That was my point - it was addressing the fact that Linux supports ext3 out of the box, which you would expect as a default filesystem, while OS X doesn't - but I don't expect it to. Just as the reverse is going to be true - Linux (whatever flavour you go for) doesn't really have a need to support HFS+ out of the box. If you need to use either of these filesystems out of their native habitat (ie, ext3 on OS X and vice versa) you can add them easily on both platforms.
*correction, my NTFS partition is mounted read only by default. I am pretty sure you can flip it and have it mounted R/W, but I think there was a reason not to.
I have an NTFS volume mounted Read and Write on OS X - it is my bootcamp partition. When you set up bootcamp you can immediately read and write to the NTFS partition after the Windows install CD formats it. The NTFS driver is probably already on the system, but without an NTFS formatted disk to test it, I have no idea. You don;t need to install anything when you reboot into OS X though, after installing Windows - your NTFS partition is mounted right away. On the flip side, you don;t have access to your HFS+ partition on Windows until you install the HFS+ driver (it's on the OS X install CD) along with all the other hardware drivers. Perhaps this is when the Mac NTFS driver gets dropped into your OS X install. The support for NTFS comes from Apple though - no need for third party installs or any "hassle" - it just works as soon as you reboot into OS X.
Of course Linux supports ext3 out of the box - it's one of the default filesystems for Linux. You might as well say "OS X supports HFS+ out of the box" for all the meaning it carries. Does Linux support HFS+ out of the box? (ie, a filesystem that is the default for an OS that doesn't have the dominance of Windows)
Either way you can install support for ext3 if you need it - and if you do, the fact that you have to add support really shouldn't be that much of an issue (ie, if you are using ext3 filesystems, you likely know what you're doing with computers in general).
I have Ubuntu running on my old Powerbook, and I am finding it very interesting, although I seem to have broken it by going for KDE and updating some other software - the wireless was working, but is now not, and the hardware acceleration for the desktop environment has stopped too. It *can* access my HFS+ drive over the network though, but likely because the disk format is irrelevant when serving over NFS.
Apple decided a long time ago when OS X was released) that they wanted to remove the "driver headache" as much as possible - so they ship a massive bunch of printer drivers with OS X, including drivers for ancient stuff (you can even use old LaserWriters), and if they don;t have a driver for it, there's a strong chance they can get it going under CUPS, which also ships ready to run. This does mean that you have 250-300MB of drivers sitting in/Library/Printers, but HD space is cheap, and you can delete them if you want to slim down your install (you can also choose to trim the list during install time if you do a fresh installation).
It's one of the many things I like about OS X. I can plug in a USB drive and have it mount right away, ready to use. Plug the same drive into a Windows box and it has to install something. It only takes a few seconds, but I'm unsure what it's doing - surely it's just a USB mass storage device? Plug in my other memory stick, from a different vendor, and it has to install something else!
Lots of little touches like this all across the OS make it nice to use. I have used Win 7, XP and Vista (ugh to Vista) and they work well enough - there's nothing wrong with them per se, when they're working fine, but I prefer OS X.
This is very true - even the best head units are *awful* at iPod control and navigation (and by extension, anything with playlists or selections like CD changers, USB sticks with folders of music on, etc etc).
It took me a long time to find a decent head unit for my needs, and it still sucks to navigate with some crazy design choices.
Apple could design one and clean up, since it would be entirely about usability.
This market has been around for a lot longer than the iPod - this was an issue back when multi CD changers were the hot thing, and it hasn't really been solved all that well. Anyone who enters that market with a decent, well thought out UI has a serious shot. The closest Apple has got is designing a half hearted connection system for BMW to go in the Mini - something that has been surpassed by most of the connection options these days.
While I get up late due to dodgy alarm code, my favourite iPhone hack that I have to do in the afternoon is when I send an SMS message and it actually gets to the person I sent it to.
I mean exactly what I say - that the graphics chip on the 2 year old Macbook is incapable of driving the 27" display, even if you can adapt the mini-DVI port into a displayport / minidisplayport found on the new monitor.
