Many valid points. I do think I should respond to these, though:
most Apple-specific software is easier to install than Windows or Linux, drag and drop to Applications for most smaller packages, so I don't really see the need for a Mac package installer.
First: Linux-like dependencies are a good thing. Dependencies mean shared libraries that are actually shared. Shared libraries mean one place to update all your OpenSSL vulnerabilities, for instance. They also mean less disk usage and bandwidth ("who cares" being the fanboy response here), but also less RAM usage, as you only cache the library once in RAM -- maybe even freeing CPU cache.
Second: Actually, when you know how to use Linux package management, it's easier. I mean, yes, drag it to Applications -- from where? Standard procedure is to download, mount the image, drag the program to Applications, unmount, then throw away the image. This is actually too complicated for most people to do it right -- I can't tell you the number of idiots I see running Firefox on OS X from inside the disk image. On Linux, I just check a box and hit "apply", and the package (and all its dependencies) are installed once and updated forever.
Which brings me to my third point: Software Update and Windows Update both suck, as they only work for Apple and MS products, respectively. Synaptic and the Ubuntu Update Manager work for anything that has a Debian/Ubuntu repository, and there's WAY more software in the default repositories than either Software Update or Windows update.
That's a really huge thing right there. On OS X, I have to hit up Software Update and roughly 5-10 free/OSS apps to make sure I'm up-to-date. That's out of maybe 20 apps total -- I'm guessing 5-10 of them do it automatically, with their own built-in update manager (like Firefox), and the rest get updated by me going to the website and downloading a new version.
On Windows isn't much better. Some things update automatically by leaving crap in RAM all the time (Acrobat Reader, Java, Steam), some might update only while they're running (Firefox), but most are going to involve me manually checking for an update (nvidia drivers, my few non-Steam games, any OSS stuff other than Firefox, hell, even Office (being the version just before it was supported by Microsoft Update)).
On Ubuntu, there is one tiny program that checks for updates and bugs me when it has them. I then click that button, type my password, and tell it to go ahead. When it's done, it may or may not tell me I need to reboot, or sometimes just telling me to log out -- and it certainly won't reboot without asking. (Some Windows stuff will pop up a dialog: "We have to reboot your system. [OK]" and some will actually give you a cancel button that lies to you and reboots anyway. OS X is almost as bad -- no, the reboot dialog cannot be made to go away until you're ready to reboot.) Added bonus: I only have to reboot once, whereas on a windows system, half the apps think they need to reboot, but don't know I'd like to line up a bunch of them before I do reboot. Double bonus: Don't have to reboot for most updates -- it'll automatically restart whatever service is necessary when the new version is installed, and sometimes you only have to log out, so reboots are pretty much entirely for kernel updates.
First you ask them to tell you about third party support shops and expect them to, what?, give you a price list for shops in your area or something?
I was figuring that, as a tech and a person (and not as Apple), the guy might have a favorite place or something. I'm not going to have jack in my area anyway.
Then you complain about them not giving first hand support for a third party product that they were nice enough to provide you with.
Well, I'd expect them to at least know what the fuck it does. I mean, they are shipping this with their warranty program, so presumably they know it's good, right
Thanks for the info about repair, I'll look that up. Regarding your other suggestions:
In spanning mode, you can set your secondary display as the main display by opening display preferences, clicking the arrangement tab, then dragging the white menubar to the secondary display.
But how do I then disable the internal LCD? And how do I get this setting to work for, say, a reinstall?
Connect an external mouse, keyboard, and display, and close the lid. Suddenly it's a really small, low powered powermac.
Except for the display issue I mentioned, and in another comment, I also mentioned how closing the lid instantly puts it to sleep -- unless I use Insomnia, in which case it cuts its own power after some preset amount of time. So, I'd have to use your magnet trick to convince it the lid is open when it's closed, not the other way around.
You certainly could put linux on it - though getting wireless to work may depend on whether the airport extreme card is from broadcom or atheros - the former is a bit more tricky. I've had good luck with Ubuntu edgy for ppc.
Me too -- and with a Broadcom card. Needed to get the latest stuff myself, but once I grabbed firmware off OS X, I was good.
Lots of impressive things are possible with macs, but you have to be willing to get out your machete and walk through the brush.
I just wish I'd gotten a Dell or something and put Linux on it. Would've cost a lot less, and come with accident protection, I think. I mean, as long as I'm going to be walking through the brush, I may as well be running Linux, and after that, it doesn't matter whose hardware I run it on.
Which is actually why I got a Mac -- it wasn't my money, so I figured I'd get the best quality hardware money can buy and put Linux on it. I figured who cares if it's a weak ppc processor, as long as it has a nice solid case, right? (And hey, it did survive being dropped. Probably more than once, but I only remember the one, and the hammer we used to fix it.) Unfortunately, wireless sucked back then, and I've since discovered a little Windows game I wish I could play on the go...
1) I, personally, have broken the backlight of a powerbook G4 by dropping it and had it replaced under AppleCare. I sure didn't tell Apple that it had broken because I dropped it though.
My mistake may have been telling them. However, it was obvious that it had been dropped -- there was a fairly large dent in the case.
