Being a pure software company hasn't hurt Microsoft, has it?
Conversely, competing against Microsoft on their home turf didn't work out too well for BeOS or OS/2. Introducing Mac OS X for PCs is a declaration of war. While I believe this is eventually coming, it's not quite the right time. MS can do serious damage by dropping Office for OS X (as they've already threatened to do), and lesser damage by dropping IE. Apple needs to be prepared for this with powerful, stable, and compatible alternatives (OpenOffice or updated AppleWorks, Mozilla/Chimera). They're not quite ready yet, I predict they will be in a year or two.
From looking back at the history of that and the interactions with Apple, it looks like Microsoft killed it.
That may have been part of it, but a major reason was that the Mac OS at the time was really not up to the task. Trying to fit OpenDoc into a non-preemptive non-protected OS caused performance and stability to greatly suffer. Plus from what I heard it was an absolute nightmare to develop for.
Mac OS X and the Cocoa APIs solve all of these problems; I'd love to see Apple take another shot at it.
but a couple weeks ago a good sized chunk of Congress ran outside, said the pledge of allegiance to the flag, screaming the then unconstitutional "under God" part. Regardless of the merits of the judge's controversial decision, I would think doing something that was legally at that moment found to be unconstitional would break their oaths.
Saying "under God" in the pledge is in no way unconstitutional. The only unconstitutional portion is public school employees (i.e. agents of government) *leading* children in the pledge. In a way, that makes their demonstration even sillier; they may have thought they were engaging in civil disobedience, but they weren't.
from what I remember, you can't start Mac apps from the command line (because they are directories)
Of course you can. An application bundle is a directory, but one of the files it contains is the actual executable, which you can launch directly from the command line. For example, "/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdi t"
But if you avoid the Windows license fee, then you are violating the contract among you, M$, and the laptop manufacturer. We need to fight the common media portrayal of Linux users as evil pirates and hackers, and publishing instructions for subverting the law is step in the wrong direction.
Huh? What's illegal about installing another OS without booting Windows and asking for a refund of the unused Microsoft OS? I'm also curious as to how the act of buying a laptop can possibly create a "contract" between the buyer and Microsoft.
Remote Desktop Display is the ability for me to see and use my desktop as if I were sitting at the monitor, but from some remote location across the internet. Like VNC, if you're familiar with that.
No nation is perfect, so spare me the "cast the first stone" routine.
This is a country trying to take care of 1 billion people.
Relevance? Are you saying that nations above a certain size can survive only by denying civil rights to their citizens?
We have 20 guys who decided to crash some planes, and the administration has already curtailed civil rights significantly.
Yes, and that's unfortunate. Note that there is quite a bit of opposition to these policies, and opponents are *not* arrested or shot. The Patriot Act is not a good thing, but to compare it to the actions of the Chinese government is ludicrous.
They're not exactly being welcomed in a freedom-of-speech, tolerating sort of way, now are they?
So the US doesn't grant citizenship to people who want to violently overthrow the government. Help, help, I'm being oppressed. And this is supposed to be some sort of moral equivalent to Tiannamen Square?
People seem to love picking on China because it's got the label "Communist" in it's name.
Actually, I "pick on" the Chinese government (not the citizens) because it's run by tyrants and murderers. Communism has nothing to do with it, aside from the fact that there's a very high correlation between communist governments and tyranny.
The very first demo (I think) was at MacWorld in 1999, where it ran on a G3 with an ATI Rage 128. From Mac Gamer's Ledge:
Bungie Software was featured in Apple's keynote address and used that feature to unveil Halo, a 3rd person game that wowed the keynote crowd...Currently, Halo is expected to release during the first half of 2000, simultaneously for Mac and PC.
Whether the current version of Toast actually contains malware is irrelevant. The point is that by changing the license agreement, they are claiming the right to install crap on your computer at any point in the future without further notice, and that sucks.
As others have mentioned, Toast is unnecessary under Mac OS X anyway; Disk Copy and iTunes should do everything you need without DRM shackles.
Apple should sign all updates and Software Update should verify what it downloads against Apple's public key. An attacker would then have to modify the copy of Apple's public key on the victim's machine, or modify Software Update to disable the check, both of which would presumably require root privileges. Still not perfect, but an improvement.
I'll send a fax to MS support to tell them I don't accept the EULA
Heh, I like that. I had a thought along similar lines: since you don't need a license to run software you have legally obtained, the failure of a program to install when you click the "Disagree" button below the EULA is a bug. Thus, when you click "I agree", you aren't actually indicating your agreement, you are just performing a workaround necessary to make the software you bought function correctly. For maximum effect, file a bug report with the software vendor requesting that they fix the bug.
