In addition to my previous comment, there is little reason to worry about Apple programs running on Linux, as pretty much any Linux-compatible program can be run on OS X either through existing binaries or after a re-compile.
OS X cannot run Linux binaries and Linux application sourcecode is not directly portable to OS X. I should know, I have had hell of a time porting my applications to OS X. OS X even has broken standard stuff... OpenGL doesn't behave the same as on Windows and Linux (does non-standard things, gets locked up), POSIX signaling is absolutely messed up. The x11 server in OS X can't even do drag and drop never mind handling copy pasting between applications properly.
Isn't that one of the things that open source software is all about?
Since when is opensource about running Linux binaries on a proprietary platform? OS X is not opensource either. Darwin is opensource, but we can all see how useful that is from how nobody uses it.
With Apple, not-so-much. You could run MacOS X, Linux, and Windows. Very flexible.
Oh, and another note. I don't believe Mac hardware even retains Vista logo support on the hardware. Nor do they officially support 64bit versions of Vista which Microsoft is trying to push forward.
So I would say the Windows support on Macs is lacking.
With Apple, not-so-much. You could run MacOS X, Linux, and Windows. Very flexible.
I wouldn't put Linux in that list. Most Linux distributions don't seem to work with specific components well in Macs, like wireless or the webcam etc.
Some other x86 systems are fully supported with Linux distributions, such as some Dell systems.
Apple also uses standard components...like memory and hard drives. If they're available from third parties, where's the lock in?
Most of the lower end Apple hardware don't you simply add a new soundcard, switch a graphic card, unlike the generic x86 systems with similar specifications - This is annoying as some people such as me would be happy with the cost and hardware of a Mac Mini after just upgrading the graphic card for gaming. But because you are unable to upgrade/change most of the hardware in the lower end models, you're forced to buy the more expensive ones. The only system I am aware of that lets you properly change things around is the Mac Pro... But if you've already bought that, chances are you won't need to change anything since it's insanely powered.
Of course, the only hardware that lets you run OS X comes from Apple and the only company Apple is currently authorizing people to run OS X on is themselves. That is where the lock-ins come in.
Truth be told, Dell and other large vendors have non-standard motherboards and power supplies, so you aren't any more locked in than you would have been with Apple.
I haven't seen a non-standard power supply in Dell machines since 2002. As for motherboards, they seem interchangeable just fine with other systems. The only issue you may have is that Dell cases are different from regular standard x86 cases, the motherboards may not fit in a another case properly and vice versa. But this isn't that large of a issue in the first place since people rarely replace motherboards and if they do - the cost for a new case isn't that big.
The only way you won't be locked in with hardware is to build your own out of readily available components. The problem is that you tend to end up with an over-sized piece of hardware. People want small and sleek nowadays.
There are vendors like Mini-ITX out there. I don't think that is a problem.
think we geeks, as we mature, just want to get the work done. We don't want to buy a new computer and spend days getting Linux to work on the new hardware when we can unwrap the Mac and start working.
I do not think you are not much of a geek if you don't know where to get a Linux box that works out of the box and just start working with it.
It's the Javascript that makes it slower, not the CSS. CSS speeds things up. The stylesheet can be downloaded once instead of downloading style info on every single page.
My own tests with CSS, I found browsers would load pages faster if the CSS was embedded into the page between style tags than as a separate file.
Oh, and BTW, when was the last time you bought an RCA product? What about a Sony product? Yet when Sony was young, it was mocked as "cheap Japanese crap." Think of that next time someone mocks Google Apps.
Never heard of RCA. I consider Sony products crap in general and I've felt this way before the whole DRM thing they did (which seems to have upset a lot of Slashdotters).
Don't be a literal minded idiot. You know what I'm talking about, and I know you know what I'm talking about.
I know of warning dialogs. But still, crap in the rendering engine? What on Earth even made you say that?
They pop up *when* the files are downloaded and *ask* you if you want to open it *right then*.
