Apple has one distinction that makes them different from Microsoft: they're currently making good products.
Because hardware that has logic board failures, gets too hot, emits high frequency noises and has poor driver support on other OSes is good.
Microsoft hasn't released anything worthwhile since their 2000 line, excepting perhaps the XBox.
Neither has Apple in my opinion, just try running the latest OS X upgrade on hardware you bought two years on a Mac mini that has 256MB and a single core, seriously, try it -- It performs horribly. Increase the RAM? Still performs horribly. Get a new Mac that has two cores -- Oh, suddenly you're capable of multitasking decently with applications.
You call this good? I call this insane.
And yes, I've tried Vista, I know all about it's "features", but it's still a very marginal improvement of the computing experience over Win2k.
I've defended Microsoft a lot in the past too when they deserved it. But, Vista... Beyond UAC and DirectX 10... Just seems pointless to me. Vista doesn't even work properly on 'Vista ready' hardware.
I don't particulary agree with some of Apple comments:
Let me think, of the most intelligent and computer savvy people I know, about 80% of them use Macs. Is that because they are clueless or because they assessed the value they were getting based upon all criteria and decided the mac was a better tool for their purpose? Hmmm, they must be clueless huh? And again with the "overpriced" nonsense?
No, it's because the intelligent and computer savvy people tend to use many OSes -- Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, Mac OS X etc.
Macs aren't overpriced as shown by numerous comparisons of near identical configurations and independent assessments.
No, but they can be more expensive depending on your needs. For example, want todo high-end graphics work or gaming? You can't stay with a Mac mini, because the Graphic card RAM (could use a better graphic card too, but meh) is far too low, even though the rest of the hardware in the Mac mini is 'good enough'.
You can even compare this to equivalent PC model, and you may find the PC hardware is better, since it lets you actually upgrade the graphic card if you want (even though there is one integrated on the motherboard) -- Also being cheaper, as you don't need to get a higher model Mac instead.
with the same ratings for reliability and support.
You know, I am really sick of Apple hardware. Logic board failures, wireless express cards breaking, high pitch noises, hardware getting too hot for my own comfort. I haven't had those issues else-where.
Want an MP3 player for your Mac or Linux box ? Don't look at the Zune...
I remember when the iPod came out and there was a similar thing. ">Want an MP3 player for your Windows box or Linux box ? Don't look at the iPod"
Want to view that webpage that requires IE (talking about those things that no matter what you do, will not work on another OS. For example, Quicken online)
I can make webpages that only work properly with Safari users (if they are my only target audience). So what?
Want to use your xbox has a media viewer ? Don't look at anything except Windows Media Center...
In our society, anyone more successful than us is automatically the bad guy.
Many people don't feel that way about Google actually. Looking at how Google has been very careful at not screwing people over to get a short-term reward could be one of the reasons.
Apple: Makes PCs (x86 OSes can run fine on it). Makes OS X only run on their PCs. Microsoft: Makes DRM scheme that begins from boot (doesn't prevent you from booting Linux using Microsoft's bootloader).
I believe the poor scheduling on single core is a side effect, apple don't even sell single core machines anymore so it does make sense for their OS to take advantage of the dual core chips, this has the side effect of inferior performance on single core chips.
I just checked the Minis and.. Well, I have to say I find the minimal hardware specs a bit high for low end usage.
The X11 component is open source i believe, it could well be fixed by third parties.
It could be, but as it stands there isn't much of a solution (especially since I don't intend to buy a Mac system, only to start programming, fixing issues with the OS software itself).
Which are the proprietary file formats your thinking of? The ipod uses AAC (an openly documented standard) and MPEG4 (also openly documented) with optional DRM, and you can blame the riaa/mpaa for the drm.
Mostly related to the changes that were introduced by spotlight, such as e-mail is nolonger in a standard mbox format, but some undocumented format. Also, things like the iTunes database annoy me, (I can export Amarok's DB to a variety of different DB containers and figure out how to interprete the data).
Lack of hardware support is more the fault of third party vendors, remember microsoft don't support a huge amount of hardware themselves either, hardware vendors have to write their own drivers.
True -- But I still have less problems on Linux with most hardware.
licensing - yes, but still better than most commercial software (the os is relatively cheap, the kernel and some other components are open, you can get family packs for 5 systems and there is no activation/productcode/genuine advantage check etc...
