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User: alienw

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  1. Re:Updates Anyone? on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    On any comparison between Apple's prices and RedHat's prices, Apple wins. Hand down.

    Given that you are comparing apples to oranges (pardon the pun), I don't see where you draw that conclusion. I don't think Redhat competes with Apple at all. RHN is an optional service, anyway, like .Mac.

    I was comparing MacOS with its more eminent competitor, WinXP. XP is considerably cheaper to both purchase and to upgrade. The updates are free. I think, Apple loses, hands down.

  2. Re:Updates Anyone? on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    I don't know what $60-per-year version you were talking about, given that they don't even have one I assumed it was some mid-size server product. For desktops, there's the $149 professional version and $39 regular. I don't think it's intended for the same niche as OS X or Windows, so the original comparison was invalid.

  3. Re:Holy Crap, these G5s are going to be $$$ on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    Actually, I'll bet that a 2GHz Athlon would beat a 1.8GHz PPC970 at many real-world benchmarks (let's say UT2003). I don't think the IBM procs have AltiVec, and the 64-bit architecture is probably slower when running 32-bit apps. You only need 64 bits for addressing more than 4 GB of RAM. It doesn't help with speed at all. Yes, the bus speed is faster, but that may not make much of a difference for most things. Memory access speed is not usually a bottleneck.

  4. Re:More Work on (When) Will Linux Pass Apple On The Desktop? · · Score: 1

    Finally, someone who has a clue. It's funny that none of my comments got moderated down yet... Usually, the Mac owners get quite upset and mod down everyone who dares criticize their platform (even if the criticism is perfectly valid).

  5. Re:More Work on (When) Will Linux Pass Apple On The Desktop? · · Score: 1

    True, but you still have to know what to do. Otherwise, you wouldn't start dragging the disk. Being a PC user, I would expect to find this in a context menu. So my point still holds...

  6. Re:How about English? on Innovative Uses for a Computer Classroom? · · Score: 3, Informative

    Each student will have their own machine with an Internet connection.

    Each student will have his or her own machine with an Internet connection.

    "Their" is plural. You have a singular subject that you are replacing. You have to use "his" or "his or her" if you want to be PC.

  7. Re:Ironic Sig on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    A Thinkpad is a PC. Many companies build PCs. A Mac is both a computer and a platform. BIG difference.

  8. Re:It's TRUE !!!! on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    The "jackass" kind? Yeah, seems about right.

  9. Re:I wish Linux luck... on (When) Will Linux Pass Apple On The Desktop? · · Score: 1

    Excuse me, but a 1.6GHz processor is extremely entry-level. The iMacs are OBSOLETE, not entry-level. Entry-level in the x86 world is 2GHz. Why are Macs different all of a sudden?

  10. Re:More Work on (When) Will Linux Pass Apple On The Desktop? · · Score: 1

    I am not sure why the hell everyone always cites "photoshop" as the main problem to Linux adoption. Sure, you might have a nice pirated version, as might some of your friends. If you are a graphics designer, you might give a shit. However, how many graphics professionals are out there? Not that many. Most computers out there are used for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and custom applications. Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, QuarkXPress, and other stuff is used by very few people in a typical organization.

    Everything works the way you expect it.

    I strongly disagree with this. Stuff works as you expect only if you are a diehard Mac user. For example, it took me (someone who is very proficient with Linux and Windows) about an hour to find the printing panel in OS X 10.1 (maybe even 10.2, I don't remember). Unlike the other config stuff, it's a separate application that is found in some obscure location on the hard drive. That's certainly not how I expect it. Also, I don't expect a floppy to eject when I drag it into the trashcan. I do not expect a window to close when I click on a red water drop in the corner. Those things are not any more intuitive than they are on any other OS.

  11. Re:Will Linux do to OS X what it already has... on (When) Will Linux Pass Apple On The Desktop? · · Score: 1

    I like KDE much more than OS X. I don't think you've ever used KDE 3.1. Unless you hate customizability or love candy-coating and $129 minor revisions, KDE is a much more solid environment. Apple's main problem is that it has a small cult following (a few percent), but the rest of the crowd wants something completely different.

    Besides, no OS can ever have much penetration if it's not used in the workplace. Most people will use the same OS at home as they do at work. Apple currently has practically zero enterprise penetration, and that number will not increase unless they change their strategy completely. Even then, I cannot see Apple competing with the likes of Dell. Linux, on the other hand, may become quite popular in that domain simply due to its free nature if it gains enough features and applications.

  12. Re:It's TRUE !!!! on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    What kind of gamer uses Macs, anyway? Macs have even fewer games than Linux does. In fact, they have only one that is worth playing -- UT2003. On the PC side, you have stuff like Battlefield 1942, Morrowind, GTA: Vice City, etc.

  13. Re:Compared to what? on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    Actually, most movies these days are at least partially made with Linux PCs. No, not rendered on a cluster, MADE on a Linux workstation. And it's for real movies and their special effects, not Disney animated 3D trash.

  14. Re:Holy Crap, these G5s are going to be $$$ on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    If by "very fast" you mean "only slightly slower than a $600 wal-mart PC," that is. Seriously, I've seen a PC at wal-mart that has a faster processor than both of their single-processor unit (~2GHz). Sure, it might not be 64-bit, but it's almost 1/4rd the price, too.

