Re:Both nuisance and blessing... mostly nuisance.
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So, it went 14 months once and 11 months once between upgrades, which is ridiclous. Getting uptight at the OP's (slightly exaggerated) wording was not at all justified.
OK, so you agree with me that the OP is exaggerating the situation. Why are we having this back and forth again ? He was exaggerating in the case of one of Apple's products, and entirely incorrect considering *any* of their others. Surely you don't disagree with that last statement? Are you sure taking issue with his wording isn't at least somewhat justified? Why not, since you seem to agree that it's wrong, or at best exaggerates the facts?
I'll *certainly* agree that the example of the Powerbook is out of control, but it's not *at all* typical of Apple's releases. That same Powerbook example is *exactly* why Apple switched to Intel hardware. How many updates did the PowerMac, iMac and even iBook lines see in the same time period ? Is it really right to base Apple's rate of product refresh on *one* of 5 lines produced in the past 20 years ? What kind of upgrade was the Powerbook supposed to get, other than a processor that nobody could make?
I'm not taking issue with the notion that the Powerbook line was stagnant for way too long, and I'm not even taking issue with the idea that Apple has historically been slower to update their offerings than Intel PC makers... but they weren't Intel PC makers, so they offered what they could when their suppliers gave them better processors, and dropped prices when other components significantly dropped in price. How often does Sun or IBM update their non-Intel product lines ? They get fewer processor upgrades, so reconfigure their systems lesss often, it's just a natural thing. I'd not have a problem with any statement like that, and I'd certainly not have any problem with the original post if it had been about the Powerbook specifically.
But the statement
...the price of that Apple stays constant for the year(s) that it is produced with no meaningful upgrades...
is at best a misleading exaggeration ( as you've already admitted ) and at worst an anti-Apple troll, and you decided it was a statement worth defending... why exactly ?
I mean, I dislike some people ( mostly politicians ) and some companies, but I try really, really hard not to bend the facts when I knock them down; I don't see any good reason for this guy to make it sound like Apple doesn't update their products for years at a time when it's just not true, just because he's decided he dislikes the company for some reason. It's almost more odd that you see he's exaggerating, and yet feel compelled to come to his defense when I point out that the facts don't back up his ( overly general ) statement.
Admin accounts modify /Applications with no popups
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First Mac OS X Virus?
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· Score: 1, Informative
Just to be clear for the uninformed mods who think my +1 comment was overrated and your comment ( sorry ) is not... emphatically and once again I say that the Admin account in this case does *not* get the kind of popup you're talking about, because this trojan doesn't write to things owned by the "system" group that the admin group can't write to... it only writes to/Applications and/Library, things that the admin group has write permissions to, but that normal users can't.
If you are running as an admin-level user, there are things that a trojan like this will wipe have access to ( i.e. everything in your Applications folder ) that would be protected if you were running as a regular, non-admin-group user.
Reading the article, or better yet, the Ambrosia Software write-up of the worm, will give you a clear idea of how an admin-group use is more susceptable to this attack than other users.
That's why the first thing I do on a new OS X system is to set timestamps_timeout to 0 in sudoers. It eliminates this grace period, requiring a password prompt for every Admin action. With this change, I think running as Admin can be pretty safe.
Remember, I'm not sure about that part. I think what could be going on is that the app only writes into/Applications and/Library, which are writable by Admin, but not to/System or any other locations that aren't admin-writable... thus, it doesn't trigger the authentication dialog for the admin user not matter what, it's only triggered if you aren't in the admin group.
Of course, every user everywhere is always at risk always from a trojan that wipes out all of their writeable files. There's not much that can be practically done to prevent that, outside of user training.
Re:You own a Mac MINI ?!? I'm so confused...
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Plus, of course, if that's just too nasty for you, I can get a real 9200 with 128M of RAM for under $40, and that really does make a difference.
Yea, that'd be the way to go... and why I'm absolutely in agreement with you in a way. Apple really needs to step up and offer more flexibility in their systems, especially with regard to graphics options. I kinda like the mini, except for the graphics card and hard drive. The hard drive I can live with, but not being able to get a better graphics card *really* limits what you could do with the machine. Of course Apple's answer to that is for me to buy a PowerMac... which is not a bad answer, but I'd like a cheaper flexible option as well, and know it'd be possible.
Still, I'd ask Apple to expand it's hardware offerings long before I'd ask it to support another company's hardware, which I'm pretty sure was the original point that started all of this... though it's hard to remember...
From what I've understood, being safe is the one of the major reasons for joining gangs. It's nice to have someone to watch your back.
Too true... though I guess you have to question, does it work ? Does it work in the long run ? Or does it make you even more of a target? Who does the gang protect you from... itself? Other gangs? Cops? Simple, lone bullies? Or would you rather be running with the pack than be *gasp* 'alone'?
Really, joining a gang turns out to be like joining any group- most folks do it to be part of the group, to be closer to some people they like and have similar interests with, because they lack any other stronger connection to people... it's just hard when you like being a tough guy, and someone keeps pushin' on what you have to do to be tough to the point of 'you want to be one of us? go knock over this store or wack this guy, then we'll think about it'... that's when you have a real decision to make.
If you don't mind doing others harm, you've already made that decision, though... but unless you're under the age of 12, I think you're likely to have a pretty good idea of the difference between doing harm to a real person and doing harm to a computer generated image of a person. Of course, it could turn out that I'm wrong about that, but despite the Nut Cases out there, I don't think we've really seen the crime wave you'd expect to be associated with the popularity of the GTA games... the Nut Cases would be nut cases with or without violent video games...
Funny, these things don't seem to have simple answers. I know, let's just blame the video games and ban *them* ! That's simple!
What are you talking about? Admin accounts normally get password popups to do anything like this (system updates, system-wide installers, etc.). Are you saying in this specific instance it doesn't?
Well, actually, that's on a time-related basis ( if you've authenticated recently it won't always ask again ), I think, and some of the forum posts I saw seemed to indicate that for whatever reason, this doesn't trigger that on Admin accounts, I think because it only writes to/Applications, not/System or anything without Admin-write privilege set. Sometimes the authentication you're talking about is triggered by the installation process, too, not the system, so.... yea, running as Admin, not a good idea.
I'm not sure, of course. Still waiting for further information.
Re:You own a Mac MINI ?!? I'm so confused...
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But, really, if you buy a single processor Mac (say an iMac G5) today, and want to upgrade to a multiprocessor Mac (say, an iMac Core Duo) tomorrow, even if you get a good price reselling your iMac you'll end up paying more "Mac Tax" than you would selling your single-CPU copy of Tiger and buying a dual-CPU copy instead.
True, but if I buy a Mac mini, and it has a newer version of OS X, then I get someone's older G4 dual processor machine, I could easily install my newer OS X on the older dual-processor machine. If I buy a MacIntel tower and later through weird circimstances get my hands on a motherboard from a better-equiped more-processor version of a MacIntel, I'll be fairly certain I'd be able to stick that better motherboard in without having to upgrade my OS. ( A contrived example, but still... ) Again, you're talking about the fact that software is bundled with the machines. Really, I'm not quibbling with the idea of unbundling the software, it's just that you came up with a particularly henious "cheap crippled single-processor OS version, more expensive dual/quad processor version" scheme that's just... well, henious.
I'm totally down with suggesting that Apple sell OS X for Intel ( with a specific list of supported hardware ) but gack, don't suggest that the right thing for *any* software company to do is sell intentionally crippled versions of their stuff to spur extra sales... that's just anti-customer on the face of it. If I buy a copy of an OS, I don't want it to use only one of the processors on my dual-processor machine, that's just horrible. At least by bundling software Apple can claim it's helping smooth out any possible problems by selling a "complete package", even if you and I see right through that...
OK, I just went to HP's website, and found one for $300 before rebate with a 1.8 GHz Sempron and a Radeon X300 chipset on the motherboard. Applying the mail-in rebate to a RAM upgrade brought it up to 512M, though when I bought my mini that was extra price. That's a better system than my Windows "game machine" (all it runs is games... I don't trust Windows with anything that matters), and THAT has significantly better performance across the board than my mini.
