You're right, it looks like a Windows app. Save that there's also some side buttons of unknown use, as well as the usual top ones. I've never been a fan of rampant button bars.
I've had no real troubles with.Mac. Any problems connecting to my mail server have been infrequent and brief, and my iDisk has been useful. Just the other day, another user here on/. was sending me some MP3's and using the Public folder on my iDisk, since he didn't have a place to host them himself. Last year, I used iPhoto, my iDisk, and Homepage to put my sister's wedding photos on the Web; it took about 15 minutes total, and I blew my relatives away. Virex hasn't found any viruses, but if I didn't have it, I'd have to pay Symantec about $70 to be sure.
This rumored change with the iApps is a bit disappointing, but will have no real effect on me. I don't have a DVD burner, and don't have a digital camcorder, so I don't use iDVD or iMovie. I don't have a good digital camera that iPhoto supports(just a POS JamCam) so I don't do much with iPhoto, mainly using it with the photos that others email to me. I DO use iTunes 3 all the time, and would be annoyed at having to pay for future versions of that(especially as I'm an iPod owner), but the program is already so good that I don't know what they will add next.
IIRC, Shareware doesn't properly include crippleware, according to the definition put out by the maker of PC-File and PC-Write, the first Shareware apps. (yes, I was a DOS based BBSer at one time) But then this rumored Apple change doesn't fit either. Shareware did mean that people shared it amongst themselves, and those who wanted to help the author could voluntarily pay for it. This method isn't very common anymore, as the users seem to need more incentive to pay these days.
On the topic of P2P networks, I've found the current version of LimeWire, 2.8.5, to be very nice. Just make sure that if you have DSL, you make sure that uploads can't grab all of your upload bandwidth, or else your download speeds will be crippled. Though I will admit that downloading files that aren't popular takes some patience, first to find them, then to find a server willing to let you start your download. But I've seen nothing better.
The Home-End-Page Up-Page Down keys? The Mac desktops from a few years ago didn't even have them, and while they're on the current Apple Pro keyboards, like the one I'm typing on now, mine are noticeably dusty. I doubt any longtime Mac users make much use of them.
Hint: when typing on a Mac, and you're on the bottom line and want to go to the end, down-arrow works like End.
Ah, but they are fast enough. If it wasn't for recent 3D games, mostly ported from Windows, I'd be completely happy with the performance of my 3 year old iMac. It can even handle Warcraft 3 on minimum graphic settings. Granted, if I was editing video, I'd want something faster, but this is a home machine.
Looks like a nice server stress test for .Mac.
on
Gingerbread Mac
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· Score: 3, Interesting
If this stays up all day, I might dare link to my.Mac homepage someday.
Looks sweet, in more ways than one. I've been putting on too much weight lately, though, and I was already a tad bit heavier than I should be.
Perfection? Nah, everything can be improved, especially if MS makes it. They've yet to release a version of Windows that I can use without gritting my teeth. And I say this not only as a Mac user, but as a former DOS user.
That's for Windows users, right? On a Mac, it's a choice between QuickTime(stable, supports most formats), and WMP X(slow, usually just says it's an unsupported codex in that.asf file). On a cell phone, I'd imagine that both would be fairly stable, and both companies would make darned sure that the needed codices are present.
No, that's Microsoft, and their drive to make everyone only use standards that they own. Apple was very proprietary in the old days(ADB, NuBus, round serial ports, AppleTalk), but no more.
"People like paying twice as much"
More like "some people will pay more for quality. The rest, we can't satisfy without losing money". Unless you think they should compete with Dell on Dell's own strengths?
THAT would be better; I care nothing for these few celebrities, but if I could get band logos from Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, perhaps Queensryche, that'd be more like it. If I didn't already have an iPod, that is.
Oh, and I'd need a new iPod case that also has a clear back, so you can see the engravings.
Yes, they're compiling now. Not that I know how to use most of these programs; the only one I've tried that runs when I tell it to is cmatrix, a little program that makes random letters descend from the top of the terminal window. It would look better in green & black than black & white, of course. I installed 'X-Windows with GNOME support', but I guess I can't run it by itself.
Yes, but not the versions that come with Jaguar. I have the March 2001 tools, rather than the July 2002 ones. I'll install them later to see if it helps.
Of course, the reason I didn't update them is that I'd never really used them, until now.
