It's like some of the rooms along the hallways of the buildings at my college that are always closed and locked and no one ever pays attention to. Everyone just assumes that someone else is responsible for that room and knows whats in it. Years can go by while no one actually realizes that no one is responsible for that room. I'm sure there are atleast a few rooms like that at my school, full of who-knows-what.
How often do you need to use that scanner? Why not just dual boot? If you just want to fire up KHTML every once and a while to test a webpage or something, why not run Knoppix under QEMU?
Why not have a simple door that is held on by 1-2 screws that gives access to the battery? Much like how Nintendo designed the Gameboy Advance SP. It would seem better than the current situation of users trying to pry open their iPods, or having to spend a lot of money for Apple to do it for them.
Planned obsolesence? Is this instead of using the magic batteries everyone else has that last forever?
Sure, it would be nicer to get inside the case without having to use some sort of industrial clamping device, but I don't think Apple did that as a timed self-destruct mechanism.
Then, why do you suppose that Apple designed the iPod that way?
I had a Dell PDA. My infant kid threw it into the pool one weekend. Called Dell Monday and they said warranty doesnt cover misuse. So i opened up the brat. Motherboard was new but all else inside looked like recycled crap.
Well, they could put a G5 into a Powerbook if they wanted too. I've seen gaming laptops with an Intel Prescott in them. It's just that Apple chooses to not make a Powerbook like that.
I'm not Microsoft fanboy, but changing the desktop to Windows Classic theme (basically makes Windows XP look like Windows 2000 with different icons) and changing the Start Menu back to the W2K style takes about 30 seconds and a dozen mouse clicks. Usually one of the first things I do whenever I have to install XP.
Windows 95? I thought Windows 3.11 was a better OS. Sure, it lacked a lot of features that pretty much made running it after about 1997 impossible. But 3.11 was a lot more stable, and lot easier to configure and tweak - sure, lots of hacking of config.sys, autoexec.bat, and various.ini files, which wasn't that bad once you knew what you were doing. I'd rather deal with those than the mess known as the registry that we have been stuck with ever since. Windows 3.11 was fast too, it would fly on a high end 486, whereas Windows 95 would crawl on the same computer. And call me strange, but I kind of liked the GUI in 3.11 in a quaint kind of way.
'91 Accord. Biggest pile of crap ever. (to be fair, it became pretty obvious the previous owner did not take care of the car). But even then, the car was hard to service, and the interior was cheap and flimsy.
Macs running OS X are more like souped up Hondas. Their owners think they are best looking and fastest cars out there. Everyone else thinks they are slow and ugly.
I know there are people who like to have the best at any cost. But really, by the time you hit the $200 mark, you're already pretty close to the top of the line. The differences between the $200 and the $400 video card are pretty small.
I ran Half-Life 2 on my 1600x1200 flat panel at its native resolution with no problems on my Radeon 9600 Pro (128MB). I paid more than $100 for it at the time, but it now sells for about $75-$80 on Newegg.
You know, you can buy video cards that are well under $100 that have enough power to play any PC game out there. Only a fool spends $400 on a video card for their home gaming rig.
The big difference is that just about every other electronic gadget you can buy is designed to have the battery replaced. If Apple is going to seal the battery in a $400 iPod, it better be a damn good battery that lives up to what Apple says it will.
That's true for NiCad batteries. NiCads should be run down before charging due to the memory effect.However, I don't think any laptop on the market still uses NiCads.
Lion batteries are the opposite. They don't have a memory effect, and it's harmful to them to discharge them all the way. Best way to treat a Lion battery is to charge it back up whenever possible. iPods, and all current Apple laptops use Lion batteries.
There are also NiMH batteries. While these don't have the memory effect like NiCads, I find they tend to last the longest if you run them down until they are mostly discharged, then charge them back up. But, as always, YMMV.
The problem with laptop batteries is that they tend to get hot, and that really hurts the battery life. That, and people leaving the laptop plugged in most of the time, and running the battery completely down when they do use it.
Not to say that IBM didn't release a few lemons though.
My new Dell laser printer came with a shipping label to ship back my old printer to be recycled at their expense.
That's because it makes economic sense for Dell to do this. You see, Dell (and every other laser printer manufacturer) wants to get rid of all the old HP Laserjet III/4/5's out there. Once they accomplish that, they'll be able to sell you a new printer every couple years or so.
It's like some of the rooms along the hallways of the buildings at my college that are always closed and locked and no one ever pays attention to. Everyone just assumes that someone else is responsible for that room and knows whats in it. Years can go by while no one actually realizes that no one is responsible for that room. I'm sure there are atleast a few rooms like that at my school, full of who-knows-what.
How often do you need to use that scanner? Why not just dual boot? If you just want to fire up KHTML every once and a while to test a webpage or something, why not run Knoppix under QEMU?
