Apple has always had the highest margins in the personal computing industry, and the have turned hundreds of millions in profit for years now. Additionally, Intel parts cost more than PPC chips, as evidenced by the $100 price increase in the Mac Mini.
Is it any real surprise that one of Intel's latest and greatest chips is more expensive than a tired old G4? I'm sure the Mini would be a bit cheaper if Apple decided to put a low end Celeron M in it, or whatever would be closer to a 1.4Ghz G4 performance wise.
The newer Microsoft XP disks I have come accross (the ones that come with SP2 and a good number of the fixes since then) will recognize most popular SATA controllers just fine, no floppy needed. RAID support is a bit more spotty though. If you have one of the old Windows XP disks (c. 2001) can you really complain that it doesn't know about hardware that did not exist at the time? (though needing the drivers on a floppy is certainly a valid compliant!)
Oh by the way, you want to give us some references to articles or forums where others are talking about how slow Tiger is on their PowerBook G4? You can't just make blanket statements like you did without putting forth some evidence.
It's pretty obvious why Tiger is slower than Panther, you have Dashboard and Spotlight, two new services that consume quite a bit of resources and can't be totally shut off or removed. Of course, it affects slower computers or computers with less ram more than it does high end machines, hence the reason why some people notice it and others don't.
The default page file size on Windows XP is something like 1.25*(amount of ram present). The key to a small Windows XP install is to have a small amount of ram:)
I'm confused as to why anyone would buy one of these machines. In a world where hardware that is a success is simple, sleek and nice to look at, why oh why would someone want one of the hideous things from Alienware. And then Dell go and buy the company. Yikes.
Some people don't care so much about looks, and others actually thing they look cool.
What I don't get is people who buy Alienware when you can get the same thing at a fraction of the cost if you build it yourself.
Windows Vista is supposed to have a "Classic" mode, which basically means that you can make it looks like Windows 2000. On lower end PCs that can't do all the fancy eye candy, they'll have no choice either. Though if I ever upgrade to Vista, the chances are pretty good that's what I'll run regardless of the power of my PC.
Well, the original poster was right in some ways. Just add in a "2.0" after every USB. Apple was one of the last to adopt USB 2.0 on their machines, long after it was pretty standard on most new PCs. Why? Because they were too busy pushing FireWire. They only really gave in once it became obvious that FireWire was turning into a niche connector for a small set of devices, while everything else was USB 2.0. Then, not too long after, Apple decided to jump on the USB bandwagon and screw over all the people with the USB1/FireWire Macs by making the latest iPods USB only, effectively leaving them and their non-USB 2.0 upgradable machines out in the cold.
Yes, look at the market Apple single handily created by shipping a computer with no legacy ports! Of course tons of new devices sprung up from companies out to money, as suddenly lots of people who went out and bought an iMac also had to got out and buy all new accessories (or atleast USB->[legacy port] adaptors) because their shiny new blueberry iMac was incompatible with just about..... everything. Sure, looking back from 2006 the all USB iMac sure looks peachy, as any geek I know is now surrounded by piles of cheap USB devices. But back in 1998 that really wasn't the case.
Oh yeah, and I'm sure Windows 98 had nothing to do with it either.
Why don't they simply equip the PowerMacs with 1 stick of whatever the biggest they can take? That would make them ship with 2GB if I remember my specs right. This would accomplish three things: It would make the amount of ram in their $3000 workstation no longer a joke, it would give someone who buys one and doesn't (immediately) upgrade it a nice amount of ram to use, and it would give the person who is going to max it out a start, as they would already own 1 of the DIMMs they need.
And I suppose that you also don't run a pop up blocker of any sort, because you might accidently block a legit pop up from a legit site? And that you don't filter your email for spam? Sometimes it's just easier to throw a whole category of something because it causes more trouble than its worth. That is all that Google is doing. Sure, you're throwing out some good sites with all the bad, but overall you're improving the search results. Besides, "throwing them out" is kind of a lie, because Google's not really throwing them out, Pagerank just ranks them as likely to be relevant so they place on lower in the results. You are still free to dig through them if want.
Is it really that hard to press control? yeah the laptop for sure needs another button but clicking control and click was really never that big a deal. (control + click = right mouse)
I don't have a MacBook Pro running Windows handy, but I can tell you that control+left click on my Windows XP desktop does not bring up the context menu. So yes, it is a big deal for people wanting to run Windows on a MacBook.
