Because it's not PDF, but does the same task. And unlike the bastardized MDI format from XP-2003, XPS is actually going to have a free reader out there.
So you're saying that people should use XPS because, though it won't be well-supported, it will offer the same benefits of an existing well-supported format? Incidentally, much of the appeal of PDF is the fact that it's so well (and widely) supported.
CutePDF isn't "descent" PDF until you pay for it.
No, I was right the first time. "Decent", not "descent". Maybe Word isn't doing its grammar check properly? Anyway, even free, CutePDF (and many other programs) will do what most people need: make PDFs. I can make a PDF for free, no matter what OS I use. Yes, a small number of people actually use other features of Adobe Acrobat, and those people are probably best served by buying Acrobat.
Nobody who cares about hundreds of dollars.
So... you're agreeing that nobody should go out and buy Office 2007 unless they have no problem wasting hundreds of dollars? If you care about hundreds of dollars per PC, however, don't bother?
It is either overkill or underkill for just about every "task" that it does... and yet, no F/OSS tool out there does everything that Word does for a writer as elegantly.
I've just had a lot of IT experience, and for what most people use Word for, all you'd really need is Wordpad with a spellcheck. Except for the part about reading/saving DOC formats, which is just artificial vendor lock-in created by Microsoft in order to sell more copies of Office. In my mind, that's just a terrific business reason to avoid saving anything in DOC format. People shouldn't be in a position to need to pay an outside company in order to access their own data. For many purposes, RTF would suffice.
XML format: If I want a good XML file format, I'd sooner trust OpenOffice
XPS: why would I want that?
PDF: you can get decent PDF creation with free software. There are a bunch of different options. I like CutePDF
Blogging: Who in their right mind would pay hundreds of dollars for a Microsoft Word upgrade, just so they can use Word to post to their blog? There are loads of ways to post to your weblog, free options, and MS Word seems like it's more than overkill. In fact, for what most people use Word for, it's overkill.
Re:Microsoft and/or Windows have hit the wall?
on
WinFS Gets the Axe
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· Score: 1
I think you might be right. I'm accustomed to a bit of Microsoft bashing, but at heart, I'm always a bit excited to try out new stuff. I was really optimistic while downloading Vista beta2, and I downloaded it and tried it, and it was just shockingly bad. Really-- and I'm not just talking about the sort of bugs you'd expect from betas, I mean the whole thing made me really eager to wipe the thing out and go back to XP. Nothing seemed to work, the "interface improvements" made things prettier but harder to do anything, and I was prompted for my password every 2 seconds.
And that's my opinion when I'm trying to be fair.
For the first time, I'm seriously wondering whether Microsoft should switch to an open-source model. I mean, we've all joked about that (or maybe some of us weren't joking), but I'm serious this time. It seems like MS is incapable of making real improvements, and they need new blood somehow. Sure, it would diminish their ability to leverage their existing market share, even if they started using all open standards, let alone open source. However, if they're going to be releasing software remotely as bad as this beta version of Vista, it might take more than the leverage of their current dominance to push people to buy their products.
Either way, I'm thinking they really need to change something. It's looking as ugly as Apple did before the return of Jobs.
It's not messed up and backwards, it's just the record companies purposefully taking advantage of the fact the artists didn't have digital distribution in mind when negotiating their contracts.
Think about it; really, it makes some sense that Apple would be charging some money for their portion of the process. They're storing all the files. They're providing the bandwidth. They're developing the storefront. They're doing the QA on all the data. They're running the customer support. They're promoting the thing.
Now what does the record company do? They have a one-time investment to collect the songs and album art, and send them to Apple in digital form. Once that's been done, the record companies do pretty much nothing.
So why is anyone blaming Apple? Apple takes a relatively small portion to cover their costs, and the record companies make a bundle off of virtually no expense. Out of whose cut do you think the artist should be paid?
