I agree with some of your concerns. Networking is a bigger hassle than it should be. Printers are mixed. Some printers just don't work well with OSX I've found. However printers on a Linux box shared to the network seem to mount easier on OSX than Windows. Of course printers on a Windows box are easiest found on Windows. But I've never found that much trouble with OSX. (Getting Linux to recognize them was much more trouble)
Regarding the firewall I have to strongly disagree. I think for a simple firewall OSX is best, followed by Windows and then Linux. Of course if you want to do more complex stuff then Linux is better. But to be honest everything you can do with Linux for a complex firewall you can do with OSX. There are even third party GUIs for it so you needn't use the terminal.
The biggest problem using an OSX firewall (which we're doing here) is passive FTP. Even if you open the FTP ports Window boxes can't FTP out for some reason. OSX can. Linux can. But Windows can't. Needless to say that's a hassle. I'd configure a more robust firewall but it's probably easier to just switch from an OSX box to a Linux box.
I have to confess I've not tried a complex firewall on Windows. I just don't trust Windows security and don't want that as the gateway to the internet. However the basic firewall seems OK.
Regarding a firewire drive, I'm not sure what you mean. I suspect you mean the limited ability to deal with NTFS disks. That's a valid concern for both Linux and OSX. Mainly due to Microsoft's control of the code. However you can read NTFS disks reasonably well. It's not perfect though. But for firewire or usb2 disks that might be needed on a Mac you really ought use Fat.
When I try to browse a Windows network I get maybe two or three Windows and Samba servers showing up. The vast majority don't. I'm not alone in that. If you've had different experiences all I can say is that you should bless your good fortune. This is a known problem of OSX.
I just converted my primary machine from Windows to Mac. I'd been using Macs again since 10.2, but with 10.4 it was finally good enough. No more virus worries, Word works if anything better on the Mac, you have all the benefits of Linux with none of the costs.
I'd tried Linux for the desktop so many times but it always was a very frustrating experience. OSX has some related problems. The fact is that SAMBA browsing of Windows networks isn't anywhere near as easy as using a Windows box. If I was on a Windows network where all the IP addresses were dynamic, I might think twice about a Mac or Linux. But once you get past the networking problems, the Mac simply is a better experience.
I wish Linux well. But configuration is simply too hard. It still feels like things are 90% done with that last 10% being too frustrating! I think many people won't mind. But for many people the effort just isn't worth it.
Don't they have the Sci Fi channel on cable up there? Or is there some dumb "Canadian Content" restriction? (Which is a laugh considering how many Sci Fi network shows are *filmed* in Canada)
Many of the Altivec programmers, however, note key features of Altivec which *aren't* available in SSE2. I've heard mixed things about whether SSE3 will solve these issues. Also (to the other poster) while one can argue that Altivec was simply "strapped on" to the G5 and not as elegant as in the G4, the fact is that the wider bus on the G5 will help programs using Altivec which often are AV programs that really can use the bus increase.
Over at ARS for about a week after the announcement there were many disgruntled Altivec specialists bemoaning the loss of Altivec. While I don't think the SSE* derivitives are as bad as many make out (at least from my limited reading) I think there is some justifiable skepticism over the issue. The main reason G5 Macs could perform many functions as fast as they did and keep up (and sometimes surpass) Intel class chips was Altivec. In general integer code G5s were always behind. (Thus the careful Photoshop bakeoffs utilizing places where Altivec shined)
Since most programs are these general integer programs I think most programs should significantly improve on the Intel systems over more or less equivalent G5s. As I said in the original comment (which many seem to have misread) it will be interesting seeing how AV programs perform on the Intel boxes. I'm getting one soon, although I'll then be under NDA and won't be able to talk about it. (We're just working out the accounting for the rental at the moment)
I think the programmer geek factor is small. At least according to today's profit call which suggested the Intel announcement has made no effect. There will be some who won't go PPC. But it sounds like the PPC MP may be coming to a PowerMac near you. For high end AV stuff that leverages Altivec that will probably for at least a year or two perform better than Intel equivalents. (May - it clearly will depend upon your work flow)
Also realize that with any new technology there will be problems. Many people never buy the 1.0 of anything, knowing there will be problems. Even come March or whenever when the initial Intel boxes are released, there will be unexpected bugs. Count on it. Further just because some programs will hit 70 - 80% with Rosetta many won't. (Most likely AV type apps) If you use those you'll want to stick PPC.
For the average person however, they buy a computer and not a CPU. All of Intel's marketing notwithstanding. There is also the halo effect of iPods. People are, from my experience buying in stores, kind of into Mac's at the moment. There will be some who will wait, but many won't.
