Good luck putting a larger hard drive in an iMac by yourself. I hope you have the portable clean room kit that Apple sells to service providers so you can avoid getting any crud on the inside of the glossy panel or on the surface of the LCD.
As an Apple tech, I (and many others, I'm sure) would love to hunt down the engineer who was fucking STUPID enough to think that was a good idea and beat his ass silly for all the suffering he's caused. The glossy panel and LCD could have easily been integrated into a single module that could be disassembled only if necessary without looking any less pretty. As it is, we get the removable panel that can't get the slightest fucking fleck of dust under it or you have to pull it off and clean it YET AGAIN and an LCD panel that smudges/scratches easier than you can imagine.
THIS. Quality isn't terrible, but I still get periodic lag in the video, maybe seeing it stall for a half-second before it picks up again every ten seconds or so. It's certainly not my processor as I'm on a 2.8ghz Core 2 Duo. Audio remains synced, but it's irritating enough that I don't bother watching anything streamed on Netflix. Silverlight sucks.
I find it interesting that the article failed to mention that variants of the PowerPC are not only in PS3s, but also in the Wii and the XBox 360. Yes, the PowerPC failed in the desktop arena, but it's been very successful in others. The PowerPC also has plenty of success in embedded markets. Does the auto industry still use 603-based chips in car computers?
Most mobile phones stay in your pocket until you're ready to use them. When they're out, your hand is generally wrapped around the back. That kinda screws up the whole solar powered angle. The only time it might be useful is if you leave it sitting out in the sun when the battery dies. That's assuming you can set it down without getting it stolen. It sounds a lot more like a marketing gimmick than a useful feature.
Not just that. The store will have lousy security and will be broken into all the time. Microsoft will try to fix this by having an automated system that asks the customer if they really want to go inside, then asks them if they really want to pick up that software box, then asks them if they really want to buy it...rinse and repeat as necessary. They'll have some concessions there as well, but most of it actually turns out to be apples covered by some kind of cheap frosting or glaze. The "Smart Guy Bar" will be staffed by guys who will quickly lose their shit as they're blamed for every horrid thing that happens to a PC. Expect a lot of Guns & Ammo stores to spring up near Microsoft Stores to meet the demand.
Gotta disagree. Most people don't have a clue as to how to fix their PC, much less figure out what's wrong or how to install any parts. Screwdriver shops do fine if they know what they're doing. Mix in some business onsite and you've got steady cash. I work in a screwdriver shop and we're cranking out billable labor like crazy right now. Repair industries are almost recession-proof if you're in the right one. You have to remember that the majority of the public knows jack shit about computers and will take it to a shop if something goes haywire and tech support can't fix it. A new computer is pretty daunting as it might have a whole new mess of issues, and this old system of theirs has been chugging along for 1-2 years without a hitch, so they might as well fix it.
Most people don't know and don't care about warranty-less repairs vs new computer if the cost is low enough. Hmm, $150 for a fix that will get it running (quite possibly better than before, ie, bigger hard drive, more RAM, better video card, etc) or $400+ for a brand new one that isn't a total piece of crap, ie, dumpster-diver eMachines bottom end. Vista has kept a lot of people from buying new as well. And that moving parts bit is just plain silly. I've seen relatively few machines bounce back that often.
Utter claptrap on used computers. I've made a bundle in the business. I'm not talking about buying and selling via Craigslist or crap like that. I'm on the mailing list for every higher-ed surplus sale within 100 miles and then some. Some schools will surplus computers as soon as the warranty expires. I'm going to be picking up some 3ghz P4 systems tomorrow for $35 apiece, XP license keys on them, and thus far they've had a very good success rate. One dud in perhaps 25, maybe a few bad but easily-replaced components in others. I can turn around and resell those for as much as $200 depending on what's in them and what I can put in them. I don't deal in laptops. More hassle than they're worth. It makes plenty of sense to buy a used system if the person is on a tight budget (more and more people these days) and doesn't need anything fancy, just something for internet, email, music, etc. Or maybe they need something simple for the kids and a new system would be wasted money. I made a shitload of cash at a local flea market moving used systems, so don't tell me they're generally a waste. If you know where to get them cheaply and reliably and can move them at a low enough price while maintaining a healthy margin, they're a very lucrative market.
True, but replacing a blown hard is a lot cheaper than buying a whole new laptop. Most repairs are either in warranty (shop gets paid) or cheap enough to be justified.
Repair services are essentially recession-proof. People are going to be even more willing to get the computer fixed rather than buy a brand new one if the former is less expensive. The cheaper avenue will often win out for the short term. Secondhand PCs are likely going to be a big market in the coming years as well.