The single most important step for me would be transparent authentication, via certs, whatever. As phishing becomes more insidious and the stakes go up, someday someone (or a bunch of someones) will be phished severely, escalating the urgency of authentication.
These are all good ideas, but whenever it comes to any sort of standardized authentication with certs, it always raises the same problems with me: who's granting the certs, and what about when we want to communicate anonymously?
Depending on the process of granting certification, it might be like Windows activation: it's usually a bigger hassle for people who are complying than people who aren't. Pirates just get the corporate version of Windows that doesn't require activation. Likewise, spammers will find some loophole that lets them generate thousands of certificates a day, whereas you and I will need to go through some stupid process that's a total pain. Nothing will have changed.
And anonymity? I don't want to be unable to send an e-mail without the recipient people able to easily attach that to my real life identity. I'm all for eliminating spam, but there is no freedom without anonymity.
That's something else. Notice that, under that table, it's saying you have have an 8 bit depth for a true color PNG with alpha? I don't know for sure what it's talking about there, but that isn't the color bit-depth. There's no way to get true color with alpha in 8-bit color.
But look at that table, and you'll see that PNGs can be greyscale, truecolor, indexed color, greyscale with alpha, or truecolor with alpha. That means we're talking about 8-bit (greyscale), 24-bit (true), 8-bit (indexed), 16-bit (greyscale w/a), or 32-bit (true w/a).
Last I heard, there wasn't any official 16 bit PNG. I think W3C recognizes 8-bit, 16-bit grayscale, 24-bit, 24-bit+alpha. Since any 16-bit PNG is unofficial, most apps won't make them.
Mostly, what this tells you is that Microsoft is confused and doesn't know what they are doing in this area.
Yeah, but I've thought that about a LOT of areas that Microsoft still seems to have acquired at least a foothold in those areas. All they really need to do is make it the default format for their OS and their apps, and 90% of people will start using it, even if they don't know they're using it. And once it becomes semi-common, it's another real barrier to using any other OS, because you know they aren't going to make the format open.
And that's what they really want. Licensing fees are just the icing on the cake.
There's nothing wrong with PDF. It's absolutely true that many things would be better suited for HTML, but HTML and PDF are different formats with different purposes. You wouldn't try to use HTML to store a photograph, and you wouldn't use PNG to store a web page, but that doesn't mean that either standard sucks.
PDF is "Portable Document Format", and make no mistake, that's a print document we're talking about. If you want to be able to send a document to someone, containing text and pictures, in a single file, and be able to control exactly how it'll look online or printed, few formats are better.
If you just want to send text, few formats are better than a plain text file. In that case, even HTML is overkill.
It's a bit hard to know. Right now, if they switched to a general-purpose OS, Microsoft might just flip out and kill MS Office support, which could turn into a problem for Apple. In short, Microsoft is in such a position to leverage their market position, and shown no aversion to doing so, that nobody wants to take them on.
On the other hand, Apple hardware is pretty nice and really not that expensive for what you get. I know, it's supposed to be really expensive, according to what you hear, but it really isn't. Find a matching Dell with the same screen size/quality, weight, thickness, built in webcam, etc., and maybe Apple has a slight markup.
So yes, I think Apple, forced to choose, might very well try to compete with Sony/Dell than Microsoft. Of course, it would change the culture immensely and make it into an entirely different company to become either hardware-only or software-only.
They are a software company if you count iWork, Final Cut, Aperture, Logic, etc. But you're right, OSX and iLife aren't products so much as they're value-added to the platform being sold, the hardware/software combo that is "Macintosh".
Still, that would make them a "platform" company or something. They're selling the whole package, but they don't really make enough money off of OSX itself to justify development.
I don't take issue with the idea tha Mac users aren't all brilliant about computers. My statement about "hold-overs" knowing lots about Macintoshes but little about computers-- the "lots about Macintoshes" are all pretty trivial. They know about about what key-combos do what and what all the code-names were for which products, but not anything about what a "firewall" is.
