But the box only has support for one stick of mem, so it will still cost at least $100 to get it up to 512 which is a useable amount of ram.
Correction. 75 USD to upgrade to 512mb if you buy from Apple.
Why did two of us have to correct you on such obvious mistakes? You're not trolling are you? Maybe the mac mini is not for you but it does have a market for sure.
There is a hack. Look around for it. There are two resource files that you stick in our home directory. I don't know if it will still work with iLife 05 but it does work with iLife 04 and my external Sony DVD burner.
As for the games analogy, it doesn't really hold water, since the level of difficulty in porting a file format is neglegable, while porting a game is a different story. In these cases, you could at least license the rights, unlike Apple's 'Fairplay', which has to be the most ironic thing to name it.
I disagree. The level of difficulty has nothing to do with it. Music is content the key here and you can get the same content from other providers. There is no monopoly. In the same way, many games are ported to multiple platforms but there are always some exclusives that each console has to provide an enticement for people to choose a console. There is nothing wrong with that. In the same way, there are some exclusives on each of the music stores which the stores are able to negotiate with the artist/label. There is also nothing wrong with that. Companies have to be allowed to differentiate themselves on something other than price. If a brick and mortar store chain can negotiate a few exclusives, why can't an online store do the same?
I don't want a boring industry where there is no differentiation between brands except by price. That does not provide me with a "real" choice. This is exactly what you see in the PC industry and now you have companies like IBM selling off their PC unit due to low/non-existent margins.
This is a typical Microsoft ploy, only Microsoft would at least be willing to allow interoperability with those willing to license the technology. For example, if Apple wanted to make the iPod WMA compatibile, it probably wouldn't be an issue. Apple would pay for the right, and MS would give it to them. Though, you'll never see this, because the iPod and iTunes 'belong' together. Or so Apple would like you to think.
You don't get it. This is about a much larger format war. Apple wants to be able to sell more desktops and software for content creation. They can accomplish this by pushing forward industry standards like MP4 and AAC over WMA and WMV. I don't see how MS being willing to license their "proprietary" formats is a "good thing". The only thing that is proprietary here with Apple is the DRM wrapper.
Let me get this straight, you want Apple to support MSFT's DRM in the iPod even though MSFT is unwilling to support playback and purchase on the Mac platform? If MSFT allowed me, as a mac user to use my mac to use those stores, you might have a point. As it now stands, iTMS is the only cross-platform solution.
The iPod will eventually fade away and replaced with something else and it what if a mac user switched to windows or a windows users switched to OS X? Fortunately, since iTunes also works on windows, you would still have access to your music library on the new machine. The point? iTMS is not tied down to a platform whereas WMP is tied to windows.
Why can't you people understand that many switchers like me don't on a PC anymore nor do we want to ever again. Working as a software developer on the windows and linux platforms at the office is enough windows and linux for me.
OS X is half decent? What is your ideal OS? Windows? Please, don't make me laugh. I was a windows user until 2002. Linux? Not ready for the desktop but a decent server OS. What exactly is wrong with OS X other than the fact that it does not run on your crap box? Windows, Gnome and KDE all violate Fitts law all over the place and the dialog requesters don't make sense to a noob. I'd suggest reading up on the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. They are just common sense about proper wording/workflow of a GUI.
If you are fan off crappy GUI's and badly designed software, you can always run it through the X11 server and install Fink or Darwin Ports.
Sorry but how is a music player needed for anything you do? Do you have a choice of players to purchase? Yes. Do you have a choice of services to use? Yes. All players (except those Sony players that are ATRAC only) can make use of eMusic or Magnatune and they can all make use of music ripped from CDs.
Non-iPods are not compatible with iTMS but many are compatible with "iTunes".
iPods are also not compatible with various services that are based on WMA.
Do Xbox games play on PS2? Do PS2 games play on the Xbox? No, of course not.
Given that there are multiple sources to get your music and music players/Online music is not an essential service for home or office, your attempt to equate this with the strangle hold on the desktop does not hold water.
If you don't like Apple's services, buy CD's or use the WMA services. Nobody is forced to buy music from iTMS and nobody is forced to buy an iPod.