My point is, it had been dropped almost a full year before the backlight failed. The backlight failed on its own, as far as I'm concerned.
Unlike WSUS?
Had to look that up. And yes, very much like WSUS. Probably a bad choice, though -- must've forgot I was comparing to MS.
What makes fink not decent? DarwinPorts?
Well. DarwinPorts is discontinued, if I remember. Fink's very latest, experimental stuff is still often a version or two behind any decent Linux distro.
They may be very good package managers by themselves, I'm not sure. But it's not a solution at all -- I can't get Firefox that way, or any of the other Mac-native open-source apps. And probably for good reason -- Fink, for instance, installs everything to/sw, whereas most apps live in/Applications, and are meant to work from anywhere.
Thank you for reading the whole thing, though. You haven't said what you think of it, other than that it's inaccurate. Do you disagree with it?
Aside from the fact that my DVI monitor isn't exactly portable, it doesn't work.
First of all, the Powerbook goes to sleep immediately when the lid is closed. If you keep it awake with Insomnia, it will shut OFF after exactly 11 minutes -- that's "shut off", as in, immediate power failure, not graceful OS X shutdown.
Second, I have not yet found a way to disable the internal LCD. I can set it as the secondary display, but that means I can still accidentally drag stuff onto it, some things don't cope well with dual monitors (especially when I can't see one of them), etc. I could put them in "mirrored" mode, but unfortunately, OS X is too smart for that: It knows the internal LCD's limitations, which means the max resolution for any monitor I try to plug in that way will be 1440x900 (I think), even though my desktop monitor is 1600x1200. Also, it screws up the aspect ratio (desktop monitor is 4:3, laptop monitor is widescreen).
Third, I already have a 1.8 ghz amd64 desktop with 2 gigs of RAM, why would I want a 1.67 ghz 32-bit ppc with 1 gig (I think, or is it 512)? I suppose it would be nice to deploy OS X apps on, but if I ever have something big enough that I insist on testing it on OS X myself, I may also be in a position to either raise money for a dev machine or demand one from Apple.
And finally, the hard drive has bad sectors, meaning it's probably time to replace it.
Now, what might be possible: Plug in TV-out cable, find a way to install Linux while blind (so I can ssh in and custom-configure X to only use the TV out), instant cool'n'quiet replacement for Xbox Linux for watching YouTube etc on the TV. Only not quite so instant, and I'd still rather have a working laptop, so one of these days, I'm going to open it up and try to fix it myself.
My guess is, speed would be the problem. If it's anything like par2, the recovery process takes too long to do in realtime; therefore, only useful if you were allowed to burn a backup copy (and if it was economically feasible to do so).
Thaddeus Computing will buy your Used Handheld, refurbish it, and sell it. Some of these do give me a sort of "They don't make 'em like this anymore" feeling -- little DOS handhelds that are faster than modern PocketPCs because, although they run at 3 mhz tops, DOS doesn't have to do as much as Windows Mobile does.
Right now, I've borrowed an HP Jornada 720 and a wireless card. It comes with Windows CE, but I run a distro based on Debian ARM on it.
And that's where I find things like this brick to be stupid -- why go out of your way to allow an x86 OS to run on it when you can just port the OS? I guess if you're locked into the Windows world, that's a problem, but with source code available to so many things I depend on, it really can be as simple as "just recompile it". Hell, I could even run Firefox on this thing, if I liked pain (Firefox doesn't play nice with 32 megs of RAM...)
I have a spoiled rich kid friend who has a nice Xeon server that we set up in his mom's basement. We hold small LAN parties there -- 8-10 people.
So, locally, we have no lag. People over the Internet can still connect and play with us, but we all have pings of 0-5, and a few of us have admin rights.
Personally, I don't think it's as fun to give someone a bad review on Xbox Live as to pimp-slap them around the map for swearing -- or turn them into a Llama (so everything they say gets turned into random textual and auditory sound effects). Or take that camper -- you can give them a bad case of gas, so you can hear them farting from 20-30 feet away.
Find a good server that does that to the morons, and especially if it's a dedicated, 24/7 Linux server, you can bookmark it and always come back to it. Xbox Live, last I tried, was probably 50% "bridging", so if you bridge yourself (ensuring you only hook up with legit people), it can take 5-10 minutes to find a game. And you can't immediately go back into the same game -- when the round is over, you go back into Matchmaking, and you may or may not get someone with a good server. Counter-Strike? Bookmark a good server and stay there for hours. Good != popular, btw -- just has to have enough people to play.
Or have a clan and a clan server. Guaranteed to always have good ping, and always have a slot, and always challenging opponents to play against.
Oh, and Steam does actually have a fair number of games, they're just mostly small-ish ones.
But then, I don't play this kind of game often enough to care that much, and when I do, it's that LAN party.
I have to ask. Congress is obviously not particularly technically inclined (tubes, anyone?), so to them, electronic document == MS Word.
If we could force them to use text files, this would be much easier. Diff, etc, even graphical 3-way diffs have been written, but all assume you're dealing with text. They could basically learn the systems we've been using for decades, and we could easily show riders as "patches". Might even be nice to have a Benevolent Dictator who could reject those patches out of hand, but then, it's not as easy to fork a government as it is a kernel...