It clearly doesn't matter to you, and I don't know why you can't be bothered to provide links when they're right there, but check the details. That's still a "shared memory" system. It's not vram, it's not indepentant from the system RAM, it's *shared memory*. Ugh. If you don't care, that's fine, but I'd rather have an independant bit of vram even on a *slightly* slower bus... and that X300 is just *slightly* faster than the 9200 in core clock, and without doing a benchmark I'm not going to have to wonder if using a shared memory system isn't going to slow it down a bit in real-life tasks. I just... gack... if it's for any real gaming use, I'm not going to be using that on-board video if I can help it.
Yea, pretty funny... it's commented on more than a few times in the MacRumors thread how clever it was in a 'social engineering' sense to release it there as OS X 10.5 screenshots. I mean, normally you'd think some model or actress nude would be better bait, but then you'd just get a forum full of Windows users complaining about how all they got was a folder with a "Contents" folder, an "Info.plist" file, and some other weird files... then the jig would be up for sure!
true. OS X only adds the 'protection' of requiring Admin authentication, and that only happens in this case because the executable tries to modify admin-only file directories.
So add 4. run as Administrator constantly or always authenticate when prompted.
As has been pointed out very, very often, the first part of (4) is default behavior for Windows. Not so on OS X, so it's less of an issue.
Still, I don't want to use the system that's so user-unfriendly that it prevents you from running this type of program completely, how the heck would you ever install a new program?
Sadly I think the best we can do is try to make sure you know when you've downloaded an executable, and try to let you know before an executable attempts to modify system files... going any further could make your system very difficult to use indeed.
To spread this, you have to
a) have someone in your buddy list who is infected.
b) not think anything of opening a compressed file you get over iChat without any explaination of what it is
c) either be running as Admin all the time, or ( even more crazy ) not pause to think when double-clicking on a JPG requires Admin authentication for some reason.
Uhhh... yea... I'm going to guess this is just going to be an opportunity for FUD and anti-virus sales. And for a few of us to reconsider using Admin accounts all the time... spread like wildfire ? how many OS X users do you know who will fit all of a,b, and c ?
Oh, wait, I forgot (d), don't have file extensions showing or won't notice ".app" in the name of the file if they do!
The only people who are having to deal with this downloaded the original file just to see if it really was going to try to infect their systems. Ooops! The only shocker for them is that it's spreading over Rendevous to their other systems... but at least they'll know not to *execute* it there, hopefully. Otherwise there's no helping them, they *like* this app.
3.) When you run it, an admin password prompt is displayed by OS X, and you have to enter it to continue.
... with the important exception of when you're running as an Admin user, in which case you don't get this important opportunity to prevent the program from modifying files it shouldn't.
I don't know anyone stupid enough to use their OS X admin account all the time... OK, I lied. I really have to stop using this admin account... damn...
Of course, that whole file-extension thing should be a big tip-off, too. It's not like this is going to spread like wildfire. It's just a wake-up call to folks (a) hiding file extensions... why do that? Show them, they're important. (b) running as Admin. We have to not be so lazy. It's ok that we'll have to type our password.
But mostly (b). If some old-school OS 9 user can't grock file extensions, they sure as shoot shouldn't be using an Admin account...
That said, it will definitely bite many naive mac users who think they are invulnerable, and don't realize that the Finder's default behavior, though a convenience for the computer illiterate, is very dangerous precisely because it allows executable trojans to masquerade as data files such as graphics, etc.
This is true... except for the fact that when you download an uncompressed file, or uncompress the file, it's noticed as being an application, so you get this dialog along the lines of "Such and such is an executable, do you want to download it"... and apparently if you're not an admin user, this one tries to install something in/Applications or somewhere else where you end up looking at an authentication dialog, at which point you're likely to wonder WTF. Unless, like you say, you're a naive mac user who's used to alwasy saying OK to anything.
This will get plenty of folks to stop using their Admin accounts so much, though. I know I'm guilty of using my Admin account all the time ( looks around sheepishly ) and was waiting for just this type of event to stop doing that. Lucky for me it's easy enough to create a new account, designate it as admin, and change the permissions on the account I regularly use...
Damn, I have to do that at work, too. Stupid trojan writers.
From the article you linked to: "I don't care what any criminologist or psychologist says". That sums it up nicely, and that this comment came from a police detective that works with kids who are in danger of becoming gang members does explain why gang membership is on the rise, now doesn't it ?
That is pretty damn funny, or maybe sad/funny, I'd kinda missed that...
yea, I really think that I'd try to turn it around and use it as an educational tool of sorts... "oh, you like that game? Well... notice what happens to you when this is the guy you are. You get shot at. Your friends and family get shot and killed. You end up shot, dead, or busted. It's fun as a video game, perhaps... because you get to go back to your save game like 5000 times so you can actually finish the game. Sadly, *you* only get to die once, and when you're busted you're not on the street the next day. Maybe you just want to keep that kind of experience in-game, and keep yourself and your family as safe as possible outside the game, huh?"... and then take the real-life examples that a person in that positon would know about and use them to contrast and compare the game to reality. I'd think doing something like that would be a lot more powerful, and connect with the kids a lot better than just dismissing the game outright.
Sometimes it's nice when something is 'just a game'. It'd be nice if violence was limited to games, really... I mean, that's what video games are *great* for : doing stuff that you'd *never* do in real life.
Re:Both nuisance and blessing... mostly nuisance.
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IIRC, there has been ocassions when the PowerBook G4 went "years" (more than one year) between upgrades.
Um, technically, "years" would be "at least two years", wouldn't it? I'm *sure* that would be untrue... all you have to do is check any Apple history website to see that you recall incorrectly. I think that there was a just over a year there where the only 'upgrades' were a price drop and a speed bump, but that counts as an upgrade, right? Actually, from my reading of the timeline, it looks like it was just almost exactly a year. Way to freaking long for a relatively small speed bump, but it was an upgrade. I think they started shipping with more memory for the same price at some point in there, too... usually when the hardware can't really be upgraded, there's at least a price drop or something.
Not that I'm wanting to defend Apple on the Powerbook here. It's been hobbled by the G4 and has not been really great-looking as a result since early 2005, but I'm not sure we can blame Apple for that... Freescale and IBM just failed to produce the chips they'd said they were going to, and both Intel and AMD started cramming P4s and other hot chips into laptops despite their power drain problems, then came up with some decent lower-power chips, which was actually somewhat unexpected I think. It was really just this past year that Powerbook sales started to suffer as a result.
Anyway, all I am saying that Apple does generally update their machines every six to eight months or so, or as changes in hardware allow... it's just that up until now, they've had to wait for IBM and Freescale, and that's grown to be a long, long wait... unacceptably long, so much so that Intel became an inevitable choice. I really *hate* defending Apple like that, but it sucks to see people talking trash about how Apple never updates their hardware when it's just not true, I felt I had to refute those simply incorrect statements. We should be knocking companies for things they *do*, ( like arbitrarily deciding which upgrade release means Quicktime users have to pay another $49 for a Pro version again ) , not stuff they don't do.
You own a Mac MINI ?!? I'm so confused...
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When I say the Mac hardware is unexceptional and overpriced, that doesn't mean I think the whole system is overpriced, nor that I'm dismissing the value of the software. It merely means that this price difference is a measure of what Apple will be able to charge for a generic OS X... because that's what they're charging for it right now.
See, it's funny, because when someone says something is unexceptional and overpriced, I usually think it means they don't like it and that well, it's so overpriced you should buy something else... and yet somehow that's not what you mean. Perhaps you can see how I'm confused about what you mean ?
"when I upgrade my motherboard, I'd like to not have to buy a new version of the OS, thanks"
Where have I suggested that you should be forced to do that?
I suppose I should have specified "when I upgrade my single-processor motherboard to a dual-processor motherboard"... You said you wanted Apple to sell differently-priced single and multiple CPU versions of OS X for Intel... if I'd originally bought the single-processor version, I'd have to buy a new version if I picked up a new motherboard. Is that not what you meant somehow ? What was that about 50% of text messages not being understood?!?
Radeon 9200 with only 32M in the PC world would be the absolute bottom of the line
You clearly haven't experienced the joy that is one of those $300 PCs with on-board Intel shared-memory video ( with less memory than you really need to run XP )... *that* is the bottom of the line, and yes, even the Radeon 9200 beats it. Now that I think about it, the cheapo PC I'm thinking about was $400, but that's besides the point... you can do way worse than the Radeon 9200 and in the cheapo PC world, you often do.
You can get one with 128M for under $40, and I would love to have that in my Mac mini.