Talking specifically Microsoft software:
The action for downloaded executables/msi files and others which are 'unsafe' are tagged as a insecure. It doesn't matter how it's opened. If you go in explorer and open the file or get another program to shell execute it. The warning dialog will always appear for that file as being unsafe. It isn't just a feature built into the software that's executing the file anymore. It's also a extra precaution to prevent any automated execution.
Opening a jpeg or a mp3 should not trigger a warning dialog.
Oh yes they bloody do. You haven't lived until you've had to explain to some bloody contractor who thinks he's too smart to get a virus that no, he can't be an exception to your "no Outlook, no IE" rule even if he *does* have a system that dual-boots to FreeBSD or Linux or BeOS or whatever else he can tell you that he thinks will impress you, ESPECIALLY not while you're in there cleaning up his computer because he thought he could be an exception to your bloody rule and he was using Outlook or IE and clicked "Open" at the wrong time.
Obviously not smart enough as you originally claimed.
Yes, and I'm bloody glad of that. It means that just possibly they've realized what a total fucking mess they've made of security in the regular HTML control.
I think they just did it because they want Office products to use Office only features.
If only I could believe that they would dump ActiveX
One of the major problems with ActiveX in the past was that Internet Explorer could not distinguish between a control made for local usage or internet only. This has been resolved in IE7 and Vista
and "security" zones and the idea that it's OK to violate every sensible rule of basic software security if they can get it to just *smell* secure with enough dialogs and certificates and so on.
Actually, security zones work well when properly configured. If you tell it to not prompt but deny on Internet security zones - pretty much solved the issue.
Since 1997 is when Microsoft introduced the desktop/browser integration with "Active Desktop" that really *started* the whole problem
What integration? Seriously. All Windows 95 with IE and Windows 98SE had really as far as integration went was a file manager that doubled as webbrowser and a background that could support web pages. All active desktop was, was just the ability to have a web page as a background.
In Windows 2000, XP, 2003, the integration never went beyond that and the folder detailed view was not even handled by any Internet Explorer html rendering components. Vista when further with gadgets/widgets.
Hell, you want to stop the 'integration'? Just set set NTFS permissions to deny users access to mshtml.dll (leave SYSTEM to have access so it can update it still so you don't break any system updates). That is the HTML rendering engine in Windows and you will find the only thing that breaks is Internet Explorer, the webpage desktop background, older versions of Outlook and Windows help (which uses a form of HTML). Oh and disable widgets, since they're obviously a web technology integrated with the desktop, which I might add, OS X also uses.
and it's still 2007 now, I suspect you're dissimulating or exaggerating for rhetorical effect. I'm not sure that I'd describe either as "honest".
I'm saying I don't see what you're claiming, even the side effects of it.
Please Deluge creators and maintainers... you've created a fantastic open-source bittorrent program. Don't ruin it and turn it into another bloated slow Azureus.
Azureus isn't slow at all for me, nor does it feel bloated. Maybe you should try the GCJ build that doesn't require Sun's Java runtime.
On Firefox, there's an extension called Flashblock. It blocks Flash by default, but allows you to re-enable it on a page-wide or applet-by-applet basis. Several other extensions will do the same thing.
Flashblock unfortunately loads the Flash file still as the page is loading momentarily before it 'blocks' it.
It would be nice if Firefox implemented Konqueror's feature of clicking a box to use the plugin. Unfortunately that stuff also breaks flash detection pages (which is why I suspect flashblock permits a small window of time for flash files to load).
I don't see anywhere that I've said ODF is not a standard.
I think what will likely happen ( and what I've heard has happened with the one company I know that has to send docs to a Norwegian govt agency) is that the govt will be charged a surcharge for having to create non standard documentation.
You are talking about Microsoft formats here instead of odf?
It is hard to tell sometimes what people are referring to since they swap words like 'standards' around all over the place.
The fact is, there are. There have been a few cases of viruses on OS X now, and they all worked by having people opening files after they were downloaded.