Windows XP has already proven itself to be quite stable on a wide variety of machines, provided the machine is constructed out of solid hardware and the user(s) are smart enough to not go installing random crap or catch the latest virus. I've never had a problem with Windows XP that couldn't be traced back to bad hardware, shoddy drivers, or something dumb that I did. I'm sure, given a bit more time, XP will likely be perfectly stable on Intel Macs, but that really doesn't show anything new in terms of how stable Windows is.
As advanced as OS X is, I don't think apple have invented hardware patching yet...
Apparently someone has never heard of updated firmware.
On a more serious note, once it is set up and working I don't see why it wouldn't continue to work so long as you don't mess with it (I would consider applying updates "messing" with it). Quite likely she'll be fine so long as she doesn't apply any new updates for a few days, while others check them out.
Actually, I'm surprised that we don't see more graphics cards with larger amounts of video ram. Memory is cheap, and looking at budget cards online, usually the 256MB version of a card is less than $10 more than the 128MB version. Sure, the extra memory won't make a big difference, but it won't hurt, and most people will spend the couple of extra bucks "just in case they need it".
With the high end, I'm sure 1GB of fast memory isn't cheap, but compared the cost of high end video cards ($400-$500+), it won't increase the price that much. And I'm sure every 1337 g4m3r would drool over a gamer card with 1GB of memory (even if it showed no real improvement over 256MB), which is why I'm surprised that neither ATI or nVidia has decided to cater to this audience.
On a simular note, I'm also surprised that harddrive caches are still so small. Cache memory on a harddrive doesn't even need to be that fast either. I'm surprised that some manufacturer hasn't bothered to add $5 worth of memory to one of their high end drives, and start another numbers game going.
Yeah, they need to clarify that a bit. I'm pretty sure that my ATI Radeon 9600Pro 128MB, despite being a couple of years old, is a more powerful card than the X200 which is a budget graphics card. But since the X200 has a higher model number, does that mean my 9600Pro is locked out?
And the Intel GMA900? Good grief. Given the quality of Intel's previous integrated graphics chips, I suspect that my old 32MB GeForce2 has more horsepower.
So, it basically will cost you nothing to put an old card in a new server. At least, that's how some of my servers got GeForce cards.
Older 3D cards will still eat up electricity and generate heat. I don't really see the point of drawing an extra 20-30W 24/7 so I can have a GeForce card in my headless server.
How could a site be considered irrelevant and be de-listed or penalized based on something the user never sees? Few users seeking information even know that a site has hidden text, re-directs or the like.
Because most sites that use spammy techiniques are mostly useless and annoying link/referral farms with little or no relevant information. Sure, not every site that uses hidden text or redirects is garbage, but I'm sure blanket penalizing the sites that heavily use spammy techniques has an overall positive effect on the relevancy of Google's search results.
More like from 3200+ to 19200+. HDTV has six times the resolution of NTSC DVDs.
Except that most people are not going to notice the increase in resolution, especially if they don't have a super expensive high end television. It's more like going from a P100 to a PIII-600 to a P4 3.6Ghz. Both are steps to something roughly 6x faster, but the first one will be noticable to just about anyone, but the second one will be less noticable to the vast majority of people who just cruise the internet and work with office apps.
Similarly, when the HDTV broadcast deadline rears its ugly head, I think you'll see the cable companies offering digital to analog converters to allow their subscriberts (those who haven't upgraded their TV's) to continue getting their television, which means that their current DVD players will continue to meet their needs.
The broadcast deadline only affects broadcast television. Cable TV, and satellite can continue to do whatever they want, and I suspect that they will continue to support analog TVs for years to come. As a matter of fact, every satellite subscriber and many cable TV subscribers already have a box provided to them that converts a digital signal to something suitable for an analog TV.
It's the people who currently get their television over-the-air are the ones that are screwed.
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Apple has always had the highest margins in the personal computing industry, and the have turned hundreds of millions in profit for years now. Additionally, Intel parts cost more than PPC chips, as evidenced by the $100 price increase in the Mac Mini.
Is it any real surprise that one of Intel's latest and greatest chips is more expensive than a tired old G4? I'm sure the Mini would be a bit cheaper if Apple decided to put a low end Celeron M in it, or whatever would be closer to a 1.4Ghz G4 performance wise.
