The biggest and best reason that I am familiar with is this: Linux does not make as many demands on the computers as OS X, and is more stable than OS 9. I have an old 233 Mhz Red A iMac that was at the end of its rope. I was about to turn it into an aquarium when I learned of YDL. Now I have a functioning computer that allows me to continue using my computer that I purchased in 1998. It certainly is no racehorse, but it can browse the web and check email, has Open Office, and all of the usual trimmings that come with a Redhat distro (YDL is based on Redhat). There was a reason that Apple jumped head-first into OS X...OS 9 was near useless. It was the same software for years with bandaid on top of bandaid. Imagine if you were still using Win95 with some prettier graphics and a few added features that made it crash a little more often. OS X solves all that. But on my prehistoric iMac OS X is a pipe dream. It will never happen. Linux is a nice compromise.
The average user has purchased their iPod because it works seemlessly with iTunes. If someone says "hey, run this program and you'll be able to also use Real Player to access your iPod." they will probably try it. Apple can not prevent people from doing this, legally or otherwise. But they can stipulate in their support agreement/warranty that if you do something like that the warranty is void. Apple's image is not just a product like Dell's products. It is goes well beyond the product itself and includes the interface, the appearance, the interaction with other products, and the simplistic operation that your grandma can figure out. They are selling an experience as well as a product. You can feel free to install all of the hacks you want onto your iPod. There is nothing Apple can do about that, and probably nothing they will do about that. But if you do that, you are on your own. Most Linux users and even most PC users are accustomed to that feeling of being alone with their computer. They know that everyday they may be out on a limb with no one to help them but themselves. Heck, most Linux users actually enjoy reinstalling their OS because they tend to be computer enthusiasts and enjoy the challenge. Apple product users are not like that. Other people make fun of them because they crave the nurturing which Apple provides, but it is a legitimate niche Apple has filled. Apple knows their niche, they know their customers, and they know that if Real squats on their territory, in order to preserve their reputation they will have to embrace and support Real's hack of their product. They absorb the work and reap none of the rewards. Can't say that I blame them for being a bit upset, but I think their only option is to repackage the product so that the user has no choice but to see a disclaimer telling them that if they use anything besides iTunes with their iPod the warranty is void and they are on their own.
I think that all Apple can do in this case is make it blatantly obvious that if you install any 3rd party software or patches from any other company on the iPod the warranty is void and support is discontinued. I think that if you buy an iPod then you own it, but if you modify it then you're on your own. The selling point of the iPod is that it is a seamless integration with iTunes. The average user won't be able to understand that their problems were caused by Real instead of Apple if their iPod quits working.
Unfortunately, this is the corporate equivalent of the "fight or flight response". Real has 1 (one) digital player that supports their format. Apple has 1 (one) that supports their format. The player that supports Real's format accounts for maybe 1-2% of the market and is dropping, Apple's player accounts for 40-60% of the market and is increasing. Real has realized that their only hope for survival is to get their format on the iPod. If Apple agreed to let them in it would be no problem. If Real figured out how to do it without screwing up the iPod, no problem. Real has essentially squatted in Apple territory and placed Apple in a bad situation. If they break Real's hack, either accidentally or intentionally, Apple looks like the bad guy to the consumer. The only other option is to support Real's hack, essentially condoning their squatter's rights. Apple absorbs all of the responsibility, while Real reaps the rewards...Option 3, which is a very Microsoft style tactic, is to sue the other guy until they give up or run out of money. Either way the problem is solved. Eventually Microsoft is going to enter this fray like a bull in a china shop and we'll all lose...
I have run into this same problem where I work. We use several different CAM (computer aided machining) software packages. Almost all of them require admin security to function. What is the purpose of having a logon screen at all if your software works this way!?! I had to sit down and hack on these computers for hours trying to figure out which folders were the vital ones so that I could set scecurity levels at the directory level that would not grant the users admin access across the entire computer, but rather to certain folders that were needed for the programs. Eventually it worked, but only because I was paranoid enough to fight through it. Any sane person would have said "screw it" and given them admin permissions. Is this Microsoft's fault? No I don't think so, but they should make their vendors more aware of these problems. I have not yet come accross a problem such as this in OS X, but that does not mean it could not happen.
