Why do you need to reformat that often? i don't remember windows XP being that bad when I was a windows user at home and I don't think I ever reinstalled during the two years that I used XP before switching to the Mac.
WTF are you doing with your computer?
Get a Mac if you are having that much trouble. Think of how much free time you'd have it you did not have to reformat and reinstall so often.
My eMac has its original Jaguar installation on it and I only performed a clean install when I upgrade to Tiger on my pbook.
Nobody forces you to buy an iPod, other players support those DRM'ed stores and the iTMS is a selling point for many people.
What is the problem?
Real, MSFT and Napster shot themselves in the foot by not supporting the mac platform. That makes their players useless to me and they are enforcing "platform" lock in" which is worse in my mind.
Apple recently doubled it's marketshare in the computer market and this guy seems to discount it completely. I would not be surprised if their marketshare in europe had grown even more.
Did it ever occur to you that many of us mac users were recent windows users and some of us used to build out own boxes? I got tired of hunting down drivers, resolving conflicts and discovering memory leaks which forced me to rollback drivers.
OS X was the main reason for me switch but I also wanted a hardware platform with something "unique" to offer me. There is almost zero differentiation between vendors. You effectively have no choices other than what sticker/name is on the box.
Keep your boring clones to yourself. Your drivers do not always work because you guys don't have sufficient developer/testing tools to detect memory leaks and race conditions. Stop spreading FUD.
These new processors will be good for the near future but what about 2007 and beyond? When Steve announced the switch to Intel, he alluded to more "good" PPC upgrades in the pipeline. Obviously, he was referring to these.
Those wattage numbers are not accurate at all. They are not for average/normal. The peak wattage number will be more than double that amount quoted which will bring it past the peak wattage of the Pentium M.
The Pentium M has only 14 pipeline stages at 2.0Ghz that is 2 stages shorter than the G5's pipeline length and only twice the length of the G4.
Maybe you have Flashplayer 6 installed instead of Flashplayer 7?
Re:Hardware Translucency in Linux - wrong!
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CPU. Avalon is supposed to change that but right now, GDI+ has not real compositing support. There are severe limitations to what you can do with this API the previous poster mentioned.
In OS X, you can have multiple semi-transparent windows overlaping a windows with video playing at full framerate (depending on the codec) even on a slow 867Mhz G4 laptop like I have at home.
It looks like windows users waste more time on garish eyecandy than mac users. I'm running Standard fonts/icons/aqua right now on my mac even thought I could customize it if I wanted to.
The average mac user uses a mac as a tool and does not care about customization.
I can make my own Quicktime player with a fullscreen mode or my own Webcore based web browser without writing a line of code in the IDE through a few clicks of the mouse in Interface Builder on OSX. All you need to type in Xcode is the name of the project. In Interface Builder, you only need to type in the custom menu items.
Ease of use in IDEs has nothing to do with "bad UIs". Bad UIs are the result of bad UI design and poor/limited core libraries shipping with an OS.
You are thinking of "graphic designers" This is about UI designers which are less of an "artist" and more of an "engineer".
Part of the problem with the windows (and linux) UI is a lack of consistency. Consistency is not just about form but function as well. Windows and linux lack a strong single set of UI guidelines for their platform. Unfortunately, MSFT does not set a good example by using custom controls instead of the common control library in the various versions of Office for both the common dialogs and toolbars.
There really should be no reason why they could not use the common controls for office if they were designed to be easily extensible when called within an application.
MSFT should "eat their own dog food" by making the common controls robust and extensible enough for them to use that library in all of their products. If they had a decent library in place, they could use that as a stick to enforce some usability standards for windows apps.
Finally, propgrams which unnecessarily "skin" their UI's (ie. Axialis iconworkshop or those Haxial products) should be discouraged in the marketplace. That "skinning" feature ads nothing tangible to the UI.
"What is he asking for? Is he asking for more bells & whistles?
I would hope not. That is precisely what is wrong with MS Office for windows. It has too many bells and whistles. Featuritis is a common ailment for windows software.
The windows community thinks adding more features = innovation. Innovation is really about supplying features in a way that does not overly complicate the user experience or provides a more useful/powerful way of doing it without sacrificing usability.
