"[If my country had an opposing viewpoint] would I want American proprietary software running my government?"
If the 'proprietary' software was developed by an 'independent' commercial organisation, I couldn't care less.
If the software was directly funded by the American government, then I might have a problem.
In fact, whether my country had an opposing viewpoint or not, there would be legitimate concerns about using an OS directly funded by a foreign government.
"Oh no, the government paid for some research into an AIDS cure! That's taking away valuable dollars from some Big Corporation somewhere for sure. They paid for a study in how to avoid terrorism? Some company could have done that study."
Different scenarios - so a government pays for research into curing a disease. Governments (in essence) have a duty of care - funding such research is part of that. And it certainly isn't taking money away from a corporation - far from it... that coroporation *can't* (generally) make money out of research until the research is complete and a cure / product is developed. Without government funding they may never get to that stage - but once they are, they can still manufacturer and sell the cure, even if the government funded it.
As for study into terrorism - the government would almost certainly pay an organisation to do that study. So the organisation is making their money. If the government didn't pay them, who would pay to conduct such a study? Noone - so the study wouldn't happen, and the organisation wouldn't make any money.
"Maybe, is it a better use of public money to improve on a free system, or to pay license fees for a commercial system."
Define 'free'. Remember, these governments are talking about creating a system *based* on Linux. MacOS X is *based* of FreeBSD - that doesn't make it free or open.
Would you want to use a government funded OS that was based on open source software, but was essentially closed source? So the government dictates what you can and can't do, gets to spy on all your communications, etc...
Or, maybe more immediately relevant - what if everyone in Asia was only able to use this government developed Linux-derivative. Not Linux, but a Linux-derivative. So nobody in Asia would be able to contribute to making Linux better... or indeed many other open source projects... (or even bring commercial apps to the world market)... where is the freedom and innovation there?
I'm not saying here that Microsoft play fair themselves, but they do have a point...
Should governments (ANY government) directly fund the development of an OS? (Or for that matter, any application that will compete with commercial providers).
Linux is a good OS, but it is too 'technical' for most users, which is a large reason why it isn't more widely adopted, even though it is 'free'. So MS can still shift large numbers of software.
And whilst there is a lot of progress in the open source arena, this situation is going to continue without large amounts of funding.
Funds coming from commercial organisations still has to be paid for by commercial activities - there is no guaranteed cash flow. Governments are different - there income is (more or less) guaranteed, and therefore so is the funding (give or take a change in government / policy).
There are also a whole load of conflicts of interest. Will the governments 'ban' the use of Windows? Introduce large import duties? Whilst Microsoft dominates the market, and can therefore exert a large influence over it, they can't stop the competition from improving, and force people to use their software. Governments (can) control the market.
Of course Asian countries should have the same freedom to innovate as everyone else... if this was a commercial led initiative, MS would really be acting like two year olds... as a government initiative, there are legitimate concerns...
It all rather depends on where you cache the permissions!
The obvious way of doing it is to tie the permissions to the user account on the machine, in much the same way (although preferably more securely;-) as passwords, etc. are stored for each user.
So, if you log in to your computer using account XXX, and authenticate to open a document, you can continue to open that document logged in as that user... log in as another user, and it will reqire authentication.
Do you think it is better or worse to have commercial software running a network check to look for 'pirate' copies, or to unwittingly buy counterfieted software, that has been cracked to remove the copy protection, and because it has been modified by a party completely outside of the 'reputable' software organisation, could have any virus, malicious code, etc. inserted into it as well?
OK, it could be a route for worms, but when there are far more obvious and 'open' routes available on 'all' systems, why would you target a particular application? And such risk would be greatly reduced by having a proper network policy in place anyway (ie. a firewall).
No, it doesn't address key generators or blocking the network check... but, does it really matter?
How much does it cost to develop activation code? How much does it cost to run the servers? How much does it cost to have support staff to deal specifically with the extra queries that activation codes will bring? How much does it cost to deal with people that have got cracked versions, and are experiencing problems because of that (remember, this started with a comment about people not knowing that what they were buying was counterfiet, and even refusing to support someone still has a cost associated to it)?
