There are a number of options; I would say that your least favorable option is remaining with dated hardware. Frankly, it's nothing short of a miracle that 2 15 year old systems have lasted as long as they have without failures.
You know, I still have a bunch of Amigas, some them going back as far as 1994, none of them have failed yet, in any form and I do use them regularly. That said, they're fanless systems. I am surprised the hard drives haven't gone yet, actually. I should probably look into replacing them with SSD.
And you're wrong. The response you gave was, essentially, that society should make laws that favor a minority groups whose populations is P, while ignoring minority groups whose population is P.
Sorry, can't seem to find where I said anything like "society should make laws". Pretty sure I was remarking on the current state of things.
it's an opinion based on personal biases
Well, if you really want to go low level (since I don't see this issue occurring in my logic on a high level), everything is a opinion based upon personal biases. I don't understand how you cannot understand the difference between numbers. Such as a one person verses ten thousand persons minority and why the ten thousand persons minority would be more significant than a single person.
Even minority wise, it's often the minority that has more people have a bigger sway on things, which was what my original point was and felt I explained it sufficiently already.
Then why the hell did you respond? Your entire argument is a philosophical one.
Actually, I believe the response I gave to be a accurate representation of reality, not a philosophical theory that does not correlate in the slightest to the way things are in reality.
Then something was funny with your Linux install, because all the Macbook Pro's ever made came with dedicated memory. The first Macbook Pro's came with ATI Mobility Radeon X1600's, which had dedicated, not shared memory. Then Apple switched to Nvidia 8xxxm/9xxxm chips, which all have dedicated memory.
Hm, interesting. I admit I'm wrong then.
I'm going to have to take a closer look at the hardware on the next MBP I touch and see why Linux claims shared video memory.
So you're advocating mob-rule? Get enough people together, and you can force through whatever laws you like?
That is generally how the world works, even minority wise. You can call it what you like, I'm not here to argue philosophy, only discuss the reality of the situation. It makes perfect sense.
What are game companies going to do if they create a French only version?
They can sell them like the companies that sell the English only versions in Quebec, no problems.
The game may ship with a French translation otherwise it won't be released due to the fact that millions of English copies will be shipped back to the creators of the game.
Why? If there is only a English version available, it's perfectly legal to sell it in Quebec. Only when you have a French version also available, do you have to also provide it the stores.
Yeah, and? English isn't my original language either, but Canada doesn't provide any protection for my native tongue. Why should you bastards be any different? Why not protect Italian, German, Spanish, and Dari, while we're at it? Make sure that every federal employee speaks all 6 languages!
Seriously, I don't live in Canada and even I can understand why it's different. There is not enough of you to be significant.
If ANY language is going to be our "second language", it should be some Native American dialect.
Is there that many "native Americans" in comparison to English and French speakers in Canada?
You already have a law requiring people transporting such knives to prove that they're a chef.
We also have a law on banning "extreme sex", not that it's ever been used. It's just publicity stunts used by politicians.
Brits are ahead of Americans in the "doing as they are told" category.
This comment amuses me. Unlike most people, I have lived abroad, been to plenty of countries too, not with standing: Poland, Germany, Sweden, France, Denmark, USA etc.
In all my travels, the most controlled (police state) society I ever saw with check point spots and insane security practices was when I was in the USA - some of the post 9/11 security crap I saw in the states was plain ludicrous. I agree that the UK may have a lot of petty regulations, but the concept that they "doing as they are told" maybe right in the sense that there is very few deaths in relation to firearms (42 deaths last year), and far less murders as a whole on a statistical percentage when compared against the States (possibly due to knives not having such a dire effect.
Unlike the USA however, we don't have as much of a issue with corrupt politicians and scandals, the government isn't exactly omnipotent and many of us in the UK realize that which is why the government is heavily regulated too, in order to prevent abuse along most of the chain - which is partly what leads to some of these inane regulations we get over some ludicrous things.
That said, abuse of the system does occur, covering it up is a crime. If you've ever been caught dealing in such practices, underhanded tactics, your political career is over, period. There is no second chances, there is no remaining in the government like so many US politicians some how manage to pull off. It's obvious why many Americans fear their government and why they assume other governments cannot be trusted in the slightest.
I think compliance to law is not a bad thing, but in my opinion, you have misunderstood the problems in the UK by relating it to American issues.
