Here's the problem with Microsoft...they're spending 8-9 billion on Vista, but will only see a very slight fraction of return on the investment. Few people will upgrade to Vista, but instead will adopt Vista when it comes with their new PC. Microsoft could just keep XP and these same people would've paid roughly the same amount for it on a new PC as they would with Vista on a new PC.
In other words, Microsoft since becoming the overwhelmingly dominate OS has no incentive to improve Windows unless they can release something so major that it provides an incentive for people to upgrade. The problem is that doing a major release like that would be *extremely expensive* and risk losing customers due to the radical change.
This is why the *next* version of Windows after Vista will be even more of a headache for Microsoft.
What if we were attacked by the country with the largest nuke arsenal? Couldn't we create massive devastation against that nation using conventional weapons? Wouldn't it make sense for us to lead the world into nuke disarmament, and thus have greater weight in forming coalitions against Iran and North Korea?
Mac users aren't directly affected by this. Likewise if you turn off HTML email. Of course we still have to deal with infected waste from idiots with PCs who don't take any precautions. And of course our headlines today will be filled with this story.
As others have pointed out, you're wrong. The MacBook I'm using right now has HFSx and NTFS partitions. In OS X, I can read from NTFS, but not write to it. In Windows XP, I've installed MacDrive which allows reading and/or writing to HFSx. The "or" part being key and I've disabled writing to HFSx since it really isn't needed and poses a security/safety issue.
And yes, this works like a charm. I was up late last night playing GTA San Andreas...friggin' beautiful.
I just started a new job and got a brand new MacBook Pro. I have it running Windows XP just fine. I forgot how much better virgin Windows was than installs you get from Dell, HP, etc...
I also have Parallels running ok. There are still a few issues with that beta, but it's developing very rapidly and is already useful in many ways.
Since starting a few weeks ago, our office is switching over pretty much daily with a new MacBook Pro. It's pretty cool to have happen...especially when we want to do video conferencing.
Boot Camp is definitely a strong selling point. It's allowing us to run a few pieces of software that are Windows only, or that we don't want to cross-grade. Plus it's a safety net of allowing people to run Windows if they find they don't take to OS X, though so far everyone has.
I begged my boss to let me get a MacBook Pro. The problem was that there were Windows only apps I needed to run. There were Mac solutions for these apps, but when the head of a department uses Windows and wants everything to be the same, it's not an option. Just as I was about to get a Windows based PC, the OnMac hack was released and so I went with the MacBook Pro. This was great...Windows user by day, Mac user by night...and for certain jobs during the day I could use the Mac for audio/video/graphics. However when the office saw my Mac, and the benefits, it became clear that this was the machine that would become the standard issue for new-hires (we're a fast growing company).
"In fact there is a good chance the whole thing will end up like the Macintosh computer: early dominance through its beautifully designed integrated package of hardware and operating system, but later obliterated by Microsoft Windows, which was licensed to any manufacturer. More on that later."
That's not true.
While Apple had an early lead in personal computers (when the market was small), the Macintosh *never* was dominate. I believe the Mac reached a peak of less than 12% market share.
While licensing helped Microsoft, it wasn't really a technical option for Apple at the beginning since much of what made the Macintosh was the hardware at the time. What really hurt Apple was the poor transitioning from the Apple II line to the Macintosh, and poor product management of the Mac line early on.
Also: "The only place you can easily buy material for your iPod, as opposed to stealing it, is the iTunes online store."
I think he meant, the only *major* place you *will* be able to...
Currently, you can buy CDs and legally rip to your iPod and there are several iPod compatible online stores (just no major label backed online stores).
Also one thing he left out in forming his conclusion was the weight of people's iTunes libraries. I have a 400GB iTunes library. Transitioning out of the iTunes/iTMS/iPod/iPod dock/ ecosystem would be a huge hassle and cost for me. Not everyone libraries my size, but still, the more music that has been sold, the more cars with iPod integration, the more accessories like alarm clocks and boomboxes, the more resistance there will be to change.