There are a lot of costs associated to 'advanced' anti-piracy measures... yet the simpler solutions are perfectly adequate for (and in some cases, actually more effective at) dealing with 'casual' pirating, and businesses that install more copies than they have licenses for - and those two things constitute a large portion of the 'problem'...
Yes, simple when you have an internet connection. Simple when someone hasn't passed on your serial number before selling the item to you. Simple when your system doesn't corrupt and you have to re-install. Simple when you purchase your OEM OS with the computer, and the installation is tied to the BIOS only.
Just because you - or others you personally know - hasn't had any issues with it, doesn't mean it isn't a major headache for others.
Activation on 'third party' software has more potential issues that the OS itself. What happens when you have to do a system restore? What happens when you purchase a new computer?
Yes, shareware vendors sell you a license key that depends on your name - all rather irrelevant when you type it in, you just need to ensure you enter the same thing! As for PC config, I have never seen *shareware* that snapshots your PC config...
The problem of people cracking and selling a product needs to be solved at the point of sale - not at a later stage...
If someone buys it thinking it is real, and then installs it and it isn't effective, what are they going to do? Waste a lot of time talking to support? Decide they won't buy anything else from that manufacturer? Tell everyone else about their experience and convince them not to buy?
Why does a simple activation system make things harder? Well, define simple... does Windows XP have a simple activation system? How simple is it when you add some memory, and your OS won't play nice until you phone up and tell MS what you've done?
Also, don't assume that this only applies to the virus scanner. Think they won't apply it to their other software in the next round of updates? Although, if we are talking about virus software specifically, then the solution is far easier... we're talking about a support contract for updating the virus software, right? So give the software away for free, and *ONLY* charge for the updates - you purchase contract renewals directly from them anyway, so just purchase the original contract direct as well - guarantees the income, and doesn't subject users to unnecessary rituals...
"its not exactly dominant in the home or business world, why teach kids on it?"
Dominance in the home market is largely irrelevant - people get to choose what they have in their home (although I can understand why a parent may want a child to use their current computer rather than purchase a new one).
As for dominance in business, there are many arguments for and against. Yes, an employer may prefer you to have direct experience of the software / platform they use. But you spend somewhere in the region of ten years being educated. 10 years ago I was using Dos / WFW3.11 etc. Now we're using Windows XP / Office XP... I had learnt BASIC at school, C in my first job, C++ in my second, and I'm now doing Java... things change - what you start off learning you almost certainly won't be (that) relevant by the time you finish your education, what you learn at the end will be out of date fairly quickly...
So what is important? That the schools spend a significant IT budget on keeping up with the latest business trends? Or that they learn the fundamental skills that will be useful regardless of future developments? That the children have the right tools that allow them to efficiently learn languages, maths, etc.? That the total cost of ownership doesn't suck funds away from all the other things that are needed?
There are *far* more important concerns to teaching children than the exact applications / OS that businesses are currently using. Besides, are we teaching these kids to be corporate secrateries, or to be any number of things? Would you rather your child was an employee, or an employer?
Native support for games on Mac isn't *that* bad...
I can't think of any *major* titles that aren't (or won't be) available on the Mac... of course, some do take a little longer than others to arrive...
For everything else, there's Xbox, Gamecube, PS2... where appropriate, I would rather play games on a console - too much sodding about with drivers on PCs (how many haven't been in the position where one driver works with one game, but breaks another, and vice versa...)
There is a very important reason for announcing a 3Ghz processor for next year...
The G4 used to be very impressive compared to PCs of the time - but it's been around for far too long, with limited speed bumps...
Announcing a 3Ghz model is letting people know that there is a roadmap in place for ramping up the performance...
People want to know that there is a future... with many Mac owners and quite a few potential 'switchers' staying away from the dual G4s as they are past their sell by date, announcing a roadmap for G5 development - and not just new machines themselves - may well see an increase in current Mac sales...
*If* OS X ran on x86, the you probably would NOT have to repurchase your Windows software...
There is one single good reason why WINE doesn't work on OS X - there is no x86 chip... as soon as you put an x86 processor under the hood, there is a good chance that WINE would (me made to) work on OS X...
