Out of curiosity, have you found a self-hosted application similar to Evernote? For Dropbox, there's Owncloud, but I haven't found anything like Evernote.
It seems to now be considered acceptable to lock down personal computing devices as if they were game consoles.
I've got a Mac and an iPhone. I'll agree with you on the iPhone side. My iPhone is "locked down" in the sense that without rooting it, I can only install curated applications... although so far, I haven't found something I want to do that I can't.
But I disagree with you on the Mac. I've been using PCs since the early 90s. I use Linux (and occasionally Windows) at work. I bought my first Mac this year. In no way is it locked down any more or less than any of my Windows, Linux, or FreeBSD boxes. In fact, because I can very easily compile and install just about any *nix application on it, I feel like it's more open than my Windows box ever was.
It truly is great to have a fantastic GUI OS, while at the same time being able to drop to a terminal and use the standard suite of UNIX tools when I want.
I've had iOS 6 on my 4S for a few days now... the speed doesn't seem to have changed. However, I was weary of that: iOS 4 and 5 made my old 3GS a LOT slower, and iOS 5 made my girlfriend's iPhone 4 slower.
Officially, they have a 1-year warranty. You can purchase an extended warranty (called "AppleCare") that takes it to 3 years. After that, it's a bit of a grey area. Officially, they won't give you free service after that. Anecdotally, I've heard many stories of people getting free out-of-warranty service, including screen and motherboard replacements. In fact, there's even a comment in this post where someone took in a 2007 macbook for some kind of warranty work, and they replaced it with a 2009 model on the spot.
I think it comes down to personal preference - mine is that I don't really want to repair my main PC anymore. I don't want to screw with it. If it breaks, I want to have someone else fix it so I can get on with things. And I don't want to have to fight with tech support, wait for them to ship me a box so I can send the computer to a repair factory in some other state, wait a week to get it back. I want to drive 8 minutes to the Apple store with my computer in hand and have them fix it right there, which is usually the norm.
And for me, at year 4-6, if I still have this Mac and it has a hardware failure... I'll probably take it in to see if Apple will fix it. If it'll cost me a lot, I'll probably just get a new computer. I haven't kept a computer for more than 3-4 years in a long time.
I don't know if I buy into the planned obsolescence thing. Anecdotally, I know lots of people who have pretty old Macs that still use them. I'm actually surprised at how long the batteries in some of them have lasted. My girlfriend's mom just got a 3-year-old white MacBook and the battery still lasts 2-3 hours. My Aunt had a black MacBook (must be circa 2006) that was in great shape, she just replaced it a month ago.
Obviously the more you buy, the better, but I think Apple's M.O. has been to try to entice you to buy the new shiny thing because it's new and shiny, not because your old not-so-shiny doesn't work anymore.
Even tech people i know are getting tired of dealing with it and just want a 'box'.
This.
I am probably what you'd call a "tech person" - I'm a programmer, and I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable.
I bought a Mac Mini in February for this exact reason. I do not want to have to screw around with my main PC. I don't care about upgrading it, and I don't want to have to be an IT guy for myself. With the AppleCare warranty, if anything happens to this computer hardware-wise within the next 3 years, I can take it to the Apple store (which, luckily, is about an 8 minute drive), and they'll fix it.
If anything happens software-wise, worst-case scenario, I reboot, hit command+r, and it'll reinstall the OS from the recovery partition, or, failing that, thesc internet, I can restore my latest time machine backup, and I'm up and running.
Now, that's not to say that Windows is unreliable, I've found Windows 7 to be just fine. Best Windows yet. But I've found OSX to be really solid.
Also. Unlike other Apple users, I actually don't have any issues with people using PCs, Windows, Android phones, etc. I bought a Mac because I wanted one, and I won't look down on you for buying a PC. In fact, I really couldn't care less.
I love computers, but I screw with them all day. I don't want to have to deal with them at home. It is for this reason that I'd hate to be a gynecologist.
has anyone else noticed that Apple users just don't seem to be happy unless they can convince you "the Apple way" is the RIGHT way? They just don't seem to be able to be happy with a product unless they can somehow get others to think they were "right" and the other way is "wrong"
The Misconception: You prefer the things you own over the things you don’t because you made rational choices when we bought them.
The Truth: You prefer the things you own because you rationalize your past choices to protect your sense of self.
Personally, I use a Mac and I own an iPhone. I use an HP laptop with Linux for work, and my server at home is FreeBSD. I couldn't care less what type of computers or phones other people use. Maybe I'm the minority?