This keeps coming up. Note that the writers aren't calling CDs analog, but rather comparing the physical media of CDs to (digital) downloads which are delivered absent of a physical media.
How did this get modded to 5 "insightful"? The person didn't even glance at TFA let alone RTFA.
"Why in the world are they trying to compare a full blown PVR/Media Center (Windows Media Center) to a computer with a remote (Mac Mini)?"
They aren't. They're very clearing comparing a Media Center PC to a Mac Mini with a Miglia TVMini tuner. This is why the Mac Mini won this round.
"the Mini is a cool device and it it had PVR abilities I would happily buy one, but it doesn't."
Sure it does...not with the box from Apple, but there are plenty of third party options. These include the one mentioned in the article, but there are other options as well including a simple FireWire cable that can connect to your digital cable box.
Personally, I've been using a PCI tuner in my PowerMac in my office for years along with a small $100 eyeHome box in my living room to view shows via WiFi. However, the Mac Mini is very attractive to me as a device I could take with me when I travel...plus FrontRow is SWEET!
Hey, I'm Apple fanboi #1, but in regard to the remote...
Take your media center remote or you CE remote and a screwdriver. You can remove all but six of those buttons. It won't make anything any better. In fact you'll lose functionality. For example you'll lose the ability to change channels...just like the FrontRow remote!
The standard of comparison should be based of features and functionality. FrontRow does not a complete media system make. It's still really friggin' great, but only for what it does.
I would ***HATE*** to use the FrontRow remote to control my entire home theater system. That would make things far more complex than having a remote that is better suited for a complex job.
Who cares about the reality of the danger. For the love of God people, keep this myth alive! In fact take it to new levels... How about "Cell phones can cause planes to crash INTO you at movie theaters, restaurants, etc..."
I have a collection of 4,259 CDs. It took me a couple of hours to rip the CDs including lyrics.
Oh, it took my Mac almost a month to rip them, but why would I could cpu cycles as *my* time? iTunes makes ripping damn easy and with PearLyrics you can get lyrics automatically added (for songs it can find).
What I did was connect 3 external CD drives and I had 2 internal drives. I would then load up my trays with 5 discs. I had iTunes set to auto-import an eject.
Minimal effort and very rewarding. Even if I only had 1 drive, it would still have been very easy...but with the money I was saving, I could've not only bought additional drives, I could've bought a new Mac as well.
I simply can't imagine paying for the service...especially when it involves shipping the discs.
"Then why are organic meat producers having such a hard time keeping up w/ demand when organic meats are so much more expensive than conventional meats?"
You are producing *less* organic meat than the conventional meat industry and there is a perceived difference between organic and conventional meat products.
Those who choose organic meat will pay extra for the perceived difference. Organic producers are having *production* issues resulting in not being able to meet demand *only* for those making the choice of organic, which in turn leads to higher prices which some people will pay for the perceived difference.
Overall organic meat sales are still far lower than conventional meat sales.
Lower the price of organic meat sales and you'll have an even *harder* time meeting demand. Tell the organic meat industry that they can't sale leather and have to pay for the non-meat parts of the cow to be "buried" and organic meat prices will increase further while consumption drops.
*** I'm saying "perceived" difference because it doesn't matter what the actual differences are ***
"It's more the point that they are not being killed or reared for it specifically."
But in fact, they are. A farmer grows and kills the cow based on the value of the products that will come from it. Raising the profit from growing and killing cows will result in the farmer increasing the amount of cows raised and killed thus resulting in lower retail prices and even more consumption.
If cows could only be sold for meat, and the rest which would go to leather, biofuel or other products had to be paid for being disposed of, then meat prices would increase dramatically, and meat consumption would drop.
"[fuel, leather]...is just a by-product and not part of specific breeding."
Ok, so now maybe 75% of a cow's profit comes from steaks and hamburgers. With biofuel maybe 50% comes from meat products. At what point do you give up the leather, fuel, and whatnot?
It makes sense that they would support OS X. The old TiVoToGo relied on Windows Media DRM which was unavailable on the Mac. The tech to make this new watermarking method available on OS X would be trivial. The files themselves *must* be compatible with the Mac if they are to play on the iPod. There's no way TiVo is getting around that.
