According to an internal company investigation, the cause has been identified as being in one of the various offline systems which form part of the final packing stage of the manufacturing process. The company can confirm that the problem has been rectified - it will have no effect on new units being manufactured at the factory in question.
...try...
According to an internal company investigation, the cause has been identified as being in one of the various offline systems which form part of the final packing stage of the manufacturing process.
As of this press release, the affected system has been withdrawn and the problem rectified. The company can confirm that it will have no effect on new units being manufactured at the factory in question.
Re: Problem with Creative Zen Neeon Digital Audio Player
Notice to Customers and Advice on Dealing With The Problem
Creative has confirmed that there is a possibility that W32.Wullik.B@mm, a low-risk destructive worm virus, has infected the Creative Zen Neeon digital music players which were shipped from manufacture from the latter part of July onwards, some of which are still being prepared for shipping [?].
The issue concerns a specific factory line which was producing new units, and the Creative Zen Neeons which may have been infected by the worm (which were shipped from manufacture from the latter part of July and some of which are still awaiting shipment) number less than 1% of those shipped - of the roughly 3,700 units from this line that were shipped to Japan, less than 5% are affected.
It has already been confirmed that this issue affects no other Creative products.
The company offers its sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this will cause to its customers.
According to an internal company investigation, the cause has been identified as being in one of the various offline systems which form part of the final packing stage of the manufacturing process. The company can confirm that the problem has been rectified - it will have no effect on new units being manufactured at the factory in question.
Furthermore, in order to minimise the effect on customers and the market [for these devices], the company has currently halted shipping of all Zen Neeon units, and is working with its partners to arrange the return of units which may be affected.
Customers who have purchased Creative Zen Neeons with a corresponding line number and who have concerns about the safety of using their unit are requested to consult this special support page for more information.
"This research is taking a totally different approach to the more usual studies into robot technologies of the future, which relate to symbiotic relationships with humans. Traditionally, robots have been designed to give practical support to human activities and..., whereas the "Parasite Human" [as they are calling it] is being posited as a robot which gives lateral support to human activity through the senses."
It's worth pointing out that it's bloody difficult to translate, given some of the expressions used - my apologies for any inaccuracies.
Surely a comma in the list "apples, bananas, and grapes are fruit" is just wrong? And surely British English would have it as "apples, [I suppose the comma is dispensible] bananas and grapes are fruit", as would those strange people on the other side of the Pond?
There are certainly times when a comma before "and" is correct - or at least to not use it would create a rather undesirable flow.
I'd certainly agree with the point about spellings jarring though, especially with less seen words like "axe". It just looks odd, but that's all down to what you're used to. To troll slightly, and perhaps to provoke a little war (with any luck:D), maybe there will come a day when Americans see Webster for the moron and linguistic butcher that he actually was (although, in retrospect, given that some of his more "progressive" alterations were rejected, perhaps they feel that they have done this already).
As to resumés and CVs, the differing styles are rather interesting too. I have a Japanese flatmate who has spent altogether too much time learning things the...er..."wrong"...way and is convinced that her CV should include some kind of egotistical personal statement that feels like it should be locked in a slogans cupboard in a some big City corporate's marketing department. Attempts to explain that the British are more refined/restrained (*ducks*:P) have unfortunately so far failed.
It should be quite obvious that this is a joke. Varun Dubey, if Google is to be believed, is involved with OpenBSD.
Consider this:
XP is such a joy when it comes to simply connecting a device and watching the pretty little bubble detecting it and saying "its installed and ready for use" makes the slightly high price absolutely worth it.
The clue is in the "slightly high price". He's taking the piss. Which also explains the specious marketshare argument.
So it's amusing to see real Microsofties falling over themselves endorsing this "fan's" intelligent and well-reasoned viewpoint.
The iPod is not a standard, its a fad. The iPod cannot be a standard if its locked down to one single application. Sorry.
You sound defeated already! That forlorn "Sorry" betrays the distinct whiff of a Rio user - perhaps even an early adopter! And you make the mistake of allowing this - or your Slashdot groupthink - cloud your judgement.
Fact is that whether something is open or not, if a large number of people use it, it becomes a standard. The Microsoft Office document formats are not open (although they are now widely understood) but no rational person would dispute that they are the standard for editable document interchange. Similarly, the iPod/iTunes combination, whether open or not, is in many countries the de facto digital music platform. When car manufacturers are putting iPod connectors in their cars, that's an enormous step towards real standardisation.
But you can carry on telling yourself that because Slashdot/Richard Stallman/Cory Doctorow says lockdown is evil, something won't become a standard. In the meantime, the market (and the rest of the world) will prove otherwise.
Seriously. Before I begin, allow me to make a small disclaimer: I am upset to see that my yen signs have become textual "yen" and pounds textual "pounds" in your quote. This may affect my judgement below. However...
I'm not the only one to make this point, but it seems that your type enjoys pain and torture, otherwise you wouldn't be using Yahoo! Music Unlimited. Or any other subscription service for that matter. The argument has been made countless times before, but simply put, if I spend, say, $60 on Yahoo! and $60 on iTMS and then stop using (cancel) both, I may have listened to a thousand tracks but now I have nothing to show for it (save, perhaps, for a few bootleg tapes:P). With iTMS, I legitimately own 60 tracks.
Of course it would be prudent of me to acknowledge that there are those for whom this service would be genuinely useful. But for most of us, music is something to keep - my parents have LPs from the 1960s and 70s that they can play just as well now as they did then (in fact, perhaps better, because of improved turntables, amplifiers and speakers, but that's another issue...:P). They can bequeath these timeless classics to their children as I can with iTMS. But with Yahoo!, that's a whole fuckload of fees - I'll leave the maths to you.
Yahoo! might make sense in the short term, but if you give any thought to the long run, subscription services are an obvious no-no.
Bigger news is that there are no Sony songs on iTMS Japan!
I commented on this in the story proper (I am the Apple Blog article's author, so the posting on Slashdot was shameless self-promotion, but Piquepaille can get away with it, so I thought 'What the hell...':P). Sony, of course, has a lot of clout in Japan - the linked-to Asahi article notes that Sony Music Entertainment is Japan's biggest record company.
But all that is as nothing if you cannot play it. Given that the iPod is, speaking worldwide, something of a standard*, if only achieved through sheer market dominance**, it would be foolish to ignore such standards, i.e. by rolling one's own music download service and supplying one's catalogue to that service exclusively. Of course, as I note in my posting, Sony is no stranger to such folly (see OpenMG in the face of MP3, AAC or, heaven forbid, even WMA, which is frankly farcical, or the Memory Stick in the face of, well, anything else). It may well be that some time will have to pass (and a considerable amount of money lost due to missed opportunity) before Sony will acquiesce and come on board. But any time wasted will be more to their cost than to Apple's (it has been discussed at length how little profit Apple makes via iTMS).
