Well, given that I open links in new tabs about 50% of the time, you can see why having to use a popup for that is annoying.
You don't need to have pop ups to open a new tab. To reply to this, with the cursor on the "Reply to this" link, while holding down the command key with one finger I clicked the button with the thumb on the same hand. The reply screen opened up in a new tab automatically. I have no problem with that at all. And this reply is my 9th tab open.
If it weren't for open source software on OS X, I wouldn't be using it at all. It really is the best of both worlds, IMO.
That's a big thing in OS X's favor. But the 2 biggest reasons I switched from Windows is stability and Microsoft's attitude. After 10 years I got sick and tired of having trouble with Windows PCs. I've owned 4 of them. Two of them had to have the HDDs and motherboards replaced within a year. And I don't know how many tymes I had to reinstall Windows, along with all the software, on both. I had to do a compleat reinstall at least 6 tymes, on each. The other big reason was because MS has the attitude that I'm a criminal and wants to treat me that way. The most I should have to do to use software is to enter a valid key to unlock the software. But not only does MS require that, they also require Windows and other software to contact the mother ship, MS's servers, to make sure it can run on the PC. And spyware like WGA/WPA constantly contacts the mother ship. For the life of me I don't understand why anyone puts up with being treated like a criminal.
Because there is a market for their products on OS X, there isn't on Linux.
If all that matters to Adobe is a market then they would release a Linux version of Photoshop. Admittedly I don't know how big it is but there are a bunch of Linux users who'd love to pay for it. Many are installing it in Linux with WINE, and others are paying extra for CrossOver Linux to install Photoshop.
Adobe was even developing for MacOS and MFC, both of which are far worse than Cocoa; they really don't give a damn how bad a platform is if there is a market.
Then they should be developing a Linux version. Adobe had already developed versions for Unix, both SGI IRIX and Sun Solaris.
Yea. An LG monitor is $200. I was talking about apple, not LG. Go on their online store, select that $600 mac mini, and look for your monitor choices. $600 for that, $100 for keyboard and mouse...and yet, the components are still, for the most part, worse than a cheap Dell.
I still don't see where you can say the Dell is cheaper. The Mac Mini as I priced it is less than $900 but the cheapest Dell XPS One I see, and I have the webpage for it open in another tab, is $1350. That's more than $400 more than the Mac. Sure, the Apple monitors are more expensive but at least you have the choice of getting another monitor with the Mini whereas the Dell has one built in. And after a couple of years or more with an exteranl monitor you can replace the computer but keep the monitor. And many keep their monitors longer than they keep a computer. With the Dell, you're replacing everything. A couple of days ago I was out looking for a monitor and I saw a 23" Viewsonic for $400, which if it's good for photo editing I may get, whereas the Dell's is 20".
Were you comparing the $2999 Dell XPS M1730 to the $2,799 17" MacBook Pro?
I don't recall what model of Dell I used. I looked for one than had the same or close to the same CPU the MBP had and a 17" LCD. From there I configured the Dell to be as close to the specs the MBP had. I did the same with the HP.
What I'm reading into the above is that for the low cost of $183 million the NIH developed a drug worth billions. Sounds like the NIH did what the NIH is supposed to do.
That's right, my tax money went so a large corporation could make billions of dollars more. I think it would have been more appropriate for the NCI to have open sourced the data needed so more companies could have manufactured Taxol as well as required them to pay royalities. At $1 billion a year, a royalty of just 10% would have earned the NCI $100 million a year. The money the NCI spend would have been paid off in 2 years after which they could have used additional royalities for more research thus benefiting more people. From what I've read, unfortunately I don't have a link right now, pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than they do on research. This is ass backwards.
You know, I feel like you were purposely miss leading the guy by not telling him about the dependency hell issues or the stupid references in packages that refer to non existent packages
As I know nothing about any dependency hell on Macs I don't know what you mean, especially about miss leading anyone.
