Microsoft will force people off of XP and 2000 by refusing to support the OS and stop issuing security patches.
But people won't be "forced" off of Windows XP Professional until January 2014, Windows XP Home until January 2009, and Windows 2000 until July 13, 2010. Those are the earliest dates that "mainstream" suppport will end for XP Home, and when "extended" support will end for XP Pro and 2000.
Extended support includes security updates and paid incident support. Seven years of support for the home OS and 10-12 years of support for the pro OSs seems pretty generous to me. Both versions of Windows XP will continue to get mainstream support (includes free incident support and requests for OS design/feature changes) until January 2009 at the earliest.
TFA's specs for Yorkfield look incorrect to me. It seems to be mixing up the specs of two different CPUs from the same generation. This is what I have decyphered from other articles:
Penryn is a quad-core notebook processor with 6MB of L2 cache. Unlike today's quad-core Kentsfield, Penryn is a "true/real" quad-core CPU with all four cores on one die. The 6MB of L2 cache is shared among the four cores.
Yorkfield is an 8-core desktop processor with 2x6MB of L2 cache. Like Kentsfield, Yorkfield is a "cheat" and is really just two quad-core dies (two Penryns) on a single package. However, Kentsfield's early benchmarks have looked pretty good for a "cheat," so I'm reserving judgement on this design decision. I've also read that, similar to how Kentsfield trailed Conroe by a few months, Yorkfield will be released several months after Penryn.
Intel may be "cheating" with Yorkfield, but it looks like Intel ship their "8 cores in one socket" CPU long before AMD can release their "real" 8-core CPU.
This is where I think AMD gets themselves a big win. Intel's FSB, even clocked at 1333MHz (actually it's 333MHz QDR, but we'll not quibble) pushes only 10.6GB/s. And that's not accounting for the off-die memory controller. Even with dual buses (like the 5000 series chipsets tout) they only just barely have enough aggregate throughput to handle memory transfers.
TFA was about AMD's and Intel's future single-processor desktop platforms, so it didn't mention updates to Intel's current server platform that you referred to (5000 chipset, dual buses). According to The Tech Report's IDF coverage, the server/workstation version of Penry is called Tigerton and the updated version of the 5000 chipset is called Clarksboro. Clarksboro will have four independent buses and a "bus snoop filter with a 64MB cache, intended to cut the bandwidth needed on the bus."
Of course, four FSBs (plus a snoop filter) is still not as efficient as AMD's Direct Connect Architecture, but Intel's current dual-processor server architecture seems to have no problem competing against AMD's current 2P Opteron.
I'll point out that the screen isn't all that different. The iPod screen is 320x240, 4:3 aspect ratio, 2.5" diagonal. The Zune screen is is 320x240, 4:3 aspect ratio, 3" diagonal. That extra 1/2" diagonal isn't worth the praise you give it.
That extra 0.5" diagonal translates to 44% more screen space (if my math is correct). The iPod's 2.5" 4:3 screen has an area of 3.0 square inches (1.5" x 2.0"). The Zune's 3.0" diagonal 4:3 screen has an area of 4.32 square inches (1.8" x 2.4"). I haven't visually compared the two screens, but I think 44% more screen space would be a significant improvement over an iPod screen that's too small.
I'm still not convinced that watching videos would be a good experience on a 3" screen, but I think photo viewing should be significantly better on the Zune than the iPod.
One major killer feature of the iPod are iPod accessories. If Microsoft wants to compete with the iPod, they'll need to be completely compatible with it...
If Microsoft wants to compete with the iPod, the Zune needs to be able to support the accessory market. The iPod may not be the greatest MP3 player ever created, but it has the accessory market, and that provides a lot of value that Microsoft will be missing.
Licensing fees will supposedly be less than the "Made for iPod" program. The article also hints that Zune accessories may be able to use the built-in wireless technology.
So, will accessory makers offer many good accessories at Zune's launch, which will supposedly result in good Zune sales? Or will accessory makers wait until Zune is a good seller (if that ever happens)? From what I recall, the iPod accessory market didn't really catch on until the iPod became a hit.
Why do the new Intel chipsets have just one P-ATA channel, if any at all?
Probably because serial ATA does have performance/connection advantages over parallel ATA, and the new Intel chipsets (965 series) are the fourth generation of Intel chipsets to support SATA (865/875 chipsets were released in May 2003). Intel thinks it's about time, and I think they might be right.
