That one statement shows your complete lack of knowledge of Linux. There are ***THOUSANDS*** of games you can play on Linux, right from Freeware/OSS games, through DOS/Windows games played through emulators or WINE, a handful of native conversions like the Quakes, Dooms and Unreal Tounaments.
What you ***SHOULD*** have said was "more than 3 MODERN games" - then maybe you'd have been more factually correct.
Enjoy learning millions of arcane commands to install software?
Again, you're commenting on what you ***THINK*** you know, rather than fact. Just about every distro, Fedora and Ubuntu included, have easy-to-use GUI tools to install the software packages you want and will even warn you when you need to do a security update. If you can use Windows Update, you can use the tools in most Linux distros just as easily (and reboot less).
Enjoy not being able to use your wireless card
Another myth. There are some chipsets that Linux cannot use natively but most now work. To not encounter this problem in the first place is simply a case of doing a little research before you buy a wireless PC or card. Besides which, this problem is not Linux's causing - it's the hardware vendors not releasing drivers or specifications for their products to the Linux community.
and having to use your video card in 24 bit mode (if you can get it configured at all)?
Rubbish! Use an nVidia or ATI card, the drivers for either are pretty mature with the latest versions of Xorg. You may need to tweak a few parameters, if you're not prepared to do that then don't use Linux. It's that simple.
I use Linux myself (I dual-boot Vista and Mepis 32 on my laptop; XP pro and SuSE 10.3 on my desktop), and it is much better than Windows in many ways.
Nope, disagree. I think you've ***INSTALLED*** it to see what all the hype is about but then realised it takes more effort on your part and basically given up before you've even started.
Unfortunately it is not realistic to try to tell your average user that they can entirely switch from Windows to Linux without sacrificing some functionality.
What functionality you sacrifice depends on what functionality you need. If you need to play the latest games, don't run Linux. If you need 100% MS Office compatibility, VB macros, etc., don't run Linux. It is not anyone's place to ***TELL*** someone to switch to Linux - much better to help them when they ask questions about Linux.
Also, rather than admitting its deficiencies, Linux-users try to spin them as strengths. In the aforementioned example of there not being games, Linuxphiles will say "That's because people who use Linux aren't worried about games" or "Just buy an XBox 360 if you're worried about games."
As I said earlier, it depends on what games you want. If you want modern games, use Windows currently and don't want to mess about with WINE or other Linux compatibility software then don't run Linux - that's just common sense, it's nothing to do with "strengths". But on the other hand, if you've got 10,000 BMP images to convert to JPG then using shell command-line tools in a script in UNIX or Linux will be far quicker and less tedious than doing the conversion in a GUI-based program on Windows. It's "horses for courses".
If it were the other way around and Linux had the vast library of titles, they would be touting that as another example of superiority over Windows.
I have no idea what you are saying here! Surely, any sensible computer user will use the "right tool for the right job". If that happens to be a piece of Open Source software, even better because then he/she doesn't pay any money for it. And that's the case whether or not that person uses Windows or Linux - a ***HUGE*** amount of Open Source software is available for Windows.
(Oops, I forgot to say "Windoze". Whew! I almost got my/. card revoked.)
So how come you didn't potentially save yourself some money, keep your existing PC hardware and try installing Ubuntu on that first?
Also, why did you feel the need to upgrade XP? Apart from a handful of DX10 games (which aren't available on the Mac anyway), I'm not aware of any other software that will only run on Vista.
My view on Mac people is that if the whole world used them, we'd be in deeper doo-doo than we are at the moment with Windows - if only because Mac people want life far too easy and don't want to understand how a computer works and how to maintain it. That's a perfect environment for the spread of malware and viruses...
I still love IE 7 compared to Firefox (although I do use FF portable sometimes).
So, in other words, you're happy to maintain two sets of different bookmark formats rather than using Firefox solely and using a plugin like "Foxmarks" to automatically maintain a single bookmark list.
The problem I have with IE fans is that they've invariably not looked at Firefox enough to understand what the true benefits are of using it.