In general, I don't think Mac users, as a group, are particularly "computer savvy". Maybe moreso than the average user, but if so, only by a little (which isn't hard to do since the average is retarded). Also, if they're more literate than averyage, it's only because Windows is sort of the "default" OS. It's what people get when they don't know enough to have a preference.
But no, on average, Mac users don't know much about computers, just as, on average, Windows users don't know much about computers. However, these days, very few Mac users use Macintoshes because they "don't want to know about computers".
They buy Macs specifically to *avoid* having to know anything about technology.
That used to be true, but these days, people who know nothing about computers like to use "normal computers", by which they mean MS Windows. In my experience (which is fairly extensive), current Macintosh users break into a couple of groups:
Hold-overs: They've been using Macintoshes since Apple was big the first time. They're fans. They know off-hand which model of Macintosh was new in 1992, and can tell you the code-name of that model. These people know lots about Macintoshes, but little about computers in general.
Hipsters: Apple is cool now, and people who want the cool computer to match their iPod and the rest of their home-decor buy iMacs.
Pros: People who work in graphic design, audio, or movies were trained on Macintoshes, and that's what they're used to, so they tend to want to stick with it. It's like a tradition-- that's what graphic designers used at first, so when they trained people, they trained them on Macintoshes, and so those trainees used Macintoshes and trained their trainees on Macintoshes, and so on. Also, being "artistic", they want their computers to be pretty.
Geeks: The geek mac users have been in an up-swing. These are people who are anti-Microsoft, pro-Unix, but prefer the experience of using Aqua to Gnome|KDE|Xfce, or just want more support for natively running major applications such as MS Office or Photoshop.
By-standers: People who have been influenced in some way by one of the above groups. After a couple years of having their trusted friend/relative saying, "You should use a Macintosh," they gave in.
There may be a couple others, but those are the major groups I can think of. And none of them are using Macintoshes to avoid knowing about computers. In fact, most of them believe that they're using Macintoshes because they know better than 90% of the people out there.
Well, Macintoshes could be infected by a virus. There's no reason why Macintoshes are immune or anything. However.....
Symantec, McAfee, and the like have been urging Mac users to buy antivirus software for years. There's always this threat that someone might write some very bad viruses soon, and those viruses never materialized. So if you bought an anti-virus 4 years ago, and paid for all the updates, you've pretty much wasted your money.
Also, I think it's worth noting that for anyone who knows what they're doing, viruses tend to be a relatively small problem. I've been using computers for over 20 years, and do you know how often I've had a virus scanner on my personal computer find a virus? Once. And that was back in the day when I was trading 3.5" floppys with friends to get Doom. If you run windows with a decent firewall and don't run programs that unknown people e-mail to you, you'll generally be fine. And that's on Windows.
So, yes, I do think it's a little over-dramatic to claim that OSX users should rush out and buy a virus scanner, because you'll just be waiting for the virus scanner will have viruses to scan for, and even when they come, chances are you won't get them unless you're a retard.
There is also another inherent danger in choosing the Microsoft standard - who's to say that Microsoft, once getting it approved by a standard, will actually *follow* their own standard? What's to prevent them, once having an ISO-standard that's widely accepted, to implement small but important, non-open extensions in their next version?
I probably wasn't clear, but my point was, it's not Microsoft Office that's evil, per se, but the use of any closed standard by Microsoft Office that makes Microsoft Office evil. If Microsoft Office were opening/saving ODF by default (and really conforming to the standard), I wouldn't really be trying to convince people to switch, so long as MS Office met their needs. Because what would be the problem then?
However, once there is full interoperability between MS Office and OOo, I think most people's needs will be met by OOo. And who will use MS, given the difference in price tag?
I just think it's more important that everyone adhere to open standards rather than trying to insist that every piece of software be open source.