Also TiVo Desktop *is* compatible with OS X 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 (I've heard but not confirmed 10.4.4 as well). There was an incompatibility with 10.4.0 and 10.4.1, but the later releases of Tiger worked well. The installer gives a false "failed" message, but it does install and it does work very well (better than 10.3.x).
It should also be noted that the CEO of TiVo is a Mac user. They very much wanted to provide Mac support for TiVoToGo, but didn't want to take the legal risk of allowing shows to be transferred without any DRM. Considering Apple won't license their DRM and Windows Media DRM isn't compatible with the Mac, TiVo had little choice but to release for Windows only and/or develop their own DRM method. It looks like the success of the iPod has convinced TiVo that it was worth developing a watermark method that would make the files compatible with the iPod, and as result, the files must be compatible with the Mac.
The only question remains is whether TiVo will provide Mac software that *pulls* (or pushes) the files from the TiVo to the Mac. If they don't, there are plenty of ways of getting around it, but I can't imagine TiVo wouldn't dedicate the couple of hours to develop this software on the Mac.
From a consumer perspective, there's *very* little technical difference between + and - DVDs in of themselves in terms of the media. One's a tiny bit faster when burning...ok, whatever...those few precious seconds aren't worth much to me. On the other hand, I've been *very* frustrated at the number of players that only support one versus the other.
I know, I should only buy a player that supports everything, but the problem comes from making discs for *other* people..."Do you want a DVD+ or - R?"..."HUH?!?!".
This is not only frustrating, but has cost me money as I've had to send *both* formats to insure compatibility.
Making matters much worse is that sometimes the compatibility is X%. The disc might read and start to play a bit, but stutter or have other problems.
Whatever extraordinary difference that could possibly exist between +R and -R, it's not even close to the hassle, cost, time and confusion.
As for HD-DVD versus BD, I'm inclined to tell both camps to go to hell. The DRM on both are about as bad as Divx was. I'm not sure the benefits will outweigh the restrictions.
"You don't undersrtand the purpose of DRM. DRM is not meant to make sure there is anever a copy made."
No offense, but you don't understand the purpose of a copy. It's not meant to be used once for the original owner, but propagated freely on the net.
"It is there to raise the bar so that most people can't make copies."
And the copy is created and shared so people can make copies of it rather than the DRM infected version.
"If they can keep 95% of the people from copying the music, they have accomplished their goal."
Low standards. If 5% of the people buy, copy and post the music online we'd be talking about a HUGE increase in P2P availability of music.
More importantly, if 95% of the people are given the choice between buying content that they perceive will not be able to be transfered to personal players, used in DVD players or some high end CD players and car stereos versus downloading a free version off the internet that is not DRM infected, then we'll see a HUGE increase in demand for P2P content...and remember in the P2P world, 1 unit satisfies infinite demand.
"Until content providers and middlemen (Apple/MS) get their act together, its Limewire for me."
You act like as if Apple cares. They don't care much. Apple's ideal customer ranking: 1) Buys an iPod and buys content only from iTMS 2) Buys an iPod and downloads from P2Ps 3) Buys an iPod and buys CDs
That last one is a distant 3rd, and you'll notice the common theme of "Buys an iPod". Apple's act is *very* much together and isn't likely to change until *if* profit from iTMS increases / profit from iPods decreases to where the focus becomes iTMS and it makes sense to offer content to 3rd party players. It's nowhere close to that point by any means.
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Here's the problem with Microsoft...they're spending 8-9 billion on Vista, but will only see a very slight fraction of return on the investment. Few people will upgrade to Vista, but instead will adopt Vista when it comes with their new PC. Microsoft could just keep XP and these same people would've paid roughly the same amount for it on a new PC as they would with Vista on a new PC. In other words, Microsoft since becoming the overwhelmingly dominate OS has no incentive to improve Windows unless they can release something so major that it provides an incentive for people to upgrade. The problem is that doing a major release like that would be *extremely expensive* and risk losing customers due to the radical change. This is why the *next* version of Windows after Vista will be even more of a headache for Microsoft.