Who says they have to own a computer or have an internet connection personally?
They may be able to use a friends connection, or have access from work / college / etc...
I think it is fair to say that music can be unrealistically expensive - I've seen albums that I can get on the internet for half the price a store like HMV will sell it for... (and I'm talking about 'same country' sources here - not imports)
"how everyone in your house with a computer has to buy their own copy of a song/album if your computer isn't on/connected/available?"
What about how everyone in your house has to buy the CD if you are listening to it at the same time? It's easy enough to solve the computer issue - store them on a 'server' that is always left on...
"which computers are authorized to play a certain song, how many times a song has been burned"
There have to be reasonable limits... as I understand it, there are no restrictions on the number of times you can burn a song - just the *way* you burn it... what isn't clear, is if there are restrictions on streaming via Rendezvous - that would be fair... three machines that are allowed to download the music (maybe server at home, laptop, and work machine), and ability to stream to any other via Rendezvous - so that any machine in your house can *play* that music...
"the fact that most independent and rare music is not available"
The service has to start somewhere... it can't cover everything to begin with.. but giving people the *content* they want is a different argument to giving it to them the *way* they want it...
Personally, I would rather have high-quality 'lossless' physical media, than good quality 'lossy' compressed download - but that is just me... what would be great, is if every CD/SACD came with a 'gift voucher' to get free access to the download version...
Yes, it did specifically mention (a) thermal grease, which if used would void the warranty.
But whilst it mentioned that using a HSF other than that supplied might void your warranty, as I understand it, it says that it would *if* used to overclock the processor.
If that is correct, then it might be better to have not said anything about HSFs, as it appears to cause confusion - overclocking your processor will void your warranty, stock HSF or not.
As for the thermal grease, I can partly understand where they come from - why should they 'allow' you to use a grease that can damage the processor if applied incorrectly? Any damage that would cause is your responsibility, not theirs.
However, they do have their argument a little back to front. They don't want us to use high-performance components, because it allows for overclocking? But it can only allow for overclocking, by improving cooling efficiency - something that would *benefit* the life of the CPU, even when run at stock speed... particularly in a heatwave!
Yes, supporting larger and more complex setups will mean higher costs... but who said anything about *supporting* such a setup?
If the ISP says that they support only PCs, only certain flavours of Windows, only machines connected directly to the cable modem, fine...
If the ISP says that you can't run servers - or at least run servers that are 'public knowledge' - fine...
If the ISP says that there is a bandwidth limit and you might get chucked off if you exceed that - well, it's not what I pay for (I'm not a 'heavy' user, but there are times when I need to download a large chunk of data in a short space of time, or run the odd VPN connection on the rare occassion that I can't get into the office, and I want to be able to do that without recriminations - but otherwise, fine...
But beyond that, what business is it of the ISP how you set up your machines at home?
Having a couple of machines connected through a gateway doesn't automatically mean that you will exceed a bandwidth limit defined by your ISP... and as long as you don't, what's the problem?
Saying that they expect 'average' users not to approach those limits is *not* a defence... if the ISP sets a bandwidth limit, they are effectively making a contract to provision for that amount of bandwidth being available...
And *supporting* such setups is a non-issue... you don't... anyone has a problem, and a 'complex' network, you tell them to sod off...
It seems bizarre that people defend the activity of ISPs in trying to enforce this on the basis of cost... what about the cost of putting systems in place to sniff out home networks? What about the cost of following up detected cases? What about the loss of income from all the people you chuck of the service, so that you are suddenly left with an over provisioned network for the remaining users?
Seems to me, that it would cost far less for an ISP to lay out the terms under which they provide customer support, and refuse to support people that fall outside of those terms... for an ISP to (possibly) define the amount of bandwidth they expect people to use / agree to make available, and monitor overall bandwidth usage (as they would have to do in all cases), clamping down on people that persistently overuse their connections... but, beyond that, stop harrassing and p*****g off their customers that don't need the support, and in every *practical* sense are well behaved broadband citizens, who may just happen to have a home network...
Actually, this isn't much different to the situation under Windows...
If you browse to an FTP site in IE, it displays as a collection of files and folders, just like any other Explorer window browsing your local hard drives... and that's because it *is* the same as any other Explorer window...
