Just look at the state of the art in design and engineering of automobiles in the States. If a country tolerates this kind of automotive engineering why would it not tolerate the anachronistic cell phone design that you write about? When it comes to design aesthetics and advanced features, culture and education are two important factors to consider. I am not saying that Americans are not cultured or educated. But it would be unfair to compare the culture and education of Japan or Europe (which spans thousands of years) with that of a very young country such as the States. Add to that the cultural isolationism of the US from most thing European and Japanese (save their cars) and you can begin to see the roots of apprehension when it comes to advanced designs. That Apple managed to maintain an innovative presence in the US market all these years is a miracle. Persistence and consistency pay off, though, so now Apple begins to reap the benefits of its commitment to good and aesthetically advanced engineering. It just takes time.
The antenna improves the gain not the radiated power. As long as the transmitter is FCC compliant in terms of output power, a gain antenna should be fine as far as FCC is concerned.
It is conceivable that a directional antenna might focus more energy in a volume of space than RF safety rules allow. If that's the case then you can turn down the output power of the transmitter and off you go again. However we are talking about mWatts here so it is highly unlikely to run afoul of RF safety rools.
engage parents; understand value of liberal edu.
on
Improving Education?
·
· Score: 1
I got my early schooling in Europe and the difference I observed between my home system and the one in the US is the degree that parents get involved in their kids education. Many parents in the US do not follow their kids schooling on a daily basis. The parents are not engaged in working with their student-kids to ensure proper homework completion, fulfilment of reading assignments etc. This is typical of a society that relies on the mentality of customer service, i.e., I send my kids to school, I pay through the nose for that school, let the teachers do all the work, I just want to play softball/videogames with the kids when they are home.
Parents need to be more involved with their kids' education during the formative years of K-12.
At the same time I believe that we have seriously underestimated the value of liberal education and its gift of critical thinking. Students who learn to think critically do well in the professions and with their lifes. Students who learn how to attack a multiple choice test or accomplish a mechanical (repeatitive task) will not do so well.
The US is too large and diverse country so we cannot reasonably suggest a national curriculum but some convergence is necessary. As is a more sustainable model for funding public education.
We cannot have good teachers if what we pay is $30k a year. Graduates from good colleges, with good academic background will opt for a better job. Graduates from underperforming colleges will take those teaching jobs and they'll propagate their ignorance and incompetence to the next generation.
The size of the US makes any educational reform extremely challenging. Ireland has a superb public education system because it's easier to manage a national curriculum in a country of 4 million people where it takes no more 7 hours to drive across any direction of the land. Perhaps instead of a national US curriculum we could hope for state curricula. Such an approach, coupled with a sustainable funding model might yield positive results in 10-20 years.
That's the other part of the equation. Any investment now will not pay off for at least 10 years. No politician worth the pork fat on his hands will go for something like this, unfortunately.
Why would a talented photographer even bother to go to Walgreens for print processing? Is sounds like an oxymoron. If you are talented enough photographer you know where to go for quality digital processing and it aint Walgreens.
Call it what suits you but Motorola's innovation does not qualify as monolithic integration. It's a hybrid approach and as such it still faces problems of low yields and high costs. Hybrid integration has been around for a while now. What Intel did seems to be something completely new and different that will allow monolithic integration of processing components and optical interconnect layers within the Si system. -lgreco
Indeed Si is in IV column of the table. My apologies for the typo. The argument about the crystalline mismatch between columns IV and V still holds of course. -lgreco
Many fellow/.ers seem to wonder why this is newsworthy since integrated photonics is not something new. That's true. But the introduction of solid-state silicon-based lasers is nothing short of revolutionary.
The discussion and research, thus far, on integrated electronics has hit a road block. Electronics is a silicon-based techology; photonics, for the most (and better part) is not. Specifically, photonic devices, and in particular laser emitters, are made out of a group of materials known as III-V (called three-five) materials, in reference to their position in the corresponding tables of the periodic table (consider, for example, gallium-arsenide GaAs).
Silicon is not a III-V material. It belongs to column II of the periodic table (notice that columnnar position refers to atomic properties and not to the actual column of the table. For example, column III in the periodic table is spread over actual columns number 3 and 13).
The fact that silicon and III-V materials do not share common chemical and crystalline properties, as implied by their different positions on the periodic table, is detrimental. The mismatch in their crystalline structure makes the monolithic integration of tiny laser emitters on top of silicon chips, impossible.
