This is the first I've heard of copy protection being installed through autorun on Mac OS, but yes, there is autorun. In fact there was a worm that spread this way a couple years back.
You can disable it in QuickTime preferences on both OS X and OS 9. That's one of the first things I do on any new system.
...either beg the developer to turn the old version of Pinstripe into a separate one, or change the new one yourself.
But your chances are zero-to-none of getting the old icons back as default. Take a look at this bug report: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=246771 (not a link because linking from/. is disallowed).
The Firefox 0.9 theme is Pinstripe. It's exactly the same except for the 4 buttons brought over to keep the UI similar across the various platforms. Since the "new" theme is really still the old theme, I wouldn't hold my breath about getting the old one back. Maybe you could convince the developer to release "Pinstrip Classic" or something.
The problem is that Firefox files used to be stored in ~/Library/Firefox, but now they're in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox. Unfortunately, it doesn't even try to keep the old profile.
So the solution is to just start Firefox up once and let it make you a new profile. Then move the bookmarks.html file from your old profile to the new one.
I don't think speed is really an issue here, and since OS X is multiuser by design he wouldn't have to buy any 3rd party software.
And regarding IE... yes, it was updated fairly recently, but it is done. Dead. If any further problems are found, he's stuck. Not to mention the fact that IE for Mac is slow as molasses and doesn't block popups.
Given that the kids probably won't be playing games on this machine, I think OS X is the best solution. I set up a rev. B iMac (233MHz!) running OS X for my parents when I left for college, and it ran acceptably for them right up until it croaked earlier this year.
You think poor peasants are buying computers at all, much less Apple computers? It's the growing middle class that are being targeted here, not the desperately poor.
Also, though I haven't RTFA, I haven't seen anyone saying that the music store will be available in China. iTunes preinstall != music store access.
I don't know if Windows has something similar to this, but I find Caps Lock very useful in Mac OS X for switching between Japanese and English inputs. I can be typing in English, hit Caps Lock, and instantly type in Japanese. To switch back, I just release Caps Lock. The specific behavior is customizable in the Kotoeri (the Japanese input method) preferences.
Caps Lock acts similarly in the Chinese (Simp. and Trad.) input methods, but the behavior is not configurable as of 10.3.4.
Maybe you were being facetious, but there is no way you saved 10GB by getting rid of extra languages. Maybe 1GB, but not 10. And the receipts left by a default install of OS X weigh in at less than 100MB.
Nevermind, I just figured it out. "Manchukuo" is the Chinese word for Japan-occupied Manchuria, written in the old romanization system (Wade-Giles?). The modern spelling (pinyin) would be "manzhouguo." Isn't Chinese romanization confusing?
I've seen Japan-occupied Manchuria referred to as "Manchukuo" before, but there is no "kuo" character in Japanese (though it's possible to spell it phonetically). The Japanese word for "Manchuria" is "manshuu" and Japan-occupied Manchuria is "manshuukoku" ("koku" is "country"). So is "Manchukuo" a bastardization of the spelling or something? What is the deal?
OpenOffice should run fine. It will also run with OSX using apple's X11, but not natively under Aqua.
Actually, the current preferred implementation is called NeoOffice/J. It uses Java to make OO.o act much more like a native Aqua app. The GUI still looks out-of-place, but it supports native fonts and printing, standard OS X keyboard shortcuts, OS X's various foreign language input methods (like Japanese), double-clickable files, and is self-contained as a.app package.
So what would you suggest? Physical constants like h, the gravitational constant, or the permittivity of free space (epsilon-naught)? But what about the units, man! Who's to say they have meters, seconds, Coulombs, and etc? Any physical constant could be equal to 1 given the right units.
OS X has excellent Asian language support. More specifically, I should say that I use Japanese and Traditional and Simplified Chinese. I run my system entirely in Japanese, and can switch between Japanese and Chinese inputs on the fly in any app with ease. The only apps that have problems are poorly ported ones (*cough* MS Office *cough*).
Office for OS X supports vertical text. There is no support for vertical text in HTML that I know of, so of course you've never seen a vertical-text webpage.
I work for the physics department at UW-Madison, and we use lots of Macs. We use Linux and Windows boxes, too, but the professors and grad students are constantly on the Macs. People seemed pretty excited about the G5s.
Slashdot Mirror
...oh, wait
This is the first I've heard of copy protection being installed through autorun on Mac OS, but yes, there is autorun. In fact there was a worm that spread this way a couple years back.
You can disable it in QuickTime preferences on both OS X and OS 9. That's one of the first things I do on any new system.
Come on, people, let's get our vocabulary straight. "On the verge of x" would be before x. A more accurate phrase would be "on the heels of."
