Thanks. My apologies for overreacting a bit. Apparently what happened was that the purchasing didn't get the media kit with the system. I'd explicitly asked for Solaris 9 as I knew that came standard with Gnome and I've been frustrated at times under Solaris 7 trying to program in the past. (I truly hate CDE)
I do think that for a few CDs that $70 is overpriced. And the problem of low end systems being overpriced still stands. I think Sun would get a lot more support were they more competitive. The fact is that while servers are typically high end systems, development systems, test systems and so forth aren't. By effectively selling systems that are vastly underpowered and expensive, they do affect how businesses decide to deploy. The fact is that those other machines are budgeted in.
BTW - since you are knowledgable. Can you get the full Solaris C compiler for free or do you have to stick with gcc? On the Sun pages it appeared like you had to pay $1000 for the compiler.
Last I checked, Sun was merely losing millions, not billions.
It was nearly $300,000,000 this last quarter. It's been losing more than $100,000,000 a quarter for some time. Add it up. Before long you start talking about real money.
Look. I just got a Sun Blade 150. I guarantee Gnome is not in there nor is there an option to use it. I searched the help files and there is nothing about Gnome. This is a brand new system.
I brought up the issue of price because when I went to Sun's website it said it was free only for home users or developers otherwise I had to pay. But I said it was free in my note. I hope Solaris 10 is free. The last time I bought a Sun it wasn't free.
Actually I believe the advantage Suns brings to hardware is in a lot of thoroughput. That's partially why they can offer slow CPUs. Their main market is servers which aren't typically CPU bound as much as I/O bound. They have very nice multiprocessor systems. I was harping on them earlier, but they definitely do have their place. However they are being pressured on the low end by Linux and so forth. Their lowend offerings are primarily development workstations to get code ready for servers. But they've shot themselves in the leg to a degree there by making it somewhat unattractive to develop for them. (Yes people do it of course but it isn't always nice)
I suspect that Sun can't afford the development costs of remaining competitive with IBM, Intel and perhaps even AMD. We'll see them shifting servers to AMD more and more. (Although I'd be surprised if the SPARC disappears anytime soon) This kind of strategic alliance with AMD makes a lot of sense.
As to non Sun made AMD systems, that's an interesting question. I'd think it would be in their interests to sell or perhaps even give away Solaris 10 for AMD. That'd get people using them instead of Linux but allow them to sell their high end servers. The problem is whether other companies start selling nice workstations and servers that would cut into Sun's hardware. It seems like they are still between a rock and a hard place in certain ways.
I wonder what they will charge for the upgrade. Sun wisely made the Solaris 8 -> Solaris 9 move free for developers and home users. (They have home users?)
This was a big deal considering how overpriced their low end hardware is. I had to purchase a new workstation for a new project. We're talking almost $2000 for a 500 MHz machine. Yeah. You heard that right. And it only came with Solaris 8. (Which, for those of you who don't know, has CDE for its GUI which is basically the motif interface from more than 12 years ago largely unchanged!) I know that Apple has a huge Apple-tax. But damn, the Sun-tax makes Apple seem like they are selling Walmart prices.
Yeah, yeah. I know. They are competitive on the high end. However the expense at the low end certainly must have some effect upon what is developed for the high end. Sun is so far behind the times. Their prices are ridiculous. Their speeds embarrassing. Their software is embarrassing as well. No wonder they are losing billions.
I wouldn't mind these centers being in Indian if the people there could speak clearer English. It really isn't a location or racial thing. I get just as upset when I contact an AT&T operator who speaks with a thick southern accent which slurs words so I can't understand a damn thing they are saying.
The fact of the matter is that call support requires as a basic skill clarity of communication. If the people being hired don't have this they ought not be hired! So to me the problem is far beyond these recent experiments with India. It is a fundamental problem with the industry.