If the camera doesn't work in Adium, then they need to add support. As I said before, Apple isn't locking down the iSight. Third party apps can use it if they're written to do so.
As for MOD, yes, it's primarily used as an audio codec for digital video cameras. I have NEVER heard of anyone using it for personal music files. Ever. Don't tell me about Amigas. Amiga is dead, dead, dead. They were great computers in the day, but that day passed long ago. It's bloody irrelevant. The vast majority use MP3 for their music. Some use AAC. Hell, some use OGG. Just how many people choose to use MOD? Who the hell distributes music (outside of specific editing apps and such) in that format, much less S3M or XM? Why convert? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT USED FOR REGULAR OLD MUSIC! Jesus, how fucking hard is that to understand? Why should Apple support formats that see next to no use outside of very specific applications? What the hell is the point?
Apple doesn't "kill" anything. If third party developers don't want to step in, then they don't want to step in. If you don't like it, get an OSS project for such a thing off the ground or start porting another OSS project to OS X that will do what you want. You're one of very, very few people that actually wants iTunes to play archaic filetypes that see no use in the home music market. You want to play them? Download this:
Voila, players that will do MOD, S3M, XM, and much more! If you want iTunes support, a Quicktime codec will work. If none exists, then there is likely not enough demand to justify it. Get an OSS project started if you want it so badly.
Use ICQ if you want ICQ. If ICQ doesn't support the iSight, go bitch to them because it's their bloody fault if they don't support. Apple isn't locking the iSight down. It's available for use to apps. If ICQ for Mac doesn't support general video chat for Mac, again, that's their bloody fault, not Apple's. Apple chose AIM. I don't think they wanted iChat to be a swiss army knife for IM.
WMAs can be set to be converted right out of the gate when you add them to iTunes. I don't think Apple is interested in paying MS for WMA use. Why pay for a competitor's product? XM support? Are you fucking serious? Who in the HELL uses that for general music/audio? Mod? Again, who the hell uses that for general music/audio? It's mainly found a home as video camera audio. I fail to see why iTunes needs to support that. S3M? Again, who the hell uses that for general music/audio? Seriously, why the hell are you whining about this? These are file formats with specific niches and uses. They're not general audio. You and three other people might care about iTunes supporting these formats. No one else gives a damn. If you really want them, convert them and put them in. Easy.
iChat don't do MSN. Webcam don't work with ICQ or something such, file transfer may not be supported over Jabber, multiple contact lists for each protocol is retarded
iChat works with AIM, which is fine. I doubt Apple was in a hurry to hop on Microsoft's network, Yahoo video chat sucks greasy dick, and who the hell even uses ICQ anymore? If the webcam doesn't work with ICQ, then blame ICQ for not supporting it. Apple doesn't write their software. I've seen third party apps that have no problem accessing iSights, so quit complaining. Jabber support seems kind of tacked on in iChat. I think Apple knew that grandma wasn't ever going to touch it, so they didn't pretty it up much.
iTunes have very limited format support and as far as I know you can't let it synchronize the content of a directory without letting it manage a complete library.
iTunes will rip your CDs, buy songs from their online store, and plays MP3s just fine. WMAs can be set to be converted. As far as music goes, their format support is dandy. Videos are a different matter, but I believe you can put any format supported by Quicktime in it. Get Perian and away you go. Putting them on iPods is another ball of wax.
iPhoto don't do adjustments as good as aperture or lightroom and they don't work good with each other / list the adjusted photos of the later ones in iPhoto. It's good enough for browsing saved photos but that's about it.
No shit, Sherlock! Since when was iPhoto supposed to be a full-blown photo editor? Why don't you just bitch that you can't do fine audio editing in iTunes? iPhoto is like iTunes for pictures. Organize, print, and some light retouching. That satisfies most people. If you want to do high-quality adjustments, then use Lightroom or Aperture. iPhoto doesn't really talk to them because it's not supposed to. Aperture isn't meant for retouching your 3MP jpegs and Lightroom would need to read the iPhoto library, something I don't think Adobe gives a damn about.
iLife and iWork would probably do better with a manual.
Did you even LOOK for a manual? Ever heard of that help menu, online content, and PDFs?
Mail don't want to check mails for spam before I open the mails (over IMAP) which is kinda useless because if I have opened the mail then I'll already know if it's spam or not.. Also it's not very good at figuring out what is spam or not.