Is he trying to alienate EVERY last Mac user (hint: there's not too many left)?
Apple's market share is increasing, and they are one of the few consistently profitable hardware companies. I don't always agree with Steve's decisions either, but there's a chance he knows what he's doing.
I don't think the rumor sites have much to do with it. Apple's products run in 9-12 month cycles, usually with a speed or minor feature bump in the middle. Even if there were no rumor sites, it still wouldn't be wise to buy a Mac model that hasn't been upgraded for several months right before a MacWorld.
In Mac OS X, you have to turn automatic NTP synchronization off before you can manually adjust the time. At least when using the Date & Time preference pane; you can also run "date" from a command line but in that case you should know what you're doing.
Here in the US, we are every bit as much a police state as china is
Bullshit. How many peaceful demonstrators have been murdered by the United States military in the last 20 years? How many Americans have been imprisoned for their political views? The US is clearly not perfect when it comes to freedom, and some of your examples are valid, but to claim that it is no better than China is ludicrous.
While SS in many ways resembles a Ponzi scheme, it's been a remarkably sustainable one.
Yes, because it works on a much longer timescale than the typical pyramid scheme. It's only been 2-3 generations since it started, and it's already not sustaining itself; workers entering the system today are virtually certain to come out behind.
On the other hand, hindsight has revealed that many Internet stocks not only resembled Ponzi schemes, but collapsed in short term screwing all but the early investors exactly as a Ponzi scheme should.
Agreed, and they are not remotely representative of the stock market as a whole. Traditional stocks have fared far better; compare the Dow and S&P 500 to the Nasdaq.
The US spends more on 'defense' than the rest of the world combined.
True, and much of it goes to defend the rest of the world. I'm all in favor of cutting defense spending where it makes sense (and there is undoubtedly billions in pork that should go), but that's irrelevant to the shell game of Social Security financing. If SS were backed by actual assets, there would be no need to discuss where to cut spending in order to fulfill its promises.
Of course there are a lot of vested interests who want to scare people into letting them privatise their pensions. Only thing is that the people trying to scare them are the same crooks who ran WorldCom and Enron.
I'm fairly certain I had no leadership position in Enron or WorldCom. And if I were a multi-millionaire, I wouldn't care much at all about any form of taxes; I could easily afford them. It's the regular people that are most harmed by having 15% of their income taken for FDR's vote-buying scheme, when they could do far better with even the most conservative investments.
You've yet to offer any argument as to why voluntary private accounts would be a bad thing. What are specific reasons why the current system is better, and what if anything do you propose to do about its increasing insolvency?
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Conversely, competing against Microsoft on their home turf didn't work out too well for BeOS or OS/2. Introducing Mac OS X for PCs is a declaration of war. While I believe this is eventually coming, it's not quite the right time. MS can do serious damage by dropping Office for OS X (as they've already threatened to do), and lesser damage by dropping IE. Apple needs to be prepared for this with powerful, stable, and compatible alternatives (OpenOffice or updated AppleWorks, Mozilla/Chimera). They're not quite ready yet, I predict they will be in a year or two.
You don't. iChat works fine with existing AIM accounts.
That may have been part of it, but a major reason was that the Mac OS at the time was really not up to the task. Trying to fit OpenDoc into a non-preemptive non-protected OS caused performance and stability to greatly suffer. Plus from what I heard it was an absolute nightmare to develop for.
Mac OS X and the Cocoa APIs solve all of these problems; I'd love to see Apple take another shot at it.
Saying "under God" in the pledge is in no way unconstitutional. The only unconstitutional portion is public school employees (i.e. agents of government) *leading* children in the pledge. In a way, that makes their demonstration even sillier; they may have thought they were engaging in civil disobedience, but they weren't.
Of course you can. An application bundle is a directory, but one of the files it contains is the actual executable, which you can launch directly from the command line. For example, "/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdi t"
Apple doesn't like DRM. Their entire digital hub strategy is based on easily being able to manipulate digital content.
Based on the statistics I've seen of average consumer credit card debt, I'd have to say "yes".
Huh? What's illegal about installing another OS without booting Windows and asking for a refund of the unused Microsoft OS? I'm also curious as to how the act of buying a laptop can possibly create a "contract" between the buyer and Microsoft.
Mod parent up.
