I have both. Get the one you linked--the one reviewed is like reading a reference manual. Page after page of function documentation--well, php.net is better for that. Waste of $.
Is this the best Apple can do? I was really looking forward to buy one of these, but the specs are terrible for what's supposed to be a "portable" machine. I really like mucking around with OS X, since the computer labs here are 50% OS X and 50% windows, and they spend much more money on the OS X machines than the windows machines...
To the specs:
Sony SZ series: 3.7 lbs, 13.3" widescreen, integrated DVD burner, integrated webcam, core duo
Apple MacBook: 5.2 lbs, 13.3" widescreen, integrated DVD burner, integrated webcam, core duo
ONE AND A HALF POUND difference...ouch. And the SZ has been on the market for a couple of months already. And it has dedicated Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys, which I find invaluable as a programmer. And an extra mouse button. And ONE finger scrolling. Back to the drawing board, Apple.
You can go find a bunch of other Windows notebooks that are more portable for the same form factor (look at some ASUS notebooks, Sharp WideNote, etc.), but the thing is, 5.2 lbs is WAY too heavy for a notebook with a 13.3" screen. Hell, Apple's own MacBook Pro weighs in at 5.6 lbs. with a 15" screen. Looks like I'll be sticking with my T43 for a while yet.
As for reliability, I notice no difference in failure rates between OS X and Windows machines in my dorm (200 students, and here @ Stanford the Mac rate is around 25%), where I support all the computers. (Yes, for dorm IT support they just hire students.) In terms of hardware failure, my anecdotal evidence points towards the Apple computers being even worse than your average computer. Software-wise, once you install Firefox onto most people's Windows computers, you don't hear from them again for a very long time.
Granted, that's not a huge sample, but don't delude yourself into thinking that Apples are built any better on the inside than an average (re: regular old HP and Dell) computers. They're all built by the same few ODMs in Taiwan, anyway.
Yay for the Apple marketing machine that bit you again. Pretty much all windows laptops with the synaptics touchpad driver come with ONE FINGER SCROLLING enabled by default. (And if it isn't, it's trivial to open the Mouse properties and change it so it is enabled. There are a hell of a lot of other nice features in that driver too, btw). Just slide your finger down the side of the touchpad and it works just fine. And no, it's not easy to do accidentally.
So you are saying maybe I should carry a MacBook and a windows laptop to work/school? Not all of us sit at a desk all day...a lot of us move around, and two computers are twice as heavy.
Shoot, PC companies make more $ from laptops than desktops these days--you'd think a few in the Slashdot audience would realize that for a mainstream user/power user, laptops are much more important than desktops. Dual boot > dual laptops. Nuff said.
Cisco paid 6.9 billion dollars and took on 1.6 billion dollars in CASH for a total deal worth 5.3 billion dollars. Why/. links to a site like The Register that can't even do rudimentary fact-checking is beyond me. Maybe it's because slashdot only wants to link to sites with comparable shitty editorial standards.
Maybe YOU should do some rudimentary fact-checking before calling somebody out.
Useless in my experience in physics classes at Stanford. I haven't seen one thing it can do that raising hands wouldn't accomplish, except take an exact tally of attendance (and the profs tire of using the devices for even that).
I don't go to MIT, so I can't comment on it. But I go to another "top" school on the West Coast (whatever the hell that means, anyway...you really only get out what you put in, as the old saying goes), and professors teach almost all classes, and you can certainly get involved in research if you take the least bit of initiative. And while some of my friends at MIT are pretty miserable, a lot of them are doing just fine and love the place. I wouldn't judge a school from just a short term in its tech licensing office...there ARE tens of thousands of people that make up these universities, you know.
Any recent Pocket PC (or even older ones like iPaq 4150) would be much better than this 1 hr battery life piece of garbage. From the Palm side you can get a used Sony TJ37 that has built it Wifi and is 2/3 the weight.
Here at Stanford, our CS building is named Gates (and our chip fab is named Allen), but even so we are still half Mac/half PC, and almost all upper-level CS classes require programs to run on the big Solaris cluster.