Open standards preserve a level playing field, presenting a strong hurdle to any company trying to abuse it's position and market forces to force people to use a specific product. For any specific product, all anyone needs to do is follow the same data-exchange formats (which would be open), and you have a drop in replacement-- no one needs to know the difference. Then, it all becomes about who is providing the best product, not who is in the best position to get away with anti-competitive practices.
So what I'm saying is, we shouldn't take the approach of being completely anti-Microsoft. Every reasonable person should be demanding of Microsoft that they use real, open standards, or that they really open their own standards with no funny business. (I think that should be one of the restrictions put on them by the anti-trust case)
Once they do that, I say let the best man win. If Microsoft is making better products at a better price, but using open standards and not engaging in anti-competitive practices, then of course you should buy their products. Until they're doing those things, and whenever they break from doing those things, I think we should all work towards not quitting their products, and be clear about why.
I'm glad someone said this. We shouldn't be investing in getting people to stop using Microsoft Office. Why should they stop, so long as that program suits their purposes? The issue here is that, ideally, no company will be able to hold my data hostage, punish me, or blackmail me for choosing not to use their product.
It's an issue of freedom. We should all demand open standards be used for data exchanges so that we have the ability to do with our data as we choose. Microsoft should not be in a position to use market forces to force people to buy products that they don't want.
So any machine, made by anyone, that is a personal computer, but doesn't support DOS 3 and OS2, is not a PC?
So Dell is unlikely to be selling PCs in 5 years? Do you really think that's the common usage of PC? I don't think many would agree.
I think PC is generally intended (these days) to mean "personal computer". It also has a meaning that is "not a Mac" that's a hold-over from when the IBM-compatible computers were a significantly different architecture from Apple's offerings. However, these days, Apple switching to Intel and all, the hardware differences between my MacBook and a high-end Dell or Sony laptop are negligible.
I'm not sure why that's meaningful. They have BIOS emulation now. It's doubtful that other vendors will stick with BIOS long-term. If Dell switches to EFI, will they cease to be a "PC vendor"?
Also, "democracy" in modern language usually refers to representative forms of government even in most political discussions.
Actually, in common usage in political discussions, "democracy" is usually used to indicate "any government which we don't consider evil". It's become a catch-phrase, meaningless except that people like it as a word. When you say a government is a "democracy", people think, "Oh, then it's fine." They don't inquire further as to whether the people are actually a force in the government. It could be a monarchy, and if it's a good government, people will say "it has democratic ideals!" On the other hand, you can have a country that has elections, and people still won't call it a "democracy" if it's a sufficiently corrupt/evil government/country.
Isn't that a bad thing though? This is a computer, it's not really a matter of pure opinion. Like a car being sold there are serious selling points that can not be contested such as miles per gallon and so on.
Sure, but do people actually buy cars based on MPG? Maybe they'll start, but surely they haven't been. And watch car commercials. Are they rational appeals based on sound argument and real facts about the advantages of that car?
Name a company that actually puts real advantages of their product in their commercials. There may be some, but they're rare. Certainly Microsoft's "Where do you want to go today?" and Dell's "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" were emotional appeals. Why? Because that's what commercials are.
How is a Mac, these days, not IBM PC compatible?...
...I'm really thinking about this one. I mean, the difference between a Dell laptop and an Apple laptop, vs. the difference between a Dell laptop and a Sony laptop?....
It runs a different OS? So... if I install Linux on my Dell, it's not a PC, but if I install Windows on my Mac, it is a PC?....
Anyway, America isn't a democracy, it is a constitutional representitive republic. It might not matter much in casual conversation when you aren't really talking about government/politics, but once you're talking about the setup of our government, it's a meaningful distinction.
This new campaign is flat out calling PC users fat dorks. The potential switcher I know are tech savvy cool users, and could potentially be offended by this portrayal.
Maybe it's too subtle for the audience, but it's calling Windows computers "fat dorks". Yeah, it's weird, but the "cool guy" actually represents a Mac, and the "fat dork" is a Windows machine.
