I'm in the US and a man suddenly jumps-out and demands all my money, or he'll shoot me. Am I allowed to carry a bomb belt set to detonate if my heart stops and kill the murderer?
You can or should be allowed to protect yourself. I have no problem with you pulling out your own gun to stop the robber. Private ownership of firearms actually lowers crime. Even concealed carry. After Florida made it easy to conceal carry crime went down in the state. Not up as many anti-firearm activists said would happen.
As for the belt bomb, you're not protecting yourself for one. Another thing is that you may also kill an innocent passerby.
the US has a lot of street gangs dealing drugs (which is why Canada has guns, but less crime).
Gangs are growing in Canada. Here's an article in the "Economist" about street gangs in British Columbia. A number of other websites are carrying that article. Here's a discussion of gangs in the Montreal and Quebec areas. From what I understand though mostly they're made up of immigrants.
how exactly does Ballmer plan on moving Microsoft's employees? Moving a large IT business has got to be in the play book of "stupid things that will bankrupt your company".
I agree, it would be stupid if Ballmer tried to move a lot of employees, even if MS has to pay higher taxes. The move itself would probably cost a lot. Then there'd be the cost of bringing everyone up to speed. Now what I'd want to do, which would lower MS's costs, would be to eliminate personal income tax and have a sales tax. Lower costs because it costs more to deduct and remit income tax collected to the government. Notice I said personal income tax, if you work you shouldn't have to pay tax one what you earn. However corporations should pay because they enjoy limited liability and if they want that then they should pay for it.
it was founded on the principal of allowing slavery
Actually not all of the USA's Founding Fathers supported slavery, some opposed it. In his early drafts of the "Declaration of Independence" Thomas Jefferson wrote that everyone including slaves and women had the same rights. However because some of the Founders did support slavery, for women too, he had to remove those parts. If they were left in they would not have signed the declaration.
Government didn't under Bush but it did under his predecessor and maybe under his replacement. Clinton's Justice Department had MS on the ropes but Bush's let them off. What I find ironic is that when he was governor of Texas, Texas was one of the first states to sue Microsoft.
I personally think we could run a constitutional sized government on a 3% sales tax.
I'm not sure how high a sales tax would need to be with a national sales tax and user fees I do believe the income tax could be eliminated. This year Tax Freedom Day was 13 April and taxes will eat up 28.20% of people's income. As president Abraham Lincoln instituted the first income tax, to pay for the Civil War. And when the war ended the tax was phased out. The tax wasn't even 10% though.
Ya know, just because some corporation skips out of town to save a buck doesn't mean it's a good thing or even the proper thing to do. It just means that they're making more money at the expense of the country that allowed them to get so big in the first place. Capitalism has flaws and that is one of them. I
That's not capitalism, that's the corporate aristocracy.
Income tax is less fair not more. Taxing income and you tax work, tax sales and you only tax consumption. The less you consume the less your taxes are. Also not all sales need, or should, to be taxed. Stuff like clothes, food, and medicine should not be taxed. Instead tax that big screen TV, and those big speakers that can blast clothes off.
Not really. They pass on that tax to their customers. Ultimately, it is the consumer that pays the tax.
Some corporations can't pass on the cost of taxes. MS raising the cost of Windows or Office will only drive more people to try other software. After using MS products for almost 10 years I finally stopped paying the Microsoft tax. The OSes I use are Linux and OS X and the office suite is Open Office.
Microsoft is having huge problems with the EU because, well they are actually interested in the public good.
Microsoft is not the only one. People who want privacy, liberty, and economic stability are also having huge problems due to the "public good".
If privacy is important then Europe is better when it comes to businesses. Europe has tougher privacy laws than the US. For instance the EU's Data Privacy Directive requires businesses to protect people's privacy.
That's right, though it has been shown Apple originally canceled Mac clones because they ate into Apple's bottom line and almost drove them out of business all you have provided is your opinion or what you want. You have not provided facts whereas I provided a link to real clones which stated they were "financially unfavorable". I'm quite willing to learn but you have not provided evidence to back up your claims.