(try installing Sata drivers without one)
The newer Microsoft XP disks I have come accross (the ones that come with SP2 and a good number of the fixes since then) will recognize most popular SATA controllers just fine, no floppy needed. RAID support is a bit more spotty though. If you have one of the old Windows XP disks (c. 2001) can you really complain that it doesn't know about hardware that did not exist at the time? (though needing the drivers on a floppy is certainly a valid compliant!)
Oh by the way, you want to give us some references to articles or forums where others are talking about how slow Tiger is on their PowerBook G4? You can't just make blanket statements like you did without putting forth some evidence.
It's pretty obvious why Tiger is slower than Panther, you have Dashboard and Spotlight, two new services that consume quite a bit of resources and can't be totally shut off or removed. Of course, it affects slower computers or computers with less ram more than it does high end machines, hence the reason why some people notice it and others don't.
The default page file size on Windows XP is something like 1.25*(amount of ram present). The key to a small Windows XP install is to have a small amount of ram :)
Those machines look like crap. Dell is going to need more than that to compete with Apple.
Dell already sells something like 10 computers for every Macintosh sold. I don't think Dell is all that worried.
I'm confused as to why anyone would buy one of these machines. In a world where hardware that is a success is simple, sleek and nice to look at, why oh why would someone want one of the hideous things from Alienware. And then Dell go and buy the company. Yikes.
Some people don't care so much about looks, and others actually thing they look cool.
What I don't get is people who buy Alienware when you can get the same thing at a fraction of the cost if you build it yourself.
Windows Vista is supposed to have a "Classic" mode, which basically means that you can make it looks like Windows 2000. On lower end PCs that can't do all the fancy eye candy, they'll have no choice either. Though if I ever upgrade to Vista, the chances are pretty good that's what I'll run regardless of the power of my PC.
Well, the original poster was right in some ways. Just add in a "2.0" after every USB. Apple was one of the last to adopt USB 2.0 on their machines, long after it was pretty standard on most new PCs. Why? Because they were too busy pushing FireWire. They only really gave in once it became obvious that FireWire was turning into a niche connector for a small set of devices, while everything else was USB 2.0. Then, not too long after, Apple decided to jump on the USB bandwagon and screw over all the people with the USB1/FireWire Macs by making the latest iPods USB only, effectively leaving them and their non-USB 2.0 upgradable machines out in the cold.
Yes, look at the market Apple single handily created by shipping a computer with no legacy ports! Of course tons of new devices sprung up from companies out to money, as suddenly lots of people who went out and bought an iMac also had to got out and buy all new accessories (or atleast USB->[legacy port] adaptors) because their shiny new blueberry iMac was incompatible with just about..... everything. Sure, looking back from 2006 the all USB iMac sure looks peachy, as any geek I know is now surrounded by piles of cheap USB devices. But back in 1998 that really wasn't the case.
Oh yeah, and I'm sure Windows 98 had nothing to do with it either.
Why don't they simply equip the PowerMacs with 1 stick of whatever the biggest they can take? That would make them ship with 2GB if I remember my specs right. This would accomplish three things: It would make the amount of ram in their $3000 workstation no longer a joke, it would give someone who buys one and doesn't (immediately) upgrade it a nice amount of ram to use, and it would give the person who is going to max it out a start, as they would already own 1 of the DIMMs they need.
control + click
it's been like that on macs forever.
Yes, that's great. We all know that.
However, control+click doesn't do squat in Windows XP.
Comes with a 17" ANALOG monitor? Dell has to be kidding.
And I suppose that you also don't run a pop up blocker of any sort, because you might accidently block a legit pop up from a legit site? And that you don't filter your email for spam? Sometimes it's just easier to throw a whole category of something because it causes more trouble than its worth. That is all that Google is doing. Sure, you're throwing out some good sites with all the bad, but overall you're improving the search results. Besides, "throwing them out" is kind of a lie, because Google's not really throwing them out, Pagerank just ranks them as likely to be relevant so they place on lower in the results. You are still free to dig through them if want.
Is it really that hard to press control? yeah the laptop for sure needs another button but clicking control and click was really never that big a deal. (control + click = right mouse)
I don't have a MacBook Pro running Windows handy, but I can tell you that control+left click on my Windows XP desktop does not bring up the context menu. So yes, it is a big deal for people wanting to run Windows on a MacBook.
