The problem is that there are still plenty of people (and i deal with them every day) that believe they NEED windows to work. They don't understand the concept of an operating system, they actually think the need windows because they think of windows like a program.
FWIW shipping laptops (and desktops) with two or one button trackpads BTO means 1 of two things:
1) Twice as many SKUs to keep track of. Inventory control as it stands is already a hell of a job. Adding more to the mix just means less of each individual product and more tracking and work.
2) Customers unable to get what they want at the store today. Already there's enough people upset that they can't get an HDD upgrade without ordering it instead of walking into the store and picking it up. If Apple didn't want to deal with twice as many SKUs they would have to deal with that for mice/trackpads too, which means huge potential for lost sales (every hiccup is a chance for the buyer to reconsider).
It seems to me that it's just not in Apple's interests to generate so much hassle over a $5 piece of equipment that they carry in their stores already.
But should a context menu ADD functionality, or suppliment it? Should you NEED a context menu to manipulate an object on the screen or should it merely be a faster way for power users? I hate it when I can't access something from anywhere except a context menu, it's obnoxious as hell.
$500 for a new 17 inch CRT, taking apart the entire system, installing, testing etc for $500 is about what you would pay at any computer shop. And remember that Apple doesn't bill you by the hour. I mean hell, compUSA for a basic repiar starts at $100 + parts.
As far as the waranty thing, that's the computer business and every other company is the same way. You think Dell is going to repair your computer out of waranty for free or "reasonable" prices? I don't think so. If you want to go out and buy a CRT to put in your eMac, what's stopping you?
As for Apple not sellign their service parts to anyone except authorized shops, they do that for a reason. Because when it breaks, they hear about it, which means they want to be sure the people doing their repairs are doing it right.
Customers are stupid and they don't understand the concept of if you do third party stuff, the original manufacturer can't guarantee it. Do you know how many irate customers have sent nasty letters to Apple because when it turned out that their El Cheapo RAM from Korea was the cause of their problems and Apple told them they'd have to replace the RAM, they decided this was Apple's fault?
Especially with Apple, they have a name to protect, and if that means that Joe Schmoe's Computer and Strip Club can't do repairs and that the techie consumer will have to void his waranty to do his own repairs, that's a smaller price than every moron on the other end of a keyboad bitching at Apple when Joe Schmoe's joint fucks up a repair.
Last but not least, you can use any old monitor you want on any mac system. The reason she replaced the eMac monitor is because it's a physical part of the system. She could have just as easily attached an external VGA monitor, but that wouldn't look right now would it?
But the question at hand is: Is it an improvement?
Sure, flipping works nicely if your windows are nicely ordered, but what if they're scattered but still overlapping? What if I need to go down 20 windows? And is wobbling my mouse arround in a zig zag really that intuitive or convienient?
Please note I am asking these questions unable to use the demo at the moment but they're still valid questions.
Yes, though I'm not sure how it works if you have expose set to use your mouse buttons, but for my usage, click and drag X, hit expose button, move to window, drop.
It does encourage domain-squatting, and may force companies/individuals into purchasing otherwise unnecessary domain names in order to keep up with preserving the 'uniqueness' of their net identity. I would say that was a bad thing.
Only if you think a company needs (or shoud even own) all the domains with their name in it to preserve their "uniqueness". I mean, in real life we can have an Apple Computer Inc and an Apple Porn Inc without any problems at all and they can both even be refered to in the short form a Apple without any major problems.
Why then can the net not also have Apple.com and Apple.xxx? That was the intent of the.com,.org and.net TLDs anyway wasn't it? To classify the site?
And lucky for us it was defeated. But you see the lengths that Verisign will go to just to try. And no, it is not necessarily evil for them to make money. However, you'll probably agree that the motives behind sitefinder could be described as veering a little bit towards the evil side, to the detriment of the technical efficiency of the net (non-existent domain names suddenly responding to pings, confusing spam filters, etc.).
I'm not convinced it was evil. First, why does a spam filter care if a domain responds to pings or not? I mean, I personaly didn't care much for it unly because I prefer an error message to an error page, but just because that's my personal preference does not make something evil.
Off the top of my head, doesn't the entire continent of Africa have just one class A subnet for itself? How many does MIT have? What about the US DoD? (I'm afraid I don't have concrete references for the answers actually, but the allocation has been swayed against the "rest of the world")
Similarly, I can't reference anything for this, but I'm pretty sure that some ISPs in developing countries can't even afford to give their customers live IP addresses, because they don't have enough: they have to use NAT to connect all their customers!
Without any sort of reference I can't debate this point as I don't have the time currently to look this up myself. However, it seems to me that the misalocation of IP in the class A rage predates ICANN. If MIT has a lot and Africa little, it probably has more to do with the net developing that way rather than any malevolent actions on ICANN's part. Furthermore, this is a problem ICANN has been seeking to resolve with IPv6 so it's not like they're turning a blind eye to this.
So the solution to the "carry more gadgets" problem is to carry more gadgets?