Actually, I strongly suspect Valve would cooperate with them. After all, what reason did they have for making Source run on DirectX -- especially when it's a fork of the original Half-Life code, which did run well on OpenGL -- other than because the company was founded by a bunch of ex-Microsoft guys?
Blizzard would certainly say "Fuck you, MS, if they're paying anyone, it's us." But Valve might just bend over because they like it.
If you make a stink, the first time something goes wrong, you'll be the first guy they blame.
So, you're telling me it will go something like this:
Employee: You might be insecure! Boss: You're overreacting. We're fine. Some time later... Boss: Well, shit, we got 0wned. Employee! Employee: Yes? Boss: You knew we were vulnerable? Employee: Yeah... Boss: And you didn't do anything? Employee: I tried, but... Boss: You're fired! You'll never work in this industry again!
How does this make sense, even to the boss? I mean, shouldn't it go differently? Maybe like this:
Just after they get 0wned... Boss: Employee! Employee: Yes? Boss: You knew we were vulnerable? Employee: Yeah... Boss: Wow, you know your shit after all! Here, have a promotion! Employee: Thanks! Oh, by the way, our mailservers are acting as open relays. Want me to fix them? Boss: Make it so!
To be fair, if the security is that bad to begin with, I don't imagine you'd be lucky enough to have a sane, intelligent, fair boss. However, you might at least have a chance suing said boss for firing you over his own mistake...
When you find something non-conductive enough, you could actually just fill the entire case with it -- or just drop your whole computer into a tank of non-conductive oil. I always loved the idea, and was never brave enough to actually try it, but it seems like a much easier solution than water-cooling.
By this I mean, Apple doesn't deliver a general-purpose machine. Microsoft does. As much as I think Windows sucks, I have to admit, it sucks about the same for everything I could possibly want to do with it.
OS X, however, is absolutely awesome as long as I'm doing exactly what Apple wants me to do... and as soon as I step outside that, it could be awesome, and it could be worse than Windows. Simple example: Tried remapping the keybindings for Expose -- I like what F9 does on my Powerbook, but F9 is mapped to keyboard brightness controls, and fn-F9 is annoying -- anyway, mapped it to Command-Semicolon, which works great (especially on Dvorak), except that OS X cannot remember this key combination across reboots.
Sent a bug report. They sent me an email back saying that it was a known issue, and they were working on it -- and attached an NDA to that email. I hope I don't get sued for showing Slashdotters an Apple trade secret -- it's been almost a year since I reported that, and to my knowledge, they still haven't fixed a simple keymap problem.
I've run into all kinds of similar, strange little problems -- some even deliberate. Take QuickTime -- viewing a video fullscreen is a "pro" feature, which is why I used VLC almost exclusively on that machine. Then there's things like Software Update -- great for updating your Apple products, but won't update anything else, and there aren't any decent package managers.
Nothing was more illuminating than when it broke. The screen just went dead. Further experimentation suggests that the backlight is dead, and when the room illumination is just right, I can sort of see where a window is.
I know the machine still works, because aside from that window, and being able to SSH in, I have hooked it up (via DVI) to my desktop monitor, and that works. However, I cannot set the desktop as a primary monitor -- I can either "mirror" the laptop display, making a nice little 1440x900 display in the middle of my 1600x1200 monitor, or I can make it span (a dual-monitor setup), using the full resolution of my desktop, but having half my display (the laptop monitor) completely dead. It also makes reinstalls pretty useless, as I haven't been able to get the desktop monitor to work with any boot CD I've tried, including the OS X install DVDs.
And unfortunately, OS X knows exactly what resolution each monitor can handle. So no setting the mirrored display to 1600x1200 -- it won't go over what it knows the (dead) laptop monitor can handle.
Anyway, first thing I did was check my AppleCare account that I assumed I had. I put the serial number into the AppleCare website... and didn't have an account. Hmm, odd... So, next time I was in a city with an Apple store (I live in rural Iowa), I took it to a Genius bar... and discovered I really didn't have an account, and it'd cost me some $200 to even have it looked at. Apparently, AppleCare is designed to be sold as a separate product, but you must then register it to your Mac over the phone or internet.
Fair enough, but goddamned annoying. I dug up the AppleCare CD and used it to check my system for other problems while I got online and registered my Powerbook. Then I called Apple again, explained the problem, also mentioning a bad sector found by the AppleCare CD. They sent me a box -- next-day air or something, a beautifully-designed one-size-fits-any-Macbook box, with absolutely everything included. Tear off the address label and there's return postage there. Even nice little strips of tape inside the box, not to mention a piece of foam with perforations for every Macbook or Powerbook ever made -- tear it off on the right line and my Powerbook fit perfectly.
Apple is amazing when you're inside-the-box.
Mailed it off to them, and they called my cell phone a bit later and left me a voicemail, telling me they had determined it was "accidental damage", and not covered by my $240 AppleCare plan. I called them up and explained -- well, yes, I had dropped the machine a full year earlier, and that
But in all honesty, RealPlayer is just your fault for letting that shit on your system. My Windows-loving, open-source-mocking friends actually discovered VLC before I did, and one of the reasons they tell me is "RealPlayer behaves like a virus."