With all respect, nobody in their right mind should use IE over Firefox. IE, by design of it's integration into Windows, has vast security problems that Firefox, Opera or other browsers do not have - plus, all of the 3rd party browsers are far more standards compliant than IE also.
In the real world, someone like me who fixes the PCs of friends and relatives all of the time has seen a ***VAST*** decrease in virus/spyware infested PCs purely by installing Firefox for those people and telling them to use it.
By all means, stick with IE. But I suggest you are sticking with IE because, like most other Joe Sixpacks, you've not looked at the true benefits of Firefox - if you did, there would be no way you'd use IE.
With the "accepted" statistic that people replace their PCs about once every 3 years, 14% looks very low as it should, presumably, be nearer 33% by now.
Even if you said once every 5 years for PC replacement, 14% is still very low.
According to this web site (http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62034821,00.htm [zdnetasia.com]), Vista, in less than one year, has many times the desktop penetration as does Linux (all flavors still constitute less than 1%) after 15 years.
Sometimes you Windows fan boys really make me laugh with your statistics!
This topic has ***ABSOLUTELY NOTHING*** to do with Linux as it's about Vista & Firefox adoption. But as to Linux desktop penetration? Yep, you're probably right. Do we care? No.
Please do not assume everyone who uses Linux to be a zealot. Whatever your or anyone else's opinion of it is irrelevant to the fact that for me, personally, Linux fulfills 80% of my computing needs currently with some excellent apps & games on XP filling the other 20%.
Remember - most people use Windows because it happens to be on the PC that they purchased (and good luck to them) but you have to make a physical choice to run Linux.
Yeah, my pc is a bit above the minimum requirements (quad core, 4gigs of ram, 8800gt 1gig, etc.)
Actually, that specification is still quite a "high end" PC compared to most users who are still running the first 64-bit CPUs or even 32-bit ones. And if their existing PCs are running XP okay, why would they bother with a Vista upgrade?
The number of PCs is an order of magnitude greater than in 2002, and the statistic cited means that Vista has more installed units out there than XP did one year out.
That statement actually proves nothing. Since PCs now are a lot cheaper than they were in 2002, it can be assumed that a lot more people are replacing their machines a lot more than they previously did - therefore, they're getting Vista OEM pre-installed, just like a lot of them were when XP first came out.
But the real difference here is that if you go into any PC store, you will see Vista discounted for the off-the-shelf boxed versions. This can only be because people are not buying it as an upgrade from XP and this, to my knowledge, never happened with boxed Windows XP versions.
You also need to remember that that, for most people, there were tangible benefits to upgrading to XP. Windows ME was another "white elephant", most home users were still running Windows 98 and XP brought along greater stabilility, better memory management, better security and a host of other features.
The benefits of going from XP to Vista are not so obvious to Joe Public. Plus if Microsoft have to "crowbar" people into upgrading by only making DirectX 10 available on Vista, I think it's obvious that Microsoft knows that they need to create an artificial demand for Vista becuase very few people are choosing to run it.
Read what I wrote. In the US, not Europe, most phones are bundled to a service provider. It sucks, but that's the way it is.
If you're saying it's that way in the US, then I can confirm it's similar in Europe - like I said, I'm European with little interest of how it is over there.
This has nothing to do with whether or not I worship Apple. If you'd care to clarify your otherwise unclear analogy, I'm all ears.
Just how clear do I need to make the analogy? You buy an iPhone, you have to use it on AT&T - or on Orange here in the UK. That is the same analogy as buying a copy of Windows that only worked on Intel, not AMD, CPUs which, if it happened in reality, all the self-satisified Jobs worshippers would immediately rise up on their elitist thrones to throw abuse at Microsoft/Intel for.
But because the "shoe is on the other foot", you don't like it - your ever-perfect Apple is beyond reproach and criticism...
believe it actually _is_ illegal to copy a CD for personal use in the UK.