But seriously, folks. We've got bigger problems than to worry about what kinds of electronics other people buy for themselves.
So, you're exactly right, hairyfeet. It is a personal preference!
And that's the problem - by default, it's a 4-digit pin. You can enable a more complex passcode that can be longer and include other characters, but that option is turned off by default.
You can use a more complex passcode that is as long as you want and contains more than just numbers - but it's optional. In settings -> general -> passcode lock, turn off "simple passcode."
I actually like the idea of that, and I like that they've called it that. It acknowledges that real life sometimes intrudes on our time at work, but still ensures that it's kept to a reasonable minimum.
What type of home server do you have? Is it a Mac of some sort using Time Machine, or can you access the volumes on your Airport Extreme using other means?
As I understand it - IANAL - it's not illegal for them to ask, per se, it's just illegal for them to consider that information when determining whether or not to hire you.
Obviously that's not a very simple thing and is a huge grey area and hard to prove one way or the other, but it's still worth mentioning.
The problem is not Gmail specifically, it's e-mail in general.
While the traffic between your computer and Gmail is encrypted via HTTPS, the messages may or may not be encrypted on their servers (hopefully they are), and they also may or may not be encrypted between Gmail and the mail servers being used by the people you're corresponding with.
I would be more worried about sniffing of packets between e-mail servers than I would be about Google employees reading your e-mail.
The only encryption that occurs is the actual connection between you and Google. The e-mail may or may not be encrypted when it's sitting on their servers.
Not to mention the fact that there's zero guarantee of the e-mail being encrypted when it's passing between mail servers.
Slashdot Mirror
Out of curiosity, have you found a self-hosted application similar to Evernote? For Dropbox, there's Owncloud, but I haven't found anything like Evernote.
It seems to now be considered acceptable to lock down personal computing devices as if they were game consoles.
I've got a Mac and an iPhone. I'll agree with you on the iPhone side. My iPhone is "locked down" in the sense that without rooting it, I can only install curated applications... although so far, I haven't found something I want to do that I can't.
But I disagree with you on the Mac. I've been using PCs since the early 90s. I use Linux (and occasionally Windows) at work. I bought my first Mac this year. In no way is it locked down any more or less than any of my Windows, Linux, or FreeBSD boxes. In fact, because I can very easily compile and install just about any *nix application on it, I feel like it's more open than my Windows box ever was.
It truly is great to have a fantastic GUI OS, while at the same time being able to drop to a terminal and use the standard suite of UNIX tools when I want.
I've had iOS 6 on my 4S for a few days now... the speed doesn't seem to have changed. However, I was weary of that: iOS 4 and 5 made my old 3GS a LOT slower, and iOS 5 made my girlfriend's iPhone 4 slower.
Some companies still do sell "Mac memory" but it's just overpriced DDR3 ;)
I go to Fry's.
There's also Micro Center if you're not near a Fry's.
They give you a backup code you can use in case you lose your phone.
Officially, they have a 1-year warranty. You can purchase an extended warranty (called "AppleCare") that takes it to 3 years. After that, it's a bit of a grey area. Officially, they won't give you free service after that. Anecdotally, I've heard many stories of people getting free out-of-warranty service, including screen and motherboard replacements. In fact, there's even a comment in this post where someone took in a 2007 macbook for some kind of warranty work, and they replaced it with a 2009 model on the spot.
I think it comes down to personal preference - mine is that I don't really want to repair my main PC anymore. I don't want to screw with it. If it breaks, I want to have someone else fix it so I can get on with things. And I don't want to have to fight with tech support, wait for them to ship me a box so I can send the computer to a repair factory in some other state, wait a week to get it back. I want to drive 8 minutes to the Apple store with my computer in hand and have them fix it right there, which is usually the norm.
And for me, at year 4-6, if I still have this Mac and it has a hardware failure... I'll probably take it in to see if Apple will fix it. If it'll cost me a lot, I'll probably just get a new computer. I haven't kept a computer for more than 3-4 years in a long time.
I'm fairly sure that every mac except the air and pro with retina display have user-upgradeable RAM. It's just standard DDR3.
I don't know if I buy into the planned obsolescence thing. Anecdotally, I know lots of people who have pretty old Macs that still use them. I'm actually surprised at how long the batteries in some of them have lasted. My girlfriend's mom just got a 3-year-old white MacBook and the battery still lasts 2-3 hours. My Aunt had a black MacBook (must be circa 2006) that was in great shape, she just replaced it a month ago.