Why not have a simple door that is held on by 1-2 screws that gives access to the battery? Much like how Nintendo designed the Gameboy Advance SP. It would seem better than the current situation of users trying to pry open their iPods, or having to spend a lot of money for Apple to do it for them.
Chances are, once you left the store the employees just threw the batteries in the garbage.
Planned obsolesence? Is this instead of using the magic batteries everyone else has that last forever?
Sure, it would be nicer to get inside the case without having to use some sort of industrial clamping device, but I don't think Apple did that as a timed self-destruct mechanism.
Then, why do you suppose that Apple designed the iPod that way?
Or, you could label it as broken and still sell it for more than the 10% discount.
Moron.
I had a Dell PDA. My infant kid threw it into the pool one weekend. Called Dell Monday and they said warranty doesnt cover misuse. So i opened up the brat. Motherboard was new but all else inside looked like recycled crap.
So, what did you do with the PDA?
And in which parallel dimension is it acceptable to make it so hard to replace a part that will fail in a $300+ device?
The downloads aren't that tough. Just start it before you go to bed, and by the time you wake up, you'll have the new Knoppix!
Do you know how big, hot & expensive that Itanium2 chips are?
Really big, really hot & really expensive.
In other words, they are perfect for the next generation of Macs!
Nevertheless, Intel still managed to get to where they are today. How much AMD helped push them along is another issue.
Well, they could put a G5 into a Powerbook if they wanted too. I've seen gaming laptops with an Intel Prescott in them. It's just that Apple chooses to not make a Powerbook like that.
I'm not Microsoft fanboy, but changing the desktop to Windows Classic theme (basically makes Windows XP look like Windows 2000 with different icons) and changing the Start Menu back to the W2K style takes about 30 seconds and a dozen mouse clicks. Usually one of the first things I do whenever I have to install XP.
Only the Coporate Edition of Windows XP Pro doesn't require activation, AFAIK.
W95 was like that, and W2K.
.ini files, which wasn't that bad once you knew what you were doing. I'd rather deal with those than the mess known as the registry that we have been stuck with ever since. Windows 3.11 was fast too, it would fly on a high end 486, whereas Windows 95 would crawl on the same computer. And call me strange, but I kind of liked the GUI in 3.11 in a quaint kind of way.
Windows 95? I thought Windows 3.11 was a better OS. Sure, it lacked a lot of features that pretty much made running it after about 1997 impossible. But 3.11 was a lot more stable, and lot easier to configure and tweak - sure, lots of hacking of config.sys, autoexec.bat, and various
I just ran Top on my old Pentium 120 running Damn Small Linux. It takes ~1.5% of the CPU. So I guess you can interpet that how you want.
'91 Accord. Biggest pile of crap ever. (to be fair, it became pretty obvious the previous owner did not take care of the car). But even then, the car was hard to service, and the interior was cheap and flimsy.
Macs running OS X are more like souped up Hondas. Their owners think they are best looking and fastest cars out there. Everyone else thinks they are slow and ugly.
I know there are people who like to have the best at any cost. But really, by the time you hit the $200 mark, you're already pretty close to the top of the line. The differences between the $200 and the $400 video card are pretty small.
I ran Half-Life 2 on my 1600x1200 flat panel at its native resolution with no problems on my Radeon 9600 Pro (128MB). I paid more than $100 for it at the time, but it now sells for about $75-$80 on Newegg.
You know, you can buy video cards that are well under $100 that have enough power to play any PC game out there. Only a fool spends $400 on a video card for their home gaming rig.
The big difference is that just about every other electronic gadget you can buy is designed to have the battery replaced. If Apple is going to seal the battery in a $400 iPod, it better be a damn good battery that lives up to what Apple says it will.
That's true for NiCad batteries. NiCads should be run down before charging due to the memory effect.However, I don't think any laptop on the market still uses NiCads.
Lion batteries are the opposite. They don't have a memory effect, and it's harmful to them to discharge them all the way. Best way to treat a Lion battery is to charge it back up whenever possible. iPods, and all current Apple laptops use Lion batteries.
There are also NiMH batteries. While these don't have the memory effect like NiCads, I find they tend to last the longest if you run them down until they are mostly discharged, then charge them back up. But, as always, YMMV.
The problem with laptop batteries is that they tend to get hot, and that really hurts the battery life. That, and people leaving the laptop plugged in most of the time, and running the battery completely down when they do use it.
Not to say that IBM didn't release a few lemons though.
My new Dell laser printer came with a shipping label to ship back my old printer to be recycled at their expense.
That's because it makes economic sense for Dell to do this. You see, Dell (and every other laser printer manufacturer) wants to get rid of all the old HP Laserjet III/4/5's out there. Once they accomplish that, they'll be able to sell you a new printer every couple years or so.