Apple should spend more time making it easier to switch -- like including a "start menu" equivalent, using the defacto standard "ctrl-c & ctrl-v" type shortcut keys, better windows-style support for right-click instead of always having to use ctrl-click to get a pop-up menu, real windows-style "uninstall" functionality.
So, you're suggesting that Apple drops their better designs for Microsoft's worse designs? Apple has "command-C" & "command-V" shortcut keys that work great, and if you ask me, the key placement is better than using the control key. But it's a minor thing, takes two seconds to get used to.
As far as installing/uninstalling, I wish Apple developers would side more heavily with Apple's traditional drag/drop install/uninstall. However, the point is, it's ALL the developer, nothing to do with Apple. In case you didn't realize, it is possible to install something in Windows but not have it appear in "Add/Remove Programs" or offer any other uninstall capabilities. It's a question of developers.
Many programs in OSX (of those which use install programs at all) offer the ability to uninstall.
Why do they need a slogan, though? It seems like their advertising is purposefully minimalistic, and it does have its effect. While most of the computer industry seem like snake-oil salesmen with catchy, meaningless slogans and tag-words, selling you things that you don't need and that don't work anyway-- Apple seems to be sending the message that they simply offer a good tool. I mean, people know "Where do you want to go today?" and also know that it means nothing.
Of all the complaints I can imagine about Apple, bad marketing/PR isn't one I'd expect. Talk to some people in marketing and advertising, and you'll find that Apple is one of those brands that people look to as a model of "what to do".
I agree with you that you, and maybe there aren't any good reasons for you to buy a Mac. Not that there aren't reasons for buying a Mac, but maybe those reasons just don't apply to you. What lots of people like about them is just that the experience of using them seems "nicer" or "more comfortable". That's hard to explain in a 30 second ad, but if you want to see if that's the case for you, the most valid thing would be to suggest you just try one out for a while. Find a friend with a Mac and see if you can borrow it or play on it. Buy a Mac mini from a store with a liberal return policy, and if you don't like it, return it. I don't know....
But the thing is, this is a commercial. Commercials these days aren't informative. Sure, there is a little information in there about the good things Apple has to offer, but mostly they're aiming for the same sort of influence on the audience that the Buweiser frogs have on the beer-buying public.
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Because it's not PDF, but does the same task. And unlike the bastardized MDI format from XP-2003, XPS is actually going to have a free reader out there.
So you're saying that people should use XPS because, though it won't be well-supported, it will offer the same benefits of an existing well-supported format? Incidentally, much of the appeal of PDF is the fact that it's so well (and widely) supported.
CutePDF isn't "descent" PDF until you pay for it.
No, I was right the first time. "Decent", not "descent". Maybe Word isn't doing its grammar check properly? Anyway, even free, CutePDF (and many other programs) will do what most people need: make PDFs. I can make a PDF for free, no matter what OS I use. Yes, a small number of people actually use other features of Adobe Acrobat, and those people are probably best served by buying Acrobat.
Nobody who cares about hundreds of dollars.
So... you're agreeing that nobody should go out and buy Office 2007 unless they have no problem wasting hundreds of dollars? If you care about hundreds of dollars per PC, however, don't bother?
It is either overkill or underkill for just about every "task" that it does... and yet, no F/OSS tool out there does everything that Word does for a writer as elegantly.
I've just had a lot of IT experience, and for what most people use Word for, all you'd really need is Wordpad with a spellcheck. Except for the part about reading/saving DOC formats, which is just artificial vendor lock-in created by Microsoft in order to sell more copies of Office. In my mind, that's just a terrific business reason to avoid saving anything in DOC format. People shouldn't be in a position to need to pay an outside company in order to access their own data. For many purposes, RTF would suffice.
XML format: If I want a good XML file format, I'd sooner trust OpenOffice
XPS: why would I want that?
