Any time any company or organization markets itself as "the [insert adjective] [insert proper noun] alternative for the [insert other proper noun]" the group is destined to failure.
Sssshhhh! Listen!
Far across the distant reaches of the Internet, you can hear the distant cackles of laughter of Firefox and Internet Standards developers.
I think anyone that attacks a piece of software for being open and free would probably cut off his/her nose to spite his face.
A constructive, intelligent person would go give a piece of free software a try since there is little to lose in doing that - at which point that same constructive, intelligent person would send some feedback to the developers of that software as to why he/she doesn't feel it provides him/her with what's required.
A troll spews out opinions based on hearsay while clearly demonstrating little actual subject-matter knowledge of what is being discussed.
I've never understood people who tout lossy recompression as some kind of "feature".
Why not just *BUY THE BLOODY CD*, rip it yourself and stick the CD on a shelf as an automatic, always available backup of your music? And save all that mucking about with CD-Rs as well.
And please don't give me that "there's only 1 or 2 good tracks on an album" crap. If that's the case, try listening to some talented musicians who can put together albums that are great from start to finish, rather than plastic manufactured rubbish played by idiots who are only capable of churning out two single-quality tracks with the rest as filler.
Erm, title says "Corporate MAC Sales" not "Corporate iPad Sales" - do try to keep up.
And for the record, I'm a security tech for an American-owned telecoms company in Surrey; 95% of our products are Linux-based, I've been using it myself at least 15 years and about 90%/10% Linux/Windows user at home (Gentoo is my Linux weapon of choice).
Over here in the UK I've seen precisely zero Macs in any enterprise - therefore an increase of 66% would still be zero, which is precisely what I see today.
A very shrewd observation by the poster of the article, I am impressed.
So your salary increases based on other people making bad predictions about Apple? Surely that would be more to do with revenue from canny investments - i.e. taking advantage of share prices when they are low?
Sorry, a bit out of my depth anyway. I'm a techie who fixes stuff, I earn enough money not to be too bothered about the acquisition of more above all else in life.
Ahh, the inevitably incorrect Apple prediction. The most valuable tech company in the world that was predicted dead in 1997...the company that killed the floppy drive prematurely...the company that adopted USB too early...the company with the lame mp3 player.
I really like home-made rice pudding. And as a statement that is completely irrelevant to your comment about just like your comment above was completely irrelevant to the statement you picked out. Please try to stay on topic, maybe just wipe some of the spittle off your screen first though.
That is possibly the most stupid prediction I've seen. Why would the company who is getting ready to consolidate OSX Server and OSX Home into ONE edition --OSX Lion-- start making different versions of the OS based on the user's hardware?
It's called "porting" - it's quite common in the software industry, I am led to believe.
Keep predicting slashdotters, because my livelihood benefits from your terrible predictions.
So you make money based on the bad predictions of others??? What are you, an undertaker or something?
Just an education to those "happy-go-lucky" fanbois who believe their beloved Macs are somehow immune to malware:
1. Malware can appear on any system - yes, even my beloved Linux is not totally immune from the threats.
2. Defending computing devices against malware is as much about your own common sense as it is about someone else's anti-walware software or handing over your responsibilities in their entirety to Lord Jobs The Almighty. That means understanding *how* malware can enter through a web-site, email attachment, etc. and not going to sulubrious websites or opening emails where you don't necessarily trust the source. Yes, fanbois, it may be beneath your designer "pay someone else to do it lifestyles" but it all comes down to not being naive plonkers and learning how a computer works.
3. Apple has become an "evil company" in the eyes of many, just like Microsoft and Sony did. When that's the case, subsets of malware authors who consider themselves to be Internet Robin Hoods will consider that they are doing the world a favour by targetting Apple over and over again. Whether they do that or not is irrespective of how many Macs are out there, it's more on just how big and evil they perceive Apple to be.