I don't particulary like the idea of being told what sort of hardware I can or cannot use. Nor do I like the idea that I can't use OS X on various virtualisation products due to licensing issues (and before you mention it, no. All Vista versions can be legitimately ran under virtualisation, it's just that Vista Ultimate grants you the right to run Vista versions under virtualisation with the same license while running it as the host OS).
poor customer service, i have yet to deal with a consumer computer company with decent service, apple is one of the least terrible ones...
I have had excellent support with IBM and HP (barely used HP) in the past.
memory requirement - yeah, osx is a big bloated pig, unfortunately linux is heading that way too and vista seems to have leapfrogged apple
I haven't particularly noticed Linux heading that way, but I have noticed a lot of people want to run things like Aiglx (which I don't care for), I sense that's what you're talking about on Linux. KDE on the other hand has been getting faster and more efficient the entire time. Vista on the other hand, I am not impressed at all.
hardware - my macs have been pretty stable, but i never buy cutting edge, i buy stuff a little behind the curve so it's cheaper and the bugs are ironed out.
When I buy a computer, I buy the most fast one I can get, simply because it's meant to last me a very long time (doing intensive tasks) -- that said, I haven't had revision one hardware yet from Apple.
Dont forget that macos is commercial software, so the goal isn't to make it the best OS it can possibly be, the goal is to make it just good enough to sell, and not any better than that for fear of reducing sales of future versions.
Or we could all just use FreeBSD, and say to hell with lawyers, judges, and moronic contracts. Best of all, we'd get software that just plain works.
FreeBSD doesn't just work on my laptop. Heck, it doesn't even just work with most of my wireless cards or graphic cards (lack of 3d acceleration that/I/ need).
Umm, I'm on a static IP, it's not changed in 5 years, now.
Doesn't matter, you can still change it.
They'd only need to worry about the processor if they were programming the thing in assembly. Thank god for higher-level APIs.
Believe it or not, you can actually write applications in C++, C etc. that can make use of functions in SSE, MMX that will not work on systems that don't have said functionality in high level functions and libraries. Many games do this now.
The one I've already easily demonstrated to them over their own global POTS network.
So why do they need Skype in the first place? I would of thought using SIP providers would be cheaper any how.
Asterisk isn't *THAT* hard to implement as long as you have your own lines (which my company DOES.)
Since you question the competence of your coworkers, it will be for them.
That's a step up from it having originally been owned by Kazaa. Well, minus the PayPal part. Paypal just sucks, period.
It was never owned by a company called 'Kazaa'. By the way, I've experienced poorer quality service gradually as the ownership of Skype changed.
Many Dells have EFIs too, with BIOS compatibility mode. I don't really see the problem with getting Skype to attempt to read using EFIs compatibility modes.
I once read somewhere that the only identifying information that you could legally acquire, being installed on someone's computer, was MAC, IP, and Nickname. Anything else (Pentium 3 fiasco, anyone?) constituted a breach of privacy.
I doubt it. Besides, one can change their Mac address, IP address and 'Nickname' without replacing hardware.
You don't need to know what CPU or HDD I have installed - the only reason you would want to would be to directly target advertisements at their own users, concerning their own fucking hardwaer.
Or maybe... Just maybe... They could make design decisions based on the majority of users.
What proccessor speed do the majority have? What OS? How much RAM? How much harddrive space?
It's important to know about who you're making software for.
If Skype did that, they'd lose not every bit of faith from me
Did you know Skype is owned by Paypal and eBay now?
I can guarantee you that IT is so stupid they'd drop Skype and install Asterisk on a whim if I told them too, since I usually end up having to fix their intranet when it goes down.
Asterisk and what? What SIP providers? What solution exactly? -- Asterisk is not a easy solution to setup compared to Skype. The end user can setup Skype, but Asterisk? I doubt it.
scheduler (Multitasking on the latest OS X seems rather terrible with just a single core, even if you have a lot of RAM)
amount of ram required just to run things smoothly (I've ran the entire KDE 3.5 desktop [Linux], on 265MB of RAM without really noticing performance issues)
licensing
mac hardware (sorry, but I don't like hardware that emits high pitch noises -- Not many people can hear it, but I can. Nor do I like a brand that I have repeatedly have had 'logicboard failures' on)
Lack of hardware support (Non-Apple)
Poor quality customer service (yes, I have used Apple)
Proprietory (closed-source) file formats that make it difficult to migrate to anything else
The poor support of X11 (clipboards, drag and drop... I get better on Windows solutions for heavens sakes)
The amount of information required to teach one how to use a debugger and understand it goes far beyond the amount of text Slashdot would even allow in a single post. However there are many websites on Google that can help you learn with this matter.