The big difference is the level of integration in Windows, so that the FTP folders appear within the same window.
That Finder handles the FTP browsing is not a big issue - an FTP site is basically just a remote file system... yes, there may be bugs in Finder's handling of FTP sites, but what application doesn't have bugs? Fixing any bugs would be more beneficial than making Safari handling FTP...
What's more important is the way the hand off takes place... last time I tried to access an FTP site via Safari, it mounted the remote file system in Finder and placed an icon on the desktop - and that's it... if you don't realise that is what happens, and don't see the icon appear, you think that Safari / the FTP site is broken...
It's essential that mounting an FTP site is more visible - ie. open a window displaying the contents of the site above all other windows...
I tried a similar config on Monarch - I came out just short of $3,000 with a similar config... and that isn't quite the same config as the Apple either - specifically, the Apple has Gigabit ethernet, and Firewire 800... if you are talking about heavy video work, both of those could be important!
And from what I saw of the config, the machine would probably kick out quite a bit more noise than the Apple - again another factor that could be significant.
The other thing to remember is that you can pay a significant premium ordering certain options as part of your build - for example, if you select the dual 1.25, and boost the memory to 2GB, they want $875 - when you can easily get the DIMMs yourself for less than half that... configuring the same machine that you selected, with only 512MB DRAM, and buying 3 512MB DIMMs (about $240), will save you about $600 on the Apple price.
So, if you did get a bit more intelligent about the Apple, up the specs on the PC to bring the fan noise down, and possibly even add the Gigabit ethernet, suddenly the two prices are looking a *lot* closer.
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"[If my country had an opposing viewpoint] would I want American proprietary software running my government?"
If the 'proprietary' software was developed by an 'independent' commercial organisation, I couldn't care less.
If the software was directly funded by the American government, then I might have a problem.
In fact, whether my country had an opposing viewpoint or not, there would be legitimate concerns about using an OS directly funded by a foreign government.
"Oh no, the government paid for some research into an AIDS cure! That's taking away valuable dollars from some Big Corporation somewhere for sure. They paid for a study in how to avoid terrorism? Some company could have done that study."
Different scenarios - so a government pays for research into curing a disease. Governments (in essence) have a duty of care - funding such research is part of that. And it certainly isn't taking money away from a corporation - far from it... that coroporation *can't* (generally) make money out of research until the research is complete and a cure / product is developed. Without government funding they may never get to that stage - but once they are, they can still manufacturer and sell the cure, even if the government funded it.
As for study into terrorism - the government would almost certainly pay an organisation to do that study. So the organisation is making their money. If the government didn't pay them, who would pay to conduct such a study? Noone - so the study wouldn't happen, and the organisation wouldn't make any money.
"Maybe, is it a better use of public money to improve on a free system, or to pay license fees for a commercial system."
Define 'free'. Remember, these governments are talking about creating a system *based* on Linux. MacOS X is *based* of FreeBSD - that doesn't make it free or open.
Would you want to use a government funded OS that was based on open source software, but was essentially closed source? So the government dictates what you can and can't do, gets to spy on all your communications, etc...
Or, maybe more immediately relevant - what if everyone in Asia was only able to use this government developed Linux-derivative. Not Linux, but a Linux-derivative. So nobody in Asia would be able to contribute to making Linux better... or indeed many other open source projects... (or even bring commercial apps to the world market)... where is the freedom and innovation there?
I'm not saying here that Microsoft play fair themselves, but they do have a point...
Should governments (ANY government) directly fund the development of an OS? (Or for that matter, any application that will compete with commercial providers).
Linux is a good OS, but it is too 'technical' for most users, which is a large reason why it isn't more widely adopted, even though it is 'free'. So MS can still shift large numbers of software.
And whilst there is a lot of progress in the open source arena, this situation is going to continue without large amounts of funding.
Funds coming from commercial organisations still has to be paid for by commercial activities - there is no guaranteed cash flow. Governments are different - there income is (more or less) guaranteed, and therefore so is the funding (give or take a change in government / policy).
