said methods. Reply to me now to be listed as a co-inventor.
Damnit! Learn to use your powerbook the correct way. You have 2 hands, and I have never come across a situation where I've had to type and click at the same time, therefore, use the one free hand to hold down the control button and the other hand to work the track pad. Exercise both hands! And if your one hand happens to be busy cause you're looking at prOn, well, then just tone down the click and hold delay.
That it doesn't say that is because apple is trying to also market OS X to the home user. By using simple everyday terms, Apple can accoplish that. They already push the reasoning skill limits of an average american with the/dev/nul.
I realize that, it's something I learned long before highschool but try explaining that to your average techno-geek who despite the fact that he can manipulate 3D matricies in his head gets less respect and attention than the towel boy on the football team. There are some really great kids out there who are ignored and rejected because they don't play a sport. Sure part of the responsibility falls on them to get out there, but after 4+ years of being rejected most of them aren't going to be to willing to try again.
That's a nice way to get modded up, but probably not so accurate. Try: Our society--particularly our highschool society--accords outgoing and friendly people (who tend to move toward social activities like sports and dating) limitless respect, and people with tremendous egos because they unlocked the secrets of programming instead of flirting almost none.
Now this is unfair. Speaking as one of these socialy dejected teenagers, I have to say that this is not an entirely accurate description (or even closely accurate). The majority of the "popular" people in my (and I can safely assume other) school are not in any sense of the word "friendly", and they are only "outgoing" if you consider being loud and obnoxious being outgoing. Now, not all are like this, but the good majority are. Many times, they "move toward social activities such as sports" simply because that is what they are good at. There is no distiction between a athetes attraction to the opposite sex and a geeks attraction, the fact of the matter is, the members of the oposite sex are more attracted to the athletes (large muscles, schoolwide respect and recognition seem to be factors). On the other hand, ask any person who has spent some time arround a geek and they will tell you that as a whole, we are more social and treat people with a much higher degree of respect. Our fatal flaw lies in not knowing how (or having the courage) to initiate in a social situation. Withing the geek social group (including artists, musicians, and techheads) people are extremely social and very willing to let outsiders in. The problem is that most schools do not provide high recognition to these departments for their accomplishments. Don't believe me, go to a highschool concert, Odessy of the Mind tournement or Art Show and compare the attendance to that of any one of the sports events. The sad truth is, High Schools do give their athletes far more attention, and by proxy, far more respect than the intelligent but non athleticaly inclined students.
Geeks do not have such super inflated egos simply because they are intelligent. They have them because they're smart, they know they're smart, but no one gives a damn. If the athletes didn't get any attention, they would be the same way (some of them are anyways, but I won't go there). The fact is we are no more or less adept at flirting, the difference arrives in the number of opportunities to exercise that skill which present themselves. Since we are given low levels of respect and status, the members of the oposite sex do not have as much interest in us, therefore the opportunities to flirt are limited.
Here in lies the irony of our existance. We are some of the most respectful, capable and socialy trained individuals in our society, yet we are the outcasts. The only way we begin to expand our social lives is to literaly force our way into friendships. Myself, the only reason I have as many friends as I do (and consequently am never at a loss for a date) is because I have literaly butted into conversations and made my presence known. It took me 3 years of highschool to figure out how to do this without being rude, obnoxious or being rejected from the conversation.
If geeks are going to gain status and popularity, they are going to need recognition from the already popular people. From day one of school, the physical strong are the ones praised most often. Perhaps it is time to change that.
Popular themes, concepts and story lines get reused. Here's a suprise, great concepts like the wise old master, the invincible hero, the hot-shot loner, the evil villan behind the mask. All of these concepts were used long before Star Wars and long before Asimov and popular s.f.. The Star Wars movies were not some sort of mythical awakening, they are entertainment. And ready for this, so was the s.f. that preceded it. And the myths and legends that preceded that, guess what that was? Entertainment. Yes ladies and gentlemen, with the exception of a few pieces, very little writing is written with anything more than a simple moral or goal in mind. No one set's out to write a world changing piece, they set out to write and make a story that get's their view and opinion across. What makes something revolutionary is when it's done well enough to appeal to enough people to make them want to follow the moral or lesson of the story.