Yet we all agree that optical interconnections between computer components are the key for electronic computers to become better and faster.
Since monolithinc integration of lasers and CPUs was impossible, till now, because of the materials' mismatch we had to resort to the following limited ways of engaging photonics in computing:
(a) use of photonics for long-haul data transfer, ie, optical interconnects between entire computers, aka, optical networks; they are great and fast but we still face the bottlenect at the points of conversion between optical and electronic signals.
(b) hybrid optoelectronic chips; consider a silicon chip with pads on which a GaAs photonic chip rests. The two chips exchange signals thru these pads. The drawback here is the rather poor yields in fabrication and the high cost due to limited demand (and applications) for such devices.
(c) all optical computers. This was sort of a chimera for many researchers (myself included). While the idea and the concept are promising the implementation is extremely difficult and the promise of quantum computers, now, makes optical data processing a thing of the past.
Ideally we want a CPU chip made of silicon capable of emitting and receiving light. The photonic component was very difficult on silicon. Silicon is not an ideal material for coherent light emision, neither does it detect light easily. You need a larger area to sense light on silicon, than on GaAs, making silicon photodetectors rather large and thus affecting the scale of integration.
What Intel appears to have done now, is to introduce a way to monolithically integrate laser sources on silicon chips. They have solved a problem that has been open for years. Their solution will catalyze a field that has been waiting years for such a breakthrough. We knew what to do but we did not have the technology to do it. Intel just gave us the technology we've been expecting.
To correct myself, when I write I think that with present technology, holographic imaging is not possible above, I mean holographic imaging in the context of the article under discussion and of course in the context of expectations that were created by Gene Rodenberry.
Real time, photorealistic holographic imaging is quite difficult. For one it requires more than just on color. Holograms are produced and re-created using monochromatic light sources. Not only you cannot have multiple colors you cannot even have different shades of the same color! Another complication is that for a sizeable holographic image you'll require substantial amounts of energy focused on relatively confined space. Your fire insurance premium are sure to rise faster than USS 1701D hops across the galaxy at warp 9.
Years ago I saw some work from Stanford (Bert Hesselink's lab, if I remember right) on volumetric displays. Basically they used a crystal as a "screen" for holographic projection. The density of the crystal was better than that of air and it represented a stable medium (compared to water mist of other vapors) to project a hologram. It sounds like smoke and mirrors but it was quite impressive and you could see the hologram in normal light conditions, not only in darkened rooms.
I think that with present technology, holographic imaging is not possible. Holograms, however, are a good basis for developing new kinds of dense data storage systems with true associate recall capabilities. Interesting work on this subject was done by groups at Caltech, Stanford, Colorado State, and UC San Diego in the 1990s. The February 1998 issue of the IEEE Computer magazine features a special section on this kind of technology.
This is very interesting. My first guess was that the University bans access points that connect on their network. This is within their rights. But when I read the policy, I was surprised. Are they try to regulate the use of unlicensed spectrum in private residences that connect to commercial broadband services? This is weird. It would seem to me that the residents there who use WiFi have as much right as asking the University to disconnect its own access points!
It may be the case that the apartment complexes in question belong or are being managed by the University. If so there may be a clause in the lease that empowers the University to enact such restrictions. This is obviously something for lawyers to look at.
If, however, the University has no legal right to dictate to tenants what to do with unlicensed spectrum, the policy is totally absurd (not to mention illegal). High density of access points is bound to creare electromagnetic interference. The particular fraction of the RF spectrum is unlicensed and FCC has no jurisdiction here. The funny thing is that recently a Wall Street Journal article hailed this experiment with unlicensed spectrum as proof that the FCC and its bureaucracy become obsolete. Who's going to mediate the situation at UT and how?
And what's next? The University will ban the use of 2.4 GHz cordless phones? What about cell phones or microwaves? They do, might interfere with the University's WiFi infrastructure. And, given the density of WiFi emissions on campus, will the University by liable to protect those with page makers? Surely if the University notices the interference, the electromagnetic fields might be significant enough to affect pacemakers around campus!
Cmon people, work out a realistic solution instead of dictating unenforceable policies. What if a resident continues to operate a WiFi point in his/her apartment. What the University do? Arrest the student? I would not be surprised if there is a clause in the Patriot Act allowing something like this, but other than that how to do you enforce such a policy?