Seriously, I hear the same preconditioned responses from Apple fans every time this subject comes up
Just because Mac fans, which I am not one, say it does not make it untrue. Here's an other link saying clones were financially unfavorable. Others have said Apple is a hardware company not a software business. I say Apple is a systems company, Apple designs hardware and software to work together.
On another note, as of this moment, I shall no longer use the word hackintosh, as it implies to the average joe that the act of using software as the user sees fit is a crime, a view that I'm sure most slashdotters would agree is detrimental to the idea of user rights.
In general I agree a person should be able to use software they bought however they want so long as only they use it or it's installed only on one computer. However when it comes to driving a company out of business by doing so I disagree with breaking ULAs, of which Apple's has not been found unenforceable or illegal. And nobody, not even you, have proven that allowing OS X to be installed on OEM PCs will not drive Apple out of business. Heck I don't like Microsoft but I've said I don't want MS out of business either.
I thought of that. Right now I have cable access and I haven't had problems with it yet. If I do thought I can and will switch to DSL, I'll lucky because both cable and DSL are available where I live.
Unfortunately, I'm in a "cell phone + dry loop DSL costs more than a land line + DSL" area.
Would it be cheaper if you also had cellphone service? And what about long distance? Though not all the tyme, I spend more tyme on long distance than I do local calls. My cellphone service includes long distance but I'd have to pay extra for long distance with a landline. The service also comes with an answering service, call waiting, and other services.
At any rate I'd make sure you're real sure you like being away from your landline. Give that decision a 6 month wait period before you decide to recycle your wires one way or another.
For about 5 years I haven't had a landline and have only used a cellphone. "More people ditching landline for cell phone". For some a cellphone cost less than a landline, it does for me. Others want or need a cellphone and it's cheaper to have just a cellphone than both that and a landline. Now the only reason I'd want landline is for DSL however if I had fiber to the home I wouldn't even want that.
My. If someone reformatted my disk drives despite specific instrictions to the contrary, I'd be taking some moderately immoderate action.
Right behind the service counter there's a sign saying they are not responsible for lost data. For an extra fee they'll make a backup, but only up to 7 DVDs, and it would have taken more than 100 disks to back up mine. That's why I didn't have a backup. With the size and cost of external drives now I can easily make backups. Heck yesterday I bought a new 1.5 TB external drive for less than $200 to join my 750 GB and 1 TB external drives. Now I want to install the 1.5 TB internal drive I got a couple of weeks ago into my Linux PC and run some recovery software to get my old data back.
larger drives. The originals become my backups while the new drives get tested.
Yea that's what I plan on for my Linux PC. I got a 1.5 TB disk to replace the 750 GB disk in the PC. I also have a USB docking station I can then put the original disk into to use as a backup.
Of course before I can do that I need to unformat and recover the data on the first drive.
2. testdisk recovers partition information to make the images mount-able.
Yeap, someone near the top mentioned TestDisk and I'll give it a try, maybe. I need to recover data from when my Linux PC threw a fit. The mobo died and because the PC was still under warranty I took it to the store I bought it from. There I specifically told the tech not to reformat or erase the drive I used for user documents, the home folder was on a second hdd. I should have had backups as he went ahead and reformatted the disk anyway. However the disk was 750GB and I had more than 500GB on it. Back then I couldn't afford a big enough external drive and if I had burned the docs to DVDs it would have taken more than 100 disks.
In cases like this, when you are bringing your system in to have someone work on a specific component (not the hard drive), I find it is hand to have a small "I don't care about this" drive that you can slap an OS on, then remove and set aside. Then if you ever need a repair, put it back and remove the one with your actual data on it.
Ump, I hadn't thought of that. When my PC failed I had more than 500GB of data and the only way I thought of to back it up was an external drive. But I couldn't afford one then. The only other way would have been to burn DVDs but with more than 500GBs it would have taken more than 100 disks.
Or once I knew someone that had 2 drives in their system - 1 for the OS and 1 for data. I suggested he remove the data one before bringing it in.
