And if such a download is successful, he's still not the one making the illegal copy. His copy is still legal; it's the downloader without whose action a new copy would not have been made making the illegal copy. But therein lies the issue - the downloader didn't do anything illegal.... He didn't distribute. Otherwise, the RIAA could create web pages galore all over with misleading titles and everyone who hit one would be in court for "copyright" violations.
But all that aside, I like the concept of bringing copyright back down to reasonable terms. I would have been happy with the original 14 years with registration, but 5 as a punitive action works for me too.:)
Intersting points as well. Perhaps I over-simplified the statement a tad? Without getting into a multi-page monologue (boring) let's say that "freedom" without privacy really isn't freedom, and privacy without freedom, well, I'm not sure you'd really have any. Given that, privacy is perhaps a necessary requirement for freedom.
Freedom certainly is more quantifiable and easier to defend. But privacy is really no more difficult, as it can in most instances be quantified as "freedom" (e.g., I have papers in my home I wish to remain private. My freedom to move in my house as desired and be free of others usurping my freedoms in my home are easily defendable, thus is my right to keep my papers private.
Obviously there are clauses in law to curtail both cases of "freedom" above.
Privacy is like Freedom: It is not granted, it is earned.
If you need a locksmith to open your safe, you can't expect him to overlook the dead body inside. No. It is taken and exercised, and fought for if needed. It's interesting that you chose freedom as an object for comparison, as privacy is freedom. You'd be hard pressed to have freedom without privacy in reality.
Ripping a DVD that I paid for is breaking the law. I'm not so sure. Since DeCSS predates DMCA, it's grandfathered in, and the entire process is not illegal. If you should distribute it, that's a different story.
Downloading a CD that got scratched is breaking the law. No - downloading is not breaking the law. Uploading (distributing) is.
This is where we start to understand that our species has performed a fantastic "power breakthrough" when domesticating fossil fuels : with 1 euro (which is about 1 dollar, Wall Street specialist will excuse me to concentrate on magnitudes), I can buy 1 litre of petrol (or gas), that contains about 10 kWh of energy, which is about the equivalent of two "slaves" working for a full day. And oil would be expensive ?
So you're saying if I got two of these "slaves" and work them all day, they'd move my SUV 15 miles through mountainous terrain?
Guess what? We use the same Tuesday cycle for Mac and Linux patches. So what does Apple's "when it's ready" release process buy us? More time for the script kiddies to reverse-engineer the patch and exploit the vulnerability. Sounds like more whining than wanting to deal with a potentially important fix.
If it's important, you check it now, if it's not, it's pushed to the regular update. Considering the number of 0 day exploits on Windows vs Macs....
I'd buy the downloads only if they're DRM free, and lossless, because there's lots of artists that only have one or two songs that I like, and I would only want to buy those particular selections. One great example of such a one hit wonder is Melt with You, by Modern English. The rest of that album will make you pierce your eardrums. Or Chumbawumba's Tub-Thumping - the rest of the album serves as an incentive to push EMOs over the edge.
People be all acting like Vista is the worst thing ever. It is not. It is not even the worst thing released this year. Why yes, yes it is.
Office is 10x worse. The "ribbon" interface is horrible. It went from usable and known to clunky and confusing. I hate it. It would be a good package otherwise. Except for the other MS product: Office. Vista is still worse, however.
...I often see 30+ days of uptime which was previously something I only experienced on solaris/linux/bsd machines... P.S. I'm not an MS fanboy nor an MS apologist, I just call them like I see them. I am a professional Solaris/Linux system administrator with over a decade of nearly exclusive use of linux. I think that the bolded section speaks for itself.
I've had 6-9 months of uptime on an XP system that I frequently connect external drives to and even (gasp) connected my Dish HD to. (That would be a proprietary file format read by a nifty piece of software called PVRExplorer). I cut and edited the resulting "non-standard" MPGs and created DVDs. I ripped my entire CD collection during this time period. I also scanned hundreds of photos via an Epson printer and edited them. So I can safely say I abused my system. It also is set to go into S3 sleep mode.
XP can be made to run very stably, you just need to disable services like the server service and all its dependents, windows update, and a few other ones. Disable Themes, and you get the Win2K interface, which will make it snappier to boot. It will also give you a more secure system, although none of this addresses the hole that is IE, you'll need to drop in another browser to partially fix that one.
Italy was part of the Axis countries in WWII, and Austria's position is questionable, since it was largely willingly "annexed". I forget exactly where Spain sat during WWII and am too lazy to look it up.