4. Apple moving all software under the App Store banner is *precisely* what Apple wants to do because it makes them more money - it has *nothing* to do with anti-malware measures apart from giving them a good excuse to do it amongst the faithful. As that lockdown gets more and more, you will see a recurrence of exactly what has plagued Windows for many years - namely that not every fanboi has millionnaire parents and whilst some will buy every piece of software they use, most will get cracked copies which will be infected with all manner of malware because they won't or can't pay for the software.
5. Yes, Android will also be targetted and non-techie Android users will suffer as a result. But anyone who is tech-savvy knows where the legitimate sources for software are and how to do as many checks as possible before installing anything. I've run Windows XP alongside Linux for years, for about 5 years now I went totally legitimate in the software that I use (I gave up with cracks and warez, I use Open Source programs and legitimately licensed and paid-for software) and I've not seen a piece of malware or virus in years - and that's running freebie virus checkers and anti-malware programs.
6. I've not used Vista or Windows 7 because I've found no good reason to - but as I understand it, in Windows 7 Microsoft have put in much better layered security that takes into account people who don't know what they're doing and, as a result, it's having a positive effect on reducing malware spread on Windows 7. Yet at the same time, Apple leaves a ridiculous amount of unpatched flaws (especially in that Safari garbage) on their systems. The net result is malware creators will ultimately find it easier to target Apple than Microsoft, as Microsoft gets better and better at holding them back. (Nope, I'm not an MS fanboi, I use Linux more than Windows but I tell it like I see it as a security techie in my day job.)
So stop with the defensive posturing, get your heads out of your assholes and READ THE FUCKING MANUALS like the rest of us do.
The games industry now seems to be taking the stance that single-player gamers are a lower form of life to those that do all or most of their gaming online.
I love all the Valve games, I'm also playing and re-playing Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas with all manner of community mods. I do spend the occasional 1/2 hour online playing Warsow or World Of Padman but most of my gaming is single-player because I prefer to play when I want to, not when friends or online buddies need me to.
After pressure from friends, I tried WoW and managed to last the month of my original subscription before deciding it wasn't for me. I didn't find it any where near as immersive as single-player Fallout or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I actually found it very unrealistic - e.g. waiting behind somebody on the same assassination mission as you until he kills his quarry, then the quarry comes to life again so you can go do the same thing.
I suspect that probably puts me in the category of "casual gamer" but in 30-odd years of doing it, I pretty much feel that all that *can* be done in single player gaming, with maybe the exception of mobile device games, has been done - so I can always go run an old game (with or without an emulator) that meets the requirements of what I need for gaming entertainment at that moment in time. Not forgetting all the free, Open Source and Indie games that are out there also.
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about it - there's plenty of great single-player games out there to try.
..because kids are there to LEARN not to piss about on Facebook and their mobile phones.
Who gives a toss about the potential health issues, above is reason enough.
I'd even go a stage further and line all school buildings so they block all GSM & Wifi signals - make sure the school secretary & parents swap contact phone numbers in case of emergencies, problem solved.
This is where I have a real problem with the 21st century version of capitalism.
Through peer pressure & succumbing to advertising, too many consumers have lost their minds & backbones these days - I actually think it is quite a "sick" society we have when people are prepared to queue overnight for a new gadget or game, especially when in other parts of the world people queue for food in order to avoid starvation.
I don't have a problem with wealth, I don't do so badly myself, but it's clear that in these times of governmental budget cuts, increasing fuel, food & utility prices, & job losses, there is still plenty of disposable income about when people are happy to shell out high prices for stuff, and stand in line for it. To me, this sends a very bad message to governments & corporations because it illustrates to them that there's clearly still a big pot of money that they can extract from Joe Public through even higher taxes & prices.
I'm a PC gamer, but a middle-aged one, & whilst I do have a nice amount of disposable income, I treat money with respect - ultimately, this means I have no credit card debt or loans, only a reasonable mortgage for a reasonably sized house that I own with the wife. Maybe once or twice a year, I will buy a PC game within a couple of weeks of release (I certainly won't queue for one!) but most of the time I just wait until the game is 1/10 price in a budget range, then buy it.
