I just use VNC. It's free, easy to install, and clients are available for just about anything. On Mac there is the excellent Chicken of the VNC client. Still, I agree it's a nice feature done fairly well although VNC on Win32 works quite well enough for me.
VNC is a vastly inferior way of connecting remotely. The screen isn't masked, it doesn't allow access to be controlled on the user level, and the responsiveness isn't even close. Remote Desktop has clients for all versions of desktop Windows, Pocket PC, and OSX. I think there's a Linux version as well (but obviously not from Microsoft).
Ugh. The digital camera support pisses me off. Every time I insert a CD or other removeable media it asks me what I want to do. Why doesn't it just open up the root folder of the media and let me decide if I want to do something else.
Because you didn't tell it to do that? Right click on the drive in My Computer, choose Properties, and AutoPlay. Make all your default action selections in there.
Are you speaking of "thumbnail" view? Windows 2000 had that.
No, the Filmstrip view. All pictures are tumbnailed across one row on the bottom of a window. The rest of the window is the currently highlighted pictures scaled to fit with some control buttons. It's extremely fast and handy for dealing with lots of pictures.
The pretty icons are nice and so are the clear fonts although I'm not really sure what you mean about Apple's attempt at it. It looks fine to me, although many Carbon apps unfortunately turn it off because their developers haven't modernized their drawing routines.
If Apple's smoothed fonts look "fine" to you, Cleartype would look spectacular. It's a much better text rendering engine and makes working on an LCD screen that much nicer.
As for the other things, XP isn't the first version of Windows to support inputting in other languages, it's just better than in the past. USB 2.0 isn't completely new, it's just supported without manufacturers' drivers. And brushing off stored system states? Any computer can be screwed by bad drivers, regarless of OS, XP simply provides you with a safety net.
You obviously love your Mac very much and have never used XP. I'm not telling you that you have to, but claiming there's nothing new from Windows 2000 is completely false. Many of the features are well worth the upgrade price to people who actually use Windows.
RE: iPod story, I decided against it and got a Zen Xtra. $250 for 40GB, uses standard power/data connectors, and does everything I need while I wait for the next generation of digital music player.
By far the biggest advance is Remote Desktop access. Using that and a VPN connection gives our users the ability to work at home as if they were sitting at their office machine. It's worth the upgrade cost alone.
Other updates include an actual built-in firewall, nice digital camera wizards with better support for removable media, better generic video drivers, native USB 2.0 support, a new film strip view for directories with photos in them, fast user switching in a non-domain environment, prettier icons, Cleartype (which is much nicer than Apple's attempt at it), basic image capturing options, a network performance monitor in the Task Manager, system state saves to allow roll-back in case of a bad install, and better support for inputting in other languages. That's just off the top of my head. XP is an actual upgrade from 2000, not just more of the same with a different look.
I... um... Some guy I know uses it to record directly to MP3 files from Rhapsody. The sound quality is almost indistinguishable from the original when recording at 320kbps, but still noticably a bit lower than a CD rip.
It's a trivial exercise for anyone with a modicum of computer skill to keep your own home installation of Windows XP so that it "just works." It's a very stable operating system with solid hardware support. Use good drivers and a firewall, and it will run without problems. My computer is two years old, still running on the original XP install, and is just as fast as the day I put it together.
The original poster claimed his job was to work on Windows machines, but used a Mac at home because it "just worked." I inferred he can't be very good at his job making other Windows machines work if he can't make his own work. Seems pretty logical to me.
The original question was, "Are Mac users smarter?" If you take "smarter" to mean "more computer savvy," I'd have to say in this poster's case, no.
And before anyone jumps down my throat for not experiencing the Mac side of things, I have an iBook with 10.3.2. It's far more stable than 10.2, but still no better than my XP desktop. And it displays all the same random sluggishness of your average Windows machine.
As for the "just works" argument, I can offer two counter-examples for OS X.3: uploading to an FTP site from the Finder, and plugging in a device before loading the driver. In both cases "it just doesn't work." There's no message in the first case about uploading not being supported. And in the latter case, you're not given any indication that you've actually plugged something in and there's no driver (which XP does). It does nothing. That's awful user interface.
So there you go. I wasn't trolling, just pointing out what I really think on the subject.
My vote? Mac users are smarter. It's probably a localized thing and not widespread but almost every single person I know in I.T. goes home to a Mac at the end of the day (or granted a PC running Linux or FreeBSD) just like I do. I make money working with Windows because it's a mess. When I get home I want something that works.
So you make money working with Windows but you can't make your own XP installation work? It sounds like you're not very smart, or not very good at your job.
...neither? Sell the TV, and where your entertainment center would be, put a bookcase. I cut back to basic cable and though i "miss" some shows, I dont miss wasting countless hours on the couch.....i cant even tell you what "reality shows" are on these days....
Neither can I, and my monthly cable/Internet bill is almost $100. But I'm a grown up who knows how to exercise self control, enjoy things in moderation, and not watch any piece of crap I come across.
