2D technology has remained relatively dormant while there have been tremendous advances in 3D hardware. Very few video card manufacturers emphasize their 2D equipment at all (I think Matrox does). 3D hardware also tends to be faster than 2D hardware.
I imagine it's a combination of buzz word compliance and technical prophecy.
The difference being that the core of the Mac OS interface is designed for a single mouse button. While there are situations that you might use a keyboard modifier or a half-click, they are not for beginner level features. When I ctrl-click in my browser, I get options to View Source and Save As. Do either of those seem like features a beginner would use? Do you think a beginner would know how to read HTML or what it even does?
You can navigate the entire Mac OS X interface using just one button. X11 that's pretty much impossible. Windows is closer, but some tasks still require a second mouse button.
Apple has gone to great lengths to help accomodate users who are more advanced and want more functionality available from the mouse. The half-click and keyboard modifiers are software examples, For a hardware example, you can take any USB mouse and plug it into a Mac OS X machine and the scroll wheel and additional buttons will work. Hell, I'm using a Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Pro at the moment (though I admit I had to install some drivers to get my keyboard's internet buttons and such to work. On Mac OS X/and/ Windows XP).
I think you're confused on what Quartz Extreme does. Quartz Extreme does not use 2D hardware to accelerate your window display, it uses 3D hardware. The concept is that your various windows are mapped onto one side of a square polygon as a texture. The resulting polygon is then thrown through 3D acceleration instead of using the 2D hardware. The result is that you can move windows around with almost no CPU usage and your overall windowing experience is improved.
I'm not sure about X11, but I know Windows doesn't offer this. It won't until the debut of Longhorn in a year or two.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Re:I haven't had these problems
on
Broken .Mac?
·
· Score: 1
Seconded. I'm always checking my.Mac account and I have about 300 message flowing through it a day (lots of mailing lists). I've noticed more than one outage, but I'd say four at most and only for a few hours at a time. Backup is hella nice too.
"Also I think Xbox live might make them more of a viable competitor, from what I've heard it's a better user experience compared to Nintendo and Sony's online offerings, albeit a pay service. I know several people who have bought Xboxes recently just for Xbox live. So who knows, it will be interesting to see where these console wars go."
Why pay for it when I can just plug my PS2 into my LAN, run a disc which sets it to DHCP and then play my games online? Doesn't seem too tough.
Makes me wish the government stepped in and helped design the infrastructure. Isn't that what they did in Japan? With a packet switched cellular network too. That must be nice.
One day I will have a child. I shall raise him (please be a him) on computer technology from birth. He will be the Mozart of computing... mwhaahahahahahaha!
Simply put, you wouldn't. If you have a PowerPC machine, you're most likely going to run all of Mac OS X, and not just the Unix underneath it. If you have x86 hardware, you probably can't run it because of a lack of drivers.
If you're a Linux user and you want to use a real Unix, try one of the other BSDs instead. Darwin/BSD fills a very small niche for those who are interested in seeing the changes that Apple has made to the Mach 3.0 kernel and userland FreeBSD. Be
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2D technology has remained relatively dormant while there have been tremendous advances in 3D hardware. Very few video card manufacturers emphasize their 2D equipment at all (I think Matrox does). 3D hardware also tends to be faster than 2D hardware. I imagine it's a combination of buzz word compliance and technical prophecy.
The difference being that the core of the Mac OS interface is designed for a single mouse button. While there are situations that you might use a keyboard modifier or a half-click, they are not for beginner level features. When I ctrl-click in my browser, I get options to View Source and Save As. Do either of those seem like features a beginner would use? Do you think a beginner would know how to read HTML or what it even does? You can navigate the entire Mac OS X interface using just one button. X11 that's pretty much impossible. Windows is closer, but some tasks still require a second mouse button. Apple has gone to great lengths to help accomodate users who are more advanced and want more functionality available from the mouse. The half-click and keyboard modifiers are software examples, For a hardware example, you can take any USB mouse and plug it into a Mac OS X machine and the scroll wheel and additional buttons will work. Hell, I'm using a Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Pro at the moment (though I admit I had to install some drivers to get my keyboard's internet buttons and such to work. On Mac OS X /and/ Windows XP).
I think you're confused on what Quartz Extreme does. Quartz Extreme does not use 2D hardware to accelerate your window display, it uses 3D hardware. The concept is that your various windows are mapped onto one side of a square polygon as a texture. The resulting polygon is then thrown through 3D acceleration instead of using the 2D hardware. The result is that you can move windows around with almost no CPU usage and your overall windowing experience is improved.
I'm not sure about X11, but I know Windows doesn't offer this. It won't until the debut of Longhorn in a year or two.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Seconded. I'm always checking my .Mac account and I have about 300 message flowing through it a day (lots of mailing lists). I've noticed more than one outage, but I'd say four at most and only for a few hours at a time. Backup is hella nice too.
Shhh... don't tell him. Ignorance is bliss, remember? Can't wait for that xServe RAID either... mmm... fibre channel.
firebomb.... ya.... i like that....
"Also I think Xbox live might make them more of a viable competitor, from what I've heard it's a better user experience compared to Nintendo and Sony's online offerings, albeit a pay service. I know several people who have bought Xboxes recently just for Xbox live. So who knows, it will be interesting to see where these console wars go." Why pay for it when I can just plug my PS2 into my LAN, run a disc which sets it to DHCP and then play my games online? Doesn't seem too tough.
Makes me wish Nintendo would stop making hardware and start porting their games to PS2 (or Xbox if need be), like Sega.
Makes me wish the government stepped in and helped design the infrastructure. Isn't that what they did in Japan? With a packet switched cellular network too. That must be nice.
One day I will have a child. I shall raise him (please be a him) on computer technology from birth. He will be the Mozart of computing... mwhaahahahahahaha!
Simply put, you wouldn't. If you have a PowerPC machine, you're most likely going to run all of Mac OS X, and not just the Unix underneath it. If you have x86 hardware, you probably can't run it because of a lack of drivers. If you're a Linux user and you want to use a real Unix, try one of the other BSDs instead. Darwin/BSD fills a very small niche for those who are interested in seeing the changes that Apple has made to the Mach 3.0 kernel and userland FreeBSD. Be