And at the risk of huge downward moderation, don't forget that without the help of those other Allies, the pesky Russians, odds are that Germany would not have been defeated. It was the Russians, after all, that liberated Berlin, which they could not have done without the US's involvement.
the only thing xp seems to be good at are notebooks, with the energy options and improved wireless in sp2. That would explain the consistent problems of putting a Dell into sleep mode or out of it. Even with the power management on the wireless adapter turned off (not the default) it still hangs frequently enough to be a serious annoyance. I've heard, thought not experienced, that Vista is no better.
If you turn off several services on XP (Themes, server, remote registry, zero wireless config if you don't need it) XP actually will run quite well.
Well, in my neck of the woods: Mac Book Pro: $1999 US.
Dell 830 Latitude as close as possible (but lacking): $1468 (hey, changed one option and the price dropped over $230!!! Dell's instant savings, gotta love it) Dell 4300 (still lacking): $1848
This would be for a 15.4" screen, 1440X900 on Mac vs 1680 X 1050 on Dells, because an 1280 x 800 screen is wholly too low rez. Using Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz CPUs, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB HDs, although the 4300 did come with a 7200 rpm drive. However, the Mac comes with an 8X DVD +- R DL drive, while the Dells only come with 8X DVD +-RW drives. Macs have backlit keyboards. Macs are lighter, by quite a bit. Macs have longer battery life. Macs don't take up their expansion slot with the bluetooth adapter. Macs come with the latest OS. Dells come with 6 year old XP, or some basic Vista. Want the full package, there's another $50. Oh, and you won't be able to transfer that license.
Then there's the slew of software that comes with a mac in working condition, but we'll discount it. So, essentially, does a clunky Dell weighing 20% more with less battery life for the same or lower capability components with the exception of possibly a faster HD and most likely additional software purchases (AV comes to mind) make the differential worth it? (This was actually about a maximum of $300 until the mystical $230+ extra savings by changing an option - I'll give that to Dell, their specials are sometimes really really good, even if unadvertised and hard to find.)
So yes, I'll agree you can buy the parts for up to $500 less if you discount the software. Here's a question though - how much is it worth to open your Mac when you get it, start working in under 2 minutes, and just shut the lid and walk away? (Hint, this is impossible on a Dell, at least if it's shipped with XP. Why? Because the XP configuration, besides taking almost 2 minutes to boot the initial time, also comes pre-configured with the wireless driver set to power management mode on, which will more than likely hang your machine either going into or coming out of sleep, so you'll be doing lots of rebooting. There's other gotchas, and the fact that you cannot connect to mail (well, I suppose you could "try" Outlook Express - better have some AV software installed. Want to browse? Better have Anti-spyware installed, or download another browser. Want to load images from cameras... better load some software. Want to edit them, better load some more software. Want to display them in a photobook? Yep, more software. Want to do some DV editing... it's a tired refrain. Scanning? Printing? Attach a mouse or HD? (Yes, the latter two will almost always work without installing anything, but the untutored user wouldn't know that based on the information shown, and who's going to help him if autorun runs on that HD?) And unless things have changed with the latest model bump @ Dell, the laptops still don't have a DVI port.
Anyways, I'll give you the $500 difference with the caveats that some of the hardware is inferior, the packaging crude and much heavier with poorer performance in portable modes. Basically, I'm saying Dell doesn't have a matching laptop even in just specs anymore. 6 months ago the only difference between a Dell and a MBP was a 7200 vs 5400 rpm drive in the hardware specs, and the Dell came out $200 more, and was still heavier and had poorer battery life. It seems Dell's heading for the bottom in hardware to undercut the price. I'm ok with that. It might also explain why Dell's market cap is 52B while Apple's is 166B.
It really comes down to this: you can shop for your kid's toys at walmart and get made in china toys laced with lead, or you can pay 5% more at someplace other than walmart or toys r us, and get the "same" toy, slightly better, not made in china and not laced with lead or toxins. And look, it comes with an accessory!
I think purely looking at pennies isn't going to work anymore. There's more to consider than pure hardware performance specs, as laptops in particular have quite a few other attributes that factor in. And then there's the suite of applications.
In June, a Dell comparably equipped to a MacBook Pro was $500 more.
Your colloquial evidence doesn't trump my colloquial evidence. I can state, however, that I only know a single person that's using Vista currently, and it's against his desires. He's also lazy. Even so, he's started the process of searching for the necessary drivers for XP that were missing on his first install attempt. That's out of hundreds, if not thousands, of people (I'm counting colleagues at work as well).
I downloaded OOo 2.3. I was surprised at how well it worked, and I no longer have a copy of MS Office on any of my machines.
