I have a nForce2 board. While it is true that Windows XP basically had no drivers for it included, I downloaded the latest nVidia ones and had no problems with them - my computer now is completely stable (a lot better than the stupid VIA based board I had before). The only real issue I had is that Windows managed to find a sound driver that sort of works with the integrated sound, but not very well (for whatever reason, VLC hated that driver). Install the nVidia one, and all is well.
Who at Disney decided that sequels had to be utter crap, released direct to video? this sort of garbage undermines Disney's reputation and the value of these properties.
I don't think the current management at Disney really care about abstract things like "reputation". All they see is that they can throw together a sequeal for $100-200k and make a couple million off of it no matter how terrible it really is. It's quick and easy money for someone who can barely see past the end of their nose.
They have been pushed off the market by far superior and widespread Japanese animation that fills the same market.
Don't delude yourself, most anime is garbage. Sure, there is good stuff, but there is also good American animation (ie. Pixar). Just because it's different, doesn't mean it's better.
Well, despite the goofiness, I still think Dragon Ball Z (don't know the Japanese name) is heads and shoulders above current American action cartoons.
From what I saw, Dragonball Z is just like current American cartoons. Repetive, crappy animation, annoying characters, stupid storylines, and seems to be all about marketing toys. The only real difference I have noticed is that Dragonball Z has some big long story line (that seems to be made up as the series goes along), while the American shows tend to use the "villian of the week" formula.
But how else are they going to get people to buy Macs, if they don't make sure the buyer gets a feeling of superiority? Why would you buy a weird system that's different from what everybody else is using, if not for the ability to gloat and scorn the "sheeple" ?
The same way the big auto makers get people to buy SUVs. Put huge premiums on them, making them expensive so they become a status symbol.
In my 20+ years using computers, I only dusted out the inside of a computer once. I did that replacing the harddrive during the only serious hardware failure I have experienced in that 20+ years of computing. My MTBF is 10 years without dusting. Why would I dust?
Do you keep your computers in a clean room or something? Most modern systems usually come with multiple fans, and generally I only get a year or two out of them before significant dust has built up. Though granted, I've never just let the dust accumulate to see how long until the system fails though.
I don't get why entry-level PC's are "harder to use". Entry level PCs generally have Windows XP on them, the same thing pretty much every new PC out there has installed. If anything, the entry level machine is going to come with less software pre-installed on it, which will simplify things and reduce the clutter found on prebuilt systems. Not to mention the user doesn't have to worry about things like hom to burn a DVD, because the machine can't do it.
So unless they mean more painful to use, in the sense that they are going to be slow with their 256MB of ram, Celeron processors, and integrated graphics, I don't get why they even made that statement.
PCs are generally good priced until you invest in a medium-range Nvidia or ATI video card which would hover $200+.
Maybe seeing an article like this Nvidia and ATI should drop their prices, since their overachieved, undersupplied cards now equal 70 to 90% of a PC cost.
$200+ for a mid-range video card? Are you nuts? A good midrange video card is something like a FX5500 or a Radeon 9600, both of which cost about $60-$70 or so.
I'm guessing that most of these $300 computers use integrated Intel graphics anyway. A $30 GeForceMX card would be a significant upgrade.
No, do your research. There are no OS X viruses. None, nil, nada, zip zilch. None whatsoever. You may have got confused with viruses on Mac OS 1-9, which was of course a fundamentally different operating system.
Ever hear of the Switchback Virus?
Don't forget that many email viruses and other malware rely primarily on social engineering to get installed/executed.
No there aren't any of those either.
None that I have seen either, but I'm sure they will show up if OSX gets enough users.
Mac fanboys are funny. They used to make fun of Intel, now they think Intel is the greatest thing ever. Now they make fun of OGG. If Apple announces tomorrow that the next generation of iPods will support Vorbis, suddenly OGG will be the best thing ever.