The form factor is nice, but I'd rather have a 3.5" drive bay.
I'd definitely agree with that... I can't help but feel that Apple made a huge mistake in going with the laptop hard drive for the mini. I'd think the idea would be more to make an inexpensive system than a small one... it just never made sense to me... I suppose they should offer to bundle the mini with an external hard drive or something. Apple could easily make a closer-to-cube-size machine that used regular hard drives and had enough room for the nicer video card you're talking about.
After all you've said and your attitude towards Apple hardware, you're the one of the two of us who owns a Mac mini... I'm so bloody confused I just have to laugh...
at least if you're talking about San Andreas... I mean, I love the game, but ddddaammn, the stereotypes are thick, the violence is right out there, and the portrayal of the city as decaying and decadent, and of people as not having much choice ( can I get a job in SA? Can I progress in the game without shooting someone? That's not the game, sorry... ), and of people being cruel and uncaring... it's not nice to *anyone* portrayed in the game. Ouch. I mean... looking for a good guy? Uh, I guess the game does have a 'hero', but he's not a good guy by any stretch, even if he does save the occasional girl.
On the other hand, I'm not so sure it 'glorifies' gang culture as much as the critics claim. I've been playing it lately, and damn if you don't just get shot and killed *a lot*. It's a hard damn life, and in any sort of real life that would be no fun. There are personal relationships and such, but that's real... but nobody in the game is clean, or really moral, or just or right... those concepts don't exist in the game.
Does playing the game make *me* want to hang out with someone who has automatic weapons ?!? Hell NO !! I see a Tec9, man, I'm *outa there*, ASAP !! Likewise, I'm not excited about going to a war zone after playing some WWII game, either. Some people are excited about going to war, and/or excited about gunning down people in the street... something tells me that these games don't really change that idea one way or another. What, you don't like the art that reflects a man's reality? Well, best start changing that reality, or making alternative art that expresses the reality you'd prefer...
Re:Don't be so dismissive of generic hardware.
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If you bought a generic Intel PC, yes, but you already said you don't want to do that. So why would you care, it wouldn't effect you.
When did I say that? You must be thinking of someone else. I own a generic Intel PC. I'd love to install OS X on it if at all possible... and when I upgrade my motherboard, I'd like to not have to buy a new version of the OS, thanks.
I've done those comparisons in the past, and they always come down to the Mac guy saying 'the mac's got a brighter screen/firewire/... so you didn't do an equal comparison'.
Did you look at the other post I referred you too? We hashed this one out over the Gateway and came pretty close... the Gateway has a larger screen at the same pixel count ( thus, uh, 'lower resolution' I guess ), and when outfitted with a similar set of features ( and a web cam ) and software came out a tiny bit, like $50 cheaper than the MacBook Pro. Yea, so we're calling the screen a wash, since one guy will say they like the larger screen, and one guy will say they like the smaller resolution and lighter/smaller form factor. The MacBook is also missing a flash card reader and a modem, which puts it about $150 more expensive if you need those and buy 'expensive' versions of them. If you don't need software, then yea, the MacBook Pro is by that same accounting $250-$300 more, if you don't want the bundled software. Given that the post(s) at least somewhat back your argument ( with a key caveat ), I'm saddened that you apparently didn't care enough to read them, but your attitude towards the software costs is key here.
When you're saying that Apple's hardware is overpriced, you're really complaining that you can't buy the hardware without paying for some software that you ( at least claim ) that you really don't want, and you're not going to stand for Apple upping the price of their offerings by a couple of hundred bucks and justifying it by pointing at the bundled software, even though really, to buy equivalent Windows software you would easily spend that amount.
Personally, free developer tools make a much bigger difference than anything else... what's the price of a full Visual Studio suite? But that's just me, not your average consumer, so maybe we shouldn't talk about that. Maybe you don't want even the Windows XP Home or MS Works that Gateway is going to ship you anyway, for that matter... I know I wouldn't...
Not to mention that "a few hundred dollars" doesn't seem much on a $2000 laptop, but it's a really big deal when it's the difference between a $700 laptop and a $1000 iBook, or between a $300 PC and a $500 Mac mini.
Uh... there's a really, really good reason why I'm trying to keep this discussion limited to the Intel vs. Intel offerings. The $300 PC vs $500 Mac mini debate has been done to death; either you buy the claim that the superior video, form factor, and software of the Mac mini are worth the price and any performance difference, or you don't. But the G4 vs Centrino or whatever CPU argument is sort of intractable there, and really you can justify easily either view. I'm not even sure where I come down on that; I can see both views. Certainly it's true that Apple doesn't offer a $300 PC... it's also true that most $300 PCs aren't worth $300 or require two years of AOL, but like I said... done to death, not my argument.
So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Intel vs Intel, and was specifically pointing to Dell's offering. News to me, Gateway is underselling Dell and Apple by just a little bit... but not by a huge margin. If you're trying to be fair at all, calling the MacBook Pro "overpriced" is at best an exaggeration of the facts- especially if you're looking at the Inspiron I was originally talking about. You've done nothing to support your claim to the contrary. Sorry. I did the hard work for you of showing that the Gateway laptop is $250 ( at most ) cheaper if you value Apple's bundled software at nothing. I'm still not sure that pric
Re:Don't be so dismissive of generic hardware.
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"You somehow don't dig that cool G5 tower case?"
No, I don't: it's an unnecessarily huge monster that makes very poor use of space
Well, we're all entitled to our opinion, I suppose...
They could even sell the 2 CPU version at the XP Pro price, and charge more for the quad. That's what Microsoft's doing.
Ech. That's a terrible strategy, very anti-customer... again, we're just going to have to disagree. I just hate that kind of thing. I'm going to have to remember which verision of the OS I bought and be sure not to cripple a new machine with the wrong version? There are just so many things wrong with that...
Apple's only now getting a little closer to parity with generic hardware, albeit at a significantly higher cost
You keep saying that, and yet I'm still not seeing it, in particular in the case of the MacBook... care to show a carefully matched example of a cheaper, equal, competing system from Dell ? Check out the discussion I had on this thread... that Acer just isn't the same machine at all, and once you add a few components and software to the Gateway, it's damn close to the same price, with lower screen resolution ( though bigger screen, which, well, makes it heavier ) meh not "significantly more expensive" in any case. Maybe a couple hundred bucks more, if you don't need any software. Which is perhaps an issue- but yea, actually, fewer options and bundled software *is* a feature. Maybe not for you or I, but for most end-users? Yea. Anyway, don't buy an Apple if you don't like their hardware designs, but I think you're just spewing FUD by saying the MacBook Pro is overpriced... it's actually very competitively priced, as any rational, factual look at the different available options will show.
But you're going to sit there and tell me you don't like the G5 PowerMac case? I'm just going to have to sit here and look at you like you're crazy, sorry... want to point us to a link of a case design you *do* like? I'm almost actually curious...
Re:Both nuisance and blessing... mostly nuisance.
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While it's odd, and I'm not sure why, but when I looked at the Gateway laptop, I ended up with a much higher price than you did... oh, that's it; I was looking at the XL, not the X... you didn't go look for my other post, eh?
I'll admit I didn't take too much time looking at it, but there was some reason why I didn't look at the NX860X, or decided it wasn't quite the er, apples-to-apples comparsion. But OK, I'll play... here is the Gateway NS860X... and it's $2059. Of course, maybe that's all decked out... Ok, I went through Gateway's PITA customization process ( man, they want to sell you a lot of stuff with your laptop, eh? ) and included XP Pro and whatnot, ended up with what I think ( not positive ) is a system pretty close to a MacBook Pro for $1709.99... oops, I forgot bluetooth... should we think about software bundling and throw in Gateway's optional photo and DVD software and such? Still I'm puzzled... your base price is much lower than the one I found... and what's up with the $2059 quote on that other page, is that maxed out somehow? Oh, and I forgot a webcam... ha ha this is almost funny... I just threw in a webcam and Quicken and the low-end photo and movie/DVD editing programs, and guess what the price came to ? $1,989.95 before shipping and handling! Too funny. Oh, I see where you got your cut-and-paste, here's the version I did:
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional (SP2) w/ XP Pro Backup CD........[ +US$100.00]
Application Software: Microsoft® Works 8.0
Processor: Intel® Core(TM) Duo Processor T2400 (1.83 GHz, 667MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache)........[ +US$90.00]
Memory: 512MB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (1-512MB module)........[ +US$40.00] ( um... that's not right, is it? I guess I wanted the two 256k 67Mhz ones for $20?)