Yes, three of them. I wasn't particularly impressed since I know I could of done a much better job. Only one even properly tried social engineering and it was more of malware than a virus since it couldn't self replicate it.
First, Microsoft's HTML engine makes it much much more likely that people WILL open attachments or downloaded files by popping up a dialog asking people if they want to do so
mshtml.dll (Microsoft's HTML rendering engine) doesn't have anything to do with the creation of dialog popups...
and that was added as a security measure... originally it didn't ask.
Microsoft ended up blocking all.exe,.com and.scr files from being executed in e-mails. Warning dialogs don't pop up for most file formats, only files that have been downloaded and are known to be executable. For example, if you recieve a zip file in e-mail, open it, open a.exe file. You will most certainly recieve a warning.
If you recieve a.doc file or such in that zip. You don't.
Which is why it's only a handful of cases. Having to depend on people downloading and opening the virus on the desktop is far less effective
I could easily make a installer package contain a virus, get it to execute certain scripts while 'installing'. I could hide it in a encrypted archive and provide the password to it in the e-mail to escape virus scanning. Advertising random things the user may want.
This would work exactly the same way it does in windows. No extra prompts and I am pretty sure a good amount of non-techie mac users will fall for it like a good amount of non-techie windows users will fall for it.
Automatic execution is a huge amplifier for the whole class of attacks you're talking about, because it makes running a program something you do by clicking on a link.
I haven't seen the method you're speaking of for the past decade to be honest.
in my years as a system admin, out of over 500 users (all smart technical guys, we're talking engineers with PhDs), I only had *one* get in trouble by downloading and then as a separate step opening an application after being burned once.
I'm not even talking about "smart technical guys". These kind of people generally do not get viruses on their systems in the first place.
And so the most effective security precaution I ever took as a system admin may have been to get Internet Explorer and Outlook banned at our site in 1997, when 'Active Desktop' showed up to usher in the virus storm. These applications, along with any others that use Microsoft's HTML engine, quickly proved to be huge security holes... and banning them was a big part of what kept us from having a single "virus scare" over the following years. The guys who kept coming back? They were usually using IE or Outlook against our local rules.
I've had users use Thunderbird under windows... And due to being rather naive in nature, opened malware and got themselves infected with viruses anyway. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what system you put a naive/non-literate computer user under - they are still going to make a mess when a virus relies on the user to spread.
Back in 1997, I thought that Microsoft would back out of this broken design. I mean, it was so obviously wrong that there had been a joke about going around for some years by then... the "Good Times" virus hoax... because everyone knew that automatic execution was a bad idea. But somehow Microsoft seems to think they're immune.
Microsoft is making their new outlook client use Microsoft Word's HTML rendering engine... Which doesn't support CSS. I have no idea why they are doing random things like that constantly.
No, the format that word produces is doc format(thus the standard format)No, it is in de facto usage, it is not a officially recognized standard. What standards organizations even see it as a standard?
Claiming ODF is not a standard is the fallacy I was pointing out though.
I think what will likely happen ( and what I've heard has happened with the one company I know that has to send docs to a Norwegian govt agency) is that the govt will be charged a surcharge for having to create non standard documentation.
This statement is a logical fallacy.
What's even more interesting about the instance I know about is that since there are serious header/footer issues in ODF, both an ODF and word doc get sent, but the ODF version (being essentially useless) won't be used by either side
Might be in implementation, but certainly not the format.
If it was just market share you'd still have hundreds of OS X viruses to Windows thousands.
My belief is that there are no real malicious virus writers for OS X. A lot of the windows viruses are things that rely on user stupidity, such as opening attachments despite all the various warning messages popping up telling them not to because there could be a virus. These viruses would work exactly the same on OS X. There are also plenty of OS X exploits to go around (remember, most windows worms take advantage of already patched exploits before they're even released).
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Of course the Linux guys will hate us because Linux doesn't run on it.