Why you'd want 30 JPGs in a word document befuddles me. Perhaps desktop publishing solutions are what you're really after? I have several, but they all run on a mac, and they certainly don't even notice 30 JPGs. Word remains without a doubt only second to Excel as the most inappropriate application for whatever task it is set to. Well, maybe that's an understatement, Word is inappropriate to any task. It can't even format text correctly and consistently for printing. That would be a GDI issue that still remains unless you print to PS or get a plugin to convert it to PDF. Word itself is an utter failure in every way, and the new interface sucks beyond description. I'd rather relearn WordPerfect hotkeys than Word's new interface, because at least with the former I gain something, all I get with Word is a new inefficient way of doing things with the same old bad results.
I still care. Why should I be in a system? Why should they know I bought 'X' at 'Y'? What business is it of theirs?
Ask the German Jews about government lists and documents. I'm sure they'll enlighten you, should you happen to be able to find one.
The car reference was tangential, but yes, they can tell if you've been in an accident.
You fail to address the main point though, that only people that legally acquire software are subject to these processes. Pirates, the very people that this is meant to stop, are never affected.
I choose not to give that info out. It's none of their business. Just like the marketer that called today wanting to "give" me something. I gave my business address, and he wanted email/phone too - gave him the central phone # and said no thanks to the email address, I don't need more junk mail, there'll be enough ads in the mag.
As for cars - I won't buy a GM car with OnStar precisely because I don't want to be monitored. If you think you're not, you're an idiot. I guarantee toll tags and cell phones can get you monitored as well, and who knows wtf cell phone companies are reporting back these days. Toll tags I know they monitor, because they have a list of times/locations for your tags online.
Which brings us back to software, pirates don't worry about these things, because they don't apply to them. Here's a news flash for you - they use cracked software/removed DRM/whatever. These annoying worrisome things don't apply to them. They only apply to legal users.
I'll leave the rest for you to figure out based on that last paragraph.
I do have mod points, but chose to reply instead. You're obviously young, or your memory's gone. In 1980, MS barely existed, there was no Windows, heck, there wasn't even a DOS, and Apple was the big boy on the block. UNIX was never intended for the masses, at least at that time. You're thinking (if you're thinking at all) of Mini Computers that were things that you needed a couple of forklifts to move.
Then we get to Compaq, which didn't exist until 82, and didn't have a machine until mid-83. There were many clones out on the market by 83, as I should know since I owned a Blackship Technologies 286 clone. About the only thing you got right in this statement is the effect of the clones on the market, and the fact that Compaq had the first legally cloned BIOS. As for PC clones being cheap, well, last time I checked, $3+K in the early/mid 80s was anything but cheap.
What we really have is the following timelines: 76 - 80: Apple - great computer 81 - 83: IBM PC - cheaper computer with tinkerer potential 83 - 87: PC Clone wars - IBM loses 87 - 93: MS rises to dominance via exclusive OEM licenses with all the major clone vendors 93 - 99: Dell rises. MS uses exclusive OEM licenses, purchase cycles, and 2 key upgrades to lock in a monopoly in both OS and Office 97 - 99: MS uses OEM licenses to bury netscape and gain the web 00 - 04: Dell peaks 00 - 01: MS peaks 99 - 03: Sun peaks 00 - 04: Linux begins serious inroads into network infrastructure, doing menial tasks such as DNS and firewalls. 03 - 05: Macs become really usable 05 - --: Linux becomes a suitable candidate for the entire data center. 06 - --: Macs switch to Intel, become about the best $ for performance laptops you can buy. 07: MS hits a new low with Vista, opening the door for Macs and Linux 07: MS screws up user interfaces with a totally new look that's received as well as news that you've won a 5 month trip to Siberia, starting in November.... 07: Linux, in the form of Ubuntu, actually becomes a viable competitor for the user desktop. 07: OOo becomes a viable competitor for Office
This leaves out a lot, but covers some of the major players. While Compaqs were big hits with large companies that previously were used to IBM pricing and equipment restrictions, they blew big hairy chunks with the consumers that were looking for PCs. I never met a consumer that liked Compaq. I also never met a business person that liked Compaq that I really respected, it always seemed like a clone of the "you can't be fired for buying IBM" gang. (all puns intended)
So, MS really didn't do much of anything for the computing world, other than convince a lot of people they did. They did screw it over, that's a fact born out by the detritus of companies that tried to compete in an unlevel playing field. Apple did far more for computing, but it was all prior to 88, until about OSX 10.3. That's when Apple actually got back in the game.
To be honest, probably Sun and Cisco had more positive effects on the computer than any other entities, but it was all via third party additions, and not directly.