I've had my MS wireless optical explorer pro running on 1 AA battery (it takes 2, but runs fine on just one) for 4 months without a hiccup. Battery cost is almost negligible.
So how again is this an advantage of Linux?
Any XP, OS X, any modern OS can be set up in the exact same way. It's the users that don't understand wtf they are doing that is the problem. A lot of people barely get by knowing how to click new, open, save, and print in Microsoft Word--they don't even grok the concept of needing multiple logins to install stuff.
OP is referring to the fact that you CAN take music off it, and clearly you've not done your research well in the slightest. Just use a program like ephpod.
The big difference, though, is that the computer virus was willingly conceived and created by some asshat human who was "curious" about how computers work. Most biological viruses (at least the ones not portrayed in Outbreak or similar films...) don't fall in that realm.
Makes you realize the kind of scum unethical crackers are.
Ain't that wonderful! Because it's free software what's posted on their webpage as promotional material must be correct and accepted as fact!
Fact is, OOo has shitty compatibility with Word, especially with embedded images/tables/objects etc as EVERYBODY ELSE in this thread seems to understand, except you. Fact is, as a sysadmin, if there's even ONE document that fails to render properly in OOo that did render properly in MS Office, that's the sysadmin's butt that's making the frying sound.
And good luck retraining the 60 and 70 year old secretaries. Bet they'll be delighted to learn a whole new application and go through the wonders of verifying that all their templates and features they're used to still work. No thanks, it's worth a few bucks to save a major headache.
Let's just say I'm a normal average person: I use my computer to write Word documents, browse the web, send e-mail, do my taxes, maybe fire up Quicken or some other random productivity app. For the most part, Windows XP is just FINE for doing these tasks. Okay, you can harp on IE; but users have the option of Firefox if they really care. WHY would I as a normal user who only needs to accomplish these tasks throw out Windows and buy a WHOLE NEW OS so I can spend MANY HOURS learning new OS conventions (examples: Where is Word in Linux? Where is the "Control Panel"? Why can't I just click on exes from the web and install them? What the fuck is the/mnt/cdrom instead of D:\ business? And so forth...) so I can do the EXACT SAME THING I do on Windows? Hell, you're paying all these hours so you can do LESS. No native version of Quicken/Turbotax that is easy to install. No easy way to run the newest cool little freeware exe your friend tells you to check out. No way to natively install Word: instead you've got to learn a whole bunch of new conventions in OpenOffice. Oh yeah, and sometimes it randomly mangles the Word document your friend sent you.
Face it. No average user is going to sit down at his computer with a free evening on his hand and think, "I know what I'll do! I'll install Linux so I can invest hours learning a new operating system to do less stuff!" Sure, if he invests hours upon hours trolling forums and reading tutorials, he might finally gain the aptitude to do on Linux exactly what he used to be able to do on Windows. But even that is a stretch, considering that most popular Windows applications that Joe Average uses (Photoshop, Quicken, TurboTax, Office) are NOT easy to install (i.e. not native) on Linux.
What benefits does Linux offer to an average user who has used Windows for years? None. Cost? Windows has no cost to these users, it's already been installed. Open source? Average people don't give a shit about the spiels about how application code is shared; they just want to use applications. Better apps? Hell no: OpenOffice, GIMP, etc. are nowhere near their established commercial Windows equivalents. Security? A win for Linux--but then again, you could accomplish the same thing in XP SP2 by installing a 5MB Firefox download. So what's better--installing a 5MB app, or installing a whole new operating system?
The only way for Linux to really make headway is if most popular programs start getting ported--or more realistically, more applications start becoming web-based, like e-mail. But we're definitely not there yet. Until then, expect the network effect and the fact that no one wants to relearn things to do the same thing continue to eat your lunch. Learn about inertia, people.
Let's just say I'm a normal average person: I use my computer to write Word documents, browse the web, send e-mail, do my taxes, maybe fire up Quicken or some other random productivity app.