PDF: you can get decent PDF creation with free software. There are a bunch of different options. I like CutePDF
Blogging: Who in their right mind would pay hundreds of dollars for a Microsoft Word upgrade, just so they can use Word to post to their blog? There are loads of ways to post to your weblog, free options, and MS Word seems like it's more than overkill. In fact, for what most people use Word for, it's overkill.
I think you might be right. I'm accustomed to a bit of Microsoft bashing, but at heart, I'm always a bit excited to try out new stuff. I was really optimistic while downloading Vista beta2, and I downloaded it and tried it, and it was just shockingly bad. Really-- and I'm not just talking about the sort of bugs you'd expect from betas, I mean the whole thing made me really eager to wipe the thing out and go back to XP. Nothing seemed to work, the "interface improvements" made things prettier but harder to do anything, and I was prompted for my password every 2 seconds.
And that's my opinion when I'm trying to be fair.
For the first time, I'm seriously wondering whether Microsoft should switch to an open-source model. I mean, we've all joked about that (or maybe some of us weren't joking), but I'm serious this time. It seems like MS is incapable of making real improvements, and they need new blood somehow. Sure, it would diminish their ability to leverage their existing market share, even if they started using all open standards, let alone open source. However, if they're going to be releasing software remotely as bad as this beta version of Vista, it might take more than the leverage of their current dominance to push people to buy their products.
Either way, I'm thinking they really need to change something. It's looking as ugly as Apple did before the return of Jobs.
It's not messed up and backwards, it's just the record companies purposefully taking advantage of the fact the artists didn't have digital distribution in mind when negotiating their contracts.
Think about it; really, it makes some sense that Apple would be charging some money for their portion of the process. They're storing all the files. They're providing the bandwidth. They're developing the storefront. They're doing the QA on all the data. They're running the customer support. They're promoting the thing.
Now what does the record company do? They have a one-time investment to collect the songs and album art, and send them to Apple in digital form. Once that's been done, the record companies do pretty much nothing.
So why is anyone blaming Apple? Apple takes a relatively small portion to cover their costs, and the record companies make a bundle off of virtually no expense. Out of whose cut do you think the artist should be paid?
These are all good ideas, but whenever it comes to any sort of standardized authentication with certs, it always raises the same problems with me: who's granting the certs, and what about when we want to communicate anonymously?
Depending on the process of granting certification, it might be like Windows activation: it's usually a bigger hassle for people who are complying than people who aren't. Pirates just get the corporate version of Windows that doesn't require activation. Likewise, spammers will find some loophole that lets them generate thousands of certificates a day, whereas you and I will need to go through some stupid process that's a total pain. Nothing will have changed.
And anonymity? I don't want to be unable to send an e-mail without the recipient people able to easily attach that to my real life identity. I'm all for eliminating spam, but there is no freedom without anonymity.
But look at that table, and you'll see that PNGs can be greyscale, truecolor, indexed color, greyscale with alpha, or truecolor with alpha. That means we're talking about 8-bit (greyscale), 24-bit (true), 8-bit (indexed), 16-bit (greyscale w/a), or 32-bit (true w/a).
Last I heard, there wasn't any official 16 bit PNG. I think W3C recognizes 8-bit, 16-bit grayscale, 24-bit, 24-bit+alpha. Since any 16-bit PNG is unofficial, most apps won't make them.
Yeah, but I've thought that about a LOT of areas that Microsoft still seems to have acquired at least a foothold in those areas. All they really need to do is make it the default format for their OS and their apps, and 90% of people will start using it, even if they don't know they're using it. And once it becomes semi-common, it's another real barrier to using any other OS, because you know they aren't going to make the format open. And that's what they really want. Licensing fees are just the icing on the cake.
PDF is "Portable Document Format", and make no mistake, that's a print document we're talking about. If you want to be able to send a document to someone, containing text and pictures, in a single file, and be able to control exactly how it'll look online or printed, few formats are better.
If you just want to send text, few formats are better than a plain text file. In that case, even HTML is overkill.