The DisplayPDF component of Cocoa is the abomination here: a 20 year old, messy, and ineffcient client-server graphics subsystem that only continues to exist because it was Jobs's pet project.
Excuse me? I think you are confusing DisplayPostscript (NeXTStep) with DisplayPDF (now called Quartz). They are completely different technologies. Quartz is a compositing engine (MS is copying with longhorns avalon).
They scrapped DisplayPostscript because of licensing issues with Adobe and because it was old and messy. Get your facts straight.
X11 is a client/server graphics and window server, like DisplayPDF. Apple could drop DisplayPDF entirely and replace it with X11, while keeping the rest of the platform identical; most users and developers would not even notice, except perhaps for the smaller memory footprint and better performance they'd be getting with X11.
You are either a troll or clueless. I'm not sure which. X11 only provides a graphics port and some simple gfx primitives/widgets. It does not support transparency/alpha channel effects and it does not have a compositing engine.
I'm not even going to respond to the rest of your comment. You don't have a clue what DisplayPDF/Quartz is. I will say this.
Aqua http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/aqua/ is the widget interface akin to X11 on other Unixes and it makes use of Quartz (a compositing engine based on PDF) http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartz/ and OpenGL http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/graphicsandme dia/ for rendering the aqua widgets/interface.
If I was a criminal at an airport and I was casing out the joint, my eyes would be drawn to your rectangular shaped trash bag. Why? Because I would be thinking, "why would someone carry a rectangular object in a trash bag unless they were trying to hide something valuable?".
This will just attract more attention to yourself.
Here's an idea, grow some balls for crying out loud.
Thieves, like predator animals, look for the easy mark. What I'm trying to say is that if you look like a victim, you will become one. You also should not try to attract attention to yourself by carrying something suspicious like this.
Confidence and common sense are your best defences against theft. Don't look like you are afraid of getting mugged and don't leave your laptop unattended in plain view (put it in your car trunk instead of the back seat).
I always either use a Targus laptop bag or messenger bag to carry my powerbook around without any fear of getting mugged. I just make sure to not leave my bag unattended.
I also travel without fear with my ipod with white ear buds. Maybe it helps to have the attitude of a bad ass and to look like one too. I've never ever been mugged in my life or had any fear of being mugged.
My advice would be to go to the gym and bulk up and learn some basic self defence to build up your confidence. This also works wonders for attracting the ladies.
When was the last time you received a copy of the copyright laws when purchasing software, videos or music? Everyone is generally aware of the basic responsibilities each party has when they enter into an agreement to purchase good. Regardless of whether you receive a copy of the legislation, you are bound by it non the less.
Regardless of what the EULA says, you should know that you are at the very least expected to be bound by the copyright laws of your country.
If you would like to see the EULA, write the software company for a copy or ask a friend with the same software you intend to purchase lend their copy of the EULA to you for perusal.
Again, why do you care? Would you actually buy the software anyway? Come on, be honest with us and yourself.
Is that American HS english or a commonwealth HS level english. I'm not sure I would like to see an agreement which meets the minimum standard of comprehension for the average product of the American public school system.
I never went to college or university and yet I am able to grasp the language of EULA's and other legal documents such as the American Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and Canadian legislation which affects my job directly. Of course, I am a product of the Canadian public school system rather than the American one.
Should software companies be held responsible for the failure of the US public school system to educate or the people with reading comprehension disabilities? Should they be held to account for something lacking in your gene pool?
I'm amazed by how poor of a grasp native English speakers have of their mother tongue considering I have no problem understanding English as a first generation immigrant.
I'm sure there are other places online you can find the EULA for other MS product.
I think most slashdot readers know that I'm far from being an M$ fan but come on. What do you guys care, it's not like you "paid" for the products anyway. This crap about the EULA and not being able to return the product to the store if you don't agree with the EULA is an intellectual argument anyway for those who complain the most about it considering they are not paying customers to begin with and acquired the software through other means than a store.
Now that you know what an EULA looks like, you should not be surprised when you next see one considering they are mostly identical to each other in wording for the most part unless you purchase through a volume license agreement.