You're the one full of shit. As for Macs being cheaper, all I said was that when I priced a Mac against a Dell the Mac was cheaper but that when compared to an HP, they were similarly priced. I wonder if you can read and understand that. It isn't worth it for me to go through the rest of your shit.
Many open source apps I use are not well supported (Openoffice, Amarok, Gimp, Inkscape, k3b.
NeoOffice is a good Mac port of Open Office. And MacGIMP is also a Mac port. However if it's like GIMP it only has an 8 bit colour depth per channel. While that may be fine for the web, it's seriously lacking for print media. For print CinePaint aka Film GIMP is better. How well it's supported on OS X I don't know but I've be finding out rsn. If it doesn't do what I want though I may end up getting Photoshop CS3, which you can't get running on Linux without jumping through hoops. I'll also try Inkscape and Blender. The others I don't know about.
the OS X interface is awful
I guess it depends on your taste. Neither I nor many other Mac users have a problem with it. Of course my favorite OS was Amiga.
MacPorts packages didn't compile 50% of the time.
I haven't tried it yet but I'll go through to see what's available. If I find some good software I'll go ahead and try it.
Agreed! How can Linux be dying if it's gaining market share?
I do think OS X as an offering is hurting Linux for the desktop by stealing developers away and allowing them to refocus their extra-curricular programming on things other than desktop Linux (like Linux as a server or applications on OS X).
Or it could go the other way, Linux taking developers away from OS X.
Though I don't right now I want to do some programming for myself, for a graphics and photography business. I'll be doing it on and for my Mac however eventually I'd like to work on a port for Linux. Does it really matter though? What should matter is having a robust and diverse market place. I want more choices not less.
# Adobe: GIMP(shop) and Inkscape; evince and gnash
What are the colour depths of Photoshop and GIMP? PS CS3 has 32 bits per colour change whereas GIMP only has 8. Can GIMP work with CMYK? Only with a plugin. Does PS? Natively. So, if you want print then you need PS as GIMP won't do. However Film GIMP AKA CinePaint can do it. I plan on working in photography and I'll give CinePaint a try but if it doesn't work I may have to get PS. As for Inkscape, it is for vector graphics not photo editing. I'll also try Inkscape, as well as Blender.
Not exactly. They also care about ease of use, and Linux is not, nor has it ever been, easy.
That depends on the distro. More than a year ago I bought a new PC with Linspire preinstalled. After setting it up I booted it and when the desktop was ready it looked like Windows. It was pretty easy to use. Heck, to connect to the internet all I had to do was connect the PC to my router. Linspire automatically configured the connection. I even got a pop up saying updates were available and did I want to download them. And now with Linspire's, Click N Run, CNR, that's all that's needed to install software, a simply click. After locating what you want to download and install. Not only that, but CNR allows people to download legal media codecs. Some have to be paid for but they are legal.
let's be honest about this, the reason people are buying apples is because of product placement in hollywood and on the tv.
When I bought my Mac I bought a Mac instead of a Windows PC for 2 reasons. First I wanted something that works consistently. After buying and using Windows PCs for 10 years I got sick and tired of constantly having to have them worked on, fixed, or having the OS and all the software reinstalled. The only PC I didn't have these problems with runs NT4.0. However it has, had, it's own problems.
the average person does not know enough to make an informed decision between osx and windows (as if the average person knows what osx is).
On the other hand, this was almost three years ago. Perhaps things have changed for the better since then, though I don't see a lot of discussion over perl stuff on OSX
Maybe it's changed since you tried. Now there are more than 600 pages on Apple's Developer Connection on cpan perl. Admittedly not all may be appropriate, all I did was search ADC.
Nice thing about developing for OS X is that it is free (well, you don't pay extra for it).
Only if you don't value your time: OS X programming is both harder than Linux programming and the skills you need to acquire are not useful for much else.
Why then does Adobe have Photoshop for Macs but doesn't have it for Linux? The same can be said of many commercial programs.
OS X is usable for open source web frameworks, but for desktop apps, I find it better to either stick with the OS X specific commercial stuff or just use Linux.
I use NeoOffice, the Mac centric version of Open Office, and it's great.