As my data was on a separate drive, because the PC only came with a 40 GB drive I installed a second 750 GB drive, I could have done that. However I didn't know how to direct Linux to use the second drive as the user directory. I found out later that the fstab file has to be edited, but that's it, I still don't know how to edit it. Now I have two external drives I use for backups, a 500 GB USB 2 drive and a 1 TB Firewire 800 drive. I also stumbled across a USB docking station for internal drives to convert them to external drives. I also got a 1.5 TB internal drive I'll replace the 750 GB drive with. Then I can use the dock with the 750 GB drive as another backup.
And of course, they reformatted the one with the OS on it, even though he had requested doing nothing with the hard drive.) After having almost the exact same thing happen to a friend of mine a few years ago, that is what I did for his system, and what i recommend to anyone going to have the systems worked on by "geniuses" or "geeks".
Yea, I'll use one or two of the methods above now. Now I want to recover the lost data. I got back from Best Buy where I picked up a 1.5 TB Seagate FreeAgent/Desk external drive. So now I want to download TestDisk and see if it will recover the data. I'm wondering if I should install and use it on the Linux PC or install and run it from my Mac, I see there are versions for Linux, OS X, and Windows. I'm concerned about the possibility of writing over data if I install and run it from Linux, but I don't have it and the Mac networked and don't know how to set them up so I could read the drive in the Linux PC from the Mac, I have, had in the case of the Linux PC, different user accounts on each.
I would be interested to hear if anyone has come across GOOD software for ext2/3, ReiserFS or ZFS. Google finds lots of links, but most are non-free, and most related forum posts seem to be shills for the same products.
I went through the same thing after I took my Linux PC in for repair, it was under warranty, and the tech reformatted the drives even though I specifically told them not to. Someone in a post above posted a link to TestDisk which works with the formats you list above, my drives are formatted ReiserFS so if I can get off my ass, go buy a new external drive, and try it I may recover my data.
Thanks for the link. I have a Linux PC with two drives formated with ReiserFS, one set as the home directory. The mobo failed while under warranty so I took it to the store where I got it for repair. I specifically told them not to format the user drive but the tech reformatted it anyway. I had more than 500GB on it so I've been looking for something to unformat it and recover the data. Looking at the wiki you link to it looks like it can do it. Now if only I can get off my ass, buy a new external drive, and try to recover the data.
Yeah, and if they got a PC they wanted with Mac OS installed on it, they would use it. They might even choose it if they had the option to get it instead of Windows or Linux, but PC vendors can't even offer it.
PC OEMs do offer Linux preinstalled but not many people buy them, so just saying people would buy a PC with OS X installed does not work.
What's with this question anyway, did you expect me to lie or just get scared?
You don't really care if Apple were to offer OS X for any PC, you'd just build a hackitosh and pirate OS X.
I don't want to send in my machine because the optical drive stopped working, I want to either go to best buy and buy a new one and put it in the same day, or take one from my old computer and put that one in the same day. Call me old fashioned, but I like to fix my own stuff. Lots of people do.
You are part of a small minority and Apple does not feel like catering to you. If you have a problem with that that is your problem. And no, lots of people don't fix their own computers. I doubt less than 10% do. I've done that, and done the Best Buy/Apple store route as well. I haven't needed to send in my MBP, not even when the graphics went bad. I simply took it to an Apple store where they ran diagnostics and saw the graphics had to be replaced. They didn't have the part in stock so they ordered it. I took my MBP back home and they called a couple of days later when the part came in. An Apple tech fixed it right there. Which was different than when I took my Windows PC to Best Buy. The mobo had failed and Best Buy shipped it to a repair center for repair. With Apple I only had to wait for the part to be shipped to the store, with Best Buy I had to wait for the store to send the PC to a repair facility for repair then have it shipped back to the store. And the PC wasn't any no name brand, it was an HP Pavilion.
Now if every PC vendor offered Mac OS X then Apple would make enough money off of licensing and software sales where it wouldn't matter if customers bought their hardware or not. We know this will work because Microsoft does it.