As to your last point: *nix doesn't need to find a niche, it already has one. The only thing that really needs to happen is for game developers to support it as well and the last wall will tumble like the Adobe wall in monsoon season. There's only 2 things holding people to MS right now other than marketing: games and MS Office, and the later is really more the perceived need via marketing than a real need. BTW - I work for a company that has everything running on *nix except our desktops... primarily a left over from the last sysadmin and the fact that you could only recently buy non-MS laptops commercially, excepts Macs, which we're only now starting to get. Matter of fact, my last 4 companies all run on *nix of various flavors, and none run production MS servers, with the exception of Exchange if they ran that (and I hate Notes).
More bands should get with the program and opt out of the RIAA as well.
There is Music out there - the RIAA is not interested in music and it is not interested in its customers/victims I think that has started, and is probably the RIAA's biggest nightmare. It started with the Grateful Dead and Phish, and has now been taken up by bands like Radiohead and NIN, once they finally get out of those multi-year multi-album contracts the RIAA made them sign.
I can see more and more bands following suit if the leaders make money.
> OOo can effectively replace Office and Thunderbird can replace Outlook for 95+%
No and no. OO.org has very poor support for interoperability with MS Word documents,...try opening a moderately complex Word document and see what it looks like. Please check what I wrote - 95+% of the people don't use anything other than straight simple Word documents. Those of us that would like some actual typesetting would prefer to use just about anything other than Word. Try setting up page numbering as follows: cover page - no number, TOC/intro - roman numerals i-..., pages of body - 1-x. Just achieving that feat will be beyond 95% of Word users, and that's a pretty normal thing to want to do when writing any kind of report.
Amongst home users, software piracy is also rife,...Even some companies that license their software, are usually running far more copies than they've got licenses for. These companies are stupid. As a company, I wouldn't allow any illegal software, as every illegal copy can cost you upwards of $150K in the US, and the BSA would only be too happy to allow any disgruntled employee to report it with the "promise" of a reward. The risks are far too great to allow illegal copies.
What I never understand about Slashdot, is that most people seem to hate activation and copy protection and yet in the same breath wonder why people don't choose "free" software. Copied software is free too. I DO NOT CONDONE SOFTWARE PIRACY - I'm simply making a point. I hate activation because of several aspects: 1: the company gets some information from me, including the fact that I bought their software. 2: they know everytime I install it, due to whatever reason (failed HD, upgraded system, whatever). 3: should they go out of business or pull an NFL stunt, I'll no longer be able to use the software.
Copy protection is a huge huge topic. It's far more than DRM, which is the current preferred tactic of vendors. They're all a bit of a pain, from the "third word of chapter 4's fifth paragraph" approach to activation to unlock the program. I have a program that I bought in 93 that I just recently found the license key for. This program wasn't important to me, but it is nice to be able to look at it again and see what the state of the art was at the time compared to now.
Thunderbird is an extremely basic email client whick lacks most of the features found in Outlook. That's like saying Wordpad can replace Word. Yes, they both edit text documents but they're hardly comparable! Thunderbird is targetted at home users - not big companies who need to use shared folders, calendars and shared contacts. Again, we're talking the 95% folks here. "Shared folders" are an abomination. Even MS admits as much, which is why Sharepoint came about. You can save yourself typing, I've explored the shared folder concept and managing them is about as pleasant as having to install consumer licensed and activated software on every machine. Shared contacts do not exactly exist, unless you're talking about the Address Book feature, which ties to the directory services. There's also the shared folder contact list, but see the previous statement about why that sucks. Which leaves.... Calendaring. Calendaring used to be quite useful in the early early versions of Outlook/Exchange, but has actually lost usefulness as the issues of security and privacy started raising their heads. The main thing about Outlook's Calendaring is that it is integrated with the email client and has a relatively consistent look and feel. This integration is one (perhaps only?) example of MS actually getting something pretty darn close to right. There's also the iCal standard, but I've yet to use an iCal server/client personally, so I can't say it's a suitable replacement or better solution.
Vista's problem is that it introduces change for no discernible reason, especially in important areas like the UI, which means retraining. Retraining equals new costs that companies are loath to accept. I doubt many companies will switch to Vista because in addition to the training issues, there's the no corporate license issue, which requires a direct link to the MS mothership to activate systems, and gives MS far too much information on local systems. Not all companies will realize this, but I'm betting some small ones like IBM understand the implications all too well, and being that they also support lots of other companies and sell linux systems themselves.... Well, let's just say MS may have totally screwed themselves with Vista.
You can. The problem is education and lack of effort. People are lazy, and if they have to work to get a machine without MS OSes, which is the case, and they have to work to install the better replacement, many people will be too lazy to do either one of those, much less both.
OOo can effectively replace Office and Thunderbird can replace Outlook for 95+% of the populace and they'll never know the difference. That's something that MS knows, and why MS continues to do its damnedest to maintain OEM licensing, besides the fact that their OEM license scheme allows them to reap profit from their code without having to support it. That's right, MS doesn't support your Dell/HP/etc OEM license.