So I would say the Windows support on Macs is lacking.
Some other x86 systems are fully supported with Linux distributions, such as some Dell systems.Most of the lower end Apple hardware don't you simply add a new soundcard, switch a graphic card, unlike the generic x86 systems with similar specifications - This is annoying as some people such as me would be happy with the cost and hardware of a Mac Mini after just upgrading the graphic card for gaming. But because you are unable to upgrade/change most of the hardware in the lower end models, you're forced to buy the more expensive ones. The only system I am aware of that lets you properly change things around is the Mac Pro... But if you've already bought that, chances are you won't need to change anything since it's insanely powered.
Of course, the only hardware that lets you run OS X comes from Apple and the only company Apple is currently authorizing people to run OS X on is themselves. That is where the lock-ins come in.I haven't seen a non-standard power supply in Dell machines since 2002. As for motherboards, they seem interchangeable just fine with other systems. The only issue you may have is that Dell cases are different from regular standard x86 cases, the motherboards may not fit in a another case properly and vice versa. But this isn't that large of a issue in the first place since people rarely replace motherboards and if they do - the cost for a new case isn't that big.There are vendors like Mini-ITX out there. I don't think that is a problem.
The action for downloaded executables/msi files and others which are 'unsafe' are tagged as a insecure. It doesn't matter how it's opened. If you go in explorer and open the file or get another program to shell execute it. The warning dialog will always appear for that file as being unsafe. It isn't just a feature built into the software that's executing the file anymore. It's also a extra precaution to prevent any automated execution.
Opening a jpeg or a mp3 should not trigger a warning dialog.Obviously not smart enough as you originally claimed.I think they just did it because they want Office products to use Office only features.One of the major problems with ActiveX in the past was that Internet Explorer could not distinguish between a control made for local usage or internet only. This has been resolved in IE7 and VistaActually, security zones work well when properly configured. If you tell it to not prompt but deny on Internet security zones - pretty much solved the issue.What integration? Seriously. All Windows 95 with IE and Windows 98SE had really as far as integration went was a file manager that doubled as webbrowser and a background that could support web pages. All active desktop was, was just the ability to have a web page as a background.
In Windows 2000, XP, 2003, the integration never went beyond that and the folder detailed view was not even handled by any Internet Explorer html rendering components. Vista when further with gadgets/widgets.
Hell, you want to stop the 'integration'? Just set set NTFS permissions to deny users access to mshtml.dll (leave SYSTEM to have access so it can update it still so you don't break any system updates). That is the HTML rendering engine in Windows and you will find the only thing that breaks is Internet Explorer, the webpage desktop background, older versions of Outlook and Windows help (which uses a form of HTML). Oh and disable widgets, since they're obviously a web technology integrated with the desktop, which I might add, OS X also uses.I'm saying I don't see what you're claiming, even the side effects of it.
I don't understand this logic.You're calling a '4 months old game' old? What the hell?
It would be nice if Firefox implemented Konqueror's feature of clicking a box to use the plugin. Unfortunately that stuff also breaks flash detection pages (which is why I suspect flashblock permits a small window of time for flash files to load).
It is hard to tell sometimes what people are referring to since they swap words like 'standards' around all over the place.
If you recieve a
This would work exactly the same way it does in windows. No extra prompts and I am pretty sure a good amount of non-techie mac users will fall for it like a good amount of non-techie windows users will fall for it.I haven't seen the method you're speaking of for the past decade to be honest.I'm not even talking about "smart technical guys". These kind of people generally do not get viruses on their systems in the first place.I've had users use Thunderbird under windows... And due to being rather naive in nature, opened malware and got themselves infected with viruses anyway. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what system you put a naive/non-literate computer user under - they are still going to make a mess when a virus relies on the user to spread.Microsoft is making their new outlook client use Microsoft Word's HTML rendering engine... Which doesn't support CSS. I have no idea why they are doing random things like that constantly.