Is why I use a mac and browse with Opera. Opera is good at keeping most funky things away (espesialy when combined with the Proximitron (PC only) which I believe is one of the best progs I've ever seen) and the mac doesn't accept, run or even recognize half of these ads and programs.
For everyone else though, I think that this definately needs to start being regulated. Unlike junk mail, TV Commercials and Bilboards, these ads and downloads waste my precious computer resources and time. And by forcing said programs on my computer they are invading my privacy. Just as no one has the right to come into your home and install microphones and cameras, companies should not have the right to come into my computer and install software.
Last I checked, if the SysAdmin was in charge of a critical system, it was his responsibility, nay, his very reason for existance, to ensure that the system was secure. Every book you ever read on UNIX or Linux that is written for SysAdmins tells you that you should be constantly monitoring your software and checking for patches and updates. If I let my software go old, it's for one of two reasons:
a) It does what it needs to do and there aren't any security flaws I'm concerned about
or
b) I don't like what was added into the new version
either way, the desicion to upgrade or not is in my hands, not the programer's and that's the way it should be.
only apple could come up with ugly case designs (Dalmation and Flower Power iMac anyone?) Here comes some one with way to much time on their hands. Great fun, but I wouldn't use it for anythign serious.
If the big corporation has your idea in hand and ready to sell before you've had the chance to market and sell, you have bigger problems than just the loss of your idea.
The problem with patenting "ideas" is that, I could have had the idea years ago, I just didn't have the resources at the time to do anything with it. If someone beats me to it and has the same idea (we are not all as individualistic as we might like to believe) and get's the product out first, I have no right to complain, I had the idea, but didn't move on it. They had the idea and did.
Patenting an actual item however is another matter. If I design a widget, and specificaly patent the object, how it's put together, how the parts work together and what the stated purpose is. And then someone else comes along and sells an exact copy, then I have a right to be upset. But even in this case, patents are fuzzy, because nessesity is the mother of invention and before the competition, I had no need to improve or modify my product to make it better. Now I do, so that competition technicaly forces me to innovate more. I think patents are nessesary for short run, but I don't think they should last as long as they do now. Think about it, if someone created a Super DVD tomorrow, that stored a terrabyte to a disc the size of a CD and then had it patented completely, the only people you would be able to buy a Super DVD from for the next 20 years would be that company or anyone that the company "licences" to.
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In my eyes, it's easy to sympathize with both sides of the conflict. On one hand, I agree that obtaining music without paying for it just because the technology to do so is available is theft. Is it right to use a cable descrambler or coin-sized slugs to buy things from vending machines? And if the providers of cable television or of vending machines design technologies to prevent you from doing so, are they violating your rights?
On the otherhand, we see a sort of ideological war here. I'm not going to say who's right and whose wrong, but let us consider for a moment.
The music piracy came about supposedly because the prices for CDs are outrageously high, and a lot of the content is garbage. Therefore people did not believe that spending their money on the music was appropriate.
Now, people are going to consume music, no one is just going to stop using music. And some of the music is in demand and is not considered garbage. So here comes the Napster systems. Here hundreds of thousands of law abiding citizens are given the opportunity (and take the oportunity) to knowingly break the law, invest their money in online distribution and download the content which they want. In essense, the comsumers have voted with their money. They have stopped funnling money into an industry which is overcharging them and have instead funnled it into an emerging (albeit currently ilegal) industry. AND they have done this with enough force to get someone's attention. With extensive anti-piracy laws and the DMCA, the content industries are trying very hard to make it impossible for you to vote with your money. If you can't send your money to another form of content distribution except the ones that the industry approves, you have lost your ability to vote with your money.
Now let's see how this would play out with your vending machine example. Currently, consumers think that the price of candy in a vending machine is reasonable and it is not worth the effort to break the glass and steal the candy. However, if the price of candy in the machines suddenly went up to $6 a Snikers, there would be a sharp increase in the demand for metal slugs and crowbars. And the theft of candy would go up markedly. Consumers are not going to stop buying candy, they are just going to obtain it in new ways. In the consumer's eyes, it is cheaper AND and more efficient use of their resources to steal the candy (music) than it is to pay for it.