Microsoft will *never* produce a secure system: the user is *not* the customer: the advertising industry is. just as in television, *we* are *not* the customer: *we* are what is for sale, advertising is the customer, tv industry is selling *us* as *audience* to the advertisers That would be television broadcasting/stations/channels/whatever. There are other uses for televisions that do not involve these entities. Commercial DVDs were one avenue, but now you have to rip the ones you buy so you can remove all the UPA advertising BS.
the initial work is already done: the www has injected so much graphics into computer presentaions that hi-speed broad band is now necessary for "surfing". You/the masses need to get with FF and noscript. Not to say there aren't other reasons to have hi-speed internet.
now that that's been done the next step is to combine the web with digital TV and you have the advertising marketing dream come true: television with instantaneous feed-back on what everyone is watching and how everyone is responding to it And how are they going to respond when they notice that every time commercials/ads are shown, they're ignored by certain segments of the population? What are they going to do when live correction of in-frame "popups" like those inane station IDs are removed? How are they even going to be able to tell when it's done post STB?
the ability to adjust your windows programming all along a little here and there is critical to the development and maintenance of this scheme and that is why Microsoft can *never* produce a secure system. Their system provides access to customer computer for paying customers and that includes the ability to modify the client programming ( your computer ). all of this is hidden from everyone except the hackers of course
why do you think we patch and patch and patch and patch and for every patch a new vulnerability shows up? because the patch only moves the remote access capability from one hiding place to another it doesn't remove it. and never will. Interesting extension of the Windows Update client and the Vista DRM disaster, but not wholly incorrect. AT&T's u-Verse product is a Windows CE application that heavily ties back to the server. There are certain customer advantages to server based scheduling of programs, for instance. There are provider advantages to IPTV, such as not needing full streams of everything.
However, the server based information could be stored in a non-provider readable format, and the streams could be done more efficiently via multi-casting, but that latter step would require, at least in AT&T's case, that MS fix their network stack.
I personally will probably return to Dish service, since a non network/phone connected DVR has exactly 0 possibility of reporting back what I watch. And I like it that way. Or maybe I'll just go with OTA HD programming. I don't watch that much TV lately anyways.
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But all that aside, I like the concept of bringing copyright back down to reasonable terms. I would have been happy with the original 14 years with registration, but 5 as a punitive action works for me too.
Intersting points as well. Perhaps I over-simplified the statement a tad? Without getting into a multi-page monologue (boring) let's say that "freedom" without privacy really isn't freedom, and privacy without freedom, well, I'm not sure you'd really have any. Given that, privacy is perhaps a necessary requirement for freedom.
Freedom certainly is more quantifiable and easier to defend. But privacy is really no more difficult, as it can in most instances be quantified as "freedom" (e.g., I have papers in my home I wish to remain private. My freedom to move in my house as desired and be free of others usurping my freedoms in my home are easily defendable, thus is my right to keep my papers private.
Obviously there are clauses in law to curtail both cases of "freedom" above.
But I'm not distributing it, so still no copyright violation.
Only AC MAFIAA shills want to change copyright laws to apply to any copying, instead of distribution.
If you need a locksmith to open your safe, you can't expect him to overlook the dead body inside. No. It is taken and exercised, and fought for if needed. It's interesting that you chose freedom as an object for comparison, as privacy is freedom. You'd be hard pressed to have freedom without privacy in reality.
Seriously, get your facts straight.
It'd be almost 5 miles per liter, and it would do it in about 4 minutes on an open road.
That would essentially be DRM free. :)
If it's important, you check it now, if it's not, it's pushed to the regular update. Considering the number of 0 day exploits on Windows vs Macs....
st give me three points and I'll show you an elephant.
I'd buy the downloads only if they're DRM free, and lossless, because there's lots of artists that only have one or two songs that I like, and I would only want to buy those particular selections. One great example of such a one hit wonder is Melt with You, by Modern English. The rest of that album will make you pierce your eardrums. Or Chumbawumba's Tub-Thumping - the rest of the album serves as an incentive to push EMOs over the edge.
...I often see 30+ days of uptime which was previously something I only experienced on solaris/linux/bsd machinesP.S. I'm not an MS fanboy nor an MS apologist, I just call them like I see them. I am a professional Solaris/Linux system administrator with over a decade of nearly exclusive use of linux. I think that the bolded section speaks for itself.
I've had 6-9 months of uptime on an XP system that I frequently connect external drives to and even (gasp) connected my Dish HD to. (That would be a proprietary file format read by a nifty piece of software called PVRExplorer). I cut and edited the resulting "non-standard" MPGs and created DVDs. I ripped my entire CD collection during this time period. I also scanned hundreds of photos via an Epson printer and edited them. So I can safely say I abused my system. It also is set to go into S3 sleep mode.