I simply *REFUSE* to bow to advertising pressure and hype - no tangible object is *THAT* important to me that I end up getting in a froth over it to the point where I *MUST* have it - one thing you learn when you get to my age is that the expectation is frequently the best part & actually having the object of desire in your very hands can be a letdown.
I like nice shiny stuff and spending money - but I decide when something is at a fair price, not some money-grabbing corporation.
In which case, the whole discussion is pathetic and pointless.
If it's just about a retailer choosing not to stock a particular item, it's no different to, say, me walking into my local supermarket and throwing my toys out the pram because they don't stock gazelle meat on their meat counter.
It's just so the PS3 fanbois can feel a bit more comfortable renting their rectums back to Sony & paying for the privilege when the PSN comes back online because it will all have been Amazon's fault, not Sony's.
"We, Amazon, choose not to stock a particular item" != "Censorship"
This is no different to walking around any shopping mall in the world and discovering that book & magazine retailers do not stock pornographic magazines or videos - or if they do then it's in a location where only adults can purchase it.
Presumably the creation and distribution of this stuff is not an issue in Japan - in which case, if it means that much to you getting hold of it, go set up your own distribution and sales channel directly with the producers.
Amazon is a retailer, they have *EVERY RIGHT* to stock what they want and the Kindle is not restricted to just the ebooks produced by Amazon - so buy that stuff non-DRMed elsewhere and you can read it on your Kindle.
I'm a fan of rock music, including a lot of obscure albums on CD. Amazon do not stock some of the CDs I am looking for but rather than throwing my toys out the pram, I just go looking at other more specialist online retailers to find what I want.
This whole issue is about a few people with too much time on their hands intent on turning themselves into modern-day Robin Hoods by testing the extent of the law without any interest whatsoever in such material.
In which case, they ought to get lives for themselves because there's far more important stuff in the world to worry about than a few Japanese comics.
A few insignificant weirdos trying to push the extent of the law by reading dubious comics and Amazon banning said comics *doesn't* matter to the majority of normal people.
Maybe there's a difference between paper books or ebooks containing real pictures of kiddie porn or cartoon pictures of kiddie porn but, quite frankly, I consider both to be at least unsavoury & wonder why any normal person would be interested in looking at either.
Besides which, I don't think that's the issue here anyway. I think it's more about people with too much damn time on their hands trying to work out ways that they can push the letter of the law to its limits simply to attract attention and gain some kind of notoriety as a result.
It's attention-seeking by people who would otherwise blend into the background and never be noticed so therefore have some desire to create controversy.
Amazon no longer sell it and the majority of people would never buy the stuff - therefore nothing to see here apart from people who need to get more fulfilled lives.
Windows isn't even my primary OS (Linux is) but I do use my XP PC almost daily and I've not seen any virus or malware on it in years. I keep it updated, don't go near McAfee or Symantec bloatware (I just use Microsoft Security Centre) and only install software or games on it that I've bought legally or are freeware/OSS downloaded from the official sources. I also don't use IE or Outlook on it.
It's not rocket science, just common sense. If you install warez & key generators on Windows, then prepare to have viruses, it's that simple.
While the article did exaggerate a bit, I think they make some valid points. In particular, it doesn't seem like the best idea in the world to let parentally unsupervised children post, talk and say things in a place where there's going to be an archive of it. Children aren't the most responsible people. Hell, some people have grown up and still don't belong on the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Any time any company or organization markets itself as "the [insert adjective] [insert proper noun] alternative for the [insert other proper noun]" the group is destined to failure.
Sssshhhh! Listen!
Far across the distant reaches of the Internet, you can hear the distant cackles of laughter of Firefox and Internet Standards developers.
CDs haven't had DRM for almost 30 years.
I feel sorry for you. Really.
I think anyone that attacks a piece of software for being open and free would probably cut off his/her nose to spite his face.