I have an iRiver 700 series flash player, with OGG support and the same limitations as the one in this article. I have found that so long as the OGG file's bitrate stays between 96 and 225kbps, the player has no problems at all. If the file does go out of those limits, it won't play. None of the Vorbis files I have encoded myself using Audiograbber and a quality level of 6 (~175kbps average bitrate) have ever had an issue.
The OGG bitrate thing is kind of annoying, as with a flash player with somewhat limited space - I would like to use low bitrates. Oh well.
I should also note that I have never encountered a glitch with my iRiver player either. No crashes, no lockups, no strange behavior.
You also have a big problem if someone decides to completely fill the disk. Then what does the OS/drive do when it has to "shrink" the drive some more? You might say, "Don't fill it completely up then", but then I would argue that if you have to leave a few gigabytes open at all times for this drive to work - then why bother? I think I'll stick with my fixed capacity drive and rely on SMART to tell when my spare capacity is about to run out.
Well, if I was going to spend a lot of money on a computer, I would expect it to last a while. Right now, the Mini is the only computer in Apple's line up that I would consider buying, because for $500 I wouldn't care when it becomes completely obsolete in a few years. But the PowerMac? Forget about it. Right now, a high end x86 PC is going to have a longer useful life than a PowerMac.
Besides, I don't see x86 going away in the foreseeable future. But then again, I said the same thing about PPC Apples.:/
So the myth goes. But it's proved wrong by the fact that more obscure OSs that Mac OS X do have viruses. OS X doesn't have any.
Except that there are a few OSX viruses. Granted, they are not widespread.
Don't forget that many email viruses and other malware rely primarily on social engineering to get installed/executed. OSX offers nothing against this - it just isn't an issue yet because OSX users haven't been targeted.
PPC is dead. The writing is on the wall for anyone who cares to read it. Sure, it will live on for a while. Maybe a few months, maybe a few years. Of course you can keep on running today's applications on it. But that doesn't change the fact that sometime in the future, pretty much everyone will have moved on to the next big thing and the PPC Mac users are just going to be stuck with obsolete hardware running old software.
The only reason I can see to buy a PPC Mac would be to run Linux. It's a pretty good bet that PPC Linux will still be alive and well long after Apple leaves the PPC crowd high and dry.
It was a plea to the X86 box makers to start taking chance again.
Now Intel has a partner that is willing to think outside of the clone box.
But they are going to have to compete with the "clones". People like cheap. PC makers have tried all-in-one computers, small computers, strange cases, etc. They have their niche, but they never really caught on as they have to compete with cheaper, generic boxes made out of commodity parts.
Apple has only done so well with their designs because they have a captive market. They know this, that's why the clone era almost killed them.
Yes, that's why EVERY USB device was candy coloured and just so happened to be the same colours as the iMacs. Please, you and I both KNOW that the only reason why USB caught on was because of the iMac. As you stated, the hardware and the support had been on the PC for an eternity in the tech world and no one cared.
No one really cared because at the time, PC's had serial ports, parallel ports, and PS/2 ports. They were good enough. Heck, it's 2005 and PS/2 parts are still good enough for what they do. But Apple decided to release a machine that lacked...well...everything. Which meant that people had to repurchase all their peripherals, not to mention buy new ones to make up for the deficiencies of the iMac (like USB floppies). PC users just shook their heads, and the Mac users just bent over and took it.
Without the iMac, the PC world would of come along just fine. USB support was coming in Windows 98, most 1998 era computers already had USB ports even if their OS lacked drivers for them. And they would of come into general use as things like USB thumbdrives, harddrives, joysticks, scanners, etc. came onto the market.
Intel needs somebody to really show off their cutting edge stuff...which no normal PC maker will do.
Huh? What do you think the Dell XPS is? Or Alienware, for that matter?
Besides, unless Apple is planning to start updating their product line a lot faster than they currently do, their high end machines are going to fall behind pretty quickly in the fast paced PC world.