XP can be made to run very stably, you just need to disable services like the server service and all its dependents, windows update, and a few other ones. Disable Themes, and you get the Win2K interface, which will make it snappier to boot. It will also give you a more secure system, although none of this addresses the hole that is IE, you'll need to drop in another browser to partially fix that one.
Italy was part of the Axis countries in WWII, and Austria's position is questionable, since it was largely willingly "annexed". I forget exactly where Spain sat during WWII and am too lazy to look it up.
And at the risk of huge downward moderation, don't forget that without the help of those other Allies, the pesky Russians, odds are that Germany would not have been defeated. It was the Russians, after all, that liberated Berlin, which they could not have done without the US's involvement.
If you turn off several services on XP (Themes, server, remote registry, zero wireless config if you don't need it) XP actually will run quite well.
Well, in my neck of the woods: Mac Book Pro: $1999 US.
Dell 830 Latitude as close as possible (but lacking): $1468 (hey, changed one option and the price dropped over $230!!! Dell's instant savings, gotta love it)
Dell 4300 (still lacking): $1848
This would be for a 15.4" screen, 1440X900 on Mac vs 1680 X 1050 on Dells, because an 1280 x 800 screen is wholly too low rez. Using Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz CPUs, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB HDs, although the 4300 did come with a 7200 rpm drive. However, the Mac comes with an 8X DVD +- R DL drive, while the Dells only come with 8X DVD +-RW drives. Macs have backlit keyboards. Macs are lighter, by quite a bit. Macs have longer battery life. Macs don't take up their expansion slot with the bluetooth adapter. Macs come with the latest OS. Dells come with 6 year old XP, or some basic Vista. Want the full package, there's another $50. Oh, and you won't be able to transfer that license.
Then there's the slew of software that comes with a mac in working condition, but we'll discount it. So, essentially, does a clunky Dell weighing 20% more with less battery life for the same or lower capability components with the exception of possibly a faster HD and most likely additional software purchases (AV comes to mind) make the differential worth it? (This was actually about a maximum of $300 until the mystical $230+ extra savings by changing an option - I'll give that to Dell, their specials are sometimes really really good, even if unadvertised and hard to find.)
So yes, I'll agree you can buy the parts for up to $500 less if you discount the software. Here's a question though - how much is it worth to open your Mac when you get it, start working in under 2 minutes, and just shut the lid and walk away? (Hint, this is impossible on a Dell, at least if it's shipped with XP. Why? Because the XP configuration, besides taking almost 2 minutes to boot the initial time, also comes pre-configured with the wireless driver set to power management mode on, which will more than likely hang your machine either going into or coming out of sleep, so you'll be doing lots of rebooting. There's other gotchas, and the fact that you cannot connect to mail (well, I suppose you could "try" Outlook Express - better have some AV software installed. Want to browse? Better have Anti-spyware installed, or download another browser. Want to load images from cameras... better load some software. Want to edit them, better load some more software. Want to display them in a photobook? Yep, more software. Want to do some DV editing... it's a tired refrain. Scanning? Printing? Attach a mouse or HD? (Yes, the latter two will almost always work without installing anything, but the untutored user wouldn't know that based on the information shown, and who's going to help him if autorun runs on that HD?) And unless things have changed with the latest model bump @ Dell, the laptops still don't have a DVI port.
Anyways, I'll give you the $500 difference with the caveats that some of the hardware is inferior, the packaging crude and much heavier with poorer performance in portable modes. Basically, I'm saying Dell doesn't have a matching laptop even in just specs anymore. 6 months ago the only difference between a Dell and a MBP was a 7200 vs 5400 rpm drive in the hardware specs, and the Dell came out $200 more, and was still heavier and had poorer battery life. It seems Dell's heading for the bottom in hardware to undercut the price. I'm ok with that. It might also explain why Dell's market cap is 52B while Apple's is 166B.
It really comes down to this: you can shop for your kid's toys at walmart and get made in china toys laced with lead, or you can pay 5% more at someplace other than walmart or toys r us, and get the "same" toy, slightly better, not made in china and not laced with lead or toxins. And look, it comes with an accessory!
I think purely looking at pennies isn't going to work anymore. There's more to consider than pure hardware performance specs, as laptops in particular have quite a few other attributes that factor in. And then there's the suite of applications.
In June, a Dell comparably equipped to a MacBook Pro was $500 more.
Your colloquial evidence doesn't trump my colloquial evidence. I can state, however, that I only know a single person that's using Vista currently, and it's against his desires. He's also lazy. Even so, he's started the process of searching for the necessary drivers for XP that were missing on his first install attempt. That's out of hundreds, if not thousands, of people (I'm counting colleagues at work as well).