It is ridiculous. 95% of all optical drives are P-ATA...
I think around 95% of all motherboards using the new Intel chipsets have at least one PATA channel.
...and P-ATA hard drives as of yet are just as fast, if not faster thanks to more mature drivers and technology, than their SATA counterparts.
Did you see/compare TFA's SATA and PATA benchmarks for single hard drive performance? This is a limited set of tests (HD Tach 8MB zone setting), but the best SATA performance (using NCQ) was significantly better than the best PATA performance in each test. They didn't compare RAID performance, but I think SATA would look even better with its higher bandwidth (which might actually be utilized with multi-drive RAID) and NCQ.
What do they expect people with 2+ perfectly fine last-generation PATA hard drives to do when upgrading to Core 2 Duo?
I could be wrong, but I think a very small percentage of Core 2 Duo buyers will want to move their old parallel ATA hard drives to their next PC (especially as a primary hard drive), but those that do can still use one on the single PATA channel (if they're not using two PATA optical drives). If your computer is three years old or less, you probably shouldn't have been buying large PATA hard drives. Since SATA arrived more than three years ago, I think we should have assumed that the primary hard drive in our late-2006 computers would be SATA. I'll probably use my current 120GB PATA primary hard drive as a secondary hard drive in my next system.
Even without the performance advantages, SATA connectors/cables are a heck of a lot more convenient. Modern motherboards have four to six little SATA ports with no master/slave nonsense. The cables/connectors (including power) are so much thinner, easier to work with, and less likely to get loose. Haven't you ever had a boot problem from a bad PATA or power connection to your hard drive (like I have)?
Well, I just priced out a new workstation comparing the top of the line MacPro and an equivalently configured Dell. I ended up buying the 3.0Ghz version of the MacPro for $1000 cheaper than an equivalent Dell.
I'll be honest: I read that and I thought you were lying. So I went and looked for myself, and sure enough, I can't duplicate your results.
I can't get the Dell price down far enough. Only $1000 more expensive than the MacPro? The best I can do is $1500 more expensive.
I have a very hard time believing that's the "best you can do." Why not give at least a few details? I played this lame configuration game and got about the same price for an "equivalent" Dell Precision 490 and Mac Pro. Of course, there are too many unconfigurable differences to call them "equivalent," but here's the best I can do in a short time (starting from base configurations and only adding components to make "equivalent"):
250GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive (RAID 5 not available)
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB
One 16x SuperDrive
Support: AppleCare Protection Plan (3 years warranty and support)
Integrated 1394a and 1394b
Price: $5198
There are several options that cannot be made "equivalent" or are difficult to do:
The Precision 490 has one PCIe x16 slot, two PCIe x8 slots (wired as x4), 2 PCI-X 64-bit/100MHz slots, and 1 PCI slot. The Mac Pro has four PCIe x16 slots (one wired as x16, two wired as x4, one wired as x1).
Although both have integrated High Definition Audio, the Precision 490 does not have digital audio I/O. If digital audio I/O is needed, the Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic can be added for an addition $90 (brings total up to $5206), but this would make the Precision's audio system superior to the Mac Pro's.
The Mac Pro has integrated 1394a and 1394b. Dell needs an add-in card and only 1394a is available at configuration (third party 1394b cards are available elsewhere).
Precision 490 has RAID 0/1/5. The Mac Pro has RAID 0/1 but not RAID 5. This is probably just a software limitation (OS X RAID) and I'll assume RAID 5 will be added to the Mac Pro in the future with a firmware/OS update.
The Precision 490 has a wide selection of workstation graphics cards, but no consumer-level graphics cards. The Mac Pro has a "wide" selection of consumer-level graphics cards (one entry level, one high-end, no mid-range), and one high-end workstation card.
All that other shit that makes this a lame comparison. OS X vs Windows XP Professional, Apple apps vs Windows/Linux workstation apps, available hardware add-ons, yadda yadda yadda...
IIRC you'll have to look at Dell's business machines to find comparable pro hardware (dual Core 2 "Woodcrest" Xeon CPUs - the 5150 chip is 2.66 GHz). I believe Dell has an offering called the Precision 690.
For people playing this "comparison game," the Precision 490 is the more appropriate Dell workstation to "compare" to the Mac Pro (although there are still too many differences to make them "comparable"). The Precision 690 has some advanced features that cannot be added to the Mac Pro like SAS (serial attached SCSI) RAID storage, SLI, and 64GB memory capacity (vs. 16GB for Mac Pro). Also, don't forget to add Apple Care to the Mac Pro (Dell includes a 3-year On-site Economy Plan).