This may come across as a conservative approach, but keep in mind that I am an academic and when it comes to education we are expected sometimes to think conservatively. Thus I say to you:
Building strong foundations on the conceptuals and the foundations of computing is extremely important. You need a good grounding in mathematics, logic, and systems. This is something that you'll get if you majored in CS or math. CS is obviously preferrable.
Once you have a good understanding of the underlying principles you'll be ready to embark on a more challenging adventure in exploring Networks and Computer Engineering. You may do so by pursuing a research MS degree or even going for the PhD if you are up for 4-5 years living below poverty:)
It is easier to do good work in CE coming from CS than the other way around. Here's an example, that deals with databases. Most CEs working on databases are trying to tweak SQL interpreters and compilers in order to get an extra 1-3% performance. This is great. But a CS researcher will be looking at new concepts of querying rather than overengineering an existing paradigm (relational databases have been around for over 30 years and are over-engineered by now).
If you are interested in doing good work in CE your BS will not be enough, unless you are one of these gifted people who can find a great job at a major research lab (e.g. TJ Watson) and learn the research ropes fast. For the rest of us, an MS or a PhD program is necessary and quite beneficial. That's why I suggest that you focus your undergraduate studies in getting the fundamentals right (through studying CS or Math). You'll have plenty of opportunity to focus on engineering or other interesting aspects as you consider graduate school eventually
Now as to where to go, it depends on your mobility and ability to secure funding. The top math and CS departments are at schools with rather expensive tuition. Yet, there are state schools with great programs that will enable you to apply to top graduate programs when the time comes.
I hope this helps a bit. If you need more info, feel free to write to me.
I don't understand what's the big deal here. Hany Farid, at Dartmouth University, has developed a series of successful techniques that help a user tell whether an image is realistic or photorealistic (as in touched up). Hany employs some interesting statistical techniques to tell whether or not a digital signal (be it a photograph, audio recording, etc) has been tampered with or not. Check out his website for more information.
Am I missing something here? Even with a.Mac account my secretary will not be able to use iCal for her own calendar tasks. If I authorize her computer to use my.Mac account, she will not be able to use her.Mac account unless she de-authorizes what I authorized, then authorizes her iCal to access her.Mac account. Not pretty!
And even if iCal/.Mac worked for group members to access each other calendars, at $99 per person, you end up forking over $1000 for a group of 10. Contrast that to a Yahoo! Calendar that synchronizes with Outlook and Palm and you'll see why Apple's iCal is a joke.
Your counterpoint to Apple's lack of functionality in their Finder (list folders first then files), is a third party software. My criticism was focused on Apple products.
Your counterpoint to iCal's inability for groupware performance is to suggest that my assistant gives up using iCal for her calendar needs in order to be able to edit my calendar.
Your counterpoint to the incompatibility between Outlook and OSX's tools is to comment that "there are some incompatibilities between". Yeah, in the same way that a tornadoe can be called an air stream. To answer your question: " how does this [incompatibility] affect OS X's viability as a "workgroup" OS?", well think of the following: workgroups that rely entirely on Outlook switch to OSX only to find out that they cannot share data any longer. Quite a switch!
Your counterpoint to the lack of easy keyboard shortcuts is that I'd have to learn the ones that are there. Well, a good interface is supposed to be simple and not require users to go through a learning curve for even simple tasks
The incompatibility between the Windows and the OSX versions of Word is an MS issue as I already wrote but it is also a consideration factor for those who plan to switch (which is the audience of my article). Switch and you'll have to rewrite all your Word documents that do data merging.
Your counterpoint to the lack of consistent keyboards is that Windows does not have them either. Exactly. Why then people should switch to another OS that is no better in this respect?
Indeed CMD-, emerges as the keyboard shortcut for preferences and we are in agreement on this. It's unfortunate, however, that recent upgrades of Apple s/w that does not use this shortcut yet have not been adjusted. Perhaps in Panther...
The truth is that there is no alternative to MS unless your computing needs are either too esoteric or too specialized.
GNU/Linux still has a long way to go in order to reach the ordinary user.
OSX is not designed for workgroups (see more of my comments on this).
It's a pitty that after half a century of computer innovation and brillant discoveries in the art and science of computing, all that we have to brag about is OSX's Expose (a feature that Windows sported for years before) and MS Windows.
I use the Fountain Pen Hospital for ink supplies. I am not sure if they are the cheapest retailer but they are reliable and I am very pleased with the service.