I thought that Gentoo was a Linux distro, but people here make it sound like a left-wing branch of Budhism. I've never tried it, but I've heard the widest range of compliments about it imaginable. The nerdiest of nerds say that it is the best thing since pocket protectors while I've heard others say that it is a worthless Linux distro that requires you to compile the files that are used to compile the files that are encoded versions of the source code so that you can compile the configuration of the flux capacitor for the....you get the idea.
Or, Mac users, knowing that the software on a Mac is usually better suited to productivity, use Safari as their browser, which has a spell checker built into it. This means that they don't have to cut and paste their post into Word to spellcheck, then paste it back into the browser when they are finished with it. I could be mistaken, but I believe that Mozilla hasn't even caught on to that one yet (hint! hint!)
The Bush administration bears an uncanny resemblance to the Left Behind series of books in which the Apocolyse actually occurs and the Anti-christ rises to power. The similarities are chilling. As soon as they start implanting us all with RFID tags the story will be complete. Get the tinfoil hats out again...
Apparently, viruses are worth money to M$. If I understand this correctly, they are going to sell a product to fix the shortcomings of their own OS?!? When will people see the obvious stupidity of this arrangement. It is a stroke of genious on the behalf of M$, but if users go along with this, they deserve all the virii they can contract. I can also imagine some more nasty anti-monopoly lawsuits coming out of this. M$ will start hiring all the russian virus writers they can get their hands on, then create patches to block their own viruses. Brilliant business strategy. Then Norton and NA cry "Foul" because they don't have access to M$'s virus writers. Don't you also think that it could help an anti-virus app if its creators have access to the OS' source code and their competitors do not?
My point is you use whatever tools you have to out-run your competition. IT is important, and it is imperative to stay ahead of your competition, but not without thinking about what is going to get you there.
A bunch of hunters go north to hunt bear. On the first night they are camping and a bear raids their camp and begins destroying tents. Hunters are running everywhere trying to get away. One of the hunters sits down and begins putting on his running shoes. His tent mate says "What the heck are you doing!?!" to which he replies, "I don't have to out- run the bear, I just have to out-run YOU!"
So far I've installed SuSe on a couple of PCs at work. It was relatively painless, so long as I read the instructions before jumping in. I think that the best installation that I've done was Yellow Dog Linux. I have it installed on my Rev A iMac 233. Aside from a couple of initial questions, it was mostly an unattended install. I went and watched a movie and drank a beer. Took about 45 minutes. The biggest headache with Linux that I've found is if you want to have a dual boot system. That is when things get ugly. I have gotten one single machine to do this neatly with SuSe.
I think that if M$ had decided upon an open source standard media format, this would have been a mute point, but since they created a proprietary format (for better or for worse), their monopoly of the OS Market puts them in a uniquely vulnerable position. By essentially forcing all Windows users to use WMP whether they want to or not, they have carefully, if not cleverly, created a situation where a monopolistic practice can almost be explained away. I think that we can all agree that Real is destined for the garbage heap. Back before WMP, Real survived because of their accidental monopoly. It is a sad day when even Microsoft can make a product better than yours. Quicktime may become a contender faster than everyone thinks. Apple gives away their Quicktime Streaming Server software for FREE, with unlimited user licenses. They do bundle Quicktime with the Mac OS, but only because the only other medial player available for a long time was Real. I now have Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and Real running on my Mac. The only one that I want to get rid of is Real. WMP for Mac is a very simple interpretation. It only plays the Windows Media format files, but it does it well enough and finally is integrated with the Web browser so that I don't have to download all of the links anymore.
As I understand it (according to Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything") entangelment does in fact violate Einsteins theory. It says that two entangled photons at any distance apart from each other will react identically instantaneously. **Notice** Instantaneously! That is faster than the speed of light. Einstein did not believe that this was possible, but experiments have shown this to be true, at least as we understand it. The part that impresses me the most is that someone devised a logic experiment that could determine the results with near certainty without altering the results. An excellent source for more information is the book "Mind at Light Speed", I forget the author's name. "A Short History of Nearly Everything" is also a great book which covers so many topics that it made my head spin.