Sounds probably like a bug in the beta Finder you have. Try using rsync at the command line. It's vastly faster than the Finder. (Which even in Tiger isn't exactly something to be proud of)
I think most of us expected the P4 to perform better for Integer like code on applications that don't effectively SMP. So that's not that surprising. I am surprised at the speed of Rosetta, although that will be a mixed bag once again depending upon the application.
What I'm really interested in is speed on stuff that really leveraged Altivec, like A/V programs. I'm curious about Quicktime 7 for instance. Now some of these programs can use some similar functions on the P4. But from what the Altivec folks were telling me some code ought differ by as much as 50%. (i.e. the PPC is twice as fast) A nice simple test is to compare programs like iMovie on both platforms.
Exactly how hard would it be to develop a Cocoa-Java bridge? If only to add extra features from Cocoa or even Carbon? I know Java can call C, so it can't be that hard, can it? Surely no worse than what went into the Cocoa-Python bridge.
SVG is all fine and good, but as others mention there is a commonly installed plugin for it. What I'd like to see is built in MathML support. Yeah it is for a smaller niche. But it would be very nice.
I actually think that if there was a DVR that could store the TV shows to something like one of those portable DVD players that are so cheap now that a lot of people would use them at the gym - especially when on the treadmill or stair climber. Typically when I work out there is nothing but crap on TV.
It seems to me that the reason you want a machine is to test for unexpected issues. Merely building your code really isn't much of an issue unless you're doing low level stuff. It's the same reason a lot of developers pay $500+ for betas of new operating systems (whether Windows or OSX) It's those unexpected things that one wants to know about.
Microsoft did announce at WWDC that there was an upcoming update of Entourage that would offer more Outlook like features. Also Novell has a Mac port of Evolution which is an Outlook clone that runs under X11.
This may be part of what you are mocking, but a lot of Intel's development tools are included with the developer's transition kit.
I had originally thought this as well. But I don't think it is so. From what I understand the Intel compilers will only be out around January. All the development tools are gcc 4.0 based. So it is more akin to the set of tools you have under Linux. I don't know if Intel will even make their tools available for free. I hope so. However IBM's xlc compiler, while available for free as a beta, cost a fair bit of money during its final release.
Speaking of legal downloads, I notice that Hymn is now gone. The website doesn't respond at all. For those of you who know,
Hymn was a program that removed the DRM from Apple's iTMS downloads. It was actually nice if you make a lot of mix CDs as you can quickly get past the limit on the DRM for the AAC files. They broke the original version of Hymn with 4.7 but I thought that a new version came out, hosted off in India. But now that doesn't work either.
It's weird, as it seems to me that anyone pirating would simply get an MP3 from some P2P network. So I didn't see Hymn as that big a threat.
OK. I love Macs. I'm terribly interested in the future of the platform. But come on. Half the Apple stories the last few months haven't been news at all. This one certainly isn't. I bring this up because I kind of worry about the Mac losing it's nice Karma due to some of the silly hyping of the platform.
I agree although there is an app that does a "click here for menu" thing like the NeXT used to have. If you map an extra mouse button to it rather than to Expose then you might enjoy it. Sorry I can't for the life of me recall the name of the app. I download it, loved it, but couldn't get it to work with my MS Intellimouse for some reason.
Open Office is a non-starter on the Mac due to it's interface (as are most competitors) MS Office is actually pretty good, and the main reason their existing iWork doesn't sell too well. Adding a spreadsheet will improve, but the fact is that all their products will need a few more revisions to compete with Office for any but the casual user. Having said that though, Page is pretty nice. I was quite impressed by it. But there are lots of things it doesn't do well yet.
That's right for floppies. There actually were some floppies for PCs that would read Mac disks. After they went to the same basic floppy then there were utilities on the PC for reading Mac disks. And, right now, there are several utilities for mounting HFS+ formatted hard drives. (Including the iPod) So the original poster is just misinformed.
I should add that the reason neither Linux nor OSX can write to NTFS disks is due to Microsoft doing what the poster claimed Apple was doing.
(I should add the caveat that I have no idea how legally all these HFS readers work. Possibly the patent just ran out. Possibly Apple doesn't care. Possibly Apple just didn't patent anything at all.)
