I've been a loyal NetFlix customer for a while. Their site is well made and their service works as advertised. Contrast this to the terrible experiences I've had with Blockbuster in the past. But I'm not one to hold a grudge. Blockbuster can win me back by making the right moves. They offer in store swapping of movies which is a small win, but not enough to make me switch. Now, they want to compete with NetFlix download service, which is all well and good, and which targets the same audience, people who want a particular movie right now. NetFlix does not support the Mac at all. All Blockbuster needs to do for me to take a serious look is to support one of the several DRM'd video formats for the Mac. Instead they paired with Movielink, whose service does not support the Mac or the iPod or the PSP. Also, their Web site is obviously broken in standards compliant Web browsers.
Congratulations Blockbuster. You found the chink in NetFlix armor, and then completely ignored it. Enjoy your death spiral.
Then again, MS Office is not (yet) a universal binary, so it's still running under Rosetta on new Macs, so the comparison isn't fair.
Fair?!? It is a comparison of the available options. I don't care if one company is slow to release new version, I just care about what is available. Currently, Word is slow, unresponsive, and resource intensive. I'd rather use something that is the opposite of that. I don't care if it is a new version of MS Office or iWork, although I also care about usability and feature set.
Interesting. I haven't noticed any problems with the very few PDFs I've generated from Pages. We test out PDFs with Preview, Acrobat, and XPDF, but we don't always print them on different printers. I've never had any problem printing to anything we tried using.
...and one can even forget submitting such documents to most boutique online presses because most reject PDFs made with the Apple subsystem.
Hmm, we've only changed printers twice, but a lot of our files are from the Apple PDF subsystem and none of the three had any problem processing our PDFs. Maybe we got lucky.
If the PDF export is much improved, I will be very happy because I love the simplicity of Pages.
I wouldn't count on it. The PDF generation is built into OS X, so I'd bet on fixes in Leopard, not iWork 08.
In my experience Pages loads faster than Word and is much more responsive and uses a lot fewer resources than Word. I just opened a.doc file in both programs and it took Word approximately 50% more time to open it and it is consuming twice as much RAM. When opening a native file for each program, Pages loads about 300% faster than Word.
You can claim both are bloated, but one is clearly better than the other. What word processor would you consider to be not bloated?
I mean there's a world of difference between using an environment as your main way of working with the computer, and merely keeping it running for the purpose of using a program on it.
I use all my OS's as a way to run programs. Whether an OS is hosted in a VM or hosts other OS's is something I determine by what combination provides me the most functionality, not which one is my "favorite."
Look, this isn't an OS pissing contest. I'm glad that you'd rather use OS X. I'd rather not.
That wasn't an attack on your favorite OS, it was attempting to answer your question as to what my "main" OS is, although the question seems flawed to me.
No. I have a perfectly suitable workflow using Linux development tools. I have no interest in using OS X software for anything other than testing. know Windows and OS X, I just don't choose to use them. Do you really think ignorance is the only explanation for not using OS X? You really come across as a zealot.
I see it exactly the opposite. I use whatever tools work the best,on the best OS they run on for my purpose. You are not interested in any tools that are different from what you already use on Linux. That makes you a lot more of a "zealot" than I am, don't you think?
Having to do it every time I change a line or two of code? No thanks.
You asked for the best option to run Linux, Windows, and OS X on a new Mac. I was just letting you know my opinions based upon experience. If that isn't good enough, that's fine.
Stop trying to tell me that OS X is better, especially when everything you mention is insignificant to me.
I'm mentioning reasons why it is better that pertain to choosing which OS is a client OS and which is a host OS for VMs. It doesn't matter to me what you pick and I'm not trying to convince you to make a given choice, just providing info.
Look, I'm all for a healthy amount of advocacy, but in future, if you see somebody post "I've got no interest in abandoning Linux/KDE for OS X"
Who's talking about abandoning Linux and KDE. I was talking about running Linux on top of OS X. I mentioned running KDE on top of OS X. I'm not emotionally committed to any OS since I use three OS's daily for the things they are best suited. In my opinion, OS X is best suited as a host OS, largely due to the limitations of using it as a client OS. I don't care if you have decided that is not for you, that's fine, but the remaining options are all poor.
