You aren't allowed to suggest that linux may not be secure, or that the desktop environments for it are kludgy and half-assed, or anything else. It cannot be sanely and calmly discussed in the "linux community".
That's right, you need to actually give evidence on this, otherwise it's recognized as FUD.
The "linux community" is not wholy populated with, but has an overwhelming amount of straight-up zealots. People who use linux for philosophical reasons, hate proprietary software because it's proprietary, and are full of naive college-age perceptions of "good" and "evil". These people are more often than not, really not all that technical. They are willing to accept, on faith, that linux is secure and perfect in every way.
I interact with the "Linux community" a lot... I end up helping people in quite a few Linux support channels on Freenode. I really haven't seen such a overwhelming amount of zealots as you claim. Infact if you bring up "Windows is crap" in any of those channels, you will actually get some of the long time Linux 'helpers' defending (with little to no resistance from others) what Windows does well.
Linux remains on the fringe despite all its technical achievements.
I wouldn't call the fact huge corporations, enterprises replacing their Windows/OS X/Solaris servers with Linux just a 'fringe'. Or the fact that companies like Dell are starting to seriously consider selling computers preinstalled with Linux.
The community keeps it their with the sheer force of their assholetry.
Show me a large community that doesn't have assholes. How do you even revoke a Linux community membership?
Most help channels don't like people going RTFM or people going on rants about windows being 'teh suck' or going on with FUD about Linux taking over the world if insert here favorite application name were on it.
This sort of thing, however, should be included as a sticker on the front of all MS products as the majority of the population probably does not think about the consequences of callbacks.
"Now sends information on failed/successful updates so we can improve upon our future updates."
The assumption that you're making is that your personal experience is a useful data set.
I should hope it should at least contribute as useful data for certain people (mainly decently trained, techies).
In general, users are worse at determining what will make their computer more usable and the ability to customize results in decreases to usability more often than increases resulting in a net loss.
I agree this is the case for untrained and non-techie users.
In general if you make a feature customizable, people will customize it in poor ways, which is why it usually is a bad move for usability.
Actually I tend to see (at work) untrained users not customizing things to suit them, just using the default layouts. I do think it is important that the default layout is very workable.
However, just because a interface is usable for less experienced/knowledgeable users doesn't mean the lack of customization doesn't get in the way of more 'professional' users.
From what I read, people were claiming Apple could greatly expand iWorks and put resources behind it and the resulting product could be significantly better than MS Office.
I don't disagree with your findings.
I've read comments that imply this could significantly hurt MS.
I acknowledge there is the possibility.
The first is entirely possible, but I don't see it as likely anytime soon.
we keep two redundant Macs in the office and even go to the hassle of connecting them to the network so we can fire them up and update software, so they are ready to go.
Holy crap? Only two!? With the MONTHS waiting it takes for Applecare to fix things and the frequency of things like "logicboard failures" among many other things, how do you manage without the computers?
Really if your in business then you need to plan for such things not just leave them to chance of stock levels at your local store.
Yeah, you don't seem prepared.
Or on the other hand allowing to take off line to deal with the latest virus outbreak.
I can't remember that EVER happening in companies I worked for.
Apple with its ever increasing popularity is going through some growing pains.
I have never had good service from Applecare which I've had to pay as a separate package in all the years I've used Apple. This was before Apple even switced to Intel.
Thus, its not a far stretch to argue that it would be very benefitial if Apple where to decisively license out thier OS.
Not this crap again. Apple has expressed no interest in doing so, theres no point discussing this.
MS consistently releases products with very basic usability flaws that have been in textbooks as examples of what not to do for decades.
They do, but when it comes to their office suite applications, it's on a whole another level of UI design I've noticed, compared to smaller things like Windows Defender.
Ahh, but the test of a usable interface is not whether or not you like it.
Okay, I should of been more articulate, I don't particulary like it because I find it takes me extra steps todo things.
The ability to customize a UI, by the way, generally decreases overall usability.
I have to disagree here. It may make things more complicated, but if I can customize a interface to be more efficient for what I do (take less steps todo a commonly used function), it's certainly not less usable.