The Intel X3100 just doesn't have the power to drive it, since it's not actually a proper GPU, just an integrated graphics chip sharing the main memory:
Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory3
Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors
While the 27" display can be driven at non-native resolutions of 1920x1080 and 12880x720, it's not going to look good unless you're feeding it 1080 or 720p video content, which is clearly what the non-native resolutions were designed for.
As it stands right now, I stand by my original assertion that the Intel inbuilt X3100 as installed on the 2008 Macbook is not powerful enough to drive the 27" display at native resolution. Something that anyone looking to make a $999 purchase should really check out beforehand, which brings us back to the very original point of this particular thread, featuring some moron boss who somehow represents all Apple users because he makes purchasing decisions without checking specifications first.
The 2008 Macbook cannot drive a 27" display. Subsequent Macbooks, with more powerful graphics cards, can. There's no rocket science here. That 2008 Macbook can plug into HDMI, DVI, VGA, S-video, Composite and other connections also "with ease" just like your laptop (there are cheap, passive adapters for all of these). There is also a less cheap active adapter if you want to drive an old Apple display that uses ADC, although there aren;t many of those left any more (Apple has not sold an ADC based monitor in some time). I see you linked to those cheap and passive adapters that seem to be ok in your Dell world, but somehow "a whole lot more confusing" in the Apple world.
What's that word I'm looking for? Hypnocrate... no, Cryptohit? Hypocrite, that's it.
No, why should it be compatible with a "sub-2 year old" laptop from the same manufacturer if the graphics card can't support it? A 27" LCD needs a reasonably powerful card to drive it effectively, and the base level Macbook from 2 years ago cannot do that.
Dell sells giant screens too, and also laptops from 2 years ago that can't drive them.
Your anti-Apple bias is making you say silly things, and look for conspiracies where none exist.
iTunes can re-encode on the fly for you now. If it plays the file in iTunes (and it will play FLAC if you install the codec for Quicktime) then it can convert your files as needed when you sync to your iPod/iPhone by converting them into AAC files just for the player. Of course this takes longer than simply copying the files over to the thing itself, but since you really only do a "huge sync" where you are filling the player up to full every so often it's a compromise you can work with if you don't want to convert your library entirely into a new format.
There's no reason you really need to mess about with it - just select the playlists you want to sync and iTunes will take care of converting the tracks as it uploads them.
I'm just noting it so that if you do change your player in the future you don;t necessarily have to rule out an iOS device for this reason. Give it a try in an Apple store with a bunch of FLAC files and an iPod - you'll want to check the metadata is read correctly by iTunes, it is sometimes picky about just what it reads from Quicktime, even with "official" apple files like movie trailers and so on.
So at some point you (or he) changed his password with the OS X install disk (sounds like a likely scenario if your description of him as an idiot is anything to go by), thus his keychain is still protected by the old password. Changing the login password this way leaves the keychain locked with the old password as a security measure. Otherwise it is always the same as the login password (and is changed if you change your password the normal way). 5 seconds on google would tell you (or him) what his options are here.
If he used the migration assistant to move his account over and the keychain did not move, this is the reason why. I have never had any problem with the migration assistant, despite using it many times with several different accounts, including a couple set up in non-standard ways (like home folder being on different volume, and various other 'not set up in the textbook way' accounts that you might expect to "trip up" the migration tool.
Also, I'm not seeing the correlation between a dumb computer user buying things without looking at the specs and the invalidation of "it just works". At no point does Apple state that "it just works" is a substitute for actually looking at the specifications of what you're buying. The 27" monitor has a spec sheet and lists the system requirements necessary - just like any other computer monitor from any other manufacturer.
vcard works on my iPhone, I have used it several times.
Bluetooth works fine - I have a generic bluetooth handsfree kit, my sister has a car with built in bluetooth so her iPhone integrates with her radio/steering controls/built in display and works just fine. My father has yet another different bluetooth hands free kit. My aunt has a different model car to my sister, but also has an iPhone and it similarly works just fine with the steering controls, radio, built in microphone, in-car display etc. My brother doesn't have a hands free kit - perhaps this is your problem too? Do you actually have a bluetooth device, or have you just read somewhere on the internet that "bluetooth doesn't work" because it doesn't do file transfers over bluetooth (which is a little bit of a strange omission, but if you're in range of the computer you can just connect it via USB - not ideal, but such is life).