In any event, this is quite a significant step. The Japanese being as they are, this could well be a impressive growth market for Apple, providing they market appropriately (they need especially to think of mobile phone users), and could be a key player in the run up to the billion-songs-sold mark.
Sony BMG won't be able to hold out forever. I don't know what the iPod's market share is like down under, but I'm willing to bet that it's higher than Japan's relatively meagre 36% (according to Apple figures). From a shareholder viewpoint (and we know that in the end, this is all the capitalists care about), any such stance by Sony would almost be negligence. There is no room for such emotion in the corporate arena...
...unless you're Steve Jobs.:P
iTMS Australia will happen. It may just partly be that Sony BMG does have a greater monopoly on content there and, also, that Australia's market is not big enough for Apple to release without a major record company on board. The Japanese market is huge - and they've got most of the big names involved (including Avex Tracks, who are responsible for many of the verging-on-paedophilia teenybopper groups in Japan and who run their own download service, IIRC) - so even without Sony, it makes sense.
We'll see what happens, of course, but I'd be very surprised if Sony doesn't eventually acquiesce. 'Beleaguered' isn't an inappropriate term for that company.
Naturally, the product with 95% market share will be (on average) exploited long before the product with less than 1% market share.
Like IIS vs. Apache.
As to Linux distributions, it is fair that some older distributions (Mandrake springs to mind) were - how shall we put this - somewhat "relaxed" with regard to security matters, enabling far more services than might be considered prudent. It is thus perhaps fair to say that desktop-oriented Linux distributions that were available at the time of Windows XP's initial release were in some (perhaps many) cases not as secure as they perhaps could be; server-oriented distributions (i.e. your Windows 2003 equivalent) were never like this though. And neither was OS X, where there has always been a secure-by-default attitude to enabling services. Windows XP (to say nothing of earlier versions) shipped, on the other hand, with RPC listening on the Internet interface. I need not say more.
As to virus scanners, during my tenure as a Windows user I never once ran a virus checker. I personally was competent enough not to need one, but the fact remains that for most users, such software is a prerequisite on that platform, partly because of its prevalance and partly because of poor design (ActiveX, Windows Scripting, Microsoft Office macros, etc.).
It is of course correct that a user-level account will stop most malware, etc. in its tracks, but given that Windows makes user level accounts so difficult to work with (no generic OS X or, lately, Linux-style sudo prompting), this is not a particularly practical solution.
It appears you misunderstand my comment about firewalls. My bucket analogy was intended to suggest that services should perhaps not listen on the Internet interface, given that, as you say, software is still very much subject to human error. Of course it is alas so often the case on Windows that one does not have the granularity of control needed to specify what interfaces a service listens on.
From a security point of view, Internet Explorer was perhaps Microsoft's biggest mistake. ActiveX was/is like a cruel joke. I'll leave the browser comments at that.
If we're going to get into a pissing contest about knowing the competition, note that I have been using Windows for over 10 years, with experience in all versions from Windows 3.0 to ME, NT 3.1 to XP SP2 (including a miscellany of UAEs, GPFs and all manner of BSODs). I know Windows, which is why I feel more than qualified to make the statements above and below.
The point about dragging and dropping across Alt-Tabbing is retracted, although if memory serves, this is a recent addition (Windows 2000 or XP). Exposé, however, does not require the use of a mouse.
The CLI is one of the things that makes UN*X great - if you use it a little, you will come to understand this. Mac OS X would be useless eye candy were it not for the UNIX base and the CLI that that provides. Windows lacks this, and as a consequence, is ironically now more GUI bound than the Mac (especially for configuration, etc.).
And the Start Menu still sucks.
Zeroconf rocks. Really, it does. It brings the "Just Works" philosophy to networking. Printer manufacturers, for one, recognise this, which has made setting up networked printers pretty much a matter of plugging them in to the network.
Your defence of Windows is certainly interesting - you actually try to argue that there is something worthy about it. Most have already accepted that this is not the case but endure it as they need it for some reason or another. But as someone who has had extensive experience on Windows and who has then switched, I can only say that if you know how to use OS X properly (i.e. get as well acquainted with it as you are with Windows), it will only make your life easier.
I shall respond to your points using the order in your post, as follows:
If your first comment is intented as humour, it fails to amuse. Having experienced the joy of a freshly infected Windows XP box firsthand, I find it hard to acquiesce to your terse dismissal, especially given that my statement is essentially irrefutable. Connect a "stock" Windows XP box to the Internet (and we can argue about the semantics of "stock" as much as you desire, but I am, for these purposes - given that it forms the majority of machines that we are considering - specifically Windows XP 5.1 sans SP1 and SP2), and it will get infected with a speed that is quite disarming. I must say when I first witnessed it myself, I was more than a little surprised. Could Windows really be this shit, I thought? The swiftly-delivered answer was, as the savvy will realise, "Yes, of course it can."
Of course, you will retort - validly - with the point that if a firewall is enabled before connecting, no such problem will arise, but given that most users* haven't got a fucking clue what a firewall is (and more to the point, why should they have such a clue?), how do you expect them to enable this feature. In any event, I have a particularly low opinion of user mode firewalls in any event, but I will detail that below.
(* i.e. the ones that become spam zombies because they don't secure their machines, because they don't know how, because it's not easy or because it's a hassle...)
Your point about active virus checkers is valid and hence mine about the cost to system resources is partially retracted. However, the financial and temporal costs of purchasing, installing and configuring a virus checker remain, and it is important not to forget that definitions subscriptions are kept up-to-date.
I would disagree with the suggestion that enabling a firewall is commonsense procedure on anyrequire the use of a firewall. Out of the box, there are no services enabled on Mac OS X; Linux obviously varies from distribution to distribution, but the same pattern is followed. Perhaps we might credit the nice people over at OpenBSD for their efforts.
The issues with firewalls should, of course, be obvious, but if we allow in this case that "stock" means Windows XP SP2 or more recent, the main problem is one of complacency developed by users. Firewalls restrict legitimate traffic, and as such, inevitably encourage the user simply to allow all traffic, either through prompting or by disabling the firewall itself. Far better, surely, to built a bucket without holes than to ask the user to do a job of patching it up.
You say that you do not consider anti-spyware software necessary. In fact, of course, you will either have to install Mozilla Firefox or a spyware checker, although given the software which prevails on the web today, it would be prudent to install both. It is worth nothing that the default browsers that both Linux and Mac OS X include are not subject to the same "feature enhancements" that is Internet Explorer.