On the other hand, Apple hardware is pretty nice and really not that expensive for what you get. I know, it's supposed to be really expensive, according to what you hear, but it really isn't. Find a matching Dell with the same screen size/quality, weight, thickness, built in webcam, etc., and maybe Apple has a slight markup.
So yes, I think Apple, forced to choose, might very well try to compete with Sony/Dell than Microsoft. Of course, it would change the culture immensely and make it into an entirely different company to become either hardware-only or software-only.
They are a software company if you count iWork, Final Cut, Aperture, Logic, etc. But you're right, OSX and iLife aren't products so much as they're value-added to the platform being sold, the hardware/software combo that is "Macintosh".
Still, that would make them a "platform" company or something. They're selling the whole package, but they don't really make enough money off of OSX itself to justify development.
In general, I don't think Mac users, as a group, are particularly "computer savvy". Maybe moreso than the average user, but if so, only by a little (which isn't hard to do since the average is retarded). Also, if they're more literate than averyage, it's only because Windows is sort of the "default" OS. It's what people get when they don't know enough to have a preference.
But no, on average, Mac users don't know much about computers, just as, on average, Windows users don't know much about computers. However, these days, very few Mac users use Macintoshes because they "don't want to know about computers".
That used to be true, but these days, people who know nothing about computers like to use "normal computers", by which they mean MS Windows. In my experience (which is fairly extensive), current Macintosh users break into a couple of groups:
There may be a couple others, but those are the major groups I can think of. And none of them are using Macintoshes to avoid knowing about computers. In fact, most of them believe that they're using Macintoshes because they know better than 90% of the people out there.
Symantec, McAfee, and the like have been urging Mac users to buy antivirus software for years. There's always this threat that someone might write some very bad viruses soon, and those viruses never materialized. So if you bought an anti-virus 4 years ago, and paid for all the updates, you've pretty much wasted your money.
Also, I think it's worth noting that for anyone who knows what they're doing, viruses tend to be a relatively small problem. I've been using computers for over 20 years, and do you know how often I've had a virus scanner on my personal computer find a virus? Once. And that was back in the day when I was trading 3.5" floppys with friends to get Doom. If you run windows with a decent firewall and don't run programs that unknown people e-mail to you, you'll generally be fine. And that's on Windows.
So, yes, I do think it's a little over-dramatic to claim that OSX users should rush out and buy a virus scanner, because you'll just be waiting for the virus scanner will have viruses to scan for, and even when they come, chances are you won't get them unless you're a retard.
Sorry, "I think we should all work towards quitting their products, and be clear about why."
I probably wasn't clear, but my point was, it's not Microsoft Office that's evil, per se, but the use of any closed standard by Microsoft Office that makes Microsoft Office evil. If Microsoft Office were opening/saving ODF by default (and really conforming to the standard), I wouldn't really be trying to convince people to switch, so long as MS Office met their needs. Because what would be the problem then?
However, once there is full interoperability between MS Office and OOo, I think most people's needs will be met by OOo. And who will use MS, given the difference in price tag?
I just think it's more important that everyone adhere to open standards rather than trying to insist that every piece of software be open source.
Open standards preserve a level playing field, presenting a strong hurdle to any company trying to abuse it's position and market forces to force people to use a specific product. For any specific product, all anyone needs to do is follow the same data-exchange formats (which would be open), and you have a drop in replacement-- no one needs to know the difference. Then, it all becomes about who is providing the best product, not who is in the best position to get away with anti-competitive practices.
So what I'm saying is, we shouldn't take the approach of being completely anti-Microsoft. Every reasonable person should be demanding of Microsoft that they use real, open standards, or that they really open their own standards with no funny business. (I think that should be one of the restrictions put on them by the anti-trust case)
Once they do that, I say let the best man win. If Microsoft is making better products at a better price, but using open standards and not engaging in anti-competitive practices, then of course you should buy their products. Until they're doing those things, and whenever they break from doing those things, I think we should all work towards not quitting their products, and be clear about why.