Windows to prove how stable it can be.,
Windows XP has already proven itself to be quite stable on a wide variety of machines, provided the machine is constructed out of solid hardware and the user(s) are smart enough to not go installing random crap or catch the latest virus. I've never had a problem with Windows XP that couldn't be traced back to bad hardware, shoddy drivers, or something dumb that I did. I'm sure, given a bit more time, XP will likely be perfectly stable on Intel Macs, but that really doesn't show anything new in terms of how stable Windows is.
As advanced as OS X is, I don't think apple have invented hardware patching yet...
Apparently someone has never heard of updated firmware.
On a more serious note, once it is set up and working I don't see why it wouldn't continue to work so long as you don't mess with it (I would consider applying updates "messing" with it). Quite likely she'll be fine so long as she doesn't apply any new updates for a few days, while others check them out.
Actually, I'm surprised that we don't see more graphics cards with larger amounts of video ram. Memory is cheap, and looking at budget cards online, usually the 256MB version of a card is less than $10 more than the 128MB version. Sure, the extra memory won't make a big difference, but it won't hurt, and most people will spend the couple of extra bucks "just in case they need it".
With the high end, I'm sure 1GB of fast memory isn't cheap, but compared the cost of high end video cards ($400-$500+), it won't increase the price that much. And I'm sure every 1337 g4m3r would drool over a gamer card with 1GB of memory (even if it showed no real improvement over 256MB), which is why I'm surprised that neither ATI or nVidia has decided to cater to this audience.
On a simular note, I'm also surprised that harddrive caches are still so small. Cache memory on a harddrive doesn't even need to be that fast either. I'm surprised that some manufacturer hasn't bothered to add $5 worth of memory to one of their high end drives, and start another numbers game going.
Yeah, they need to clarify that a bit. I'm pretty sure that my ATI Radeon 9600Pro 128MB, despite being a couple of years old, is a more powerful card than the X200 which is a budget graphics card. But since the X200 has a higher model number, does that mean my 9600Pro is locked out?
And the Intel GMA900? Good grief. Given the quality of Intel's previous integrated graphics chips, I suspect that my old 32MB GeForce2 has more horsepower.
I really don't think most slashdotters cats are going to care what kind of graphics cards they have as long as the computer keeps the cat warm.
My cat would probably approve, though she's still pissed off that I upgraded to a LCD monitor (she used to love to sleep on the top of the old CRT).
All I have to say is thank god they moved away from their old naming scheme (year = version)
I agree. I was getting pretty sick of it back in year 20XP when they released the last version of Windows.
So, it basically will cost you nothing to put an old card in a new server. At least, that's how some of my servers got GeForce cards.
Older 3D cards will still eat up electricity and generate heat. I don't really see the point of drawing an extra 20-30W 24/7 so I can have a GeForce card in my headless server.
Decoding video ain't that hard, son. This is not 1994.
What are you talking about? The number of video codecs you would have to support now far outnumbers the handful of codecs in common use back in 1994.
How could a site be considered irrelevant and be de-listed or penalized based on something the user never sees? Few users seeking information even know that a site has hidden text, re-directs or the like.
Because most sites that use spammy techiniques are mostly useless and annoying link/referral farms with little or no relevant information. Sure, not every site that uses hidden text or redirects is garbage, but I'm sure blanket penalizing the sites that heavily use spammy techniques has an overall positive effect on the relevancy of Google's search results.
More like from 3200+ to 19200+. HDTV has six times the resolution of NTSC DVDs.
Except that most people are not going to notice the increase in resolution, especially if they don't have a super expensive high end television. It's more like going from a P100 to a PIII-600 to a P4 3.6Ghz. Both are steps to something roughly 6x faster, but the first one will be noticable to just about anyone, but the second one will be less noticable to the vast majority of people who just cruise the internet and work with office apps.
Similarly, when the HDTV broadcast deadline rears its ugly head, I think you'll see the cable companies offering digital to analog converters to allow their subscriberts (those who haven't upgraded their TV's) to continue getting their television, which means that their current DVD players will continue to meet their needs.
The broadcast deadline only affects broadcast television. Cable TV, and satellite can continue to do whatever they want, and I suspect that they will continue to support analog TVs for years to come. As a matter of fact, every satellite subscriber and many cable TV subscribers already have a box provided to them that converts a digital signal to something suitable for an analog TV.
It's the people who currently get their television over-the-air are the ones that are screwed.