I know all the arguments about price vs. quality and grabbing the "cool mindshare," but I can't help but wonder what would happen to Apple's sales if they strategically price some of their products.
How many more people would consider a iBook if the base model was priced at $999, instead of $1099. Isn't this the exact same marketing tactic used in those *99.99 prices anyway? I'm not saying bring down prices on everything - but at least thrown in a base model or stripped down one that it is at, or just below one of those psychological price points.
The articles mention the Tiger preview running on a couple of G3 iBooks, around 500 to 600 MHz, NOT what one would consider really powerful machines these days. The last couple paragraphs on the overview page mention that the OS and application launching felt "very snappy and responsive, even while running on a G3 processor" (they don't say it explicitly, but hint that it was on a 600 MHz iBook), and on the Safari article, they mention the increased performance of Java on a G3 500 MHz iBook vs an 867 MHz G4 Powerbook.
So for now, it looks like Apple is keeping with their trend to each successive release of their OS running FASTER than previous releases, but only when this hits the shelves and run our benchmarks for our favourite tests will we know. I, for one, will be looking forward to trying this out on my PB2K, and seeing how it does.
As much as it sucks as a gaming platform and as
a phone, the N-Gage does a lot of this stuff, and
you can probably find it quite a bit cheaper, due
to the rousing success it was NOT.
I picked up one a little while ago, and here's
what I checked and did not check:
MP3 player works fine.
FM tuner works (supposed to be able to record from this, but I did not test that when I was playing around with it, so I don't know the output format.)
MMC slot (person I bought from said it would
take up to a 512 MB card - though have not had a
chance to verify that myself personally).
MMC card shows up as a removeable drive when
attached to my powerbook.
Supposedly plays AAC - but only if you use
Nokia's software to encode/encrypt your audio
files before you put them on the phone. No thanx.
I'll wait for Helix to support AAC, and use MP3
in the meantime.
Plays 3GPP format movies. This was a NICE
bonus feature. Quicktime exports to this, and I
was able to export a 10 min movie and watch it on
the screen (with sound). The clip took all of 5MB on the MMC card. Not the greatest quality, but you can clearly see what's going on. If there's some way I can automate the capturing of TV shows and 3GPP encoding, I'd have my "TiVo to go" !!
Has built-in Bluetooth. Not verified yet as
to what N-Gage functions are accessible through
this port as my powerbook is older and does not
have bluetooth.
But still a very fun and functional device. If
I could only use it as a phone...;-)
Re:Questions for Xserve running 10.3.3 Server
on
Mac OS X 10.3.4 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There are separate releases of the 10.3.4
update for BOTH the client and server versions
of X 10.3. SoftwareUpdate should take care of
this "automagically" for you.
As for importance in a production environment,
I would guess this set of patches/updates coming
up are VERY important because of the holes in the
operating system - leaving those unpatched leaves
your entire network at risk. Best to depoly the
patches on a test machine, and once everything
checks out - deploy to all machines on the network
that need it.
I have not had any experience with the server
versions of OS X, but in my experience with the
client versions, System settings ARE preserved
(i.e. not over-written) with updates like this.
The chapter on GNUStep is also new. This is of interest to me, as I do a lot of work on Linux, but have been wanting to do some OS X coding as well. I've heard that GNUStep still has a "bit" of catching up to OS X's implementation of OpenStep. But with applications like GNUMail, maybe this isn't all hopeless, and might actually be useful.
In a pretty recent issue of Spectrum (the IEEE
"trade" mag), there was a piece on a sensor network
being used on an island off Massachusetts to study birds that
lived on an island in that region.
The sensor were about the size of golf balls,
and had sensors for info like temperature, humidity,
etc., were battery powered, and capable of creating
their own network along which they could relay
info.
Here, sounds like they're trading size for
range of functions - but that's to be expected.
Sensors, sensors, everywhere, and where does all
that info go...
No need for a complete wipe - check out an app
called
"Delocalizer" - which will remove all the additional language packs without re-installation.