MS is the 800 pound guerrilla and as such many people depend on MS Office. MS produces a version for Macs. Heck a trialware version comes installed on Macs. It wouldn't take long before MS stopped that if Apple started selling OS X to OEMs. MS threatened to do just that back in the '90s. It doesn't matter if there are viable substitutes for MS Office, many people use it, are comfortable with it, and don't know there are competent alternatives. Such as Open Office, for which until OO 3.0 came out there was no native Mac version. When I got my Mac almost 2 years ago instead of running OO in X I installed and used Neo Office which was a Mac port created outside of OO.org. I'd bet many people as well as businesses that buy Macs now would stop using Macs if MS were to discontinue Office.
don't tell me nearly every PC vendor on the planet wouldn't love to have something to offer other than Vista or Linux.
I admit there are PC OEMs that would love to sell PCs with OS X installed. Micheal Dell said as much himself. Dell sells Linux PCs, online, but how many others sell PCs with Linux? When I bought the HP Pavilion mentioned above, I wanted to get one with Linux installed. The only way to get one though was to call and order it or order it online. Not too long ago Asus sold the eee with Linux in stores, Target used to carry then. My brother-in-law saw one and asked me about it. But how many stores carry them now? More than likely if a store has eees it's got Windows installed. The same applies to other netbooks. So while Apple might survive it'd be difficult, and if I were a stockholder I wouldn't want the company to try.
Now if every PC vendor offered Mac OS X then Apple would make enough money off of licensing and software sales
Unlike Microsoft Apple is not a software company, Apple is a consumer
Slashdot Mirror
I'm in the US and a man suddenly jumps-out and demands all my money, or he'll shoot me. Am I allowed to carry a bomb belt set to detonate if my heart stops and kill the murderer?
You can or should be allowed to protect yourself. I have no problem with you pulling out your own gun to stop the robber. Private ownership of firearms actually lowers crime. Even concealed carry. After Florida made it easy to conceal carry crime went down in the state. Not up as many anti-firearm activists said would happen.
As for the belt bomb, you're not protecting yourself for one. Another thing is that you may also kill an innocent passerby.
Falcon
the US has a lot of street gangs dealing drugs (which is why Canada has guns, but less crime).
Gangs are growing in Canada. Here's an article in the "Economist" about street gangs in British Columbia. A number of other websites are carrying that article. Here's a discussion of gangs in the Montreal and Quebec areas. From what I understand though mostly they're made up of immigrants.
how exactly does Ballmer plan on moving Microsoft's employees? Moving a large IT business has got to be in the play book of "stupid things that will bankrupt your company".
I agree, it would be stupid if Ballmer tried to move a lot of employees, even if MS has to pay higher taxes. The move itself would probably cost a lot. Then there'd be the cost of bringing everyone up to speed. Now what I'd want to do, which would lower MS's costs, would be to eliminate personal income tax and have a sales tax. Lower costs because it costs more to deduct and remit income tax collected to the government. Notice I said personal income tax, if you work you shouldn't have to pay tax one what you earn. However corporations should pay because they enjoy limited liability and if they want that then they should pay for it.
Falcon
it was founded on the principal of allowing slavery
Actually not all of the USA's Founding Fathers supported slavery, some opposed it. In his early drafts of the "Declaration of Independence" Thomas Jefferson wrote that everyone including slaves and women had the same rights. However because some of the Founders did support slavery, for women too, he had to remove those parts. If they were left in they would not have signed the declaration.
Falcon
Microsoft
Government didn't under Bush but it did under his predecessor and maybe under his replacement. Clinton's Justice Department had MS on the ropes but Bush's let them off. What I find ironic is that when he was governor of Texas, Texas was one of the first states to sue Microsoft.
Falcon
I personally think we could run a constitutional sized government on a 3% sales tax.
I'm not sure how high a sales tax would need to be with a national sales tax and user fees I do believe the income tax could be eliminated. This year Tax Freedom Day was 13 April and taxes will eat up 28.20% of people's income. As president Abraham Lincoln instituted the first income tax, to pay for the Civil War. And when the war ended the tax was phased out. The tax wasn't even 10% though.