Maybe that's because IMAP stores your email server-side instead of downloading them to your computer like POP3 does. You have to teach the spam filter. It's not perfect, but it gets better over time.
Seriously, this is a lot of baseless bitching. Apple isn't going to do exactly what YOU want them to do with the software. They're going to try and satisfy as many people as they can, and that means appealing to the home market.
This is a cable connection. Sure, they advertise 60Mbps, but your mileage will vary, namely far down. In the evening you will likely NEVER hit that, especially if a lot of people in your neighborhood are online. That'll saturate a shared cable region in no time. That and your latency is probably going to suck. Maybe I'm just bitter, but I just ditched Commiecast 8Mbps service for 7Mbps DSL and I'm happy as hell that I did. No more random connection drops, no more shitty latency spikes, just a clean connection so far. I hate cable.
Yep. You also get to choose each of those from upgrade, OEM, retail, etc licenses, and then you have to pick 32 or 64 bit editions. What a load. This is one arena where MS should take a page from Apple and keep it simple. Two versions. One server, one retail. They're constantly confusing the customer with this crap.
I don't know what's going on in my area, but Comcast sucks ass out here. The connection will just flat-out drop for 10-20 seconds at a time. Really fucks you up when you're trying to play a game online. They've had techs out here a few times with no results. Thank God I just found out that Qwest has their 7Mbps DSL service out here. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that it's better than fucking Commiecast's godawful service.
I'm not saying it would have. I'm saying that it's the result of Microsoft assuming the user is stupid and trying to do something about it. I didn't say it was effective.
"Copied" from KHTML? Not really. It was a fork and WebKit is still open source. You might as well claim that every Linux distro out there is a copy of the original.
And gee, what holds a lot of people up from buying a Mac? That's right, software compatibility! Now, what could you do with a modern Mac that could circumvent that issue? Hmmmm, I wonder? Seriously, rub two braincells together for two seconds and figure it out.
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Good luck putting a larger hard drive in an iMac by yourself. I hope you have the portable clean room kit that Apple sells to service providers so you can avoid getting any crud on the inside of the glossy panel or on the surface of the LCD.
As an Apple tech, I (and many others, I'm sure) would love to hunt down the engineer who was fucking STUPID enough to think that was a good idea and beat his ass silly for all the suffering he's caused. The glossy panel and LCD could have easily been integrated into a single module that could be disassembled only if necessary without looking any less pretty. As it is, we get the removable panel that can't get the slightest fucking fleck of dust under it or you have to pull it off and clean it YET AGAIN and an LCD panel that smudges/scratches easier than you can imagine.
THIS. Quality isn't terrible, but I still get periodic lag in the video, maybe seeing it stall for a half-second before it picks up again every ten seconds or so. It's certainly not my processor as I'm on a 2.8ghz Core 2 Duo. Audio remains synced, but it's irritating enough that I don't bother watching anything streamed on Netflix. Silverlight sucks.
I find it interesting that the article failed to mention that variants of the PowerPC are not only in PS3s, but also in the Wii and the XBox 360. Yes, the PowerPC failed in the desktop arena, but it's been very successful in others. The PowerPC also has plenty of success in embedded markets. Does the auto industry still use 603-based chips in car computers?
Most mobile phones stay in your pocket until you're ready to use them. When they're out, your hand is generally wrapped around the back. That kinda screws up the whole solar powered angle. The only time it might be useful is if you leave it sitting out in the sun when the battery dies. That's assuming you can set it down without getting it stolen. It sounds a lot more like a marketing gimmick than a useful feature.
Yeah, the FSF guys can then try (and fail miserably) to DDoS the Microsoft Genius Bar!
Not just that. The store will have lousy security and will be broken into all the time. Microsoft will try to fix this by having an automated system that asks the customer if they really want to go inside, then asks them if they really want to pick up that software box, then asks them if they really want to buy it...rinse and repeat as necessary. They'll have some concessions there as well, but most of it actually turns out to be apples covered by some kind of cheap frosting or glaze. The "Smart Guy Bar" will be staffed by guys who will quickly lose their shit as they're blamed for every horrid thing that happens to a PC. Expect a lot of Guns & Ammo stores to spring up near Microsoft Stores to meet the demand.
Yeah, but the Ultimate drinks are much more expensive than the others, but it's the only one with all the tasty ingredients!
I just want more vs maps. The two they have are wearing pretty damned thin and I've had the game for less than a month.
