But developing hardware is very expensive. It means you have to buy physical parts, assemble and have assets tied up in hardware until they are sold.
It means replacing parts in a recall when they have problems (they recently did this with Powerbook batteries). It means keeping up with the competition and it means employing very well paid hardware and product designers.
All in all, you've got to be making a lot of money from the hardware to keep the division afloat. When Macs use different hardware the value can be perceived. When the Macs use the same stuff that's in an Intel machine the price comparison becomes an issue.
You have to write in assembly more often than not for the bootcode since you can't use libraries and even simple C programs will require some library of sorts.
Assembler is required for absolute control when starting up a device.
Given the limited number of experienced corperate notebook vendors using AMD, it's no wonder an Intel laptop won. Until the likes of IBM, Toshiba, Sony and others are shipping AMD notebooks then AMD based portables are going to be second best.
Re:Linux And The BSDs
on
Why FreeBSD
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It's not as fast as Linux 2.6 though, which pitted against OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD came out top in almost all tests.
I've been using the BBC listings with MythTV for months now. The XMLTV script used to parse the HTML, but the BBC realised serving all the HTML results in greater server load, so they made XML data available.
Well, they fail to see that although a Linux system can be hard to configure, once it is configured it is very easy to backup the configuration and as long as there's no hardware failures it remains stable.
Windows requires a lot more care to do the same. I always advise people not to add and remove software they don't really need to use.
This article is more FUD from Microsoft. If they are so sure of their software being the best and Linux being so bad they wouldn't need to keep mouthing off. Sadly they know it's actually pretty good and competitive in many areas and will continue to get better. Especially with IBM and Novell on the case. Previous competition was from an OS written by a single company. Linux isn't and some major companies are behind it.
Many Windows users have got used to the way Windows does things and are too lazy to change to something that requires a bit of brain usage.
What many fail to realise is yes, Linux takes a bit of fine tuning and tweaking, but you typically only have to do this once or twice since you should never need to reinstall.
People so easily forget the days of autoexec.bat, config.sys and all the other config files you were once required to play with in pre Win 95 days.
Although the software may cost about the same as Windows or less, they get freedom, no file format lock-in, more flexible licenses and most importantly less viruses.
You can get and deploy free Linux in a school if you admin guys are unix gods, but I'd imagine most admin guys in schools struggle with Windows. Hence when something isn't playing ball they need a number to phone to bitch at someone.
Surely it would be good if you could opt out of adverts entirely by paying more. Since the only reason TV companies use advertising is to boost revenue.
I would have liked to have seen the review done on modern hardware. Large SATA hard disk, dual core or hyper-threaded CPU, Nforce chipset, PCI express graphics etc..
It's popularity will be severely limited if it doesn't support as much hardware as Linux, never mind Windows.
Lets face it the problem with Microsoft is it's shyness to produce its own designs and hardware.
It produces the base design and requirements, the software but then lets the OEMs design the hardware. This often means cheap designs give their ideas a bad name.
If they were to produce sexy well designed hardware (they need a really talented designer for this) then they would get somewhere in the media market.
Their problem is always their laziness to produce anything new, it generally has to contain some variant of Windows or is based on commodity PC hardware.
Maybe with the new XBox360 we will finally see what Microsoft is capable of.
If they start forcing these restrictions on people they will look elsewhere.
There are a lot of inexperienced users out there who aren't ripping media and they will be turned off by such technology.
When you start fuzzing things up, having stupid protection schemes, DRM etc you only inconvience the average law abiding citizen as those who are clever enough to crack the protection will not see any of the protection.
It does have things that Windows and Mac don't have.
Choice of a vast number of filesystems, large amount of free software available, good scalability, choice of hardware platform to run on (since it is ported to different platforms).
I don't care if people find the Linux experience good or bad, but you should use what you are comfortable with.