To be fair, your first two issues probably also exist on Linux. Evolution really is that bad.
I remember at one point people were tracking down various performance issues with Reiser4. Now, Reiser4 fsync performance sucks balls, although that really isn't a huge issue with most of what I use it for. But nothing makes it look worse than crap like Evolution -- case in point -- resizing the columns. As you drag, it does its opaque/animation thing, so you're dragging it 5-10 pixels at a time, and the window and all the data is resizing itself as you drag it. Which is fine, but Evolution decided to not only save that to your configuration (presumably gconf?), not only flush that configuration out to a file immediately, but fsync it out to disk.
Yes, Evolution was worried that you'd lose power halfway through resizing a column and wanted to make sure everything was exactly where you left it!
It reduces noise by blurring. It does NOT add detail that wasn't there in the first place.
I realize you're most likely joking, but I really am sick of people making this mistake. Just because you can "enhance" an image does not mean that any piece of software can be fucking psychic.
Take everything in/Applications, throw it in the garbage, except for the purposes of this experiment, System Preferences.app.
Ok, being online is now meaningless, except perhaps to get updates. So what about the network preferences?
My point is that system preferences don't make reference to any user Applications.
Ah, so it's not enough that it's a preference that is used by every Application, it must also be a preference that doesn't mention any specific application?
You can't remove the ability to run screen savers without mucking around in/System/Library.
That seems to me an arbitrary decision, as arbitrary as claiming "Internet Explorer is part of Windows". (Not as sinister, just as stupid.)
it is not markedly different than the choice of default text editor.
Which, by the way, is NOT done from within a text editor, if I remember -- it's done from the properties of a particular file, which seems an equally brain-dead way to do it, but is at least via a mechanism that I'd call part of the OS (Finder) rather than requiring me to fire up a text editor to set the default text editor.
If Jesus was a satanic agent trying to lead people astray, it seems he screwed it up.
Well, why does "satanic" have to be "bad" here? We can make it about other deities if it makes you more comfortable, but let me run with this for a bit...
Suppose, for a moment, that God and Satan are roughly equal, like Greek or Roman gods. God rules the sky and Satan rules underground. But suppose Hell really isn't Hell -- it's very hot, but reports of "eternal torment" have been greatly exaggerated. And suppose Heaven really isn't Heaven -- it's above the clouds and the angels play, but the harp music is really like eternal elevator muzak. You can fly, but you have to fly, you have to spend an eternity flapping your wings really hard to hold yourself up there in the thin air...
In other words, suppose that God and Satan are equally good, but eternally at war with each other. Why be so quick to choose a side?
Oh, but you're going to quote the Bible at me. Don't; it's extremely biased and it still makes God look cruel in many places.
Really, no display of power would convince me, and certainly not an aging, mistranslated account of a man, written a hundred years or so after his death.
But if you listen to the message behind it, then you can get an idea of the nature of the power.
Interesting, maybe, in the context of the scripture. But it takes awhile before I really trust another human. What makes God so great that you trust him without ever having met him?
You're right about one thing: I should judge anything "divine" by its actions and not merely by its power, or its displays of power. But that means I would have to know Jesus personally for years -- and I don't mean in the pamphlet way ("Would you like to know Jesus personally? Just pray with us...") -- no, I mean actually go out for coffee with him, work with him, play a game with him. Jesus -- or God, or any deity -- would have to gain my trust in that way, and then, it would be trust and friendship, maybe love, but not worship.
Your original contention was that having the preference in Safari was a Microsoft-esque attempt at lock-in.
Hinted at, didn't quite say. But then, you haven't addressed the rest of my list, either.
Why shouldn't application preferences be in applications?
What's an "application preference", as opposed to a "system preference"?
This would make sense if, for instance, I set the default web browser for opening links out of email from within Thunderbird, and had it only apply to Thunderbird. But that would also be a poor choice.
Network settings have system-wide effects, hence system preferences.
And a default browser doesn't? Or is it that it's a per-user preference, and doesn't necessarily govern the whole system? In which case, what about screensaver settings and such -- why are they in System Preferences?
Basically, Jesus says that he's not from Satan, because he's working against Satan's interests in the world. Furthermore, he says that the only way he could drive out demons, was if he was stronger than Satan.
Or again, if he was Satan, trying to con people into following him by being "good" for awhile. Bit like a protection racket.
Or, if the paralytic was an agent of Satan, who had been punished by God.
I'm not trying to say that Jesus is evil, or that God is, I'm just saying you have to admit the possibility. And don't expect to prove the Bible's authenticity by quoting the Bible -- I know that's not what you're doing here, just fair warning.
looking through Jesus' interactions with the pharisees and others, it seems they had sufficient evidence to be reasonably sure that Jesus was divine, or at the very least, acting on behalf of the divine.
Let's say someone does walk on water, turn water into wine, multiply bread, and so on.
Well, can't Lucifer do all those things? If he can't, how do we know?
If a God or a Jesus did start to show me miracles and claim divinity, I'd give them a chance, but I certainly wouldn't worship them right away. Worship is something I don't do -- not to anyone on Earth today, and I'm not sure I would to someone in Heaven. And again, where is the proof, really? Maybe it's all a dream and I'll wake up soon. Maybe this God is evil. It could be any number of things.