So what the fuck do you want? Do you want them to hold your hand and explain it to you in person? Where would they have room on the outside of the box to display the entire EULA?
If they stuck it on the box, next you would complain about the type being too small.
Har har. So I made a spelling mistake with maleware instead of malware. Besides, I thought it was the reason why so many women like macs.;)
The only designers I know are all of the fairer sex but I'm not allowed to compliment them on their looks because of that pesky HR paper we all had to sign. They would like to use macs but some of my fellow IT guys are afraid of macs (job security).
IIRC, there is no autorun feature for Data CDs under OSX.
If you have Mac OS 9 and quicktime for Mac OS 9 (aka Classic), be sure to disable autorun in the Quicktime prefs pane. Autorun is a security hole as it could be used as a virus/maleware delivery method.
I don't see how this will work on OSX as it should present the user with several sessions on the desktop including an audio CD session with the tracks that you can drag off as AIFF files.
Nice troll. I asked how much is space is left in the "firmware" which is also known as the FLASHROM. There is a finite amount of space in their. I heard that Apple could not support WMA not just because of licensing issues but also because of technical issues related to how much space was left in the FLASH memory.
If there is space left, perhaps they want to reserve it for future expansion of their own choosing that we don't know about yet.
"I haven't seen much stuff encoded with Apple's encoder, so it's hard to say. If memory serves, I think the labels do their own encoding. Somebody once told me that a lot of it was encoded with the Fraunhofer AAC encoder rather than Apple's. If you rip something from CD and it sounds different from the iTMS version, that's probably why."
I believe that Apple receives copies of the master DAT tapes which are 24bit with a sample rate of 96Khz. They do not use the same AAC encoder included with iTunes.
I would surmise that the difference you are hearing is a combination of a better encoder and a better source material. There is no guarantee that the CDs you buy are produced with the optimal settings when down sampling and encoding to PCM for burning onto a CD master occurs.
Yes, there is. Cost of development versus return on investment. How many additional iPod sales will this generate? There is more to consider than licensing.
One last thing to consider, how much space is left in the firmware?
Considering they support two types of uncompressed format (WAV and AIFF), a lossless compression format (Apple lossless), industry standard MP3, industry standard ACC, Audible format for audio books and their own DRM-ACC format, I'd say they have their bases covered.
BTW. I'm sure one of you guys could hack together an Apple lossless encoder consider it is based on LPAC or even make a FLAC to Apple lossless converter.
Updated the prebindings? Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything? Updating the prebindings on has to be done when you update or add things to the system. If the number of components stay the same, updating the prebindings will not give you a speed boost.
There would have to be code optimizations at work here.
I hope you people who say macs cost too much are happy. You guys pushed companies to outsource/offshore IT/tech jobs to satisfy your insatiable demand for cheaper and cheaper products. So you now you can afford to buy more technology products on your minimum wage you earn at the local burger joint. The only problem is all the higher wage jobs you had hoped to upgrade to eventually are now gone.
They were destroyed by lower price demands, and monopoly pressure tactics. What we see here is a cannibalization of the PC industry and it all started with the emachines/Gateway and companies like, IBM,HP and Compaq lowering their prices/margins to razor thin profit margins to compete against the crap boxes. Now it is no longer feasible to innovate anything in the X86 industry. Unfortunately, their costs (components) did not magically drop in response.
Too bad that cheap hardware is crappy. (See Dell recalls for faulty power supplies, exploding batteries, issues with LCD screens, faulty VIA chipsets etc..)
The old adage "you get what you pay for" holds true.
You don't get it. Love must be given freely. Have you not ever heard that sometimes, you have to let the one you love go? Are you a control freak by any chance?
Unconditional love also means you allow the person to reject you. Where is this demanding for reciprocity? The definition of a relationship/friendship, is that both people in the relationship/friendship choose to spend time together. Why is this so hard for you to understand? God is like a loving parent. You cannot force someone to love you.
What the hell does that have to do with paying the artist? If you don't pay for the musical recording in the first place, what rights should you have regarding it? None.
Do you think concerts should be free?