Slashdot Mirror
Just look at the state of the art in design and engineering of automobiles in the States. If a country tolerates this kind of automotive engineering why would it not tolerate the anachronistic cell phone design that you write about? When it comes to design aesthetics and advanced features, culture and education are two important factors to consider. I am not saying that Americans are not cultured or educated. But it would be unfair to compare the culture and education of Japan or Europe (which spans thousands of years) with that of a very young country such as the States. Add to that the cultural isolationism of the US from most thing European and Japanese (save their cars) and you can begin to see the roots of apprehension when it comes to advanced designs. That Apple managed to maintain an innovative presence in the US market all these years is a miracle. Persistence and consistency pay off, though, so now Apple begins to reap the benefits of its commitment to good and aesthetically advanced engineering. It just takes time.
The antenna improves the gain not the radiated power. As long as the transmitter is FCC compliant in terms of output power, a gain antenna should be fine as far as FCC is concerned. It is conceivable that a directional antenna might focus more energy in a volume of space than RF safety rules allow. If that's the case then you can turn down the output power of the transmitter and off you go again. However we are talking about mWatts here so it is highly unlikely to run afoul of RF safety rools.
I got my early schooling in Europe and the difference I observed between my home system and the one in the US is the degree that parents get involved in their kids education. Many parents in the US do not follow their kids schooling on a daily basis. The parents are not engaged in working with their student-kids to ensure proper homework completion, fulfilment of reading assignments etc. This is typical of a society that relies on the mentality of customer service, i.e., I send my kids to school, I pay through the nose for that school, let the teachers do all the work, I just want to play softball/videogames with the kids when they are home.
Parents need to be more involved with their kids' education during the formative years of K-12.
At the same time I believe that we have seriously underestimated the value of liberal education and its gift of critical thinking. Students who learn to think critically do well in the professions and with their lifes. Students who learn how to attack a multiple choice test or accomplish a mechanical (repeatitive task) will not do so well.
The US is too large and diverse country so we cannot reasonably suggest a national curriculum but some convergence is necessary. As is a more sustainable model for funding public education.
We cannot have good teachers if what we pay is $30k a year. Graduates from good colleges, with good academic background will opt for a better job. Graduates from underperforming colleges will take those teaching jobs and they'll propagate their ignorance and incompetence to the next generation.
The size of the US makes any educational reform extremely challenging. Ireland has a superb public education system because it's easier to manage a national curriculum in a country of 4 million people where it takes no more 7 hours to drive across any direction of the land. Perhaps instead of a national US curriculum we could hope for state curricula. Such an approach, coupled with a sustainable funding model might yield positive results in 10-20 years.
That's the other part of the equation. Any investment now will not pay off for at least 10 years. No politician worth the pork fat on his hands will go for something like this, unfortunately.
Why would a talented photographer even bother to go to Walgreens for print processing? Is sounds like an oxymoron. If you are talented enough photographer you know where to go for quality digital processing and it aint Walgreens.
Call it what suits you but Motorola's innovation does not qualify as monolithic integration. It's a hybrid approach and as such it still faces problems of low yields and high costs. Hybrid integration has been around for a while now. What Intel did seems to be something completely new and different that will allow monolithic integration of processing components and optical interconnect layers within the Si system. -lgreco
Indeed Si is in IV column of the table. My apologies for the typo. The argument about the crystalline mismatch between columns IV and V still holds of course. -lgreco
Many fellow /.ers seem to wonder why this is newsworthy since integrated photonics is not something new. That's true. But the introduction of solid-state silicon-based lasers is nothing short of revolutionary.
The discussion and research, thus far, on integrated electronics has hit a road block. Electronics is a silicon-based techology; photonics, for the most (and better part) is not. Specifically, photonic devices, and in particular laser emitters, are made out of a group of materials known as III-V (called three-five) materials, in reference to their position in the corresponding tables of the periodic table (consider, for example, gallium-arsenide GaAs).
Silicon is not a III-V material. It belongs to column II of the periodic table (notice that columnnar position refers to atomic properties and not to the actual column of the table. For example, column III in the periodic table is spread over actual columns number 3 and 13).
The fact that silicon and III-V materials do not share common chemical and crystalline properties, as implied by their different positions on the periodic table, is detrimental. The mismatch in their crystalline structure makes the monolithic integration of tiny laser emitters on top of silicon chips, impossible.
Yet we all agree that optical interconnections between computer components are the key for electronic computers to become better and faster.
