Opera is nice, but the Opera execs should realize already that they can't sell their browser when their customers can download a perfectly good one for free.
Last time I checked, Opera's execs were doing just fine selling their browser, despite the free alternatives. So why stop?
I've run into sites with Firefox that won't let me load because I'm not using IE (or in some cases, IE or Netscape). They are pretty rare, about the same level as sites that refuse Opera.
True on Both points , but there is little chance that AMD could supply the number of chips apple needs , which would land it in the same hole its in now.
I doubt that. eMachines alone probably sells more AMD based systems than Apple could ever hope to.
Who would buy a Dell computer now, knowing much faster systems will be available in less than a year's time?
The real question is, who would buy a Dell computer now, if they knew that in a years time all the new Dells would be incompatible with the current models?
What about those USB speakers I've started to see at the stores? While I haven't looked into them, it looks like they have a simple, integrated sound card in them that's run off of the USB bus.
I have found that the CPU load due to the disk I/O is usually a lot worse than CPU load from the network card. A nice test is to take a computer with both SCSI and IDE drives, and try moving data off of each of the drives over the network. The IDE drive will cause the system to slow down noticably, while the SCSI drive will barely (or not at all) affect the system.
I've had nothing but problems with both Asus and Gigabyte. I'm now of the opinion that paying the premium for a higher end brand is just throwing your money away. Might as well just buy yourself a PCChips board and save yourself some money. Though I have had some luck with midrange brands like Soltek.
Incidently, I also have 2 ECS Super 7 boards from 1998 that are still going strong.
The way a color CCD works is that they put color filters in front of the individual "pixels". Then it takes usually 4 of these "pixels" (red, blue, and two green) to make a real pixel. By removing these color filters to make a black and white camera, you would effectively quadruple the resolution.
But, as you say, you would be forced to use color filters on the lens, rather than later on the computer. That would be a big disadvantage.
Look at OS X. Take the Dock for example. Users routinely run only a handful of applications, so why clutter the screen with a lengthy Start/K/GNOME menu?
Because it's better than digging through the Applications folder for those programs you don't use very much? Besides, any savvy Windows user already puts common applications on the Quicklaunch, and KDE/Gnome users do the same thing with whatever the Linux equilvant is called. There is no reason to have to go digging around the start menu all the time.
Day 5: The users quickly find out that they are not compatible with 95% of the world (who all use MS Office and Internet Explorer completly with all its quirks). Day 6: The Macintoshes all get reformatted and Windows/Office is installed. Day 7: The person responsible for buying all the Apple computers is fired.
You probably will be able to build your own to a large extent. Sure, you'll probably have to buy the motherboard from Apple and maybe the chip, but you can probably buy the case, power supply, expansion cards, hard drive, memory, printer, USB devices, etc, from someone else. Every time I've built a computer I've bought the motherboard and chip together anyway, it's not "build your own" computer means you put together the transistors. That said, I'm not sure the target market is going to change much, because the motherboard/CPU combo will probably be expensive.
What makes you think that Apple will suddenly offer Mac barebones or Mac motheboard/CPU combos? I highly doubt they will do that. They would much rather sell complete systems at a nice premium, than compete with the Pricewatch and Newegg crowd.
That's why Apple is encouraging people to use ASCII passwords.
Actually, that's probably the number one thing that annoys me about Apple. Apple seems to think that they know best, and thus you should do things their way and their way only. That's why their desktop is the least customizable (even compared to Windows!), or why they have so few hardware choices compared to PCs.
But to a gamer wanting to put together a system, they are going to want to know what the FX-57 will do for them (especially at that price tag!). So run some benchmarks at some normal settings, and see how the chip compares. If it shows that the FX-57 has little to no advantage over a chip that costs $750 less in a gaming setting - that's very useful information!
My Athlon XP is still a decent gaming chip, 3 years after I bought it. I'm sure the FX-53 and FX-55 have atleast 2-3 years before they start to fall behind (and probably a good 5 years before something comes out that it won't be able to do atleast a passable job at).
I use Miranda. Discovered it when I was searching for a lightweight ICQ replacement to run on an aging Pentium 100 computer running Windows 95. I ended up installing it on my other Windows computers. It's a simple, lightweight little program that does everything I need it to do.
I have found the boards from back then to be extremely good too. It's the newer stuff, especially the Socket A boards, that are just garbage. But, as always, YMMV.
Did you try running Windows on them to see if things were still broken? My guess is that you just had some cheap-ass flakey boards, and the Linux support was not the issue.
I must say that after dealing with some Socket-A Asus branded boards, I'm not too impressed with Asus either (though, I used to be). Right now, I'm running a Soltek. I know it's a cheaper brand, but so far no issues.
I agree, I have found the most unreliable fans in any newer computer are the stupid graphics card fans. To add insult to injury, they are usually a bitch to replace, since they are usually some custom job that's glued to the graphics card. Not to mention that even when they are working properly, they are still noisy.
The last time I had one fail though, I just ripped the sucker off and epoxied a huge heatsink I salvaged from an old Pentium Pro system to it. Works great, though I did lose a couple of PCI slots.
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Opera is nice, but the Opera execs should realize already that they can't sell their browser when their customers can download a perfectly good one for free.
Last time I checked, Opera's execs were doing just fine selling their browser, despite the free alternatives. So why stop?
I've run into sites with Firefox that won't let me load because I'm not using IE (or in some cases, IE or Netscape). They are pretty rare, about the same level as sites that refuse Opera.
Well, with the PowerMac, you can stick a PCI card into it. That's a pretty big deal for some people.