A constructive, intelligent person would go give a piece of free software a try since there is little to lose in doing that - at which point that same constructive, intelligent person would send some feedback to the developers of that software as to why he/she doesn't feel it provides him/her with what's required.
A troll spews out opinions based on hearsay while clearly demonstrating little actual subject-matter knowledge of what is being discussed.
Clearly, you are in the latter category.
I've never understood people who tout lossy recompression as some kind of "feature".
Why not just *BUY THE BLOODY CD*, rip it yourself and stick the CD on a shelf as an automatic, always available backup of your music? And save all that mucking about with CD-Rs as well.
And please don't give me that "there's only 1 or 2 good tracks on an album" crap. If that's the case, try listening to some talented musicians who can put together albums that are great from start to finish, rather than plastic manufactured rubbish played by idiots who are only capable of churning out two single-quality tracks with the rest as filler.
Erm, title says "Corporate MAC Sales" not "Corporate iPad Sales" - do try to keep up.
And for the record, I'm a security tech for an American-owned telecoms company in Surrey; 95% of our products are Linux-based, I've been using it myself at least 15 years and about 90%/10% Linux/Windows user at home (Gentoo is my Linux weapon of choice).
Over here in the UK I've seen precisely zero Macs in any enterprise - therefore an increase of 66% would still be zero, which is precisely what I see today.
A very shrewd observation by the poster of the article, I am impressed.
No dummy.
Obviously the growth from 3 to 5 Macs would be an increase of 66.66666% recurring, which would round up to 67%, not down to 66%.
So your salary increases based on other people making bad predictions about Apple? Surely that would be more to do with revenue from canny investments - i.e. taking advantage of share prices when they are low?
Sorry, a bit out of my depth anyway. I'm a techie who fixes stuff, I earn enough money not to be too bothered about the acquisition of more above all else in life.
Why do Apple people always whine on about money?
Ahh, the inevitably incorrect Apple prediction. The most valuable tech company in the world that was predicted dead in 1997...the company that killed the floppy drive prematurely...the company that adopted USB too early...the company with the lame mp3 player.
I really like home-made rice pudding. And as a statement that is completely irrelevant to your comment about just like your comment above was completely irrelevant to the statement you picked out. Please try to stay on topic, maybe just wipe some of the spittle off your screen first though.
That is possibly the most stupid prediction I've seen. Why would the company who is getting ready to consolidate OSX Server and OSX Home into ONE edition --OSX Lion-- start making different versions of the OS based on the user's hardware?
It's called "porting" - it's quite common in the software industry, I am led to believe.
Keep predicting slashdotters, because my livelihood benefits from your terrible predictions.
So you make money based on the bad predictions of others??? What are you, an undertaker or something?
Just an education to those "happy-go-lucky" fanbois who believe their beloved Macs are somehow immune to malware:
1. Malware can appear on any system - yes, even my beloved Linux is not totally immune from the threats.
2. Defending computing devices against malware is as much about your own common sense as it is about someone else's anti-walware software or handing over your responsibilities in their entirety to Lord Jobs The Almighty. That means understanding *how* malware can enter through a web-site, email attachment, etc. and not going to sulubrious websites or opening emails where you don't necessarily trust the source. Yes, fanbois, it may be beneath your designer "pay someone else to do it lifestyles" but it all comes down to not being naive plonkers and learning how a computer works.
3. Apple has become an "evil company" in the eyes of many, just like Microsoft and Sony did. When that's the case, subsets of malware authors who consider themselves to be Internet Robin Hoods will consider that they are doing the world a favour by targetting Apple over and over again. Whether they do that or not is irrespective of how many Macs are out there, it's more on just how big and evil they perceive Apple to be.
4. Apple moving all software under the App Store banner is *precisely* what Apple wants to do because it makes them more money - it has *nothing* to do with anti-malware measures apart from giving them a good excuse to do it amongst the faithful. As that lockdown gets more and more, you will see a recurrence of exactly what has plagued Windows for many years - namely that not every fanboi has millionnaire parents and whilst some will buy every piece of software they use, most will get cracked copies which will be infected with all manner of malware because they won't or can't pay for the software.