...either beg the developer to turn the old version of Pinstripe into a separate one, or change the new one yourself.
1 (not a link because linking from /. is disallowed).
But your chances are zero-to-none of getting the old icons back as default. Take a look at this bug report: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24677
The Firefox 0.9 theme is Pinstripe. It's exactly the same except for the 4 buttons brought over to keep the UI similar across the various platforms. Since the "new" theme is really still the old theme, I wouldn't hold my breath about getting the old one back. Maybe you could convince the developer to release "Pinstrip Classic" or something.
The problem is that Firefox files used to be stored in ~/Library/Firefox, but now they're in ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox. Unfortunately, it doesn't even try to keep the old profile.
So the solution is to just start Firefox up once and let it make you a new profile. Then move the bookmarks.html file from your old profile to the new one.
...is that he's really one-upped the other guy since it's (Omega + 1)!, as in (Omega + 1) factorial.
I don't think speed is really an issue here, and since OS X is multiuser by design he wouldn't have to buy any 3rd party software.
And regarding IE... yes, it was updated fairly recently, but it is done. Dead. If any further problems are found, he's stuck. Not to mention the fact that IE for Mac is slow as molasses and doesn't block popups.
Given that the kids probably won't be playing games on this machine, I think OS X is the best solution. I set up a rev. B iMac (233MHz!) running OS X for my parents when I left for college, and it ran acceptably for them right up until it croaked earlier this year.
You can switch iTMS accounts by clicking the button in the upper right-hand corner, labeled "Account." That seems pretty simple to me.
You think poor peasants are buying computers at all, much less Apple computers? It's the growing middle class that are being targeted here, not the desperately poor.
Also, though I haven't RTFA, I haven't seen anyone saying that the music store will be available in China. iTunes preinstall != music store access.
I don't know if Windows has something similar to this, but I find Caps Lock very useful in Mac OS X for switching between Japanese and English inputs. I can be typing in English, hit Caps Lock, and instantly type in Japanese. To switch back, I just release Caps Lock. The specific behavior is customizable in the Kotoeri (the Japanese input method) preferences.
Caps Lock acts similarly in the Chinese (Simp. and Trad.) input methods, but the behavior is not configurable as of 10.3.4.
Maybe you were being facetious, but there is no way you saved 10GB by getting rid of extra languages. Maybe 1GB, but not 10. And the receipts left by a default install of OS X weigh in at less than 100MB.
Nevermind, I just figured it out. "Manchukuo" is the Chinese word for Japan-occupied Manchuria, written in the old romanization system (Wade-Giles?). The modern spelling (pinyin) would be "manzhouguo." Isn't Chinese romanization confusing?
I've seen Japan-occupied Manchuria referred to as "Manchukuo" before, but there is no "kuo" character in Japanese (though it's possible to spell it phonetically). The Japanese word for "Manchuria" is "manshuu" and Japan-occupied Manchuria is "manshuukoku" ("koku" is "country"). So is "Manchukuo" a bastardization of the spelling or something? What is the deal?
Congratulations. That made zero sense.
OpenOffice should run fine. It will also run with OSX using apple's X11, but not natively under Aqua.
Actually, the current preferred implementation is called NeoOffice/J. It uses Java to make OO.o act much more like a native Aqua app. The GUI still looks out-of-place, but it supports native fonts and printing, standard OS X keyboard shortcuts, OS X's various foreign language input methods (like Japanese), double-clickable files, and is self-contained as a .app package.
So what would you suggest? Physical constants like h, the gravitational constant, or the permittivity of free space (epsilon-naught)? But what about the units, man! Who's to say they have meters, seconds, Coulombs, and etc? Any physical constant could be equal to 1 given the right units.
DRM is not inherent in the AAC spec. I have thousands of AACs with nary a bit of DRM code on them, all ripped legally from my own CDs.
For the billionth time, AAC is a standard! And you use it exactly as you would any other format, including MP3.
http://www.aac-audio.com/
http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/
OS X has excellent Asian language support. More specifically, I should say that I use Japanese and Traditional and Simplified Chinese. I run my system entirely in Japanese, and can switch between Japanese and Chinese inputs on the fly in any app with ease. The only apps that have problems are poorly ported ones (*cough* MS Office *cough*).
It's "romaji," not "romanji." You learn it.
Right, because it sucks entering 32 digits now.
Office for OS X supports vertical text. There is no support for vertical text in HTML that I know of, so of course you've never seen a vertical-text webpage.
I work for the physics department at UW-Madison, and we use lots of Macs. We use Linux and Windows boxes, too, but the professors and grad students are constantly on the Macs. People seemed pretty excited about the G5s.