This doesn't ship with Linux - it runs RISC OS. A relatively cheap native system such as this has been a long time coming, plus it has the advantage of being very small indeed.
It runs RISC OS natively, which - although not nearly as popular as in its hayday - is still used by a fair number of people. Certainly they're more expensive than the average Intel, but they do have several advantages.
For instance, the entirety of the RISC OS is in ROM - this gives machines ludicrously good boot times, as well as making it virtually impossible to accidentally hose the system. It also has a familiar and easy to use GUI, using the middle-button for all menus - no menu bars cluttering up every window, and has features such as font anti-aliasing built in (since 1989).
And that's entirely the point. Apple can bundle whatever they want with their own hardware - but Microsoft were forcing other companies to sell Windows. There's a world of difference.
Nintendo seem to be doing very well for themselves in the 'pathetic' third place. They're certainly turning a profit on the GameCube, unlike Microsoft for example, and have the best first-party games on any system, bar none.
There's no need to have a games library as large as, for example, the PS2's - how many of that system's games are really worth buying? There are plenty of simply excellent games available for the GameCube, and so long as Nintendo keep it up, I'll gladly buy their next system.
I agree. Apple were losing market share to the cloners - instead of growing the Mac user base, the clones simply ate sales that would have been Apple's. Apple really had little choice but to end the cloning scheme.
As for Microsoft and innovation, Douglas Adams held the same view: "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all his customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who by peddling second-hand, second-rate technology, led them all into it in the first place."
You asked for a dual-booting machine. Don't move the goalposts.
In any case, it is not the same. When you buy a computer from Apple, you are getting just that - an Apple. Apple have the right to ship whatever they want with their own computers. If Microsoft made a PC, they'd be allowed to ship Windows with it no matter what.
The problem is that other companies, building their own computers, are being forced to ship nothing but Windows - or they get no Windows at all. Now, if Apple forced other companies who made PPC board to ship the Mac OS, then maybe it would be similar.
"It is technically possible for a manufacturer to install any number of operating systems on a computer. The user then has to choose which operating system to use during the boot process (after switching on the machine). However, Microsoft OEMs are only allowed to install Windows. No machines with both Windows and, for example, the free (!) operating system Linux, can legally be sold by OEMs."
Doesn't sound especially fair to anyone but Microsoft, that. Remember who the convicted monopolist is?
When Apple deliberately prevent competing operating systems from working, I'll have my doubts. Microsoft, on the other hand, have been less than welcoming to competition in the past - remember the DR-DOS and Windows 3.1 incompatibility?
Apple make their own computers and are well within their rights to ship their own OS. Microsoft, on the other hand, forces OEMs to ship Windows, and uses decidedly underhand techniques to ensure their OS prevails.
Whoa there, amigo. You're diving a bit too far into this 'automatic' line for my liking. Even if Safari is set to automatically download 'safe' files, all this does is download the.zip archive. The user still has to open up the zip, and run the widget inside - which will ask the user for permission to run. The user has to go out of their way to install the unsafe widget, which, at the end of the day, is a matter for user training.
And if anyone can act as a portal well, it ought to be Google. Yahoo's front page? I had to look at it for the first time in years the other day, and it is simply a mess. Google, on the other hand, keeps everything clear and well-ordered - its front page just works.
You run a successful, household name company. Some of your clients are fraudulently using the services solely for their own income. Would you honestly just sit back and let them? Google's not being evil here, they're doing what anyone would - trying to isolate the problem.
The BBC is not a "government organisation", in that HM Government has no control over the BBC. The Government cannot force the BBC to only show its side of a story, or hide things that they'd really rather not let out; indeed, one of the great strengths of the BBC is that it is equally skaving to all political parties.
While the BBC is funded by the licence fee, it is an independant corporation governed by its Royal Charter, under which it is forced to be as independant and as unbiased as possible.
This isn't a dupe. The article you linked to is saying that the episode was linked; this one, however, asks the question of whether or not the Beeb leaked it themselves as a publicity move, or not.
...scarily like a good idea. It'll be interesting to see how far this can get, and how long before the inevitable corportate opposition to this begins to mount. I can already see Diebold rallying their forces...
Don't worry - it's been moderated correctly. First of all, all the links all go to www.getfirefox.com, a Firefox advocacy website with no details of 'security holes' supposedly rife.