This is not true in every case, but for a significant number of them it is.
The subject is office suits, I do believe it applies for the majority of them.
but I also don't trust your opinion on the subject because you don't seem to know what you're talking about.
Actually I'm just tired of hearing people say something has "issues" or something is "bad", simply because it's from Microsoft. It was more of a joke than anything.
I'm not sure I care what you find superior for your tasks and I don't see how it relates to whether or not Apple is capable of releasing an office suite that would be considered superior to MS's offerings by OS X users.
People have been suggesting that iWorks can replace Microsoft Office on this article, claiming that it'll some how whipe out Microsoft if Microsoft pulls Microsoft Office out of OS X -- Uhhhhhhh.
The day that Office for Mac gets killed will be the day that iWork gets released as a complete, full-featured, Office-killer suite.
Which will be the day many corporations, universities, people will stop considering Mac.
That said, killing Office for Mac would cause microsoft to lose those profits, and probably lead to more people switching to Apple.
I doubt it.
Microsoft knows that Apple can make a slick GUI for almost anything, and they know that their Office GUI is anything but slick.
Because Microsoft obviously has nobody who understands GUIs and Apple is the God of GUIs.
Hey guess what? I don't like a lot of Apple's GUIs. Their OS and software offers very little customizations compared to others (Just compare the KDE desktop environment to OS X in customization).
That's why there was all the crap about the ribbon.
Because Microsoft made it, it must be bad! D:
like releasing a better product than MS Office.
I certainly don't find iWork pages superior to Microsoft Publisher and/or Word.
If Microsoft had adopted ODF, they either would have had to remove features from their products, or add features to the ODF format. Either way, they're doomed to decades of bad press.
No they wouldn't, ODF was made to be extensible, they could of just added their own little extensions to it without breaking ODF compatability.
Rubbish. That's only useful when the font size gets too small.
I don't like it on Windows, Linux and I certainly don't like it on OS X.
Go into System Preferences, select "Appearance" in the "Personal" row and look at the bottom. You can select the size of font at which you want to turn off text smoothing. The default is 8.
And yet the holy white bar at the top of the scren still stays the same among certain other UIs in applications.
Pure FUD
Says it right in the article you linked:
Mail for Mac OS X 10.4 stores messages in individual elmx files instead of a single mbox file.
So it isn't 'Pure FUD'.
A 2 second google search would reveal just how easy it is to get your mail out of mail.app and for example into Thunderbird
Admittedly last time I did Google search this (long ago), there was no information on the matter.
Ubuntu still doesn't see fit to ship a compositing manger by default in Feisty Fawn.
Wrong.
And HIView/HIToolbox (the view/control framework that's been slotted underneath Carbon and Cocoa) is miles ahead of GTK+,
I look at Safari, frontend is written in Carbon while the backend is written in C -- You can't really do much complicated programs it seems in Carbon or Cocoa from what I've seen in Mac software, you end up getting into horrible issues if you attempt todo so. I don't really see those languages being superior to others that have GTK+ or even QT bindings.
As for slowing down, there is really no indication that Apple is moving more slowly than Linux.
Well, they seem to be doing more OS releases in less time, but they stop supporting older systems a lot faster than Microsoft does and Microsoft definitely stops supporting older software than the Linux communities do. I can't really say Apple is gaining speed on Linux because of this.
although the latter has a much cleaner API with less historical baggage.
Often on Linux you get major new versions of libraries, that may completely change how the API works usually it breaks backwards compatibility. But that's alright because the older libraries are still available for backwards compatibility. Since Linux systems have reasonable package managers that can resolve dependencies and so on, the system would only have 'historical baggage' if the user needs it for their older applications. Sorry, I can't see this as a bad thing.
It'll still be a couple of years yet before the DRI/X.org/GTK+ stack catch up with OS X 10.4, much less what's in 10.5.
I think Linux distributions will be catching up a lot faster with OS X's graphical effect engines a lot sooner than your prediction (which personally I couldn't really care for -- Nor understand why pointless effects make a desktop so technically superior).