I downloaded OOo 2.3. I was surprised at how well it worked, and I no longer have a copy of MS Office on any of my machines.
Why you'd want 30 JPGs in a word document befuddles me. Perhaps desktop publishing solutions are what you're really after? I have several, but they all run on a mac, and they certainly don't even notice 30 JPGs. Word remains without a doubt only second to Excel as the most inappropriate application for whatever task it is set to. Well, maybe that's an understatement, Word is inappropriate to any task. It can't even format text correctly and consistently for printing. That would be a GDI issue that still remains unless you print to PS or get a plugin to convert it to PDF. Word itself is an utter failure in every way, and the new interface sucks beyond description. I'd rather relearn WordPerfect hotkeys than Word's new interface, because at least with the former I gain something, all I get with Word is a new inefficient way of doing things with the same old bad results.
I still care. Why should I be in a system? Why should they know I bought 'X' at 'Y'? What business is it of theirs?
Ask the German Jews about government lists and documents. I'm sure they'll enlighten you, should you happen to be able to find one.
The car reference was tangential, but yes, they can tell if you've been in an accident.
You fail to address the main point though, that only people that legally acquire software are subject to these processes. Pirates, the very people that this is meant to stop, are never affected.
Obviously, you care little for your privacy.
I choose not to give that info out. It's none of their business. Just like the marketer that called today wanting to "give" me something. I gave my business address, and he wanted email/phone too - gave him the central phone # and said no thanks to the email address, I don't need more junk mail, there'll be enough ads in the mag.
As for cars - I won't buy a GM car with OnStar precisely because I don't want to be monitored. If you think you're not, you're an idiot. I guarantee toll tags and cell phones can get you monitored as well, and who knows wtf cell phone companies are reporting back these days. Toll tags I know they monitor, because they have a list of times/locations for your tags online.
Which brings us back to software, pirates don't worry about these things, because they don't apply to them. Here's a news flash for you - they use cracked software/removed DRM/whatever. These annoying worrisome things don't apply to them. They only apply to legal users.
I'll leave the rest for you to figure out based on that last paragraph.
I do have mod points, but chose to reply instead. You're obviously young, or your memory's gone. In 1980, MS barely existed, there was no Windows, heck, there wasn't even a DOS, and Apple was the big boy on the block. UNIX was never intended for the masses, at least at that time. You're thinking (if you're thinking at all) of Mini Computers that were things that you needed a couple of forklifts to move.
Then we get to Compaq, which didn't exist until 82, and didn't have a machine until mid-83. There were many clones out on the market by 83, as I should know since I owned a Blackship Technologies 286 clone. About the only thing you got right in this statement is the effect of the clones on the market, and the fact that Compaq had the first legally cloned BIOS. As for PC clones being cheap, well, last time I checked, $3+K in the early/mid 80s was anything but cheap.
What we really have is the following timelines:
76 - 80: Apple - great computer
81 - 83: IBM PC - cheaper computer with tinkerer potential
83 - 87: PC Clone wars - IBM loses
87 - 93: MS rises to dominance via exclusive OEM licenses with all the major clone vendors
93 - 99: Dell rises. MS uses exclusive OEM licenses, purchase cycles, and 2 key upgrades to lock in a monopoly in both OS and Office
97 - 99: MS uses OEM licenses to bury netscape and gain the web
00 - 04: Dell peaks
00 - 01: MS peaks
99 - 03: Sun peaks
00 - 04: Linux begins serious inroads into network infrastructure, doing menial tasks such as DNS and firewalls.
03 - 05: Macs become really usable
05 - --: Linux becomes a suitable candidate for the entire data center.
06 - --: Macs switch to Intel, become about the best $ for performance laptops you can buy.
07: MS hits a new low with Vista, opening the door for Macs and Linux
07: MS screws up user interfaces with a totally new look that's received as well as news that you've won a 5 month trip to Siberia, starting in November....
07: Linux, in the form of Ubuntu, actually becomes a viable competitor for the user desktop.
07: OOo becomes a viable competitor for Office
This leaves out a lot, but covers some of the major players. While Compaqs were big hits with large companies that previously were used to IBM pricing and equipment restrictions, they blew big hairy chunks with the consumers that were looking for PCs. I never met a consumer that liked Compaq. I also never met a business person that liked Compaq that I really respected, it always seemed like a clone of the "you can't be fired for buying IBM" gang. (all puns intended)
So, MS really didn't do much of anything for the computing world, other than convince a lot of people they did. They did screw it over, that's a fact born out by the detritus of companies that tried to compete in an unlevel playing field. Apple did far more for computing, but it was all prior to 88, until about OSX 10.3. That's when Apple actually got back in the game.