"Installing Firefox requires downloading an unsigned binary from a random web server" - unsigned binary, true, but you can check MD5 hashes if you want confirmation that you've downloaded the right file. The 'random web servers' are all known mirrors.
"Installing unsigned extensions is the default action in the Extensions dialog" - Let's try installing a random extension from Mozilla Update. If this site wasn't explicitly whitelisted, I wouldn't be able to download an extension at all - and despite being whitelisted, I still get a warning dialogue popped up - with "Install Now" unselectable for three seconds, and warnings that this is an unsigned extension.
"There is no way to check the signature on downloaded program files" - Internet Explorer certainly doesn't, either.
"There is no obvious way to turn off plug-ins once they are installed" - Go to Tools, Extensions. You can remove them from here, or alter preferences if there are any to be changed.
"There is an easy way to bypass the "This might be a virus" dialog" - This requires the user to have actually downloaded an executable, tried to run it, been warned, and explicitly asked not to be told again.
"Firefox has also killed Linux" - Linux goes from strength to strength. A good, open-source web browser is one thing, but is no substitute for running the same browser on a better operating system - be that Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, or whatever else constitutes 'better', even Windows.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head - the factual errors abound. A simple Google by the author would have cleaned the article up immensely.
Incidentally, the ARM series of processors isn't exclusively cell-phone - they were developed by the British Acorn Computers to run their RISC OS-based Archimedes series of computers.
Explain how artists would be able to afford to do all this? Artists have to sell records to make money to produce more records to sell records. While I appreciate that they don't end up with much money at the end of it, thanks to the RIAA, it's money that makes the whole process possible.
Convenience. The ability to search Usenet, from any WWW-able computer, is a godsend; when I'm at school, with no access to a newsreader or even an email application, yet still need to check a newsgroup, Google Groups is wonderful.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
This doesn't ship with Linux - it runs RISC OS. A relatively cheap native system such as this has been a long time coming, plus it has the advantage of being very small indeed.
It runs RISC OS natively, which - although not nearly as popular as in its hayday - is still used by a fair number of people. Certainly they're more expensive than the average Intel, but they do have several advantages.
For instance, the entirety of the RISC OS is in ROM - this gives machines ludicrously good boot times, as well as making it virtually impossible to accidentally hose the system. It also has a familiar and easy to use GUI, using the middle-button for all menus - no menu bars cluttering up every window, and has features such as font anti-aliasing built in (since 1989).
And that's entirely the point. Apple can bundle whatever they want with their own hardware - but Microsoft were forcing other companies to sell Windows. There's a world of difference.
Nintendo seem to be doing very well for themselves in the 'pathetic' third place. They're certainly turning a profit on the GameCube, unlike Microsoft for example, and have the best first-party games on any system, bar none.
There's no need to have a games library as large as, for example, the PS2's - how many of that system's games are really worth buying? There are plenty of simply excellent games available for the GameCube, and so long as Nintendo keep it up, I'll gladly buy their next system.
I agree. Apple were losing market share to the cloners - instead of growing the Mac user base, the clones simply ate sales that would have been Apple's. Apple really had little choice but to end the cloning scheme.
As for Microsoft and innovation, Douglas Adams held the same view: "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all his customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who by peddling second-hand, second-rate technology, led them all into it in the first place."
You asked for a dual-booting machine. Don't move the goalposts.
In any case, it is not the same. When you buy a computer from Apple, you are getting just that - an Apple. Apple have the right to ship whatever they want with their own computers. If Microsoft made a PC, they'd be allowed to ship Windows with it no matter what.
The problem is that other companies, building their own computers, are being forced to ship nothing but Windows - or they get no Windows at all. Now, if Apple forced other companies who made PPC board to ship the Mac OS, then maybe it would be similar.
Apple aren't, but you can buy a Mac running Linux from here. They're an authorised Apple OEM. There you go.
"It is technically possible for a manufacturer to install any number of operating systems on a computer. The user then has to choose which operating system to use during the boot process (after switching on the machine). However, Microsoft OEMs are only allowed to install Windows. No machines with both Windows and, for example, the free (!) operating system Linux, can legally be sold by OEMs."
Doesn't sound especially fair to anyone but Microsoft, that. Remember who the convicted monopolist is?