Where can there ever be proof? That is, I think, one of the points of agnosticism (versus atheism) -- if God is impossible to disprove, he's equally impossible to prove.
There's a bit of stubbornness there, but I do believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and actually benevolent God wouldn't eternally damn me for a bit of healthy skepticism.
And by the way, I imagine if I really believed in the consequences of rejecting God, I probably would not reject him. (Probably. Better to rule in Hell...) But once again, that would be difficult to prove. I could kneel and pray, but I doubt I could believe.
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Many valid points. I do think I should respond to these, though:
First: Linux-like dependencies are a good thing. Dependencies mean shared libraries that are actually shared. Shared libraries mean one place to update all your OpenSSL vulnerabilities, for instance. They also mean less disk usage and bandwidth ("who cares" being the fanboy response here), but also less RAM usage, as you only cache the library once in RAM -- maybe even freeing CPU cache.
Second: Actually, when you know how to use Linux package management, it's easier. I mean, yes, drag it to Applications -- from where? Standard procedure is to download, mount the image, drag the program to Applications, unmount, then throw away the image. This is actually too complicated for most people to do it right -- I can't tell you the number of idiots I see running Firefox on OS X from inside the disk image. On Linux, I just check a box and hit "apply", and the package (and all its dependencies) are installed once and updated forever.
Which brings me to my third point: Software Update and Windows Update both suck, as they only work for Apple and MS products, respectively. Synaptic and the Ubuntu Update Manager work for anything that has a Debian/Ubuntu repository, and there's WAY more software in the default repositories than either Software Update or Windows update.
That's a really huge thing right there. On OS X, I have to hit up Software Update and roughly 5-10 free/OSS apps to make sure I'm up-to-date. That's out of maybe 20 apps total -- I'm guessing 5-10 of them do it automatically, with their own built-in update manager (like Firefox), and the rest get updated by me going to the website and downloading a new version.
On Windows isn't much better. Some things update automatically by leaving crap in RAM all the time (Acrobat Reader, Java, Steam), some might update only while they're running (Firefox), but most are going to involve me manually checking for an update (nvidia drivers, my few non-Steam games, any OSS stuff other than Firefox, hell, even Office (being the version just before it was supported by Microsoft Update)).
On Ubuntu, there is one tiny program that checks for updates and bugs me when it has them. I then click that button, type my password, and tell it to go ahead. When it's done, it may or may not tell me I need to reboot, or sometimes just telling me to log out -- and it certainly won't reboot without asking. (Some Windows stuff will pop up a dialog: "We have to reboot your system. [OK]" and some will actually give you a cancel button that lies to you and reboots anyway. OS X is almost as bad -- no, the reboot dialog cannot be made to go away until you're ready to reboot.) Added bonus: I only have to reboot once, whereas on a windows system, half the apps think they need to reboot, but don't know I'd like to line up a bunch of them before I do reboot. Double bonus: Don't have to reboot for most updates -- it'll automatically restart whatever service is necessary when the new version is installed, and sometimes you only have to log out, so reboots are pretty much entirely for kernel updates.
I was figuring that, as a tech and a person (and not as Apple), the guy might have a favorite place or something. I'm not going to have jack in my area anyway.
Well, I'd expect them to at least know what the fuck it does. I mean, they are shipping this with their warranty program, so presumably they know it's good, right
Thanks for the info about repair, I'll look that up. Regarding your other suggestions:
But how do I then disable the internal LCD? And how do I get this setting to work for, say, a reinstall?
Except for the display issue I mentioned, and in another comment, I also mentioned how closing the lid instantly puts it to sleep -- unless I use Insomnia, in which case it cuts its own power after some preset amount of time. So, I'd have to use your magnet trick to convince it the lid is open when it's closed, not the other way around.
Me too -- and with a Broadcom card. Needed to get the latest stuff myself, but once I grabbed firmware off OS X, I was good.
I just wish I'd gotten a Dell or something and put Linux on it. Would've cost a lot less, and come with accident protection, I think. I mean, as long as I'm going to be walking through the brush, I may as well be running Linux, and after that, it doesn't matter whose hardware I run it on.
Which is actually why I got a Mac -- it wasn't my money, so I figured I'd get the best quality hardware money can buy and put Linux on it. I figured who cares if it's a weak ppc processor, as long as it has a nice solid case, right? (And hey, it did survive being dropped. Probably more than once, but I only remember the one, and the hammer we used to fix it.) Unfortunately, wireless sucked back then, and I've since discovered a little Windows game I wish I could play on the go...
My mistake may have been telling them. However, it was obvious that it had been dropped -- there was a fairly large dent in the case.
My point is, it had been dropped almost a full year before the backlight failed. The backlight failed on its own, as far as I'm concerned.
Had to look that up. And yes, very much like WSUS. Probably a bad choice, though -- must've forgot I was comparing to MS.
Well. DarwinPorts is discontinued, if I remember. Fink's very latest, experimental stuff is still often a version or two behind any decent Linux distro.
They may be very good package managers by themselves, I'm not sure. But it's not a solution at all -- I can't get Firefox that way, or any of the other Mac-native open-source apps. And probably for good reason -- Fink, for instance, installs everything to /sw, whereas most apps live in /Applications, and are meant to work from anywhere.