I don't know what you've been smoking but for the same price of a top-rated Mac Pro at 3GHz, you can get a 3.73GHz from Dell, so why don't you please stop spreading FUD and have a nice cup of shut the fuck up.
I don't know if you're kidding but, if you're not kidding, I'll tell you what at least 90% of Slashdot readers already know: the Mac Pro's (and Dell's) 3.0GHz Xeon (model 5160, Core Architecture) is faster (benchmarks start here) and more power-efficient than Dell's 3.73GHz Xeon (model 5080, Netburst Architecture).
I know this can be a little confusing to computer novices. The 3.73GHz Xeon is slower and uses more power than the 3.0GHz Xeon, even though they use the same socket. However, you shouldn't be talking shit, especially about a subject you know little about.
Hello. I'm a music industry lowlife (Actually, I'm just impersonating one. I'm just kidding. Don't sue me.)
I really started ripping my CDs back in the day when CDDB was just getting popular.
To you early adopters, thanks for all of your free voluntary work building this database. Of course, this information was not meant to be free, so you must pay for this information now.
Because I'm lazy, I long ago gave away all of those old CDs (over 100), or lost them, or threw them out because I didn't feel like packing them for a move.
it would be nice to have all of those Queen songs I love actually not sound like garbage when I play them in my car.
Then you don't want your OLD CDs back. You want to buy the new remastered versions that are better than your old CDs. Of course, we told you those old CDs were the best quality you could ever buy, but shame on you for believing us. The new remastered versions are the best, and this time we mean it. In fact, you need to buy new remastered versions of all of the "old" CDs you still possess (BTW, no refunds for the old versions).
its no big deal with Apple because they don't put any DRM on any MP3s and never have...
You can rip CDs all day long with iTunes to MP3s or AACs... and not get a bit of DRM on those files.
Heck you can even rip to Apple Loseless mp4 without DRM... but I can share a MP4 with my friends all day long and they can make copies and put it on their iPods if they wanted.
I think people are misunderstanding (or spreading FUD about) Microsoft's plans with DRM and music shared between Zune players. Windows Media Player only adds DRM to ripped tracks if it's set up to do this (you set this up during installation/first run). If you accidently set up WMP to add DRM to ripped files (it used to be the default), then here's the instructions to disable this: How can I rip files to my computer without copy protection?
From the articles I've read so far (TFA for this story has been Slashdotted), it sounds like Zune will add DRM to files that are wirelessly shared with other Zune players, not to the DRM-free files you transfer from the Zune software (WMP 11?) to the Zune. Adding DRM to your shared, but intitially DRM-free, files may sound like a crap move, but do you think any player (including the iPod) can get away with allowing direct player-to-player copying without adding DRM? This would be similar to file "sharing" like P2P, but on a smaller scale. In the paranoid RIAA's eyes, people could be adding copyrighted music to their players even if they didn't own the original CD.
but I can share a MP4 with my friends all day long and they can make copies and put it on their iPods if they wanted.
But can you make a direct transfer from iPod to iPod? Can you easily transfer a DRM-free MP4 file from your iPod to all of your friends' computers? I'd be surprised if the RIAA allowed this.
the guy must have some creative genious in him. Looking at all those projects there isn't one that I didn't like.
Of course, they didn't show the stinkers (IMO) like the original "toilet seat" iBook or the "hockey puck" mouse. I'm no design expert, but I think implementing/releasing bold designs is risky and some stinkers are inevitable. The original iMac looked great, but its hockey puck mouse and miniature keyboard were awful (and both shipped with PowerMacs for years). The iMac colors and curves did not translate well to notebooks IMO (the white iBook corrected this) or the "blue and white" PowerMac ("graphite" corrected this). Also, some Apple products look fantastic but don't work very well (e.g. Mighty Mouse's cloggable scroll ball and finger-lifting requirement).
Overall, I think occasional design flops are excusable if Apple's boldness/riskiness results in nice products like the iPod.
Also, since the thing supports MP3 and AAC and uses USB to connect, why won't Microsoft support the Mac? It should be trivial to do
Trivial? I'm not so sure about that. It's not like Microsoft can just hire MusicMatch to add OS X support for their player. It was years before Apple released a Windows version of iTunes with iTunes Music Store.