P.S. Apple drives don't have physical eject buttons because then users would eject the drives while in use, and programs would crash and, maybe, users would lose data because of it. It made more sense with floppy drives than it does with CD, since people don't frequently run programs off CD, but their reason is still valid. Besides, the *is* an eject button, it's just on the keyboard.;)
Programs on the PC can lock the CD eject button too. For example, try pressing the button on any non-ancient CD drive when the computer is booted into Knoppix. Doesn't open. Try ejecting a CD-RW drive when burning a CD. Doesn't open. From a UI standpoint, this seems to be a much better solution than omitting the button altogether and making the user jump through hoops to get their disk back.
And the answer to both the set of problems? Mac OS X. Which takes us full circle back to jwz's switch.
The advantage with Linux (currently) is that there are so many distributions out there, and so many configurations, that it would be extremely hard to create a virus/worm/whatever that could even affect 25% of the Linux boxes out there. But if everyone ran OSX, a lot of the same problems that currently plague Windows would become an issue for OSX.
What would be really ideal for Apple is if people get a version of OSX running POORLY on generic x86 machines. Like, you know, it works well enough to see what's nice about the OS, but there are enough problems and bugs that most people will say, "screw this, I'll just buy an Apple."
After all, once Apple makes the switch to Intel, people should be able to run Windows and Linux on them. So you'll get everything you'll get from buying any other x86 machine, but you'll also be able to run OSX trouble-free.
I doubt that. Keep in mind that most Windows users only experience with Apple software is Quicktime and iTunes for Windows - both of which are really crappy programs (slow, ugly, buggy, intrusive, lousy interface, resource hogs). Now, if someone who already has a negative view of Apple software installs OSX on their machine and finds that it's slow, buggy, and crashes a lot - it'll just reinforce what they have already know about Apple software. This, they would never buy an Apple computer.
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I have a nForce2 board. While it is true that Windows XP basically had no drivers for it included, I downloaded the latest nVidia ones and had no problems with them - my computer now is completely stable (a lot better than the stupid VIA based board I had before). The only real issue I had is that Windows managed to find a sound driver that sort of works with the integrated sound, but not very well (for whatever reason, VLC hated that driver). Install the nVidia one, and all is well.
have dropped their prices to a reasonable level
We'll have to see about this. The current PPC based Macs are just as expensive as ever.
Who at Disney decided that sequels had to be utter crap, released direct to video? this sort of garbage undermines Disney's reputation and the value of these properties.
I don't think the current management at Disney really care about abstract things like "reputation". All they see is that they can throw together a sequeal for $100-200k and make a couple million off of it no matter how terrible it really is. It's quick and easy money for someone who can barely see past the end of their nose.
They have been pushed off the market by far superior and widespread Japanese animation that fills the same market.
Don't delude yourself, most anime is garbage. Sure, there is good stuff, but there is also good American animation (ie. Pixar). Just because it's different, doesn't mean it's better.
Well, despite the goofiness, I still think Dragon Ball Z (don't know the Japanese name) is heads and shoulders above current American action cartoons.
From what I saw, Dragonball Z is just like current American cartoons. Repetive, crappy animation, annoying characters, stupid storylines, and seems to be all about marketing toys. The only real difference I have noticed is that Dragonball Z has some big long story line (that seems to be made up as the series goes along), while the American shows tend to use the "villian of the week" formula.
But how else are they going to get people to buy Macs, if they don't make sure the buyer gets a feeling of superiority? Why would you buy a weird system that's different from what everybody else is using, if not for the ability to gloat and scorn the "sheeple" ?
The same way the big auto makers get people to buy SUVs. Put huge premiums on them, making them expensive so they become a status symbol.
In my 20+ years using computers, I only dusted out the inside of a computer once. I did that replacing the harddrive during the only serious hardware failure I have experienced in that 20+ years of computing. My MTBF is 10 years without dusting. Why would I dust?
Do you keep your computers in a clean room or something? Most modern systems usually come with multiple fans, and generally I only get a year or two out of them before significant dust has built up. Though granted, I've never just let the dust accumulate to see how long until the system fails though.