Gotta disagree. Most people don't have a clue as to how to fix their PC, much less figure out what's wrong or how to install any parts. Screwdriver shops do fine if they know what they're doing. Mix in some business onsite and you've got steady cash. I work in a screwdriver shop and we're cranking out billable labor like crazy right now. Repair industries are almost recession-proof if you're in the right one. You have to remember that the majority of the public knows jack shit about computers and will take it to a shop if something goes haywire and tech support can't fix it. A new computer is pretty daunting as it might have a whole new mess of issues, and this old system of theirs has been chugging along for 1-2 years without a hitch, so they might as well fix it.
Most people don't know and don't care about warranty-less repairs vs new computer if the cost is low enough. Hmm, $150 for a fix that will get it running (quite possibly better than before, ie, bigger hard drive, more RAM, better video card, etc) or $400+ for a brand new one that isn't a total piece of crap, ie, dumpster-diver eMachines bottom end. Vista has kept a lot of people from buying new as well. And that moving parts bit is just plain silly. I've seen relatively few machines bounce back that often.
Utter claptrap on used computers. I've made a bundle in the business. I'm not talking about buying and selling via Craigslist or crap like that. I'm on the mailing list for every higher-ed surplus sale within 100 miles and then some. Some schools will surplus computers as soon as the warranty expires. I'm going to be picking up some 3ghz P4 systems tomorrow for $35 apiece, XP license keys on them, and thus far they've had a very good success rate. One dud in perhaps 25, maybe a few bad but easily-replaced components in others. I can turn around and resell those for as much as $200 depending on what's in them and what I can put in them. I don't deal in laptops. More hassle than they're worth. It makes plenty of sense to buy a used system if the person is on a tight budget (more and more people these days) and doesn't need anything fancy, just something for internet, email, music, etc. Or maybe they need something simple for the kids and a new system would be wasted money. I made a shitload of cash at a local flea market moving used systems, so don't tell me they're generally a waste. If you know where to get them cheaply and reliably and can move them at a low enough price while maintaining a healthy margin, they're a very lucrative market.
True, but replacing a blown hard is a lot cheaper than buying a whole new laptop. Most repairs are either in warranty (shop gets paid) or cheap enough to be justified.
Repair services are essentially recession-proof. People are going to be even more willing to get the computer fixed rather than buy a brand new one if the former is less expensive. The cheaper avenue will often win out for the short term. Secondhand PCs are likely going to be a big market in the coming years as well.
If the camera doesn't work in Adium, then they need to add support. As I said before, Apple isn't locking down the iSight. Third party apps can use it if they're written to do so.
As for MOD, yes, it's primarily used as an audio codec for digital video cameras. I have NEVER heard of anyone using it for personal music files. Ever. Don't tell me about Amigas. Amiga is dead, dead, dead. They were great computers in the day, but that day passed long ago. It's bloody irrelevant. The vast majority use MP3 for their music. Some use AAC. Hell, some use OGG. Just how many people choose to use MOD? Who the hell distributes music (outside of specific editing apps and such) in that format, much less S3M or XM? Why convert? BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT USED FOR REGULAR OLD MUSIC! Jesus, how fucking hard is that to understand? Why should Apple support formats that see next to no use outside of very specific applications? What the hell is the point?
Apple doesn't "kill" anything. If third party developers don't want to step in, then they don't want to step in. If you don't like it, get an OSS project for such a thing off the ground or start porting another OSS project to OS X that will do what you want. You're one of very, very few people that actually wants iTunes to play archaic filetypes that see no use in the home music market. You want to play them? Download this:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17009/ximplemod
Or this:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12607/cocomodx
Voila, players that will do MOD, S3M, XM, and much more! If you want iTunes support, a Quicktime codec will work. If none exists, then there is likely not enough demand to justify it. Get an OSS project started if you want it so badly.
Use ICQ if you want ICQ. If ICQ doesn't support the iSight, go bitch to them because it's their bloody fault if they don't support. Apple isn't locking the iSight down. It's available for use to apps. If ICQ for Mac doesn't support general video chat for Mac, again, that's their bloody fault, not Apple's. Apple chose AIM. I don't think they wanted iChat to be a swiss army knife for IM.