That article is about as serious as a the yearly articles we get about daylight savings causing hell for schools and how we need to not use DST because people can die.
This is Britain, we have petty articles and long-winded discussions on everything - doesn't mean it becomes law.
So for you, some bureaucrats of the EU, many of whom hate anything American with a purple passion, are the be-all and end-all judges of computer quality.
These studies are not performed by bureaucrats. The American-hate relationship isn't really known in the EU either.
These are the same idiots who are constantly down on Microsoft for various alleged sins, and turned a blind eye when a European company does exactly the same thing.
There is a European company that took over international markets by making contracts with manufacturers stating they have to pay a license for something for every product they produce, even if it wasn't ever going to be used and completely unrelated product with said thing it's being licensed for - which forces the price of competitors who use the same manufacturers to become more expensive.
After forcing themselves to become more dominant by being the cheaper solution, thanks to the underhanded tactics, they then introduce products through their licensed 'product', which introduces their new product to a wide audience of people, effectively killing the competition in that market while additionally making the manufacturers sign more agreements that they can't sell competitor products on the same system that has the initial licensed products.
Honestly, I can't think of any European company that fits that description in any industry, in the slightest way.
You sure are making a big issue of this one item. As I understand, this paste issue occurred quite a few years ago and yet you still bring it up.
My last MBP (purchased 2 years ago) had the issue, acquaintance had a "omg it's cooking my lap!" problem I looked into with her Macbook - same problem. It's not "quite a few years ago".
It is indeed and how did it get that way?
How did Scientology become popular?
By promoting it as the end all solution for your problems - marketing. Crushing the majority of vocal opposition/infringements by suing them. Getting a good following of people that only reinforces that you're "right".
It can be any number of reasons, doesn't need to be a legitimate logical reason.
It means the Macbook Pro has dedicated memory for a dedicated graphics chipset
I didn't see any clear statement on the page provided that said that. Having ran a macbookpro before under Linux, I was able to determine that while there was dedicated videoram, the video memory was still in fact, shared with system memory.
How does that link disprove that the VideoRAM is shared with system RAM? It may have more dedicated VideoRAM the MacBook, but it still has some shared with the system RAM which decreases performance.
You tell that to all the millions of users who are struggling at this moment with the Conficker Worm which does not affect even one single solitary computer with OSX loaded into it, even a Hackintosh not made by Apple.
I honestly don't know of a single Apple user that uses OS X because it cannot be infected by the majority of viruses out there, I know quite a lot too. I know of a few that will mention that as a reason to use OS X, but wasn't the primary motivator for themselves.
So, I'm pretty fine with telling than to the millions of users out there, I'm also fine telling them to leave on automatic updates, which will download and execute the malicious software removal tool automatically to remove the worm.
Nobody has ever said that the common components used by Apple as well as by everybody else cannot fail or do not fail.
Uhm, the thermal paste issue is definitely Apple's fault. Mass logicboard failures are due to improper QA testing, considering the motherboards are built by Apple. But way to go on ignoring all the software faults in the OS I mentioned too, along with the driver issues.
Even so, organizations like Consumer Reports give Apple Computers the highest possible grades for overall quality and reliability.
I really couldn't care less what some unregulated American company says with their evaluations. I'm far more interested in what the EU evaluations which have strict guidelines in evaluations and public scrutinization against their data. What has been mentioned about Apple in the EU has not been very positive.
Apple Computers the highest possible grades for overall quality and reliability.
Considering the simple issues like too much thermal paste - which is still an issue and you consider that highest grade of quality and reliability, I'm going to have to take a step back now and laugh.
Well good for you that YOU, a self-styled computer god, have determined that for yourself. Fortunately, more credible organizations and more reliable reviewers have come to the opposite conclusion that you have come to.
It's also true that more credible organizations and more reliable reviewers have to come to the same conclusion that I have.
Also, the fact that many people are willing to pay extra for quality, are keeping up Apple's profits at levels the other computer makers only dream about.
This isn't really relevant to the discussion of how it's a superior product, Apple is a popular brand name, people will buy brand names even if they're absolutely crap (ie: Sony).
Unless you take into consideration the price of the whole computer, as a system, including the software.
My overall opinion of OS X and it's goodies is lower of that than Windows (mostly due to opengl implementation being broken, worse I/O performance and graphic drivers sucking), thus - not really getting any points with me there.