I want to see your brand new P2 system for $50. I'm waiting.
I don't get why entry-level PC's are "harder to use". Entry level PCs generally have Windows XP on them, the same thing pretty much every new PC out there has installed. If anything, the entry level machine is going to come with less software pre-installed on it, which will simplify things and reduce the clutter found on prebuilt systems. Not to mention the user doesn't have to worry about things like hom to burn a DVD, because the machine can't do it.
So unless they mean more painful to use, in the sense that they are going to be slow with their 256MB of ram, Celeron processors, and integrated graphics, I don't get why they even made that statement.
PCs are generally good priced until you invest in a medium-range Nvidia or ATI video card which would hover $200+.
Maybe seeing an article like this Nvidia and ATI should drop their prices, since their overachieved, undersupplied cards now equal 70 to 90% of a PC cost.
$200+ for a mid-range video card? Are you nuts? A good midrange video card is something like a FX5500 or a Radeon 9600, both of which cost about $60-$70 or so.
I'm guessing that most of these $300 computers use integrated Intel graphics anyway. A $30 GeForceMX card would be a significant upgrade.
No, do your research. There are no OS X viruses. None, nil, nada, zip zilch. None whatsoever. You may have got confused with viruses on Mac OS 1-9, which was of course a fundamentally different operating system.
Ever hear of the Switchback Virus?
Don't forget that many email viruses and other malware rely primarily on social engineering to get installed/executed.
No there aren't any of those either.
None that I have seen either, but I'm sure they will show up if OSX gets enough users.
Mac fanboys are funny. They used to make fun of Intel, now they think Intel is the greatest thing ever. Now they make fun of OGG. If Apple announces tomorrow that the next generation of iPods will support Vorbis, suddenly OGG will be the best thing ever.
So for the added weight and size, as well as $30, you get a tuner, a screen, a voice recorder, and OGG support.
Part of the reason why the iRiver is bigger and weighs more is that it is powered by a AA battery (which is easy to replace).
I have an iRiver 700 series flash player, with OGG support and the same limitations as the one in this article. I have found that so long as the OGG file's bitrate stays between 96 and 225kbps, the player has no problems at all. If the file does go out of those limits, it won't play. None of the Vorbis files I have encoded myself using Audiograbber and a quality level of 6 (~175kbps average bitrate) have ever had an issue.
The OGG bitrate thing is kind of annoying, as with a flash player with somewhat limited space - I would like to use low bitrates. Oh well.
I should also note that I have never encountered a glitch with my iRiver player either. No crashes, no lockups, no strange behavior.
Not to mention the iRiver 700 series are identical as far as I can tell (some styling aside), and cost quite a bit less.
You also have a big problem if someone decides to completely fill the disk. Then what does the OS/drive do when it has to "shrink" the drive some more? You might say, "Don't fill it completely up then", but then I would argue that if you have to leave a few gigabytes open at all times for this drive to work - then why bother? I think I'll stick with my fixed capacity drive and rely on SMART to tell when my spare capacity is about to run out.
Well, if I was going to spend a lot of money on a computer, I would expect it to last a while. Right now, the Mini is the only computer in Apple's line up that I would consider buying, because for $500 I wouldn't care when it becomes completely obsolete in a few years. But the PowerMac? Forget about it. Right now, a high end x86 PC is going to have a longer useful life than a PowerMac.
:/
Besides, I don't see x86 going away in the foreseeable future. But then again, I said the same thing about PPC Apples.
So the myth goes. But it's proved wrong by the fact that more obscure OSs that Mac OS X do have viruses. OS X doesn't have any.
Except that there are a few OSX viruses. Granted, they are not widespread.
Don't forget that many email viruses and other malware rely primarily on social engineering to get installed/executed. OSX offers nothing against this - it just isn't an issue yet because OSX users haven't been targeted.