As to patches, I will say only that Windows XP has had far more and that they are in some cases of a ridiculous size (consider SP2, for example).
Moving on...
Actually I could quite happily use XP. There's little functional difference between the two and, if anything, 2003 requires _more_ tweaking than XP to get it into a usable state for a desktop machine.
As to this, you are going to have to make up your mind. You made it clear in your previous post that you would run Windows 2003 over Windows XP, but you now seem keen to suggest the latter. You will forgive my confusion, but I consider the point important and feel you should clarify.
Your point about non-admin accounts betrays a disturbing lack of knowledge about actual Windows usage. If you have ever tried to actually use non-Microsoft software on a non-admin account, you will perhaps understand
I'm not sure what gives you that idea. If nothing else, the core of the remaining MacOS userbase has demonstrated they're prepared to stick with Apple through pretty much anything.
Hence my "with any luck"?:P
No, but seriously, the Mac user base is changing. Granted - the Mac faithful will put up with almost anything, but there are a hell of a lot of new users (the power geek type, especially) who will be far less inclined to acquiesce to such an imposition. If Apple gets shitty, they will vote with their wallets, and given that its been quite a growth area (especially for the PowerBook), any sensible company (*) is going to bear this in mind.
(* Apple is a sensible company.)
What is all this "hacking" I'm supposed to have to do to get Windows to "work"?
The use of the term "hacking" was unfortunate in that context - I had Linux more in mind at that point, but fact is that Windows is no better. In fact, it's probably worse, because your average idiot is supposed to be able to use it as well.
In any case, I can only presume you are delusional. To address a couple of points which I found particularly amusing:
...make a handful of very minor tweaks...
Such as situating it behind a router so that it is not directly connected to the Internet, because, heaven forbid, if you don't, the machine will reboot within about 5 minutes and keep doing so for all eternity until fixed by someone who understands such things, installing a virus checker (at extra cost, both financially and to system resources) and ensuring that it is kept up-to-date, configuring a firewall (no longer necessary by default on SP2 installs, but you said "stock"), installing and configuring a spyware checker, downloading patches beyond number, updating all your previously purchased software because it doesn't work with SP2 (this is somewhat superfluous, but I'm putting it in anyway, because SP2 borked a lot of stuff)...
I could go on, but I sense that you know the story already, implicit as it was in your parenthesised "or, preferably, Windows 2003". You know how bad Windows XP is, and it goes without saying that Windows 2003 is not a solution for most users. We're talking about desktops here (you say so yourself). Anyway, as should be readily discernible, the above list does not constitute "a handful of very minor tweaks".
...performance, stability and functionality...
Stability has got much better in Windows 2000/XP, granted. But performance-wise, it is still very poor, especially as regards caching, where Windows severely lags behind Linux or Mac OS X, or most any other OS you are to mention. It chugs. Badly. And as to functionality, it is again sorely lacking. Things that I have come to rely on - like Spotlight and PDF output from any application on Mac OS X or a decent CLI (obviously a feature of any UN*X) - are totally absent from Windows. And the Start Menu blows.
Moving on to matters of DRM, it should be clear that Apple's offerings are less restrictive. Download a song and (IIRC) burn it onto 7 CDs, play it on 5 other computers, etc. Microsoft WMA-based offerings seem bound to require periodic resynching to make sure you aren't doing anything naughty, that your licence is still valid, and always seem to take the form of a subscription-based service, with extra fees for the "privilege" of burning to CD. Granted, Apple has restrictions in place, but without them, they would be unable to licence content from the major labels and, whether you like it or not, this is what the majority of the population wants to listen to.
I agree, of course, that it is the content providers who are ultimately responsible for the restrictions imposed, and my intention was not to blame software developers (certainly not at the programmer level, anyway), but that is peripheral to the issue at hand - whose offering imposes more restrictions on what you can actually do.
It appears that you have somewhat misunderstood me - the phrase I used was "actual user need". Both the reasons you cite - rather than being such needs - are in fact simply emblematic of the heavily politicised groupthink that still runs deep on Slashdot, no matter how much I may agree with the feeling associated with the second point.
With tongue inserted firmly in cheek, I might ask that you respond again to my question and considering your choice of operating system without imposing artificial constraints.
Without wishing to start an is-Apple-a-primarily-a-hardware-or-a-software-comp any debate (it is), it should be patently clear why Apple is adding these "artificial constraints" into Mac OS X. For the sake of clarity, though, I will elucidate: it's to stop cheap bastards like yourself (if I infer correctly; if not, and you have no interest in Mac OS X whatsoever, then I apologise) getting a "free ride", so to speak, and running Mac OS X on Dell boxen without paying the hardware tax which subsidises the cost of operating system development. We know that no-one can currently compete with Microsoft in the proprietary operating system arena, and by taking this course of action, Apple is making sure it isn't trying. Not to say that they won't, of course, but it is surely wise to attack from a position of strength, not weakness.
If Apple actually starts to use seriously fascist Microsoft-style DRM on the iPod and in iTunes, a very legion of iPod users around the globe will doubtless be more than a little pissed off. But consider the fact that they have, at the moment, a situation that the music industry really ought to be happy with (half a billion songs must somewhat sweeten the fat cats' attitude towards the whole thing) and so no reason to make it more restrictive. Apple has not inconsiderable power now, because it has sold this many songs. The only country whose music companies are unhappy with iTMS's "insufficient" protection is Japan (which is why there is no iTMS Japan), and the cynic in me wonders whether that is more to do with a patriotic Sony-style "not invented here" syndrome than anything else.
All of which is why I'm not too worried about the prospect of there being some form of DRM in the Mac OS X kernel - in fact, if I were a shareholder, I'd be asking questions if they weren't doing something to keep Mac OS X special.
My whole plan was to switch away from Microsoft to Apple due to the (relatively) benign copy protection in OS X and other products.
I may have to rethink that strategy now.
*sigh*
Why? Why? I realise that to ask this is to break something of a taboo amongst the Linux faithful here, but why must operating system choice be dependent on politics rather than actual user need?
I do of course appreciate that it is prudent to ensure that you will have the freedom to use your machine as you see fit, but it is hardly the case that Apple is going to be the Trojan horse that sneaks 1984 upon the world. Not under Steve Jobs, anyway. A computer that doesn't do what you want won't sell very well - word gets around (and, to be honest, if the worst did come to the worst, then some hacker would be right there releasing a crack for it).