Dell does not to make software, but are forced to load in Windows VISTA, a steaming POS for which the user must constantly spend time and effort to keep it updated in order to prevent the entry of tens of thousands of possible malware programs, many of which steal private information leading to a possible empty bank account.
I actually know plenty of users that don't have this problem and also users who do. This is not a issue for all users. The people who I find have this issue with malware are more likely to fall for a e-mail phishing scam, no matter what OS it's on. Not to mention, they wouldn't normally take a concious decision of choosing OS X over Windows for that reason. I don't give you any points for this either.
Apple is the only company that makes a whole complete computer, software and hardware. therefore, both can be tailored for each other making a far superior system product.
I've had over the past years, numerous logic board failures, nvidia GPU chipset failures (specific chipset, was common in PCs and Apple), wireless device that came built in, with the Mac which didn't work at all after a OS X update, but if I rolled back to a earlier version of the OS it worked fine. I've had bluetooth that came built-in with the Mac kernel panic the system constantly on a newer version of OS X, while other operating systems on the same hardware didn't have this problem and of course, rolling back found no issue. Insane amounts of thermal paste on the processor and annoying whistling monitor issues that Apple failed to fix on some effected hardware, even after it taking them a year to acknowledge the issue exist.
In conclusion, I determine the "superior product" statement to be bullshit.
This isn't a single experience, these are continued experiences that have gone over many, many years of using a Mac. I'm not saying regular PCs are better, but the superiority non-sense just doesn't fly.
Not till they come out with a usb target disk mode. If you've ever had to get data off of a dead laptop, upgraged to a new laptop and wanted to move your data, or worked between a laptop and a desktop, you'll really appreciate target disk mode.
It doesn't exactly take me more than five minutes to get out the hard drive from a non-functioning laptop. Pretty sure I can live without it.
Well worth getting firewire for in just the few times I've used it in emergencies and the time it saved from moving data from my laptop to my desktop mac.
You may not have an extra PC laying around a year later after you buy your Mac, but you can upgrade to this-year's-model for next to nothing if you are willing to sell your Mac.
This is actually a pretty good argument - But I wouldn't get a Mac for the hardware. The shared video RAM on all laptop models puts me off.
Honestly, who knows the difference between an Intel WiFi Link 5300 (802.11a/g/n) Half Mini-card and an Intel WiFi Link 5100 (802.11a/g/n) Half Mini-card.
I found Google is useful for this.
Why is there a difference
The 5300 has one extra antenna connection with better power saving, useful for those on the road, in constant motion.
I will do my best to answer all your questions truthfully without distorting the truth in any way, using my real life experiences as a reference.
How long do you think that customized PC laptop will be running until it gets replaced by a new one, because the latest Web application (i.e. Flash video) doesn't run properly anymore?
Took me eight years and my laptop was not exactly the highest of specs when I got it either. Flash was actually still working fine, what made me buy a new computer was when keys started coming off the keyboard (in all fairness, I had been very, very rough with the laptop).
Or because that game you bought requires a bit more than your machine has to offer? Two years? Three years?
My six year old desktop system plays all my games at their maxed out settings, the only thing I've upgraded in it over the years is the graphics card (new top of the line gfx, even though the PCIe slots on the system can't go at the max theoretical speed the card can) - and that was because the fan got stuck on the old one, and I couldn't get a replacement fan.
A Mac would have lasted you at least one year longer.
Not really. I find most of my games perform often worse on Macs due to the graphics shared system memory actually - doesn't matter which OS I use.
Besides, a Mac user can still sell his old machine on Ebay for some good price, I doubt that you'll have that much luck with a three years old FSC laptop, for example.
*Glances over to still in use 12year old PC system, doing still useful tasks* Uh, my computers are still useful, I don't want to get rid of them. I can't say my older Macs survived though ("logicboard failures").
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You know, I still have a bunch of Amigas, some them going back as far as 1994, none of them have failed yet, in any form and I do use them regularly. That said, they're fanless systems. I am surprised the hard drives haven't gone yet, actually. I should probably look into replacing them with SSD.
In my opinion, it's not really a great way to "win". I really don't consider it "winning", if the game to win is to die.
Sorry, can't seem to find where I said anything like "society should make laws". Pretty sure I was remarking on the current state of things.