For the most part, Windows XP is just FINE for doing these tasks. Okay, you can harp on IE; but users have the option of Firefox if they really care.
WHY would I as a normal user who only needs to accomplish these tasks throw out Windows and buy a WHOLE NEW OS so I can spend MANY HOURS learning new OS conventions (examples: Where is Word in Linux? Where is the "Control Panel"? Why can't I just click on exes from the web and install them? What the fuck is the/mnt/cdrom instead of D:\ business? And so forth...) so I can do the EXACT SAME THING I do on Windows? Hell, you're paying all these hours so you can do LESS. No native version of Quicken/Turbotax that is easy to install. No easy way to run the newest cool little freeware exe your friend tells you to check out. No way to natively install Word: instead you've got to learn a whole bunch of new conventions in OpenOffice. Oh yeah, and sometimes it randomly mangles the Word document your friend sent you.
Face it. No average user is going to sit down at his computer with a free evening on his hand and think, "I know what I'll do! I'll install Linux so I can invest hours learning a new operating system to do less stuff!" Sure, if he invests hours upon hours trolling forums and reading tutorials, he might finally gain the aptitude to do on Linux exactly what he used to be able to do on Windows. But even that is a stretch, considering that most popular Windows applications that Joe Average uses (Photoshop, Quicken, TurboTax, Office) are NOT easy to install (i.e. not native) on Linux.
What benefits does Linux offer to an average user who has used Windows for years? None. Cost? Windows has no cost to these users, it's already been installed. Open source? Average people don't give a shit about the spiels about how application code is shared; they just want to use applications. Better apps? Hell no: OpenOffice, GIMP, etc. are nowhere near their established commercial Windows equivalents. Security? A win for Linux--but then again, you could accomplish the same thing in XP SP2 by installing a 5MB Firefox download. So what's better--installing a 5MB app, or installing a whole new operating system?
The only way for Linux to really make headway is if most popular programs start getting ported--or more realistically, more applications start becoming web-based, like e-mail. But we're definitely not there yet. Until then, expect the network effect and the fact that no one wants to relearn things to do the same thing continue to eat your lunch.
Learn about inertia, people.
Slashdot Mirror
Go to digg and read the comments. All the serial numbers and download links they give you are fixed so it doesn't matter anyway.
I have both. Get the one you linked--the one reviewed is like reading a reference manual. Page after page of function documentation--well, php.net is better for that. Waste of $.
Is this the best Apple can do? I was really looking forward to buy one of these, but the specs are terrible for what's supposed to be a "portable" machine. I really like mucking around with OS X, since the computer labs here are 50% OS X and 50% windows, and they spend much more money on the OS X machines than the windows machines...
To the specs:
Sony SZ series: 3.7 lbs, 13.3" widescreen, integrated DVD burner, integrated webcam, core duo
Apple MacBook: 5.2 lbs, 13.3" widescreen, integrated DVD burner, integrated webcam, core duo
ONE AND A HALF POUND difference...ouch. And the SZ has been on the market for a couple of months already. And it has dedicated Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys, which I find invaluable as a programmer. And an extra mouse button. And ONE finger scrolling. Back to the drawing board, Apple.
You can go find a bunch of other Windows notebooks that are more portable for the same form factor (look at some ASUS notebooks, Sharp WideNote, etc.), but the thing is, 5.2 lbs is WAY too heavy for a notebook with a 13.3" screen. Hell, Apple's own MacBook Pro weighs in at 5.6 lbs. with a 15" screen. Looks like I'll be sticking with my T43 for a while yet.
As for reliability, I notice no difference in failure rates between OS X and Windows machines in my dorm (200 students, and here @ Stanford the Mac rate is around 25%), where I support all the computers. (Yes, for dorm IT support they just hire students.) In terms of hardware failure, my anecdotal evidence points towards the Apple computers being even worse than your average computer. Software-wise, once you install Firefox onto most people's Windows computers, you don't hear from them again for a very long time.