5. Yes, Android will also be targetted and non-techie Android users will suffer as a result. But anyone who is tech-savvy knows where the legitimate sources for software are and how to do as many checks as possible before installing anything. I've run Windows XP alongside Linux for years, for about 5 years now I went totally legitimate in the software that I use (I gave up with cracks and warez, I use Open Source programs and legitimately licensed and paid-for software) and I've not seen a piece of malware or virus in years - and that's running freebie virus checkers and anti-malware programs.
6. I've not used Vista or Windows 7 because I've found no good reason to - but as I understand it, in Windows 7 Microsoft have put in much better layered security that takes into account people who don't know what they're doing and, as a result, it's having a positive effect on reducing malware spread on Windows 7. Yet at the same time, Apple leaves a ridiculous amount of unpatched flaws (especially in that Safari garbage) on their systems. The net result is malware creators will ultimately find it easier to target Apple than Microsoft, as Microsoft gets better and better at holding them back. (Nope, I'm not an MS fanboi, I use Linux more than Windows but I tell it like I see it as a security techie in my day job.)
So stop with the defensive posturing, get your heads out of your assholes and READ THE FUCKING MANUALS like the rest of us do.
The games industry now seems to be taking the stance that single-player gamers are a lower form of life to those that do all or most of their gaming online.
I love all the Valve games, I'm also playing and re-playing Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas with all manner of community mods. I do spend the occasional 1/2 hour online playing Warsow or World Of Padman but most of my gaming is single-player because I prefer to play when I want to, not when friends or online buddies need me to.
After pressure from friends, I tried WoW and managed to last the month of my original subscription before deciding it wasn't for me. I didn't find it any where near as immersive as single-player Fallout or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I actually found it very unrealistic - e.g. waiting behind somebody on the same assassination mission as you until he kills his quarry, then the quarry comes to life again so you can go do the same thing.
I suspect that probably puts me in the category of "casual gamer" but in 30-odd years of doing it, I pretty much feel that all that *can* be done in single player gaming, with maybe the exception of mobile device games, has been done - so I can always go run an old game (with or without an emulator) that meets the requirements of what I need for gaming entertainment at that moment in time. Not forgetting all the free, Open Source and Indie games that are out there also.
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about it - there's plenty of great single-player games out there to try.
Just wait for the Game Of The Year Edition and get the whole lot for the same price (or less) as the original game was.
..because kids are there to LEARN not to piss about on Facebook and their mobile phones.
Who gives a toss about the potential health issues, above is reason enough.
I'd even go a stage further and line all school buildings so they block all GSM & Wifi signals - make sure the school secretary & parents swap contact phone numbers in case of emergencies, problem solved.
This is where I have a real problem with the 21st century version of capitalism.
Through peer pressure & succumbing to advertising, too many consumers have lost their minds & backbones these days - I actually think it is quite a "sick" society we have when people are prepared to queue overnight for a new gadget or game, especially when in other parts of the world people queue for food in order to avoid starvation.
I don't have a problem with wealth, I don't do so badly myself, but it's clear that in these times of governmental budget cuts, increasing fuel, food & utility prices, & job losses, there is still plenty of disposable income about when people are happy to shell out high prices for stuff, and stand in line for it. To me, this sends a very bad message to governments & corporations because it illustrates to them that there's clearly still a big pot of money that they can extract from Joe Public through even higher taxes & prices.
I'm a PC gamer, but a middle-aged one, & whilst I do have a nice amount of disposable income, I treat money with respect - ultimately, this means I have no credit card debt or loans, only a reasonable mortgage for a reasonably sized house that I own with the wife. Maybe once or twice a year, I will buy a PC game within a couple of weeks of release (I certainly won't queue for one!) but most of the time I just wait until the game is 1/10 price in a budget range, then buy it.