Thanks for the Fink Commander link; I found Fink's own installer utility to be rather user-unfriendly. At least with the former, when I said I wanted Gimp, it knew what other libraries were needed and where there was more than one to choose from, it gave me the choice. On the other hand, after a lot of downloading, I got a "C compiler cannot create executables" error message; what kind of compiler can't do that? "Failed: compiling audiofile-0.2.3-4 failed" Well, I guess I'll figure it out eventually...
These print magazines, MacWorld and MacAddict, seem to take at least two months to go to print, and this article we're discussing is already about a month old. I really just read them for reviews these days.
I've read posts from some major Mac game programmers/porters on this topic. This won't have a major effect on their work, as Westlake and Contraband and other Mac porting houses have their own methods of converting from DirectX already. What this will do is help some PC-centric game developers make a Mac version in-house. Whether or not they'll do a good job isn't a given, of course. Personally, I doubt this will have a major effect on Mac game publishing.
I may not believe everything I read, but when I read the same thing again and again from multiple sources, I tend to think it's truthful. If you don't, then you don't believe much, since that's the main way of learning things that you haven't experienced yourself. I've not used WinME or Win2K, either, but when MS doesn't even sell the former anymore, you can tell that they're not proud of it, particularly when Win98 is still available.
Browse the web? I personally have OmniWeb, Mozilla, and Chimera on my Dock.
Email? Apple's Mail program does fine, or Eudora. There's no Outlook or Outlook Express for OS X, just Entourage if you buy MS Office for almost $500.
A.DOC file? I've got a shareware converter around here, and I even used it once. But I rarely see any.DOC files. I've not done much word processing since college anyway.
Anything else? Well, there's WMP for X as a requirement for.asf files, but it has less features and compatibility than the OS 9 version. Much better to use QuickTime or RealOne.
I was trying to replace a missing.DLL on a church computer, taking it from my brother's Win98 gaming machine. By default, it wouldn't even let me see the contents of the.DLL directory, and when I enabled it, I couldn't actually DO anything with them. They wouldn't drag, click, or anything. This was summer of 2000, I think.
I was burglarized twice this fall, probably by the same person; first the TV and VCR were taken, and later the vacuum cleaner! My iMac was not disturbed, and even at 3 years old, it's worth more than everything that was stolen. But I guess pawn shops don't take computers.
Seriously? You still use them? My Performa 6400 from '97 had a floppy drive, but it collected dust. Well, there was the diskette with the driver for my old ADB joystick. Two or three old games from the early 90's that came on floppies. Though some of those games had bad disk sectors and couldn't be installed in later years. Oh, and the diskettes of porn from my early 90's BBSing days on a 286! Yeah, I've had no desire for a floppy drive in many years.
Someone I used to work with at CompUSA claimed that any man who walked in wearing a ponytail was going to the Mac section. He was a bit of an asshole in more ways than one.
Actually, I used to think I might look good in a ponytail, like Duncan MacLeod the Highlander. But I never let my hair reach past my shoulderblades.
"Apple is not supporting DRM (until they have to) because the people in their niche market (now two niche markets; people too stupid to use windows and people who want stable Unix on the desktop, plus I suppose a third niche of people with too much money who want a pretty case and a pretty GUI and don't care what OS they run) don't particularly want it, and it would cost them money to implement."
That's a rather offensive description of Mac users, and it doesn't fit any Mac users I know. Myself, I'm relatively poor, especially this year, have two AS degrees in IS, and have used computers of one type or other since 1981. The presence of UNIX under OS X is neither a huge plus or a minus, save that it adds the protected memory and preemptive multitasking that the classic MacOS has always lacked.
The MacOS has always been about a superior user experience for me, and I can have more fun on a Mac with no games on it than on a Windows PC with several A-list games. I used to consider Windows 3.1 to be DOSSHELL.EXE with better multitasking(relatively), and proprietary apps(Windows apps) when I was a DOS user. Win95 borrowed many Mac interface elements, but reversed many of them to avoid a lawsuit, making them counterintuitive, like the close box on the upper right corner when everyone else used the upper left. Later versions slowly began to look better while limiting what the user could do. Win98 wouldn't let me copy a.DLL to a floppy without dropping to a DOS prompt. Now I hear that WinXP is one big ad for other Microsoft services(I have no interest in a closer look).
OS X does everything I need, with new shareware and freeware apps released by the score every day. When I have time, I'll learn more about the UNIX prompt and perhaps try more opensource software. It also runs quite well on this three year old iMac, aside from a hardware flaw in the video memory that makes 3D games freeze.
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You're right, it looks like a Windows app. Save that there's also some side buttons of unknown use, as well as the usual top ones. I've never been a fan of rampant button bars.