I saw an interview (I think on the Indiana Jones DVDs) which had Harrison Ford saying that he was the one who fought against Deckard being "outed" as a replicant. Apparently he and Scott had a big fight about it. That's why it is in the director's cut and not the normal cut. I kind of wish there was a version on DVD with the original cut, voice over and all. I didn't remember it being that bad. But perhaps watching it as something other than a teenager would change that. (Hell - I just saw Strange Brew and it wasn't nearly as funny as I remembered it as a kid)
The real issue isn't whether they have UI guidelines but how often people follow them. Within the Gnome developers and KDE developers there is a core that try to adhere to standards. I think that overall Gnome is doing a little better here. Rumors for their next edition suggest they've been paying a lot of attention to interface. For a long time it seemed like both Gnome and KDE were simply following the Microsoft path. By and large though I think the main Gnome apps and the main KDE apps follow standards. (We can debate the standards they chose to promote of course - just as we can for Apple and its views on brushed metal)
Overall I'd judge both Gnome and KDE as about as good as Apple in this regard, although I prefer the Apple way of doing things. I also think Apple clearly hides the guts of Unix better than either Gnome or KDE do. (Try setting up internet sharing for instance)
The problem is 3rd parties. We have the big apps like OpenOffice which in effect have their own windowing model and standards. There are a few other big apps like this. Then there are all the smaller applications. Few, in my opinion, pay much attention to UI. Part of this is the basic utilitarian and pragmatic view that Linux users have.
Compare this though to the Mac where both developers and users fixate on UI. They are vocal about their complaints and won't use applications with poor interfaces unless they have to. Further they truly dislike inconsistent interfaces. (I think that's what most of the griping about brushed metal reduces to)
Now if Linux had that mindset in their community I think Linux would be far better off. (Even including all the excesses it brings in the Mac community) The fact of the matter is that most significant users in Linux are willing to put up with a lot of crap most people won't. This is echoed in most of their tools which are anything but easy to configure - even for standard situations.
So there are two problems in my mind. A significant number of non-standard inconsistent UIs for applications and a general willingness to put up with this UI wise.
Apple's not perfect. We've all griped at various inconsistencies in Apple products. (The toolbar button in the Panther Finder along with selection color in the same are two great examples) But overall Apple hides the guts far better than any Linux distro I've used. It also requires the user to do far less. Heavens, even using package systems on Linux (or even Fink on OSX) are not trivial. Compare this to how most applications run on OSX. A lot less hassel.
As soon as some of the more minor silly patents were allowed, it was only a matter of time before broad sweeping patents were inforced. However think of it this way. When someone tries to enforce a patent this outrageous it is only a matter of time before the government steps in and rethinks things.
Patent reform is long overdue. There was an article on Slashdot a couple of weeks ago from a few government agencies suggesting reforms. But until we get our representatives to pay attention not much will happen. This isn't a democrat or republican thing. There are "bad guys" on both sides. However this really does that the potential to slow the growth of innovation especially in the tech sector.
Re:Impact for Panther/Jaguar users?
on
Darwin, Fink Updates
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· Score: 2, Informative
I don't think you can do this. Almost certainly things would break. Wait for Apple. They'll have it out shortly. (I'm actually surprised Darwin updates are coming out before the OSX update - isn't it usually the other way around?)
BTW - one place Darwin is interesting is in competition for PPC Linux. If you just have a server then you have a lot more consistency if you install Darwin rather than Linux. Further you can test a lot of things on your OSX box. Had I an old 300 MHz or slower Mac around I'd probably install Darwin/X11 on it and then control it from my OSX box. It'd make a good NAT server, file server or so forth.
One problem I have on my OSX box are various searches that run as cron tasks. (Mainly downloading episodes of 24 and Smallville) However when I start up my Mac it is slow at getting the threads prioritized properly. Thus it is about 2 minutes before it feels "normal." If I offloaded all those perl scripts to a separate box that wouldn't be an issue.
"Violating" the standard model doesn't mean as much as it might at first glance. The standard model is largely a kludge to get things to fit together. It really is purely fitting data to experiment. It doesn't have an elegant underlying math from which everything makes sense. (Which isn't to say it doesn't make predictions)
The standard model has been looked down upon for a long time, even though it is the best we have. I'd say that superstrings or loop theories might give us the long sought for GUT. However they have a very long way to go still, even if they have made more progress than I think most thought back in the 80's.
Anyway, this is very exciting. Science often makes the most progress in the years following unexpected experimental results. Look at the speed of light being an ultimate constant...