Why use Linux and then complain that it should be more like Windows? go use Windows then and pay for the priviledge. As far as I'm aware the developers of KDE, Gnome etc don't have the billions available for research, design, development and testing that Microsoft have.
I keep reading articles about how its not ready, how it should be simpler etc. why? having one desktop is simpler, having support for one screen is simpler, having one mouse button is simpler etc. simpler doesn't always equal powerful and that's the balance.
Those with a good technical ability like lots of features and settings.
To make something powerful yet provide a simple interface, you require a complex layer underneath and when something goes wrong you can't do much about it (see registry for details, it's very hard to trace a problem due to its ludicrous size). I would sooner have more complexity and full control.
Look at the cost of life of the bulbs in OHPs. Typically 50 hours and cost of about £30-50 here in the UK.
Bulb life in a projector is typically 2000 hours (4000 in mine) and cost about £250 for the bulb.
So using 2000 hours as an example:
Projector cost £599 will last 2000 hours so total cost for first 200 hours is £599.
Self made projector will cost about £200-300, for 2000 hours of use you'll need 40 bulbs at £30 a go which works out at £1200 for bulbs and £200-300 so grand total of £1400-1500 (for which you can get a good DLP).
You also end up with a big ugly box which you can't place anywhere easily, a projector with no analog inputs, no warranty, no adjustments to compensate for placement etc etc.
Just buy a projector, it'll be safer too, something you can leave for 30 minutes and know you aren't going to come back to a fire.
Slashdot Mirror
That's only used for the read head, there's a seperate good quality motor used for spinning the disc.
But developing hardware is very expensive. It means you have to buy physical parts, assemble and have assets tied up in hardware until they are sold.
It means replacing parts in a recall when they have problems (they recently did this with Powerbook batteries). It means keeping up with the competition and it means employing very well paid hardware and product designers.
All in all, you've got to be making a lot of money from the hardware to keep the division afloat. When Macs use different hardware the value can be perceived. When the Macs use the same stuff that's in an Intel machine the price comparison becomes an issue.
You have to write in assembly more often than not for the bootcode since you can't use libraries and even simple C programs will require some library of sorts.
Assembler is required for absolute control when starting up a device.
Given the limited number of experienced corperate notebook vendors using AMD, it's no wonder an Intel laptop won. Until the likes of IBM, Toshiba, Sony and others are shipping AMD notebooks then AMD based portables are going to be second best.
It's not as fast as Linux 2.6 though, which pitted against OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD came out top in almost all tests.
http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/
I noticed this too, you'd hope this is accidental but then you know what Microsoft are like. This might affect Safari too.
I've been using the BBC listings with MythTV for months now. The XMLTV script used to parse the HTML, but the BBC realised serving all the HTML results in greater server load, so they made XML data available.
Always good to upgrade every year or so. Keeps things running smoothly. Either that or clean your hardware periodically in PCB cleaner :)
Well, they fail to see that although a Linux system can be hard to configure, once it is configured it is very easy to backup the configuration and as long as there's no hardware failures it remains stable.
Windows requires a lot more care to do the same. I always advise people not to add and remove software they don't really need to use.
This article is more FUD from Microsoft. If they are so sure of their software being the best and Linux being so bad they wouldn't need to keep mouthing off. Sadly they know it's actually pretty good and competitive in many areas and will continue to get better. Especially with IBM and Novell on the case. Previous competition was from an OS written by a single company. Linux isn't and some major companies are behind it.
Many Windows users have got used to the way Windows does things and are too lazy to change to something that requires a bit of brain usage.
What many fail to realise is yes, Linux takes a bit of fine tuning and tweaking, but you typically only have to do this once or twice since you should never need to reinstall.
People so easily forget the days of autoexec.bat, config.sys and all the other config files you were once required to play with in pre Win 95 days.
Although the software may cost about the same as Windows or less, they get freedom, no file format lock-in, more flexible licenses and most importantly less viruses.