At present, iTunes is the only place where DRM comes into play, and it is trivially bypassed (burn to CD, re-rip). It's a pain in the arse, yes, but some form of DRM is, unfortunately, necessary at this stage in the information-based economy's development. If you really think that licensors (be they record companies, film studios, software developers, or a whole load of other 'information' producers) are going to hand their product over unencumbered, giving the client carte blanche to, potentially, give that product to every other person on the planet, you are, quite frankly, delusional. The same goes for all the other information-wants-to-be-free idiots on here. Grow up, guys. Get real.
Apple will be using DRM solely to ensure that Mac OS X is running on Macs, rather than generic Intel boxen. It will almost certainly be in the final release, and they won't change their stance on this just because some Slashdot geeks don't like it. It will not affect any other element of the operating system, nor the user experience in any way. If it does, an army of extremely volatile users will, with any luck, unleash a fiery hell.
Make the switch. If you're on Windows, there really is nothing keeping you there - trust me. It's very hard to precisely elucidate what the difference is, to quantify it, but it is staggering the difference it makes to day-to-day tasks, as well as the more enjoyable aspects of computing. Windows makes me want to break things when I use it now, although, thinking about it, it always did. (For more, see here, where I conclude that one of the best things about the Mac (for Slashdot geeks, anyway), is that you get time back for hacking that you want to do, rather than hacking to make the goddamn thing work.)
Don't let an irrational fear of DRM ruin what could be a very productive switch - I would go so far as to say 'life-enhancing', for the amount of time, etc. that it frees up. It is, of course, prudent to be aware of the issues concerning DRM and what problems it can cause. But you really have to accept it in some form - and accept the fact that of the two platforms (i.e. Windows and Mac), Apple offers you the far more palatable option, Microsoft's stance on DRM (through WMA, etc.) having been made depressingly plain years ago.
Citibank UK is pretty good - it has a Soft Keyboard that you have to use to type the letters of your password in. It's a bit of a pain in the arse, but at least it provides that extra degree of security to foil things like keyloggers. What was rather irritating was the fact that it didn't work in Safari at first, but they fixed that pretty quickly.
And whilst Halifax's system isn't keylogger-proof, the fact that they have been asking personal questions for four or five years makes me wonder why the Yanks are falling over themselves in self-congratulatory tones when Bank of America implements the same system in 2005.
I'd always been under the impression that British banks were dinosaurs - certainly our 3 day money transfers and ATMs that can't count money give one pause if one has ever been to Japan. But it seems that there is somewhere worse...
Why on earth would you encumber your parents with an iMac running Windows XP? For someone who needs Windows, I can see that it might make sense (i.e. a computing professional), but for your parents? Surely that's the case when you just give them a Mac and never have to handle a support call from them again.
Willing to hear any explanation.
iqu:s
Re:Without wishing to sound too fanboyish...
on
Apple Releases WebKit
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Do we know for certain that Apple's move to Intel is about DRM? You say it as though it were gospel but is this deepest of cynical views actually warranted? I don't think it necessarily is, although it could be useful in their wanting to ensure Mac OS X only runs on Macs, a policy which I thoroughly support (as I want Apple to stay in business).
Fact is that some form of DRM is an essential prerequisite for an information-based economy, regardless of what the 'information wants to be free' types spout over here. I don't particularly like it, and I understand the fundamental problem with it (the black and white nature of computers versus the grey world of legal interpretation), but I do accept that it is necessary.
And I'd certainly choose Apple's over Microsoft's any day, because I believe that Apple is less inclined to screw the consumer over. On that I can only hope I'm right.
As to ThinkSecret, I've outlined my views on it before, but if you really think that free speech trumps any and all other rights then you won't mind if I publish your name, address, phone number and any other information you might like to keep secret because, well, my right to free speech trumps yours of privacy, right? On the other hand, if you do want your right to privacy, why shouldn't companies be able to keep certain things under wraps? (Note that I'm not advocating Enron-style behaviour - that is a very different kind of thing, but let's not muddy the waters here by calling ThinkSecret an outlet for whistleblowers. It's not. Really. It's not.)
Incidentally, as regards the switch, just make it. Assuming you're on Windows at the moment, you've got nothing to hold you back - it's really quite staggering the difference it makes to day-to-day tasks, but often quite hard to quantify using actual words. If you knew the pain, the stress, most of all the frustration I feel when I use Windows now....
If on Linux, I suppose ideological constraints more than anything would keep someone on that platform. As to the 'experience', well, these days I find I have so much more time to do what I want to do, rather than forever tweaking Linux's innards. (See here for more.)
iqu:)
Without wishing to sound too fanboyish...
on
Apple Releases WebKit
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
...good stuff, good stuff. It seems they actually do care about how the open source community perceives them. And it can only do them good to remain on good terms with the Konqueror/KHTML team.
That said, some of the criticisms of the Konqueror team may have had some validity - specifically, there is little room in the cutthroat commercial arena for the unwavering dogmatism, devotion to absolute technical superiority over immediate user needs, etc. Hopefully the two can forge a way forward together now that Apple has made this (much needed) gesture.
I did not know that, I must say, but it neatly epitomises Microsoft's slapdash attitude to, well, everything. Even in second-rate Linux (ducks), that kind of shit would be ironed out as a bug almost straight away, but no, in Windows, it's a "feature".
I've seen this argument before, and it's wholly invalid. As you state in your post, Apple has just as much backward compatibility "cruft" in, say, Mac OS X Tiger, as does Microsoft in Windows XP Pro, if not more so. And, more to the point, it works!
Truth is that Apple managed to make a seamless transition across processor architectures and emulated the old chip in software when they went from 68k to PowerPC back in the day. Then they made the switch from OS9 to OS X with similar flawlessness. And because of that, even the newest of iMacs or PowerBooks can run games and software written for something as ancient as a Mac Plus, or some similarly ancient relic. That's good compatibility.
Whereas Windows' backwards compatibility is hopeless. Because of NT's hardware abstraction, most DOS stuff is out of the question, and Windows 9x stuff can be problematic too. Of course much of this has to do with how poor an OS Windows was back in the day, but that's almost another story.
On Unix keyboards, the Control and Caps Lock are swapped.
Interesting. Japanese Mac keyboards also have the Control and Caps Lock keys switched in this way and I always wondered why. It's second nature to me, but a lot of people get thrown by it. Understandably really.
Slashdot Mirror
...as I commented the last time this was posted (full translation here).
:|
Idiots.
iqu
Instead of...
...try...
:)
According to an internal company investigation, the cause has been identified as being in one of the various offline systems which form part of the final packing stage of the manufacturing process. The company can confirm that the problem has been rectified - it will have no effect on new units being manufactured at the factory in question.
According to an internal company investigation, the cause has been identified as being in one of the various offline systems which form part of the final packing stage of the manufacturing process.