I travel to the US from the UK relatively frequently - my iPhone handles the change just fine. I just turn off the aeroplane mode when I get off the plane and it finds a local tower, resets the time and date as necessary and I can use it as normal. Not sure what's so "a little bit complicated" about that.
You don;t have to use Apple's facetime for video calls - there are other apps you can use, and even more recently, Skype has now been added to that list.
Not sure what conditions are causing failure of calls under EDGE support. My house is in an EDGE-only area (no 3G) and I don;t have a land line - I have never been in a position where I have been out of contact with someone or unable to make a call (apart from the times I am updating my phone, just to cover all the argument bases). I can't say I've ever had my phone prevent me from calling in any other EDGE area, in any country I've been in. Where exactly are you?
I think you misspelled "Android" in your final trailing sentence.
Apple bugs get huge attention on slashdot, Android bugs, like say the "SMS sent to random people" bug got a huge number of "I have never seen this bug, it's a non issue" and other such posts. It was funny to watch.
This alarm clock bug bit me this morning, but it was a lazy Sunday so I wasn't actually late for anything. Still, it shouldn't have happened and I assume there is some very screwy code in the calendar app which handles events like alarms, as seen by the odd bugs during BST/DST.
It didn't happen last year, so clearly something has changed and not enough QA testing was done to check for conditions like this (or perhaps it was and the particular condition was just not evident for some reason). It should not be in shipping handsets, so it needs to be fixed. Software bugs are a fact of life though - no complex software system is immune.
Option is that they'll release a 30 pin dock connector to female micro-USB connector, since it is cheaper than redesigning the input boards on various iOS devices.
And for a little flame bait, they're not far off popularizing USB, although they didn't think of it.;)
It has always been a bit of a limitation that officially you can only draw 500mA at 5V from a USB port, especially when FireWire can provide between 18 to 30V at up to 1A or more - leading to ridiculous things like a portable hard drive that requires two USB connectors - one for data and power, the other to draw more power, when a single FireWire cable will do.
I know apple has got around this with the dropping of FireWire support on the iPod line (and all subsequent 30 pin dock connector products) by having a "smart" USB charger that can detect the presence of an iPhone or other such device that can handle increased current on the USB connector (thus technically breaking the spec) (and I know it's not really smart as such, probably just a couple of resistors and a sensing circuit)
Either way, it's an issue as batteries get ever higher in capacity in ever smaller devices - charging them back up is a pain!
You missed the huge box notifying you that all your music would be deleted because the iPhone wasn't paired with that machine? You just clicked the continue button, labelled "restore iPhone" (the buttons are marked by task, not with "ok").
iTunes is very clear about when it will delete the music on your iDevice, and asks you clearly with a detailed warning when you attempt to sync an iPhone with a copy of iTunes that is not it's "home" base.
If you missed that, then you just don't read warning boxes that require user action. iTunes will not delete your music without user authorisation.
And now, extending your analogy, you are removing aesthetics and appeal from the product - something that also costs money.
A Mini on your desk, or in your HTPC setup looks nicer than some whitebox PC with a cheap tower case and noisy fans, although one is doubtless cheaper than the other.
Taking it even further, why don't you drive a kit car to work? It's cheaper than a Honda Civic. Oh right, the cost of assembling that $200 windows PC wasn't included in the price? How much is your time worth?
In 10 micrograms of uranium (assuming U238 only) there are 1.43x 10^34 atoms, for example. That's a few more than "a bunch", and 10 micrograms is an extremely small amount.
So, you commute to work in a horse and carriage. No wait, you need to buy food for the horse, unless you feed it by having it eat the grass on the way.
You ride to work on a bike then?
And size is something that costs money (if you want to reduce it, in electronic terms).
People aren't buying tower-sized machines to use as HTPCs. Your comparison with a machine that isn't being used for that purpose is meaningless.
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That was my point - it was addressing the fact that Linux supports ext3 out of the box, which you would expect as a default filesystem, while OS X doesn't - but I don't expect it to. Just as the reverse is going to be true - Linux (whatever flavour you go for) doesn't really have a need to support HFS+ out of the box. If you need to use either of these filesystems out of their native habitat (ie, ext3 on OS X and vice versa) you can add them easily on both platforms.