It's an issue of freedom. We should all demand open standards be used for data exchanges so that we have the ability to do with our data as we choose. Microsoft should not be in a position to use market forces to force people to buy products that they don't want.
So Dell is unlikely to be selling PCs in 5 years? Do you really think that's the common usage of PC? I don't think many would agree.
I think PC is generally intended (these days) to mean "personal computer". It also has a meaning that is "not a Mac" that's a hold-over from when the IBM-compatible computers were a significantly different architecture from Apple's offerings. However, these days, Apple switching to Intel and all, the hardware differences between my MacBook and a high-end Dell or Sony laptop are negligible.
I'm not sure why that's meaningful. They have BIOS emulation now. It's doubtful that other vendors will stick with BIOS long-term. If Dell switches to EFI, will they cease to be a "PC vendor"?
Also, "democracy" in modern language usually refers to representative forms of government even in most political discussions.
Actually, in common usage in political discussions, "democracy" is usually used to indicate "any government which we don't consider evil". It's become a catch-phrase, meaningless except that people like it as a word. When you say a government is a "democracy", people think, "Oh, then it's fine." They don't inquire further as to whether the people are actually a force in the government. It could be a monarchy, and if it's a good government, people will say "it has democratic ideals!" On the other hand, you can have a country that has elections, and people still won't call it a "democracy" if it's a sufficiently corrupt/evil government/country.
But that's all WAY off topic.
Sure, but do people actually buy cars based on MPG? Maybe they'll start, but surely they haven't been. And watch car commercials. Are they rational appeals based on sound argument and real facts about the advantages of that car?
Name a company that actually puts real advantages of their product in their commercials. There may be some, but they're rare. Certainly Microsoft's "Where do you want to go today?" and Dell's "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" were emotional appeals. Why? Because that's what commercials are.
...I'm really thinking about this one. I mean, the difference between a Dell laptop and an Apple laptop, vs. the difference between a Dell laptop and a Sony laptop?....
It runs a different OS? So... if I install Linux on my Dell, it's not a PC, but if I install Windows on my Mac, it is a PC?....
Anyway, America isn't a democracy, it is a constitutional representitive republic. It might not matter much in casual conversation when you aren't really talking about government/politics, but once you're talking about the setup of our government, it's a meaningful distinction.
Maybe it's too subtle for the audience, but it's calling Windows computers "fat dorks". Yeah, it's weird, but the "cool guy" actually represents a Mac, and the "fat dork" is a Windows machine.
Apple should spend more time making it easier to switch -- like including a "start menu" equivalent, using the defacto standard "ctrl-c & ctrl-v" type shortcut keys, better windows-style support for right-click instead of always having to use ctrl-click to get a pop-up menu, real windows-style "uninstall" functionality.
So, you're suggesting that Apple drops their better designs for Microsoft's worse designs? Apple has "command-C" & "command-V" shortcut keys that work great, and if you ask me, the key placement is better than using the control key. But it's a minor thing, takes two seconds to get used to.
As far as installing/uninstalling, I wish Apple developers would side more heavily with Apple's traditional drag/drop install/uninstall. However, the point is, it's ALL the developer, nothing to do with Apple. In case you didn't realize, it is possible to install something in Windows but not have it appear in "Add/Remove Programs" or offer any other uninstall capabilities. It's a question of developers.
Many programs in OSX (of those which use install programs at all) offer the ability to uninstall.
Of all the complaints I can imagine about Apple, bad marketing/PR isn't one I'd expect. Talk to some people in marketing and advertising, and you'll find that Apple is one of those brands that people look to as a model of "what to do".
But the thing is, this is a commercial. Commercials these days aren't informative. Sure, there is a little information in there about the good things Apple has to offer, but mostly they're aiming for the same sort of influence on the audience that the Buweiser frogs have on the beer-buying public.