As of this press release, the affected system has been withdrawn and the problem rectified. The company can confirm that it will have no effect on new units being manufactured at the factory in question.
Sorry about that.
iqu
Actually, less than 5%.
:P
Don't rely on Babelfish for decent translation - see here for the full thing!
iqu
Re: Problem with Creative Zen Neeon Digital Audio Player
:)
Notice to Customers and Advice on Dealing With The Problem
Creative has confirmed that there is a possibility that W32.Wullik.B@mm, a low-risk destructive worm virus, has infected the Creative Zen Neeon digital music players which were shipped from manufacture from the latter part of July onwards, some of which are still being prepared for shipping [?].
The issue concerns a specific factory line which was producing new units, and the Creative Zen Neeons which may have been infected by the worm (which were shipped from manufacture from the latter part of July and some of which are still awaiting shipment) number less than 1% of those shipped - of the roughly 3,700 units from this line that were shipped to Japan, less than 5% are affected.
It has already been confirmed that this issue affects no other Creative products.
The company offers its sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this will cause to its customers.
According to an internal company investigation, the cause has been identified as being in one of the various offline systems which form part of the final packing stage of the manufacturing process. The company can confirm that the problem has been rectified - it will have no effect on new units being manufactured at the factory in question.
Furthermore, in order to minimise the effect on customers and the market [for these devices], the company has currently halted shipping of all Zen Neeon units, and is working with its partners to arrange the return of units which may be affected.
Customers who have purchased Creative Zen Neeons with a corresponding line number and who have concerns about the safety of using their unit are requested to consult this special support page for more information.
Any mistakes/corrections, would be glad to hear!
iqu
"This research is taking a totally different approach to the more usual studies into robot technologies of the future, which relate to symbiotic relationships with humans. Traditionally, robots have been designed to give practical support to human activities and ..., whereas the "Parasite Human" [as they are calling it] is being posited as a robot which gives lateral support to human activity through the senses."
:)
It's worth pointing out that it's bloody difficult to translate, given some of the expressions used - my apologies for any inaccuracies.
iqu
Surely a comma in the list "apples, bananas, and grapes are fruit" is just wrong? And surely British English would have it as "apples, [I suppose the comma is dispensible] bananas and grapes are fruit", as would those strange people on the other side of the Pond?
:D), maybe there will come a day when Americans see Webster for the moron and linguistic butcher that he actually was (although, in retrospect, given that some of his more "progressive" alterations were rejected, perhaps they feel that they have done this already).
:P) have unfortunately so far failed.
:P
There are certainly times when a comma before "and" is correct - or at least to not use it would create a rather undesirable flow.
I'd certainly agree with the point about spellings jarring though, especially with less seen words like "axe". It just looks odd, but that's all down to what you're used to. To troll slightly, and perhaps to provoke a little war (with any luck
As to resumés and CVs, the differing styles are rather interesting too. I have a Japanese flatmate who has spent altogether too much time learning things the...er..."wrong"...way and is convinced that her CV should include some kind of egotistical personal statement that feels like it should be locked in a slogans cupboard in a some big City corporate's marketing department. Attempts to explain that the British are more refined/restrained (*ducks*
iqu
Periods, eh?
:P
Call yourself a Brit!
Bloody sellouts.
iqu
It should be quite obvious that this is a joke. Varun Dubey, if Google is to be believed, is involved with OpenBSD.
:P
Consider this:
XP is such a joy when it comes to simply connecting a device and watching the pretty little bubble detecting it and saying "its installed and ready for use" makes the slightly high price absolutely worth it.
The clue is in the "slightly high price". He's taking the piss. Which also explains the specious marketshare argument.
So it's amusing to see real Microsofties falling over themselves endorsing this "fan's" intelligent and well-reasoned viewpoint.
iqu
The iPod is not a standard, its a fad. The iPod cannot be a standard if its locked down to one single application. Sorry.
:|
You sound defeated already! That forlorn "Sorry" betrays the distinct whiff of a Rio user - perhaps even an early adopter! And you make the mistake of allowing this - or your Slashdot groupthink - cloud your judgement.
Fact is that whether something is open or not, if a large number of people use it, it becomes a standard. The Microsoft Office document formats are not open (although they are now widely understood) but no rational person would dispute that they are the standard for editable document interchange. Similarly, the iPod/iTunes combination, whether open or not, is in many countries the de facto digital music platform. When car manufacturers are putting iPod connectors in their cars, that's an enormous step towards real standardisation.
But you can carry on telling yourself that because Slashdot/Richard Stallman/Cory Doctorow says lockdown is evil, something won't become a standard. In the meantime, the market (and the rest of the world) will prove otherwise.
iqu
Comments?
:P). With iTMS, I legitimately own 60 tracks.
:P). They can bequeath these timeless classics to their children as I can with iTMS. But with Yahoo!, that's a whole fuckload of fees - I'll leave the maths to you.
:|
You asked for it!
Seriously. Before I begin, allow me to make a small disclaimer: I am upset to see that my yen signs have become textual "yen" and pounds textual "pounds" in your quote. This may affect my judgement below. However...
I'm not the only one to make this point, but it seems that your type enjoys pain and torture, otherwise you wouldn't be using Yahoo! Music Unlimited. Or any other subscription service for that matter. The argument has been made countless times before, but simply put, if I spend, say, $60 on Yahoo! and $60 on iTMS and then stop using (cancel) both, I may have listened to a thousand tracks but now I have nothing to show for it (save, perhaps, for a few bootleg tapes
Of course it would be prudent of me to acknowledge that there are those for whom this service would be genuinely useful. But for most of us, music is something to keep - my parents have LPs from the 1960s and 70s that they can play just as well now as they did then (in fact, perhaps better, because of improved turntables, amplifiers and speakers, but that's another issue...
Yahoo! might make sense in the short term, but if you give any thought to the long run, subscription services are an obvious no-no.
iqu
Bigger news is that there are no Sony songs on iTMS Japan!
:P). Sony, of course, has a lot of clout in Japan - the linked-to Asahi article notes that Sony Music Entertainment is Japan's biggest record company.
...unless you're Steve Jobs. :P
:D
I commented on this in the story proper (I am the Apple Blog article's author, so the posting on Slashdot was shameless self-promotion, but Piquepaille can get away with it, so I thought 'What the hell...'
But all that is as nothing if you cannot play it. Given that the iPod is, speaking worldwide, something of a standard*, if only achieved through sheer market dominance**, it would be foolish to ignore such standards, i.e. by rolling one's own music download service and supplying one's catalogue to that service exclusively. Of course, as I note in my posting, Sony is no stranger to such folly (see OpenMG in the face of MP3, AAC or, heaven forbid, even WMA, which is frankly farcical, or the Memory Stick in the face of, well, anything else). It may well be that some time will have to pass (and a considerable amount of money lost due to missed opportunity) before Sony will acquiesce and come on board. But any time wasted will be more to their cost than to Apple's (it has been discussed at length how little profit Apple makes via iTMS).
