Apples and oranges (pardon the expression). You can't compare an integrated pre-configured machine with a build-it-yourself Frankenputer on price.
And why not? Most people don't buy the Mac Mini because it's a small, integrated computer. They buy it because it's the $600 Mac. Besides, if you don't want a Frankencomputer Dell or eMachines or Gateway will gladly put together a computer for you for around $300 that, for the most part, will be standard interchangable parts.
As always, YMMV. I've had terrible luck with Asus, most of their motherboards I've had failed within a couple of years. Some were obviously bad caps, but others had no apparent problems other than them no longer working. I think for a while they were trying to get away without putting northbridge fans on motherboards that really needed one (their VIA KT400/KT600 boards come to mind), as the heatsink would get really hot and similar motherboards from other manufacturers usually had a fan, and the heat would eventually kill the northbridge. At work, the computers with dual head video cards are typically Asus branded nVidia chipset video cards, and those cards also like to fail after a year or two, though that might be nVidia's fault as the few ATI based ones are pretty much problem-free.
To be honest, I've not had much luck with the likes of Gigabyte and AOpen either. My best motherboards seem to be from the "2nd tier" makers - not the big names like Asus but not crap like PCChips either. I'm talking brands like Soltek and Biostar.
It's still an interesting move. Say tomorrow, Apple decided to sell OSX for generic PCs, like people here have been speculating about for a while. Legit copies of Photoshop aren't going to run on these computers, and people are going to be mad at Adobe because of this. Perhaps Adobe knows something we don't?
Not according to any reviews I've ever found. For example, this month's Popular Mechanics comparison pits a PC and a Mac at the exact same price, and the Mac blows it away.
That might be because they compared one pricy, all-in-one machine to another pricy, all-in-one machine. It wouldn't be hard to build a tower that can beat both of those machines for that kind of money.
I'm going with the parent here. I've had enough "workstation class" PCs apart to know how they put them together. Dell knows these people aren't going to put up with something that's hard to work with and upgrade. I'm sure the Mac Pro is prettier, but the Dell surely comes apart in a similar fashion and is just as easy to upgrade.
Besides, while the Mac Pro may be easy to disassemble and upgrade, only Apple would build a machine where you have to remove the LCD screen in order to get to the insides (the current iMac).
Ok, Where can I buy a PC that is as small and quiet as a Mac Mini or Apple TV?
There is currently, no such equivalent.
That's probably why he said "similarly powerful". The Mac Mini is pretty underpowered, you can pretty easily put together something that will run as fast or faster for $300 with a generic parts.
Just make fun of them and they'll eventually move onto Digg.
Actually, don't do that. They're trolling for responses. Best to ignore them, most of them have the attention span of an over-caffeinated ferret and will move on very shortly if they can't elicit any responses.
Well, on the topic of Windows, how about the "Install New Font..." dialog in the Fonts folder? Don't know about Vista, but in XP the dialog box is straight out of Windows 3.0.
Actually, you can get some pretty fancy AGP cards still, such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131090. Though I'm not sure why, as anyone I can envision who would buy a high end graphics card has already moved off of AGP, and those that still are on AGP (like me) aren't going to sink that kind of money into their existing, outdated systems. And don't ask me how the Crossfire works on AGP.
The thing is it could still be unstable, but maybe it would only crash once a week now. With overclocking, every time the computer acts up you can never be sure if it's the overclock or not, and if it acts up less than once per week the tweaking process (which is usually a trial and error type of thing) could literally take months. I find it's just easier not to overclock it. Though for this computer it was an easy choice - even a modest bump of the FSB of 2% resulted in a PC that wouldn't even boot.
According to some early testers I knew, it took more than 10 minutes just to log on. The command line took, on average, 5 minutes to respond to the simplest command.
Well, you can get the same experience now, thanks to Symantec Antivirus. Well, except for the whole actual security part.
I would think it would be easiest with LCDs, since all you would need to change is the dye/filter layer that goes over the pixels. Probably would work best with CCFL backlights, since they have a fuller spectrum.
When in doubt, the simplest explanation is correct. In this case, it's "somebody did something stupid" - nothing more. When you have a URL filtering system, somebody's bound to screw up and do something stupid. How would blocking youtube drive traffic to MSN TV?
I think the fact they have a URL filtering system is enough to don the tinfoil hats. Maybe Youtube made it into the list by accident as you suggest, but why else would you have a URL filtering system?
Microsoft could have easily enforced this limitation in their software. Refuse to run at a resolution over 800x600, or recognize any space on a hard drive in excess of 80GB. They didn't have to try and lock the hardware down.
That's a good question. Actually, they could have just reused Windows XP Starter Edition for this. That version already limits the screen resolution, amount of ram and disk space, and refuses to run on certain processors.