Falcon
Ya know, just because some corporation skips out of town to save a buck doesn't mean it's a good thing or even the proper thing to do. It just means that they're making more money at the expense of the country that allowed them to get so big in the first place. Capitalism has flaws and that is one of them. I
That's not capitalism, that's the corporate aristocracy.
Falcon
I used to like Lou Dobbs but he's becoming more and more anti-free market.
you can't stop the free market.
Ah but we don't have a free market.
Falcon
Income tax is less fair not more. Taxing income and you tax work, tax sales and you only tax consumption. The less you consume the less your taxes are. Also not all sales need, or should, to be taxed. Stuff like clothes, food, and medicine should not be taxed. Instead tax that big screen TV, and those big speakers that can blast clothes off.
Falcon
Not really. They pass on that tax to their customers. Ultimately, it is the consumer that pays the tax.
Some corporations can't pass on the cost of taxes. MS raising the cost of Windows or Office will only drive more people to try other software. After using MS products for almost 10 years I finally stopped paying the Microsoft tax. The OSes I use are Linux and OS X and the office suite is Open Office.
Falcon
Microsoft is having huge problems with the EU because, well they are actually interested in the public good.
Microsoft is not the only one. People who want privacy, liberty, and economic stability are also having huge problems due to the "public good".
If privacy is important then Europe is better when it comes to businesses. Europe has tougher privacy laws than the US. For instance the EU's Data Privacy Directive requires businesses to protect people's privacy.
Falcon
And I'm threatening to move to Linux.
I already moved from MS and Windows to Linux, OS X, and FOOS.
Falcon
There's no point arguing with you
That's right, though it has been shown Apple originally canceled Mac clones because they ate into Apple's bottom line and almost drove them out of business all you have provided is your opinion or what you want. You have not provided facts whereas I provided a link to real clones which stated they were "financially unfavorable". I'm quite willing to learn but you have not provided evidence to back up your claims.
Seriously, I hear the same preconditioned responses from Apple fans every time this subject comes up
Just because Mac fans, which I am not one, say it does not make it untrue. Here's an other link saying clones were financially unfavorable. Others have said Apple is a hardware company not a software business. I say Apple is a systems company, Apple designs hardware and software to work together.
On another note, as of this moment, I shall no longer use the word hackintosh, as it implies to the average joe that the act of using software as the user sees fit is a crime, a view that I'm sure most slashdotters would agree is detrimental to the idea of user rights.
In general I agree a person should be able to use software they bought however they want so long as only they use it or it's installed only on one computer. However when it comes to driving a company out of business by doing so I disagree with breaking ULAs, of which Apple's has not been found unenforceable or illegal. And nobody, not even you, have proven that allowing OS X to be installed on OEM PCs will not drive Apple out of business. Heck I don't like Microsoft but I've said I don't want MS out of business either.
Falcon
I thought of that. Right now I have cable access and I haven't had problems with it yet. If I do thought I can and will switch to DSL, I'll lucky because both cable and DSL are available where I live.
Unfortunately, I'm in a "cell phone + dry loop DSL costs more than a land line + DSL" area.
Would it be cheaper if you also had cellphone service? And what about long distance? Though not all the tyme, I spend more tyme on long distance than I do local calls. My cellphone service includes long distance but I'd have to pay extra for long distance with a landline. The service also comes with an answering service, call waiting, and other services.
Falcon
At any rate I'd make sure you're real sure you like being away from your landline. Give that decision a 6 month wait period before you decide to recycle your wires one way or another.
For about 5 years I haven't had a landline and have only used a cellphone. "More people ditching landline for cell phone". For some a cellphone cost less than a landline, it does for me. Others want or need a cellphone and it's cheaper to have just a cellphone than both that and a landline. Now the only reason I'd want landline is for DSL however if I had fiber to the home I wouldn't even want that.
Falcon
If you live close enough to a phone switch you can get DSL. I don't know what else it can be used for right now.
Falcon
My. If someone reformatted my disk drives despite specific instrictions to the contrary, I'd be taking some moderately immoderate action.