Hard Drive: 80GB 5400rpm Serial ATA hard drive........[ +US$35.00]
Optical Drive: Integrated 8x Multi-Format Double Layer DVD Writer (DVD±R/±RW/CD-RW)........[ +US$75.00]
Digital Editing Software: Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 90 (6616209)........[ +US$79.99]
Bluetooth: Bluetooth Wireless Networking Module........[ +US$50.00]
Finance and Accounting Software: Quicken® Deluxe 2006........[ +US$49.99] ( not sure if this is still bundled... it was for a long time )
The photo album software and webcam show up as separate line-items for whatever reason, and total to about a hundred bucks.
Maximum Read: 8x DVD-ROM; 6x DVD-ROM (double layer DVD-9), DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW; 4x DVD+R (double layered); 24x CD
Again, I'm not really in the market for a new laptop; maybe I missed some fine print, dual-layer is there on the MacBook Pro specs page. To be fair, you'd need to buy an Apple modem ( I guess Apple thinks we're all using WiFi and broadband these days? ) so that's $49 if you don't have a USB modem and if you have an ancient camera that doesn't have USB or you need a flash card reader for some other (?) reason, you'd need that... but still, pick *all* of the options that equate a MacBook Pro purchase, and it seems that even your Gateway example gets very, very close to the MacBook price, with little details only left, like uh, why can't you get a single 512MB 667Mhz RAM module from Gateway, and the screen sizes are different and the Gateway is a little heavier as a result...
Re:Both nuisance and blessing... mostly nuisance.
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6-8 months is glacially slow in the PC market. Intel adjusts prices and releases new product every month. You'll never see Dell let 8-12 month go by without refreshing their laptop line.
Please notice the GP post said "years", not "6-8 months"... if he'd said "6-8 months, which is slow by comparison", I would probably have agreed. Then again, it's not like there hasn't been good reason for the refresh rate of Apple's products- most computer system refreshes are CPU related, since the rate of change in other components isn't as great. Also, 6-8 months has really pretty much been the minimum time Apple stuff goes without a refresh; that's just the 'major' refresh schedule... often the little upgrades are done without so much as an announcement. In the case of the Mac mini, they put faster hard drives in shipping models without even updating the published specs...
Judging by the MacBook upgrade, Apple will be refreshing their line with new processors as they get them from Intel... which is a *heck* of a lot faster then they were coming from IBM or Freescale, and all part of why they made the switch.
Re:Don't be so dismissive of generic hardware.
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OSx86 Cracked Again
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Apple is not a killer hardware company, at least not on the desktop.
I don't know about that. You somehow don't dig that cool G5 tower case? God that thing is gorgeous, and I've never seen anything that had easier-to-remove drives or easier-to-access memory and PCI slots. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the original lamp-style flat-panel iMac is impossible to upgrade, but the screen positioning is ( IMHO ) still unmatched by anything, and I know people who simply adore the slick, space-saving clean design of the current iMac. So... I'm not sure your opinion on that one is widely shared. Maybe the guts of these things leave a bit to be desired ( though, really... that G5 is still nice, especially if you have some optimize Altivec going on... dual dual core processors on the new one? Smokin'... )...
the Apple fans who go on about how Apple *hardware* is so great are, well, full of it.
Or focused on things that are different from what you're focused on; like I said, I find all of the above designs appealing, but you notice I didn't heap praise on the non-expandability of the iMacs or the superiority of FireWire or the floating-point goodness of the CPUs... not a big deal. Fast enough that I'm not bored waiting for compiles or large documents to open? Ok, fast enough. You didn't state why you don't think Mac hardware is so poor, or whose you like so much better... prior to the introduction of the flat-panel iMac I might agree with you, though the cases of the older blue and grey PowerMacs were pretty nice with that easy-latch-open door, and some people really liked the 50s-era plastics on those earlier iMacs. Anything earlier, though... god those beige powermac cases were godawful. Do you just not like the emphasis on pretty cases, or did you just keep your opinion from that earlier beige-box era? Would you mind sharing with those of us who are apparently less informed what is so disgraceful about Apple's hardware, other than the laptop keyboard that we've already agreed to dislike? That'd be really helpful, because the simple opinion that you don't like Apple hardware leaves nothing but a lot of questions and you looking like someone who just hates for no reason. Which is OK, but if you don't have a reason for disliking Apple's hardware, I won't bother talking to you about your opinion...
3. If Apple treated the current OS X prices as the "OS X upgrade" price for systems already shipping with OS X support (which is pretty close to what it is, excepting the half dozen or so remaining people still running OS X on Sonnet-upgraded Powermac 7500s), and released a "Generic OS X (single CPU)" for something like the price of Windows XP pro, and a "Dual CPU" version about $100-$200 more, I think they'd make as much profit per sale as they're making per bundled Mac now.
That's an interesting theory, but...
First... the price of OS X is already far cheaper what a Windows upgrade costs. It's $129... at most a new version of OS X has ever been is $149. How much do you want it to cost?
The full price of Windows XP pro was 'list price' $299... you want Apple to charge that much for a generic OS X Intel crippled single-CPU ( er... does that count dual cores ? You *want* a crippled version? What a horrible thing to sell, why?!? ) and a $400-$500 dual-cpu version? So... they'll make as much profit per sale, maybe, but the piracy rate is going to look like what ? Oh... maybe you want them to abuse their customers with a Microsoftian phone-home hardware-key activation like is in XP ? Good lord, tell me you don't want that... ugh... I'd rather be limited to Apple hardware, thanks. And don't get me wrong, I'd love to see OS X Intel able to legally run on any to-spec off-the-shelf hard
Meh... I don't like dark chocolate... that could be it right there.
Almost definitely. I never really understood the whole "chocolate buzz" thing myself, really ( and I *love* dark chocolate, myself ) until my wife hooked me up with these little squares of stuff labeled as "99% pure cocoa". Dude. Woa. I ate three of those and definitely felt a bit of a buzz. Nothing like anything serious, of course, but definitely undeniable ( and pleasant ).
Aren't geeks all mildly autistic anyways? Y'know all those autistic kids borne of geek/geek relationships in Silicone Valley... isn't being a geek simply an obsession with details that other folks wouldn't find interesting?
Definitely not, to answer both questions. I'm pretty certain the trend/implication goes the other way, i.e. an autistic ( or at least mildly so ) kid who is reasonably smart will tend towards geekdom, but not all those who are simply smart and geeky share autistic traits. The relevant wikis are on autism spectrum and Autism... and I'll give a link to the 'alternative' neurodiversity view while I'm at it. Anyway, the long and short of it is that there are plenty of simply very smart people who, while they might at first seem a bit socially awkward, that's due to the time they spend working on projects and whatnot, and they're damn sociable, to the point of being very outgoing, and not physically restricted in any way that a little exercise wouldn't fix up. Geeks are musicians, atheletes, and generally well-rounded people smack in the middle of the spectrum of expected neurobiological behaviors. Or they can be. On the other hand, some folks are put off by any commotion, loud noises, don't like to look people in the eyes, have a hard time communicating effectively, but might excel at spatial problems and certain types of mathematical of symbological thinking problems and yea... those folks might fit a diagnosis of Sensory Integration Dysfunction or other mild ( or more severe ) autism.
On the other hand... meh, we know jack squat about how the brain really works, and there are those who say with some authority that all of the above fields are talking about relatively normal variations in brain function ( that's the neurodiversity crowd ). While I'm tempted on some level to side with those folks, there's no denying the severity and limitations of function that can come with real autism and even milder forms of things like SID.
In any case, feeling bad about the pigeon definitely lets you off the hook for the antisocial personality disorder...
Pyromania, shit, I thought that was just normal male boy behavior... it isn't? Oh... I mean, I'd feel bad if I made anything important or valuable to someone *else* burn, does that make it better:-) ?
BTW, we're still somewhat on topic here, we're talking about neurobiology and the chemistry of emotions... of which 'love' is a powerful hybrid.
when people eat chocolate they actually FEEL something? They get the warm and fuzzies? I sure don't...
Not milk chocolate. Serious, dark chocolate. Even then... meh... the effect is certainly less in men than it is in women, for example, and yea, there's probably a genetic variation from person to person.