Fink is a package manger based on debian aptget. there's thousands of free packages there. and because the mac environment is so homogeneous they build seamlessly without surprises, many downloadable in binary form. works great from the command line or from the gui. Easy to keep up-to-date
I've brought up Fink, and MacPorts, previously and said how they can install a lot of the software that can be installed in Linux. I have Fink installed myself. However I only tried to download and install one program with it, HTTrack, but I was unable to download it. I checked the Fink website but didn't find any help, and going through the HTTrack forums didn't help either. Because I like to download and save a lot of webpages, and a few compleat websites, I'd like to get it working.
I actually don't mind paying for software - if it earns me money. Now, paying the prices that they ask of me, at the outset, even before I can afford it... that's another question.
Same here. I'm hoping to start working early this year as a photographer and I'd like to get Photoshop CS3. However because I'm on disability I'd rather not have to part with the $800, or however much CS3 cost. Right now I only work with film and I'd rather use the money to help pay for a DSLR. So initially I'm going to tryout CinePaint. If it doesn't work or work well but I'm able to have an income from photography then I'll go ahead and buy PS. Then I'll first buy an old upgradeable version then buy the upgrade version of CS3, that's save me a few hundred dollars.
I go and create a desktop short cut for her to run Safari, and she's reasonably happy with that.
There's an icon in the Dashboard that looks like a compass and if you hover your mouse over it it says "Safari", there's your browser. And the email icon looks like a stamp.
There are, however, other things she's not happy with, that I can't figure out. She needs to travel between different places, with different internet configurations with this computer (which is, after all, a laptop), and she needs to be able to switch between having a DSL line and doing a phone dial-up. We go blundering around in various Wizards (or whatever apple calls them) and with a suprising quantity of work, I can get it configured to work in one location.
I got my MacBook Pro in August, after not having used a Mac in several years. After unpacking and setting it up I was online within minutes of booting up, after setting up user accounts. Over WiFi. There was no setting up WiFi, no configuration, just launch the browser. Having said that going online on my Linux PC was just as easy, I just plugged the Ethernet cable from the PC to the router and Linux automatically configured the connection.
their cheapest computer is something like $1000...and if you want it to actually include a monitor, I believe the price for that is another $1300.
I don't know where you got that number, but I can buy a Mac Mini (barf) for $600. Add a keyboard and mouse, and a monitor and that's less than $1000. Best Buy has a Mini for $600. A 19" LG monitor is $200. An Apple keyboard is $50. And a Kensington wireless optical mouse is $40. That comes to $900.
if there's one feature about Ubuntu that I love more than my Mac is that you can install a TON of applications from Synaptic or via the awesome Add/Remove app. OSX on the other hand, if you want to install some new piece of software, be prepared to pay for it, or to get a really useless trial version.
I can use both Fink and Macports to install software. "Fink uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful binary package management." And MacPorts uses RPMs.
The reason people are buying mac is because they want something new, and when it comes to purchasing a computer your only choices are OSX and Vista for most people. I'd bet anything that if we saw more linux pcs at stores like best buy and walmart, the cheaper linux PC would CLOBBER in sales, because people really do care about cost.
I bought a tower PC with Linux preinstalled but when it came tyme to buy a laptop I bought a MacBook pro. I not only care about cost but I also care about usability. Oh and Walmart does, or did, sale PCs with Linux.
With the new Leopard 10.5 X11 is just installed outta the box isn't it?
I don't know. I had to install X Window into Tiger. Though I have Leopard on DVD, I'm a member of the Apple Developer Connection and they send me new DVDs about every month, I don't plan on installing it. There's nothing in it I see as needed. What I did like on one of the DVDs was the new version of XCode, but I haven't even gotten around to installing it.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, given that I open links in new tabs about 50% of the time, you can see why having to use a popup for that is annoying.
You don't need to have pop ups to open a new tab. To reply to this, with the cursor on the "Reply to this" link, while holding down the command key with one finger I clicked the button with the thumb on the same hand. The reply screen opened up in a new tab automatically. I have no problem with that at all. And this reply is my 9th tab open.