IANAL but I think it is only theoretically illegal to circumvent copy protection here in the UK. A normal CD is not copy protected whereas a DVD is (encrypted) so in theory copying the latter would be illegal.
However, if you own the CD/DVD you are copying, there's no way it would even get to court as that would be deemed "fair use" as it stands currently.
And yet, it's still OK for us to eject a CD, fumble around for a new CD, open the box (all with one hand) and insert it into the player.
Some interesting points but the above comment is not strictly true. You can always be caught out for "driving without due care and attention" whether you are changing a CD, lighting a cigarette or eating a sandwich if a police officer catches you in the act and deems it so. That was always the case with mobile phones also, until the specific laws against those were created.
I don't know (and care even less) how things work over there in the US - but over here in Europe, if you do want a specific phone then you are usually able to buy it free of any restrictions as to which service provider you can use; yes it will cost you more than having the phone within a contract or "pay as you go" service, but you can do it.
Also, you can invariably unlock just about any phone for a small fee, and once unlocked it will continue to work normally.
So my analogy stands - I'm afraid it's your undying worship of Apple that is blinding you here...
So because Apple made a partnership with AT&T to reduce their risk in entering a new market, we have to hear people bawl and whine about teh Evilz of APPLE every time someone submits another flamebait on Slashdot? Lovely.
Imagine the fuss that there would be on Slashdot, a lot coming from elitist Apple users, if Microsoft decided to only release Windows on Intel, not AMD, CPUs.
Some of you fanbois are so far up Apple's ass, it's untrue!
Apple made a CONSCIOUS MARKETING DECISION to lock the iPhone down to AT&T (in the US) before releasing it - so please do NOT try to absolve Apple from this fact.
The much more obvious reason is that Vista needs more RAM, as does XP and everything else that inevitably bloats (including Linux).
SO how about trying to run Windows XP or Vista on a 486-33 CPU with a GUI environment? You can do that with Linux - sure, with a slim X-Windows and Window Manager admittedly but I've done it a number of times.
I certainly take issue with your statement about OSes "inevitably bloating". Sure, any OS in the hands of inexperienced Joe Public will probably get bigger and bigger as time goes on - but then I'd argue that anyone who doesn't understand the effects of installing endless software on an OS probably shouldn't be doing so in the first place.
With Linux, it's easy to pick and choose only certain software to install, there are even some good Windows tools like nLite or XPLite that allow you to severely strip down a Windows installation.
I personally spend a lot of time optimizing my Linux and Windows builds and keeping them that way - my OSes do NOT "inevitably bloat".
Erm, so why does the fact the guy hates Vista SP1 also make him automatically a Linux user?
I hate Vista, use Linux for most of my computing time and have vowed to stay with XP for the bits Linux cannot do. However, a number of my close buddies who have never even touched Linux also hate Vista and are sticking with XP.
Likewise, the original poster could well be running BSD, FreeDOS or countless other OSes.
Certain members of the Windows community may wish to promote the idea of a "Windows v Linux" war where in reality most of we Linux users use it because it does some jobs we need it to do very well - end of story.
So stop with the bullshit - if you personally like Vista then go for it...
So where does this sit with the article on Slashdot the other day where Vista is viewed as the most disappointing product of 2007? It strikes me that the two articles are entirely contradictory of one another.
Yep, maybe in the US but there's far more population in the rest of the world - and in 20 years in computer-related industries as a techie I've seen three Macs - one in the hands of an American lecturer on a course I did, one in the hands of a posing student in Starbucks in my home town a few weeks back, and my friend has a Mac that was given to him free by his IT department but is now back in the box because he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with it and is happily (in his words) using Vista.
There are a lot of comments on here about Leopard being a viable alternative to Windows Vista but the fact is that over here in Europe, Macs and OSX are still very minority and small-time. In my experience as a techie amongst techies here in the UK, there are a few people who are using Vista because that's what came on their latest PC, otherwise most others are sticking with XP and maybe dual-booting or installing an older PC with Linux. I know of ***ABSOLUTELY NONE*** who own, or even considered owning, a Mac.