Then again, maybe you just pay less attention to the cues provided by your physiology; your emotions and the chemically-induced changes they bring about in your metabolism are unimportant to you intellectually, and so you've become very good at tuning them out, to the point where you've forgotten that they ever were there, or they just bug you and you'd rather not pay attention... very Vulcan of you. Or slightly autistic... either way...
Perhaps some don't feel love or other positive affections and simply have no desire to be a nice person. A new way to stay out jail perhaps?
A new way to stay out of jail? When was the last time "he had a bad childhood" worked in *your* country? Ach... disturbing... no, what you've described is what they call a "sociopath", actually... which they're now calling "Antisocial personality disorder" and perhaps you should look into that wikipedia article I just posted...;-) he, nice sociopath... he.../backs away slowly...
Re:Don't be so dismissive of generic hardware.
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OSx86 Cracked Again
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I complained that Microsoft wasn't giving me Graffiti for the Pocket PC, and they listened
I have to think that clearly you're smart enough to see the difference here... the Pocket PC initiative is a Microsoft-sponsored program. But OK... ask Apple *and* Lenovo for OS X for ThinkPad, but realize that's a different beast than OS X for (any) Intel.
Besides, Apple and IBM's Thinkpad division have worked together before, and produced one of the cult classic Powerbooks as a result. They could do it again.
An excellent example of why I think it'd be a better tack for you to complain about the MacBook ( or PowerBook ) features that you don't like, and ask Apple to make that laptop more like the Thinkpad that you do like. Chances of getting Apple to change their laptop design are much greater than getting them to try to support every last laptop configuration created by Acer, Lenovo, HP, Gateway, Dell, etc, etc, etc... that's my point. You can clearly complain about Apple not releasing a 'generic OS X' laptop all you want, but if you want to actually accomplish something with your bellyaching, I'm just offering the friendly advice that criticism of the hardware features you dislike might be more constructive.
You don't have to STFU about anything, but... sometimes complaining about the wrong thing is just silly. We should all write Apple a nice letter letting them know that with the sale of the division to Lenovo, maybe right now would be a great time to get some former IBM Thinkpad engineers to help them out with that cheap-feeling laptop keyboard they use ( and whatever else it is you like about the Thinkpad ). But saying OS X needs to be released for any Intel machine and Apple needs to support all those video cards and weird little memory card readers and whatnot? That's a business decision that you're going to have to try very, very hard to justify for Apple. Don't get me wrong, I want them to do it, too, I'd love it... but if I were on Apple's board, I don't know if it's a decision I'd make, especially right now. Would it be your decision? Would it make Apple a lot of money? I don't know... I think they'd lose money, at least in the short run, and I don't know if they'd be able to keep their hardware business. They want to keep the hardware business, and are not going to make decisions that would harm that business.
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OK, so you agree with me that the OP is exaggerating the situation. Why are we having this back and forth again ? He was exaggerating in the case of one of Apple's products, and entirely incorrect considering *any* of their others. Surely you don't disagree with that last statement? Are you sure taking issue with his wording isn't at least somewhat justified? Why not, since you seem to agree that it's wrong, or at best exaggerates the facts?
I'll *certainly* agree that the example of the Powerbook is out of control, but it's not *at all* typical of Apple's releases. That same Powerbook example is *exactly* why Apple switched to Intel hardware. How many updates did the PowerMac, iMac and even iBook lines see in the same time period ? Is it really right to base Apple's rate of product refresh on *one* of 5 lines produced in the past 20 years ? What kind of upgrade was the Powerbook supposed to get, other than a processor that nobody could make?
I'm not taking issue with the notion that the Powerbook line was stagnant for way too long, and I'm not even taking issue with the idea that Apple has historically been slower to update their offerings than Intel PC makers... but they weren't Intel PC makers, so they offered what they could when their suppliers gave them better processors, and dropped prices when other components significantly dropped in price. How often does Sun or IBM update their non-Intel product lines ? They get fewer processor upgrades, so reconfigure their systems lesss often, it's just a natural thing. I'd not have a problem with any statement like that, and I'd certainly not have any problem with the original post if it had been about the Powerbook specifically.
But the statement
is at best a misleading exaggeration ( as you've already admitted ) and at worst an anti-Apple troll, and you decided it was a statement worth defending... why exactly ?
I mean, I dislike some people ( mostly politicians ) and some companies, but I try really, really hard not to bend the facts when I knock them down; I don't see any good reason for this guy to make it sound like Apple doesn't update their products for years at a time when it's just not true, just because he's decided he dislikes the company for some reason. It's almost more odd that you see he's exaggerating, and yet feel compelled to come to his defense when I point out that the facts don't back up his ( overly general ) statement.
If you are running as an admin-level user, there are things that a trojan like this will wipe have access to ( i.e. everything in your Applications folder ) that would be protected if you were running as a regular, non-admin-group user.
Reading the article, or better yet, the Ambrosia Software write-up of the worm, will give you a clear idea of how an admin-group use is more susceptable to this attack than other users.
Remember, I'm not sure about that part. I think what could be going on is that the app only writes into /Applications and /Library, which are writable by Admin, but not to /System or any other locations that aren't admin-writable... thus, it doesn't trigger the authentication dialog for the admin user not matter what, it's only triggered if you aren't in the admin group.
Of course, every user everywhere is always at risk always from a trojan that wipes out all of their writeable files. There's not much that can be practically done to prevent that, outside of user training.
Yea, that'd be the way to go... and why I'm absolutely in agreement with you in a way. Apple really needs to step up and offer more flexibility in their systems, especially with regard to graphics options. I kinda like the mini, except for the graphics card and hard drive. The hard drive I can live with, but not being able to get a better graphics card *really* limits what you could do with the machine. Of course Apple's answer to that is for me to buy a PowerMac... which is not a bad answer, but I'd like a cheaper flexible option as well, and know it'd be possible.
Still, I'd ask Apple to expand it's hardware offerings long before I'd ask it to support another company's hardware, which I'm pretty sure was the original point that started all of this... though it's hard to remember...
Too true... though I guess you have to question, does it work ? Does it work in the long run ? Or does it make you even more of a target? Who does the gang protect you from... itself? Other gangs? Cops? Simple, lone bullies? Or would you rather be running with the pack than be *gasp* 'alone'?
Really, joining a gang turns out to be like joining any group- most folks do it to be part of the group, to be closer to some people they like and have similar interests with, because they lack any other stronger connection to people... it's just hard when you like being a tough guy, and someone keeps pushin' on what you have to do to be tough to the point of 'you want to be one of us? go knock over this store or wack this guy, then we'll think about it'... that's when you have a real decision to make.
If you don't mind doing others harm, you've already made that decision, though... but unless you're under the age of 12, I think you're likely to have a pretty good idea of the difference between doing harm to a real person and doing harm to a computer generated image of a person. Of course, it could turn out that I'm wrong about that, but despite the Nut Cases out there, I don't think we've really seen the crime wave you'd expect to be associated with the popularity of the GTA games... the Nut Cases would be nut cases with or without violent video games...
Funny, these things don't seem to have simple answers. I know, let's just blame the video games and ban *them* ! That's simple!
Well, actually, that's on a time-related basis ( if you've authenticated recently it won't always ask again ), I think, and some of the forum posts I saw seemed to indicate that for whatever reason, this doesn't trigger that on Admin accounts, I think because it only writes to /Applications, not /System or anything without Admin-write privilege set. Sometimes the authentication you're talking about is triggered by the installation process, too, not the system, so.... yea, running as Admin, not a good idea.
I'm not sure, of course. Still waiting for further information.
True, but if I buy a Mac mini, and it has a newer version of OS X, then I get someone's older G4 dual processor machine, I could easily install my newer OS X on the older dual-processor machine. If I buy a MacIntel tower and later through weird circimstances get my hands on a motherboard from a better-equiped more-processor version of a MacIntel, I'll be fairly certain I'd be able to stick that better motherboard in without having to upgrade my OS. ( A contrived example, but still... ) Again, you're talking about the fact that software is bundled with the machines. Really, I'm not quibbling with the idea of unbundling the software, it's just that you came up with a particularly henious "cheap crippled single-processor OS version, more expensive dual/quad processor version" scheme that's just... well, henious.