At heart we are all law abiding citizens (as proven by the fact that depite my ability to go online and download movies, I still pay $8.25 a ticket). If the industry want's to stop piracy, they need to start cutting back the price. And if that means not paying the actors and the producers as much, well, then that's what has to be done.
So then please explain the sales of iMacs and such? If the iMacs are selling as well as both Apple and other media sources claim, then theres a bit more than just 5% buying these things. And it isn't all just in the schools, a lot of schools are buying PC because it's cheaper.
Honestly, this is nothing new. IBM and Apple and I think one or two other companies have been making black computers for a while now.
Believe it or not, Scott Adams is a fan of the Mac. In the early days, Dilber even used an Apple ][. Just some Dilbert trivia for you.
I suggest you try it again, only this time, try using X.1. Yes OS X was dog slow. X.1 however made very very very noticable improvements to the point where the system was actualy usable. I alternately use both Windows, Mac OS X, Mac OSX 9 and Linux. I know how each one feels and responds, and each time, I just like going back to the mac. The computer just feels cleaner. One thing that's always bothered me about Windows is it feels clunky. Things just don't seem to be polished in windows. But I use it because I need to and because I like to play games. But most of my serious work gets done on my macs.
Insightful my ass, damn moderators.
.exe and ActiveX items in your web page, very few pages use that. Most pages are optimized for a certain browser, not a cetain system.
Anyways, excuse me for being rude, but you're dead wrong.
It's because OS-X is a 1969-era operating system (UNIX) written to run on top of an 1984 OS (MacOS) that still has its core components running on a 68000 simulator!
The UNIX underpinnings may stem from 1969, but all but the very basic parts of the code have been rewritten many times since then, for all versions of UNIX. Secondly, it is not written to run on top of the classic OS at all. It is a stand alone OS. NO OS 9 NEEDED. The only legacy from 1984 comes from interface designs. The code is all new. Classic support is an option, not a requirement. The 6800 code was phased out a while back. I have no idea where you got thatone from. And espesialy in X, there is no 6800 code at all.
Mac zealots love to say "windows is just a dos extender that runs on a 16-bit processor" but the real truth is that Mac is much,much worse.
That argument was killed with the advent of Win2K. Welcome to the year 2002, did you have a nice sleep Mr. VanWinkle?
Another reason they surf slowly is there's only one mouse button. I use my mousewheel all the time to scroll. If I only had one button, it would take longer.
If you can't live without a scroll wheel and 17 other buttons, go buy a fucking new mouse. I own a logitech, optical USB scroll twobutton mouse. Cost me $20, works natively with OS X, no drivers nessesary.
Finally, the most important reason is that most sites were optimized for Windows
The only way to optimize for windows is to use
Do your homework before you spread your bull.
User experience has a lot to do with how much you enjoy someplace. For example. You go out to a resaraunt. You pay much more money, you wait much longer but you get very good food and in general have good experience.
When you go to McDonalds, the food and the experience leave much to be desired, but eh speed and cost are great (comparatively). It's all in the user experience.
This is the stuff that psychologists study all the time, and I'm sure (knowing Steve Jobs has a habit of being unorthadox, for example, Apple had a Human Interface Guidlines manual for developing software) that somewhere in the vast world of Apple R&D someone asked a psychologist how much does the user experience impact a persons liking of a computer.
Apple doesn't just want you to use a computer. They want you to like it, and integrate it into your life.
While I as a mac user find Apple's tendency to over hype everything a tad annoying, but on the otherhand it's fun. There are loads of sites all over that contain rumours about the next product from apple. (www.mosr.com for example). Even here on /., when a new release is scheduled, we have a tendency to speculate wildly. And it's fun. It's all part of the experience of being a mac user. It's community. Sounds lame but it's true.
When was the last time you saw a rumor site about Dell, or Gateway, or even AMD? No one really cares about what new stuff their developing. Partly because we already know. AMD will turn out faster chips, Dell will turn out crapier machines and Gateway will market more windows boxes.