FalconIf it weren't for open source software on OS X, I wouldn't be using it at all. It really is the best of both worlds, IMO.
That's a big thing in OS X's favor. But the 2 biggest reasons I switched from Windows is stability and Microsoft's attitude. After 10 years I got sick and tired of having trouble with Windows PCs. I've owned 4 of them. Two of them had to have the HDDs and motherboards replaced within a year. And I don't know how many tymes I had to reinstall Windows, along with all the software, on both. I had to do a compleat reinstall at least 6 tymes, on each. The other big reason was because MS has the attitude that I'm a criminal and wants to treat me that way. The most I should have to do to use software is to enter a valid key to unlock the software. But not only does MS require that, they also require Windows and other software to contact the mother ship, MS's servers, to make sure it can run on the PC. And spyware like WGA/WPA constantly contacts the mother ship. For the life of me I don't understand why anyone puts up with being treated like a criminal.
FalconBecause there is a market for their products on OS X, there isn't on Linux.
If all that matters to Adobe is a market then they would release a Linux version of Photoshop. Admittedly I don't know how big it is but there are a bunch of Linux users who'd love to pay for it. Many are installing it in Linux with WINE, and others are paying extra for CrossOver Linux to install Photoshop.
Adobe was even developing for MacOS and MFC, both of which are far worse than Cocoa; they really don't give a damn how bad a platform is if there is a market.
Then they should be developing a Linux version. Adobe had already developed versions for Unix, both SGI IRIX and Sun Solaris.
FalconYea. An LG monitor is $200. I was talking about apple, not LG. Go on their online store, select that $600 mac mini, and look for your monitor choices. $600 for that, $100 for keyboard and mouse...and yet, the components are still, for the most part, worse than a cheap Dell.
I still don't see where you can say the Dell is cheaper. The Mac Mini as I priced it is less than $900 but the cheapest Dell XPS One I see, and I have the webpage for it open in another tab, is $1350. That's more than $400 more than the Mac. Sure, the Apple monitors are more expensive but at least you have the choice of getting another monitor with the Mini whereas the Dell has one built in. And after a couple of years or more with an exteranl monitor you can replace the computer but keep the monitor. And many keep their monitors longer than they keep a computer. With the Dell, you're replacing everything. A couple of days ago I was out looking for a monitor and I saw a 23" Viewsonic for $400, which if it's good for photo editing I may get, whereas the Dell's is 20".
FalconWere you comparing the $2999 Dell XPS M1730 to the $2,799 17" MacBook Pro?
I don't recall what model of Dell I used. I looked for one than had the same or close to the same CPU the MBP had and a 17" LCD. From there I configured the Dell to be as close to the specs the MBP had. I did the same with the HP.
FalconWhat I'm reading into the above is that for the low cost of $183 million the NIH developed a drug worth billions. Sounds like the NIH did what the NIH is supposed to do.
That's right, my tax money went so a large corporation could make billions of dollars more. I think it would have been more appropriate for the NCI to have open sourced the data needed so more companies could have manufactured Taxol as well as required them to pay royalities. At $1 billion a year, a royalty of just 10% would have earned the NCI $100 million a year. The money the NCI spend would have been paid off in 2 years after which they could have used additional royalities for more research thus benefiting more people. From what I've read, unfortunately I don't have a link right now, pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than they do on research. This is ass backwards.
FalconIt may be closer to what GP wanted but not for what I wanted.
FalconYou know, I feel like you were purposely miss leading the guy by not telling him about the dependency hell issues or the stupid references in packages that refer to non existent packages
As I know nothing about any dependency hell on Macs I don't know what you mean, especially about miss leading anyone.
FalconI suggest you try out Krita [koffice.org]. It has 32bit colours, CMYK etc.
Thanks, when I get my Linux PC running I'll try out Krita.