This is why Apple is staying out of the PDA market. Until they can bring something useful and new to it while retaining their style, they're not going to jump in with some half assed uber sized iPod with a blue tooth module on top and a remote keypad and stylus.
If you can get Excel to scan in the barcodes from any book, dvd, game or other electronic media using ANY firewire camera, automatically pull the title, author and other basic informational attributes and organize it into an easily searchable system that allows me to check things into and out of the system (think community based NetFlix-esque groups if you need to know where that feature might come in handy), I'd like to know how.
Have a look at the apple's firmware. Have you any idea about what partition system an apple box would use (so that you can dual boot Linux) ?. They just mention that it is different - that's all.
Way back in 97, long before apple was as open about things as they are now, and back when mkLinux was still being updated, I just used the partitioner that came with the Linux disks.
Of course, if you wanted to know more about the firmware, you might first start by actually googling "open firmware" given that that's what they use.
Amazingly enough, I can right click and eject my CD ROM. I can also click the little eject button next to it, select eject from the menus, drag it to the trash, use the eject button on the keyboard, use 'drutil eject', use the disk utility program and a host of other various methods.
It would have been in the same place on the powerbook (f12 key). Also, the disk utility program could probably have ejected it, as well as the terminal command 'drutil eject'. And as you found out later, a rebot while holding down the mouse will also do a force eject.
So, it seems to me that the problem is that this Chris Pirillo idiot defines consistent, functional, and efficient user interfaces as "Ugly, Boring, & Uninspired".
No, he defined the windows interfaces to be Ugly, boring and uninspired. The macintosh interfaces you just described are exactly what he's asking for for windows.
Hence my point that the GPL is not about freedom and that it's counter to it's goals. The GPL is as evil as the copry rights and patents it seeks to eliminate.
It doesn't matter. You are resticting the people who are allowed to use your code to a select group of people who subscribe to your ideas and pay the price you ask. So yes, I can conclude it's no better than a patent. To me as a developer, GPL software is as unopen as patented software, because I am unwilling to meet either price for the code.
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The problem is that there are still plenty of people (and i deal with them every day) that believe they NEED windows to work. They don't understand the concept of an operating system, they actually think the need windows because they think of windows like a program.
FWIW shipping laptops (and desktops) with two or one button trackpads BTO means 1 of two things:
1) Twice as many SKUs to keep track of. Inventory control as it stands is already a hell of a job. Adding more to the mix just means less of each individual product and more tracking and work.
2) Customers unable to get what they want at the store today. Already there's enough people upset that they can't get an HDD upgrade without ordering it instead of walking into the store and picking it up. If Apple didn't want to deal with twice as many SKUs they would have to deal with that for mice/trackpads too, which means huge potential for lost sales (every hiccup is a chance for the buyer to reconsider).
It seems to me that it's just not in Apple's interests to generate so much hassle over a $5 piece of equipment that they carry in their stores already.
EVERYTHING will cause cancer.
SideTrack is your friend. Turn your trackpad into a 6 button mouse if you so desire.
But should a context menu ADD functionality, or suppliment it? Should you NEED a context menu to manipulate an object on the screen or should it merely be a faster way for power users? I hate it when I can't access something from anywhere except a context menu, it's obnoxious as hell.
And with a keyboard less than 2 inches from the trackpad, holding a modifier key is no work at all, and can even be done with one hand.
But for those who MUST have that second button, there is always SideTrack which allows you to turn your track pad into a 6 button mouse.
BTW, it's worth noting that a lot of people I know HATE having two buttons on a laptop because they're always mis-clicking.
$500 for a new 17 inch CRT, taking apart the entire system, installing, testing etc for $500 is about what you would pay at any computer shop. And remember that Apple doesn't bill you by the hour. I mean hell, compUSA for a basic repiar starts at $100 + parts.
As far as the waranty thing, that's the computer business and every other company is the same way. You think Dell is going to repair your computer out of waranty for free or "reasonable" prices? I don't think so. If you want to go out and buy a CRT to put in your eMac, what's stopping you?
As for Apple not sellign their service parts to anyone except authorized shops, they do that for a reason. Because when it breaks, they hear about it, which means they want to be sure the people doing their repairs are doing it right.
Customers are stupid and they don't understand the concept of if you do third party stuff, the original manufacturer can't guarantee it. Do you know how many irate customers have sent nasty letters to Apple because when it turned out that their El Cheapo RAM from Korea was the cause of their problems and Apple told them they'd have to replace the RAM, they decided this was Apple's fault?
Especially with Apple, they have a name to protect, and if that means that Joe Schmoe's Computer and Strip Club can't do repairs and that the techie consumer will have to void his waranty to do his own repairs, that's a smaller price than every moron on the other end of a keyboad bitching at Apple when Joe Schmoe's joint fucks up a repair.
Last but not least, you can use any old monitor you want on any mac system. The reason she replaced the eMac monitor is because it's a physical part of the system. She could have just as easily attached an external VGA monitor, but that wouldn't look right now would it?
But the question at hand is: Is it an improvement?
Sure, flipping works nicely if your windows are nicely ordered, but what if they're scattered but still overlapping? What if I need to go down 20 windows? And is wobbling my mouse arround in a zig zag really that intuitive or convienient?