On dell/creative, you can do all of the above. The tradeoff? You can't just play a song by clicking on it! When you click on a song, it brings up a menu and you scroll to "play this song" and it enters the "currently selected" section where it will be played. Most operations make you hunt through menus and godawful number of clicks.
Or you could just hit the play button while the song is highlighed and it plays. There's no need to go into that submenu unless you're queueing the song up.
For me, there are only two options I care about. There's "Play Any Track," which plays everything on the Zen randomly. The other one I'll use is selecting an album and hitting the play button to listen to the whole thing. Neither could possibly be easier on the iPod. I'll also use the skip track and volume buttons, all of which are easily pressed from inside my pocket. And since they're on the sides they've never been accidentally pushed, so I've never used the hold feature.
The Zen Xtra does one thing and does it well and it does it cheap.
I've been impressed with the silence of Dell's machines for the last few years. Everything from the Dimension 8200 to the Precision 340, 350, and 360 have been almost completely silent.
Like I said before... MS is probably banking on the idea that if these companies aren't forced into a company-wide OS upgrade they might be more willing to upgrade Office (according to the Slashbots, where the real money is made).
I wouldn't count on it, Office 2003 only runs under Windows XP.
Well Dell decided to make it look different or possibly creative demanded it. But under the surface they are the same player. They also both use music match to sync and the dell music store is just a rebranded music match store.
The Creative Zen series use 2.5" laptop hard drives and the Dell DJ uses the same drives as the iPod, they're different under the surface. The Zens also don't use Musicmatch.
I've heard rumors of Creative manufacturing the Dell DJs, but it's definitely not a rebadged Zen.
In addition to the two services iTunes installs that have been mentioned, it also installs Quicktime 6.5. Quicktime puts an icon in the system tray and puts qttask.exe into the startup items in your registry. Sure, you can remove both of those, but it should really be an option while installing.
iTunes is not a good alternative to Realplayer if you're looking for fewer unwanted icons and less memory usage.
Um, it's digital, so there won't be any static. Poor signal will probably sound like a bad cell phone connection, with cutouts, echos, and "robot voices." I think I'd prefer the static.
WHY, in any world, would it be smart to pay half the price ($249 instead of $499) for ONE TENTH of the space?
I just bought a 40GB Nomad Zen Xtra for $250. I can't understand how you could pay TWICE the price for the same space. Or maybe I can, because people value different features differently. The iPod Mini is made for people who value size above capacity and 15 year old girls who love the colors.
There's a new Rio Nitrus coming out offering 4 GB capacity for $249, according to the above press release. I'd imagine it uses the same technology as Apple's offering and will probably end up at the same street price.
It looks like a nice alternative for fans of non-Apple music stores and USB 2.0.
However, if my Windows craps out on me, and I can't get the normal updates from Microsoft, then I will have to upgrade, and I don't think that's fair to me. That would be like an auto maker deciding not to repair 6-year old vehicles, but forcing you to buy a new one instead.
No, it would be more like Apple dropping support for OS 8, and we know they wouldn't... Oh. Nevermind.
Slashdot Mirror
VNC is a vastly inferior way of connecting remotely. The screen isn't masked, it doesn't allow access to be controlled on the user level, and the responsiveness isn't even close. Remote Desktop has clients for all versions of desktop Windows, Pocket PC, and OSX. I think there's a Linux version as well (but obviously not from Microsoft).
Ugh. The digital camera support pisses me off. Every time I insert a CD or other removeable media it asks me what I want to do. Why doesn't it just open up the root folder of the media and let me decide if I want to do something else.
Because you didn't tell it to do that? Right click on the drive in My Computer, choose Properties, and AutoPlay. Make all your default action selections in there.
Are you speaking of "thumbnail" view? Windows 2000 had that.
No, the Filmstrip view. All pictures are tumbnailed across one row on the bottom of a window. The rest of the window is the currently highlighted pictures scaled to fit with some control buttons. It's extremely fast and handy for dealing with lots of pictures.
The pretty icons are nice and so are the clear fonts although I'm not really sure what you mean about Apple's attempt at it. It looks fine to me, although many Carbon apps unfortunately turn it off because their developers haven't modernized their drawing routines.
If Apple's smoothed fonts look "fine" to you, Cleartype would look spectacular. It's a much better text rendering engine and makes working on an LCD screen that much nicer.
As for the other things, XP isn't the first version of Windows to support inputting in other languages, it's just better than in the past. USB 2.0 isn't completely new, it's just supported without manufacturers' drivers. And brushing off stored system states? Any computer can be screwed by bad drivers, regarless of OS, XP simply provides you with a safety net.
You obviously love your Mac very much and have never used XP. I'm not telling you that you have to, but claiming there's nothing new from Windows 2000 is completely false. Many of the features are well worth the upgrade price to people who actually use Windows.
RE: iPod story, I decided against it and got a Zen Xtra. $250 for 40GB, uses standard power/data connectors, and does everything I need while I wait for the next generation of digital music player.