PPC is dead. The writing is on the wall for anyone who cares to read it. Sure, it will live on for a while. Maybe a few months, maybe a few years. Of course you can keep on running today's applications on it. But that doesn't change the fact that sometime in the future, pretty much everyone will have moved on to the next big thing and the PPC Mac users are just going to be stuck with obsolete hardware running old software.
The only reason I can see to buy a PPC Mac would be to run Linux. It's a pretty good bet that PPC Linux will still be alive and well long after Apple leaves the PPC crowd high and dry.
It was a plea to the X86 box makers to start taking chance again.
Now Intel has a partner that is willing to think outside of the clone box.
But they are going to have to compete with the "clones". People like cheap. PC makers have tried all-in-one computers, small computers, strange cases, etc. They have their niche, but they never really caught on as they have to compete with cheaper, generic boxes made out of commodity parts.
Apple has only done so well with their designs because they have a captive market. They know this, that's why the clone era almost killed them.
Yes, that's why EVERY USB device was candy coloured and just so happened to be the same colours as the iMacs. Please, you and I both KNOW that the only reason why USB caught on was because of the iMac. As you stated, the hardware and the support had been on the PC for an eternity in the tech world and no one cared.
No one really cared because at the time, PC's had serial ports, parallel ports, and PS/2 ports. They were good enough. Heck, it's 2005 and PS/2 parts are still good enough for what they do. But Apple decided to release a machine that lacked...well...everything. Which meant that people had to repurchase all their peripherals, not to mention buy new ones to make up for the deficiencies of the iMac (like USB floppies). PC users just shook their heads, and the Mac users just bent over and took it.
Without the iMac, the PC world would of come along just fine. USB support was coming in Windows 98, most 1998 era computers already had USB ports even if their OS lacked drivers for them. And they would of come into general use as things like USB thumbdrives, harddrives, joysticks, scanners, etc. came onto the market.
Intel needs somebody to really show off their cutting edge stuff...which no normal PC maker will do.
Huh? What do you think the Dell XPS is? Or Alienware, for that matter?
Besides, unless Apple is planning to start updating their product line a lot faster than they currently do, their high end machines are going to fall behind pretty quickly in the fast paced PC world.
P.S. Apple drives don't have physical eject buttons because then users would eject the drives while in use, and programs would crash and, maybe, users would lose data because of it. It made more sense with floppy drives than it does with CD, since people don't frequently run programs off CD, but their reason is still valid. Besides, the *is* an eject button, it's just on the keyboard. ;)
Programs on the PC can lock the CD eject button too. For example, try pressing the button on any non-ancient CD drive when the computer is booted into Knoppix. Doesn't open. Try ejecting a CD-RW drive when burning a CD. Doesn't open. From a UI standpoint, this seems to be a much better solution than omitting the button altogether and making the user jump through hoops to get their disk back.
And the answer to both the set of problems? Mac OS X. Which takes us full circle back to jwz's switch.
The advantage with Linux (currently) is that there are so many distributions out there, and so many configurations, that it would be extremely hard to create a virus/worm/whatever that could even affect 25% of the Linux boxes out there. But if everyone ran OSX, a lot of the same problems that currently plague Windows would become an issue for OSX.
What would be really ideal for Apple is if people get a version of OSX running POORLY on generic x86 machines. Like, you know, it works well enough to see what's nice about the OS, but there are enough problems and bugs that most people will say, "screw this, I'll just buy an Apple."
After all, once Apple makes the switch to Intel, people should be able to run Windows and Linux on them. So you'll get everything you'll get from buying any other x86 machine, but you'll also be able to run OSX trouble-free.
I doubt that. Keep in mind that most Windows users only experience with Apple software is Quicktime and iTunes for Windows - both of which are really crappy programs (slow, ugly, buggy, intrusive, lousy interface, resource hogs). Now, if someone who already has a negative view of Apple software installs OSX on their machine and finds that it's slow, buggy, and crashes a lot - it'll just reinforce what they have already know about Apple software. This, they would never buy an Apple computer.