If you think musical recordings/performance should be free, do you mind not getting paid for the job you do?
Your diatribe about media conglomerates is a straw man. The issue here is paying the artist because it is the right thing to do and a way to show appreciation for their hard work/dedication to their art. Cultural information? Are you on crack? Minstrels http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Minstrels of the middle ages were paid for their performance of music, so paying for musical performance should not be something new.
You don't get it. There may be many songs which are part of our shared culture and are now found in the public domain but performances by artists belong to the artist regardless of where the music comes from. It is up to the artist to choose whether to distribute it freely to others, not people like you.
I think you are confusing "music/lyrics" (information) with performance (a product/service offered by an artist). Of course songs should eventually become part of the public domain but the recordings themselves are not information. They are interpretations/expressions of the "information".
Regardless of how you feel about copyrights for music/lyrics (I agree with you about the 120 year copyright), that has nothing to do with not paying the artist for their performance of the piece.
Here is my definition of "fair use". If you purchase a recording, you are free to do with it as you wish for personal use including creating your own mixes, using it in your home videos etc... If you have a book in your possession, you are free to take small excerpts via photo copying or quotation (with credits to the original work) and "use" it in your own art creation or academic work.
Where do you get "use" as being a right to distribution or obtaining it without purchase? If you obtain tangible items without purchase/permission, that is called stealing.
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Correction. 75 USD to upgrade to 512mb if you buy from Apple.
Why did two of us have to correct you on such obvious mistakes? You're not trolling are you? Maybe the mac mini is not for you but it does have a market for sure.
There is a hack. Look around for it. There are two resource files that you stick in our home directory. I don't know if it will still work with iLife 05 but it does work with iLife 04 and my external Sony DVD burner.
I disagree. The level of difficulty has nothing to do with it. Music is content the key here and you can get the same content from other providers. There is no monopoly. In the same way, many games are ported to multiple platforms but there are always some exclusives that each console has to provide an enticement for people to choose a console. There is nothing wrong with that. In the same way, there are some exclusives on each of the music stores which the stores are able to negotiate with the artist/label. There is also nothing wrong with that. Companies have to be allowed to differentiate themselves on something other than price. If a brick and mortar store chain can negotiate a few exclusives, why can't an online store do the same?
I don't want a boring industry where there is no differentiation between brands except by price. That does not provide me with a "real" choice. This is exactly what you see in the PC industry and now you have companies like IBM selling off their PC unit due to low/non-existent margins.
This is a typical Microsoft ploy, only Microsoft would at least be willing to allow interoperability with those willing to license the technology. For example, if Apple wanted to make the iPod WMA compatibile, it probably wouldn't be an issue. Apple would pay for the right, and MS would give it to them. Though, you'll never see this, because the iPod and iTunes 'belong' together. Or so Apple would like you to think.
You don't get it. This is about a much larger format war. Apple wants to be able to sell more desktops and software for content creation. They can accomplish this by pushing forward industry standards like MP4 and AAC over WMA and WMV. I don't see how MS being willing to license their "proprietary" formats is a "good thing". The only thing that is proprietary here with Apple is the DRM wrapper.
Let me get this straight, you want Apple to support MSFT's DRM in the iPod even though MSFT is unwilling to support playback and purchase on the Mac platform? If MSFT allowed me, as a mac user to use my mac to use those stores, you might have a point. As it now stands, iTMS is the only cross-platform solution.
The iPod will eventually fade away and replaced with something else and it what if a mac user switched to windows or a windows users switched to OS X? Fortunately, since iTunes also works on windows, you would still have access to your music library on the new machine. The point? iTMS is not tied down to a platform whereas WMP is tied to windows.
Why can't you people understand that many switchers like me don't on a PC anymore nor do we want to ever again. Working as a software developer on the windows and linux platforms at the office is enough windows and linux for me.
OS X is half decent? What is your ideal OS? Windows? Please, don't make me laugh. I was a windows user until 2002. Linux? Not ready for the desktop but a decent server OS. What exactly is wrong with OS X other than the fact that it does not run on your crap box? Windows, Gnome and KDE all violate Fitts law all over the place and the dialog requesters don't make sense to a noob. I'd suggest reading up on the Apple Human Interface Guidelines. They are just common sense about proper wording/workflow of a GUI.