In any event, this is quite a significant step. The Japanese being as they are, this could well be a impressive growth market for Apple, providing they market appropriately (they need especially to think of mobile phone users), and could be a key player in the run up to the billion-songs-sold mark.
Sony BMG won't be able to hold out forever. I don't know what the iPod's market share is like down under, but I'm willing to bet that it's higher than Japan's relatively meagre 36% (according to Apple figures). From a shareholder viewpoint (and we know that in the end, this is all the capitalists care about), any such stance by Sony would almost be negligence. There is no room for such emotion in the corporate arena...
iTMS Australia will happen. It may just partly be that Sony BMG does have a greater monopoly on content there and, also, that Australia's market is not big enough for Apple to release without a major record company on board. The Japanese market is huge - and they've got most of the big names involved (including Avex Tracks, who are responsible for many of the verging-on-paedophilia teenybopper groups in Japan and who run their own download service, IIRC) - so even without Sony, it makes sense.
We'll see what happens, of course, but I'd be very surprised if Sony doesn't eventually acquiesce. 'Beleaguered' isn't an inappropriate term for that company.
iqu
Naturally, the product with 95% market share will be (on average) exploited long before the product with less than 1% market share.
:|
Like IIS vs. Apache.
As to Linux distributions, it is fair that some older distributions (Mandrake springs to mind) were - how shall we put this - somewhat "relaxed" with regard to security matters, enabling far more services than might be considered prudent. It is thus perhaps fair to say that desktop-oriented Linux distributions that were available at the time of Windows XP's initial release were in some (perhaps many) cases not as secure as they perhaps could be; server-oriented distributions (i.e. your Windows 2003 equivalent) were never like this though. And neither was OS X, where there has always been a secure-by-default attitude to enabling services. Windows XP (to say nothing of earlier versions) shipped, on the other hand, with RPC listening on the Internet interface. I need not say more.
As to virus scanners, during my tenure as a Windows user I never once ran a virus checker. I personally was competent enough not to need one, but the fact remains that for most users, such software is a prerequisite on that platform, partly because of its prevalance and partly because of poor design (ActiveX, Windows Scripting, Microsoft Office macros, etc.).
It is of course correct that a user-level account will stop most malware, etc. in its tracks, but given that Windows makes user level accounts so difficult to work with (no generic OS X or, lately, Linux-style sudo prompting), this is not a particularly practical solution.
It appears you misunderstand my comment about firewalls. My bucket analogy was intended to suggest that services should perhaps not listen on the Internet interface, given that, as you say, software is still very much subject to human error. Of course it is alas so often the case on Windows that one does not have the granularity of control needed to specify what interfaces a service listens on.
From a security point of view, Internet Explorer was perhaps Microsoft's biggest mistake. ActiveX was/is like a cruel joke. I'll leave the browser comments at that.
If we're going to get into a pissing contest about knowing the competition, note that I have been using Windows for over 10 years, with experience in all versions from Windows 3.0 to ME, NT 3.1 to XP SP2 (including a miscellany of UAEs, GPFs and all manner of BSODs). I know Windows, which is why I feel more than qualified to make the statements above and below.
The point about dragging and dropping across Alt-Tabbing is retracted, although if memory serves, this is a recent addition (Windows 2000 or XP). Exposé, however, does not require the use of a mouse.
The CLI is one of the things that makes UN*X great - if you use it a little, you will come to understand this. Mac OS X would be useless eye candy were it not for the UNIX base and the CLI that that provides. Windows lacks this, and as a consequence, is ironically now more GUI bound than the Mac (especially for configuration, etc.).
And the Start Menu still sucks.
Zeroconf rocks. Really, it does. It brings the "Just Works" philosophy to networking. Printer manufacturers, for one, recognise this, which has made setting up networked printers pretty much a matter of plugging them in to the network.
Your defence of Windows is certainly interesting - you actually try to argue that there is something worthy about it. Most have already accepted that this is not the case but endure it as they need it for some reason or another. But as someone who has had extensive experience on Windows and who has then switched, I can only say that if you know how to use OS X properly (i.e. get as well acquainted with it as you are with Windows), it will only make your life easier.
In the meantime, enjoy the struggle.
iqu
I shall respond to your points using the order in your post, as follows:
If your first comment is intented as humour, it fails to amuse. Having experienced the joy of a freshly infected Windows XP box firsthand, I find it hard to acquiesce to your terse dismissal, especially given that my statement is essentially irrefutable. Connect a "stock" Windows XP box to the Internet (and we can argue about the semantics of "stock" as much as you desire, but I am, for these purposes - given that it forms the majority of machines that we are considering - specifically Windows XP 5.1 sans SP1 and SP2), and it will get infected with a speed that is quite disarming. I must say when I first witnessed it myself, I was more than a little surprised. Could Windows really be this shit, I thought? The swiftly-delivered answer was, as the savvy will realise, "Yes, of course it can."
Of course, you will retort - validly - with the point that if a firewall is enabled before connecting, no such problem will arise, but given that most users* haven't got a fucking clue what a firewall is (and more to the point, why should they have such a clue?), how do you expect them to enable this feature. In any event, I have a particularly low opinion of user mode firewalls in any event, but I will detail that below.
(* i.e. the ones that become spam zombies because they don't secure their machines, because they don't know how, because it's not easy or because it's a hassle...)
Your point about active virus checkers is valid and hence mine about the cost to system resources is partially retracted. However, the financial and temporal costs of purchasing, installing and configuring a virus checker remain, and it is important not to forget that definitions subscriptions are kept up-to-date.
I would disagree with the suggestion that enabling a firewall is commonsense procedure on anyrequire the use of a firewall. Out of the box, there are no services enabled on Mac OS X; Linux obviously varies from distribution to distribution, but the same pattern is followed. Perhaps we might credit the nice people over at OpenBSD for their efforts.
The issues with firewalls should, of course, be obvious, but if we allow in this case that "stock" means Windows XP SP2 or more recent, the main problem is one of complacency developed by users. Firewalls restrict legitimate traffic, and as such, inevitably encourage the user simply to allow all traffic, either through prompting or by disabling the firewall itself. Far better, surely, to built a bucket without holes than to ask the user to do a job of patching it up.
You say that you do not consider anti-spyware software necessary. In fact, of course, you will either have to install Mozilla Firefox or a spyware checker, although given the software which prevails on the web today, it would be prudent to install both. It is worth nothing that the default browsers that both Linux and Mac OS X include are not subject to the same "feature enhancements" that is Internet Explorer.