Granted, that's not a huge sample, but don't delude yourself into thinking that Apples are built any better on the inside than an average (re: regular old HP and Dell) computers. They're all built by the same few ODMs in Taiwan, anyway.
Yay for the Apple marketing machine that bit you again. Pretty much all windows laptops with the synaptics touchpad driver come with ONE FINGER SCROLLING enabled by default. (And if it isn't, it's trivial to open the Mouse properties and change it so it is enabled. There are a hell of a lot of other nice features in that driver too, btw). Just slide your finger down the side of the touchpad and it works just fine. And no, it's not easy to do accidentally.
Rosetta chip? The only that differentiated Apple in the past was OS X anyway.
So you are saying maybe I should carry a MacBook and a windows laptop to work/school? Not all of us sit at a desk all day...a lot of us move around, and two computers are twice as heavy.
Shoot, PC companies make more $ from laptops than desktops these days--you'd think a few in the Slashdot audience would realize that for a mainstream user/power user, laptops are much more important than desktops. Dual boot > dual laptops. Nuff said.
FINALLY, they fixed this old problem with Opera. ctrl+enter now completes a web address with www and com, something ie and firefox have had for years.
Cisco paid 6.9 billion dollars and took on 1.6 billion dollars in CASH for a total deal worth 5.3 billion dollars. Why /. links to a site like The Register that can't even do rudimentary fact-checking is beyond me. Maybe it's because slashdot only wants to link to sites with comparable shitty editorial standards.
Maybe YOU should do some rudimentary fact-checking before calling somebody out.
Do you read your links? That's a microdrive, not flash memory...
Useless in my experience in physics classes at Stanford. I haven't seen one thing it can do that raising hands wouldn't accomplish, except take an exact tally of attendance (and the profs tire of using the devices for even that).
I don't go to MIT, so I can't comment on it. But I go to another "top" school on the West Coast (whatever the hell that means, anyway...you really only get out what you put in, as the old saying goes), and professors teach almost all classes, and you can certainly get involved in research if you take the least bit of initiative. And while some of my friends at MIT are pretty miserable, a lot of them are doing just fine and love the place. I wouldn't judge a school from just a short term in its tech licensing office...there ARE tens of thousands of people that make up these universities, you know.
I would think about going back to IE if only they added Find As You Type. That feature is indispensable in my opinion.
To prevent phishing attacks that place a fake menu bar at the top of a page.
Any recent Pocket PC (or even older ones like iPaq 4150) would be much better than this 1 hr battery life piece of garbage. From the Palm side you can get a used Sony TJ37 that has built it Wifi and is 2/3 the weight.
Here at Stanford, our CS building is named Gates (and our chip fab is named Allen), but even so we are still half Mac/half PC, and almost all upper-level CS classes require programs to run on the big Solaris cluster.
I've had my MS wireless optical explorer pro running on 1 AA battery (it takes 2, but runs fine on just one) for 4 months without a hiccup. Battery cost is almost negligible.
So how again is this an advantage of Linux? Any XP, OS X, any modern OS can be set up in the exact same way. It's the users that don't understand wtf they are doing that is the problem. A lot of people barely get by knowing how to click new, open, save, and print in Microsoft Word--they don't even grok the concept of needing multiple logins to install stuff.
OP is referring to the fact that you CAN take music off it, and clearly you've not done your research well in the slightest. Just use a program like ephpod.
The big difference, though, is that the computer virus was willingly conceived and created by some asshat human who was "curious" about how computers work. Most biological viruses (at least the ones not portrayed in Outbreak or similar films...) don't fall in that realm.
Makes you realize the kind of scum unethical crackers are.
People use MS in the real world. Employers expect kids to know MS when they get out of school. So just get used to it.
Ain't that wonderful! Because it's free software what's posted on their webpage as promotional material must be correct and accepted as fact! Fact is, OOo has shitty compatibility with Word, especially with embedded images/tables/objects etc as EVERYBODY ELSE in this thread seems to understand, except you. Fact is, as a sysadmin, if there's even ONE document that fails to render properly in OOo that did render properly in MS Office, that's the sysadmin's butt that's making the frying sound. And good luck retraining the 60 and 70 year old secretaries. Bet they'll be delighted to learn a whole new application and go through the wonders of verifying that all their templates and features they're used to still work. No thanks, it's worth a few bucks to save a major headache.