If you are fan off crappy GUI's and badly designed software, you can always run it through the X11 server and install Fink or Darwin Ports.
Non-iPods are not compatible with iTMS but many are compatible with "iTunes".
iPods are also not compatible with various services that are based on WMA.
Do Xbox games play on PS2? Do PS2 games play on the Xbox? No, of course not.
Given that there are multiple sources to get your music and music players/Online music is not an essential service for home or office, your attempt to equate this with the strangle hold on the desktop does not hold water.
If you don't like Apple's services, buy CD's or use the WMA services. Nobody is forced to buy music from iTMS and nobody is forced to buy an iPod.
Excuse me? I think you are confusing DisplayPostscript (NeXTStep) with DisplayPDF (now called Quartz). They are completely different technologies. Quartz is a compositing engine (MS is copying with longhorns avalon).
They scrapped DisplayPostscript because of licensing issues with Adobe and because it was old and messy. Get your facts straight.
X11 is a client/server graphics and window server, like DisplayPDF. Apple could drop DisplayPDF entirely and replace it with X11, while keeping the rest of the platform identical; most users and developers would not even notice, except perhaps for the smaller memory footprint and better performance they'd be getting with X11.
You are either a troll or clueless. I'm not sure which. X11 only provides a graphics port and some simple gfx primitives/widgets. It does not support transparency/alpha channel effects and it does not have a compositing engine. I'm not even going to respond to the rest of your comment. You don't have a clue what DisplayPDF/Quartz is. I will say this. Aqua http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/aqua/ is the widget interface akin to X11 on other Unixes and it makes use of Quartz (a compositing engine based on PDF) http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartz/ and OpenGL http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/graphicsandme dia/ for rendering the aqua widgets/interface.
Here are a few more links:d ex.html/ e /
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/architecture/in
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextrem
He is making valid points. Stop abusing your mod point.
If I was a criminal at an airport and I was casing out the joint, my eyes would be drawn to your rectangular shaped trash bag. Why? Because I would be thinking, "why would someone carry a rectangular object in a trash bag unless they were trying to hide something valuable?".
Here's an idea, grow some balls for crying out loud.
Thieves, like predator animals, look for the easy mark. What I'm trying to say is that if you look like a victim, you will become one. You also should not try to attract attention to yourself by carrying something suspicious like this.
Confidence and common sense are your best defences against theft. Don't look like you are afraid of getting mugged and don't leave your laptop unattended in plain view (put it in your car trunk instead of the back seat).
I always either use a Targus laptop bag or messenger bag to carry my powerbook around without any fear of getting mugged. I just make sure to not leave my bag unattended.
I also travel without fear with my ipod with white ear buds. Maybe it helps to have the attitude of a bad ass and to look like one too. I've never ever been mugged in my life or had any fear of being mugged.
My advice would be to go to the gym and bulk up and learn some basic self defence to build up your confidence. This also works wonders for attracting the ladies.
The female bank robbers used it on their getaway vehicle.
Regardless of what the EULA says, you should know that you are at the very least expected to be bound by the copyright laws of your country.
If you would like to see the EULA, write the software company for a copy or ask a friend with the same software you intend to purchase lend their copy of the EULA to you for perusal.
Again, why do you care? Would you actually buy the software anyway? Come on, be honest with us and yourself.
I never went to college or university and yet I am able to grasp the language of EULA's and other legal documents such as the American Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and Canadian legislation which affects my job directly. Of course, I am a product of the Canadian public school system rather than the American one.
Should software companies be held responsible for the failure of the US public school system to educate or the people with reading comprehension disabilities? Should they be held to account for something lacking in your gene pool?
I'm amazed by how poor of a grasp native English speakers have of their mother tongue considering I have no problem understanding English as a first generation immigrant.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/eula.mspx
I'm sure there are other places online you can find the EULA for other MS product.