I would assume that if you did two powerdowns in a row, the 2nd time you brought everything back up you would see very few (if any) failures as the machines that survived the first powerdown would likely survive a second. I would assume that if the machines were regularly powered down, instead of seeing a number of them go in a clump like you observe, you would have a spread out stream of occasional failures. The question becomes, under which scenario are you losing the most machines in a period of time? Not to mention which is more convienent to deal with - I would rather deal with losing a machine a week than have to deal with 52 suddenly going out once per year (for example).
I have full administrator rights to my PC at work, and could install SP3 if I wanted to (I'll let those that are too foolish to disable the fully automatic Windows Updates take the hit first, then see) but the AV (Symantec, really horrible) is password protected and I can't do much of anything with it except to manually initiate a scan.
BTW, tag that admission *honest*. A rarity for Microsoft, and typical that they would exercise it in an admission of OS security failure.
That's actually pretty good advice. Try asking someone what they would do with a Linux box that had been rooted. They'll most likely tell you to nuke it and restore the data from backups. It's incredibly difficult to confirm that the machine is actually disinfected, and there's always a chance you missed something. It's almost always easier just to start over.
its hardware requirements were acceptable. Most exisitng and practically all new computers were able to run XP when it was released.
Really? In 2001 a typical mid-range new machine would have been an early model P4 with 256MB of ram, which by todays standards most of us would consider pretty slow for XP. A lot of home machines would have been more along the lines of a PII/PIII with 64-128MB of ram, and those would be unsuitable for using XP (though the hardware was still capable of running it). I would say it wasn't until a year or two later when a mid-range system came standard with 512MB that XP really ran well on the typical computer.
Unless your motherboard has omitted the floppy controller, it should work just fine. As a matter of fact, that old drive from the 386 is probably better built and more reliable than a newer one anyway.
Record players have a following, as a matter of fact they are bigger now than they have been over the last several years, as the people who like records aren't the type to embrace things like iTunes so I see them here to stay. It's more like a audio cassette tapes, a technology that's been totally outclassed and no one really ever liked in the first place. Can you even buy an audio cassette player anymore?
Slashdot Mirror
Apples and oranges (pardon the expression). You can't compare an integrated pre-configured machine with a build-it-yourself Frankenputer on price.
And why not? Most people don't buy the Mac Mini because it's a small, integrated computer. They buy it because it's the $600 Mac. Besides, if you don't want a Frankencomputer Dell or eMachines or Gateway will gladly put together a computer for you for around $300 that, for the most part, will be standard interchangable parts.
As always, YMMV. I've had terrible luck with Asus, most of their motherboards I've had failed within a couple of years. Some were obviously bad caps, but others had no apparent problems other than them no longer working. I think for a while they were trying to get away without putting northbridge fans on motherboards that really needed one (their VIA KT400/KT600 boards come to mind), as the heatsink would get really hot and similar motherboards from other manufacturers usually had a fan, and the heat would eventually kill the northbridge. At work, the computers with dual head video cards are typically Asus branded nVidia chipset video cards, and those cards also like to fail after a year or two, though that might be nVidia's fault as the few ATI based ones are pretty much problem-free.
To be honest, I've not had much luck with the likes of Gigabyte and AOpen either. My best motherboards seem to be from the "2nd tier" makers - not the big names like Asus but not crap like PCChips either. I'm talking brands like Soltek and Biostar.
It's still an interesting move. Say tomorrow, Apple decided to sell OSX for generic PCs, like people here have been speculating about for a while. Legit copies of Photoshop aren't going to run on these computers, and people are going to be mad at Adobe because of this. Perhaps Adobe knows something we don't?
Not according to any reviews I've ever found. For example, this month's Popular Mechanics comparison pits a PC and a Mac at the exact same price, and the Mac blows it away.
That might be because they compared one pricy, all-in-one machine to another pricy, all-in-one machine. It wouldn't be hard to build a tower that can beat both of those machines for that kind of money.
I'm going with the parent here. I've had enough "workstation class" PCs apart to know how they put them together. Dell knows these people aren't going to put up with something that's hard to work with and upgrade. I'm sure the Mac Pro is prettier, but the Dell surely comes apart in a similar fashion and is just as easy to upgrade.
Besides, while the Mac Pro may be easy to disassemble and upgrade, only Apple would build a machine where you have to remove the LCD screen in order to get to the insides (the current iMac).
Ok, Where can I buy a PC that is as small and quiet as a Mac Mini or Apple TV?
There is currently, no such equivalent.
That's probably why he said "similarly powerful". The Mac Mini is pretty underpowered, you can pretty easily put together something that will run as fast or faster for $300 with a generic parts.
Just make fun of them and they'll eventually move onto Digg.