One of the beautiful aspects of the UI in most mac apps is that the user is able accomplish their tasks with fewer controls/buttons. Part of this is accomplished by contextual behaviour and the other part is logical grouping of functions. UI consistency promotes learning of transferable skills with users can take from program to program.
Consider this, how do you turn off display of all icons on the desktop in windows? You would think it would be in the customize desktop section of Display properties since that is where you can turn on/off various special icons but it is hidden in a contextual menus called "arrange icons by" for the desktop.
No. What is holding back open source is a lack of consistency "and" a lack of UI abstraction. When programs run on a particular platform, they should make use of the UI conventions/standards of that platform as well has taking advantage of the standard dialogs.
Firefox is pretty close but many parts of it feel like a "linux" app when you run it on windows or OSX. Skinnable interfaces have niche appeal among geeks and would be completely unnecessary on an individual app basis if they had a "native" feel to them to begin with. These Firefox skins can make it look and feel out of place relative to the rest of the OS and amateurish to many users.
Functionality is useless if it is neither functional or accessible for the average user.
If you want an example of useless eye candy, look at enlightenment window manager.
Yeah I'm so fucking inspired when I can't figure out how to do something in GIMP or when I have to waste time to search around MS office for the feature I need instead of actually accomplishing what I've set out to do.
What if I forget what my inspired idea was when I get frustrated trying to figure out the UI?
About the only things these craptastic/inconsistent UIs inspire are rage and violence towards inanimate objects or people.
This rage has a tendency to further decrease productivity even after the user is no longer wasting time figuring out the UI.
Do you really want app specific skins? Those skinned apps on windows do that skinning shit to make up for being a crappy program with a bad default UI. eg. WinAmp's default 1.x UI was a dog's breakfast.
I hate Axialis IconWorkshop on windows precisely because it is custom skinned. I also hate the custom controls in Office. It makes the UI look inconsistent.
You wants skins or icons? Google "interface lift", "resexcellence" "iconfactory", or "unsanity".
Some Apps to google would be cleardock (free), shapeshifter (payware), Tinkertool, WindowsShadeX and Silk to get you started.
Ad blocking can be done in safari with a "free" usercss.css file out of the box. I'm not going to post a link to the one I made but google should turn something up for you. I got mine originally from a mozilla centric site. Once you download the ad blocking stylesheet, select it on the "Advanced" tab in the Safari prefs.
Many people like the consistency of the UI and the adherence to the UI guidelines as it promotes user friendliness by allowing a user to move from one progeam to another without having to shift gears. Do you consider skins to be innovation? I consider useful/innovative features presented in an user friendly manner to be "real" innovation and far more important that having program be "customizable" by an end user/enthusiuast. Leave UI design to the professionals.
iTunes dashboard widgets are the answer to the "desire" of some to have a "skinnable" interface for iTunes.
When I was a windows user, I spent a lot of time trying to cover up the shit that is windows with skinning/customization apps from aqua-soft and stardock but I realized that it was just skin deep and none of it fundamentally changed how windows worked. I was trying hard to not only make windows look more like a mac but also to improve the consistency of the interface. Customization is boring. Using easy to use apps to "start something" on a mac is fun.
PS. That was a half-assed attempt at a troll. Try harder next time.
PPS. If you see something lacking on the mac, tell someone or better yet, start a project yourself and start coding.
No, you are part of that small clique of linux users who insist on installing linux on everything and consider OGG to be an important container format.
It barely registers on the radar screen on of the mainstream. OGG support does not make financial sense given its limited appeal. I'm sure OGG Vorbis is impressive from a technical point of view compared with Mp3 but it offers nothing over ACC.
The mainstream has no interest in OGG Vorbis or installing linux on their iPods. Deal with it. Linux belongs on servers.
Why is this flame bait? Maybe this person never heard of it.
Ogg Vorbis is completely irrelevant to me and the majority of music player owners.
It is an obscure container format (OGG) and codec (vorbis). It is somewhat popular with a small clique of linux geeks because it is open source and royalty free. Unfortunately, it requires either an FPU (which the iPod lacks) or a lot more integer capacity than the iPod could provide. There are also some echo artifacts which can occur with vorbis.