But what will apple turn out? Will the next computer from apple litteraly be a notebook type of computer (anyone remember watching inspector gadget?) Will they revisit their handheld with a Newton II? Will they make a iCorder, the newest digital camera? We all enjoy the hype of apple, even when they let us down. It's fun. We expect nothing less of apple.
but realistically speaking the only people who buy Macs are people who have always bought Macs.
Would you believe me if I told you that using my 300 mhtz iBook and OS X beta, I convinced a one time hardcore Linux on x86 junkie to consider buying a mac? Would you still believe me if I told you he is currently saving to buy a mac? Well it doesn't matter if you do or don't because he is. So your statement is very wrong. Lot's more people are buying macs, and not just long time mac users.
To start with, I will ask the same question of you I ask everyone else that bitches about OS X (by the way, if so many peole here seem to own and use macs, why do they still only have 7% of the market? I think some of you are lying!) are you using X or X.1? If you haven't yet installed X.1, do so NOW! You will notice a definate speed difference to a usable level (faster than KDE on linux in many cases).
You my friend must be doing something wrong because I put OS X.1 on my 300Mhz iBook. (192 megs of RAM) and had very little problem making it useable.
How can it be that Apple, with all its resources, is not able to come up with a faster OS than the Linux PPC distros, which have so few people and so little money supporting them?
I guess you don't recall early versions of Linux do you? Those were dog slow, you could get more done in DOS than you could in an early versionof Linux. OS X is the same way. This is a new operating system (yes it has a developed core, but the core is only part of the whole system). This means that it's going to be slow in the initial release. So why didn't Apple wait till t was fully developed efore releasing. 1) the consumers were screaming for blood, X was delayed far too much. 2) They needed to get app support. What good does it do apple to release a super fast OS but have no application support. This way, apple can produce newer and faster versions, and continue to gain application support.
one might think that a useful, quick OS that worked on even older Mac hardware would also make money but that's not the direction they chose. It's telling how they decided not to support older machines and yet within months users (presumably in their spare time) had come out with software that enabled OSX on those same unsupported machines. So it wasn't that hard--but it wasn't in Apple's interest, so they didn't do it.
Actualy, the reason that support for pre-G3 was discontinued was because of the same reason that support for the 68k processor was discontinued with 7.0. The older hardware support lags the system and wieghs it down. Ever wonder why Windows is so bloated? Cause it never eliminates support for older systems (you would all scream bloody murder if it did). Apple does want people to buy G4s. Because alot of mac users are still using very old machines. As I type this I am on a machine from 1996, originaly 180Mhtz with 16 megs of ram and a 1.5 gig HD. currently it runs OS 9.2 after only a memory upgrade, a cache and processor upgrade, and a hardrive for good measure. And I have the plans for, (and have doen with an old machine at my school) turned and old LC into a machine that can run OS 8 (havn't tried 9 yet). Admitedly, not well, but it does run it.
My point is that old support is something that has to be left to the people that want it. You can not assume that someone wants old support automaticaly. But those that do will find a way.
This to me is what the beauty of open source is all about--a focus on the software, not on the business politics.
You champion the virtues of open source and then critisize the company for not doing everythign for the consumer? Isn't part of open source the ability to make stuff run where it isn't originaly designed to run? So then why critisize a company for letting the comsumers do their own compatability fixes?
Not to be rude, but what did you expect? Even if you have the fastest Rev A iMac, that's still only what? 300 or 350 Mhtz? No kidding it's going to be slow, even a good version of Linux would be slow on that once the GUI kicked in.
Just out of curiosity. Were you using os X or X.1? X had about the same speed as the beta, which is to say, lousy. But X.1, even on my 300 Mhtz iBook had a noticable speed increase. IE only took 5-7 seconds to load, depending on what else I was doing. That still isn't great but it's better than before, and it will only get better
And, at least in Wired News tests, OS X didn't mimic 9.2's habit of locking up completely, requiring the Mac's power cord and/or battery to be removed in order to reboot it -- hardly a satisfying user experience.