Doesn't work for me. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB11135701 3260608107,00.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
He's referring to the bug in the Fedora installer that erm, literally killed Windows.
Face it. No average user is going to sit down at his computer with a free evening on his hand and think, "I know what I'll do! I'll install Linux so I can invest hours learning a new operating system to do less stuff!" Sure, if he invests hours upon hours trolling forums and reading tutorials, he might finally gain the aptitude to do on Linux exactly what he used to be able to do on Windows. But even that is a stretch, considering that most popular Windows applications that Joe Average uses (Photoshop, Quicken, TurboTax, Office) are NOT easy to install (i.e. not native) on Linux.
What benefits does Linux offer to an average user who has used Windows for years? None. Cost? Windows has no cost to these users, it's already been installed. Open source? Average people don't give a shit about the spiels about how application code is shared; they just want to use applications. Better apps? Hell no: OpenOffice, GIMP, etc. are nowhere near their established commercial Windows equivalents. Security? A win for Linux--but then again, you could accomplish the same thing in XP SP2 by installing a 5MB Firefox download. So what's better--installing a 5MB app, or installing a whole new operating system?
The only way for Linux to really make headway is if most popular programs start getting ported--or more realistically, more applications start becoming web-based, like e-mail. But we're definitely not there yet. Until then, expect the network effect and the fact that no one wants to relearn things to do the same thing continue to eat your lunch. Learn about inertia, people.
Let's just say I'm a normal average person: I use my computer to write Word documents, browse the web, send e-mail, do my taxes, maybe fire up Quicken or some other random productivity app. For the most part, Windows XP is just FINE for doing these tasks. Okay, you can harp on IE; but users have the option of Firefox if they really care. WHY would I as a normal user who only needs to accomplish these tasks throw out Windows and buy a WHOLE NEW OS so I can spend MANY HOURS learning new OS conventions (examples: Where is Word in Linux? Where is the "Control Panel"? Why can't I just click on exes from the web and install them? What the fuck is the /mnt/cdrom instead of D:\ business? And so forth...) so I can do the EXACT SAME THING I do on Windows? Hell, you're paying all these hours so you can do LESS. No native version of Quicken/Turbotax that is easy to install. No easy way to run the newest cool little freeware exe your friend tells you to check out. No way to natively install Word: instead you've got to learn a whole bunch of new conventions in OpenOffice. Oh yeah, and sometimes it randomly mangles the Word document your friend sent you.
Face it. No average user is going to sit down at his computer with a free evening on his hand and think, "I know what I'll do! I'll install Linux so I can invest hours learning a new operating system to do less stuff!" Sure, if he invests hours upon hours trolling forums and reading tutorials, he might finally gain the aptitude to do on Linux exactly what he used to be able to do on Windows. But even that is a stretch, considering that most popular Windows applications that Joe Average uses (Photoshop, Quicken, TurboTax, Office) are NOT easy to install (i.e. not native) on Linux.
What benefits does Linux offer to an average user who has used Windows for years? None. Cost? Windows has no cost to these users, it's already been installed. Open source? Average people don't give a shit about the spiels about how application code is shared; they just want to use applications. Better apps? Hell no: OpenOffice, GIMP, etc. are nowhere near their established commercial Windows equivalents. Security? A win for Linux--but then again, you could accomplish the same thing in XP SP2 by installing a 5MB Firefox download. So what's better--installing a 5MB app, or installing a whole new operating system?
The only way for Linux to really make headway is if most popular programs start getting ported--or more realistically, more applications start becoming web-based, like e-mail. But we're definitely not there yet. Until then, expect the network effect and the fact that no one wants to relearn things to do the same thing continue to eat your lunch.
Learn about inertia, people.