It's called a blog and the network affect. Imagine a bunch of people blogging on this kind of thing.
Even forgetting about blogs, imagine people talking to their co-workers who in turn mention something to people they know and so on. That is how "word of mouth" advertising works and also how a smear campaign can work.
Your scenario about "people who consult your before buying gadgets" is irrelevant but even there the network effect comes into play.
Then there is the the fact that similar devices have been on the market for some time now produced by other companies.
Slashdot Mirror
WTF are you doing with your computer?
Get a Mac if you are having that much trouble. Think of how much free time you'd have it you did not have to reformat and reinstall so often.
My eMac has its original Jaguar installation on it and I only performed a clean install when I upgrade to Tiger on my pbook.
What is the problem?
Real, MSFT and Napster shot themselves in the foot by not supporting the mac platform. That makes their players useless to me and they are enforcing "platform" lock in" which is worse in my mind.
I personally think we will see a "son of" the Airport Express that supports video streaming and output to HD and SD TV's.
That has an 800X600 resolution. How are you supposed to playback HD with that?
You are not "building" anything but rather "assembling" off the shelf parts.
Apple recently doubled it's marketshare in the computer market and this guy seems to discount it completely. I would not be surprised if their marketshare in europe had grown even more.
Did it ever occur to you that many of us mac users were recent windows users and some of us used to build out own boxes? I got tired of hunting down drivers, resolving conflicts and discovering memory leaks which forced me to rollback drivers.
OS X was the main reason for me switch but I also wanted a hardware platform with something "unique" to offer me. There is almost zero differentiation between vendors. You effectively have no choices other than what sticker/name is on the box.
Keep your boring clones to yourself. Your drivers do not always work because you guys don't have sufficient developer/testing tools to detect memory leaks and race conditions. Stop spreading FUD.
Those wattage numbers are not accurate at all. They are not for average/normal. The peak wattage number will be more than double that amount quoted which will bring it past the peak wattage of the Pentium M.
The Pentium M has only 14 pipeline stages at 2.0Ghz that is 2 stages shorter than the G5's pipeline length and only twice the length of the G4.
Maybe you have Flashplayer 6 installed instead of Flashplayer 7?
In OS X, you can have multiple semi-transparent windows overlaping a windows with video playing at full framerate (depending on the codec) even on a slow 867Mhz G4 laptop like I have at home.
So different case design is a bad thing? Do you hate Alienware too?
Annoying Apple users? I think you are projecting your own frustration with windows.
This guy has not won a single case. If he persisted, hire a private eye to dig up some dirt on the guy to get him off your back.
http://www.wincustomize.org/index.aspx?u=0
It looks like windows users waste more time on garish eyecandy than mac users. I'm running Standard fonts/icons/aqua right now on my mac even thought I could customize it if I wanted to.
The average mac user uses a mac as a tool and does not care about customization.
You can keep your chaos. I used to be part of the unwashed massed and I want no part of it. Nobody forces you to participate in the "community".
Do you hate volunteer work in the real world too?
Their software/skins do not improve the interface or make it more consistent/accessible.
Ease of use in IDEs has nothing to do with "bad UIs". Bad UIs are the result of bad UI design and poor/limited core libraries shipping with an OS.
Part of the problem with the windows (and linux) UI is a lack of consistency. Consistency is not just about form but function as well. Windows and linux lack a strong single set of UI guidelines for their platform. Unfortunately, MSFT does not set a good example by using custom controls instead of the common control library in the various versions of Office for both the common dialogs and toolbars.
There really should be no reason why they could not use the common controls for office if they were designed to be easily extensible when called within an application.
MSFT should "eat their own dog food" by making the common controls robust and extensible enough for them to use that library in all of their products. If they had a decent library in place, they could use that as a stick to enforce some usability standards for windows apps.
Finally, propgrams which unnecessarily "skin" their UI's (ie. Axialis iconworkshop or those Haxial products) should be discouraged in the marketplace. That "skinning" feature ads nothing tangible to the UI.