Utah is pretty high tech and is comparable to some of the cities around Silicon Valley. If you are trying to attract high tech jobs and improve the tax base this is actually a fairly good idea. Right now Utah's still in a recession, especially it's tech sector. Actually after the boom times of Novell, Word Perfect and more, things looked fairly bad. Even Micron, which built a plant here, ran into bad times and hasn't been the big boom many hoped.
However I think a lot of this is outgoing Governor Leavitt's ideal of having university classes taught over the net and moving more and more government services to the net. I wouldn't be surprised if the Utah State government sees video conferencing as an eventual possible use for all this.
Already a lot of community college courses are taught over the net but require high bandwidth connections typically.
Yeah there is a bit of the "clueless government officials" bit. Of course Utah has lots of problems with water, so perhaps this is a good way to put in a secret water tax. (lol) But I also think that land developers are disproportionately represented in local government. This could also be seen as a way (from their perspective) of getting the "pipes" into locations the cable and phone companies won't go.
I should add that Canada has been doing this for a while. The federal government has brought in the main fiber pipelines to small towns. The towns are then responsible for local connections. In part this is because Canada has a more spread out population than the US. But it really does make a very big impact on the lives of local towns in terms of having connection to information and resources.
I have to agree with this. I was having trouble with consistent uptime on comcast. While getting a phoneline hooked up the Qwest guy tried to sell me DSL. I asked about speed and a fixed IP. Sounded great - I could now host a server, which Comcast won't let you. So it arrives and what do I get but a DSL modem that has a built in non-configurable firewall and everytime the power goes out the IP # changes. Further the practical speed I get is *less* than the comcast modem.
Lots of people have successfully used the 5 GB iPod with Windows. In the Apple support thread the story linked to there were a few other people with somewhat similar problems but with 10 and 20 GB drives. (They didn't say if they were 1st gen)
I halfway wonder if this isn't some weird firewire card problem on the PC with MS' drivers.
That was fake? Damn. I thought I had an in to get to Duluth. I met every criteria except for being local to Duluth. Of course my J2EE development was pretty rusty the first 18 years. But I do remember the days trying to do it in Basic on my old Apple//c.
You didn't say what the printer model was. You might want to check out Gimp-Print which supports many printers that Apple doesn't (and gives better support to many printers that Apple does support)
As for Microsoft, while they certainly value backwards compatibility more than Apple, it isn't complete. For instance can your copy of Win98 read a NTFS formatted external firewire drive?
I don't understand. How does your old iPod not work? If you don't want it lots of other people would. I'm using an old generation iPod and still love it. In fact I much prefer it to the 3rd gen models due to the different control method.
Just because a product is "obsolete" (i.e. not cutting edge) doesn't mean it isn't useful. You can still typically do all the things you could do with it when you bought it.
are you saying Windows uses Firewire differently or a PC has a different standard of firewire than a Mac does?
Judging by other comments here I'd say that Microsoft may have a bugger set of drivers for Firewire. Not that Apple can talk. The certain firewire chipsets for FW-800 cause hard drive failures under Panther (now fixed)
All this suggests that firewire drivers may be trickier than some here have been suggesting. Perhaps there is some interaction between the MS drivers and the firewire on the early iPods that conflicts. If there is no way to flash the controller in the iPod then this is an incompatibility that can't be fixed.
However as I recall the early iPods were marketed as Mac only or PC only. So Apple may well have known about this incompatibility and this was why they marketed them in this fashion.
It would be trivial to remove using Add/Remove programs. And in this day and age of 80 GB HD standard, 30 MB isn't that big a deal. Probably equivalent to the relative program/hard drive size Netscape took off way back in the IE 2.0 days.
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I do think that for a few CDs that $70 is overpriced. And the problem of low end systems being overpriced still stands. I think Sun would get a lot more support were they more competitive. The fact is that while servers are typically high end systems, development systems, test systems and so forth aren't. By effectively selling systems that are vastly underpowered and expensive, they do affect how businesses decide to deploy. The fact is that those other machines are budgeted in.
BTW - since you are knowledgable. Can you get the full Solaris C compiler for free or do you have to stick with gcc? On the Sun pages it appeared like you had to pay $1000 for the compiler.
It was nearly $300,000,000 this last quarter. It's been losing more than $100,000,000 a quarter for some time. Add it up. Before long you start talking about real money.