Please note I am asking these questions unable to use the demo at the moment but they're still valid questions.
Yes, though I'm not sure how it works if you have expose set to use your mouse buttons, but for my usage, click and drag X, hit expose button, move to window, drop.
If it's jumping through hoops to deauthorize a system you're no longer useing and authorize a new system what do you call backing up files?
It does encourage domain-squatting, and may force companies/individuals into purchasing otherwise unnecessary domain names in order to keep up with preserving the 'uniqueness' of their net identity. I would say that was a bad thing.
.com, .org and .net TLDs anyway wasn't it? To classify the site?
Only if you think a company needs (or shoud even own) all the domains with their name in it to preserve their "uniqueness". I mean, in real life we can have an Apple Computer Inc and an Apple Porn Inc without any problems at all and they can both even be refered to in the short form a Apple without any major problems.
Why then can the net not also have Apple.com and Apple.xxx? That was the intent of the
And lucky for us it was defeated. But you see the lengths that Verisign will go to just to try. And no, it is not necessarily evil for them to make money. However, you'll probably agree that the motives behind sitefinder could be described as veering a little bit towards the evil side, to the detriment of the technical efficiency of the net (non-existent domain names suddenly responding to pings, confusing spam filters, etc.).
I'm not convinced it was evil. First, why does a spam filter care if a domain responds to pings or not? I mean, I personaly didn't care much for it unly because I prefer an error message to an error page, but just because that's my personal preference does not make something evil.
Off the top of my head, doesn't the entire continent of Africa have just one class A subnet for itself? How many does MIT have? What about the US DoD? (I'm afraid I don't have concrete references for the answers actually, but the allocation has been swayed against the "rest of the world")
Similarly, I can't reference anything for this, but I'm pretty sure that some ISPs in developing countries can't even afford to give their customers live IP addresses, because they don't have enough: they have to use NAT to connect all their customers!
Without any sort of reference I can't debate this point as I don't have the time currently to look this up myself. However, it seems to me that the misalocation of IP in the class A rage predates ICANN. If MIT has a lot and Africa little, it probably has more to do with the net developing that way rather than any malevolent actions on ICANN's part. Furthermore, this is a problem ICANN has been seeking to resolve with IPv6 so it's not like they're turning a blind eye to this.
Not really. Does the introduction of the money making but otherwise pointless TLDs harm the net? Is it evil for them to make money?
Last I looked sitefinder was more or less defeated, and wasn't forced on people either and again I ask is it evil for them to make money?
Can you give an example of this misallocation?
Which is exactly why Democratic Undergroud, Prison Planet and MoveOn have all been shut down and declared terrorist organizations right?
We already do, see banner ads or even worse those damn ads on places like IGN.
Do you blame them for laying plans? Their last experience with big promises for big results was motorola. IBM turned out to be almost as bad.
So the solution to the "carry more gadgets" problem is to carry more gadgets?
This is why Apple is staying out of the PDA market. Until they can bring something useful and new to it while retaining their style, they're not going to jump in with some half assed uber sized iPod with a blue tooth module on top and a remote keypad and stylus.
Screw those who want to screw others, if you want to get better performance from your software, make it yourself from scratch.
If you can get Excel to scan in the barcodes from any book, dvd, game or other electronic media using ANY firewire camera, automatically pull the title, author and other basic informational attributes and organize it into an easily searchable system that allows me to check things into and out of the system (think community based NetFlix-esque groups if you need to know where that feature might come in handy), I'd like to know how.
I am curious, do you hate 'sudo'?
Have a look at the apple's firmware. Have you any idea about what partition system an apple box would use (so that you can dual boot Linux) ?. They just mention that it is different - that's all.
Way back in 97, long before apple was as open about things as they are now, and back when mkLinux was still being updated, I just used the partitioner that came with the Linux disks.
Of course, if you wanted to know more about the firmware, you might first start by actually googling "open firmware" given that that's what they use.
Amazingly enough, I can right click and eject my CD ROM. I can also click the little eject button next to it, select eject from the menus, drag it to the trash, use the eject button on the keyboard, use 'drutil eject', use the disk utility program and a host of other various methods.
It would have been in the same place on the powerbook (f12 key). Also, the disk utility program could probably have ejected it, as well as the terminal command 'drutil eject'. And as you found out later, a rebot while holding down the mouse will also do a force eject.
So, it seems to me that the problem is that this Chris Pirillo idiot defines consistent, functional, and efficient user interfaces as "Ugly, Boring, & Uninspired".
No, he defined the windows interfaces to be Ugly, boring and uninspired. The macintosh interfaces you just described are exactly what he's asking for for windows.
Hence my point that the GPL is not about freedom and that it's counter to it's goals. The GPL is as evil as the copry rights and patents it seeks to eliminate.
It doesn't matter. You are resticting the people who are allowed to use your code to a select group of people who subscribe to your ideas and pay the price you ask. So yes, I can conclude it's no better than a patent. To me as a developer, GPL software is as unopen as patented software, because I am unwilling to meet either price for the code.