Since monolithinc integration of lasers and CPUs was impossible, till now, because of the materials' mismatch we had to resort to the following limited ways of engaging photonics in computing:
(a) use of photonics for long-haul data transfer, ie, optical interconnects between entire computers, aka, optical networks; they are great and fast but we still face the bottlenect at the points of conversion between optical and electronic signals.
(b) hybrid optoelectronic chips; consider a silicon chip with pads on which a GaAs photonic chip rests. The two chips exchange signals thru these pads. The drawback here is the rather poor yields in fabrication and the high cost due to limited demand (and applications) for such devices.
(c) all optical computers. This was sort of a chimera for many researchers (myself included). While the idea and the concept are promising the implementation is extremely difficult and the promise of quantum computers, now, makes optical data processing a thing of the past.
Ideally we want a CPU chip made of silicon capable of emitting and receiving light. The photonic component was very difficult on silicon. Silicon is not an ideal material for coherent light emision, neither does it detect light easily. You need a larger area to sense light on silicon, than on GaAs, making silicon photodetectors rather large and thus affecting the scale of integration.
What Intel appears to have done now, is to introduce a way to monolithically integrate laser sources on silicon chips. They have solved a problem that has been open for years. Their solution will catalyze a field that has been waiting years for such a breakthrough. We knew what to do but we did not have the technology to do it. Intel just gave us the technology we've been expecting.
To correct myself, when I write I think that with present technology, holographic imaging is not possible above, I mean holographic imaging in the context of the article under discussion and of course in the context of expectations that were created by Gene Rodenberry.
Real time, photorealistic holographic imaging is quite difficult. For one it requires more than just on color. Holograms are produced and re-created using monochromatic light sources. Not only you cannot have multiple colors you cannot even have different shades of the same color! Another complication is that for a sizeable holographic image you'll require substantial amounts of energy focused on relatively confined space. Your fire insurance premium are sure to rise faster than USS 1701D hops across the galaxy at warp 9.
Years ago I saw some work from Stanford (Bert Hesselink's lab, if I remember right) on volumetric displays. Basically they used a crystal as a "screen" for holographic projection. The density of the crystal was better than that of air and it represented a stable medium (compared to water mist of other vapors) to project a hologram. It sounds like smoke and mirrors but it was quite impressive and you could see the hologram in normal light conditions, not only in darkened rooms.
I think that with present technology, holographic imaging is not possible. Holograms, however, are a good basis for developing new kinds of dense data storage systems with true associate recall capabilities. Interesting work on this subject was done by groups at Caltech, Stanford, Colorado State, and UC San Diego in the 1990s. The February 1998 issue of the IEEE Computer magazine features a special section on this kind of technology.
This is very interesting. My first guess was that the University bans access points that connect on their network. This is within their rights. But when I read the policy, I was surprised. Are they try to regulate the use of unlicensed spectrum in private residences that connect to commercial broadband services? This is weird. It would seem to me that the residents there who use WiFi have as much right as asking the University to disconnect its own access points!
It may be the case that the apartment complexes in question belong or are being managed by the University. If so there may be a clause in the lease that empowers the University to enact such restrictions. This is obviously something for lawyers to look at.
If, however, the University has no legal right to dictate to tenants what to do with unlicensed spectrum, the policy is totally absurd (not to mention illegal). High density of access points is bound to creare electromagnetic interference. The particular fraction of the RF spectrum is unlicensed and FCC has no jurisdiction here. The funny thing is that recently a Wall Street Journal article hailed this experiment with unlicensed spectrum as proof that the FCC and its bureaucracy become obsolete. Who's going to mediate the situation at UT and how?
And what's next? The University will ban the use of 2.4 GHz cordless phones? What about cell phones or microwaves? They do, might interfere with the University's WiFi infrastructure. And, given the density of WiFi emissions on campus, will the University by liable to protect those with page makers? Surely if the University notices the interference, the electromagnetic fields might be significant enough to affect pacemakers around campus!
Cmon people, work out a realistic solution instead of dictating unenforceable policies. What if a resident continues to operate a WiFi point in his/her apartment. What the University do? Arrest the student? I would not be surprised if there is a clause in the Patriot Act allowing something like this, but other than that how to do you enforce such a policy?