And there are some really fundamental problems with XRender that would keep it, without a significant redesign, from being able to support features past what Apple introduced in OS X 10.2.
I don't see redesigns being a issue on Linux. It's not like it would have to break compatability with older applications.
Currently they have a good reputation for reliability because they have the luxury of knowing exactly what the hardware looks like when they develop for it. If they allow people to start plugging in video cards with just-released-yesterday drivers they will be staring at the same problem MS has been dealing with for decades.
Funny you should mention that, I have a bluetooth dongle here that causes OS X to kernel panic.
Perhaps their reputation is only good because Apple deletes any accusations on driver issues?
I think if Apple, at the right moment (probably soon), sells a version of OSX to Dell, HP, etc that will is designed to run on a certified version of their hardware they will send Microsoft to their grave.
I don't.
Being in IT in one of the 3 largest corporations, if not the largest, I am seeing a lot of employees wanting to shift from Windows to OSX.
Most people in this nation who know what Microsoft is, don't even know what a Apple computer is. I also personally don't find it superior to Windows and I wouldn't recommend the company get into more pointless lock-ins.
We literally have to restrain them.
Literally? I don't believe you.
If we could have our existing desktops shipped with OSX, I think IT could be convinced to allow OSX for a larger segment of the business population.
Wouldn't of, because the majority of the software needed isn't available on it. The users don't even know OS X (More likely to move them over to Linux as there are familiar interfaces available). Can't secure OS X, manage it as nicely as one can with Windows (ie: Whitelist of applications people can run, programs that aren't in this list cannot be executed at all -- all centrally managed by the domain controller).
For a lot of people, games are still an integral part of PCs. Until Apple gets serious about games, and convinces developers to do likewise, they will not surpass MS.
From the few native multi-platform games there are, I've found they run better on Linux (just compare Unreal Tournament on Windows, Linux, OS X).
I'd prefer games on Linux because they seem to run faster.
And so why are you worried about your clock being off by an hour?
I've found knowing the time while playing is important for the game and otherwise (agreeing to go somewhere in a hour ingame, when to get off etc). That said... Changing the time manually isn't such a impossible task.
Slashdot Mirror
I... I touch myself at night.
Most help channels don't like people going RTFM or people going on rants about windows being 'teh suck' or going on with FUD about Linux taking over the world if insert here favorite application name were on it.
However, just because a interface is usable for less experienced/knowledgeable users doesn't mean the lack of customization doesn't get in the way of more 'professional' users.I don't disagree with your findings.I acknowledge there is the possibility.Neither do I.
Except they refuse to support their own hardware and software if it ages over three years.
How many enterprises are running just under three year old hardware?
Warning: Your computer is currently broadcasting an IP address!
Hey guess what? I don't like a lot of Apple's GUIs. Their OS and software offers very little customizations compared to others (Just compare the KDE desktop environment to OS X in customization).Because Microsoft made it, it must be bad! D:I certainly don't find iWork pages superior to Microsoft Publisher and/or Word.
Apparently mentioning a fact the parent poster didn't seem to know about is 'overrated' now.
I don't think they would of had something available so quickly.
Sorry, you're screwed.
Whoops, mistake, the backend of Safari is written in C++, not C.
By the way, which features are you referring to?
Perhaps their reputation is only good because Apple deletes any accusations on driver issues?
I'd prefer games on Linux because they seem to run faster.
Here are some reasons that come to my mind why I don't choose it over OS X:
- I don't particularly like the interface
- The lack of ability to set simple things (turning off anti-aliasing, shadows?)
- Most things are more expensive on the Darwin kernel, from forking to IPC.
- It uses strange unknown formats (ie: mail.app etc.) which provides various ways to lock people into those apps
- Games like Unreal Tournament run slower under OS X than they do under Linux and/or Windows
You miss-understood the problem, few of us want to switch in the first place (to another OS) and don't see the need to switch to Vista yet.Infact, most people who know Microsoft don't even know what a Apple computer is.
Note: I am not the original poster.