While the goal of IT for the last 3 decades seems to have been "how can I get a computer over there to do something while I am still here", I think that the only advantage that we can exert is physical on-site presence. We can make house calls like the old doctors did. Someone in India, as skilled as they may be, is not likely to fly for 14 hours to come format a disk for someone, or fix their printer. Don't think that some of these tasks are below you. This is what will set you apart from your counterpart in India.
Sometimes, it is nice to have a product that someone else has/is taking care of and which just simply works. My company learned this with their ERP software. If something off of the shelf does everything that you need, why re-invent the wheel? This way, they won't need to maintain an army of code monkeys to modify the software everytime that they need a change, and, if they choose to create some custom software, it will cost no more, probably less in fact, than if they were using a custom Operating sytem because more people know how it works. Economics dictatate that their has to be a healthy balance between diversity and monopoly. Sometimes slashers forget that not everyone in the world is a programmer AND, GET THIS, they don't want to be programmers. Microsoft has gotten dangerously close to the proverbial eggs all in one basket business model for the world. I think that Linux is scaring the crap out of them because it is a completely different paradigm shift for their business model that they can not compete with. Most business are still scared of Linux (see "all the world wants to be a programmer above") The Mac OS is the healthy balance between MS and Linux. Apple maintains a functioning GUI, but if you want a different one, you can install it on the Mac. I believe that KDE and Gnome are functioning on the Darwin OSS platform now.
I've used alot of Media players since they became available in the early-mid nineties. They all try to "re-brand" all of your media files. There is a logical reason for this. Who wants to have their media library divided between a half dozen different applications to play them? I prefer to have them all in one application. Having said that, the best application for this that I've used was WinAmp/MacAmp back in the day. In the begginning it was simply an electronic rack stereo display. No adds, no flashing lights, you could make it as big or small as you liked. Since then, all of the applications have become bloated monsters, but Realplayer is by far the worst. But if they're free, you've got to expect that. Real player has a clummsy interface, wastes acres of my screen for a tiny little screen that plays extremely low quality videos and crappy sounding audio in a format that does not appear to have evolved much since the nineties. I realize that it is the same format as iTMS, but trust me, they do not sound at all alike. There is something to all of this Quality control mumbo-jumbo. Even WMP looks and sounds better than that. If Real had offered to bow to Apples demands so that Apple could fix their products and take their market share, I'd say yeah go for it, but this deal was a rotten egg for Apple from what I've heard.
Re:Depends on your philosophy, doesn't it
on
Apple Revises eMac
·
· Score: 1
actually, you can run WINE, sort of...
http://darwine.opendarwin.org/download.php
Suse is one of only a handful of PPC distros for Linux. I haven't tried their PPC version yet, but I do have Yellow Dog Linux running on my old Rev A iMac. I think that Mandrake also has a PPC distro. Linux allowed me to squeeze another year or two out of it before I turn it into a maquarium.
He dows present a potential problem, but not many people buy a new computer every 10 months. Most people don't even use the feature to stream between machines because they only have 1 machine. It is only geeks like us that push the limits and like to try out all of the features that find these potential problems.
My ISP had its entire domain blacklisted by AOL for several days, maybe a week, on multiple occasions. This was a particularaly shady move by AOL because I don't live in a particularly tech-savvy town. The users just didn't understand why their email to all of their AOL using friends was being returned, while the AOL users were just fine. This made my ISP look bad and AOL look good even though AOL was causing the problem. AOL insisted that my ISP was spamming their users. I think that this was probably the result of the last couple batches of viruses. If this was true, then AOL was probably a bigger spammer than anyone else. ISPs can not control their users infected computers.
Re:Yes, yes, yes, Apple's dying, blah blah blah
on
Why iPod Can't Save Apple
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Just so you know, OS X, and OS 8 and 9 for that matter, support 2 and 3 button mouses (mice? Meese?). I agree that sticking to a 1 button mouse for the sake of tradition is stupid though. Having 2 buttons makes life so much easier. I just bought a cheap 3 button mouse and now use the old one as a paperweight. It looks cool. Better yet though, use the terminal window and unplug the mouse.