As to patches, I will say only that Windows XP has had far more and that they are in some cases of a ridiculous size (consider SP2, for example).
Moving on...
Actually I could quite happily use XP. There's little functional difference between the two and, if anything, 2003 requires _more_ tweaking than XP to get it into a usable state for a desktop machine.
As to this, you are going to have to make up your mind. You made it clear in your previous post that you would run Windows 2003 over Windows XP, but you now seem keen to suggest the latter. You will forgive my confusion, but I consider the point important and feel you should clarify.
Your point about non-admin accounts betrays a disturbing lack of knowledge about actual Windows usage. If you have ever tried to actually use non-Microsoft software on a non-admin account, you will perhaps understand
I'm not sure what gives you that idea. If nothing else, the core of the remaining MacOS userbase has demonstrated they're prepared to stick with Apple through pretty much anything.
:P
...make a handful of very minor tweaks...
...performance, stability and functionality...
:)
Hence my "with any luck"?
No, but seriously, the Mac user base is changing. Granted - the Mac faithful will put up with almost anything, but there are a hell of a lot of new users (the power geek type, especially) who will be far less inclined to acquiesce to such an imposition. If Apple gets shitty, they will vote with their wallets, and given that its been quite a growth area (especially for the PowerBook), any sensible company (*) is going to bear this in mind.
(* Apple is a sensible company.)
What is all this "hacking" I'm supposed to have to do to get Windows to "work"?
The use of the term "hacking" was unfortunate in that context - I had Linux more in mind at that point, but fact is that Windows is no better. In fact, it's probably worse, because your average idiot is supposed to be able to use it as well.
In any case, I can only presume you are delusional. To address a couple of points which I found particularly amusing:
Such as situating it behind a router so that it is not directly connected to the Internet, because, heaven forbid, if you don't, the machine will reboot within about 5 minutes and keep doing so for all eternity until fixed by someone who understands such things, installing a virus checker (at extra cost, both financially and to system resources) and ensuring that it is kept up-to-date, configuring a firewall (no longer necessary by default on SP2 installs, but you said "stock"), installing and configuring a spyware checker, downloading patches beyond number, updating all your previously purchased software because it doesn't work with SP2 (this is somewhat superfluous, but I'm putting it in anyway, because SP2 borked a lot of stuff)...
I could go on, but I sense that you know the story already, implicit as it was in your parenthesised "or, preferably, Windows 2003". You know how bad Windows XP is, and it goes without saying that Windows 2003 is not a solution for most users. We're talking about desktops here (you say so yourself). Anyway, as should be readily discernible, the above list does not constitute "a handful of very minor tweaks".
Stability has got much better in Windows 2000/XP, granted. But performance-wise, it is still very poor, especially as regards caching, where Windows severely lags behind Linux or Mac OS X, or most any other OS you are to mention. It chugs. Badly. And as to functionality, it is again sorely lacking. Things that I have come to rely on - like Spotlight and PDF output from any application on Mac OS X or a decent CLI (obviously a feature of any UN*X) - are totally absent from Windows. And the Start Menu blows.
Moving on to matters of DRM, it should be clear that Apple's offerings are less restrictive. Download a song and (IIRC) burn it onto 7 CDs, play it on 5 other computers, etc. Microsoft WMA-based offerings seem bound to require periodic resynching to make sure you aren't doing anything naughty, that your licence is still valid, and always seem to take the form of a subscription-based service, with extra fees for the "privilege" of burning to CD. Granted, Apple has restrictions in place, but without them, they would be unable to licence content from the major labels and, whether you like it or not, this is what the majority of the population wants to listen to.
I agree, of course, that it is the content providers who are ultimately responsible for the restrictions imposed, and my intention was not to blame software developers (certainly not at the programmer level, anyway), but that is peripheral to the issue at hand - whose offering imposes more restrictions on what you can actually do.
iqu
It appears that you have somewhat misunderstood me - the phrase I used was "actual user need". Both the reasons you cite - rather than being such needs - are in fact simply emblematic of the heavily politicised groupthink that still runs deep on Slashdot, no matter how much I may agree with the feeling associated with the second point.
p any debate (it is), it should be patently clear why Apple is adding these "artificial constraints" into Mac OS X. For the sake of clarity, though, I will elucidate: it's to stop cheap bastards like yourself (if I infer correctly; if not, and you have no interest in Mac OS X whatsoever, then I apologise) getting a "free ride", so to speak, and running Mac OS X on Dell boxen without paying the hardware tax which subsidises the cost of operating system development. We know that no-one can currently compete with Microsoft in the proprietary operating system arena, and by taking this course of action, Apple is making sure it isn't trying. Not to say that they won't, of course, but it is surely wise to attack from a position of strength, not weakness.
:)
With tongue inserted firmly in cheek, I might ask that you respond again to my question and considering your choice of operating system without imposing artificial constraints.
Without wishing to start an is-Apple-a-primarily-a-hardware-or-a-software-com
If Apple actually starts to use seriously fascist Microsoft-style DRM on the iPod and in iTunes, a very legion of iPod users around the globe will doubtless be more than a little pissed off. But consider the fact that they have, at the moment, a situation that the music industry really ought to be happy with (half a billion songs must somewhat sweeten the fat cats' attitude towards the whole thing) and so no reason to make it more restrictive. Apple has not inconsiderable power now, because it has sold this many songs. The only country whose music companies are unhappy with iTMS's "insufficient" protection is Japan (which is why there is no iTMS Japan), and the cynic in me wonders whether that is more to do with a patriotic Sony-style "not invented here" syndrome than anything else.
All of which is why I'm not too worried about the prospect of there being some form of DRM in the Mac OS X kernel - in fact, if I were a shareholder, I'd be asking questions if they weren't doing something to keep Mac OS X special.
iqu
My whole plan was to switch away from Microsoft to Apple due to the (relatively) benign copy protection in OS X and other products.
:)
I may have to rethink that strategy now.
*sigh*
Why? Why? I realise that to ask this is to break something of a taboo amongst the Linux faithful here, but why must operating system choice be dependent on politics rather than actual user need?
I do of course appreciate that it is prudent to ensure that you will have the freedom to use your machine as you see fit, but it is hardly the case that Apple is going to be the Trojan horse that sneaks 1984 upon the world. Not under Steve Jobs, anyway. A computer that doesn't do what you want won't sell very well - word gets around (and, to be honest, if the worst did come to the worst, then some hacker would be right there releasing a crack for it).