Thank you for reading the whole thing, though. You haven't said what you think of it, other than that it's inaccurate. Do you disagree with it?
Do you own a Powerbook?
Aside from the fact that my DVI monitor isn't exactly portable, it doesn't work.
First of all, the Powerbook goes to sleep immediately when the lid is closed. If you keep it awake with Insomnia, it will shut OFF after exactly 11 minutes -- that's "shut off", as in, immediate power failure, not graceful OS X shutdown.
Second, I have not yet found a way to disable the internal LCD. I can set it as the secondary display, but that means I can still accidentally drag stuff onto it, some things don't cope well with dual monitors (especially when I can't see one of them), etc. I could put them in "mirrored" mode, but unfortunately, OS X is too smart for that: It knows the internal LCD's limitations, which means the max resolution for any monitor I try to plug in that way will be 1440x900 (I think), even though my desktop monitor is 1600x1200. Also, it screws up the aspect ratio (desktop monitor is 4:3, laptop monitor is widescreen).
Third, I already have a 1.8 ghz amd64 desktop with 2 gigs of RAM, why would I want a 1.67 ghz 32-bit ppc with 1 gig (I think, or is it 512)? I suppose it would be nice to deploy OS X apps on, but if I ever have something big enough that I insist on testing it on OS X myself, I may also be in a position to either raise money for a dev machine or demand one from Apple.
And finally, the hard drive has bad sectors, meaning it's probably time to replace it.
Now, what might be possible: Plug in TV-out cable, find a way to install Linux while blind (so I can ssh in and custom-configure X to only use the TV out), instant cool'n'quiet replacement for Xbox Linux for watching YouTube etc on the TV. Only not quite so instant, and I'd still rather have a working laptop, so one of these days, I'm going to open it up and try to fix it myself.
My guess is, speed would be the problem. If it's anything like par2, the recovery process takes too long to do in realtime; therefore, only useful if you were allowed to burn a backup copy (and if it was economically feasible to do so).
Right. I can. But I cannot disable the LCD. Can I?
Shameless plug; I work for this company.
Thaddeus Computing will buy your Used Handheld, refurbish it, and sell it. Some of these do give me a sort of "They don't make 'em like this anymore" feeling -- little DOS handhelds that are faster than modern PocketPCs because, although they run at 3 mhz tops, DOS doesn't have to do as much as Windows Mobile does.
Right now, I've borrowed an HP Jornada 720 and a wireless card. It comes with Windows CE, but I run a distro based on Debian ARM on it.
And that's where I find things like this brick to be stupid -- why go out of your way to allow an x86 OS to run on it when you can just port the OS? I guess if you're locked into the Windows world, that's a problem, but with source code available to so many things I depend on, it really can be as simple as "just recompile it". Hell, I could even run Firefox on this thing, if I liked pain (Firefox doesn't play nice with 32 megs of RAM...)
Yeah, because Second Life is the pinnacle of character design. Not.
You'd expect the open-sourcing to make it better, but I haven't heard anything promising.
You know what? Wake me up when they look better than Final Fantasy characters.
I have a spoiled rich kid friend who has a nice Xeon server that we set up in his mom's basement. We hold small LAN parties there -- 8-10 people.
So, locally, we have no lag. People over the Internet can still connect and play with us, but we all have pings of 0-5, and a few of us have admin rights.
Personally, I don't think it's as fun to give someone a bad review on Xbox Live as to pimp-slap them around the map for swearing -- or turn them into a Llama (so everything they say gets turned into random textual and auditory sound effects). Or take that camper -- you can give them a bad case of gas, so you can hear them farting from 20-30 feet away.
Find a good server that does that to the morons, and especially if it's a dedicated, 24/7 Linux server, you can bookmark it and always come back to it. Xbox Live, last I tried, was probably 50% "bridging", so if you bridge yourself (ensuring you only hook up with legit people), it can take 5-10 minutes to find a game. And you can't immediately go back into the same game -- when the round is over, you go back into Matchmaking, and you may or may not get someone with a good server. Counter-Strike? Bookmark a good server and stay there for hours. Good != popular, btw -- just has to have enough people to play.
Or have a clan and a clan server. Guaranteed to always have good ping, and always have a slot, and always challenging opponents to play against.
Oh, and Steam does actually have a fair number of games, they're just mostly small-ish ones.
But then, I don't play this kind of game often enough to care that much, and when I do, it's that LAN party.
I have to ask. Congress is obviously not particularly technically inclined (tubes, anyone?), so to them, electronic document == MS Word.
If we could force them to use text files, this would be much easier. Diff, etc, even graphical 3-way diffs have been written, but all assume you're dealing with text. They could basically learn the systems we've been using for decades, and we could easily show riders as "patches". Might even be nice to have a Benevolent Dictator who could reject those patches out of hand, but then, it's not as easy to fork a government as it is a kernel...
Ok, I'll bite.
How is this better than Steam? What features does it have that Steam doesn't already do, better?
If you're going to bend over for a large company trying to build a game network, it may as well be a game company.