I would hope not. That is precisely what is wrong with MS Office for windows. It has too many bells and whistles. Featuritis is a common ailment for windows software.
The windows community thinks adding more features = innovation. Innovation is really about supplying features in a way that does not overly complicate the user experience or provides a more useful/powerful way of doing it without sacrificing usability.
One of the beautiful aspects of the UI in most mac apps is that the user is able accomplish their tasks with fewer controls/buttons. Part of this is accomplished by contextual behaviour and the other part is logical grouping of functions. UI consistency promotes learning of transferable skills with users can take from program to program.
Consider this, how do you turn off display of all icons on the desktop in windows? You would think it would be in the customize desktop section of Display properties since that is where you can turn on/off various special icons but it is hidden in a contextual menus called "arrange icons by" for the desktop.
Firefox is pretty close but many parts of it feel like a "linux" app when you run it on windows or OSX. Skinnable interfaces have niche appeal among geeks and would be completely unnecessary on an individual app basis if they had a "native" feel to them to begin with. These Firefox skins can make it look and feel out of place relative to the rest of the OS and amateurish to many users.
Functionality is useless if it is neither functional or accessible for the average user.
If you want an example of useless eye candy, look at enlightenment window manager.
What if I forget what my inspired idea was when I get frustrated trying to figure out the UI?
About the only things these craptastic/inconsistent UIs inspire are rage and violence towards inanimate objects or people.
This rage has a tendency to further decrease productivity even after the user is no longer wasting time figuring out the UI.
The parent's code is more readable and easier to maintain.
I hate Axialis IconWorkshop on windows precisely because it is custom skinned. I also hate the custom controls in Office. It makes the UI look inconsistent.
You wants skins or icons? Google "interface lift", "resexcellence" "iconfactory", or "unsanity".
Some Apps to google would be cleardock (free), shapeshifter (payware), Tinkertool, WindowsShadeX and Silk to get you started.
Ad blocking can be done in safari with a "free" usercss.css file out of the box. I'm not going to post a link to the one I made but google should turn something up for you. I got mine originally from a mozilla centric site. Once you download the ad blocking stylesheet, select it on the "Advanced" tab in the Safari prefs.
Many people like the consistency of the UI and the adherence to the UI guidelines as it promotes user friendliness by allowing a user to move from one progeam to another without having to shift gears. Do you consider skins to be innovation? I consider useful/innovative features presented in an user friendly manner to be "real" innovation and far more important that having program be "customizable" by an end user/enthusiuast. Leave UI design to the professionals.
iTunes dashboard widgets are the answer to the "desire" of some to have a "skinnable" interface for iTunes.
When I was a windows user, I spent a lot of time trying to cover up the shit that is windows with skinning/customization apps from aqua-soft and stardock but I realized that it was just skin deep and none of it fundamentally changed how windows worked. I was trying hard to not only make windows look more like a mac but also to improve the consistency of the interface. Customization is boring. Using easy to use apps to "start something" on a mac is fun.
PS. That was a half-assed attempt at a troll. Try harder next time.
PPS. If you see something lacking on the mac, tell someone or better yet, start a project yourself and start coding.
It barely registers on the radar screen on of the mainstream. OGG support does not make financial sense given its limited appeal. I'm sure OGG Vorbis is impressive from a technical point of view compared with Mp3 but it offers nothing over ACC.
The mainstream has no interest in OGG Vorbis or installing linux on their iPods. Deal with it. Linux belongs on servers.
Ogg Vorbis is completely irrelevant to me and the majority of music player owners.
It is an obscure container format (OGG) and codec (vorbis). It is somewhat popular with a small clique of linux geeks because it is open source and royalty free. Unfortunately, it requires either an FPU (which the iPod lacks) or a lot more integer capacity than the iPod could provide. There are also some echo artifacts which can occur with vorbis.
Even forgetting about blogs, imagine people talking to their co-workers who in turn mention something to people they know and so on. That is how "word of mouth" advertising works and also how a smear campaign can work.
Your scenario about "people who consult your before buying gadgets" is irrelevant but even there the network effect comes into play.
Then there is the the fact that similar devices have been on the market for some time now produced by other companies.