By far the biggest advance is Remote Desktop access. Using that and a VPN connection gives our users the ability to work at home as if they were sitting at their office machine. It's worth the upgrade cost alone.
Other updates include an actual built-in firewall, nice digital camera wizards with better support for removable media, better generic video drivers, native USB 2.0 support, a new film strip view for directories with photos in them, fast user switching in a non-domain environment, prettier icons, Cleartype (which is much nicer than Apple's attempt at it), basic image capturing options, a network performance monitor in the Task Manager, system state saves to allow roll-back in case of a bad install, and better support for inputting in other languages. That's just off the top of my head. XP is an actual upgrade from 2000, not just more of the same with a different look.
http://www.highcriteria.com/
I... um... Some guy I know uses it to record directly to MP3 files from Rhapsody. The sound quality is almost indistinguishable from the original when recording at 320kbps, but still noticably a bit lower than a CD rip.
Yeah, but is she hot?
It's a trivial exercise for anyone with a modicum of computer skill to keep your own home installation of Windows XP so that it "just works." It's a very stable operating system with solid hardware support. Use good drivers and a firewall, and it will run without problems. My computer is two years old, still running on the original XP install, and is just as fast as the day I put it together.
The original poster claimed his job was to work on Windows machines, but used a Mac at home because it "just worked." I inferred he can't be very good at his job making other Windows machines work if he can't make his own work. Seems pretty logical to me.
The original question was, "Are Mac users smarter?" If you take "smarter" to mean "more computer savvy," I'd have to say in this poster's case, no.
And before anyone jumps down my throat for not experiencing the Mac side of things, I have an iBook with 10.3.2. It's far more stable than 10.2, but still no better than my XP desktop. And it displays all the same random sluggishness of your average Windows machine.
As for the "just works" argument, I can offer two counter-examples for OS X.3: uploading to an FTP site from the Finder, and plugging in a device before loading the driver. In both cases "it just doesn't work." There's no message in the first case about uploading not being supported. And in the latter case, you're not given any indication that you've actually plugged something in and there's no driver (which XP does). It does nothing. That's awful user interface.
So there you go. I wasn't trolling, just pointing out what I really think on the subject.
So you make money working with Windows but you can't make your own XP installation work? It sounds like you're not very smart, or not very good at your job.
Neither can I, and my monthly cable/Internet bill is almost $100. But I'm a grown up who knows how to exercise self control, enjoy things in moderation, and not watch any piece of crap I come across.
Or you could just hit the play button while the song is highlighed and it plays. There's no need to go into that submenu unless you're queueing the song up.
For me, there are only two options I care about. There's "Play Any Track," which plays everything on the Zen randomly. The other one I'll use is selecting an album and hitting the play button to listen to the whole thing. Neither could possibly be easier on the iPod. I'll also use the skip track and volume buttons, all of which are easily pressed from inside my pocket. And since they're on the sides they've never been accidentally pushed, so I've never used the hold feature.
The Zen Xtra does one thing and does it well and it does it cheap.
So your G5 somehow makes it impossible for people to send you the MyDoom virus? Your powers of hyperbole are astounding.
I've been impressed with the silence of Dell's machines for the last few years. Everything from the Dimension 8200 to the Precision 340, 350, and 360 have been almost completely silent.
I wouldn't count on it, Office 2003 only runs under Windows XP.
The Creative Zen series use 2.5" laptop hard drives and the Dell DJ uses the same drives as the iPod, they're different under the surface. The Zens also don't use Musicmatch.
I've heard rumors of Creative manufacturing the Dell DJs, but it's definitely not a rebadged Zen.
Jeff, Zen Xtra Owner
In addition to the two services iTunes installs that have been mentioned, it also installs Quicktime 6.5. Quicktime puts an icon in the system tray and puts qttask.exe into the startup items in your registry. Sure, you can remove both of those, but it should really be an option while installing. iTunes is not a good alternative to Realplayer if you're looking for fewer unwanted icons and less memory usage.
Steve Jobs's semen is pretty colors? Wacky.
Um, it's digital, so there won't be any static. Poor signal will probably sound like a bad cell phone connection, with cutouts, echos, and "robot voices." I think I'd prefer the static.
I just bought a 40GB Nomad Zen Xtra for $250. I can't understand how you could pay TWICE the price for the same space. Or maybe I can, because people value different features differently. The iPod Mini is made for people who value size above capacity and 15 year old girls who love the colors.
There's a new Rio Nitrus coming out offering 4 GB capacity for $249, according to the above press release. I'd imagine it uses the same technology as Apple's offering and will probably end up at the same street price.
It looks like a nice alternative for fans of non-Apple music stores and USB 2.0.
There's at least one Transmeta powered Tablet PC. And I think Fujitsu sold an ultraportable laptop with a Transmeta CPU.
No, it would be more like Apple dropping support for OS 8, and we know they wouldn't... Oh. Nevermind.