I brought up the issue of price because when I went to Sun's website it said it was free only for home users or developers otherwise I had to pay. But I said it was free in my note. I hope Solaris 10 is free. The last time I bought a Sun it wasn't free.
I suspect that Sun can't afford the development costs of remaining competitive with IBM, Intel and perhaps even AMD. We'll see them shifting servers to AMD more and more. (Although I'd be surprised if the SPARC disappears anytime soon) This kind of strategic alliance with AMD makes a lot of sense.
As to non Sun made AMD systems, that's an interesting question. I'd think it would be in their interests to sell or perhaps even give away Solaris 10 for AMD. That'd get people using them instead of Linux but allow them to sell their high end servers. The problem is whether other companies start selling nice workstations and servers that would cut into Sun's hardware. It seems like they are still between a rock and a hard place in certain ways.
This was a big deal considering how overpriced their low end hardware is. I had to purchase a new workstation for a new project. We're talking almost $2000 for a 500 MHz machine. Yeah. You heard that right. And it only came with Solaris 8. (Which, for those of you who don't know, has CDE for its GUI which is basically the motif interface from more than 12 years ago largely unchanged!) I know that Apple has a huge Apple-tax. But damn, the Sun-tax makes Apple seem like they are selling Walmart prices.
Yeah, yeah. I know. They are competitive on the high end. However the expense at the low end certainly must have some effect upon what is developed for the high end. Sun is so far behind the times. Their prices are ridiculous. Their speeds embarrassing. Their software is embarrassing as well. No wonder they are losing billions.
The fact of the matter is that call support requires as a basic skill clarity of communication. If the people being hired don't have this they ought not be hired! So to me the problem is far beyond these recent experiments with India. It is a fundamental problem with the industry.
I saw an interview (I think on the Indiana Jones DVDs) which had Harrison Ford saying that he was the one who fought against Deckard being "outed" as a replicant. Apparently he and Scott had a big fight about it. That's why it is in the director's cut and not the normal cut. I kind of wish there was a version on DVD with the original cut, voice over and all. I didn't remember it being that bad. But perhaps watching it as something other than a teenager would change that. (Hell - I just saw Strange Brew and it wasn't nearly as funny as I remembered it as a kid)
I was with you until you said Soundgarden is crap. What's with you man? Putting Soundgarden and Britney Spears in the same category?!?!?
Overall I'd judge both Gnome and KDE as about as good as Apple in this regard, although I prefer the Apple way of doing things. I also think Apple clearly hides the guts of Unix better than either Gnome or KDE do. (Try setting up internet sharing for instance)
The problem is 3rd parties. We have the big apps like OpenOffice which in effect have their own windowing model and standards. There are a few other big apps like this. Then there are all the smaller applications. Few, in my opinion, pay much attention to UI. Part of this is the basic utilitarian and pragmatic view that Linux users have.
Compare this though to the Mac where both developers and users fixate on UI. They are vocal about their complaints and won't use applications with poor interfaces unless they have to. Further they truly dislike inconsistent interfaces. (I think that's what most of the griping about brushed metal reduces to)
Now if Linux had that mindset in their community I think Linux would be far better off. (Even including all the excesses it brings in the Mac community) The fact of the matter is that most significant users in Linux are willing to put up with a lot of crap most people won't. This is echoed in most of their tools which are anything but easy to configure - even for standard situations.
So there are two problems in my mind. A significant number of non-standard inconsistent UIs for applications and a general willingness to put up with this UI wise.
Apple's not perfect. We've all griped at various inconsistencies in Apple products. (The toolbar button in the Panther Finder along with selection color in the same are two great examples) But overall Apple hides the guts far better than any Linux distro I've used. It also requires the user to do far less. Heavens, even using package systems on Linux (or even Fink on OSX) are not trivial. Compare this to how most applications run on OSX. A lot less hassel.
Patent reform is long overdue. There was an article on Slashdot a couple of weeks ago from a few government agencies suggesting reforms. But until we get our representatives to pay attention not much will happen. This isn't a democrat or republican thing. There are "bad guys" on both sides. However this really does that the potential to slow the growth of innovation especially in the tech sector.