Falconyou keep telling us that the mac is cheaper
You're the one full of shit. As for Macs being cheaper, all I said was that when I priced a Mac against a Dell the Mac was cheaper but that when compared to an HP, they were similarly priced. I wonder if you can read and understand that. It isn't worth it for me to go through the rest of your shit.
FalconMany open source apps I use are not well supported (Openoffice, Amarok, Gimp, Inkscape, k3b.
NeoOffice is a good Mac port of Open Office. And MacGIMP is also a Mac port. However if it's like GIMP it only has an 8 bit colour depth per channel. While that may be fine for the web, it's seriously lacking for print media. For print CinePaint aka Film GIMP is better. How well it's supported on OS X I don't know but I've be finding out rsn. If it doesn't do what I want though I may end up getting Photoshop CS3, which you can't get running on Linux without jumping through hoops. I'll also try Inkscape and Blender. The others I don't know about.
the OS X interface is awful
I guess it depends on your taste. Neither I nor many other Mac users have a problem with it. Of course my favorite OS was Amiga.
MacPorts packages didn't compile 50% of the time.
I haven't tried it yet but I'll go through to see what's available. If I find some good software I'll go ahead and try it.
FalconAgreed! How can Linux be dying if it's gaining market share?
I do think OS X as an offering is hurting Linux for the desktop by stealing developers away and allowing them to refocus their extra-curricular programming on things other than desktop Linux (like Linux as a server or applications on OS X).
Or it could go the other way, Linux taking developers away from OS X.
Though I don't right now I want to do some programming for myself, for a graphics and photography business. I'll be doing it on and for my Mac however eventually I'd like to work on a port for Linux. Does it really matter though? What should matter is having a robust and diverse market place. I want more choices not less.
Falcon# Adobe: GIMP(shop) and Inkscape; evince and gnash
What are the colour depths of Photoshop and GIMP? PS CS3 has 32 bits per colour change whereas GIMP only has 8. Can GIMP work with CMYK? Only with a plugin. Does PS? Natively. So, if you want print then you need PS as GIMP won't do. However Film GIMP AKA CinePaint can do it. I plan on working in photography and I'll give CinePaint a try but if it doesn't work I may have to get PS. As for Inkscape, it is for vector graphics not photo editing. I'll also try Inkscape, as well as Blender.
FalconNot exactly. They also care about ease of use, and Linux is not, nor has it ever been, easy.
That depends on the distro. More than a year ago I bought a new PC with Linspire preinstalled. After setting it up I booted it and when the desktop was ready it looked like Windows. It was pretty easy to use. Heck, to connect to the internet all I had to do was connect the PC to my router. Linspire automatically configured the connection. I even got a pop up saying updates were available and did I want to download them. And now with Linspire's, Click N Run, CNR, that's all that's needed to install software, a simply click. After locating what you want to download and install. Not only that, but CNR allows people to download legal media codecs. Some have to be paid for but they are legal.
Falconlet's be honest about this, the reason people are buying apples is because of product placement in hollywood and on the tv.
When I bought my Mac I bought a Mac instead of a Windows PC for 2 reasons. First I wanted something that works consistently. After buying and using Windows PCs for 10 years I got sick and tired of constantly having to have them worked on, fixed, or having the OS and all the software reinstalled. The only PC I didn't have these problems with runs NT4.0. However it has, had, it's own problems.
the average person does not know enough to make an informed decision between osx and windows (as if the average person knows what osx is).
That's true with Linux too, unfortunately.
Falcon"Fink uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful binary package management" on the Mac.
FalconOn the other hand, this was almost three years ago. Perhaps things have changed for the better since then, though I don't see a lot of discussion over perl stuff on OSX
Maybe it's changed since you tried. Now there are more than 600 pages on Apple's Developer Connection on cpan perl. Admittedly not all may be appropriate, all I did was search ADC.
FalconNice thing about developing for OS X is that it is free (well, you don't pay extra for it).
Only if you don't value your time: OS X programming is both harder than Linux programming and the skills you need to acquire are not useful for much else.
Why then does Adobe have Photoshop for Macs but doesn't have it for Linux? The same can be said of many commercial programs.