-as quoted from the article
Last I checked, the reset button worked just as well for desktop macs as it does for a regular PC. And for laptops, a simple control-command-power press will reboot everytime, no matter how badly crashed.
sarcasm is doublethink. DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD! You need to relearn your math, say it with me:
2+2=5
2+2=5
2+2=5
2+2=5
Actualy, doing both would be the best way to go. See, if the guys in the WhiteHouse don't listen to you, but congress does, something can be done about it. Wanna know why? Cause congress controls all the government's money and any offices not specificaly mentioned in the constitution.
The reason we have the CIO is cause congress passed a law creating his job and the rules of his job, and congress funneled money in his direction. If you write to congress and congress decides they don't like what the CIO is doing, they can just cut his funding or destroy his job completely.
1) To force online voting every citizen would have to have a computer and an internet connection. Either that or every district would have to have terminals available for voters.
Every district already has terminals availible for voters. How do you think you vote currently? All this would do is change the lever (hole puncher, pencil, chad maker etc etc etc) into a computer. Not much different than the current voting system.
2) An absolute secure system would need to be built. An online voting system would be priority one for most hackers.
I'm sure any system that we would trust secret government communiqués to, we can trust our vote.
3) A system for insuring that people are who they say they are would be needed. Bioinformatics would have to be involved. Otherwise what is to stop somebody from selling their votes?
Don't you see, that's what the passport would do!
Anyways, the real flaw with instituting a nationwide online voting system is that it's unconstitutional. The rules and regulations, the where, the when, the how of voting for the president is determined by each state. Theoreticaly speaking, a state could have one voting area in the middle of a land fill and the forms could be on paper, marked with crayon. The only reason it isn't like this is because that makes no sense to the state. States want their say in the government, so the more power they have voting wise, the more say they have. Hence they try to make it easier to vote.
I am about to fill out a apply for a patent on the method of applying for a patent through the US Patent Office. I shall document all the possible methods and ad in a clause to include variations on said methods. Reply to me now to be listed as a co-inventor.
Damnit! Learn to use your powerbook the correct way. You have 2 hands, and I have never come across a situation where I've had to type and click at the same time, therefore, use the one free hand to hold down the control button and the other hand to work the track pad. Exercise both hands! And if your one hand happens to be busy cause you're looking at prOn, well, then just tone down the click and hold delay.
That it doesn't say that is because apple is trying to also market OS X to the home user. By using simple everyday terms, Apple can accoplish that. They already push the reasoning skill limits of an average american with the /dev/nul.
I realize that, it's something I learned long before highschool but try explaining that to your average techno-geek who despite the fact that he can manipulate 3D matricies in his head gets less respect and attention than the towel boy on the football team. There are some really great kids out there who are ignored and rejected because they don't play a sport. Sure part of the responsibility falls on them to get out there, but after 4+ years of being rejected most of them aren't going to be to willing to try again.
That's a nice way to get modded up, but probably not so accurate. Try: Our society--particularly our highschool society--accords outgoing and friendly people (who tend to move toward social activities like sports and dating) limitless respect, and people with tremendous egos because they unlocked the secrets of programming instead of flirting almost none.
Now this is unfair. Speaking as one of these socialy dejected teenagers, I have to say that this is not an entirely accurate description (or even closely accurate). The majority of the "popular" people in my (and I can safely assume other) school are not in any sense of the word "friendly", and they are only "outgoing" if you consider being loud and obnoxious being outgoing. Now, not all are like this, but the good majority are. Many times, they "move toward social activities such as sports" simply because that is what they are good at. There is no distiction between a athetes attraction to the opposite sex and a geeks attraction, the fact of the matter is, the members of the oposite sex are more attracted to the athletes (large muscles, schoolwide respect and recognition seem to be factors). On the other hand, ask any person who has spent some time arround a geek and they will tell you that as a whole, we are more social and treat people with a much higher degree of respect. Our fatal flaw lies in not knowing how (or having the courage) to initiate in a social situation. Withing the geek social group (including artists, musicians, and techheads) people are extremely social and very willing to let outsiders in. The problem is that most schools do not provide high recognition to these departments for their accomplishments. Don't believe me, go to a highschool concert, Odessy of the Mind tournement or Art Show and compare the attendance to that of any one of the sports events. The sad truth is, High Schools do give their athletes far more attention, and by proxy, far more respect than the intelligent but non athleticaly inclined students.