*correction, my NTFS partition is mounted read only by default. I am pretty sure you can flip it and have it mounted R/W, but I think there was a reason not to.
I have an NTFS volume mounted Read and Write on OS X - it is my bootcamp partition. When you set up bootcamp you can immediately read and write to the NTFS partition after the Windows install CD formats it. The NTFS driver is probably already on the system, but without an NTFS formatted disk to test it, I have no idea. You don;t need to install anything when you reboot into OS X though, after installing Windows - your NTFS partition is mounted right away. On the flip side, you don;t have access to your HFS+ partition on Windows until you install the HFS+ driver (it's on the OS X install CD) along with all the other hardware drivers. Perhaps this is when the Mac NTFS driver gets dropped into your OS X install. The support for NTFS comes from Apple though - no need for third party installs or any "hassle" - it just works as soon as you reboot into OS X.
Of course Linux supports ext3 out of the box - it's one of the default filesystems for Linux. You might as well say "OS X supports HFS+ out of the box" for all the meaning it carries. Does Linux support HFS+ out of the box? (ie, a filesystem that is the default for an OS that doesn't have the dominance of Windows)
Either way you can install support for ext3 if you need it - and if you do, the fact that you have to add support really shouldn't be that much of an issue (ie, if you are using ext3 filesystems, you likely know what you're doing with computers in general).
I have Ubuntu running on my old Powerbook, and I am finding it very interesting, although I seem to have broken it by going for KDE and updating some other software - the wireless was working, but is now not, and the hardware acceleration for the desktop environment has stopped too. It *can* access my HFS+ drive over the network though, but likely because the disk format is irrelevant when serving over NFS.
Apple decided a long time ago when OS X was released) that they wanted to remove the "driver headache" as much as possible - so they ship a massive bunch of printer drivers with OS X, including drivers for ancient stuff (you can even use old LaserWriters), and if they don;t have a driver for it, there's a strong chance they can get it going under CUPS, which also ships ready to run. This does mean that you have 250-300MB of drivers sitting in /Library/Printers, but HD space is cheap, and you can delete them if you want to slim down your install (you can also choose to trim the list during install time if you do a fresh installation).
It's one of the many things I like about OS X. I can plug in a USB drive and have it mount right away, ready to use. Plug the same drive into a Windows box and it has to install something. It only takes a few seconds, but I'm unsure what it's doing - surely it's just a USB mass storage device? Plug in my other memory stick, from a different vendor, and it has to install something else!
Lots of little touches like this all across the OS make it nice to use. I have used Win 7, XP and Vista (ugh to Vista) and they work well enough - there's nothing wrong with them per se, when they're working fine, but I prefer OS X.
No, they really don't.
This is very true - even the best head units are *awful* at iPod control and navigation (and by extension, anything with playlists or selections like CD changers, USB sticks with folders of music on, etc etc).
It took me a long time to find a decent head unit for my needs, and it still sucks to navigate with some crazy design choices.
Apple could design one and clean up, since it would be entirely about usability.
This market has been around for a lot longer than the iPod - this was an issue back when multi CD changers were the hot thing, and it hasn't really been solved all that well. Anyone who enters that market with a decent, well thought out UI has a serious shot. The closest Apple has got is designing a half hearted connection system for BMW to go in the Mini - something that has been surpassed by most of the connection options these days.
While I get up late due to dodgy alarm code, my favourite iPhone hack that I have to do in the afternoon is when I send an SMS message and it actually gets to the person I sent it to.
I mean exactly what I say - that the graphics chip on the 2 year old Macbook is incapable of driving the 27" display, even if you can adapt the mini-DVI port into a displayport / minidisplayport found on the new monitor.
The Intel X3100 just doesn't have the power to drive it, since it's not actually a proper GPU, just an integrated graphics chip sharing the main memory:
from here: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP5
Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory3
Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors
While the 27" display can be driven at non-native resolutions of 1920x1080 and 12880x720, it's not going to look good unless you're feeding it 1080 or 720p video content, which is clearly what the non-native resolutions were designed for.