I think the author of that code also posted,
or made available the "under-the-hood" code that
actually does the "heavy work" - namely, running
a recursive find for files with the language
extensions, and rm -rf'ing them.
The PowerPC architecture (born out of IBM's POWER
architecture) was developed by the AIM alliance -
Apple, IBM and Motorola. AFAIK - Apple has none
of it's own chip fabrication facilities - which is
why they were dependent on Motorola for so long.
It was only after a long stretch of Motorola's
unwillingness/inability to match the performance
increases in the x86 architecture in the PowerPC
architecture, did Apple change their focus to the
G5, now designed and made by IBM.
EBay has it as an option through which you can log on. But I've never used that option, nor any of MS's sites or services, so it's the only "other" instance I've come across...
This item was
mentioned a few weeks ago on Slashdot. I would say
at the price, compatibility, and use of standard
media cards and batteries, this is a killer for MS's
device...;-)
I may be off-topic here, but is the CPU-memory configuration used by the AMD CPUs similar to that used by the PPC 970 (a.k.a. Apple's G5)? I haven't read a whole lot of technical details on the 970,
but it did sound like it. Can anyone verify/confirm ?
As other posters have mentioned, OS X has the
software to do video capture from firewire devices.
iMovie and the other commercial packages offer a
neat set of options. For something in-between, you
can check out BTV. I've
used it on OS 8.6, 9 and 10.2.x with an ixMicro TV
capture card, an iRez PCMCIA capture card, the Dazzle DV Bridge, an XLR8 Interview capture device, and most recently with a Canopus ADVC-100. Once the
system has the drivers, BTV can capture from it.
For USB capture hardware drivers, take a look at
Echo FX. The
driver was originally for the discontinued Interview from XLR8, but the latest version seems
to have added support for a more general class of
capture devices. Also take a look at the driver
for the USB cam from IOExperts. Of the software
I've mentioned here, this is the only one I have
not used, and therefore have no experience with.
Good luck !!
The reason why I mentioned this is some of us would still like the choice of being able to experiment with 3rd party drives. I have the same model Toshiba DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive that Apple uses on its iBooks. However, when I installed it, all of the OS software claimed it was "unsupported." Seems like Apple used a different firmware version.
However, using the PatchBurn software, I was able to modify some of the system files to get the drive to be recognized by all of the system software (iTunes, Disc Copy, etc). With 10.3, if the drive is no longer supported out of the box, I am SOL, at least till someone else hacks the Disc Recording Framework. I am not asking Apple to give support for all these drives, just to let us be able to try them out for ourselves, and not close up the OS entirely.
I tried the update to 10.2.8, and all seems to be well. Thanks to Apple for keeping the older OS's secure. Now if they'd only let us use 3rd party drives with their Disc-recording software in 10.3, it would be golden !!;-)
I remember a few years ago, an Apple ad was themed "a supercomputer on your own desktop." IIRC, this was when the G4 was announced, and that value was helped by its vector unit.
At least now, the ad can (more truthfully) claim
"part of a supercomputer on your own desktop" (duck;-)
The gentlemen in question are not "medicinists." Both have backgrounds in the natural sciences, namely Physics and Chemistry.
What is cool is they received their Nobel for medicine, yet neither of their backgrounds are strictly in medicine, or even Biology. Which is why the relatively open and collaborative nature of science, and research in general, is pretty neat !!
Someone does. Take a look here. They just aren't available in the US. But if it was, rest assured, I WOULD get one myself. Only problem I saw with this was requiring Windows, and the small on-board storage for sound files, but otherwise very functional and handy.
Take your pick, there are 2 of them. One between the "northbridge" for the G5 (in this case, the "U3" chip [must be afraid of copyright infringement with "U2", like they are with "Rendezvous") and the PCI-X bridge controller, and one between the PCI-X controller and the disk controller. It's also the last item on the bullet list.