Then again, Valve is a bunch of former MS guys. They might just bend over -- not because MS is forcing them, but because they like it.
Actually, I strongly suspect Valve would cooperate with them. After all, what reason did they have for making Source run on DirectX -- especially when it's a fork of the original Half-Life code, which did run well on OpenGL -- other than because the company was founded by a bunch of ex-Microsoft guys?
Blizzard would certainly say "Fuck you, MS, if they're paying anyone, it's us." But Valve might just bend over because they like it.
So, you're telling me it will go something like this:
Employee: You might be insecure!
Boss: You're overreacting. We're fine.
Some time later...
Boss: Well, shit, we got 0wned. Employee!
Employee: Yes?
Boss: You knew we were vulnerable?
Employee: Yeah...
Boss: And you didn't do anything?
Employee: I tried, but...
Boss: You're fired! You'll never work in this industry again!
How does this make sense, even to the boss? I mean, shouldn't it go differently? Maybe like this:
Just after they get 0wned...
Boss: Employee!
Employee: Yes?
Boss: You knew we were vulnerable?
Employee: Yeah...
Boss: Wow, you know your shit after all! Here, have a promotion!
Employee: Thanks! Oh, by the way, our mailservers are acting as open relays. Want me to fix them?
Boss: Make it so!
To be fair, if the security is that bad to begin with, I don't imagine you'd be lucky enough to have a sane, intelligent, fair boss. However, you might at least have a chance suing said boss for firing you over his own mistake...
Much easier to secure a bunch of Linux desktops that only have to run Firefox to access Google Apps than a bunch of Windows desktops...
Easier to manage, too, I'd imagine. You could have them all be net bootable, and if that's too slow, you could cache them localy (fscache/cachefs).
When you find something non-conductive enough, you could actually just fill the entire case with it -- or just drop your whole computer into a tank of non-conductive oil. I always loved the idea, and was never brave enough to actually try it, but it seems like a much easier solution than water-cooling.
By this I mean, Apple doesn't deliver a general-purpose machine. Microsoft does. As much as I think Windows sucks, I have to admit, it sucks about the same for everything I could possibly want to do with it.
OS X, however, is absolutely awesome as long as I'm doing exactly what Apple wants me to do... and as soon as I step outside that, it could be awesome, and it could be worse than Windows. Simple example: Tried remapping the keybindings for Expose -- I like what F9 does on my Powerbook, but F9 is mapped to keyboard brightness controls, and fn-F9 is annoying -- anyway, mapped it to Command-Semicolon, which works great (especially on Dvorak), except that OS X cannot remember this key combination across reboots.
Sent a bug report. They sent me an email back saying that it was a known issue, and they were working on it -- and attached an NDA to that email. I hope I don't get sued for showing Slashdotters an Apple trade secret -- it's been almost a year since I reported that, and to my knowledge, they still haven't fixed a simple keymap problem.
I've run into all kinds of similar, strange little problems -- some even deliberate. Take QuickTime -- viewing a video fullscreen is a "pro" feature, which is why I used VLC almost exclusively on that machine. Then there's things like Software Update -- great for updating your Apple products, but won't update anything else, and there aren't any decent package managers.
Nothing was more illuminating than when it broke. The screen just went dead. Further experimentation suggests that the backlight is dead, and when the room illumination is just right, I can sort of see where a window is.
I know the machine still works, because aside from that window, and being able to SSH in, I have hooked it up (via DVI) to my desktop monitor, and that works. However, I cannot set the desktop as a primary monitor -- I can either "mirror" the laptop display, making a nice little 1440x900 display in the middle of my 1600x1200 monitor, or I can make it span (a dual-monitor setup), using the full resolution of my desktop, but having half my display (the laptop monitor) completely dead. It also makes reinstalls pretty useless, as I haven't been able to get the desktop monitor to work with any boot CD I've tried, including the OS X install DVDs.
And unfortunately, OS X knows exactly what resolution each monitor can handle. So no setting the mirrored display to 1600x1200 -- it won't go over what it knows the (dead) laptop monitor can handle.
Anyway, first thing I did was check my AppleCare account that I assumed I had. I put the serial number into the AppleCare website... and didn't have an account. Hmm, odd... So, next time I was in a city with an Apple store (I live in rural Iowa), I took it to a Genius bar... and discovered I really didn't have an account, and it'd cost me some $200 to even have it looked at. Apparently, AppleCare is designed to be sold as a separate product, but you must then register it to your Mac over the phone or internet.
Fair enough, but goddamned annoying. I dug up the AppleCare CD and used it to check my system for other problems while I got online and registered my Powerbook. Then I called Apple again, explained the problem, also mentioning a bad sector found by the AppleCare CD. They sent me a box -- next-day air or something, a beautifully-designed one-size-fits-any-Macbook box, with absolutely everything included. Tear off the address label and there's return postage there. Even nice little strips of tape inside the box, not to mention a piece of foam with perforations for every Macbook or Powerbook ever made -- tear it off on the right line and my Powerbook fit perfectly.
Apple is amazing when you're inside-the-box.