There are also a whole load of conflicts of interest. Will the governments 'ban' the use of Windows? Introduce large import duties? Whilst Microsoft dominates the market, and can therefore exert a large influence over it, they can't stop the competition from improving, and force people to use their software. Governments (can) control the market.
Of course Asian countries should have the same freedom to innovate as everyone else... if this was a commercial led initiative, MS would really be acting like two year olds... as a government initiative, there are legitimate concerns...
It all rather depends on where you cache the permissions!
;-) as passwords, etc. are stored for each user.
The obvious way of doing it is to tie the permissions to the user account on the machine, in much the same way (although preferably more securely
So, if you log in to your computer using account XXX, and authenticate to open a document, you can continue to open that document logged in as that user... log in as another user, and it will reqire authentication.
Do you think it is better or worse to have commercial software running a network check to look for 'pirate' copies, or to unwittingly buy counterfieted software, that has been cracked to remove the copy protection, and because it has been modified by a party completely outside of the 'reputable' software organisation, could have any virus, malicious code, etc. inserted into it as well?
OK, it could be a route for worms, but when there are far more obvious and 'open' routes available on 'all' systems, why would you target a particular application? And such risk would be greatly reduced by having a proper network policy in place anyway (ie. a firewall).
No, it doesn't address key generators or blocking the network check... but, does it really matter?
How much does it cost to develop activation code? How much does it cost to run the servers? How much does it cost to have support staff to deal specifically with the extra queries that activation codes will bring? How much does it cost to deal with people that have got cracked versions, and are experiencing problems because of that (remember, this started with a comment about people not knowing that what they were buying was counterfiet, and even refusing to support someone still has a cost associated to it)?
There are a lot of costs associated to 'advanced' anti-piracy measures... yet the simpler solutions are perfectly adequate for (and in some cases, actually more effective at) dealing with 'casual' pirating, and businesses that install more copies than they have licenses for - and those two things constitute a large portion of the 'problem'...
Yes, simple when you have an internet connection. Simple when someone hasn't passed on your serial number before selling the item to you. Simple when your system doesn't corrupt and you have to re-install. Simple when you purchase your OEM OS with the computer, and the installation is tied to the BIOS only.
Just because you - or others you personally know - hasn't had any issues with it, doesn't mean it isn't a major headache for others.
Activation on 'third party' software has more potential issues that the OS itself. What happens when you have to do a system restore? What happens when you purchase a new computer?
Yes, shareware vendors sell you a license key that depends on your name - all rather irrelevant when you type it in, you just need to ensure you enter the same thing! As for PC config, I have never seen *shareware* that snapshots your PC config...
The problem of people cracking and selling a product needs to be solved at the point of sale - not at a later stage...
If someone buys it thinking it is real, and then installs it and it isn't effective, what are they going to do? Waste a lot of time talking to support? Decide they won't buy anything else from that manufacturer? Tell everyone else about their experience and convince them not to buy?
Why does a simple activation system make things harder? Well, define simple... does Windows XP have a simple activation system? How simple is it when you add some memory, and your OS won't play nice until you phone up and tell MS what you've done?
Also, don't assume that this only applies to the virus scanner. Think they won't apply it to their other software in the next round of updates? Although, if we are talking about virus software specifically, then the solution is far easier... we're talking about a support contract for updating the virus software, right? So give the software away for free, and *ONLY* charge for the updates - you purchase contract renewals directly from them anyway, so just purchase the original contract direct as well - guarantees the income, and doesn't subject users to unnecessary rituals...
Making it 'easier' to use a cracked version of the software than a legit version is *never* a good thing.
Simple 'solutions' - like checking for another copy of the software on the network running with the same serial number - are far better...
It targets the people that really should be paying for more licenses, and doesn't generally affect a 'legit' user in *any* way...
Making it harder to use 'legit' software only drives more people to look for alternatives...
For the same reason that PC's are called IBM-compatibles...
No, you don't have to use Intel chips to run Windows, but Windows only runs on the x86 architecture - as defined by Intel.
And there are still many people / businesses that refuse to use anything other than Intel (when running Windows), because of that very fact.
(if you aren't running Windows, then it isn't a Wintel!)
"its not exactly dominant in the home or business world, why teach kids on it?"