Re:beware the differences between the 1.6 & th
on
G5s Start Shipping
·
· Score: 1
Different motherboards and different arches almost completely. The 1.6 is based on the older arch, with the above limitation (4 GB RAM, PCI slots, etc) whereas the faster models (1.8 and 2x 2.0 GHz) use DDR 400 and PCI-X.
Slashdot Mirror
I know all the arguments about price vs. quality and grabbing the "cool mindshare," but I can't help but wonder what would happen to Apple's sales if they strategically price some of their products.
How many more people would consider a iBook if the base model was priced at $999, instead of $1099. Isn't this the exact same marketing tactic used in those *99.99 prices anyway? I'm not saying bring down prices on everything - but at least thrown in a base model or stripped down one that it is at, or just below one of those psychological price points.
The articles mention the Tiger preview running on a couple of G3 iBooks, around 500 to 600 MHz, NOT what one would consider really powerful machines these days. The last couple paragraphs on the overview page mention that the OS and application launching felt "very snappy and responsive, even while running on a G3 processor" (they don't say it explicitly, but hint that it was on a 600 MHz iBook), and on the Safari article, they mention the increased performance of Java on a G3 500 MHz iBook vs an 867 MHz G4 Powerbook.
So for now, it looks like Apple is keeping with their trend to each successive release of their OS running FASTER than previous releases, but only when this hits the shelves and run our benchmarks for our favourite tests will we know. I, for one, will be looking forward to trying this out on my PB2K, and seeing how it does.
As much as it sucks as a gaming platform and as a phone, the N-Gage does a lot of this stuff, and you can probably find it quite a bit cheaper, due to the rousing success it was NOT.
I picked up one a little while ago, and here's what I checked and did not check:
But still a very fun and functional device. If I could only use it as a phone ... ;-)
There are separate releases of the 10.3.4 update for BOTH the client and server versions of X 10.3. SoftwareUpdate should take care of this "automagically" for you.
As for importance in a production environment, I would guess this set of patches/updates coming up are VERY important because of the holes in the operating system - leaving those unpatched leaves your entire network at risk. Best to depoly the patches on a test machine, and once everything checks out - deploy to all machines on the network that need it.
I have not had any experience with the server versions of OS X, but in my experience with the client versions, System settings ARE preserved (i.e. not over-written) with updates like this.
HTH
The chapter on GNUStep is also new. This is of interest to me, as I do a lot of work on Linux, but have been wanting to do some OS X coding as well. I've heard that GNUStep still has a "bit" of catching up to OS X's implementation of OpenStep. But with applications like GNUMail, maybe this isn't all hopeless, and might actually be useful.
But before that, I believe it was said by none other than Winston Churchill.
Then you'd really want to check this out. Not sure if it does ALL you want, but it certainly enhances the present mac laptop trackpads.
Enjoy !!
In a pretty recent issue of Spectrum (the IEEE "trade" mag), there was a piece on a sensor network being used on an island off Massachusetts to study birds that lived on an island in that region.
The sensor were about the size of golf balls, and had sensors for info like temperature, humidity, etc., were battery powered, and capable of creating their own network along which they could relay info.
Here, sounds like they're trading size for range of functions - but that's to be expected. Sensors, sensors, everywhere, and where does all that info go ...
Well, maybe this IS/WAS a test/stunt by MS after all to show how "secure" and safe Mac OS X is.
Now excuse me while I go find my tinfoil hat!!
No need for a complete wipe - check out an app called "Delocalizer" - which will remove all the additional language packs without re-installation.
I think the author of that code also posted, or made available the "under-the-hood" code that actually does the "heavy work" - namely, running a recursive find for files with the language extensions, and rm -rf'ing them.
The PowerPC architecture (born out of IBM's POWER architecture) was developed by the AIM alliance - Apple, IBM and Motorola. AFAIK - Apple has none of it's own chip fabrication facilities - which is why they were dependent on Motorola for so long.