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I agree with some of your concerns. Networking is a bigger hassle than it should be. Printers are mixed. Some printers just don't work well with OSX I've found. However printers on a Linux box shared to the network seem to mount easier on OSX than Windows. Of course printers on a Windows box are easiest found on Windows. But I've never found that much trouble with OSX. (Getting Linux to recognize them was much more trouble)
Regarding the firewall I have to strongly disagree. I think for a simple firewall OSX is best, followed by Windows and then Linux. Of course if you want to do more complex stuff then Linux is better. But to be honest everything you can do with Linux for a complex firewall you can do with OSX. There are even third party GUIs for it so you needn't use the terminal.
The biggest problem using an OSX firewall (which we're doing here) is passive FTP. Even if you open the FTP ports Window boxes can't FTP out for some reason. OSX can. Linux can. But Windows can't. Needless to say that's a hassle. I'd configure a more robust firewall but it's probably easier to just switch from an OSX box to a Linux box.
I have to confess I've not tried a complex firewall on Windows. I just don't trust Windows security and don't want that as the gateway to the internet. However the basic firewall seems OK.
Regarding a firewire drive, I'm not sure what you mean. I suspect you mean the limited ability to deal with NTFS disks. That's a valid concern for both Linux and OSX. Mainly due to Microsoft's control of the code. However you can read NTFS disks reasonably well. It's not perfect though. But for firewire or usb2 disks that might be needed on a Mac you really ought use Fat.
When I try to browse a Windows network I get maybe two or three Windows and Samba servers showing up. The vast majority don't. I'm not alone in that. If you've had different experiences all I can say is that you should bless your good fortune. This is a known problem of OSX.
I just converted my primary machine from Windows to Mac. I'd been using Macs again since 10.2, but with 10.4 it was finally good enough. No more virus worries, Word works if anything better on the Mac, you have all the benefits of Linux with none of the costs.
I'd tried Linux for the desktop so many times but it always was a very frustrating experience. OSX has some related problems. The fact is that SAMBA browsing of Windows networks isn't anywhere near as easy as using a Windows box. If I was on a Windows network where all the IP addresses were dynamic, I might think twice about a Mac or Linux. But once you get past the networking problems, the Mac simply is a better experience.
I wish Linux well. But configuration is simply too hard. It still feels like things are 90% done with that last 10% being too frustrating! I think many people won't mind. But for many people the effort just isn't worth it.
Don't they have the Sci Fi channel on cable up there? Or is there some dumb "Canadian Content" restriction? (Which is a laugh considering how many Sci Fi network shows are *filmed* in Canada)
Many of the Altivec programmers, however, note key features of Altivec which *aren't* available in SSE2. I've heard mixed things about whether SSE3 will solve these issues. Also (to the other poster) while one can argue that Altivec was simply "strapped on" to the G5 and not as elegant as in the G4, the fact is that the wider bus on the G5 will help programs using Altivec which often are AV programs that really can use the bus increase.
Over at ARS for about a week after the announcement there were many disgruntled Altivec specialists bemoaning the loss of Altivec. While I don't think the SSE* derivitives are as bad as many make out (at least from my limited reading) I think there is some justifiable skepticism over the issue. The main reason G5 Macs could perform many functions as fast as they did and keep up (and sometimes surpass) Intel class chips was Altivec. In general integer code G5s were always behind. (Thus the careful Photoshop bakeoffs utilizing places where Altivec shined)
Since most programs are these general integer programs I think most programs should significantly improve on the Intel systems over more or less equivalent G5s. As I said in the original comment (which many seem to have misread) it will be interesting seeing how AV programs perform on the Intel boxes. I'm getting one soon, although I'll then be under NDA and won't be able to talk about it. (We're just working out the accounting for the rental at the moment)
I think the programmer geek factor is small. At least according to today's profit call which suggested the Intel announcement has made no effect. There will be some who won't go PPC. But it sounds like the PPC MP may be coming to a PowerMac near you. For high end AV stuff that leverages Altivec that will probably for at least a year or two perform better than Intel equivalents. (May - it clearly will depend upon your work flow)
Also realize that with any new technology there will be problems. Many people never buy the 1.0 of anything, knowing there will be problems. Even come March or whenever when the initial Intel boxes are released, there will be unexpected bugs. Count on it. Further just because some programs will hit 70 - 80% with Rosetta many won't. (Most likely AV type apps) If you use those you'll want to stick PPC.
For the average person however, they buy a computer and not a CPU. All of Intel's marketing notwithstanding. There is also the halo effect of iPods. People are, from my experience buying in stores, kind of into Mac's at the moment. There will be some who will wait, but many won't.
Sounds probably like a bug in the beta Finder you have. Try using rsync at the command line. It's vastly faster than the Finder. (Which even in Tiger isn't exactly something to be proud of)
I think most of us expected the P4 to perform better for Integer like code on applications that don't effectively SMP. So that's not that surprising. I am surprised at the speed of Rosetta, although that will be a mixed bag once again depending upon the application.