I'm totally down with suggesting that Apple sell OS X for Intel ( with a specific list of supported hardware ) but gack, don't suggest that the right thing for *any* software company to do is sell intentionally crippled versions of their stuff to spur extra sales... that's just anti-customer on the face of it. If I buy a copy of an OS, I don't want it to use only one of the processors on my dual-processor machine, that's just horrible. At least by bundling software Apple can claim it's helping smooth out any possible problems by selling a "complete package", even if you and I see right through that...
OK, I just went to HP's website, and found one for $300 before rebate with a 1.8 GHz Sempron and a Radeon X300 chipset on the motherboard. Applying the mail-in rebate to a RAM upgrade brought it up to 512M, though when I bought my mini that was extra price. That's a better system than my Windows "game machine" (all it runs is games... I don't trust Windows with anything that matters), and THAT has significantly better performance across the board than my mini.
It clearly doesn't matter to you, and I don't know why you can't be bothered to provide links when they're right there, but check the details. That's still a "shared memory" system. It's not vram, it's not indepentant from the system RAM, it's *shared memory*. Ugh. If you don't care, that's fine, but I'd rather have an independant bit of vram even on a *slightly* slower bus... and that X300 is just *slightly* faster than the 9200 in core clock, and without doing a benchmark I'm not going to have to wonder if using a shared memory system isn't going to slow it down a bit in real-life tasks. I just... gack... if it's for any real gaming use, I'm not going to be using that on-board video if I can help it.
Yea, pretty funny... it's commented on more than a few times in the MacRumors thread how clever it was in a 'social engineering' sense to release it there as OS X 10.5 screenshots. I mean, normally you'd think some model or actress nude would be better bait, but then you'd just get a forum full of Windows users complaining about how all they got was a folder with a "Contents" folder, an "Info.plist" file, and some other weird files... then the jig would be up for sure!
So add 4. run as Administrator constantly or always authenticate when prompted.
As has been pointed out very, very often, the first part of (4) is default behavior for Windows. Not so on OS X, so it's less of an issue.
Still, I don't want to use the system that's so user-unfriendly that it prevents you from running this type of program completely, how the heck would you ever install a new program?
Sadly I think the best we can do is try to make sure you know when you've downloaded an executable, and try to let you know before an executable attempts to modify system files... going any further could make your system very difficult to use indeed.
As much as it'd be fun if that were true... no.
To spread this, you have to
a) have someone in your buddy list who is infected.
b) not think anything of opening a compressed file you get over iChat without any explaination of what it is
c) either be running as Admin all the time, or ( even more crazy ) not pause to think when double-clicking on a JPG requires Admin authentication for some reason.
Uhhh... yea... I'm going to guess this is just going to be an opportunity for FUD and anti-virus sales. And for a few of us to reconsider using Admin accounts all the time... spread like wildfire ? how many OS X users do you know who will fit all of a,b, and c ?
Oh, wait, I forgot (d), don't have file extensions showing or won't notice ".app" in the name of the file if they do!
The only people who are having to deal with this downloaded the original file just to see if it really was going to try to infect their systems. Ooops! The only shocker for them is that it's spreading over Rendevous to their other systems... but at least they'll know not to *execute* it there, hopefully. Otherwise there's no helping them, they *like* this app.
a Symantec or McAffee employee. Anyone want to place bets ? ;-)
I'm pretty sure I'm kidding...
I don't know anyone stupid enough to use their OS X admin account all the time... OK, I lied. I really have to stop using this admin account... damn...
Of course, that whole file-extension thing should be a big tip-off, too. It's not like this is going to spread like wildfire. It's just a wake-up call to folks
(a) hiding file extensions... why do that? Show them, they're important.
(b) running as Admin. We have to not be so lazy. It's ok that we'll have to type our password.
But mostly (b). If some old-school OS 9 user can't grock file extensions, they sure as shoot shouldn't be using an Admin account...
This is true... except for the fact that when you download an uncompressed file, or uncompress the file, it's noticed as being an application, so you get this dialog along the lines of "Such and such is an executable, do you want to download it"... and apparently if you're not an admin user, this one tries to install something in /Applications or somewhere else where you end up looking at an authentication dialog, at which point you're likely to wonder WTF. Unless, like you say, you're a naive mac user who's used to alwasy saying OK to anything.
This will get plenty of folks to stop using their Admin accounts so much, though. I know I'm guilty of using my Admin account all the time ( looks around sheepishly ) and was waiting for just this type of event to stop doing that. Lucky for me it's easy enough to create a new account, designate it as admin, and change the permissions on the account I regularly use...
Damn, I have to do that at work, too. Stupid trojan writers.
That is pretty damn funny, or maybe sad/funny, I'd kinda missed that...
yea, I really think that I'd try to turn it around and use it as an educational tool of sorts... "oh, you like that game? Well... notice what happens to you when this is the guy you are. You get shot at. Your friends and family get shot and killed. You end up shot, dead, or busted. It's fun as a video game, perhaps... because you get to go back to your save game like 5000 times so you can actually finish the game. Sadly, *you* only get to die once, and when you're busted you're not on the street the next day. Maybe you just want to keep that kind of experience in-game, and keep yourself and your family as safe as possible outside the game, huh?"... and then take the real-life examples that a person in that positon would know about and use them to contrast and compare the game to reality. I'd think doing something like that would be a lot more powerful, and connect with the kids a lot better than just dismissing the game outright.
Sometimes it's nice when something is 'just a game'. It'd be nice if violence was limited to games, really... I mean, that's what video games are *great* for : doing stuff that you'd *never* do in real life.
Um, technically, "years" would be "at least two years", wouldn't it? I'm *sure* that would be untrue... all you have to do is check any Apple history website to see that you recall incorrectly. I think that there was a just over a year there where the only 'upgrades' were a price drop and a speed bump, but that counts as an upgrade, right? Actually, from my reading of the timeline, it looks like it was just almost exactly a year. Way to freaking long for a relatively small speed bump, but it was an upgrade. I think they started shipping with more memory for the same price at some point in there, too... usually when the hardware can't really be upgraded, there's at least a price drop or something.
Not that I'm wanting to defend Apple on the Powerbook here. It's been hobbled by the G4 and has not been really great-looking as a result since early 2005, but I'm not sure we can blame Apple for that... Freescale and IBM just failed to produce the chips they'd said they were going to, and both Intel and AMD started cramming P4s and other hot chips into laptops despite their power drain problems, then came up with some decent lower-power chips, which was actually somewhat unexpected I think. It was really just this past year that Powerbook sales started to suffer as a result.
Anyway, all I am saying that Apple does generally update their machines every six to eight months or so, or as changes in hardware allow... it's just that up until now, they've had to wait for IBM and Freescale, and that's grown to be a long, long wait... unacceptably long, so much so that Intel became an inevitable choice. I really *hate* defending Apple like that, but it sucks to see people talking trash about how Apple never updates their hardware when it's just not true, I felt I had to refute those simply incorrect statements. We should be knocking companies for things they *do*, ( like arbitrarily deciding which upgrade release means Quicktime users have to pay another $49 for a Pro version again ) , not stuff they don't do.
See, it's funny, because when someone says something is unexceptional and overpriced, I usually think it means they don't like it and that well, it's so overpriced you should buy something else... and yet somehow that's not what you mean. Perhaps you can see how I'm confused about what you mean ?
"when I upgrade my motherboard, I'd like to not have to buy a new version of the OS, thanks"
Where have I suggested that you should be forced to do that?
I suppose I should have specified "when I upgrade my single-processor motherboard to a dual-processor motherboard"... You said you wanted Apple to sell differently-priced single and multiple CPU versions of OS X for Intel... if I'd originally bought the single-processor version, I'd have to buy a new version if I picked up a new motherboard. Is that not what you meant somehow ? What was that about 50% of text messages not being understood?!?
Radeon 9200 with only 32M in the PC world would be the absolute bottom of the line
You clearly haven't experienced the joy that is one of those $300 PCs with on-board Intel shared-memory video ( with less memory than you really need to run XP )... *that* is the bottom of the line, and yes, even the Radeon 9200 beats it. Now that I think about it, the cheapo PC I'm thinking about was $400, but that's besides the point... you can do way worse than the Radeon 9200 and in the cheapo PC world, you often do.
You can get one with 128M for under $40, and I would love to have that in my Mac mini. The form factor is nice, but I'd rather have a 3.5" drive bay.