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The biggest and best reason that I am familiar with is this: Linux does not make as many demands on the computers as OS X, and is more stable than OS 9. I have an old 233 Mhz Red A iMac that was at the end of its rope. I was about to turn it into an aquarium when I learned of YDL. Now I have a functioning computer that allows me to continue using my computer that I purchased in 1998. It certainly is no racehorse, but it can browse the web and check email, has Open Office, and all of the usual trimmings that come with a Redhat distro (YDL is based on Redhat). There was a reason that Apple jumped head-first into OS X...OS 9 was near useless. It was the same software for years with bandaid on top of bandaid. Imagine if you were still using Win95 with some prettier graphics and a few added features that made it crash a little more often. OS X solves all that. But on my prehistoric iMac OS X is a pipe dream. It will never happen. Linux is a nice compromise.
The average user has purchased their iPod because it works seemlessly with iTunes. If someone says "hey, run this program and you'll be able to also use Real Player to access your iPod." they will probably try it. Apple can not prevent people from doing this, legally or otherwise. But they can stipulate in their support agreement/warranty that if you do something like that the warranty is void. Apple's image is not just a product like Dell's products. It is goes well beyond the product itself and includes the interface, the appearance, the interaction with other products, and the simplistic operation that your grandma can figure out. They are selling an experience as well as a product. You can feel free to install all of the hacks you want onto your iPod. There is nothing Apple can do about that, and probably nothing they will do about that. But if you do that, you are on your own. Most Linux users and even most PC users are accustomed to that feeling of being alone with their computer. They know that everyday they may be out on a limb with no one to help them but themselves. Heck, most Linux users actually enjoy reinstalling their OS because they tend to be computer enthusiasts and enjoy the challenge. Apple product users are not like that. Other people make fun of them because they crave the nurturing which Apple provides, but it is a legitimate niche Apple has filled. Apple knows their niche, they know their customers, and they know that if Real squats on their territory, in order to preserve their reputation they will have to embrace and support Real's hack of their product. They absorb the work and reap none of the rewards. Can't say that I blame them for being a bit upset, but I think their only option is to repackage the product so that the user has no choice but to see a disclaimer telling them that if they use anything besides iTunes with their iPod the warranty is void and they are on their own.
Works fine with Camino.
I think that all Apple can do in this case is make it blatantly obvious that if you install any 3rd party software or patches from any other company on the iPod the warranty is void and support is discontinued. I think that if you buy an iPod then you own it, but if you modify it then you're on your own. The selling point of the iPod is that it is a seamless integration with iTunes. The average user won't be able to understand that their problems were caused by Real instead of Apple if their iPod quits working. Unfortunately, this is the corporate equivalent of the "fight or flight response". Real has 1 (one) digital player that supports their format. Apple has 1 (one) that supports their format. The player that supports Real's format accounts for maybe 1-2% of the market and is dropping, Apple's player accounts for 40-60% of the market and is increasing. Real has realized that their only hope for survival is to get their format on the iPod. If Apple agreed to let them in it would be no problem. If Real figured out how to do it without screwing up the iPod, no problem. Real has essentially squatted in Apple territory and placed Apple in a bad situation. If they break Real's hack, either accidentally or intentionally, Apple looks like the bad guy to the consumer. The only other option is to support Real's hack, essentially condoning their squatter's rights. Apple absorbs all of the responsibility, while Real reaps the rewards...Option 3, which is a very Microsoft style tactic, is to sue the other guy until they give up or run out of money. Either way the problem is solved. Eventually Microsoft is going to enter this fray like a bull in a china shop and we'll all lose...
I have run into this same problem where I work. We use several different CAM (computer aided machining) software packages. Almost all of them require admin security to function. What is the purpose of having a logon screen at all if your software works this way!?! I had to sit down and hack on these computers for hours trying to figure out which folders were the vital ones so that I could set scecurity levels at the directory level that would not grant the users admin access across the entire computer, but rather to certain folders that were needed for the programs. Eventually it worked, but only because I was paranoid enough to fight through it. Any sane person would have said "screw it" and given them admin permissions. Is this Microsoft's fault? No I don't think so, but they should make their vendors more aware of these problems. I have not yet come accross a problem such as this in OS X, but that does not mean it could not happen.
