Strange. I have Google Voice, tethering, and VOIP running on my iPhone. Oh yea, I spent the 2 minutes to jailbreak it. Works fine. No problems. Even commercial applications on the Cydia app store.
I had the same thing happen when I was brought in as the new IT guy. It almost certainly had been done by the fired IT guy though. And it wasn't two weeks worth but over a month with extra backups from before that destroyed. Fortunately we had paper copies and had to re-enter all the data.
So my first week in was this disaster and about six months of 14 hour days.
Apple has a version of Helvetica called Helvetica rather than Apple Helvetica or some other name. This means that it conflicts with the versions of Helvetica that most design shops use with all the side glyphs and so forth. It pissed off a lot of people even though I believe it's not that hard to replace Apple's Helvetica with Adobe's.
I'm skeptical that Grand Central will help as many applications as some suggest. But it's anything but vaporware. It's on the 10.6 developer edition given out at WWDC and there were sessions on it.
Not being behind the NDA I have no clue exactly how Grand Central functions or what kinds of processes it'll improve. But those who have seen it seem reasonably impressed. Even if mum about the details.
I'd say the new Finder in 10.5 was more than worth the upgrade. There was plenty under the hood like Core Animation as well that many applications are using. Then there were more minor but still significant upgrades like Spaces and the improved UI to Spotlight. So I don't think Leopard was primarily about "the shiny new" despite the changes to the dock. (Which annoyed more people than it impressed I think)
I noticed that 10.5 seemingly has more stability problems than previous versions of OSX since 10.1. Is it unfair?
I don't know if it is unfair but it sure is incorrect. Did you use the Finder from 10.0 through 10.3? It got slightly more stable with 10.4 but it was only 10.5 that a network outage didn't take down most of the Finder.
OSX wasn't even usable until 10.2 and not really preferable until 10.3. (IMO)
Now I will say that 10.5.2 was the first point update that I thought caused tons of problems. I ended up having to reinstall Leopard from scratch and then apply the updates. I haven't had to do that since the old XP SP1 days.
Pros: establishes Apple as THE platform for photographers and designers by removing the Windows competition.
If Apple tried to do that, Microsoft would remove OS X support from Office, so that's a no-go for Apple anyway.
Realistically this is far less of a problem right now. For business a lot of people run Office 2007 under VMWare or Parallels anyway, since not everything translates well. The new version of Office for the Mac drops VBA so it's not an option for a lot of people in business anymore. Also Apple has iWork. Admittedly it's not perfect - especially Numbers. But Pages probably does 90% of what Word does which is more than enough for most people. Numbers still has a ways to go, but is more powerful in terms of layout. And Keynote is much better than PowerPoint. Compatibility, even with Pages, isn't perfect. But it's probably good enough for 80%. And honestly that remaining 20% will have problems with MacOffice anyway.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating Apple buy Adobe. (I don't think Adobe would want a merger anyway) But the Microsoft issue isn't quite what it was 2 or 3 years ago.
I know that interface is often a subjective thing. But am I the only one who finds iTunes fantastic compared to other media players? I've used the main Windows and Linux media players (and most of the non-iTunes players for OSX). I don't like them. I love iTunes. And I love the integrated store. Yes, if you don't use it then I can see calling it "bloat." But considering how many do use it I've never understood the "bloatware" mentality. Obviously it's a subjective thing, but it does everything I want. Especially for podcasts.
No they don't. In real cities, people don't need cars at all (I don't know for sure whether Montreal is a real city, but from what I hear, it's not too bad).
Yeah, I was going to put that new MacPro and 30" Monitor on my bike and bike the 5 miles to the outskirts of town. But then I figured I could single handedly carry it to the subway with all the crowds with less effort. Then I realized people making comments like this were either clueless or were rich enough to have servants to do their dirty work...
It's so-so. You have to put up a Python script on your server. There's a public one out there that you can use for 10 minutes but you're obviously better off hosting it on your server.