What if we were attacked by the country with the largest nuke arsenal? Couldn't we create massive devastation against that nation using conventional weapons? Wouldn't it make sense for us to lead the world into nuke disarmament, and thus have greater weight in forming coalitions against Iran and North Korea?
Mac users aren't directly affected by this. Likewise if you turn off HTML email. Of course we still have to deal with infected waste from idiots with PCs who don't take any precautions. And of course our headlines today will be filled with this story.
As others have pointed out, you're wrong. The MacBook I'm using right now has HFSx and NTFS partitions. In OS X, I can read from NTFS, but not write to it. In Windows XP, I've installed MacDrive which allows reading and/or writing to HFSx. The "or" part being key and I've disabled writing to HFSx since it really isn't needed and poses a security/safety issue.
And yes, this works like a charm. I was up late last night playing GTA San Andreas...friggin' beautiful.
I just started a new job and got a brand new MacBook Pro. I have it running Windows XP just fine. I forgot how much better virgin Windows was than installs you get from Dell, HP, etc... I also have Parallels running ok. There are still a few issues with that beta, but it's developing very rapidly and is already useful in many ways. Since starting a few weeks ago, our office is switching over pretty much daily with a new MacBook Pro. It's pretty cool to have happen...especially when we want to do video conferencing. Boot Camp is definitely a strong selling point. It's allowing us to run a few pieces of software that are Windows only, or that we don't want to cross-grade. Plus it's a safety net of allowing people to run Windows if they find they don't take to OS X, though so far everyone has.
I begged my boss to let me get a MacBook Pro. The problem was that there were Windows only apps I needed to run. There were Mac solutions for these apps, but when the head of a department uses Windows and wants everything to be the same, it's not an option. Just as I was about to get a Windows based PC, the OnMac hack was released and so I went with the MacBook Pro. This was great...Windows user by day, Mac user by night...and for certain jobs during the day I could use the Mac for audio/video/graphics. However when the office saw my Mac, and the benefits, it became clear that this was the machine that would become the standard issue for new-hires (we're a fast growing company).
"In fact there is a good chance the whole thing will end up like the
Macintosh computer: early dominance through its beautifully designed
integrated package of hardware and operating system, but later obliterated
by Microsoft Windows, which was licensed to any manufacturer. More on that
later."
That's not true.
While Apple had an early lead in personal computers (when the market was
small), the Macintosh *never* was dominate. I believe the Mac reached a
peak of less than 12% market share.
While licensing helped Microsoft, it wasn't really a technical option for
Apple at the beginning since much of what made the Macintosh was the
hardware at the time. What really hurt Apple was the poor transitioning
from the Apple II line to the Macintosh, and poor product management of the
Mac line early on.
Also:
"The only place you can easily buy material for your iPod, as opposed to
stealing it, is the iTunes online store."
I think he meant, the only *major* place you *will* be able to...
Currently, you can buy CDs and legally rip to your iPod and there are
several iPod compatible online stores (just no major label backed online
stores).
Also one thing he left out in forming his conclusion was the weight of
people's iTunes libraries. I have a 400GB iTunes library. Transitioning
out of the iTunes/iTMS/iPod/iPod dock/ ecosystem would be a huge hassle and
cost for me. Not everyone libraries my size, but still, the more music that
has been sold, the more cars with iPod integration, the more accessories
like alarm clocks and boomboxes, the more resistance there will be to
change.
This keeps coming up. Note that the writers aren't calling CDs analog, but rather comparing the physical media of CDs to (digital) downloads which are delivered absent of a physical media.
How did this get modded to 5 "insightful"? The person didn't even glance at TFA let alone RTFA.
"Why in the world are they trying to compare a full blown PVR/Media Center (Windows Media Center) to a computer with a remote (Mac Mini)?"
They aren't. They're very clearing comparing a Media Center PC to a Mac Mini with a Miglia TVMini tuner. This is why the Mac Mini won this round.