I've had no real troubles with .Mac. Any problems connecting to my mail server have been infrequent and brief, and my iDisk has been useful. Just the other day, another user here on /. was sending me some MP3's and using the Public folder on my iDisk, since he didn't have a place to host them himself. Last year, I used iPhoto, my iDisk, and Homepage to put my sister's wedding photos on the Web; it took about 15 minutes total, and I blew my relatives away. Virex hasn't found any viruses, but if I didn't have it, I'd have to pay Symantec about $70 to be sure.
This rumored change with the iApps is a bit disappointing, but will have no real effect on me. I don't have a DVD burner, and don't have a digital camcorder, so I don't use iDVD or iMovie. I don't have a good digital camera that iPhoto supports(just a POS JamCam) so I don't do much with iPhoto, mainly using it with the photos that others email to me. I DO use iTunes 3 all the time, and would be annoyed at having to pay for future versions of that(especially as I'm an iPod owner), but the program is already so good that I don't know what they will add next.
IIRC, Shareware doesn't properly include crippleware, according to the definition put out by the maker of PC-File and PC-Write, the first Shareware apps. (yes, I was a DOS based BBSer at one time) But then this rumored Apple change doesn't fit either. Shareware did mean that people shared it amongst themselves, and those who wanted to help the author could voluntarily pay for it. This method isn't very common anymore, as the users seem to need more incentive to pay these days.
I'd say that if no one can run it, then his game sales will certainly suck.
Since I never really enjoyed his other games(well, Quake 3 wasn't bad with human opponents), I can't work up any interest in this one.
On the topic of P2P networks, I've found the current version of LimeWire, 2.8.5, to be very nice. Just make sure that if you have DSL, you make sure that uploads can't grab all of your upload bandwidth, or else your download speeds will be crippled. Though I will admit that downloading files that aren't popular takes some patience, first to find them, then to find a server willing to let you start your download. But I've seen nothing better.
Nice post, by the way.
The Home-End-Page Up-Page Down keys? The Mac desktops from a few years ago didn't even have them, and while they're on the current Apple Pro keyboards, like the one I'm typing on now, mine are noticeably dusty. I doubt any longtime Mac users make much use of them.
Hint: when typing on a Mac, and you're on the bottom line and want to go to the end, down-arrow works like End.
Ah, but they are fast enough. If it wasn't for recent 3D games, mostly ported from Windows, I'd be completely happy with the performance of my 3 year old iMac. It can even handle Warcraft 3 on minimum graphic settings. Granted, if I was editing video, I'd want something faster, but this is a home machine.
If this stays up all day, I might dare link to my .Mac homepage someday.
Looks sweet, in more ways than one. I've been putting on too much weight lately, though, and I was already a tad bit heavier than I should be.
Perfection? Nah, everything can be improved, especially if MS makes it. They've yet to release a version of Windows that I can use without gritting my teeth. And I say this not only as a Mac user, but as a former DOS user.
That's for Windows users, right? On a Mac, it's a choice between QuickTime(stable, supports most formats), and WMP X(slow, usually just says it's an unsupported codex in that .asf file). On a cell phone, I'd imagine that both would be fairly stable, and both companies would make darned sure that the needed codices are present.
"Industry standards are for idiots"
No, that's Microsoft, and their drive to make everyone only use standards that they own. Apple was very proprietary in the old days(ADB, NuBus, round serial ports, AppleTalk), but no more.
"People like paying twice as much"
More like "some people will pay more for quality. The rest, we can't satisfy without losing money". Unless you think they should compete with Dell on Dell's own strengths?
THAT would be better; I care nothing for these few celebrities, but if I could get band logos from Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, perhaps Queensryche, that'd be more like it. If I didn't already have an iPod, that is.
Oh, and I'd need a new iPod case that also has a clear back, so you can see the engravings.
The Black Tongue of Mordor? Nah, someone might stick it in a fire to see if it glows.
Yes, they're compiling now. Not that I know how to use most of these programs; the only one I've tried that runs when I tell it to is cmatrix, a little program that makes random letters descend from the top of the terminal window. It would look better in green & black than black & white, of course. I installed 'X-Windows with GNOME support', but I guess I can't run it by itself.
Yes, but not the versions that come with Jaguar. I have the March 2001 tools, rather than the July 2002 ones. I'll install them later to see if it helps.
Of course, the reason I didn't update them is that I'd never really used them, until now.