I can't speak to the Mac Pro issue. I'd read about that all over the place so it didn't seem "hidden" to me. But then I read sites like Ars, Slashdot and a few major Apple blogs fairly regularly. So I'm probably not the "typical" case. I never believe sales droids anywhere and personally am surprised anyone would.
Having said that though, I've not found Parallels buggy in the least. It is a memory hog. Really, less than 2 GB is too little for anything serious.
As for Adobe, that's been written about EVERYWHERE so often that I have a hard time believing that you couldn't find anything on that. Did you do any searching for benchmarks?
Hmm. Too bad iTMS (or whatever it is called now) doesn't carry all these foreign TV shows. Now that would be something I might download. (Trying to download via Bit Torrent these days just isn't worth it - it pisses off ones ISP plus half the time it doesn't work) I wonder why Channel 4 or even the BBC doesn't have more stuff on the American iTMS store.
The big problem with Parallels is that it is very RAM hungry. Seriously I have 1.5 GB and the virtual memory swapping when I click on parallels is simply amazing. Anything less than 2 GB is painful. So running Windows and expecting to painlessless switch between windows is a bit of a pipe dream. Don't get me wrong. I love it - it lets me run my Quickbooks and Visual Studio without booting into Boot Camp. But seamless it is not.
While I personally prefer the OSX version of Word the fact is that Windows Word is faster and both Word and Excel macros don't work well with the Mac versions (and are actually be dropped in the forthcoming native version - although to be fair also on the 64bit Windows version. If you are running some custom Excel spreadsheet with lots of macros you may find it runs under Wine but not under OSX Excel.
There's not a description for any of those. Just because something has the words OSX doesn't imply it is an OSX virus. I'm not saying there aren't OSX viruses (although I strongly doubt it). However outside of a rather contrived trojan horse I've not seen any evidence for anything.
"Folks in the developing world know full well that western folk see normal hours as 35-40"
OK, let's be honest here. How many western workers do you know who actually work less than 40 hours? I'm trying to remember the last time I worked only 40 hours. And I've had plenty of weeks where I've worked 80. I'd bet that the average for Slashdot readers is well above 40. At least 45. And that's not including travel time.
However Office for the Mac is not the same as Office for Windows. Some things simply don't work on the Mac version. Some things are slower. (I don't know how Wine does speakwise - so I don't know if that'll be a factor) So if you need absolute compatibility and don't want to run it under parallels, then Wine would be a nice choice. Minus what I understand to be problems of cutting and pasting anything other than text.
The other problem is that open source software can end up with corrupted data as well. And most open source formats are either undocumented or amazingly poorly documented. Even having the documentation is no guarantee you can easily recover your data. The thing to do is to have a good backup strategy.
Arguments for Linux on the basis of being able to recompile your software to fix bugs or access formats always come up against the fact that actually doing this is tremendously hard. Yet advocates bring it forth as if it were a selling point because of some hypothetical situation.
Don't get me wrong. Use Linux if you hate Windows or OSX. And I can sympathize with those who don't like iTunes or iPhoto. But don't pretend it's for much beyond aesthetics. Heavens, there are things about OSX I hate. But I hate using Gnome more and find the software I use works better on OSX than Linux or Windows (outside of Visual Studio which I still find the best development environment)
I think the problem I have is that most of their comments are basically along the lines of "it's not opensource." I'll be the first to admit that there are some big problems on OSX. But having dealt with various upgrade hell of Linux systems at times I do think that all platforms have their weaknesses. And frankly Linux isn't for the faint of heart although it gets better each year. But I frankly think the "no DRM and no closed source" arguments are terribly weak. Yeah, if it's a major political issue go for it. But I kind of look at people making those arguments akin to the "organic food *only*" folks. It's less about an effective system than it is some political point that frankly most people don't give a damn about.
That's not to knock those who think it important. Just that calling this a major trend is . . . a bit much.
Slashdot Mirror
It's useful to birds too given conservation efforts tied to orinthology.
Strange. I have Google Voice, tethering, and VOIP running on my iPhone. Oh yea, I spent the 2 minutes to jailbreak it. Works fine. No problems. Even commercial applications on the Cydia app store.