If some Mac users are interested in the Zune (and aren't interested in their music store), is there a good Mac alternative to iTunes that can be bundled with the Zune?
I agree with you, but have to point out that the default windows mediaplayer has mp3 support.
But your right about issues like DVD playback.
I think the lack of "DVD playback" in the default Windows XP installation (the DVD player app is installed, but a DVD decoder is not) is not a problem for at least 95% of Windows users. Every Windows PC sold with a DVD drive has a DVD decoder preinstalled along with the OS. Every retail DVD drive is bundled with a DVD decoder. The only Windows users that I can think of who need to buy a decoder (or download VLC/MPC) are people that buy an OEM DVD drive.
Compared to Windows, Linux DVD playback is a much bigger problem. Which DVD drive makers or PC makers bundle Linux DVD decoders? Downloading and installing a Linux DVD decoder is not that hard, but I think it is a significant hurdle for "mainstream" users.
Therefore an invalid comparison according to TFA which only looked at the dual core offerings.
Note that Slashdot's title is "Intel Core 2 Duo Vs. AMD AM2" while the title of the actual Extremetech article is "Intel Core 2 Duo Vs. AMD X2 AM2." So blame Slashdot for the innaccurate title and blame SeaFox for not seeing the obvious.
I thought that there must be some problem with the system if they're unable to get all the CPUs under full load.
It's actually really easy to do if your memory system isn't meant to service 8 cores. And the article pretty much backs this up, every time the quad cores fail to shine it's blamed on the memory.
Just to make your comment more clear: the benchmarks in the article did not test an 8-core system (two quad-core CPUs). The system labeled "Apple Mac Pro 3.0GHz (Quad)" had two dual-core CPUs for a total of four cores in the system, not quad-core CPUs. The other three systems each had two cores total (one dual-core CPU). System configurations are on page 8.
Also, when the "Quad" system failed to shine, it was not blamed solely on the memory. The only benchmarks where the "Quad" didn't shine were the ones that didn't take advantage of the extra two cores, so the extra bandwidth of FB-DIMMs were also not being used.
We saw this same situation when dual processor (single-core CPUs) systems first appeared. At the time, many benchmarks were single-threaded and even some operating systems didn't take advantage of multiple CPUs.
So, I think regular DDR2 @ 667 = 5.4 GB/s... divided amongst 8 cores is just 677 MB/s per core.
Well, to be more clear: the Mac Pro's Intel 5000X chipset has a quad-channel memory controller, so that's a total memory bandwidth of 21.3 GB/s, right? That matches the total FSB bandwidth of its two independent buses (1333MHz each). So a quad-core Xeon CPU (Cloverton) should be limited by its FSB, but the memory system should be able to handle the data the FSB feeds it.
Knew Vader would be Luke's father (come on "from a certain point of view"?!.
Thanks a lot, pal! You just ruined the movie for all of us on Slashdot who haven't seen the sequel to Star Wars yet. You could have warned us of this SPOILER in the subject line or the top of your comment.
If you want to record Hi-Def shows, you can buy a Mac mini + EyeTV + extra RAM for a total of about $1000
Is 160GB (largest hard drive available, add $250 to the base model) enough space to record Hi-Def shows and use the Mac mini for other tasks? If HDTV takes up about 8GB per hour, then I'd want a lot more space than that. I think I'd add a high-capacity external 3.5" hard drive to the Mac mini and EyeTV.
That's what I was afraid of. Anything 16:9 will look like arse on an HDTV.
my 16:9 dvds upscaled look just fine on my 50" 1080p HDTV through component.
But 640x480 iTunes movies upscaled to HDTV will probably "look like arse" (GP's description, not mine) because Quicktime's scalers suck arse. The built-in scalers/deinterlacers on cheap set top DVD players are far superior to the sofware scalers/deinterlacers in Quicktime and Apple's DVD player app (last time I checked).
Don't get me wrong, I think 640x480p sounds great for version 1.0 of the movie store (I was fearing 320x240) and I'm sure they'll look very nice on a display that's 1280 pixels wide. If Apple can improve Quicktime's scaler, then iTunes movies should at least look acceptable on all other display resolutions.