True on Both points , but there is little chance that AMD could supply the number of chips apple needs , which would land it in the same hole its in now.
I doubt that. eMachines alone probably sells more AMD based systems than Apple could ever hope to.
And don't forget the eMacs, which are rather embarrassing on the performance scale...
No worse than the Mini or base model iBook.
1 - I'll be able to resell it for 50%+ of the cost.
I wouldn't be so sure of that.
Who would buy a Dell computer now, knowing much faster systems will be available in less than a year's time?
The real question is, who would buy a Dell computer now, if they knew that in a years time all the new Dells would be incompatible with the current models?
What about those USB speakers I've started to see at the stores? While I haven't looked into them, it looks like they have a simple, integrated sound card in them that's run off of the USB bus.
What has linux on the xbox turned into?
This.
Standard IDE drives connected to the onboard IDE controllers. So yeah, pretty crappy I guess.
I have found that the CPU load due to the disk I/O is usually a lot worse than CPU load from the network card. A nice test is to take a computer with both SCSI and IDE drives, and try moving data off of each of the drives over the network. The IDE drive will cause the system to slow down noticably, while the SCSI drive will barely (or not at all) affect the system.
I've had nothing but problems with both Asus and Gigabyte. I'm now of the opinion that paying the premium for a higher end brand is just throwing your money away. Might as well just buy yourself a PCChips board and save yourself some money. Though I have had some luck with midrange brands like Soltek.
Incidently, I also have 2 ECS Super 7 boards from 1998 that are still going strong.
The way a color CCD works is that they put color filters in front of the individual "pixels". Then it takes usually 4 of these "pixels" (red, blue, and two green) to make a real pixel. By removing these color filters to make a black and white camera, you would effectively quadruple the resolution.
But, as you say, you would be forced to use color filters on the lens, rather than later on the computer. That would be a big disadvantage.
Look at OS X. Take the Dock for example. Users routinely run only a handful of applications, so why clutter the screen with a lengthy Start/K/GNOME menu?
Because it's better than digging through the Applications folder for those programs you don't use very much? Besides, any savvy Windows user already puts common applications on the Quicklaunch, and KDE/Gnome users do the same thing with whatever the Linux equilvant is called. There is no reason to have to go digging around the start menu all the time.
Day 5: The users quickly find out that they are not compatible with 95% of the world (who all use MS Office and Internet Explorer completly with all its quirks).
Day 6: The Macintoshes all get reformatted and Windows/Office is installed.
Day 7: The person responsible for buying all the Apple computers is fired.
You probably will be able to build your own to a large extent. Sure, you'll probably have to buy the motherboard from Apple and maybe the chip, but you can probably buy the case, power supply, expansion cards, hard drive, memory, printer, USB devices, etc, from someone else. Every time I've built a computer I've bought the motherboard and chip together anyway, it's not "build your own" computer means you put together the transistors. That said, I'm not sure the target market is going to change much, because the motherboard/CPU combo will probably be expensive.
What makes you think that Apple will suddenly offer Mac barebones or Mac motheboard/CPU combos? I highly doubt they will do that. They would much rather sell complete systems at a nice premium, than compete with the Pricewatch and Newegg crowd.
The dual 2.7 PowerMac kills anything Intel has to offer for desktop machines and is on par with AMD.
Then why the switch to Intel? The G5 was hot shit a couple of years ago. Intel, and especially AMD have long since surpassed the G5.
IBM dumping Apple will have a devastating impact on high end workstation performance of PowerMacs.
Last time I checked, Apple dumped IBM. Had something to do with the G5 not being able to hit 3Ghz, and the lack of low power versions.
That's why Apple is encouraging people to use ASCII passwords.
Actually, that's probably the number one thing that annoys me about Apple. Apple seems to think that they know best, and thus you should do things their way and their way only. That's why their desktop is the least customizable (even compared to Windows!), or why they have so few hardware choices compared to PCs.
Okay, fair enough.
But to a gamer wanting to put together a system, they are going to want to know what the FX-57 will do for them (especially at that price tag!). So run some benchmarks at some normal settings, and see how the chip compares. If it shows that the FX-57 has little to no advantage over a chip that costs $750 less in a gaming setting - that's very useful information!
Why the hell does it have to be this way?
My Athlon XP is still a decent gaming chip, 3 years after I bought it. I'm sure the FX-53 and FX-55 have atleast 2-3 years before they start to fall behind (and probably a good 5 years before something comes out that it won't be able to do atleast a passable job at).
I use Miranda. Discovered it when I was searching for a lightweight ICQ replacement to run on an aging Pentium 100 computer running Windows 95. I ended up installing it on my other Windows computers. It's a simple, lightweight little program that does everything I need it to do.
I have found the boards from back then to be extremely good too. It's the newer stuff, especially the Socket A boards, that are just garbage. But, as always, YMMV.
You could get some of these at the hardware store and creating your own switched power strip.
Did you try running Windows on them to see if things were still broken? My guess is that you just had some cheap-ass flakey boards, and the Linux support was not the issue.
I must say that after dealing with some Socket-A Asus branded boards, I'm not too impressed with Asus either (though, I used to be). Right now, I'm running a Soltek. I know it's a cheaper brand, but so far no issues.
I agree, I have found the most unreliable fans in any newer computer are the stupid graphics card fans. To add insult to injury, they are usually a bitch to replace, since they are usually some custom job that's glued to the graphics card. Not to mention that even when they are working properly, they are still noisy.
The last time I had one fail though, I just ripped the sucker off and epoxied a huge heatsink I salvaged from an old Pentium Pro system to it. Works great, though I did lose a couple of PCI slots.