As it stands right now, I stand by my original assertion that the Intel inbuilt X3100 as installed on the 2008 Macbook is not powerful enough to drive the 27" display at native resolution. Something that anyone looking to make a $999 purchase should really check out beforehand, which brings us back to the very original point of this particular thread, featuring some moron boss who somehow represents all Apple users because he makes purchasing decisions without checking specifications first.
The 2008 Macbook cannot drive a 27" display. Subsequent Macbooks, with more powerful graphics cards, can. There's no rocket science here. That 2008 Macbook can plug into HDMI, DVI, VGA, S-video, Composite and other connections also "with ease" just like your laptop (there are cheap, passive adapters for all of these). There is also a less cheap active adapter if you want to drive an old Apple display that uses ADC, although there aren;t many of those left any more (Apple has not sold an ADC based monitor in some time). I see you linked to those cheap and passive adapters that seem to be ok in your Dell world, but somehow "a whole lot more confusing" in the Apple world.
What's that word I'm looking for? Hypnocrate... no, Cryptohit? Hypocrite, that's it.
No, why should it be compatible with a "sub-2 year old" laptop from the same manufacturer if the graphics card can't support it? A 27" LCD needs a reasonably powerful card to drive it effectively, and the base level Macbook from 2 years ago cannot do that.
Dell sells giant screens too, and also laptops from 2 years ago that can't drive them.
Your anti-Apple bias is making you say silly things, and look for conspiracies where none exist.
iTunes can re-encode on the fly for you now. If it plays the file in iTunes (and it will play FLAC if you install the codec for Quicktime) then it can convert your files as needed when you sync to your iPod/iPhone by converting them into AAC files just for the player. Of course this takes longer than simply copying the files over to the thing itself, but since you really only do a "huge sync" where you are filling the player up to full every so often it's a compromise you can work with if you don't want to convert your library entirely into a new format.
There's no reason you really need to mess about with it - just select the playlists you want to sync and iTunes will take care of converting the tracks as it uploads them.
I'm just noting it so that if you do change your player in the future you don;t necessarily have to rule out an iOS device for this reason. Give it a try in an Apple store with a bunch of FLAC files and an iPod - you'll want to check the metadata is read correctly by iTunes, it is sometimes picky about just what it reads from Quicktime, even with "official" apple files like movie trailers and so on.
Yes, and they tried to text you about it but for some reason you didn't get them.
So at some point you (or he) changed his password with the OS X install disk (sounds like a likely scenario if your description of him as an idiot is anything to go by), thus his keychain is still protected by the old password. Changing the login password this way leaves the keychain locked with the old password as a security measure. Otherwise it is always the same as the login password (and is changed if you change your password the normal way). 5 seconds on google would tell you (or him) what his options are here.
If he used the migration assistant to move his account over and the keychain did not move, this is the reason why. I have never had any problem with the migration assistant, despite using it many times with several different accounts, including a couple set up in non-standard ways (like home folder being on different volume, and various other 'not set up in the textbook way' accounts that you might expect to "trip up" the migration tool.
Also, I'm not seeing the correlation between a dumb computer user buying things without looking at the specs and the invalidation of "it just works". At no point does Apple state that "it just works" is a substitute for actually looking at the specifications of what you're buying. The 27" monitor has a spec sheet and lists the system requirements necessary - just like any other computer monitor from any other manufacturer.
vcard works on my iPhone, I have used it several times.
Bluetooth works fine - I have a generic bluetooth handsfree kit, my sister has a car with built in bluetooth so her iPhone integrates with her radio/steering controls/built in display and works just fine. My father has yet another different bluetooth hands free kit. My aunt has a different model car to my sister, but also has an iPhone and it similarly works just fine with the steering controls, radio, built in microphone, in-car display etc. My brother doesn't have a hands free kit - perhaps this is your problem too? Do you actually have a bluetooth device, or have you just read somewhere on the internet that "bluetooth doesn't work" because it doesn't do file transfers over bluetooth (which is a little bit of a strange omission, but if you're in range of the computer you can just connect it via USB - not ideal, but such is life).