In our preliminary mixed mode testing we experienced the "bad neighbor" effect several times. Not only with our own internal 802.11g network but also visits from actual neighbors who were upset with having to constantly reboot their systems during our testing phase. As we stated earlier, the current 802.11n Draft 1.0 products utilize channel bonding to combine two 20MHz channels into a one wide 40MHz channel. Without proper fall-back techniques, this type of channel bonding can basically take over the entire 2.4GHz band that these products utilize. While the current 802.11n draft states that routers should not interfere with other networks in the area there are not any specifics as to how this will occur. At this time it is left up to the individual manufacturers to determine a "good neighbor" policy.
So even if you can get good 802.11n performance now, you'd probably be an arsehole to your neighbors (literally crashing their wireless networks). I hope the sellers of "draft n" products include an appropriate warning on their products for those who aren't arseholes.
That's a nice quiet and tiny computer (although $500 only gets you a single-core G4 version), but OS X 10.4 Tiger's DVD player still sucks ass. Tiger's de-interlacer and scaler are awful. If you can get a better DVD player app to work with Front Row, then a Mac mini might be a nice option.
If you read TFA, de-interlacing and scaling are crucial to providing good DVD quality. NVIDIA and ATI provide this with PureVideo and Avivo technologies, which use their recent GPUs, drivers, and updated MPEG2 decoders to give DVD quality that surpasses high-end set top DVD players. The Mac mini provides none of this.
I'd bet a spindle of DL DVDs that your 19" LCD has a 5:4 aspect ratio, not a 4:3 aspect ratio. A resolution of 1280x1024 is 5:4. A resolution of 1280x960 is 4:3.
That's one of my pet peaves about non-widescreen 17" and 19" LCDs. Every other popular size uses a 4:3 aspect ratio (e.g. 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200), but 1280x1024 has to be an oddball. I wish they had just been consistent and used a 1280x960 or 1400x1050 resolution instead.
I also find it depressing when people set their 19" CRTs (which are 4:3 physically) to a 1280x1024 resolution. The resulting images are slightly squished vertically.
On the other hand, I may just be an anal-retentive weirdo.
I have seen people transforming from complete Intel hater to Intel zealot just after WWDC Mactel announcement.
The Pentium 4 was a POS from day one, there was no need to be an Apple / PowerPC zealot to see that. Clock-for-clock, the P3 was kicking the P4's ass.
As for Apple zealots turning into "Intel Zealots" at WWDC05, well, you have to admit the new Intel Core is quite a step-up from their previous CPUs. And the Core 2 is (again) a big step-up too.
I don't want to debate about the Pentium 4 architecture (although the 65nm versions are not that bad compared to the G5), but remember, the "previous CPU" to the Core Duo/Solo was the Pentium M, not the Pentium 4. Since its introduction in March 2003, it was pretty obvious that the Pentium M (and even the Celeron M) was superior to the aging G4 architecture used in the iBook, Powerbook, and mini.
Reasonable Apple users acknowledged Pentium M's superiority over G4, but Apple zealots were in denial. I think many still would be in denial if Apple had not switched to Intel. They'd be crowing about an upcoming dual-core, high-bandwidth notebook CPU from Freescale or some miraculous low-power, dual-core version of the G5 (which used watercooling in the PowerMac).
Thurrott just hates when Apple points out the 100% truth that Microsoft has cloned a lot of Apple-isms. Where does he think the search field in the upper-right of every Explorer window with the magnifying glass came from?
The search field in the upper-right of Vista Explorer windows might have been adopted from Windows Address Book, which has had a search field in that general area since Windows 98. OS X probably adopted it from iTunes.
Hell, where does he think the Recycle Bin came from?
From Xerox Star (1981), where it was called the "Wastebasket." I know, Apple copied Xerox first. But the Wastebasket/Trash/Recycle Bin is not an "Apple-ism," it's a Xerox-ism.
Or the new system tray icons that are blatant clones of OS X's?
Can you be more specific? Which icons? Are the "blatant clones" not obvious choices for what they represent (like a magnifying glass for "Search")? Who had a "tray" first?
I'm sure Microsoft has "cloned" a lot of Apple features. However, many people incorrectly give Apple credit for things cloned from other companies (e.g. desktop metaphor).
the iPod and Mac mini--both niche products before Apple got in the game.