Well, if you really want to go low level (since I don't see this issue occurring in my logic on a high level), everything is a opinion based upon personal biases. I don't understand how you cannot understand the difference between numbers. Such as a one person verses ten thousand persons minority and why the ten thousand persons minority would be more significant than a single person.
Even minority wise, it's often the minority that has more people have a bigger sway on things, which was what my original point was and felt I explained it sufficiently already.
Didn't Gandhi get killed, thus losing in the end?
Actually, I believe the response I gave to be a accurate representation of reality, not a philosophical theory that does not correlate in the slightest to the way things are in reality.
You can get free anti-virus software for Windows, free anti-virus/clean up software etc, generally isn't free.
Here is one of the more popular clean up software for OS X:
http://macpaw.com/cleanmymac
Hm, interesting. I admit I'm wrong then.
I'm going to have to take a closer look at the hardware on the next MBP I touch and see why Linux claims shared video memory.
You can classify the entire world as the third world if you like, as I said, I'm not interested in arguing philosophy.
That is generally how the world works, even minority wise. You can call it what you like, I'm not here to argue philosophy, only discuss the reality of the situation. It makes perfect sense.
They can sell them like the companies that sell the English only versions in Quebec, no problems.
Why? If there is only a English version available, it's perfectly legal to sell it in Quebec. Only when you have a French version also available, do you have to also provide it the stores.
I don't see the problem?
Seriously, I don't live in Canada and even I can understand why it's different. There is not enough of you to be significant.
Is there that many "native Americans" in comparison to English and French speakers in Canada?
We also have a law on banning "extreme sex", not that it's ever been used. It's just publicity stunts used by politicians.
This comment amuses me. Unlike most people, I have lived abroad, been to plenty of countries too, not with standing: Poland, Germany, Sweden, France, Denmark, USA etc.
In all my travels, the most controlled (police state) society I ever saw with check point spots and insane security practices was when I was in the USA - some of the post 9/11 security crap I saw in the states was plain ludicrous. I agree that the UK may have a lot of petty regulations, but the concept that they "doing as they are told" maybe right in the sense that there is very few deaths in relation to firearms (42 deaths last year), and far less murders as a whole on a statistical percentage when compared against the States (possibly due to knives not having such a dire effect.
Unlike the USA however, we don't have as much of a issue with corrupt politicians and scandals, the government isn't exactly omnipotent and many of us in the UK realize that which is why the government is heavily regulated too, in order to prevent abuse along most of the chain - which is partly what leads to some of these inane regulations we get over some ludicrous things.
That said, abuse of the system does occur, covering it up is a crime. If you've ever been caught dealing in such practices, underhanded tactics, your political career is over, period. There is no second chances, there is no remaining in the government like so many US politicians some how manage to pull off. It's obvious why many Americans fear their government and why they assume other governments cannot be trusted in the slightest.
I think compliance to law is not a bad thing, but in my opinion, you have misunderstood the problems in the UK by relating it to American issues.
That article is about as serious as a the yearly articles we get about daylight savings causing hell for schools and how we need to not use DST because people can die.
This is Britain, we have petty articles and long-winded discussions on everything - doesn't mean it becomes law.
Most CCTV cameras in the UK are owned by private businesses actually.
These studies are not performed by bureaucrats. The American-hate relationship isn't really known in the EU either.
There is a European company that took over international markets by making contracts with manufacturers stating they have to pay a license for something for every product they produce, even if it wasn't ever going to be used and completely unrelated product with said thing it's being licensed for - which forces the price of competitors who use the same manufacturers to become more expensive.
After forcing themselves to become more dominant by being the cheaper solution, thanks to the underhanded tactics, they then introduce products through their licensed 'product', which introduces their new product to a wide audience of people, effectively killing the competition in that market while additionally making the manufacturers sign more agreements that they can't sell competitor products on the same system that has the initial licensed products.
Honestly, I can't think of any European company that fits that description in any industry, in the slightest way.
My last MBP (purchased 2 years ago) had the issue, acquaintance had a "omg it's cooking my lap!" problem I looked into with her Macbook - same problem. It's not "quite a few years ago".
How did Scientology become popular?
By promoting it as the end all solution for your problems - marketing.
Crushing the majority of vocal opposition/infringements by suing them.
Getting a good following of people that only reinforces that you're "right".
It can be any number of reasons, doesn't need to be a legitimate logical reason.