The fact is that most of us simply ***DON'T CARE*** about wasting valuable CPU cycles on redundant eye-candy. Five years after XP came out, it runs pretty damn fast on the most recent PCs, can be stripped down to run even faster, runs all of the applications and games most people want to use and is therefore good enough. Those techies like me who want to tweak an OS and get better security and stability go off and use Linux (I myself am now an 80% Linux and 20% Windows XP user now).
The Mac users need to accept that Macs and OS X are a niche market. Joe Public just wants a PC like his friends have to surf the Internet and play games on whilst the techies see Macs as locked down machines that you just have to accept you cannot fiddle with and optimise - I have no idea whether that's actually true or not because in 30 years of playing with computers, I've own everything from ZX Spectrums, Commodore 64s and Amigas to PCs and have ***NEVER*** felt the least bit inclined to even look at what a Mac can bring to my computing experience. Macs just are not on my roadmap, or indeed just about everyone else I know at work or socially.
These days, Linux on a PC does most of what I need and XP is great for firing up the occasional game or application that I can't run on Linux - and, yes, I need to constantly tweak XP (and Linux), run virus and spyware checkers and occasionally reinstall it. But I do understand its weaknesses and used in conjunction with Linux, does everything I need computers to do.
So flame me for my final comment but, in my experience, most Mac users are elitist people who have the need to be different but cannot be bothered to invest the time and effort in learning a new OS like Linux.
If you like your Mac and OS X then good luck to you but I'm sure if it became the number one computing platform, you'd be out there looking for an alternative just to be different to everyone else.
Microsoft's drop in stock price was due to a number of factors, specifically the huge financial loss they suffered at the introduction of X-Box. Plus Vista take-up has not been that good. There are other reasons as well...
Yep, I agree about the over-valuing of stocks, but that was mainly as a result of a lot of new startups that had far too much venture capitalist money going into them at the time. Ultimately, it affected a lot of high-tech stock at the time, even at the American telecoms company where I work. But that was a slump that lasted only 3 or 4 years, Apple was in a slump for a very long time - it really was only iPod that pulled them out of the doldrums.
Microsoft invested that cash in the first place was to keep Apple solvent
Great. So would you like to quote that to all your Apple-loving friends here because that is precisely what I said.
I do not personally know, I care even less, how close Apple were to going under then but they ***WERE*** struggling and they needed that investment from someone. Sure, to Steve Jobs it was the equivalent of getting into bed with the devil - but then that just shows how much Apple did need that money.
In which case, Apple fanbois should be less "mealy-mouthed" about Microsoft who contributed, in some part, to Apple's success today.
In which case, I am more than happy for you to quote "solvent" in responses back to me - I am not happy for you to quote "bankrupt" because you imply I used that word when I did not. Please stop putting words into my mouth.
My comment did not have any misleading information in it.
Tell me - why would Apple accept Microsoft's money unless they ***NEEDED*** it? Supposedly, they were deadly enemies. Answer that one.
Slashdot Mirror
That one statement shows your complete lack of knowledge of Linux. There are ***THOUSANDS*** of games you can play on Linux, right from Freeware/OSS games, through DOS/Windows games played through emulators or WINE, a handful of native conversions like the Quakes, Dooms and Unreal Tounaments.
What you ***SHOULD*** have said was "more than 3 MODERN games" - then maybe you'd have been more factually correct.
Enjoy learning millions of arcane commands to install software?
Again, you're commenting on what you ***THINK*** you know, rather than fact. Just about every distro, Fedora and Ubuntu included, have easy-to-use GUI tools to install the software packages you want and will even warn you when you need to do a security update. If you can use Windows Update, you can use the tools in most Linux distros just as easily (and reboot less).
Enjoy not being able to use your wireless card
Another myth. There are some chipsets that Linux cannot use natively but most now work. To not encounter this problem in the first place is simply a case of doing a little research before you buy a wireless PC or card. Besides which, this problem is not Linux's causing - it's the hardware vendors not releasing drivers or specifications for their products to the Linux community.
and having to use your video card in 24 bit mode (if you can get it configured at all)?