I simply *REFUSE* to bow to advertising pressure and hype - no tangible object is *THAT* important to me that I end up getting in a froth over it to the point where I *MUST* have it - one thing you learn when you get to my age is that the expectation is frequently the best part & actually having the object of desire in your very hands can be a letdown.
I like nice shiny stuff and spending money - but I decide when something is at a fair price, not some money-grabbing corporation.
I've often thought about how many "nested" emulators it would be possible to run and the best I can come up with is 3 at the moment.
Linux PC running Virtual Box --> Windows XP
WIndows XP running WinUAE --> Commodore Amiga
Commodore Amiga running Speccylator --> ZX Spectrum
I'm sure there are geeks out there who can come up with more.
In which case, the whole discussion is pathetic and pointless.
If it's just about a retailer choosing not to stock a particular item, it's no different to, say, me walking into my local supermarket and throwing my toys out the pram because they don't stock gazelle meat on their meat counter.
Sony and "Yaoi" - a pair of crappy Japanese comics.
It's just so the PS3 fanbois can feel a bit more comfortable renting their rectums back to Sony & paying for the privilege when the PSN comes back online because it will all have been Amazon's fault, not Sony's.
"We, Amazon, choose not to stock a particular item" != "Censorship"
This is no different to walking around any shopping mall in the world and discovering that book & magazine retailers do not stock pornographic magazines or videos - or if they do then it's in a location where only adults can purchase it.
Presumably the creation and distribution of this stuff is not an issue in Japan - in which case, if it means that much to you getting hold of it, go set up your own distribution and sales channel directly with the producers.
Amazon is a retailer, they have *EVERY RIGHT* to stock what they want and the Kindle is not restricted to just the ebooks produced by Amazon - so buy that stuff non-DRMed elsewhere and you can read it on your Kindle.
I'm a fan of rock music, including a lot of obscure albums on CD. Amazon do not stock some of the CDs I am looking for but rather than throwing my toys out the pram, I just go looking at other more specialist online retailers to find what I want.
This whole issue is about a few people with too much time on their hands intent on turning themselves into modern-day Robin Hoods by testing the extent of the law without any interest whatsoever in such material.
In which case, they ought to get lives for themselves because there's far more important stuff in the world to worry about than a few Japanese comics.
Read the Slashdot title.
"Stuff That Matters."
A few insignificant weirdos trying to push the extent of the law by reading dubious comics and Amazon banning said comics *doesn't* matter to the majority of normal people.
That is my point.
No-one forces anyone to use a nanny that's provided for them.
You know something? I don't give a toss.
Maybe there's a difference between paper books or ebooks containing real pictures of kiddie porn or cartoon pictures of kiddie porn but, quite frankly, I consider both to be at least unsavoury & wonder why any normal person would be interested in looking at either.
Besides which, I don't think that's the issue here anyway. I think it's more about people with too much damn time on their hands trying to work out ways that they can push the letter of the law to its limits simply to attract attention and gain some kind of notoriety as a result.
It's attention-seeking by people who would otherwise blend into the background and never be noticed so therefore have some desire to create controversy.
Amazon no longer sell it and the majority of people would never buy the stuff - therefore nothing to see here apart from people who need to get more fulfilled lives.
Agreed.
Windows isn't even my primary OS (Linux is) but I do use my XP PC almost daily and I've not seen any virus or malware on it in years. I keep it updated, don't go near McAfee or Symantec bloatware (I just use Microsoft Security Centre) and only install software or games on it that I've bought legally or are freeware/OSS downloaded from the official sources. I also don't use IE or Outlook on it.
It's not rocket science, just common sense. If you install warez & key generators on Windows, then prepare to have viruses, it's that simple.
While the article did exaggerate a bit, I think they make some valid points. In particular, it doesn't seem like the best idea in the world to let parentally unsupervised children post, talk and say things in a place where there's going to be an archive of it. Children aren't the most responsible people. Hell, some people have grown up and still don't belong on the internet.
There, corrected that for you.