Dominance in the home market is largely irrelevant - people get to choose what they have in their home (although I can understand why a parent may want a child to use their current computer rather than purchase a new one).
As for dominance in business, there are many arguments for and against. Yes, an employer may prefer you to have direct experience of the software / platform they use. But you spend somewhere in the region of ten years being educated. 10 years ago I was using Dos / WFW3.11 etc. Now we're using Windows XP / Office XP... I had learnt BASIC at school, C in my first job, C++ in my second, and I'm now doing Java... things change - what you start off learning you almost certainly won't be (that) relevant by the time you finish your education, what you learn at the end will be out of date fairly quickly...
So what is important? That the schools spend a significant IT budget on keeping up with the latest business trends? Or that they learn the fundamental skills that will be useful regardless of future developments? That the children have the right tools that allow them to efficiently learn languages, maths, etc.? That the total cost of ownership doesn't suck funds away from all the other things that are needed?
There are *far* more important concerns to teaching children than the exact applications / OS that businesses are currently using. Besides, are we teaching these kids to be corporate secrateries, or to be any number of things? Would you rather your child was an employee, or an employer?
Although it has the widest range of official languages of any major 'English' country....
I don't know about you, but I find the Scottish and Cornish dialects a lot easier to understand than French!
Native support for games on Mac isn't *that* bad...
I can't think of any *major* titles that aren't (or won't be) available on the Mac... of course, some do take a little longer than others to arrive...
For everything else, there's Xbox, Gamecube, PS2... where appropriate, I would rather play games on a console - too much sodding about with drivers on PCs (how many haven't been in the position where one driver works with one game, but breaks another, and vice versa...)
There is a very important reason for announcing a 3Ghz processor for next year...
The G4 used to be very impressive compared to PCs of the time - but it's been around for far too long, with limited speed bumps...
Announcing a 3Ghz model is letting people know that there is a roadmap in place for ramping up the performance...
People want to know that there is a future... with many Mac owners and quite a few potential 'switchers' staying away from the dual G4s as they are past their sell by date, announcing a roadmap for G5 development - and not just new machines themselves - may well see an increase in current Mac sales...
*If* OS X ran on x86, the you probably would NOT have to repurchase your Windows software...
There is one single good reason why WINE doesn't work on OS X - there is no x86 chip... as soon as you put an x86 processor under the hood, there is a good chance that WINE would (me made to) work on OS X...
Who says they have to own a computer or have an internet connection personally?
They may be able to use a friends connection, or have access from work / college / etc...
I think it is fair to say that music can be unrealistically expensive - I've seen albums that I can get on the internet for half the price a store like HMV will sell it for... (and I'm talking about 'same country' sources here - not imports)
"how everyone in your house with a computer has to buy their own copy of a song/album if your computer isn't on/connected/available?"
What about how everyone in your house has to buy the CD if you are listening to it at the same time? It's easy enough to solve the computer issue - store them on a 'server' that is always left on...
"which computers are authorized to play a certain song, how many times a song has been burned"
There have to be reasonable limits... as I understand it, there are no restrictions on the number of times you can burn a song - just the *way* you burn it... what isn't clear, is if there are restrictions on streaming via Rendezvous - that would be fair... three machines that are allowed to download the music (maybe server at home, laptop, and work machine), and ability to stream to any other via Rendezvous - so that any machine in your house can *play* that music...
"the fact that most independent and rare music is not available"
The service has to start somewhere... it can't cover everything to begin with.. but giving people the *content* they want is a different argument to giving it to them the *way* they want it...
Personally, I would rather have high-quality 'lossless' physical media, than good quality 'lossy' compressed download - but that is just me... what would be great, is if every CD/SACD came with a 'gift voucher' to get free access to the download version...
Yes, it did specifically mention (a) thermal grease, which if used would void the warranty.
But whilst it mentioned that using a HSF other than that supplied might void your warranty, as I understand it, it says that it would *if* used to overclock the processor.
If that is correct, then it might be better to have not said anything about HSFs, as it appears to cause confusion - overclocking your processor will void your warranty, stock HSF or not.