Rubbish! Use an nVidia or ATI card, the drivers for either are pretty mature with the latest versions of Xorg. You may need to tweak a few parameters, if you're not prepared to do that then don't use Linux. It's that simple.
I use Linux myself (I dual-boot Vista and Mepis 32 on my laptop; XP pro and SuSE 10.3 on my desktop), and it is much better than Windows in many ways.
Nope, disagree. I think you've ***INSTALLED*** it to see what all the hype is about but then realised it takes more effort on your part and basically given up before you've even started.
Unfortunately it is not realistic to try to tell your average user that they can entirely switch from Windows to Linux without sacrificing some functionality.
What functionality you sacrifice depends on what functionality you need. If you need to play the latest games, don't run Linux. If you need 100% MS Office compatibility, VB macros, etc., don't run Linux. It is not anyone's place to ***TELL*** someone to switch to Linux - much better to help them when they ask questions about Linux.
Also, rather than admitting its deficiencies, Linux-users try to spin them as strengths. In the aforementioned example of there not being games, Linuxphiles will say "That's because people who use Linux aren't worried about games" or "Just buy an XBox 360 if you're worried about games."
As I said earlier, it depends on what games you want. If you want modern games, use Windows currently and don't want to mess about with WINE or other Linux compatibility software then don't run Linux - that's just common sense, it's nothing to do with "strengths". But on the other hand, if you've got 10,000 BMP images to convert to JPG then using shell command-line tools in a script in UNIX or Linux will be far quicker and less tedious than doing the conversion in a GUI-based program on Windows. It's "horses for courses".
If it were the other way around and Linux had the vast library of titles, they would be touting that as another example of superiority over Windows.
I have no idea what you are saying here! Surely, any sensible computer user will use the "right tool for the right job". If that happens to be a piece of Open Source software, even better because then he/she doesn't pay any money for it. And that's the case whether or not that person uses Windows or Linux - a ***HUGE*** amount of Open Source software is available for Windows.
(Oops, I forgot to say "Windoze". Whew! I almost got my /. card revoked.)
So how come you didn't potentially save yourself some money, keep your existing PC hardware and try installing Ubuntu on that first?
Also, why did you feel the need to upgrade XP? Apart from a handful of DX10 games (which aren't available on the Mac anyway), I'm not aware of any other software that will only run on Vista.
My view on Mac people is that if the whole world used them, we'd be in deeper doo-doo than we are at the moment with Windows - if only because Mac people want life far too easy and don't want to understand how a computer works and how to maintain it. That's a perfect environment for the spread of malware and viruses...
So, in other words, you're happy to maintain two sets of different bookmark formats rather than using Firefox solely and using a plugin like "Foxmarks" to automatically maintain a single bookmark list.
The problem I have with IE fans is that they've invariably not looked at Firefox enough to understand what the true benefits are of using it.
With all respect, nobody in their right mind should use IE over Firefox. IE, by design of it's integration into Windows, has vast security problems that Firefox, Opera or other browsers do not have - plus, all of the 3rd party browsers are far more standards compliant than IE also.
In the real world, someone like me who fixes the PCs of friends and relatives all of the time has seen a ***VAST*** decrease in virus/spyware infested PCs purely by installing Firefox for those people and telling them to use it.
By all means, stick with IE. But I suggest you are sticking with IE because, like most other Joe Sixpacks, you've not looked at the true benefits of Firefox - if you did, there would be no way you'd use IE.
With the "accepted" statistic that people replace their PCs about once every 3 years, 14% looks very low as it should, presumably, be nearer 33% by now.
Even if you said once every 5 years for PC replacement, 14% is still very low.
Sometimes you Windows fan boys really make me laugh with your statistics!
This topic has ***ABSOLUTELY NOTHING*** to do with Linux as it's about Vista & Firefox adoption. But as to Linux desktop penetration? Yep, you're probably right. Do we care? No.