  15. Re:Ironic Sig on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    Given that you can't build a Mac legally unless you are Apple, I'd say that's pretty damn proprietary. Sure, it works with standard devices, but the hardware itself is extremely proprietary. Nobody except Apple builds Macs. That is the criterion.

  16. Re:No bitching about the price? on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    Actually, I've used both XP and OSX 10.2, and I'd say XP is better (though Linux is my favorite). The fonts look better on XP -- none of that anti-aliased blurry shit, just sharp, crisp fonts. Also, the UI doesn't get in the way as much as Aqua once you turn off the butt-ugly Luna theme. Finally, it's much less of a pain in the ass to set up hardware -- apple is sometimes easy but can often be a real bitch (ever try a non-Apple-installed DVD-ROM drive?). WinXP is generally pretty good about hardware support.

    I'm not sure what else makes apple "ahead" of everyone else. There's iTools, but unless you like dumbed-down, candy-coated software made for the clueless, I don't see any reasons to use it.

    I don't know what's so special about Panther, given that it's mostly bugfixes and minor UI changes.

  17. Re:Pricing on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    Ack. Apple shaving corners again. A 256MB machine for $2000? I call that a rip-off, given that 256 megs of Crucial DDR RAM only costs $40 retail. Surely, Apple could bump that to 512 for the same price.

  18. Re:Updates Anyone? on Jaguar is Over · · Score: 1

    You can pay Red Hat $60/year or Apple $129.

    Why is Redhat being brought into the picture here? It's a server OS, unlike Panther. In a more proper comparison, Microsoft offers FREE updates for about 8 years after product release and the upgrades only cost $89. It's a better deal, period. I think Steve Jobs is smoking something good when a minor revision number (1.2->1.3) update costs $129 and includes minor rebadging and badly-needed bugfixes. Microsoft generally provides these types of updates (IE versions, DirectX updates, bugfixes) for free.

  19. Re:Don't forget! on Aussie Company Releases Xbox Mod-Chip Designs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The modchip simply replaces the xbox bios with a cracked bios that doesn't check for valid signatures. In hardware. I don't see how this reflects on or even barely implicates anything about the strength of the encryption Microsoft uses.

  20. Re:Learn something about crypto on Aussie Company Releases Xbox Mod-Chip Designs · · Score: 1

    Those aren't clues. That's the whole point of an encryption algorithm. After all, if you have someone's public PGP key, you could take some text and encrypt it. But it wouldn't help you find his/her private key unless you know how to factor extremely large numbers that are a multiple of a couple of really large primes.

  21. Re:Don't forget! on Aussie Company Releases Xbox Mod-Chip Designs · · Score: 1

    Actually, there's not much difference between having a single one or 10 million computers working on this. The numbers are still huge.

    For a 128-bit key:

    2^128 = 340282366920938463463374607431768211456 combinations
    (2^128) / 10,000,000 = approx. 34028236692093846346337460743176 combinations per node

    Not that much of a difference, is there?

    Also, may I inquire how you can find the key without searching the full keyspace? I don't think microsoft engineers are stupid enough to choose a vulnerable encryption algorithm. If you knew how to crack whatever they use, you would be working for the NSA, not posting on slashdot.

  22. Re:P2P and partial files is the answer on Managing Bandwidth and Bandwidth Costs? · · Score: 1

    Why do I get the impression that your job depends on the centralization of power that client-server allows?

    P2P allows much more centralization of power, actually. Just cap the upload or block some ports and it's over.

    Speak for yourself. Not everyone is as selfish as you apparently are, and p2p will eventually have reputation systems for weeding rogues and assholes out of our webs of trust.

    Webs of trust? Nice buzzword, not likely to ever happen. Unless you massively centralize the whole P2P network around one registry. And even then such systems are easy to bypass unless you use something like Palladium.

  23. Re:I disagree on Managing Bandwidth and Bandwidth Costs? · · Score: 1

    Actually, most people don't leave their computer on 24 hours/day. I'm not talking about hard-core internet users, I'm talking about your average Joe Sixpack whom the parent article seems to refer to. As for ISPs: they sure haven't been reluctant to artificially cap upload speeds to ridiculously slow speeds. That tells me that they probably don't like the whole P2P idea too much. Besides, it only drives people to broadband if there are illegal files to be gotten for free; otherwise, it just costs the ISP more money.

  24. Re:Don't forget! on Aussie Company Releases Xbox Mod-Chip Designs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Dude, just forget about it. Your project is useless. Cracking the key is computationally impossible unless you have a few billion years at your disposal.

  25. Re:A couple of problems... on Caring, Feeding and Enhancing UPS Battery Systems? · · Score: 1

    Lead-acid batteries have a really nice charging curve, so you don't need to do anything special to charge them. If you hook them up to a power supply that supplies their rated voltage, they will charge automagically. Once they are charged, their voltage will rise and the current will stop flowing. How do you think your car battery gets charged? Hint: there is no special charging circuit in cars.

    Also, having few power outages has nothing to do with having a large battery. With a large battery, your computer could run much longer than with the stock one. If I have one power outage a year that lasts 5 hours, only a UPS with a huge battery would work.