I'd definitely agree with that... I can't help but feel that Apple made a huge mistake in going with the laptop hard drive for the mini. I'd think the idea would be more to make an inexpensive system than a small one... it just never made sense to me... I suppose they should offer to bundle the mini with an external hard drive or something. Apple could easily make a closer-to-cube-size machine that used regular hard drives and had enough room for the nicer video card you're talking about.
After all you've said and your attitude towards Apple hardware, you're the one of the two of us who owns a Mac mini... I'm so bloody confused I just have to laugh...
On the other hand, I'm not so sure it 'glorifies' gang culture as much as the critics claim. I've been playing it lately, and damn if you don't just get shot and killed *a lot*. It's a hard damn life, and in any sort of real life that would be no fun. There are personal relationships and such, but that's real... but nobody in the game is clean, or really moral, or just or right... those concepts don't exist in the game.
Does playing the game make *me* want to hang out with someone who has automatic weapons ?!? Hell NO !! I see a Tec9, man, I'm *outa there*, ASAP !! Likewise, I'm not excited about going to a war zone after playing some WWII game, either. Some people are excited about going to war, and/or excited about gunning down people in the street... something tells me that these games don't really change that idea one way or another. What, you don't like the art that reflects a man's reality? Well, best start changing that reality, or making alternative art that expresses the reality you'd prefer...
When did I say that? You must be thinking of someone else. I own a generic Intel PC. I'd love to install OS X on it if at all possible... and when I upgrade my motherboard, I'd like to not have to buy a new version of the OS, thanks.
I've done those comparisons in the past, and they always come down to the Mac guy saying 'the mac's got a brighter screen/firewire/... so you didn't do an equal comparison'.
Did you look at the other post I referred you too? We hashed this one out over the Gateway and came pretty close... the Gateway has a larger screen at the same pixel count ( thus, uh, 'lower resolution' I guess ), and when outfitted with a similar set of features ( and a web cam ) and software came out a tiny bit, like $50 cheaper than the MacBook Pro. Yea, so we're calling the screen a wash, since one guy will say they like the larger screen, and one guy will say they like the smaller resolution and lighter/smaller form factor. The MacBook is also missing a flash card reader and a modem, which puts it about $150 more expensive if you need those and buy 'expensive' versions of them. If you don't need software, then yea, the MacBook Pro is by that same accounting $250-$300 more, if you don't want the bundled software. Given that the post(s) at least somewhat back your argument ( with a key caveat ), I'm saddened that you apparently didn't care enough to read them, but your attitude towards the software costs is key here.
When you're saying that Apple's hardware is overpriced, you're really complaining that you can't buy the hardware without paying for some software that you ( at least claim ) that you really don't want, and you're not going to stand for Apple upping the price of their offerings by a couple of hundred bucks and justifying it by pointing at the bundled software, even though really, to buy equivalent Windows software you would easily spend that amount.
Personally, free developer tools make a much bigger difference than anything else... what's the price of a full Visual Studio suite? But that's just me, not your average consumer, so maybe we shouldn't talk about that. Maybe you don't want even the Windows XP Home or MS Works that Gateway is going to ship you anyway, for that matter... I know I wouldn't...
Not to mention that "a few hundred dollars" doesn't seem much on a $2000 laptop, but it's a really big deal when it's the difference between a $700 laptop and a $1000 iBook, or between a $300 PC and a $500 Mac mini.
Uh... there's a really, really good reason why I'm trying to keep this discussion limited to the Intel vs. Intel offerings. The $300 PC vs $500 Mac mini debate has been done to death; either you buy the claim that the superior video, form factor, and software of the Mac mini are worth the price and any performance difference, or you don't. But the G4 vs Centrino or whatever CPU argument is sort of intractable there, and really you can justify easily either view. I'm not even sure where I come down on that; I can see both views. Certainly it's true that Apple doesn't offer a $300 PC... it's also true that most $300 PCs aren't worth $300 or require two years of AOL, but like I said... done to death, not my argument.
So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Intel vs Intel, and was specifically pointing to Dell's offering. News to me, Gateway is underselling Dell and Apple by just a little bit... but not by a huge margin. If you're trying to be fair at all, calling the MacBook Pro "overpriced" is at best an exaggeration of the facts- especially if you're looking at the Inspiron I was originally talking about. You've done nothing to support your claim to the contrary. Sorry. I did the hard work for you of showing that the Gateway laptop is $250 ( at most ) cheaper if you value Apple's bundled software at nothing. I'm still not sure that pric
No, I don't: it's an unnecessarily huge monster that makes very poor use of space
Well, we're all entitled to our opinion, I suppose...
They could even sell the 2 CPU version at the XP Pro price, and charge more for the quad. That's what Microsoft's doing.
Ech. That's a terrible strategy, very anti-customer... again, we're just going to have to disagree. I just hate that kind of thing. I'm going to have to remember which verision of the OS I bought and be sure not to cripple a new machine with the wrong version? There are just so many things wrong with that...
Apple's only now getting a little closer to parity with generic hardware, albeit at a significantly higher cost
You keep saying that, and yet I'm still not seeing it, in particular in the case of the MacBook... care to show a carefully matched example of a cheaper, equal, competing system from Dell ? Check out the discussion I had on this thread... that Acer just isn't the same machine at all, and once you add a few components and software to the Gateway, it's damn close to the same price, with lower screen resolution ( though bigger screen, which, well, makes it heavier ) meh not "significantly more expensive" in any case. Maybe a couple hundred bucks more, if you don't need any software. Which is perhaps an issue- but yea, actually, fewer options and bundled software *is* a feature. Maybe not for you or I, but for most end-users? Yea. Anyway, don't buy an Apple if you don't like their hardware designs, but I think you're just spewing FUD by saying the MacBook Pro is overpriced... it's actually very competitively priced, as any rational, factual look at the different available options will show.
But you're going to sit there and tell me you don't like the G5 PowerMac case? I'm just going to have to sit here and look at you like you're crazy, sorry... want to point us to a link of a case design you *do* like? I'm almost actually curious...
I'll admit I didn't take too much time looking at it, but there was some reason why I didn't look at the NX860X, or decided it wasn't quite the er, apples-to-apples comparsion. But OK, I'll play... here is the Gateway NS860X... and it's $2059. Of course, maybe that's all decked out... Ok, I went through Gateway's PITA customization process ( man, they want to sell you a lot of stuff with your laptop, eh? ) and included XP Pro and whatnot, ended up with what I think ( not positive ) is a system pretty close to a MacBook Pro for $1709.99... oops, I forgot bluetooth... should we think about software bundling and throw in Gateway's optional photo and DVD software and such? Still I'm puzzled... your base price is much lower than the one I found... and what's up with the $2059 quote on that other page, is that maxed out somehow? Oh, and I forgot a webcam... ha ha this is almost funny... I just threw in a webcam and Quicken and the low-end photo and movie/DVD editing programs, and guess what the price came to ? $1,989.95 before shipping and handling! Too funny. Oh, I see where you got your cut-and-paste, here's the version I did :
The photo album software and webcam show up as separate line-items for whatever reason, and total to about a hundred bucks.
Oh, that whole no dual-layer drive thing? Uh... this is a quote from the MacBook Pro "What's Inside" web page:
Again, I'm not really in the market for a new laptop; maybe I missed some fine print, dual-layer is there on the MacBook Pro specs page. To be fair, you'd need to buy an Apple modem ( I guess Apple thinks we're all using WiFi and broadband these days? ) so that's $49 if you don't have a USB modem and if you have an ancient camera that doesn't have USB or you need a flash card reader for some other (?) reason, you'd need that... but still, pick *all* of the options that equate a MacBook Pro purchase, and it seems that even your Gateway example gets very, very close to the MacBook price, with little details only left, like uh, why can't you get a single 512MB 667Mhz RAM module from Gateway, and the screen sizes are different and the Gateway is a little heavier as a result...
Please notice the GP post said "years", not "6-8 months"... if he'd said "6-8 months, which is slow by comparison", I would probably have agreed. Then again, it's not like there hasn't been good reason for the refresh rate of Apple's products- most computer system refreshes are CPU related, since the rate of change in other components isn't as great. Also, 6-8 months has really pretty much been the minimum time Apple stuff goes without a refresh; that's just the 'major' refresh schedule... often the little upgrades are done without so much as an announcement. In the case of the Mac mini, they put faster hard drives in shipping models without even updating the published specs...