I had the same thing happen when I was brought in as the new IT guy. It almost certainly had been done by the fired IT guy though. And it wasn't two weeks worth but over a month with extra backups from before that destroyed. Fortunately we had paper copies and had to re-enter all the data. So my first week in was this disaster and about six months of 14 hour days.
Apple has a version of Helvetica called Helvetica rather than Apple Helvetica or some other name. This means that it conflicts with the versions of Helvetica that most design shops use with all the side glyphs and so forth. It pissed off a lot of people even though I believe it's not that hard to replace Apple's Helvetica with Adobe's.
I'm skeptical that Grand Central will help as many applications as some suggest. But it's anything but vaporware. It's on the 10.6 developer edition given out at WWDC and there were sessions on it.
Not being behind the NDA I have no clue exactly how Grand Central functions or what kinds of processes it'll improve. But those who have seen it seem reasonably impressed. Even if mum about the details.
I'd say the new Finder in 10.5 was more than worth the upgrade. There was plenty under the hood like Core Animation as well that many applications are using. Then there were more minor but still significant upgrades like Spaces and the improved UI to Spotlight. So I don't think Leopard was primarily about "the shiny new" despite the changes to the dock. (Which annoyed more people than it impressed I think)
I noticed that 10.5 seemingly has more stability problems than previous versions of OSX since 10.1. Is it unfair?
I don't know if it is unfair but it sure is incorrect. Did you use the Finder from 10.0 through 10.3? It got slightly more stable with 10.4 but it was only 10.5 that a network outage didn't take down most of the Finder.
OSX wasn't even usable until 10.2 and not really preferable until 10.3. (IMO)
Now I will say that 10.5.2 was the first point update that I thought caused tons of problems. I ended up having to reinstall Leopard from scratch and then apply the updates. I haven't had to do that since the old XP SP1 days.
Where did you read that Obj-C is as slow as Python?
It seems odd to be discussing Obj-C and Java and then give a benchmark comparing Java and Python.
Realistically this is far less of a problem right now. For business a lot of people run Office 2007 under VMWare or Parallels anyway, since not everything translates well. The new version of Office for the Mac drops VBA so it's not an option for a lot of people in business anymore. Also Apple has iWork. Admittedly it's not perfect - especially Numbers. But Pages probably does 90% of what Word does which is more than enough for most people. Numbers still has a ways to go, but is more powerful in terms of layout. And Keynote is much better than PowerPoint. Compatibility, even with Pages, isn't perfect. But it's probably good enough for 80%. And honestly that remaining 20% will have problems with MacOffice anyway.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating Apple buy Adobe. (I don't think Adobe would want a merger anyway) But the Microsoft issue isn't quite what it was 2 or 3 years ago.
I know that interface is often a subjective thing. But am I the only one who finds iTunes fantastic compared to other media players? I've used the main Windows and Linux media players (and most of the non-iTunes players for OSX). I don't like them. I love iTunes. And I love the integrated store. Yes, if you don't use it then I can see calling it "bloat." But considering how many do use it I've never understood the "bloatware" mentality. Obviously it's a subjective thing, but it does everything I want. Especially for podcasts.
No they don't. In real cities, people don't need cars at all (I don't know for sure whether Montreal is a real city, but from what I hear, it's not too bad).
Yeah, I was going to put that new MacPro and 30" Monitor on my bike and bike the 5 miles to the outskirts of town. But then I figured I could single handedly carry it to the subway with all the crowds with less effort. Then I realized people making comments like this were either clueless or were rich enough to have servants to do their dirty work...
It's so-so. You have to put up a Python script on your server. There's a public one out there that you can use for 10 minutes but you're obviously better off hosting it on your server.
I can't speak to the Mac Pro issue. I'd read about that all over the place so it didn't seem "hidden" to me. But then I read sites like Ars, Slashdot and a few major Apple blogs fairly regularly. So I'm probably not the "typical" case. I never believe sales droids anywhere and personally am surprised anyone would. Having said that though, I've not found Parallels buggy in the least. It is a memory hog. Really, less than 2 GB is too little for anything serious. As for Adobe, that's been written about EVERYWHERE so often that I have a hard time believing that you couldn't find anything on that. Did you do any searching for benchmarks?
Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium
So does this mean that I can't run them under Parallels or VMWare on a Mac? That would really piss me off.
Hmm. Too bad iTMS (or whatever it is called now) doesn't carry all these foreign TV shows. Now that would be something I might download. (Trying to download via Bit Torrent these days just isn't worth it - it pisses off ones ISP plus half the time it doesn't work) I wonder why Channel 4 or even the BBC doesn't have more stuff on the American iTMS store.
How well does it work with Satellite or Cable HDTV content?
The big problem with Parallels is that it is very RAM hungry. Seriously I have 1.5 GB and the virtual memory swapping when I click on parallels is simply amazing. Anything less than 2 GB is painful. So running Windows and expecting to painlessless switch between windows is a bit of a pipe dream. Don't get me wrong. I love it - it lets me run my Quickbooks and Visual Studio without booting into Boot Camp. But seamless it is not.
While I personally prefer the OSX version of Word the fact is that Windows Word is faster and both Word and Excel macros don't work well with the Mac versions (and are actually be dropped in the forthcoming native version - although to be fair also on the 64bit Windows version. If you are running some custom Excel spreadsheet with lots of macros you may find it runs under Wine but not under OSX Excel.
iTunes now I'll grant you.
You're already wrong.
There's not a description for any of those. Just because something has the words OSX doesn't imply it is an OSX virus. I'm not saying there aren't OSX viruses (although I strongly doubt it). However outside of a rather contrived trojan horse I've not seen any evidence for anything.
If you're under a gag order, there's a decent possibility that the gag order forbids you to talk about the gag order.
The first rule of fight club is . . .
Oh, ok. I know it's cliche...
"Folks in the developing world know full well that western folk see normal hours as 35-40"
OK, let's be honest here. How many western workers do you know who actually work less than 40 hours? I'm trying to remember the last time I worked only 40 hours. And I've had plenty of weeks where I've worked 80. I'd bet that the average for Slashdot readers is well above 40. At least 45. And that's not including travel time.
I think it could happen only if it was working on the iPod. I've done this more times than I care to admit and never had problems.
However Office for the Mac is not the same as Office for Windows. Some things simply don't work on the Mac version. Some things are slower. (I don't know how Wine does speakwise - so I don't know if that'll be a factor) So if you need absolute compatibility and don't want to run it under parallels, then Wine would be a nice choice. Minus what I understand to be problems of cutting and pasting anything other than text.
The other problem is that open source software can end up with corrupted data as well. And most open source formats are either undocumented or amazingly poorly documented. Even having the documentation is no guarantee you can easily recover your data. The thing to do is to have a good backup strategy.
Arguments for Linux on the basis of being able to recompile your software to fix bugs or access formats always come up against the fact that actually doing this is tremendously hard. Yet advocates bring it forth as if it were a selling point because of some hypothetical situation.
Don't get me wrong. Use Linux if you hate Windows or OSX. And I can sympathize with those who don't like iTunes or iPhoto. But don't pretend it's for much beyond aesthetics. Heavens, there are things about OSX I hate. But I hate using Gnome more and find the software I use works better on OSX than Linux or Windows (outside of Visual Studio which I still find the best development environment)
I think the problem I have is that most of their comments are basically along the lines of "it's not opensource." I'll be the first to admit that there are some big problems on OSX. But having dealt with various upgrade hell of Linux systems at times I do think that all platforms have their weaknesses. And frankly Linux isn't for the faint of heart although it gets better each year. But I frankly think the "no DRM and no closed source" arguments are terribly weak. Yeah, if it's a major political issue go for it. But I kind of look at people making those arguments akin to the "organic food *only*" folks. It's less about an effective system than it is some political point that frankly most people don't give a damn about. That's not to knock those who think it important. Just that calling this a major trend is . . . a bit much.