To be honest, probably Sun and Cisco had more positive effects on the computer than any other entities, but it was all via third party additions, and not directly.
As to your last point: *nix doesn't need to find a niche, it already has one. The only thing that really needs to happen is for game developers to support it as well and the last wall will tumble like the Adobe wall in monsoon season. There's only 2 things holding people to MS right now other than marketing: games and MS Office, and the later is really more the perceived need via marketing than a real need. BTW - I work for a company that has everything running on *nix except our desktops... primarily a left over from the last sysadmin and the fact that you could only recently buy non-MS laptops commercially, excepts Macs, which we're only now starting to get. Matter of fact, my last 4 companies all run on *nix of various flavors, and none run production MS servers, with the exception of Exchange if they ran that (and I hate Notes).
There is Music out there - the RIAA is not interested in music and it is not interested in its customers/victims I think that has started, and is probably the RIAA's biggest nightmare. It started with the Grateful Dead and Phish, and has now been taken up by bands like Radiohead and NIN, once they finally get out of those multi-year multi-album contracts the RIAA made them sign.
I can see more and more bands following suit if the leaders make money.
No and no. OO.org has very poor support for interoperability with MS Word documents,
Copy protection is a huge huge topic. It's far more than DRM, which is the current preferred tactic of vendors. They're all a bit of a pain, from the "third word of chapter 4's fifth paragraph" approach to activation to unlock the program. I have a program that I bought in 93 that I just recently found the license key for. This program wasn't important to me, but it is nice to be able to look at it again and see what the state of the art was at the time compared to now. Thunderbird is an extremely basic email client whick lacks most of the features found in Outlook. That's like saying Wordpad can replace Word. Yes, they both edit text documents but they're hardly comparable! Thunderbird is targetted at home users - not big companies who need to use shared folders, calendars and shared contacts. Again, we're talking the 95% folks here. "Shared folders" are an abomination. Even MS admits as much, which is why Sharepoint came about. You can save yourself typing, I've explored the shared folder concept and managing them is about as pleasant as having to install consumer licensed and activated software on every machine. Shared contacts do not exactly exist, unless you're talking about the Address Book feature, which ties to the directory services. There's also the shared folder contact list, but see the previous statement about why that sucks. Which leaves.... Calendaring. Calendaring used to be quite useful in the early early versions of Outlook/Exchange, but has actually lost usefulness as the issues of security and privacy started raising their heads. The main thing about Outlook's Calendaring is that it is integrated with the email client and has a relatively consistent look and feel. This integration is one (perhaps only?) example of MS actually getting something pretty darn close to right. There's also the iCal standard, but I've yet to use an iCal server/client personally, so I can't say it's a suitable replacement or better solution.
Vista's problem is that it introduces change for no discernible reason, especially in important areas like the UI, which means retraining. Retraining equals new costs that companies are loath to accept. I doubt many companies will switch to Vista because in addition to the training issues, there's the no corporate license issue, which requires a direct link to the MS mothership to activate systems, and gives MS far too much information on local systems. Not all companies will realize this, but I'm betting some small ones like IBM understand the implications all too well, and being that they also support lots of other companies and sell linux systems themselves.... Well, let's just say MS may have totally screwed themselves with Vista.
You can. The problem is education and lack of effort. People are lazy, and if they have to work to get a machine without MS OSes, which is the case, and they have to work to install the better replacement, many people will be too lazy to do either one of those, much less both.
OOo can effectively replace Office and Thunderbird can replace Outlook for 95+% of the populace and they'll never know the difference. That's something that MS knows, and why MS continues to do its damnedest to maintain OEM licensing, besides the fact that their OEM license scheme allows them to reap profit from their code without having to support it. That's right, MS doesn't support your Dell/HP/etc OEM license.
why do you think we patch and patch and patch and patch and for every patch a new vulnerability shows up? because the patch only moves the remote access capability from one hiding place to another it doesn't remove it. and never will. Interesting extension of the Windows Update client and the Vista DRM disaster, but not wholly incorrect. AT&T's u-Verse product is a Windows CE application that heavily ties back to the server. There are certain customer advantages to server based scheduling of programs, for instance. There are provider advantages to IPTV, such as not needing full streams of everything.
However, the server based information could be stored in a non-provider readable format, and the streams could be done more efficiently via multi-casting, but that latter step would require, at least in AT&T's case, that MS fix their network stack.
I personally will probably return to Dish service, since a non network/phone connected DVR has exactly 0 possibility of reporting back what I watch. And I like it that way. Or maybe I'll just go with OTA HD programming. I don't watch that much TV lately anyways.