Judging by the MacBook upgrade, Apple will be refreshing their line with new processors as they get them from Intel... which is a *heck* of a lot faster then they were coming from IBM or Freescale, and all part of why they made the switch.
I don't know about that. You somehow don't dig that cool G5 tower case? God that thing is gorgeous, and I've never seen anything that had easier-to-remove drives or easier-to-access memory and PCI slots. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the original lamp-style flat-panel iMac is impossible to upgrade, but the screen positioning is ( IMHO ) still unmatched by anything, and I know people who simply adore the slick, space-saving clean design of the current iMac. So... I'm not sure your opinion on that one is widely shared. Maybe the guts of these things leave a bit to be desired ( though, really... that G5 is still nice, especially if you have some optimize Altivec going on... dual dual core processors on the new one? Smokin'... )...
the Apple fans who go on about how Apple *hardware* is so great are, well, full of it.
Or focused on things that are different from what you're focused on; like I said, I find all of the above designs appealing, but you notice I didn't heap praise on the non-expandability of the iMacs or the superiority of FireWire or the floating-point goodness of the CPUs... not a big deal. Fast enough that I'm not bored waiting for compiles or large documents to open? Ok, fast enough. You didn't state why you don't think Mac hardware is so poor, or whose you like so much better... prior to the introduction of the flat-panel iMac I might agree with you, though the cases of the older blue and grey PowerMacs were pretty nice with that easy-latch-open door, and some people really liked the 50s-era plastics on those earlier iMacs. Anything earlier, though... god those beige powermac cases were godawful. Do you just not like the emphasis on pretty cases, or did you just keep your opinion from that earlier beige-box era? Would you mind sharing with those of us who are apparently less informed what is so disgraceful about Apple's hardware, other than the laptop keyboard that we've already agreed to dislike? That'd be really helpful, because the simple opinion that you don't like Apple hardware leaves nothing but a lot of questions and you looking like someone who just hates for no reason. Which is OK, but if you don't have a reason for disliking Apple's hardware, I won't bother talking to you about your opinion...
3. If Apple treated the current OS X prices as the "OS X upgrade" price for systems already shipping with OS X support (which is pretty close to what it is, excepting the half dozen or so remaining people still running OS X on Sonnet-upgraded Powermac 7500s), and released a "Generic OS X (single CPU)" for something like the price of Windows XP pro, and a "Dual CPU" version about $100-$200 more, I think they'd make as much profit per sale as they're making per bundled Mac now.
That's an interesting theory, but...
First... the price of OS X is already far cheaper what a Windows upgrade costs. It's $129... at most a new version of OS X has ever been is $149. How much do you want it to cost?
The full price of Windows XP pro was 'list price' $299... you want Apple to charge that much for a generic OS X Intel crippled single-CPU ( er... does that count dual cores ? You *want* a crippled version? What a horrible thing to sell, why?!? ) and a $400-$500 dual-cpu version? So... they'll make as much profit per sale, maybe, but the piracy rate is going to look like what ? Oh... maybe you want them to abuse their customers with a Microsoftian phone-home hardware-key activation like is in XP ? Good lord, tell me you don't want that... ugh... I'd rather be limited to Apple hardware, thanks. And don't get me wrong, I'd love to see OS X Intel able to legally run on any to-spec off-the-shelf hard
Almost definitely. I never really understood the whole "chocolate buzz" thing myself, really ( and I *love* dark chocolate, myself ) until my wife hooked me up with these little squares of stuff labeled as "99% pure cocoa". Dude. Woa. I ate three of those and definitely felt a bit of a buzz. Nothing like anything serious, of course, but definitely undeniable ( and pleasant ).
Aren't geeks all mildly autistic anyways? Y'know all those autistic kids borne of geek/geek relationships in Silicone Valley... isn't being a geek simply an obsession with details that other folks wouldn't find interesting?
Definitely not, to answer both questions. I'm pretty certain the trend/implication goes the other way, i.e. an autistic ( or at least mildly so ) kid who is reasonably smart will tend towards geekdom, but not all those who are simply smart and geeky share autistic traits. The relevant wikis are on autism spectrum and Autism... and I'll give a link to the 'alternative' neurodiversity view while I'm at it. Anyway, the long and short of it is that there are plenty of simply very smart people who, while they might at first seem a bit socially awkward, that's due to the time they spend working on projects and whatnot, and they're damn sociable, to the point of being very outgoing, and not physically restricted in any way that a little exercise wouldn't fix up. Geeks are musicians, atheletes, and generally well-rounded people smack in the middle of the spectrum of expected neurobiological behaviors. Or they can be. On the other hand, some folks are put off by any commotion, loud noises, don't like to look people in the eyes, have a hard time communicating effectively, but might excel at spatial problems and certain types of mathematical of symbological thinking problems and yea... those folks might fit a diagnosis of Sensory Integration Dysfunction or other mild ( or more severe ) autism.
On the other hand... meh, we know jack squat about how the brain really works, and there are those who say with some authority that all of the above fields are talking about relatively normal variations in brain function ( that's the neurodiversity crowd ). While I'm tempted on some level to side with those folks, there's no denying the severity and limitations of function that can come with real autism and even milder forms of things like SID.
In any case, feeling bad about the pigeon definitely lets you off the hook for the antisocial personality disorder...
Pyromania, shit, I thought that was just normal male boy behavior... it isn't? Oh... I mean, I'd feel bad if I made anything important or valuable to someone *else* burn, does that make it better :-) ?
BTW, we're still somewhat on topic here, we're talking about neurobiology and the chemistry of emotions... of which 'love' is a powerful hybrid.
Not milk chocolate. Serious, dark chocolate. Even then... meh... the effect is certainly less in men than it is in women, for example, and yea, there's probably a genetic variation from person to person.
Then again, maybe you just pay less attention to the cues provided by your physiology; your emotions and the chemically-induced changes they bring about in your metabolism are unimportant to you intellectually, and so you've become very good at tuning them out, to the point where you've forgotten that they ever were there, or they just bug you and you'd rather not pay attention... very Vulcan of you. Or slightly autistic... either way...
Perhaps some don't feel love or other positive affections and simply have no desire to be a nice person. A new way to stay out jail perhaps?
A new way to stay out of jail? When was the last time "he had a bad childhood" worked in *your* country? Ach... disturbing... no, what you've described is what they call a "sociopath", actually... which they're now calling "Antisocial personality disorder" and perhaps you should look into that wikipedia article I just posted... ;-) he, nice sociopath... he... /backs away slowly...
I have to think that clearly you're smart enough to see the difference here... the Pocket PC initiative is a Microsoft-sponsored program. But OK... ask Apple *and* Lenovo for OS X for ThinkPad, but realize that's a different beast than OS X for (any) Intel.
Besides, Apple and IBM's Thinkpad division have worked together before, and produced one of the cult classic Powerbooks as a result. They could do it again.
An excellent example of why I think it'd be a better tack for you to complain about the MacBook ( or PowerBook ) features that you don't like, and ask Apple to make that laptop more like the Thinkpad that you do like. Chances of getting Apple to change their laptop design are much greater than getting them to try to support every last laptop configuration created by Acer, Lenovo, HP, Gateway, Dell, etc, etc, etc... that's my point. You can clearly complain about Apple not releasing a 'generic OS X' laptop all you want, but if you want to actually accomplish something with your bellyaching, I'm just offering the friendly advice that criticism of the hardware features you dislike might be more constructive.
You don't have to STFU about anything, but... sometimes complaining about the wrong thing is just silly. We should all write Apple a nice letter letting them know that with the sale of the division to Lenovo, maybe right now would be a great time to get some former IBM Thinkpad engineers to help them out with that cheap-feeling laptop keyboard they use ( and whatever else it is you like about the Thinkpad ). But saying OS X needs to be released for any Intel machine and Apple needs to support all those video cards and weird little memory card readers and whatnot? That's a business decision that you're going to have to try very, very hard to justify for Apple. Don't get me wrong, I want them to do it, too, I'd love it... but if I were on Apple's board, I don't know if it's a decision I'd make, especially right now. Would it be your decision? Would it make Apple a lot of money? I don't know... I think they'd lose money, at least in the short run, and I don't know if they'd be able to keep their hardware business. They want to keep the hardware business, and are not going to make decisions that would harm that business.