My point is that these memory sticks are being given out with the intention of exposing kids to OSS; but I'm saying these kids are going to say, "does it do what I want? No; not unless I get on the command line and.... Then I'll stick to iTunes, because all I have to do is press one button and it just works."
For some reason you get the idea that installing packages isn't even possible graphically. If I wanted todo it graphically I could. Heck on Kubuntu I'd goto [K] -> Add/remove programs -> Type in mp3 in the search bar and tick "Gstreamer extra plugins" (Description tells you it adds mp3 support). Do I find this easier than going to Apple's site, trying to download iTunes from it and after installing it? Yes.
Also, I have not found an open source music player that works as well as iTunes, but I think Songbird will be good once the bugs are worked out.
Amarok works better for me than iTunes, and it even offers to install mp3 support for me automatically (when it lacks it) when I use it the first time, and it works. Not to mention it supports far more media devices, has more features than iTunes, faster than iTunes (Yes, I've ran Amarok under Windows), supports more formats than iTunes...
That's the voice of the masses--they aren't interested in OSS, they're interested in whatever already works with the least amount of effort. It's a lazy word we leave in.
And yet from what I've seen, most of the masses don't even use windows media player.
They're still using alternative software in most cases than what comes with the system, so I just don't get what you're trying to get at.
I mean Adobe Reader is not OSS, but it is better then the OSS PDF viewers out there.
ROFL. I'll stay with kpdf, kthnxbye. If I had to use a proprietary PDF viewer, I'd use Foxit Reader, which is faster and does pretty much everything I want in a PDF viewer.
MP3s are not open source, but how many teenagers prefer to trade OGG files over MP3s?
MP3s have various patents and licensing issues, nothing todo with being 'opensource', there are opensource decoders/encoders out there for MP3. Plus, aren't they doing something illegal in the first place? Trading copyrighted works without permission in MP3 format?
I cannot even think of an OSS alternative to Flash.
Gnash, works with Google video and youtube.
VMWare is not OSS, but I like it better then Xen.
Which VMware product? There are many and work differently for different solutions. There are also many different opensource virtualization programs available under OSS that also solve specific needs.
See my point?
No, you seem to have limited experience with OSS solutions
Why limit your software options based on whether or not the source (which we will probably never read) is available?
You're making a assumption we'll never read it. But in my experience, young people are more likely to read the source if they have it available to them
It limits how we can benefit from it.
It brings a new awareness of ideas and concepts to people (they already know proprietary software)
If you want to play mp3s out of the box, then why don't you pay the licensing fees? What do you think commercial SuSE or Mandriva has?
Or if you're not willing to pay you could... you know.. follow the offical Ubuntu instructions on getting restricted formats to work?
Or even use those automated 'easyubuntu' things that are supposed todo all that automatically for you.
I'm not even bothered the slightest by the lack of mp3 support working immediately after a install on Linux (OH THE HORROR!!! I HAVE TO TYPE APT-GET INSTALL SOMETHING QWFKGOESAV!). After all, I always need to install some program after the install (Be it Wine or some such -- But always through the package manager).
Don't like it? Well here a few ways YOU can fix this:
Fix your laws
influence changes in Linux communities
Go about creating your own distribution of Linux that violates laws.
If you want to play mp3s out of the box, then why don't you pay the licensing fees? What do you think commercial SuSE or Mandriva has?
Or if you're not willing to pay you could... you know.. follow the offical Ubuntu instructions on getting restricted formats to work?
Or even use those automated 'easyubuntu' things that are supposed todo all that automatically for you.
I'm not even bothered the slightest by the lack of mp3 support working immediately after a install on Linux (OH THE HORROR!!! I HAVE TO TYPE APT-GET INSTALL SOMETHING QWFKGOES
Fix your laws
influence changes in Linux communities
Go about creating your own distribution of Linux that violates laws.
The problem with OSS is that there are just too many choices.
I think that's particularly your problem. I don't have a issue with choices. I find myself recommending things (which I don't use as much personally) for other people that suite them for the task more than for my own uses.