At present, iTunes is the only place where DRM comes into play, and it is trivially bypassed (burn to CD, re-rip). It's a pain in the arse, yes, but some form of DRM is, unfortunately, necessary at this stage in the information-based economy's development. If you really think that licensors (be they record companies, film studios, software developers, or a whole load of other 'information' producers) are going to hand their product over unencumbered, giving the client carte blanche to, potentially, give that product to every other person on the planet, you are, quite frankly, delusional. The same goes for all the other information-wants-to-be-free idiots on here. Grow up, guys. Get real.
Apple will be using DRM solely to ensure that Mac OS X is running on Macs, rather than generic Intel boxen. It will almost certainly be in the final release, and they won't change their stance on this just because some Slashdot geeks don't like it. It will not affect any other element of the operating system, nor the user experience in any way. If it does, an army of extremely volatile users will, with any luck, unleash a fiery hell.
Make the switch. If you're on Windows, there really is nothing keeping you there - trust me. It's very hard to precisely elucidate what the difference is, to quantify it, but it is staggering the difference it makes to day-to-day tasks, as well as the more enjoyable aspects of computing. Windows makes me want to break things when I use it now, although, thinking about it, it always did. (For more, see here, where I conclude that one of the best things about the Mac (for Slashdot geeks, anyway), is that you get time back for hacking that you want to do, rather than hacking to make the goddamn thing work.)
Don't let an irrational fear of DRM ruin what could be a very productive switch - I would go so far as to say 'life-enhancing', for the amount of time, etc. that it frees up. It is, of course, prudent to be aware of the issues concerning DRM and what problems it can cause. But you really have to accept it in some form - and accept the fact that of the two platforms (i.e. Windows and Mac), Apple offers you the far more palatable option, Microsoft's stance on DRM (through WMA, etc.) having been made depressingly plain years ago.
iqu
Citibank UK is pretty good - it has a Soft Keyboard that you have to use to type the letters of your password in. It's a bit of a pain in the arse, but at least it provides that extra degree of security to foil things like keyloggers. What was rather irritating was the fact that it didn't work in Safari at first, but they fixed that pretty quickly.
:D
And whilst Halifax's system isn't keylogger-proof, the fact that they have been asking personal questions for four or five years makes me wonder why the Yanks are falling over themselves in self-congratulatory tones when Bank of America implements the same system in 2005.
I'd always been under the impression that British banks were dinosaurs - certainly our 3 day money transfers and ATMs that can't count money give one pause if one has ever been to Japan. But it seems that there is somewhere worse...
iqu
As a descendent from 16th century Heugonauts...
...you would think that you would be able to spell the name of your ancestors. It's Huguenot.
:|
Idiot.
iqu
Why on earth would you encumber your parents with an iMac running Windows XP? For someone who needs Windows, I can see that it might make sense (i.e. a computing professional), but for your parents? Surely that's the case when you just give them a Mac and never have to handle a support call from them again.
:s
Willing to hear any explanation.
iqu
Do we know for certain that Apple's move to Intel is about DRM? You say it as though it were gospel but is this deepest of cynical views actually warranted? I don't think it necessarily is, although it could be useful in their wanting to ensure Mac OS X only runs on Macs, a policy which I thoroughly support (as I want Apple to stay in business).
:)
Fact is that some form of DRM is an essential prerequisite for an information-based economy, regardless of what the 'information wants to be free' types spout over here. I don't particularly like it, and I understand the fundamental problem with it (the black and white nature of computers versus the grey world of legal interpretation), but I do accept that it is necessary.
And I'd certainly choose Apple's over Microsoft's any day, because I believe that Apple is less inclined to screw the consumer over. On that I can only hope I'm right.
As to ThinkSecret, I've outlined my views on it before, but if you really think that free speech trumps any and all other rights then you won't mind if I publish your name, address, phone number and any other information you might like to keep secret because, well, my right to free speech trumps yours of privacy, right? On the other hand, if you do want your right to privacy, why shouldn't companies be able to keep certain things under wraps? (Note that I'm not advocating Enron-style behaviour - that is a very different kind of thing, but let's not muddy the waters here by calling ThinkSecret an outlet for whistleblowers. It's not. Really. It's not.)
Incidentally, as regards the switch, just make it. Assuming you're on Windows at the moment, you've got nothing to hold you back - it's really quite staggering the difference it makes to day-to-day tasks, but often quite hard to quantify using actual words. If you knew the pain, the stress, most of all the frustration I feel when I use Windows now....
If on Linux, I suppose ideological constraints more than anything would keep someone on that platform. As to the 'experience', well, these days I find I have so much more time to do what I want to do, rather than forever tweaking Linux's innards. (See here for more.)
iqu
...good stuff, good stuff. It seems they actually do care about how the open source community perceives them. And it can only do them good to remain on good terms with the Konqueror/KHTML team.
:)
That said, some of the criticisms of the Konqueror team may have had some validity - specifically, there is little room in the cutthroat commercial arena for the unwavering dogmatism, devotion to absolute technical superiority over immediate user needs, etc. Hopefully the two can forge a way forward together now that Apple has made this (much needed) gesture.
iqu
I did not know that, I must say, but it neatly epitomises Microsoft's slapdash attitude to, well, everything. Even in second-rate Linux (ducks), that kind of shit would be ironed out as a bug almost straight away, but no, in Windows, it's a "feature".
:|
Unbelievable.
iqu
I've seen this argument before, and it's wholly invalid. As you state in your post, Apple has just as much backward compatibility "cruft" in, say, Mac OS X Tiger, as does Microsoft in Windows XP Pro, if not more so. And, more to the point, it works!
:|
Truth is that Apple managed to make a seamless transition across processor architectures and emulated the old chip in software when they went from 68k to PowerPC back in the day. Then they made the switch from OS9 to OS X with similar flawlessness. And because of that, even the newest of iMacs or PowerBooks can run games and software written for something as ancient as a Mac Plus, or some similarly ancient relic. That's good compatibility.
Whereas Windows' backwards compatibility is hopeless. Because of NT's hardware abstraction, most DOS stuff is out of the question, and Windows 9x stuff can be problematic too. Of course much of this has to do with how poor an OS Windows was back in the day, but that's almost another story.
iqu
UNIX style predating IBM PC style makes sense.
:D
So Japanese Mac keyboards are pretty über-geeky - so to speak - I hadn't realised they had such impressive credentials.
I wonder if there's an "...in Japan" that we can get out of this?
iqu
On Unix keyboards, the Control and Caps Lock are swapped.
:D
Interesting. Japanese Mac keyboards also have the Control and Caps Lock keys switched in this way and I always wondered why. It's second nature to me, but a lot of people get thrown by it. Understandably really.
iqu