I think the Mac mini would still be a niche product if Apple offered a decent non-Pro desktop computer without a monitor. I'm pretty sure a minitower or "microtower" with specs similar to the iMac (but without the integrated monitor) would outsell the combined sales of the Mac mini (niche SFF market) and the iMac (niche all-in-one market). It wouldn't take much: an upgradable desktop hard drive, basic current-generation NVIDIA or ATI graphics (GeForce 7300 or Radeon x1300), 2-3 PCIe slots, maybe an upgradable optical drive (since Blu Ray is coming).
Slashdot Mirror
Extended support includes security updates and paid incident support. Seven years of support for the home OS and 10-12 years of support for the pro OSs seems pretty generous to me. Both versions of Windows XP will continue to get mainstream support (includes free incident support and requests for OS design/feature changes) until January 2009 at the earliest.
- Penryn is a quad-core notebook processor with 6MB of L2 cache. Unlike today's quad-core Kentsfield, Penryn is a "true/real" quad-core CPU with all four cores on one die. The 6MB of L2 cache is shared among the four cores.
- Yorkfield is an 8-core desktop processor with 2x6MB of L2 cache. Like Kentsfield, Yorkfield is a "cheat" and is really just two quad-core dies (two Penryns) on a single package. However, Kentsfield's early benchmarks have looked pretty good for a "cheat," so I'm reserving judgement on this design decision. I've also read that, similar to how Kentsfield trailed Conroe by a few months, Yorkfield will be released several months after Penryn.
Intel may be "cheating" with Yorkfield, but it looks like Intel ship their "8 cores in one socket" CPU long before AMD can release their "real" 8-core CPU.Some links:
Of course, four FSBs (plus a snoop filter) is still not as efficient as AMD's Direct Connect Architecture, but Intel's current dual-processor server architecture seems to have no problem competing against AMD's current 2P Opteron.
That extra 0.5" diagonal translates to 44% more screen space (if my math is correct). The iPod's 2.5" 4:3 screen has an area of 3.0 square inches (1.5" x 2.0"). The Zune's 3.0" diagonal 4:3 screen has an area of 4.32 square inches (1.8" x 2.4"). I haven't visually compared the two screens, but I think 44% more screen space would be a significant improvement over an iPod screen that's too small.
Also, the iPod's screen ranks very low in photo/video quality comparisons like this one: MP3 and Portable Video Player Picture Quality Shoot-Out
I'm still not convinced that watching videos would be a good experience on a 3" screen, but I think photo viewing should be significantly better on the Zune than the iPod.
Licensing fees will supposedly be less than the "Made for iPod" program. The article also hints that Zune accessories may be able to use the built-in wireless technology.
So, will accessory makers offer many good accessories at Zune's launch, which will supposedly result in good Zune sales? Or will accessory makers wait until Zune is a good seller (if that ever happens)? From what I recall, the iPod accessory market didn't really catch on until the iPod became a hit.
Even without the performance advantages, SATA connectors/cables are a heck of a lot more convenient. Modern motherboards have four to six little SATA ports with no master/slave nonsense. The cables/connectors (including power) are so much thinner, easier to work with, and less likely to get loose. Haven't you ever had a boot problem from a bad PATA or power connection to your hard drive (like I have)?
Dell Precision 490
Mac Pro
- Two Xeon 5160 (3.0GHz Woodcrest) processors
- 1GB (2x512MB) 667MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM
- 250GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive (RAID 5 not available)
- NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB
- One 16x SuperDrive
- Support: AppleCare Protection Plan (3 years warranty and support)
- Integrated 1394a and 1394b
- Price: $5198
There are several options that cannot be made "equivalent" or are difficult to do:I know this can be a little confusing to computer novices. The 3.73GHz Xeon is slower and uses more power than the 3.0GHz Xeon, even though they use the same socket. However, you shouldn't be talking shit, especially about a subject you know little about.
To you early adopters, thanks for all of your free voluntary work building this database. Of course, this information was not meant to be free, so you must pay for this information now.
Since you no longer own those CDs, you must delete all of the ripped files from those CDs. If you don't, you are STEALING. When we catch you, we will sue you for $150,000 per stolen song. If you die before we get our money from you, we'll get our money from you surviving relatives.
Then you don't want your OLD CDs back. You want to buy the new remastered versions that are better than your old CDs. Of course, we told you those old CDs were the best quality you could ever buy, but shame on you for believing us. The new remastered versions are the best, and this time we mean it. In fact, you need to buy new remastered versions of all of the "old" CDs you still possess (BTW, no refunds for the old versions).