Mailed it off to them, and they called my cell phone a bit later and left me a voicemail, telling me they had determined it was "accidental damage", and not covered by my $240 AppleCare plan. I called them up and explained -- well, yes, I had dropped the machine a full year earlier, and that
But in all honesty, RealPlayer is just your fault for letting that shit on your system. My Windows-loving, open-source-mocking friends actually discovered VLC before I did, and one of the reasons they tell me is "RealPlayer behaves like a virus."
To be fair, your first two issues probably also exist on Linux. Evolution really is that bad.
I remember at one point people were tracking down various performance issues with Reiser4. Now, Reiser4 fsync performance sucks balls, although that really isn't a huge issue with most of what I use it for. But nothing makes it look worse than crap like Evolution -- case in point -- resizing the columns. As you drag, it does its opaque/animation thing, so you're dragging it 5-10 pixels at a time, and the window and all the data is resizing itself as you drag it. Which is fine, but Evolution decided to not only save that to your configuration (presumably gconf?), not only flush that configuration out to a file immediately, but fsync it out to disk.
Yes, Evolution was worried that you'd lose power halfway through resizing a column and wanted to make sure everything was exactly where you left it!
Just what, exactly, do they expect Google to do with YouTube? Screen submissions by hand?
It reduces noise by blurring. It does NOT add detail that wasn't there in the first place.
I realize you're most likely joking, but I really am sick of people making this mistake. Just because you can "enhance" an image does not mean that any piece of software can be fucking psychic.
Ok, being online is now meaningless, except perhaps to get updates. So what about the network preferences?
Ah, so it's not enough that it's a preference that is used by every Application, it must also be a preference that doesn't mention any specific application?
That seems to me an arbitrary decision, as arbitrary as claiming "Internet Explorer is part of Windows". (Not as sinister, just as stupid.)
Which, by the way, is NOT done from within a text editor, if I remember -- it's done from the properties of a particular file, which seems an equally brain-dead way to do it, but is at least via a mechanism that I'd call part of the OS (Finder) rather than requiring me to fire up a text editor to set the default text editor.
Well, why does "satanic" have to be "bad" here? We can make it about other deities if it makes you more comfortable, but let me run with this for a bit...
Suppose, for a moment, that God and Satan are roughly equal, like Greek or Roman gods. God rules the sky and Satan rules underground. But suppose Hell really isn't Hell -- it's very hot, but reports of "eternal torment" have been greatly exaggerated. And suppose Heaven really isn't Heaven -- it's above the clouds and the angels play, but the harp music is really like eternal elevator muzak. You can fly, but you have to fly, you have to spend an eternity flapping your wings really hard to hold yourself up there in the thin air...
In other words, suppose that God and Satan are equally good, but eternally at war with each other. Why be so quick to choose a side?
Oh, but you're going to quote the Bible at me. Don't; it's extremely biased and it still makes God look cruel in many places.
Really, no display of power would convince me, and certainly not an aging, mistranslated account of a man, written a hundred years or so after his death.
Interesting, maybe, in the context of the scripture. But it takes awhile before I really trust another human. What makes God so great that you trust him without ever having met him?
You're right about one thing: I should judge anything "divine" by its actions and not merely by its power, or its displays of power. But that means I would have to know Jesus personally for years -- and I don't mean in the pamphlet way ("Would you like to know Jesus personally? Just pray with us...") -- no, I mean actually go out for coffee with him, work with him, play a game with him. Jesus -- or God, or any deity -- would have to gain my trust in that way, and then, it would be trust and friendship, maybe love, but not worship.
Hinted at, didn't quite say. But then, you haven't addressed the rest of my list, either.
What's an "application preference", as opposed to a "system preference"?
This would make sense if, for instance, I set the default web browser for opening links out of email from within Thunderbird, and had it only apply to Thunderbird. But that would also be a poor choice.
And a default browser doesn't? Or is it that it's a per-user preference, and doesn't necessarily govern the whole system? In which case, what about screensaver settings and such -- why are they in System Preferences?
Or again, if he was Satan, trying to con people into following him by being "good" for awhile. Bit like a protection racket.
Or, if the paralytic was an agent of Satan, who had been punished by God.
I'm not trying to say that Jesus is evil, or that God is, I'm just saying you have to admit the possibility. And don't expect to prove the Bible's authenticity by quoting the Bible -- I know that's not what you're doing here, just fair warning.
Let's say someone does walk on water, turn water into wine, multiply bread, and so on.
Well, can't Lucifer do all those things? If he can't, how do we know?
If a God or a Jesus did start to show me miracles and claim divinity, I'd give them a chance, but I certainly wouldn't worship them right away. Worship is something I don't do -- not to anyone on Earth today, and I'm not sure I would to someone in Heaven. And again, where is the proof, really? Maybe it's all a dream and I'll wake up soon. Maybe this God is evil. It could be any number of things.
Where can there ever be proof? That is, I think, one of the points of agnosticism (versus atheism) -- if God is impossible to disprove, he's equally impossible to prove.
There's a bit of stubbornness there, but I do believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and actually benevolent God wouldn't eternally damn me for a bit of healthy skepticism.
And by the way, I imagine if I really believed in the consequences of rejecting God, I probably would not reject him. (Probably. Better to rule in Hell...) But once again, that would be difficult to prove. I could kneel and pray, but I doubt I could believe.