FalconOS X is usable for open source web frameworks, but for desktop apps, I find it better to either stick with the OS X specific commercial stuff or just use Linux.
I use NeoOffice, the Mac centric version of Open Office, and it's great.
FalconFink is a package manger based on debian aptget. there's thousands of free packages there. and because the mac environment is so homogeneous they build seamlessly without surprises, many downloadable in binary form. works great from the command line or from the gui. Easy to keep up-to-date
I've brought up Fink, and MacPorts, previously and said how they can install a lot of the software that can be installed in Linux. I have Fink installed myself. However I only tried to download and install one program with it, HTTrack, but I was unable to download it. I checked the Fink website but didn't find any help, and going through the HTTrack forums didn't help either. Because I like to download and save a lot of webpages, and a few compleat websites, I'd like to get it working.
FalconI actually don't mind paying for software - if it earns me money. Now, paying the prices that they ask of me, at the outset, even before I can afford it... that's another question.
Same here. I'm hoping to start working early this year as a photographer and I'd like to get Photoshop CS3. However because I'm on disability I'd rather not have to part with the $800, or however much CS3 cost. Right now I only work with film and I'd rather use the money to help pay for a DSLR. So initially I'm going to tryout CinePaint. If it doesn't work or work well but I'm able to have an income from photography then I'll go ahead and buy PS. Then I'll first buy an old upgradeable version then buy the upgrade version of CS3, that's save me a few hundred dollars.
FalconI go and create a desktop short cut for her to run Safari, and she's reasonably happy with that.
There's an icon in the Dashboard that looks like a compass and if you hover your mouse over it it says "Safari", there's your browser. And the email icon looks like a stamp.
There are, however, other things she's not happy with, that I can't figure out. She needs to travel between different places, with different internet configurations with this computer (which is, after all, a laptop), and she needs to be able to switch between having a DSL line and doing a phone dial-up. We go blundering around in various Wizards (or whatever apple calls them) and with a suprising quantity of work, I can get it configured to work in one location.
I got my MacBook Pro in August, after not having used a Mac in several years. After unpacking and setting it up I was online within minutes of booting up, after setting up user accounts. Over WiFi. There was no setting up WiFi, no configuration, just launch the browser. Having said that going online on my Linux PC was just as easy, I just plugged the Ethernet cable from the PC to the router and Linux automatically configured the connection.
Falcontheir cheapest computer is something like $1000...and if you want it to actually include a monitor, I believe the price for that is another $1300.
I don't know where you got that number, but I can buy a Mac Mini (barf) for $600. Add a keyboard and mouse, and a monitor and that's less than $1000. Best Buy has a Mini for $600. A 19" LG monitor is $200. An Apple keyboard is $50. And a Kensington wireless optical mouse is $40. That comes to $900.
Falconif there's one feature about Ubuntu that I love more than my Mac is that you can install a TON of applications from Synaptic or via the awesome Add/Remove app. OSX on the other hand, if you want to install some new piece of software, be prepared to pay for it, or to get a really useless trial version.
I can use both Fink and Macports to install software. "Fink uses Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get to provide powerful binary package management." And MacPorts uses RPMs.
The reason people are buying mac is because they want something new, and when it comes to purchasing a computer your only choices are OSX and Vista for most people. I'd bet anything that if we saw more linux pcs at stores like best buy and walmart, the cheaper linux PC would CLOBBER in sales, because people really do care about cost.
I bought a tower PC with Linux preinstalled but when it came tyme to buy a laptop I bought a MacBook pro. I not only care about cost but I also care about usability. Oh and Walmart does, or did, sale PCs with Linux.
FalconWith the new Leopard 10.5 X11 is just installed outta the box isn't it?
I don't know. I had to install X Window into Tiger. Though I have Leopard on DVD, I'm a member of the Apple Developer Connection and they send me new DVDs about every month, I don't plan on installing it. There's nothing in it I see as needed. What I did like on one of the DVDs was the new version of XCode, but I haven't even gotten around to installing it.
Falcon