From the articles I've read so far (TFA for this story has been Slashdotted), it sounds like Zune will add DRM to files that are wirelessly shared with other Zune players, not to the DRM-free files you transfer from the Zune software (WMP 11?) to the Zune. Adding DRM to your shared, but intitially DRM-free, files may sound like a crap move, but do you think any player (including the iPod) can get away with allowing direct player-to-player copying without adding DRM? This would be similar to file "sharing" like P2P, but on a smaller scale. In the paranoid RIAA's eyes, people could be adding copyrighted music to their players even if they didn't own the original CD.
But can you make a direct transfer from iPod to iPod? Can you easily transfer a DRM-free MP4 file from your iPod to all of your friends' computers? I'd be surprised if the RIAA allowed this.Overall, I think occasional design flops are excusable if Apple's boldness/riskiness results in nice products like the iPod.
If some Mac users are interested in the Zune (and aren't interested in their music store), is there a good Mac alternative to iTunes that can be bundled with the Zune?
Compared to Windows, Linux DVD playback is a much bigger problem. Which DVD drive makers or PC makers bundle Linux DVD decoders? Downloading and installing a Linux DVD decoder is not that hard, but I think it is a significant hurdle for "mainstream" users.
Also, when the "Quad" system failed to shine, it was not blamed solely on the memory. The only benchmarks where the "Quad" didn't shine were the ones that didn't take advantage of the extra two cores, so the extra bandwidth of FB-DIMMs were also not being used.
We saw this same situation when dual processor (single-core CPUs) systems first appeared. At the time, many benchmarks were single-threaded and even some operating systems didn't take advantage of multiple CPUs.
Well, to be more clear: the Mac Pro's Intel 5000X chipset has a quad-channel memory controller, so that's a total memory bandwidth of 21.3 GB/s, right? That matches the total FSB bandwidth of its two independent buses (1333MHz each). So a quad-core Xeon CPU (Cloverton) should be limited by its FSB, but the memory system should be able to handle the data the FSB feeds it.Don't get me wrong, I think 640x480p sounds great for version 1.0 of the movie store (I was fearing 320x240) and I'm sure they'll look very nice on a display that's 1280 pixels wide. If Apple can improve Quicktime's scaler, then iTunes movies should at least look acceptable on all other display resolutions.
The conclusion to Anandtech's review on "draft 802.11n" routers showed just how bad these products can interfere with existing 802.11b/g networks. It's pretty freakin' bad (bold emphasis mine):
So even if you can get good 802.11n performance now, you'd probably be an arsehole to your neighbors (literally crashing their wireless networks). I hope the sellers of "draft n" products include an appropriate warning on their products for those who aren't arseholes.If you read TFA, de-interlacing and scaling are crucial to providing good DVD quality. NVIDIA and ATI provide this with PureVideo and Avivo technologies, which use their recent GPUs, drivers, and updated MPEG2 decoders to give DVD quality that surpasses high-end set top DVD players. The Mac mini provides none of this.
That's one of my pet peaves about non-widescreen 17" and 19" LCDs. Every other popular size uses a 4:3 aspect ratio (e.g. 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200), but 1280x1024 has to be an oddball. I wish they had just been consistent and used a 1280x960 or 1400x1050 resolution instead.
I also find it depressing when people set their 19" CRTs (which are 4:3 physically) to a 1280x1024 resolution. The resulting images are slightly squished vertically.
On the other hand, I may just be an anal-retentive weirdo.
Reasonable Apple users acknowledged Pentium M's superiority over G4, but Apple zealots were in denial. I think many still would be in denial if Apple had not switched to Intel. They'd be crowing about an upcoming dual-core, high-bandwidth notebook CPU from Freescale or some miraculous low-power, dual-core version of the G5 (which used watercooling in the PowerMac).
The search field in the upper-right of Vista Explorer windows might have been adopted from Windows Address Book, which has had a search field in that general area since Windows 98. OS X probably adopted it from iTunes.
From Xerox Star (1981), where it was called the "Wastebasket." I know, Apple copied Xerox first. But the Wastebasket/Trash/Recycle Bin is not an "Apple-ism," it's a Xerox-ism. Can you be more specific? Which icons? Are the "blatant clones" not obvious choices for what they represent (like a magnifying glass for "Search")? Who had a "tray" first?I'm sure Microsoft has "cloned" a lot of Apple features. However, many people incorrectly give Apple credit for things cloned from other companies (e.g. desktop metaphor).