You can get and deploy free Linux in a school if you admin guys are unix gods, but I'd imagine most admin guys in schools struggle with Windows. Hence when something isn't playing ball they need a number to phone to bitch at someone.
More likely ActiveX controls? (which are a potential security risk).
Surely it would be good if you could opt out of adverts entirely by paying more. Since the only reason TV companies use advertising is to boost revenue.
I would have liked to have seen the review done on modern hardware. Large SATA hard disk, dual core or hyper-threaded CPU, Nforce chipset, PCI express graphics etc..
It's popularity will be severely limited if it doesn't support as much hardware as Linux, never mind Windows.
Lets face it the problem with Microsoft is it's shyness to produce its own designs and hardware.
It produces the base design and requirements, the software but then lets the OEMs design the hardware. This often means cheap designs give their ideas a bad name.
If they were to produce sexy well designed hardware (they need a really talented designer for this) then they would get somewhere in the media market.
Their problem is always their laziness to produce anything new, it generally has to contain some variant of Windows or is based on commodity PC hardware.
Maybe with the new XBox360 we will finally see what Microsoft is capable of.
Shame, it's a good idea. Why spend millions promoting music when you can spend less and give away some music.
Memorymap do 3D GPS, the reason it's not really taken off for car navigation is the size of the data.
Then I will resort to reading, painting and creating my own music. I'm not going to let greedy big business control my life.
If they start forcing these restrictions on people they will look elsewhere.
There are a lot of inexperienced users out there who aren't ripping media and they will be turned off by such technology.
When you start fuzzing things up, having stupid protection schemes, DRM etc you only inconvience the average law abiding citizen as those who are clever enough to crack the protection will not see any of the protection.
This is one more nail in the coffin of Windows.
It's a wonder it took so long to die. It found its way into ATMs though, the newer ones use Windows and its obvious since they so unresponsive.
OS/2 just showed that to take on Microsoft you have to have a strategy that deals with the dirty tricks they're likely to pull on you.
It does have things that Windows and Mac don't have.
Choice of a vast number of filesystems, large amount of free software available, good scalability, choice of hardware platform to run on (since it is ported to different platforms).
I don't care if people find the Linux experience good or bad, but you should use what you are comfortable with.
Why use Linux and then complain that it should be more like Windows? go use Windows then and pay for the priviledge. As far as I'm aware the developers of KDE, Gnome etc don't have the billions available for research, design, development and testing that Microsoft have.
I keep reading articles about how its not ready, how it should be simpler etc. why? having one desktop is simpler, having support for one screen is simpler, having one mouse button is simpler etc. simpler doesn't always equal powerful and that's the balance.
Those with a good technical ability like lots of features and settings.
To make something powerful yet provide a simple interface, you require a complex layer underneath and when something goes wrong you can't do much about it (see registry for details, it's very hard to trace a problem due to its ludicrous size). I would sooner have more complexity and full control.
You say that but many people are watching normal TV resolutions with quite large screens. HDTV (and HD DVD) is required for anything above 1024x768.
Not to mention add fans under the LCD screen as it will overheat.
This is the problem with LCD, it degrades over time. DLP is superior, it's just at the low end DLP has its quirks (single chip rainbow effect).
Look at the cost of life of the bulbs in OHPs. Typically 50 hours and cost of about £30-50 here in the UK.
Bulb life in a projector is typically 2000 hours (4000 in mine) and cost about £250 for the bulb.
So using 2000 hours as an example:
Projector cost £599 will last 2000 hours so total cost for first 200 hours is £599.
Self made projector will cost about £200-300, for 2000 hours of use you'll need 40 bulbs at £30 a go which works out at £1200 for bulbs and £200-300 so grand total of £1400-1500 (for which you can get a good DLP).
You also end up with a big ugly box which you can't place anywhere easily, a projector with no analog inputs, no warranty, no adjustments to compensate for placement etc etc.
Just buy a projector, it'll be safer too, something you can leave for 30 minutes and know you aren't going to come back to a fire.