Something like this? GPLed even.
Not true; iChat works with existing AIM accounts as well as .mac accounts.
This is a country trying to take care of 1 billion people.
Relevance? Are you saying that nations above a certain size can survive only by denying civil rights to their citizens?
We have 20 guys who decided to crash some planes, and the administration has already curtailed civil rights significantly.
Yes, and that's unfortunate. Note that there is quite a bit of opposition to these policies, and opponents are *not* arrested or shot. The Patriot Act is not a good thing, but to compare it to the actions of the Chinese government is ludicrous.
They're not exactly being welcomed in a freedom-of-speech, tolerating sort of way, now are they?
So the US doesn't grant citizenship to people who want to violently overthrow the government. Help, help, I'm being oppressed. And this is supposed to be some sort of moral equivalent to Tiannamen Square?
People seem to love picking on China because it's got the label "Communist" in it's name.
Actually, I "pick on" the Chinese government (not the citizens) because it's run by tyrants and murderers. Communism has nothing to do with it, aside from the fact that there's a very high correlation between communist governments and tyranny.
As others have mentioned, Toast is unnecessary under Mac OS X anyway; Disk Copy and iTunes should do everything you need without DRM shackles.
And several Linux and BSD distributions.
Tough luck if you don't like it.
Macs have excellent resale value.
Apple should sign all updates and Software Update should verify what it downloads against Apple's public key. An attacker would then have to modify the copy of Apple's public key on the victim's machine, or modify Software Update to disable the check, both of which would presumably require root privileges. Still not perfect, but an improvement.
Heh, I like that. I had a thought along similar lines: since you don't need a license to run software you have legally obtained, the failure of a program to install when you click the "Disagree" button below the EULA is a bug. Thus, when you click "I agree", you aren't actually indicating your agreement, you are just performing a workaround necessary to make the software you bought function correctly. For maximum effect, file a bug report with the software vendor requesting that they fix the bug.
Apple's market share is increasing, and they are one of the few consistently profitable hardware companies. I don't always agree with Steve's decisions either, but there's a chance he knows what he's doing.
I don't think the rumor sites have much to do with it. Apple's products run in 9-12 month cycles, usually with a speed or minor feature bump in the middle. Even if there were no rumor sites, it still wouldn't be wise to buy a Mac model that hasn't been upgraded for several months right before a MacWorld.
In Mac OS X, you have to turn automatic NTP synchronization off before you can manually adjust the time. At least when using the Date & Time preference pane; you can also run "date" from a command line but in that case you should know what you're doing.
Counterexample: Mac OS X.
Really? Will the user be able to disable the Palladium hardware and software entirely if she wants to?
Additionally, one of the things Palladium entails is the BSD'ian idea of a "jail"
A good idea, and as BSD demonstrates, hardware is not needed to do this.
Bullshit. How many peaceful demonstrators have been murdered by the United States military in the last 20 years? How many Americans have been imprisoned for their political views? The US is clearly not perfect when it comes to freedom, and some of your examples are valid, but to claim that it is no better than China is ludicrous.
Yes, because it works on a much longer timescale than the typical pyramid scheme. It's only been 2-3 generations since it started, and it's already not sustaining itself; workers entering the system today are virtually certain to come out behind.
On the other hand, hindsight has revealed that many Internet stocks not only resembled Ponzi schemes, but collapsed in short term screwing all but the early investors exactly as a Ponzi scheme should.
Agreed, and they are not remotely representative of the stock market as a whole. Traditional stocks have fared far better; compare the Dow and S&P 500 to the Nasdaq.
True, and much of it goes to defend the rest of the world. I'm all in favor of cutting defense spending where it makes sense (and there is undoubtedly billions in pork that should go), but that's irrelevant to the shell game of Social Security financing. If SS were backed by actual assets, there would be no need to discuss where to cut spending in order to fulfill its promises.
Of course there are a lot of vested interests who want to scare people into letting them privatise their pensions. Only thing is that the people trying to scare them are the same crooks who ran WorldCom and Enron.
I'm fairly certain I had no leadership position in Enron or WorldCom. And if I were a multi-millionaire, I wouldn't care much at all about any form of taxes; I could easily afford them. It's the regular people that are most harmed by having 15% of their income taken for FDR's vote-buying scheme, when they could do far better with even the most conservative investments.
You've yet to offer any argument as to why voluntary private accounts would be a bad thing. What are specific reasons why the current system is better, and what if anything do you propose to do about its increasing insolvency?