As for the thermal grease, I can partly understand where they come from - why should they 'allow' you to use a grease that can damage the processor if applied incorrectly? Any damage that would cause is your responsibility, not theirs.
However, they do have their argument a little back to front. They don't want us to use high-performance components, because it allows for overclocking? But it can only allow for overclocking, by improving cooling efficiency - something that would *benefit* the life of the CPU, even when run at stock speed... particularly in a heatwave!
Sorry, but that is irrelevant...
Yes, supporting larger and more complex setups will mean higher costs... but who said anything about *supporting* such a setup?
If the ISP says that they support only PCs, only certain flavours of Windows, only machines connected directly to the cable modem, fine...
If the ISP says that you can't run servers - or at least run servers that are 'public knowledge' - fine...
If the ISP says that there is a bandwidth limit and you might get chucked off if you exceed that - well, it's not what I pay for (I'm not a 'heavy' user, but there are times when I need to download a large chunk of data in a short space of time, or run the odd VPN connection on the rare occassion that I can't get into the office, and I want to be able to do that without recriminations - but otherwise, fine...
But beyond that, what business is it of the ISP how you set up your machines at home?
Having a couple of machines connected through a gateway doesn't automatically mean that you will exceed a bandwidth limit defined by your ISP... and as long as you don't, what's the problem?
Saying that they expect 'average' users not to approach those limits is *not* a defence... if the ISP sets a bandwidth limit, they are effectively making a contract to provision for that amount of bandwidth being available...
And *supporting* such setups is a non-issue... you don't... anyone has a problem, and a 'complex' network, you tell them to sod off...
It seems bizarre that people defend the activity of ISPs in trying to enforce this on the basis of cost... what about the cost of putting systems in place to sniff out home networks? What about the cost of following up detected cases? What about the loss of income from all the people you chuck of the service, so that you are suddenly left with an over provisioned network for the remaining users?
Seems to me, that it would cost far less for an ISP to lay out the terms under which they provide customer support, and refuse to support people that fall outside of those terms... for an ISP to (possibly) define the amount of bandwidth they expect people to use / agree to make available, and monitor overall bandwidth usage (as they would have to do in all cases), clamping down on people that persistently overuse their connections... but, beyond that, stop harrassing and p*****g off their customers that don't need the support, and in every *practical* sense are well behaved broadband citizens, who may just happen to have a home network...
I was hoping for Fireball XL5...
Actually, this isn't much different to the situation under Windows...
If you browse to an FTP site in IE, it displays as a collection of files and folders, just like any other Explorer window browsing your local hard drives... and that's because it *is* the same as any other Explorer window...
The big difference is the level of integration in Windows, so that the FTP folders appear within the same window.
That Finder handles the FTP browsing is not a big issue - an FTP site is basically just a remote file system... yes, there may be bugs in Finder's handling of FTP sites, but what application doesn't have bugs? Fixing any bugs would be more beneficial than making Safari handling FTP...
What's more important is the way the hand off takes place... last time I tried to access an FTP site via Safari, it mounted the remote file system in Finder and placed an icon on the desktop - and that's it... if you don't realise that is what happens, and don't see the icon appear, you think that Safari / the FTP site is broken...
It's essential that mounting an FTP site is more visible - ie. open a window displaying the contents of the site above all other windows...
I tried a similar config on Monarch - I came out just short of $3,000 with a similar config... and that isn't quite the same config as the Apple either - specifically, the Apple has Gigabit ethernet, and Firewire 800... if you are talking about heavy video work, both of those could be important!
And from what I saw of the config, the machine would probably kick out quite a bit more noise than the Apple - again another factor that could be significant.
The other thing to remember is that you can pay a significant premium ordering certain options as part of your build - for example, if you select the dual 1.25, and boost the memory to 2GB, they want $875 - when you can easily get the DIMMs yourself for less than half that... configuring the same machine that you selected, with only 512MB DRAM, and buying 3 512MB DIMMs (about $240), will save you about $600 on the Apple price.
So, if you did get a bit more intelligent about the Apple, up the specs on the PC to bring the fan noise down, and possibly even add the Gigabit ethernet, suddenly the two prices are looking a *lot* closer.