BTW - one place Darwin is interesting is in competition for PPC Linux. If you just have a server then you have a lot more consistency if you install Darwin rather than Linux. Further you can test a lot of things on your OSX box. Had I an old 300 MHz or slower Mac around I'd probably install Darwin/X11 on it and then control it from my OSX box. It'd make a good NAT server, file server or so forth.
One problem I have on my OSX box are various searches that run as cron tasks. (Mainly downloading episodes of 24 and Smallville) However when I start up my Mac it is slow at getting the threads prioritized properly. Thus it is about 2 minutes before it feels "normal." If I offloaded all those perl scripts to a separate box that wouldn't be an issue.
The standard model has been looked down upon for a long time, even though it is the best we have. I'd say that superstrings or loop theories might give us the long sought for GUT. However they have a very long way to go still, even if they have made more progress than I think most thought back in the 80's.
Anyway, this is very exciting. Science often makes the most progress in the years following unexpected experimental results. Look at the speed of light being an ultimate constant...
He should have just distributed in his wife's name claiming she wrote it. Then Apple wouldn't have had a leg to stand on...
However I think a lot of this is outgoing Governor Leavitt's ideal of having university classes taught over the net and moving more and more government services to the net. I wouldn't be surprised if the Utah State government sees video conferencing as an eventual possible use for all this.
Already a lot of community college courses are taught over the net but require high bandwidth connections typically.
Yeah there is a bit of the "clueless government officials" bit. Of course Utah has lots of problems with water, so perhaps this is a good way to put in a secret water tax. (lol) But I also think that land developers are disproportionately represented in local government. This could also be seen as a way (from their perspective) of getting the "pipes" into locations the cable and phone companies won't go.
I should add that Canada has been doing this for a while. The federal government has brought in the main fiber pipelines to small towns. The towns are then responsible for local connections. In part this is because Canada has a more spread out population than the US. But it really does make a very big impact on the lives of local towns in terms of having connection to information and resources.
I have to agree with this. I was having trouble with consistent uptime on comcast. While getting a phoneline hooked up the Qwest guy tried to sell me DSL. I asked about speed and a fixed IP. Sounded great - I could now host a server, which Comcast won't let you. So it arrives and what do I get but a DSL modem that has a built in non-configurable firewall and everytime the power goes out the IP # changes. Further the practical speed I get is *less* than the comcast modem.
Does this mean that PCs and Apple shouldn't both use PCI slots because some dumbass might plug a PC card into a Mac and get pissed off at the results?
You make my point. How could the designers of the iPod expect to make it and test it for Windows when the Windows stuff wasn't even written yet!
I halfway wonder if this isn't some weird firewire card problem on the PC with MS' drivers.
That was fake? Damn. I thought I had an in to get to Duluth. I met every criteria except for being local to Duluth. Of course my J2EE development was pretty rusty the first 18 years. But I do remember the days trying to do it in Basic on my old Apple //c.
However you can replace the batteries yourself for $49 and a screwdriver. There are numerous places that sell them.
Just that nit. Other than that I agree fully with what you say.
As for Microsoft, while they certainly value backwards compatibility more than Apple, it isn't complete. For instance can your copy of Win98 read a NTFS formatted external firewire drive?
Just because a product is "obsolete" (i.e. not cutting edge) doesn't mean it isn't useful. You can still typically do all the things you could do with it when you bought it.
Judging by other comments here I'd say that Microsoft may have a bugger set of drivers for Firewire. Not that Apple can talk. The certain firewire chipsets for FW-800 cause hard drive failures under Panther (now fixed)
All this suggests that firewire drivers may be trickier than some here have been suggesting. Perhaps there is some interaction between the MS drivers and the firewire on the early iPods that conflicts. If there is no way to flash the controller in the iPod then this is an incompatibility that can't be fixed.
However as I recall the early iPods were marketed as Mac only or PC only. So Apple may well have known about this incompatibility and this was why they marketed them in this fashion.
You spent $500 for Panther? I'm hoping you are talking about OSX Server and not the client edition. Otherwise you really got reamed bud.
It would be trivial to remove using Add/Remove programs. And in this day and age of 80 GB HD standard, 30 MB isn't that big a deal. Probably equivalent to the relative program/hard drive size Netscape took off way back in the IE 2.0 days.