Instead of rallying around a single technology (like has happened with Apache)
For most of the things I do, I use Apache 1.33, because I find it more suitable than using Apache2. I can't really say I agree with your understanding that Apache has even a single technology. Heck here are my technical reasons for using 1.33 over 2 or 2.2:
I don't need threads
For dedicated webservers (do we have any other kind these days?), I find it's better to have processes over threads
Most OSes are a lot better at at scheduling processes than they are at threads
Better way of handling crashes -- if one child crashes (I have it set up to serve one connection per child), one user gets disconnected.
Debugging issues with threads require very well versed programmers, and for the well versed programmers it's not simple
You can do all you want to introduce students to OSS, but how long before those technologies are replaced by something else?
I was introduced to OSS when I was a student (and I more or less still am) -- Replace how? HTTP, TCP/IP, FTP etc. hasn't exactly evolved that dramatically as you make it sound.
Slashdot Mirror
You call this good? I call this insane.I've defended Microsoft a lot in the past too when they deserved it. But, Vista... Beyond UAC and DirectX 10... Just seems pointless to me. Vista doesn't even work properly on 'Vista ready' hardware.
You can even compare this to equivalent PC model, and you may find the PC hardware is better, since it lets you actually upgrade the graphic card if you want (even though there is one integrated on the motherboard) -- Also being cheaper, as you don't need to get a higher model Mac instead.You know, I am really sick of Apple hardware. Logic board failures, wireless express cards breaking, high pitch noises, hardware getting too hot for my own comfort. I haven't had those issues else-where.
With the lack of choice on hardware that Apple provides (the hardware configurations just aren't right for me, nor are the prices), no.I can run Windows and Linux on other vendor machines too legally and for a cheaper price too. What do I need OS X for anyway?
Apple: Makes PCs (x86 OSes can run fine on it). Makes OS X only run on their PCs.
Microsoft: Makes DRM scheme that begins from boot (doesn't prevent you from booting Linux using Microsoft's bootloader).
Fixed.
From what I've seen, the majority of Internet services work fine with Mac software.
flamebait, apple, no, microsoft, yes.
Many Dells have EFIs too, with BIOS compatibility mode. I don't really see the problem with getting Skype to attempt to read using EFIs compatibility modes.
What proccessor speed do the majority have? What OS? How much RAM? How much harddrive space?
It's important to know about who you're making software for. Did you know Skype is owned by Paypal and eBay now? Asterisk and what? What SIP providers? What solution exactly? -- Asterisk is not a easy solution to setup compared to Skype. The end user can setup Skype, but Asterisk? I doubt it.
Need I go on?
Use a debugger.
The amount of information required to teach one how to use a debugger and understand it goes far beyond the amount of text Slashdot would even allow in a single post. However there are many websites on Google that can help you learn with this matter.
Good hunting.
They're still using alternative software in most cases than what comes with the system, so I just don't get what you're trying to get at.
If you want to play mp3s out of the box, then why don't you pay the licensing fees? What do you think commercial SuSE or Mandriva has?
Or if you're not willing to pay you could... you know.. follow the offical Ubuntu instructions on getting restricted formats to work?
Or even use those automated 'easyubuntu' things that are supposed todo all that automatically for you.
I'm not even bothered the slightest by the lack of mp3 support working immediately after a install on Linux (OH THE HORROR!!! I HAVE TO TYPE APT-GET INSTALL SOMETHING QWFKGOESAV!). After all, I always need to install some program after the install (Be it Wine or some such -- But always through the package manager).
Don't like it? Well here a few ways YOU can fix this:
Or if you're not willing to pay you could... you know.. follow the offical Ubuntu instructions on getting restricted formats to work?
Or even use those automated 'easyubuntu' things that are supposed todo all that automatically for you.
I'm not even bothered the slightest by the lack of mp3 support working immediately after a install on Linux (OH THE HORROR!!! I HAVE TO TYPE APT-GET INSTALL SOMETHING QWFKGOES
Fix your laws
influence changes in Linux communities
Go about creating your own distribution of Linux that violates laws.
- I don't need threads
- For dedicated webservers (do we have any other kind these days?), I find it's better to have processes over threads
- Most OSes are a lot better at at scheduling processes than they are at threads
- Better way of handling crashes -- if one child crashes (I have it set up to serve one connection per child), one user gets disconnected.
- Debugging issues with threads require very well versed programmers, and for the well versed programmers it's not simple
I was introduced to OSS when I was a student (and I more or less still am) -- Replace how? HTTP, TCP/IP, FTP etc. hasn't exactly evolved that dramatically as you make it sound.