"the Mini is a cool device and it it had PVR abilities I would happily buy one, but it doesn't."
Sure it does...not with the box from Apple, but there are plenty of third party options. These include the one mentioned in the article, but there are other options as well including a simple FireWire cable that can connect to your digital cable box.
Personally, I've been using a PCI tuner in my PowerMac in my office for years along with a small $100 eyeHome box in my living room to view shows via WiFi. However, the Mac Mini is very attractive to me as a device I could take with me when I travel...plus FrontRow is SWEET!
Hey, I'm Apple fanboi #1, but in regard to the remote...
Take your media center remote or you CE remote and a screwdriver. You can remove all but six of those buttons. It won't make anything any better. In fact you'll lose functionality. For example you'll lose the ability to change channels...just like the FrontRow remote!
The standard of comparison should be based of features and functionality. FrontRow does not a complete media system make. It's still really friggin' great, but only for what it does.
I would ***HATE*** to use the FrontRow remote to control my entire home theater system. That would make things far more complex than having a remote that is better suited for a complex job.
Who cares about the reality of the danger. For the love of God people, keep this myth alive! In fact take it to new levels... How about "Cell phones can cause planes to crash INTO you at movie theaters, restaurants, etc..."
Actually, you can install linux on an iPod and run all kinds of apps. I was able to play Doom on my Nano as well as video.
"AC won, and Westinghouse became rich and famous"
It's not over yet, plenty of us still use DC and I know at least 4 people from Australia who are AC/DC. So don't be such a AC fanboi!
No firewall is needed.
Step 1: Click the "close mini store" button in iTunes
Step 2: There is no step 2.
Once this is done, no info is sent to Apple. I've verified this with Little Snitch.
People are making such a big friggin deal about this *optional* feature...and I, for one, like this feature.
When your whole life is porn...all of your back up problems become easily solved with the Internet.
Seriously though, I'm wondering what will last longer, the CD-Rs I burned in the early 90s, or the myths about how long CD-Rs will last.
I have a collection of 4,259 CDs. It took me a couple of hours to rip the CDs including lyrics.
Oh, it took my Mac almost a month to rip them, but why would I could cpu cycles as *my* time? iTunes makes ripping damn easy and with PearLyrics you can get lyrics automatically added (for songs it can find).
What I did was connect 3 external CD drives and I had 2 internal drives. I would then load up my trays with 5 discs. I had iTunes set to auto-import an eject.
Minimal effort and very rewarding. Even if I only had 1 drive, it would still have been very easy...but with the money I was saving, I could've not only bought additional drives, I could've bought a new Mac as well.
I simply can't imagine paying for the service...especially when it involves shipping the discs.
"Then why are organic meat producers having such a hard time keeping up w/ demand when organic meats are so much more expensive than conventional meats?"
You are producing *less* organic meat than the conventional meat industry and there is a perceived difference between organic and conventional meat products.
Those who choose organic meat will pay extra for the perceived difference. Organic producers are having *production* issues resulting in not being able to meet demand *only* for those making the choice of organic, which in turn leads to higher prices which some people will pay for the perceived difference.
Overall organic meat sales are still far lower than conventional meat sales.
Lower the price of organic meat sales and you'll have an even *harder* time meeting demand. Tell the organic meat industry that they can't sale leather and have to pay for the non-meat parts of the cow to be "buried" and organic meat prices will increase further while consumption drops.
*** I'm saying "perceived" difference because it doesn't matter what the actual differences are ***
"It's more the point that they are not being killed or reared for it specifically."
But in fact, they are. A farmer grows and kills the cow based on the value of the products that will come from it. Raising the profit from growing and killing cows will result in the farmer increasing the amount of cows raised and killed thus resulting in lower retail prices and even more consumption.
If cows could only be sold for meat, and the rest which would go to leather, biofuel or other products had to be paid for being disposed of, then meat prices would increase dramatically, and meat consumption would drop.
"[fuel, leather]...is just a by-product and not part of specific breeding."