Actually, don't do that. They're trolling for responses. Best to ignore them, most of them have the attention span of an over-caffeinated ferret and will move on very shortly if they can't elicit any responses.
Well, on the topic of Windows, how about the "Install New Font..." dialog in the Fonts folder? Don't know about Vista, but in XP the dialog box is straight out of Windows 3.0.
And here I thought all the people who enjoy overpaying for memory are already on the Mac :)
Actually, you can get some pretty fancy AGP cards still, such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131090. Though I'm not sure why, as anyone I can envision who would buy a high end graphics card has already moved off of AGP, and those that still are on AGP (like me) aren't going to sink that kind of money into their existing, outdated systems. And don't ask me how the Crossfire works on AGP.
The thing is it could still be unstable, but maybe it would only crash once a week now. With overclocking, every time the computer acts up you can never be sure if it's the overclock or not, and if it acts up less than once per week the tweaking process (which is usually a trial and error type of thing) could literally take months. I find it's just easier not to overclock it. Though for this computer it was an easy choice - even a modest bump of the FSB of 2% resulted in a PC that wouldn't even boot.
According to some early testers I knew, it took more than 10 minutes just to log on. The command line took, on average, 5 minutes to respond to the simplest command.
Well, you can get the same experience now, thanks to Symantec Antivirus. Well, except for the whole actual security part.
I would think it would be easiest with LCDs, since all you would need to change is the dye/filter layer that goes over the pixels. Probably would work best with CCFL backlights, since they have a fuller spectrum.
It take HP 30 bits to show color? Ha! my old Apple II could do it in just 8 bits. HP has a lot of catching up to do.
I'm not impressed. My old IBM could do color with just 4 bits.
what the hell this has to do with Microsoft?
Well, distracted drivers aren't the only thing that crashes, you know.
When in doubt, the simplest explanation is correct. In this case, it's "somebody did something stupid" - nothing more. When you have a URL filtering system, somebody's bound to screw up and do something stupid. How would blocking youtube drive traffic to MSN TV?
I think the fact they have a URL filtering system is enough to don the tinfoil hats. Maybe Youtube made it into the list by accident as you suggest, but why else would you have a URL filtering system?
Microsoft could have easily enforced this limitation in their software. Refuse to run at a resolution over 800x600, or recognize any space on a hard drive in excess of 80GB. They didn't have to try and lock the hardware down.
That's a good question. Actually, they could have just reused Windows XP Starter Edition for this. That version already limits the screen resolution, amount of ram and disk space, and refuses to run on certain processors.
I would assume that if you did two powerdowns in a row, the 2nd time you brought everything back up you would see very few (if any) failures as the machines that survived the first powerdown would likely survive a second. I would assume that if the machines were regularly powered down, instead of seeing a number of them go in a clump like you observe, you would have a spread out stream of occasional failures. The question becomes, under which scenario are you losing the most machines in a period of time? Not to mention which is more convienent to deal with - I would rather deal with losing a machine a week than have to deal with 52 suddenly going out once per year (for example).
I have full administrator rights to my PC at work, and could install SP3 if I wanted to (I'll let those that are too foolish to disable the fully automatic Windows Updates take the hit first, then see) but the AV (Symantec, really horrible) is password protected and I can't do much of anything with it except to manually initiate a scan.
BTW, tag that admission *honest*. A rarity for Microsoft, and typical that they would exercise it in an admission of OS security failure.
That's actually pretty good advice. Try asking someone what they would do with a Linux box that had been rooted. They'll most likely tell you to nuke it and restore the data from backups. It's incredibly difficult to confirm that the machine is actually disinfected, and there's always a chance you missed something. It's almost always easier just to start over.
its hardware requirements were acceptable. Most exisitng and practically all new computers were able to run XP when it was released.
Really? In 2001 a typical mid-range new machine would have been an early model P4 with 256MB of ram, which by todays standards most of us would consider pretty slow for XP. A lot of home machines would have been more along the lines of a PII/PIII with 64-128MB of ram, and those would be unsuitable for using XP (though the hardware was still capable of running it). I would say it wasn't until a year or two later when a mid-range system came standard with 512MB that XP really ran well on the typical computer.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8224470
You can keep the change.
Unless your motherboard has omitted the floppy controller, it should work just fine. As a matter of fact, that old drive from the 386 is probably better built and more reliable than a newer one anyway.
That's a difference of over 17GB, which is a considerable amount of porn.
Record players have a following, as a matter of fact they are bigger now than they have been over the last several years, as the people who like records aren't the type to embrace things like iTunes so I see them here to stay. It's more like a audio cassette tapes, a technology that's been totally outclassed and no one really ever liked in the first place. Can you even buy an audio cassette player anymore?