WMAs can be set to be converted right out of the gate when you add them to iTunes. I don't think Apple is interested in paying MS for WMA use. Why pay for a competitor's product? XM support? Are you fucking serious? Who in the HELL uses that for general music/audio? Mod? Again, who the hell uses that for general music/audio? It's mainly found a home as video camera audio. I fail to see why iTunes needs to support that. S3M? Again, who the hell uses that for general music/audio? Seriously, why the hell are you whining about this? These are file formats with specific niches and uses. They're not general audio. You and three other people might care about iTunes supporting these formats. No one else gives a damn. If you really want them, convert them and put them in. Easy.
iChat don't do MSN. Webcam don't work with ICQ or something such, file transfer may not be supported over Jabber, multiple contact lists for each protocol is retarded
.. Also it's not very good at figuring out what is spam or not.
iChat works with AIM, which is fine. I doubt Apple was in a hurry to hop on Microsoft's network, Yahoo video chat sucks greasy dick, and who the hell even uses ICQ anymore? If the webcam doesn't work with ICQ, then blame ICQ for not supporting it. Apple doesn't write their software. I've seen third party apps that have no problem accessing iSights, so quit complaining. Jabber support seems kind of tacked on in iChat. I think Apple knew that grandma wasn't ever going to touch it, so they didn't pretty it up much.
iTunes have very limited format support and as far as I know you can't let it synchronize the content of a directory without letting it manage a complete library.
iTunes will rip your CDs, buy songs from their online store, and plays MP3s just fine. WMAs can be set to be converted. As far as music goes, their format support is dandy. Videos are a different matter, but I believe you can put any format supported by Quicktime in it. Get Perian and away you go. Putting them on iPods is another ball of wax.
iPhoto don't do adjustments as good as aperture or lightroom and they don't work good with each other / list the adjusted photos of the later ones in iPhoto. It's good enough for browsing saved photos but that's about it.
No shit, Sherlock! Since when was iPhoto supposed to be a full-blown photo editor? Why don't you just bitch that you can't do fine audio editing in iTunes? iPhoto is like iTunes for pictures. Organize, print, and some light retouching. That satisfies most people. If you want to do high-quality adjustments, then use Lightroom or Aperture. iPhoto doesn't really talk to them because it's not supposed to. Aperture isn't meant for retouching your 3MP jpegs and Lightroom would need to read the iPhoto library, something I don't think Adobe gives a damn about.
iLife and iWork would probably do better with a manual.
Did you even LOOK for a manual? Ever heard of that help menu, online content, and PDFs?
Mail don't want to check mails for spam before I open the mails (over IMAP) which is kinda useless because if I have opened the mail then I'll already know if it's spam or not
Maybe that's because IMAP stores your email server-side instead of downloading them to your computer like POP3 does. You have to teach the spam filter. It's not perfect, but it gets better over time.
Seriously, this is a lot of baseless bitching. Apple isn't going to do exactly what YOU want them to do with the software. They're going to try and satisfy as many people as they can, and that means appealing to the home market.
That will allow them to use the same thing to prosecute gold spammers and the like who keep bugging the shit out of WoW players.
This is a cable connection. Sure, they advertise 60Mbps, but your mileage will vary, namely far down. In the evening you will likely NEVER hit that, especially if a lot of people in your neighborhood are online. That'll saturate a shared cable region in no time. That and your latency is probably going to suck. Maybe I'm just bitter, but I just ditched Commiecast 8Mbps service for 7Mbps DSL and I'm happy as hell that I did. No more random connection drops, no more shitty latency spikes, just a clean connection so far. I hate cable.
I think it's your sense of humor that has aged badly. Red Dwarf is still great.
Yep. You also get to choose each of those from upgrade, OEM, retail, etc licenses, and then you have to pick 32 or 64 bit editions. What a load. This is one arena where MS should take a page from Apple and keep it simple. Two versions. One server, one retail. They're constantly confusing the customer with this crap.
I could do that. Or I could save a few bucks and try Qwest DSL. I'll take the one that doesn't require endless complaints and hope for the best.
I don't know what's going on in my area, but Comcast sucks ass out here. The connection will just flat-out drop for 10-20 seconds at a time. Really fucks you up when you're trying to play a game online. They've had techs out here a few times with no results. Thank God I just found out that Qwest has their 7Mbps DSL service out here. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that it's better than fucking Commiecast's godawful service.
Applaud them for UAC? We're both talking about the endless nagging of the OS, right? "Mother may I do this?"
I'm not saying it would have. I'm saying that it's the result of Microsoft assuming the user is stupid and trying to do something about it. I didn't say it was effective.
Microsoft tried that. Thus we have UAC in Vista.
Is your monitor really that reflective, AC?
"Copied" from KHTML? Not really. It was a fork and WebKit is still open source. You might as well claim that every Linux distro out there is a copy of the original.
And gee, what holds a lot of people up from buying a Mac? That's right, software compatibility! Now, what could you do with a modern Mac that could circumvent that issue? Hmmmm, I wonder? Seriously, rub two braincells together for two seconds and figure it out.