Geeks do not have such super inflated egos simply because they are intelligent. They have them because they're smart, they know they're smart, but no one gives a damn. If the athletes didn't get any attention, they would be the same way (some of them are anyways, but I won't go there). The fact is we are no more or less adept at flirting, the difference arrives in the number of opportunities to exercise that skill which present themselves. Since we are given low levels of respect and status, the members of the oposite sex do not have as much interest in us, therefore the opportunities to flirt are limited.
Here in lies the irony of our existance. We are some of the most respectful, capable and socialy trained individuals in our society, yet we are the outcasts. The only way we begin to expand our social lives is to literaly force our way into friendships. Myself, the only reason I have as many friends as I do (and consequently am never at a loss for a date) is because I have literaly butted into conversations and made my presence known. It took me 3 years of highschool to figure out how to do this without being rude, obnoxious or being rejected from the conversation.
If geeks are going to gain status and popularity, they are going to need recognition from the already popular people. From day one of school, the physical strong are the ones praised most often. Perhaps it is time to change that.
Popular themes, concepts and story lines get reused. Here's a suprise, great concepts like the wise old master, the invincible hero, the hot-shot loner, the evil villan behind the mask. All of these concepts were used long before Star Wars and long before Asimov and popular s.f.. The Star Wars movies were not some sort of mythical awakening, they are entertainment. And ready for this, so was the s.f. that preceded it. And the myths and legends that preceded that, guess what that was? Entertainment. Yes ladies and gentlemen, with the exception of a few pieces, very little writing is written with anything more than a simple moral or goal in mind. No one set's out to write a world changing piece, they set out to write and make a story that get's their view and opinion across. What makes something revolutionary is when it's done well enough to appeal to enough people to make them want to follow the moral or lesson of the story.
Is why I use a mac and browse with Opera. Opera is good at keeping most funky things away (espesialy when combined with the Proximitron (PC only) which I believe is one of the best progs I've ever seen) and the mac doesn't accept, run or even recognize half of these ads and programs.
For everyone else though, I think that this definately needs to start being regulated. Unlike junk mail, TV Commercials and Bilboards, these ads and downloads waste my precious computer resources and time. And by forcing said programs on my computer they are invading my privacy. Just as no one has the right to come into your home and install microphones and cameras, companies should not have the right to come into my computer and install software.
Last I checked, if the SysAdmin was in charge of a critical system, it was his responsibility, nay, his very reason for existance, to ensure that the system was secure. Every book you ever read on UNIX or Linux that is written for SysAdmins tells you that you should be constantly monitoring your software and checking for patches and updates. If I let my software go old, it's for one of two reasons:
a) It does what it needs to do and there aren't any security flaws I'm concerned about
or
b) I don't like what was added into the new version
either way, the desicion to upgrade or not is in my hands, not the programer's and that's the way it should be.
only apple could come up with ugly case designs (Dalmation and Flower Power iMac anyone?) Here comes some one with way to much time on their hands. Great fun, but I wouldn't use it for anythign serious.
If the big corporation has your idea in hand and ready to sell before you've had the chance to market and sell, you have bigger problems than just the loss of your idea.
The problem with patenting "ideas" is that, I could have had the idea years ago, I just didn't have the resources at the time to do anything with it. If someone beats me to it and has the same idea (we are not all as individualistic as we might like to believe) and get's the product out first, I have no right to complain, I had the idea, but didn't move on it. They had the idea and did.
Patenting an actual item however is another matter. If I design a widget, and specificaly patent the object, how it's put together, how the parts work together and what the stated purpose is. And then someone else comes along and sells an exact copy, then I have a right to be upset. But even in this case, patents are fuzzy, because nessesity is the mother of invention and before the competition, I had no need to improve or modify my product to make it better. Now I do, so that competition technicaly forces me to innovate more. I think patents are nessesary for short run, but I don't think they should last as long as they do now. Think about it, if someone created a Super DVD tomorrow, that stored a terrabyte to a disc the size of a CD and then had it patented completely, the only people you would be able to buy a Super DVD from for the next 20 years would be that company or anyone that the company "licences" to.