I travel to the US from the UK relatively frequently - my iPhone handles the change just fine. I just turn off the aeroplane mode when I get off the plane and it finds a local tower, resets the time and date as necessary and I can use it as normal. Not sure what's so "a little bit complicated" about that.
You don;t have to use Apple's facetime for video calls - there are other apps you can use, and even more recently, Skype has now been added to that list.
Not sure what conditions are causing failure of calls under EDGE support. My house is in an EDGE-only area (no 3G) and I don;t have a land line - I have never been in a position where I have been out of contact with someone or unable to make a call (apart from the times I am updating my phone, just to cover all the argument bases). I can't say I've ever had my phone prevent me from calling in any other EDGE area, in any country I've been in. Where exactly are you?
I think you misspelled "Android" in your final trailing sentence.
Apple bugs get huge attention on slashdot, Android bugs, like say the "SMS sent to random people" bug got a huge number of "I have never seen this bug, it's a non issue" and other such posts. It was funny to watch.
This alarm clock bug bit me this morning, but it was a lazy Sunday so I wasn't actually late for anything. Still, it shouldn't have happened and I assume there is some very screwy code in the calendar app which handles events like alarms, as seen by the odd bugs during BST/DST.
It didn't happen last year, so clearly something has changed and not enough QA testing was done to check for conditions like this (or perhaps it was and the particular condition was just not evident for some reason). It should not be in shipping handsets, so it needs to be fixed. Software bugs are a fact of life though - no complex software system is immune.
Google responds to these claims with "you're holding it wrong."
Option is that they'll release a 30 pin dock connector to female micro-USB connector, since it is cheaper than redesigning the input boards on various iOS devices.
And for a little flame bait, they're not far off popularizing USB, although they didn't think of it. ;)
It has always been a bit of a limitation that officially you can only draw 500mA at 5V from a USB port, especially when FireWire can provide between 18 to 30V at up to 1A or more - leading to ridiculous things like a portable hard drive that requires two USB connectors - one for data and power, the other to draw more power, when a single FireWire cable will do.
I know apple has got around this with the dropping of FireWire support on the iPod line (and all subsequent 30 pin dock connector products) by having a "smart" USB charger that can detect the presence of an iPhone or other such device that can handle increased current on the USB connector (thus technically breaking the spec) (and I know it's not really smart as such, probably just a couple of resistors and a sensing circuit)
Either way, it's an issue as batteries get ever higher in capacity in ever smaller devices - charging them back up is a pain!
Re: sig
The avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to mod, err vote.
I would say at least 100 million people do.
However many iPhones and iPods there are.
Just untick the "install iTunes" checkbox.
How very virus like!
You missed the huge box notifying you that all your music would be deleted because the iPhone wasn't paired with that machine? You just clicked the continue button, labelled "restore iPhone" (the buttons are marked by task, not with "ok").
iTunes is very clear about when it will delete the music on your iDevice, and asks you clearly with a detailed warning when you attempt to sync an iPhone with a copy of iTunes that is not it's "home" base.
If you missed that, then you just don't read warning boxes that require user action. iTunes will not delete your music without user authorisation.
Did I divide by Na or 1/Na perhaps? - I did it on my phone without writing anything down.
And now, extending your analogy, you are removing aesthetics and appeal from the product - something that also costs money.
A Mini on your desk, or in your HTPC setup looks nicer than some whitebox PC with a cheap tower case and noisy fans, although one is doubtless cheaper than the other.
Taking it even further, why don't you drive a kit car to work? It's cheaper than a Honda Civic. Oh right, the cost of assembling that $200 windows PC wasn't included in the price? How much is your time worth?
"A bunch" is still not many.
In 10 micrograms of uranium (assuming U238 only) there are 1.43x 10^34 atoms, for example. That's a few more than "a bunch", and 10 micrograms is an extremely small amount.
So, you commute to work in a horse and carriage. No wait, you need to buy food for the horse, unless you feed it by having it eat the grass on the way.
You ride to work on a bike then?
And size is something that costs money (if you want to reduce it, in electronic terms).
People aren't buying tower-sized machines to use as HTPCs. Your comparison with a machine that isn't being used for that purpose is meaningless.