I should have said Firefox, not Mozilla.
I thought that Gentoo was a Linux distro, but people here make it sound like a left-wing branch of Budhism. I've never tried it, but I've heard the widest range of compliments about it imaginable. The nerdiest of nerds say that it is the best thing since pocket protectors while I've heard others say that it is a worthless Linux distro that requires you to compile the files that are used to compile the files that are encoded versions of the source code so that you can compile the configuration of the flux capacitor for the ....you get the idea.
Or, Mac users, knowing that the software on a Mac is usually better suited to productivity, use Safari as their browser, which has a spell checker built into it. This means that they don't have to cut and paste their post into Word to spellcheck, then paste it back into the browser when they are finished with it. I could be mistaken, but I believe that Mozilla hasn't even caught on to that one yet (hint! hint!)
The Bush administration bears an uncanny resemblance to the Left Behind series of books in which the Apocolyse actually occurs and the Anti-christ rises to power. The similarities are chilling. As soon as they start implanting us all with RFID tags the story will be complete. Get the tinfoil hats out again...
Apparently, viruses are worth money to M$. If I understand this correctly, they are going to sell a product to fix the shortcomings of their own OS?!? When will people see the obvious stupidity of this arrangement. It is a stroke of genious on the behalf of M$, but if users go along with this, they deserve all the virii they can contract. I can also imagine some more nasty anti-monopoly lawsuits coming out of this. M$ will start hiring all the russian virus writers they can get their hands on, then create patches to block their own viruses. Brilliant business strategy. Then Norton and NA cry "Foul" because they don't have access to M$'s virus writers. Don't you also think that it could help an anti-virus app if its creators have access to the OS' source code and their competitors do not?
My point is you use whatever tools you have to out-run your competition. IT is important, and it is imperative to stay ahead of your competition, but not without thinking about what is going to get you there.
A bunch of hunters go north to hunt bear. On the first night they are camping and a bear raids their camp and begins destroying tents. Hunters are running everywhere trying to get away. One of the hunters sits down and begins putting on his running shoes. His tent mate says "What the heck are you doing!?!" to which he replies, "I don't have to out- run the bear, I just have to out-run YOU!"
I opened MacDraw and created some squiggles. It works just as I remembered.
So far I've installed SuSe on a couple of PCs at work. It was relatively painless, so long as I read the instructions before jumping in. I think that the best installation that I've done was Yellow Dog Linux. I have it installed on my Rev A iMac 233. Aside from a couple of initial questions, it was mostly an unattended install. I went and watched a movie and drank a beer. Took about 45 minutes. The biggest headache with Linux that I've found is if you want to have a dual boot system. That is when things get ugly. I have gotten one single machine to do this neatly with SuSe.
Finally Apple is not the company slowly dying...
I think that if M$ had decided upon an open source standard media format, this would have been a mute point, but since they created a proprietary format (for better or for worse), their monopoly of the OS Market puts them in a uniquely vulnerable position. By essentially forcing all Windows users to use WMP whether they want to or not, they have carefully, if not cleverly, created a situation where a monopolistic practice can almost be explained away. I think that we can all agree that Real is destined for the garbage heap. Back before WMP, Real survived because of their accidental monopoly. It is a sad day when even Microsoft can make a product better than yours. Quicktime may become a contender faster than everyone thinks. Apple gives away their Quicktime Streaming Server software for FREE, with unlimited user licenses. They do bundle Quicktime with the Mac OS, but only because the only other medial player available for a long time was Real. I now have Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and Real running on my Mac. The only one that I want to get rid of is Real. WMP for Mac is a very simple interpretation. It only plays the Windows Media format files, but it does it well enough and finally is integrated with the Web browser so that I don't have to download all of the links anymore.
As I understand it (according to Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything") entangelment does in fact violate Einsteins theory. It says that two entangled photons at any distance apart from each other will react identically instantaneously. **Notice** Instantaneously! That is faster than the speed of light. Einstein did not believe that this was possible, but experiments have shown this to be true, at least as we understand it. The part that impresses me the most is that someone devised a logic experiment that could determine the results with near certainty without altering the results. An excellent source for more information is the book "Mind at Light Speed", I forget the author's name. "A Short History of Nearly Everything" is also a great book which covers so many topics that it made my head spin.