Ok, so now maybe 75% of a cow's profit comes from steaks and hamburgers. With biofuel maybe 50% comes from meat products. At what point do you give up the leather, fuel, and whatnot?
It makes sense that they would support OS X. The old TiVoToGo relied on Windows Media DRM which was unavailable on the Mac. The tech to make this new watermarking method available on OS X would be trivial. The files themselves *must* be compatible with the Mac if they are to play on the iPod. There's no way TiVo is getting around that.
Also TiVo Desktop *is* compatible with OS X 10.4.2 and 10.4.3 (I've heard but not confirmed 10.4.4 as well). There was an incompatibility with 10.4.0 and 10.4.1, but the later releases of Tiger worked well. The installer gives a false "failed" message, but it does install and it does work very well (better than 10.3.x).
It should also be noted that the CEO of TiVo is a Mac user. They very much wanted to provide Mac support for TiVoToGo, but didn't want to take the legal risk of allowing shows to be transferred without any DRM. Considering Apple won't license their DRM and Windows Media DRM isn't compatible with the Mac, TiVo had little choice but to release for Windows only and/or develop their own DRM method. It looks like the success of the iPod has convinced TiVo that it was worth developing a watermark method that would make the files compatible with the iPod, and as result, the files must be compatible with the Mac.
The only question remains is whether TiVo will provide Mac software that *pulls* (or pushes) the files from the TiVo to the Mac. If they don't, there are plenty of ways of getting around it, but I can't imagine TiVo wouldn't dedicate the couple of hours to develop this software on the Mac.
From a consumer perspective, there's *very* little technical difference between + and - DVDs in of themselves in terms of the media. One's a tiny bit faster when burning...ok, whatever...those few precious seconds aren't worth much to me. On the other hand, I've been *very* frustrated at the number of players that only support one versus the other.
I know, I should only buy a player that supports everything, but the problem comes from making discs for *other* people..."Do you want a DVD+ or - R?"..."HUH?!?!".
This is not only frustrating, but has cost me money as I've had to send *both* formats to insure compatibility.
Making matters much worse is that sometimes the compatibility is X%. The disc might read and start to play a bit, but stutter or have other problems.
Whatever extraordinary difference that could possibly exist between +R and -R, it's not even close to the hassle, cost, time and confusion.
As for HD-DVD versus BD, I'm inclined to tell both camps to go to hell. The DRM on both are about as bad as Divx was. I'm not sure the benefits will outweigh the restrictions.
"...most of the security-related benefits that come with Vista are available today through third-party software products."
Since when did OS X become a 3rd party product?
"You don't undersrtand the purpose of DRM. DRM is not meant to make sure there is anever a copy made."
No offense, but you don't understand the purpose of a copy. It's not meant to be used once for the original owner, but propagated freely on the net.
"It is there to raise the bar so that most people can't make copies."
And the copy is created and shared so people can make copies of it rather than the DRM infected version.
"If they can keep 95% of the people from copying the music, they have accomplished their goal."
Low standards. If 5% of the people buy, copy and post the music online we'd be talking about a HUGE increase in P2P availability of music.
More importantly, if 95% of the people are given the choice between buying content that they perceive will not be able to be transfered to personal players, used in DVD players or some high end CD players and car stereos versus downloading a free version off the internet that is not DRM infected, then we'll see a HUGE increase in demand for P2P content...and remember in the P2P world, 1 unit satisfies infinite demand.
That list of CDs can't be right. Those albums are all over the P2Ps. That's exactly what the rootkit is supposed to prevent from happening!
"Until content providers and middlemen (Apple/MS) get their act together, its Limewire for me."
You act like as if Apple cares. They don't care much. Apple's ideal customer ranking:
1) Buys an iPod and buys content only from iTMS
2) Buys an iPod and downloads from P2Ps
3) Buys an iPod and buys CDs
That last one is a distant 3rd, and you'll notice the common theme of "Buys an iPod". Apple's act is *very* much together and isn't likely to change until *if* profit from iTMS increases / profit from iPods decreases to where the focus becomes iTMS and it makes sense to offer content to 3rd party players. It's nowhere close to that point by any means.