Thanks for the Fink Commander link; I found Fink's own installer utility to be rather user-unfriendly. At least with the former, when I said I wanted Gimp, it knew what other libraries were needed and where there was more than one to choose from, it gave me the choice. On the other hand, after a lot of downloading, I got a "C compiler cannot create executables" error message; what kind of compiler can't do that? "Failed: compiling audiofile-0.2.3-4 failed" Well, I guess I'll figure it out eventually...
These print magazines, MacWorld and MacAddict, seem to take at least two months to go to print, and this article we're discussing is already about a month old. I really just read them for reviews these days.
I've read posts from some major Mac game programmers/porters on this topic. This won't have a major effect on their work, as Westlake and Contraband and other Mac porting houses have their own methods of converting from DirectX already. What this will do is help some PC-centric game developers make a Mac version in-house. Whether or not they'll do a good job isn't a given, of course. Personally, I doubt this will have a major effect on Mac game publishing.
I may not believe everything I read, but when I read the same thing again and again from multiple sources, I tend to think it's truthful. If you don't, then you don't believe much, since that's the main way of learning things that you haven't experienced yourself. I've not used WinME or Win2K, either, but when MS doesn't even sell the former anymore, you can tell that they're not proud of it, particularly when Win98 is still available.
Browse the web? I personally have OmniWeb, Mozilla, and Chimera on my Dock.
.DOC file? I've got a shareware converter around here, and I even used it once. But I rarely see any .DOC files. I've not done much word processing since college anyway.
.asf files, but it has less features and compatibility than the OS 9 version. Much better to use QuickTime or RealOne.
Email? Apple's Mail program does fine, or Eudora. There's no Outlook or Outlook Express for OS X, just Entourage if you buy MS Office for almost $500.
A
Anything else? Well, there's WMP for X as a requirement for
I was trying to replace a missing .DLL on a church computer, taking it from my brother's Win98 gaming machine. By default, it wouldn't even let me see the contents of the .DLL directory, and when I enabled it, I couldn't actually DO anything with them. They wouldn't drag, click, or anything. This was summer of 2000, I think.
Robbed of your Macs at gunpoint? That's harsh!
I was burglarized twice this fall, probably by the same person; first the TV and VCR were taken, and later the vacuum cleaner! My iMac was not disturbed, and even at 3 years old, it's worth more than everything that was stolen. But I guess pawn shops don't take computers.
Seriously? You still use them? My Performa 6400 from '97 had a floppy drive, but it collected dust. Well, there was the diskette with the driver for my old ADB joystick. Two or three old games from the early 90's that came on floppies. Though some of those games had bad disk sectors and couldn't be installed in later years. Oh, and the diskettes of porn from my early 90's BBSing days on a 286! Yeah, I've had no desire for a floppy drive in many years.
Someone I used to work with at CompUSA claimed that any man who walked in wearing a ponytail was going to the Mac section. He was a bit of an asshole in more ways than one.
Actually, I used to think I might look good in a ponytail, like Duncan MacLeod the Highlander. But I never let my hair reach past my shoulderblades.
"Apple is not supporting DRM (until they have to) because the people in their niche market (now two niche markets; people too stupid to use windows and people who want stable Unix on the desktop, plus I suppose a third niche of people with too much money who want a pretty case and a pretty GUI and don't care what OS they run) don't particularly want it, and it would cost them money to implement."
.DLL to a floppy without dropping to a DOS prompt. Now I hear that WinXP is one big ad for other Microsoft services(I have no interest in a closer look).
That's a rather offensive description of Mac users, and it doesn't fit any Mac users I know. Myself, I'm relatively poor, especially this year, have two AS degrees in IS, and have used computers of one type or other since 1981. The presence of UNIX under OS X is neither a huge plus or a minus, save that it adds the protected memory and preemptive multitasking that the classic MacOS has always lacked.
The MacOS has always been about a superior user experience for me, and I can have more fun on a Mac with no games on it than on a Windows PC with several A-list games. I used to consider Windows 3.1 to be DOSSHELL.EXE with better multitasking(relatively), and proprietary apps(Windows apps) when I was a DOS user. Win95 borrowed many Mac interface elements, but reversed many of them to avoid a lawsuit, making them counterintuitive, like the close box on the upper right corner when everyone else used the upper left. Later versions slowly began to look better while limiting what the user could do. Win98 wouldn't let me copy a
OS X does everything I need, with new shareware and freeware apps released by the score every day. When I have time, I'll learn more about the UNIX prompt and perhaps try more opensource software. It also runs quite well on this three year old iMac, aside from a hardware flaw in the video memory that makes 3D games freeze.