Right behind the service counter there's a sign saying they are not responsible for lost data. For an extra fee they'll make a backup, but only up to 7 DVDs, and it would have taken more than 100 disks to back up mine. That's why I didn't have a backup. With the size and cost of external drives now I can easily make backups. Heck yesterday I bought a new 1.5 TB external drive for less than $200 to join my 750 GB and 1 TB external drives. Now I want to install the 1.5 TB internal drive I got a couple of weeks ago into my Linux PC and run some recovery software to get my old data back.
Falcon
larger drives. The originals become my backups while the new drives get tested.
Yea that's what I plan on for my Linux PC. I got a 1.5 TB disk to replace the 750 GB disk in the PC. I also have a USB docking station I can then put the original disk into to use as a backup.
Of course before I can do that I need to unformat and recover the data on the first drive.
Falcon
2. testdisk recovers partition information to make the images mount-able.
Yeap, someone near the top mentioned TestDisk and I'll give it a try, maybe. I need to recover data from when my Linux PC threw a fit. The mobo died and because the PC was still under warranty I took it to the store I bought it from. There I specifically told the tech not to reformat or erase the drive I used for user documents, the home folder was on a second hdd. I should have had backups as he went ahead and reformatted the disk anyway. However the disk was 750GB and I had more than 500GB on it. Back then I couldn't afford a big enough external drive and if I had burned the docs to DVDs it would have taken more than 100 disks.
Falcon
In cases like this, when you are bringing your system in to have someone work on a specific component (not the hard drive), I find it is hand to have a small "I don't care about this" drive that you can slap an OS on, then remove and set aside. Then if you ever need a repair, put it back and remove the one with your actual data on it.
Ump, I hadn't thought of that. When my PC failed I had more than 500GB of data and the only way I thought of to back it up was an external drive. But I couldn't afford one then. The only other way would have been to burn DVDs but with more than 500GBs it would have taken more than 100 disks.
Or once I knew someone that had 2 drives in their system - 1 for the OS and 1 for data. I suggested he remove the data one before bringing it in.
As my data was on a separate drive, because the PC only came with a 40 GB drive I installed a second 750 GB drive, I could have done that. However I didn't know how to direct Linux to use the second drive as the user directory. I found out later that the fstab file has to be edited, but that's it, I still don't know how to edit it. Now I have two external drives I use for backups, a 500 GB USB 2 drive and a 1 TB Firewire 800 drive. I also stumbled across a USB docking station for internal drives to convert them to external drives. I also got a 1.5 TB internal drive I'll replace the 750 GB drive with. Then I can use the dock with the 750 GB drive as another backup.
And of course, they reformatted the one with the OS on it, even though he had requested doing nothing with the hard drive.) After having almost the exact same thing happen to a friend of mine a few years ago, that is what I did for his system, and what i recommend to anyone going to have the systems worked on by "geniuses" or "geeks".
Yea, I'll use one or two of the methods above now. Now I want to recover the lost data. I got back from Best Buy where I picked up a 1.5 TB Seagate FreeAgent/Desk external drive. So now I want to download TestDisk and see if it will recover the data. I'm wondering if I should install and use it on the Linux PC or install and run it from my Mac, I see there are versions for Linux, OS X, and Windows. I'm concerned about the possibility of writing over data if I install and run it from Linux, but I don't have it and the Mac networked and don't know how to set them up so I could read the drive in the Linux PC from the Mac, I have, had in the case of the Linux PC, different user accounts on each.
Falcon
I would be interested to hear if anyone has come across GOOD software for ext2/3, ReiserFS or ZFS. Google finds lots of links, but most are non-free, and most related forum posts seem to be shills for the same products.
I went through the same thing after I took my Linux PC in for repair, it was under warranty, and the tech reformatted the drives even though I specifically told them not to. Someone in a post above posted a link to TestDisk which works with the formats you list above, my drives are formatted ReiserFS so if I can get off my ass, go buy a new external drive, and try it I may recover my data.
Falcon
TestDisk.