This may come across as a conservative approach, but keep in mind that I am an academic and when it comes to education we are expected sometimes to think conservatively. Thus I say to you:
Building strong foundations on the conceptuals and the foundations of computing is extremely important. You need a good grounding in mathematics, logic, and systems. This is something that you'll get if you majored in CS or math. CS is obviously preferrable.
Once you have a good understanding of the underlying principles you'll be ready to embark on a more challenging adventure in exploring Networks and Computer Engineering. You may do so by pursuing a research MS degree or even going for the PhD if you are up for 4-5 years living below poverty :)
It is easier to do good work in CE coming from CS than the other way around. Here's an example, that deals with databases. Most CEs working on databases are trying to tweak SQL interpreters and compilers in order to get an extra 1-3% performance. This is great. But a CS researcher will be looking at new concepts of querying rather than overengineering an existing paradigm (relational databases have been around for over 30 years and are over-engineered by now).
If you are interested in doing good work in CE your BS will not be enough, unless you are one of these gifted people who can find a great job at a major research lab (e.g. TJ Watson) and learn the research ropes fast. For the rest of us, an MS or a PhD program is necessary and quite beneficial. That's why I suggest that you focus your undergraduate studies in getting the fundamentals right (through studying CS or Math). You'll have plenty of opportunity to focus on engineering or other interesting aspects as you consider graduate school eventually
Now as to where to go, it depends on your mobility and ability to secure funding. The top math and CS departments are at schools with rather expensive tuition. Yet, there are state schools with great programs that will enable you to apply to top graduate programs when the time comes.
I hope this helps a bit. If you need more info, feel free to write to me.
I don't understand what's the big deal here. Hany Farid, at Dartmouth University, has developed a series of successful techniques that help a user tell whether an image is realistic or photorealistic (as in touched up). Hany employs some interesting statistical techniques to tell whether or not a digital signal (be it a photograph, audio recording, etc) has been tampered with or not. Check out his website for more information.
Do you have any good suggestions for groupware, as you suggest? We tried CommuniGate but it was rather disappointing.
Am I missing something here? Even with a .Mac account my secretary will not be able to use iCal for her own calendar tasks. If I authorize her computer to use my .Mac account, she will not be able to use her .Mac account unless she de-authorizes what I authorized, then authorizes her iCal to access her .Mac account. Not pretty!
And even if iCal/.Mac worked for group members to access each other calendars, at $99 per person, you end up forking over $1000 for a group of 10. Contrast that to a Yahoo! Calendar that synchronizes with Outlook and Palm and you'll see why Apple's iCal is a joke.
Your counterpoint to Apple's lack of functionality in their Finder (list folders first then files), is a third party software. My criticism was focused on Apple products.
Your counterpoint to iCal's inability for groupware performance is to suggest that my assistant gives up using iCal for her calendar needs in order to be able to edit my calendar.
Your counterpoint to the incompatibility between Outlook and OSX's tools is to comment that "there are some incompatibilities between". Yeah, in the same way that a tornadoe can be called an air stream. To answer your question: " how does this [incompatibility] affect OS X's viability as a "workgroup" OS?", well think of the following: workgroups that rely entirely on Outlook switch to OSX only to find out that they cannot share data any longer. Quite a switch!
Your counterpoint to the lack of easy keyboard shortcuts is that I'd have to learn the ones that are there. Well, a good interface is supposed to be simple and not require users to go through a learning curve for even simple tasks
The incompatibility between the Windows and the OSX versions of Word is an MS issue as I already wrote but it is also a consideration factor for those who plan to switch (which is the audience of my article). Switch and you'll have to rewrite all your Word documents that do data merging.
Your counterpoint to the lack of consistent keyboards is that Windows does not have them either. Exactly. Why then people should switch to another OS that is no better in this respect?
Indeed CMD-, emerges as the keyboard shortcut for preferences and we are in agreement on this. It's unfortunate, however, that recent upgrades of Apple s/w that does not use this shortcut yet have not been adjusted. Perhaps in Panther...
The truth is that there is no alternative to MS unless your computing needs are either too esoteric or too specialized.
GNU/Linux still has a long way to go in order to reach the ordinary user. OSX is not designed for workgroups (see more of my comments on this).
It's a pitty that after half a century of computer innovation and brillant discoveries in the art and science of computing, all that we have to brag about is OSX's Expose (a feature that Windows sported for years before) and MS Windows.
I use the Fountain Pen Hospital for ink supplies. I am not sure if they are the cheapest retailer but they are reliable and I am very pleased with the service.