Please do not assume everyone who uses Linux to be a zealot. Whatever your or anyone else's opinion of it is irrelevant to the fact that for me, personally, Linux fulfills 80% of my computing needs currently with some excellent apps & games on XP filling the other 20%.
Remember - most people use Windows because it happens to be on the PC that they purchased (and good luck to them) but you have to make a physical choice to run Linux.
Actually, that specification is still quite a "high end" PC compared to most users who are still running the first 64-bit CPUs or even 32-bit ones. And if their existing PCs are running XP okay, why would they bother with a Vista upgrade?
That statement actually proves nothing. Since PCs now are a lot cheaper than they were in 2002, it can be assumed that a lot more people are replacing their machines a lot more than they previously did - therefore, they're getting Vista OEM pre-installed, just like a lot of them were when XP first came out.
But the real difference here is that if you go into any PC store, you will see Vista discounted for the off-the-shelf boxed versions. This can only be because people are not buying it as an upgrade from XP and this, to my knowledge, never happened with boxed Windows XP versions.
You also need to remember that that, for most people, there were tangible benefits to upgrading to XP. Windows ME was another "white elephant", most home users were still running Windows 98 and XP brought along greater stabilility, better memory management, better security and a host of other features.
The benefits of going from XP to Vista are not so obvious to Joe Public. Plus if Microsoft have to "crowbar" people into upgrading by only making DirectX 10 available on Vista, I think it's obvious that Microsoft knows that they need to create an artificial demand for Vista becuase very few people are choosing to run it.
If you're saying it's that way in the US, then I can confirm it's similar in Europe - like I said, I'm European with little interest of how it is over there.
This has nothing to do with whether or not I worship Apple. If you'd care to clarify your otherwise unclear analogy, I'm all ears.
Just how clear do I need to make the analogy? You buy an iPhone, you have to use it on AT&T - or on Orange here in the UK. That is the same analogy as buying a copy of Windows that only worked on Intel, not AMD, CPUs which, if it happened in reality, all the self-satisified Jobs worshippers would immediately rise up on their elitist thrones to throw abuse at Microsoft/Intel for.
But because the "shoe is on the other foot", you don't like it - your ever-perfect Apple is beyond reproach and criticism...
IANAL but I think it is only theoretically illegal to circumvent copy protection here in the UK. A normal CD is not copy protected whereas a DVD is (encrypted) so in theory copying the latter would be illegal.
However, if you own the CD/DVD you are copying, there's no way it would even get to court as that would be deemed "fair use" as it stands currently.
Some interesting points but the above comment is not strictly true. You can always be caught out for "driving without due care and attention" whether you are changing a CD, lighting a cigarette or eating a sandwich if a police officer catches you in the act and deems it so. That was always the case with mobile phones also, until the specific laws against those were created.
...since over here in Europe, the RIAA can't touch us.
Also, you can invariably unlock just about any phone for a small fee, and once unlocked it will continue to work normally.
So my analogy stands - I'm afraid it's your undying worship of Apple that is blinding you here...
Imagine the fuss that there would be on Slashdot, a lot coming from elitist Apple users, if Microsoft decided to only release Windows on Intel, not AMD, CPUs.
It's precisely the same thing...
Surely he would have just sat there in his electric mobility chair beeping a red light a few times?
Oh, wait, that was Chris Pike...
Apple made a CONSCIOUS MARKETING DECISION to lock the iPhone down to AT&T (in the US) before releasing it - so please do NOT try to absolve Apple from this fact.
SO how about trying to run Windows XP or Vista on a 486-33 CPU with a GUI environment? You can do that with Linux - sure, with a slim X-Windows and Window Manager admittedly but I've done it a number of times.
I certainly take issue with your statement about OSes "inevitably bloating". Sure, any OS in the hands of inexperienced Joe Public will probably get bigger and bigger as time goes on - but then I'd argue that anyone who doesn't understand the effects of installing endless software on an OS probably shouldn't be doing so in the first place.