I didn't see any clear statement on the page provided that said that. Having ran a macbookpro before under Linux, I was able to determine that while there was dedicated videoram, the video memory was still in fact, shared with system memory.
How does that link disprove that the VideoRAM is shared with system RAM? It may have more dedicated VideoRAM the MacBook, but it still has some shared with the system RAM which decreases performance.
I honestly don't know of a single Apple user that uses OS X because it cannot be infected by the majority of viruses out there, I know quite a lot too. I know of a few that will mention that as a reason to use OS X, but wasn't the primary motivator for themselves.
So, I'm pretty fine with telling than to the millions of users out there, I'm also fine telling them to leave on automatic updates, which will download and execute the malicious software removal tool automatically to remove the worm.
Uhm, the thermal paste issue is definitely Apple's fault. Mass logicboard failures are due to improper QA testing, considering the motherboards are built by Apple. But way to go on ignoring all the software faults in the OS I mentioned too, along with the driver issues.
I really couldn't care less what some unregulated American company says with their evaluations. I'm far more interested in what the EU evaluations which have strict guidelines in evaluations and public scrutinization against their data. What has been mentioned about Apple in the EU has not been very positive.
Considering the simple issues like too much thermal paste - which is still an issue and you consider that highest grade of quality and reliability, I'm going to have to take a step back now and laugh.
It's also true that more credible organizations and more reliable reviewers have to come to the same conclusion that I have.
This isn't really relevant to the discussion of how it's a superior product, Apple is a popular brand name, people will buy brand names even if they're absolutely crap (ie: Sony).
If we're going to start doing that, may as well just buy the minimum off Dell and get the cheaper bits off newegg for the PC too.
My overall opinion of OS X and it's goodies is lower of that than Windows (mostly due to opengl implementation being broken, worse I/O performance and graphic drivers sucking), thus - not really getting any points with me there.
I actually know plenty of users that don't have this problem and also users who do. This is not a issue for all users. The people who I find have this issue with malware are more likely to fall for a e-mail phishing scam, no matter what OS it's on. Not to mention, they wouldn't normally take a concious decision of choosing OS X over Windows for that reason. I don't give you any points for this either.
I've had over the past years, numerous logic board failures, nvidia GPU chipset failures (specific chipset, was common in PCs and Apple), wireless device that came built in, with the Mac which didn't work at all after a OS X update, but if I rolled back to a earlier version of the OS it worked fine. I've had bluetooth that came built-in with the Mac kernel panic the system constantly on a newer version of OS X, while other operating systems on the same hardware didn't have this problem and of course, rolling back found no issue. Insane amounts of thermal paste on the processor and annoying whistling monitor issues that Apple failed to fix on some effected hardware, even after it taking them a year to acknowledge the issue exist.
In conclusion, I determine the "superior product" statement to be bullshit.
This isn't a single experience, these are continued experiences that have gone over many, many years of using a Mac. I'm not saying regular PCs are better, but the superiority non-sense just doesn't fly.
It doesn't exactly take me more than five minutes to get out the hard drive from a non-functioning laptop. Pretty sure I can live without it.
I backup my data...
This is actually a pretty good argument - But I wouldn't get a Mac for the hardware. The shared video RAM on all laptop models puts me off.
You're more likely to have a bigger effect on the economy by doing a lot of smaller purchases than a single big one for the same price.
I found Google is useful for this.
The 5300 has one extra antenna connection with better power saving, useful for those on the road, in constant motion.
I will do my best to answer all your questions truthfully without distorting the truth in any way, using my real life experiences as a reference.
Took me eight years and my laptop was not exactly the highest of specs when I got it either. Flash was actually still working fine, what made me buy a new computer was when keys started coming off the keyboard (in all fairness, I had been very, very rough with the laptop).
My six year old desktop system plays all my games at their maxed out settings, the only thing I've upgraded in it over the years is the graphics card (new top of the line gfx, even though the PCIe slots on the system can't go at the max theoretical speed the card can) - and that was because the fan got stuck on the old one, and I couldn't get a replacement fan.
Not really. I find most of my games perform often worse on Macs due to the graphics shared system memory actually - doesn't matter which OS I use.
*Glances over to still in use 12year old PC system, doing still useful tasks* Uh, my computers are still useful, I don't want to get rid of them. I can't say my older Macs survived though ("logicboard failures").