I think most slashdot readers know that I'm far from being an M$ fan but come on. What do you guys care, it's not like you "paid" for the products anyway. This crap about the EULA and not being able to return the product to the store if you don't agree with the EULA is an intellectual argument anyway for those who complain the most about it considering they are not paying customers to begin with and acquired the software through other means than a store.
Here is one for Adobe acrobat reader: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrviewer/eula.html
Now that you know what an EULA looks like, you should not be surprised when you next see one considering they are mostly identical to each other in wording for the most part unless you purchase through a volume license agreement.
If they stuck it on the box, next you would complain about the type being too small.
This place has worse selection than even http://www.emusic.com/.
The only designers I know are all of the fairer sex but I'm not allowed to compliment them on their looks because of that pesky HR paper we all had to sign. They would like to use macs but some of my fellow IT guys are afraid of macs (job security).
I don't see how this will work on OSX as it should present the user with several sessions on the desktop including an audio CD session with the tracks that you can drag off as AIFF files.
If there is space left, perhaps they want to reserve it for future expansion of their own choosing that we don't know about yet.
So how would that help with a black and white screen?
I believe that Apple receives copies of the master DAT tapes which are 24bit with a sample rate of 96Khz. They do not use the same AAC encoder included with iTunes.
I would surmise that the difference you are hearing is a combination of a better encoder and a better source material. There is no guarantee that the CDs you buy are produced with the optimal settings when down sampling and encoding to PCM for burning onto a CD master occurs.
One last thing to consider, how much space is left in the firmware?
Considering they support two types of uncompressed format (WAV and AIFF), a lossless compression format (Apple lossless), industry standard MP3, industry standard ACC, Audible format for audio books and their own DRM-ACC format, I'd say they have their bases covered.
BTW. I'm sure one of you guys could hack together an Apple lossless encoder consider it is based on LPAC or even make a FLAC to Apple lossless converter.
Why not just rip your CDs you bought in ACC format?
There would have to be code optimizations at work here.
They were destroyed by lower price demands, and monopoly pressure tactics. What we see here is a cannibalization of the PC industry and it all started with the emachines/Gateway and companies like, IBM,HP and Compaq lowering their prices/margins to razor thin profit margins to compete against the crap boxes. Now it is no longer feasible to innovate anything in the X86 industry. Unfortunately, their costs (components) did not magically drop in response.
Too bad that cheap hardware is crappy. (See Dell recalls for faulty power supplies, exploding batteries, issues with LCD screens, faulty VIA chipsets etc..)
The old adage "you get what you pay for" holds true.
Unconditional love also means you allow the person to reject you. Where is this demanding for reciprocity? The definition of a relationship/friendship, is that both people in the relationship/friendship choose to spend time together. Why is this so hard for you to understand? God is like a loving parent. You cannot force someone to love you.
How did you become so arrogant and bitter?
Do you think concerts should be free?
If you think musical recordings/performance should be free, do you mind not getting paid for the job you do?
Your diatribe about media conglomerates is a straw man. The issue here is paying the artist because it is the right thing to do and a way to show appreciation for their hard work/dedication to their art. Cultural information? Are you on crack? Minstrels http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Minstrels of the middle ages were paid for their performance of music, so paying for musical performance should not be something new.
You don't get it. There may be many songs which are part of our shared culture and are now found in the public domain but performances by artists belong to the artist regardless of where the music comes from. It is up to the artist to choose whether to distribute it freely to others, not people like you.
I think you are confusing "music/lyrics" (information) with performance (a product/service offered by an artist). Of course songs should eventually become part of the public domain but the recordings themselves are not information. They are interpretations/expressions of the "information".
Regardless of how you feel about copyrights for music/lyrics (I agree with you about the 120 year copyright), that has nothing to do with not paying the artist for their performance of the piece.
Here is my definition of "fair use". If you purchase a recording, you are free to do with it as you wish for personal use including creating your own mixes, using it in your home videos etc... If you have a book in your possession, you are free to take small excerpts via photo copying or quotation (with credits to the original work) and "use" it in your own art creation or academic work.
Where do you get "use" as being a right to distribution or obtaining it without purchase? If you obtain tangible items without purchase/permission, that is called stealing.