With Linux, it's easy to pick and choose only certain software to install, there are even some good Windows tools like nLite or XPLite that allow you to severely strip down a Windows installation.
I personally spend a lot of time optimizing my Linux and Windows builds and keeping them that way - my OSes do NOT "inevitably bloat".
I hate Vista, use Linux for most of my computing time and have vowed to stay with XP for the bits Linux cannot do. However, a number of my close buddies who have never even touched Linux also hate Vista and are sticking with XP.
Likewise, the original poster could well be running BSD, FreeDOS or countless other OSes.
Certain members of the Windows community may wish to promote the idea of a "Windows v Linux" war where in reality most of we Linux users use it because it does some jobs we need it to do very well - end of story.
So stop with the bullshit - if you personally like Vista then go for it...
So where does this sit with the article on Slashdot the other day where Vista is viewed as the most disappointing product of 2007? It strikes me that the two articles are entirely contradictory of one another.
If they're that great, how come most of us aren't using them then?
Yep, maybe in the US but there's far more population in the rest of the world - and in 20 years in computer-related industries as a techie I've seen three Macs - one in the hands of an American lecturer on a course I did, one in the hands of a posing student in Starbucks in my home town a few weeks back, and my friend has a Mac that was given to him free by his IT department but is now back in the box because he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with it and is happily (in his words) using Vista.
The fact is that most of us simply ***DON'T CARE*** about wasting valuable CPU cycles on redundant eye-candy. Five years after XP came out, it runs pretty damn fast on the most recent PCs, can be stripped down to run even faster, runs all of the applications and games most people want to use and is therefore good enough. Those techies like me who want to tweak an OS and get better security and stability go off and use Linux (I myself am now an 80% Linux and 20% Windows XP user now).
The Mac users need to accept that Macs and OS X are a niche market. Joe Public just wants a PC like his friends have to surf the Internet and play games on whilst the techies see Macs as locked down machines that you just have to accept you cannot fiddle with and optimise - I have no idea whether that's actually true or not because in 30 years of playing with computers, I've own everything from ZX Spectrums, Commodore 64s and Amigas to PCs and have ***NEVER*** felt the least bit inclined to even look at what a Mac can bring to my computing experience. Macs just are not on my roadmap, or indeed just about everyone else I know at work or socially.
These days, Linux on a PC does most of what I need and XP is great for firing up the occasional game or application that I can't run on Linux - and, yes, I need to constantly tweak XP (and Linux), run virus and spyware checkers and occasionally reinstall it. But I do understand its weaknesses and used in conjunction with Linux, does everything I need computers to do.
So flame me for my final comment but, in my experience, most Mac users are elitist people who have the need to be different but cannot be bothered to invest the time and effort in learning a new OS like Linux.
If you like your Mac and OS X then good luck to you but I'm sure if it became the number one computing platform, you'd be out there looking for an alternative just to be different to everyone else.
Hmmmmm.... Carol Vorderman...
Yep, I agree about the over-valuing of stocks, but that was mainly as a result of a lot of new startups that had far too much venture capitalist money going into them at the time. Ultimately, it affected a lot of high-tech stock at the time, even at the American telecoms company where I work. But that was a slump that lasted only 3 or 4 years, Apple was in a slump for a very long time - it really was only iPod that pulled them out of the doldrums.
Great. So would you like to quote that to all your Apple-loving friends here because that is precisely what I said.
I do not personally know, I care even less, how close Apple were to going under then but they ***WERE*** struggling and they needed that investment from someone. Sure, to Steve Jobs it was the equivalent of getting into bed with the devil - but then that just shows how much Apple did need that money.
In which case, Apple fanbois should be less "mealy-mouthed" about Microsoft who contributed, in some part, to Apple's success today.
My comment did not have any misleading information in it.
Tell me - why would Apple accept Microsoft's money unless they ***NEEDED*** it? Supposedly, they were deadly enemies. Answer that one.