Obviously the more you buy, the better, but I think Apple's M.O. has been to try to entice you to buy the new shiny thing because it's new and shiny, not because your old not-so-shiny doesn't work anymore.
Repairable by me, true (according to the user manual in my Mac Mini, all I'm supposed to touch is the RAM).
I like that if my computer fails, I can walk into the Apple store and make the "geniuses" fix it.
In the end, though, it's a personal preference. That just happens to be mine.
Even tech people i know are getting tired of dealing with it and just want a 'box'.
This.
I am probably what you'd call a "tech person" - I'm a programmer, and I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable.
I bought a Mac Mini in February for this exact reason. I do not want to have to screw around with my main PC. I don't care about upgrading it, and I don't want to have to be an IT guy for myself. With the AppleCare warranty, if anything happens to this computer hardware-wise within the next 3 years, I can take it to the Apple store (which, luckily, is about an 8 minute drive), and they'll fix it.
If anything happens software-wise, worst-case scenario, I reboot, hit command+r, and it'll reinstall the OS from the recovery partition, or, failing that, thesc internet, I can restore my latest time machine backup, and I'm up and running.
Now, that's not to say that Windows is unreliable, I've found Windows 7 to be just fine. Best Windows yet. But I've found OSX to be really solid.
Also. Unlike other Apple users, I actually don't have any issues with people using PCs, Windows, Android phones, etc. I bought a Mac because I wanted one, and I won't look down on you for buying a PC. In fact, I really couldn't care less.
I love computers, but I screw with them all day. I don't want to have to deal with them at home. It is for this reason that I'd hate to be a gynecologist.
MBP customers get theirs because it's what they want. They may not be sure why it is what they want, but they want it nonetheless.
I don't think that's a fair generalization.
has anyone else noticed that Apple users just don't seem to be happy unless they can convince you "the Apple way" is the RIGHT way? They just don't seem to be able to be happy with a product unless they can somehow get others to think they were "right" and the other way is "wrong"
This is actually a thing:
From this:
The Misconception: You prefer the things you own over the things you don’t because you made rational choices when we bought them.
The Truth: You prefer the things you own because you rationalize your past choices to protect your sense of self.
Personally, I use a Mac and I own an iPhone. I use an HP laptop with Linux for work, and my server at home is FreeBSD. I couldn't care less what type of computers or phones other people use. Maybe I'm the minority?
But seriously, folks. We've got bigger problems than to worry about what kinds of electronics other people buy for themselves.
So, you're exactly right, hairyfeet. It is a personal preference!
I never thought I'd read something that would make me feel so bad about my keyboard chioces. :(
And that's the problem - by default, it's a 4-digit pin. You can enable a more complex passcode that can be longer and include other characters, but that option is turned off by default.
You can use a more complex passcode that is as long as you want and contains more than just numbers - but it's optional. In settings -> general -> passcode lock, turn off "simple passcode."
For those of us who don't really know much about tapes - can you point us to some drives and media that don't break the bank?
Gatekeeper is not mandatory.
"incidental personal use" policy
I actually like the idea of that, and I like that they've called it that. It acknowledges that real life sometimes intrudes on our time at work, but still ensures that it's kept to a reasonable minimum.
If you disagree, there are lots of plastic monsters to choose from other manufacturers.
There are also still (for the time being, at least) other models in the Macbook Pro line to choose from.
What type of home server do you have? Is it a Mac of some sort using Time Machine, or can you access the volumes on your Airport Extreme using other means?
You can purchase phones that are unlocked and unsubsidized in the US. Just very few people do it.
As I understand it - IANAL - it's not illegal for them to ask, per se, it's just illegal for them to consider that information when determining whether or not to hire you.
Obviously that's not a very simple thing and is a huge grey area and hard to prove one way or the other, but it's still worth mentioning.
The problem is not Gmail specifically, it's e-mail in general.
While the traffic between your computer and Gmail is encrypted via HTTPS, the messages may or may not be encrypted on their servers (hopefully they are), and they also may or may not be encrypted between Gmail and the mail servers being used by the people you're corresponding with.
I would be more worried about sniffing of packets between e-mail servers than I would be about Google employees reading your e-mail.
The only encryption that occurs is the actual connection between you and Google. The e-mail may or may not be encrypted when it's sitting on their servers.
Not to mention the fact that there's zero guarantee of the e-mail being encrypted when it's passing between mail servers.