While the goal of IT for the last 3 decades seems to have been "how can I get a computer over there to do something while I am still here", I think that the only advantage that we can exert is physical on-site presence. We can make house calls like the old doctors did. Someone in India, as skilled as they may be, is not likely to fly for 14 hours to come format a disk for someone, or fix their printer. Don't think that some of these tasks are below you. This is what will set you apart from your counterpart in India.
Sometimes, it is nice to have a product that someone else has/is taking care of and which just simply works. My company learned this with their ERP software. If something off of the shelf does everything that you need, why re-invent the wheel? This way, they won't need to maintain an army of code monkeys to modify the software everytime that they need a change, and, if they choose to create some custom software, it will cost no more, probably less in fact, than if they were using a custom Operating sytem because more people know how it works. Economics dictatate that their has to be a healthy balance between diversity and monopoly. Sometimes slashers forget that not everyone in the world is a programmer AND, GET THIS, they don't want to be programmers. Microsoft has gotten dangerously close to the proverbial eggs all in one basket business model for the world. I think that Linux is scaring the crap out of them because it is a completely different paradigm shift for their business model that they can not compete with. Most business are still scared of Linux (see "all the world wants to be a programmer above") The Mac OS is the healthy balance between MS and Linux. Apple maintains a functioning GUI, but if you want a different one, you can install it on the Mac. I believe that KDE and Gnome are functioning on the Darwin OSS platform now.
I've used alot of Media players since they became available in the early-mid nineties. They all try to "re-brand" all of your media files. There is a logical reason for this. Who wants to have their media library divided between a half dozen different applications to play them? I prefer to have them all in one application. Having said that, the best application for this that I've used was WinAmp/MacAmp back in the day. In the begginning it was simply an electronic rack stereo display. No adds, no flashing lights, you could make it as big or small as you liked. Since then, all of the applications have become bloated monsters, but Realplayer is by far the worst. But if they're free, you've got to expect that. Real player has a clummsy interface, wastes acres of my screen for a tiny little screen that plays extremely low quality videos and crappy sounding audio in a format that does not appear to have evolved much since the nineties. I realize that it is the same format as iTMS, but trust me, they do not sound at all alike. There is something to all of this Quality control mumbo-jumbo. Even WMP looks and sounds better than that. If Real had offered to bow to Apples demands so that Apple could fix their products and take their market share, I'd say yeah go for it, but this deal was a rotten egg for Apple from what I've heard.
actually, you can run WINE, sort of... http://darwine.opendarwin.org/download.php
Suse is one of only a handful of PPC distros for Linux. I haven't tried their PPC version yet, but I do have Yellow Dog Linux running on my old Rev A iMac. I think that Mandrake also has a PPC distro. Linux allowed me to squeeze another year or two out of it before I turn it into a maquarium.
He dows present a potential problem, but not many people buy a new computer every 10 months. Most people don't even use the feature to stream between machines because they only have 1 machine. It is only geeks like us that push the limits and like to try out all of the features that find these potential problems.
My ISP had its entire domain blacklisted by AOL for several days, maybe a week, on multiple occasions. This was a particularaly shady move by AOL because I don't live in a particularly tech-savvy town. The users just didn't understand why their email to all of their AOL using friends was being returned, while the AOL users were just fine. This made my ISP look bad and AOL look good even though AOL was causing the problem. AOL insisted that my ISP was spamming their users. I think that this was probably the result of the last couple batches of viruses. If this was true, then AOL was probably a bigger spammer than anyone else. ISPs can not control their users infected computers.
Just so you know, OS X, and OS 8 and 9 for that matter, support 2 and 3 button mouses (mice? Meese?). I agree that sticking to a 1 button mouse for the sake of tradition is stupid though. Having 2 buttons makes life so much easier. I just bought a cheap 3 button mouse and now use the old one as a paperweight. It looks cool. Better yet though, use the terminal window and unplug the mouse.