When Apple deliberately prevent competing operating systems from working, I'll have my doubts. Microsoft, on the other hand, have been less than welcoming to competition in the past - remember the DR-DOS and Windows 3.1 incompatibility?
Apple make their own computers and are well within their rights to ship their own OS. Microsoft, on the other hand, forces OEMs to ship Windows, and uses decidedly underhand techniques to ensure their OS prevails.
Maintaining an OS monopoly? Heh, yes, of course, because we all know there aren't other operating systems available for the Mac...
But even so, the user must, of their own free will, install the dashboard widget. Just decompressing the archive won't install it for them.
Whoa there, amigo. You're diving a bit too far into this 'automatic' line for my liking. Even if Safari is set to automatically download 'safe' files, all this does is download the .zip archive. The user still has to open up the zip, and run the widget inside - which will ask the user for permission to run. The user has to go out of their way to install the unsafe widget, which, at the end of the day, is a matter for user training.
Professor X unavailable for comment.
And if anyone can act as a portal well, it ought to be Google. Yahoo's front page? I had to look at it for the first time in years the other day, and it is simply a mess. Google, on the other hand, keeps everything clear and well-ordered - its front page just works.
You run a successful, household name company. Some of your clients are fraudulently using the services solely for their own income. Would you honestly just sit back and let them? Google's not being evil here, they're doing what anyone would - trying to isolate the problem.
Actually, the 20p coin wasn't introduced until 1982, and the £1 coin replaced the £1 note in 1984-86.
The BBC is not a "government organisation", in that HM Government has no control over the BBC. The Government cannot force the BBC to only show its side of a story, or hide things that they'd really rather not let out; indeed, one of the great strengths of the BBC is that it is equally skaving to all political parties.
While the BBC is funded by the licence fee, it is an independant corporation governed by its Royal Charter, under which it is forced to be as independant and as unbiased as possible.
This isn't a dupe. The article you linked to is saying that the episode was linked; this one, however, asks the question of whether or not the Beeb leaked it themselves as a publicity move, or not.
...scarily like a good idea. It'll be interesting to see how far this can get, and how long before the inevitable corportate opposition to this begins to mount. I can already see Diebold rallying their forces...
Don't worry - it's been moderated correctly. First of all, all the links all go to www.getfirefox.com, a Firefox advocacy website with no details of 'security holes' supposedly rife.
"Installing Firefox requires downloading an unsigned binary from a random web server" - unsigned binary, true, but you can check MD5 hashes if you want confirmation that you've downloaded the right file. The 'random web servers' are all known mirrors.
"Installing unsigned extensions is the default action in the Extensions dialog" - Let's try installing a random extension from Mozilla Update. If this site wasn't explicitly whitelisted, I wouldn't be able to download an extension at all - and despite being whitelisted, I still get a warning dialogue popped up - with "Install Now" unselectable for three seconds, and warnings that this is an unsigned extension.
"There is no way to check the signature on downloaded program files" - Internet Explorer certainly doesn't, either.
"There is no obvious way to turn off plug-ins once they are installed" - Go to Tools, Extensions. You can remove them from here, or alter preferences if there are any to be changed.
"There is an easy way to bypass the "This might be a virus" dialog" - This requires the user to have actually downloaded an executable, tried to run it, been warned, and explicitly asked not to be told again.
"Firefox has also killed Linux" - Linux goes from strength to strength. A good, open-source web browser is one thing, but is no substitute for running the same browser on a better operating system - be that Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, or whatever else constitutes 'better', even Windows.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head - the factual errors abound. A simple Google by the author would have cleaned the article up immensely.
Incidentally, the ARM series of processors isn't exclusively cell-phone - they were developed by the British Acorn Computers to run their RISC OS-based Archimedes series of computers.
You squeal "privacy!" as if it's a dirty word, yet you hide behind an anonymous account...
Explain how artists would be able to afford to do all this? Artists have to sell records to make money to produce more records to sell records. While I appreciate that they don't end up with much money at the end of it, thanks to the RIAA, it's money that makes the whole process possible.
Convenience. The ability to search Usenet, from any WWW-able computer, is a godsend; when I'm at school, with no access to a newsreader or even an email application, yet still need to check a newsgroup, Google Groups is wonderful.