It was only after a long stretch of Motorola's unwillingness/inability to match the performance increases in the x86 architecture in the PowerPC architecture, did Apple change their focus to the G5, now designed and made by IBM.
You CAN run Mac OS (X) in a virtual machine session under Linux - look into a project called MOL (Mac on Linux).
The only drawback is that it works only on PowerPC based hardware, but I wasn't sure if this was a possibility for you or not. Cheers
EBay has it as an option through which you can log on. But I've never used that option, nor any of MS's sites or services, so it's the only "other" instance I've come across ...
This item was mentioned a few weeks ago on Slashdot. I would say at the price, compatibility, and use of standard media cards and batteries, this is a killer for MS's device... ;-)
I may be off-topic here, but is the CPU-memory configuration used by the AMD CPUs similar to that used by the PPC 970 (a.k.a. Apple's G5)? I haven't read a whole lot of technical details on the 970, but it did sound like it. Can anyone verify/confirm ?
As other posters have mentioned, OS X has the software to do video capture from firewire devices. iMovie and the other commercial packages offer a neat set of options. For something in-between, you can check out BTV. I've used it on OS 8.6, 9 and 10.2.x with an ixMicro TV capture card, an iRez PCMCIA capture card, the Dazzle DV Bridge, an XLR8 Interview capture device, and most recently with a Canopus ADVC-100. Once the system has the drivers, BTV can capture from it.
For USB capture hardware drivers, take a look at Echo FX. The driver was originally for the discontinued Interview from XLR8, but the latest version seems to have added support for a more general class of capture devices. Also take a look at the driver for the USB cam from IOExperts. Of the software I've mentioned here, this is the only one I have not used, and therefore have no experience with. Good luck !!The reason why I mentioned this is some of us would still like the choice of being able to experiment with 3rd party drives. I have the same model Toshiba DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive that Apple uses on its iBooks. However, when I installed it, all of the OS software claimed it was "unsupported." Seems like Apple used a different firmware version.
However, using the PatchBurn software, I was able to modify some of the system files to get the drive to be recognized by all of the system software (iTunes, Disc Copy, etc). With 10.3, if the drive is no longer supported out of the box, I am SOL, at least till someone else hacks the Disc Recording Framework. I am not asking Apple to give support for all these drives, just to let us be able to try them out for ourselves, and not close up the OS entirely.
I tried the update to 10.2.8, and all seems to be well. Thanks to Apple for keeping the older OS's secure. Now if they'd only let us use 3rd party drives with their Disc-recording software in 10.3, it would be golden !! ;-)
So do you think there will be a change in policy ;-)
after the new Top 500 list comes out in about 2
weeks ?
I remember a few years ago, an Apple ad was themed "a supercomputer on your own desktop." IIRC, this was when the G4 was announced, and that value was helped by its vector unit.
At least now, the ad can (more truthfully) claim "part of a supercomputer on your own desktop" (duck ;-)
The gentlemen in question are not "medicinists." Both have backgrounds in the natural sciences, namely Physics and Chemistry.
What is cool is they received their Nobel for medicine, yet neither of their backgrounds are strictly in medicine, or even Biology. Which is why the relatively open and collaborative nature of science, and research in general, is pretty neat !!
They might be onto something here.
Someone does. Take a look here. They just aren't available in the US. But if it was, rest assured, I WOULD get one myself. Only problem I saw with this was requiring Windows, and the small on-board storage for sound files, but otherwise very functional and handy.
Take your pick, there are 2 of them. One between the "northbridge" for the G5 (in this case, the "U3" chip [must be afraid of copyright infringement with "U2", like they are with "Rendezvous") and the PCI-X bridge controller, and one between the PCI-X controller and the disk controller. It's also the last item on the bullet list.
Different motherboards and different arches almost completely. The 1.6 is based on the older arch, with the above limitation (4 GB RAM, PCI slots, etc) whereas the faster models (1.8 and 2x 2.0 GHz) use DDR 400 and PCI-X.
Take a look here.