Thanks for the link. I have a Linux PC with two drives formated with ReiserFS, one set as the home directory. The mobo failed while under warranty so I took it to the store where I got it for repair. I specifically told them not to format the user drive but the tech reformatted it anyway. I had more than 500GB on it so I've been looking for something to unformat it and recover the data. Looking at the wiki you link to it looks like it can do it. Now if only I can get off my ass, buy a new external drive, and try to recover the data.
Falcon
Yeah, and if they got a PC they wanted with Mac OS installed on it, they would use it. They might even choose it if they had the option to get it instead of Windows or Linux, but PC vendors can't even offer it.
PC OEMs do offer Linux preinstalled but not many people buy them, so just saying people would buy a PC with OS X installed does not work.
What's with this question anyway, did you expect me to lie or just get scared?
You don't really care if Apple were to offer OS X for any PC, you'd just build a hackitosh and pirate OS X.
I don't want to send in my machine because the optical drive stopped working, I want to either go to best buy and buy a new one and put it in the same day, or take one from my old computer and put that one in the same day. Call me old fashioned, but I like to fix my own stuff. Lots of people do.
You are part of a small minority and Apple does not feel like catering to you. If you have a problem with that that is your problem. And no, lots of people don't fix their own computers. I doubt less than 10% do. I've done that, and done the Best Buy/Apple store route as well. I haven't needed to send in my MBP, not even when the graphics went bad. I simply took it to an Apple store where they ran diagnostics and saw the graphics had to be replaced. They didn't have the part in stock so they ordered it. I took my MBP back home and they called a couple of days later when the part came in. An Apple tech fixed it right there. Which was different than when I took my Windows PC to Best Buy. The mobo had failed and Best Buy shipped it to a repair center for repair. With Apple I only had to wait for the part to be shipped to the store, with Best Buy I had to wait for the store to send the PC to a repair facility for repair then have it shipped back to the store. And the PC wasn't any no name brand, it was an HP Pavilion.
Now if every PC vendor offered Mac OS X then Apple would make enough money off of licensing and software sales where it wouldn't matter if customers bought their hardware or not. We know this will work because Microsoft does it.
MS is the 800 pound guerrilla and as such many people depend on MS Office. MS produces a version for Macs. Heck a trialware version comes installed on Macs. It wouldn't take long before MS stopped that if Apple started selling OS X to OEMs. MS threatened to do just that back in the '90s. It doesn't matter if there are viable substitutes for MS Office, many people use it, are comfortable with it, and don't know there are competent alternatives. Such as Open Office, for which until OO 3.0 came out there was no native Mac version. When I got my Mac almost 2 years ago instead of running OO in X I installed and used Neo Office which was a Mac port created outside of OO.org. I'd bet many people as well as businesses that buy Macs now would stop using Macs if MS were to discontinue Office.
don't tell me nearly every PC vendor on the planet wouldn't love to have something to offer other than Vista or Linux.
I admit there are PC OEMs that would love to sell PCs with OS X installed. Micheal Dell said as much himself. Dell sells Linux PCs, online, but how many others sell PCs with Linux? When I bought the HP Pavilion mentioned above, I wanted to get one with Linux installed. The only way to get one though was to call and order it or order it online. Not too long ago Asus sold the eee with Linux in stores, Target used to carry then. My brother-in-law saw one and asked me about it. But how many stores carry them now? More than likely if a store has eees it's got Windows installed. The same applies to other netbooks. So while Apple might survive it'd be difficult, and if I were a stockholder I wouldn't want the company to try.
Now if every PC vendor offered Mac OS X then Apple would make enough money off of licensing and software sales
Unlike Microsoft Apple is not a software company, Apple is a consumer
any person who owns a Mac does not want to see clones.
Not all. I wouldn't mind seeing Mac clones but I don't see how Apple could stay in business making Macs if they allowed clones.
Falcon
Apple should embrace mac cloners. Having cheaper clones of mac will only help to popularize macs and the os-x operating system
Apple tried that and lost money.
Falcon
Honestly, Dell has probelms shipping hardware that runs well for less than $800.
From Dell, for $800 (and that's list price) you get a machine with the same CPU power and RAM as a $2500 Mac Pro.
It doesn't matter how much you save if you don't have a usable system.
Falcon