What I'm really interested in is speed on stuff that really leveraged Altivec, like A/V programs. I'm curious about Quicktime 7 for instance. Now some of these programs can use some similar functions on the P4. But from what the Altivec folks were telling me some code ought differ by as much as 50%. (i.e. the PPC is twice as fast) A nice simple test is to compare programs like iMovie on both platforms.
Exactly how hard would it be to develop a Cocoa-Java bridge? If only to add extra features from Cocoa or even Carbon? I know Java can call C, so it can't be that hard, can it? Surely no worse than what went into the Cocoa-Python bridge.
SVG is all fine and good, but as others mention there is a commonly installed plugin for it. What I'd like to see is built in MathML support. Yeah it is for a smaller niche. But it would be very nice.
I actually think that if there was a DVR that could store the TV shows to something like one of those portable DVD players that are so cheap now that a lot of people would use them at the gym - especially when on the treadmill or stair climber. Typically when I work out there is nothing but crap on TV.
Once again no Mac version for a Google program. Come on guys. Share the love! You guys don't support OSX at all!
I just compiled KDE and it took the better part of a day on a dual G5! So big projects do take a long time to compile and link
Macs have done very well at CompUSA from what I've seen. I've bought a few there. They always seem very busy and generating a lot of interest.
It seems to me that the reason you want a machine is to test for unexpected issues. Merely building your code really isn't much of an issue unless you're doing low level stuff. It's the same reason a lot of developers pay $500+ for betas of new operating systems (whether Windows or OSX) It's those unexpected things that one wants to know about.
Microsoft did announce at WWDC that there was an upcoming update of Entourage that would offer more Outlook like features. Also Novell has a Mac port of Evolution which is an Outlook clone that runs under X11.
This may be part of what you are mocking, but a lot of Intel's development tools are included with the developer's transition kit.
I had originally thought this as well. But I don't think it is so. From what I understand the Intel compilers will only be out around January. All the development tools are gcc 4.0 based. So it is more akin to the set of tools you have under Linux. I don't know if Intel will even make their tools available for free. I hope so. However IBM's xlc compiler, while available for free as a beta, cost a fair bit of money during its final release.
Hymn was a program that removed the DRM from Apple's iTMS downloads. It was actually nice if you make a lot of mix CDs as you can quickly get past the limit on the DRM for the AAC files. They broke the original version of Hymn with 4.7 but I thought that a new version came out, hosted off in India. But now that doesn't work either.
It's weird, as it seems to me that anyone pirating would simply get an MP3 from some P2P network. So I didn't see Hymn as that big a threat.
OK. I love Macs. I'm terribly interested in the future of the platform. But come on. Half the Apple stories the last few months haven't been news at all. This one certainly isn't. I bring this up because I kind of worry about the Mac losing it's nice Karma due to some of the silly hyping of the platform.
Since MacOSX is very compatable with NeXTSTEP it should be a straightforward port.
Well except that IBM owns Lotus and thus the source code. I heard this rumor from last week that IBM isn't too happy with Apple right now...
I agree although there is an app that does a "click here for menu" thing like the NeXT used to have. If you map an extra mouse button to it rather than to Expose then you might enjoy it. Sorry I can't for the life of me recall the name of the app. I download it, loved it, but couldn't get it to work with my MS Intellimouse for some reason.
Open Office is a non-starter on the Mac due to it's interface (as are most competitors) MS Office is actually pretty good, and the main reason their existing iWork doesn't sell too well. Adding a spreadsheet will improve, but the fact is that all their products will need a few more revisions to compete with Office for any but the casual user. Having said that though, Page is pretty nice. I was quite impressed by it. But there are lots of things it doesn't do well yet.
That's right for floppies. There actually were some floppies for PCs that would read Mac disks. After they went to the same basic floppy then there were utilities on the PC for reading Mac disks. And, right now, there are several utilities for mounting HFS+ formatted hard drives. (Including the iPod) So the original poster is just misinformed.
I should add that the reason neither Linux nor OSX can write to NTFS disks is due to Microsoft doing what the poster claimed Apple was doing.
(I should add the caveat that I have no idea how legally all these HFS readers work. Possibly the patent just ran out. Possibly Apple doesn't care. Possibly Apple just didn't patent anything at all.)
I think a large number actually are leaving Utah and moving to Texas, because of prosecution here.
Just a note - Mormons don't believe the earth is 6000 years old. I think you're thinking of Evangelicals, many of whom strongly dislike Mormons.