Like I said, I want to run Safari for the purpose of testing. Running the Windows port is not adequate for testing compatibility with Safari running on OS X.
That's too bad. I haven't seen a lot of discrepancy between the two versions and using just one for smoke testing works works for the developers where I work, although QA does a more formal testing with both platforms at a later time. In smaller shops where QA and development are the same guy, I can see where someone with strict quality rules might need both.
There's a difference between "works" and "runs well". Do you use either of those as your main environment?
What do you mean by "main environment?" I use both Linux and Windows for specific programs, which I run pretty much constantly and which are critical for my workflow. Things like Adobe Framemaker on Windows and Inkscape on Linux (the OS X port sucks). All things equal, I'd rather run an application in OS X, since OS X allows me to use arbitrary system services functionality while Windows and Linux do not. That said, some applications are only available for one platform or function better on a platform. This is usually more important than the OS's contribution.
I'm not sure what you mean by that, but it doesn't sound like it has any relevance to a web developer who just wants to run Safari for testing purposes.
Presumably, when you have multiple platforms running, a user might want to take advantage of programs for that platform. For example, a Web develop might want to take advantage of OmniWeb's in place editing for HTML or a user might just want to run GraphicConverter for batch image processing. Every platform has a few applications that are the best tool for a given job. I suppose a user with multiple OS's running via VMs could ignore those and stick with just the platform they know, but I don't know many users who actually do that.
Thanks, but dual-booting isn't an option. I don't want to have to stop what I'm doing in Linux just to load Safari. Example: altering a page in Kate while reloading in Safari to check the changes.
It is supposedly on a few second delay to suspend and switch over, but another poster claims the feature may have been dropped. As I said, the alternative is to try to hack a VM and OS X to get it working as a guest platform, something unsupported by every major VM vendor I know of.
I don't care. When it comes to new hardware, I just do a clean install. My home directory is loaded from the network.
Does this hold true for your portable as well? I haven't had to do a clean install for years. What about other user accounts on your machine? What about applications available to all users instead of installed as a given user? What about when you switch chipsets (like 32 to 64 bit) do you reinstall all your applications?
It sounds like a major pain in the butt to me, especially now that I'm used to one click setup for new machines.
Please don't try to convince me to switch. I think OS X is neat and I recommend it to friends and family, but it just isn't for me.
Specifically what is the problem? Almost all the hard core Linux and BSD developers I know have migrated to OS X for their desktop and most seem pretty unwilling to go back. Seriously, the major disadvantage is that you have to run it on Apple hardware, which limits your choices. If you're already doing that, I don't know why you wouldn't run OS X as the base OS.
...having to use the godawful OS X interface all day every day.
I disagree about the interface (and I've done a significant amount of work doing interface design and usability testing) but assuming you don't want to change your habits, what's wrong with X11 and your window manager of choice on OS X?
Thanks for the input though. It looks like I'm probably going to do the usual, and build a new machine from parts while sticking with my clunky old Mac laptop for testing.
Good luck. An alternative might be to run Safari on Windows and see if any bugs are platform specific on Safari.
But the more important announcement (IMHO) is iWork which now includes Numbers
Agreed. The feature list and Excel compatibility are a big win for some of us. I'm tired of using MS Office for the Mac, because it is slow and bloated, and prone to crash. A lighter, more nimble competitor is very welcome for my light spreadsheet needs. I avoid OpenOffice on the Mac as well, since it is likewise not really there yet.
The improvements to Pages also seem significant, with some real layout power (and separate layout and word processing modes). Hopefully this will make for a lightweight Framemaker/InDesign replacement for smaller jobs. In fact, the main thing missing from iWork for my needs is ODF support.
I'm strongly considering getting a Mac for my next desktop, but I've got no interest in abandoning Linux/KDE for OS X. I want to run OS X in a virtual machine when I need to test, same as I currently do with Windows. Does anybody have any experience with this? I know plenty of people are doing it the other way around, but I prefer Linux/KDE to OS X.
It can be done, but you will not be getting any support from the major VM players, since running OS X in a VM is only obeying the license if it is on Mac hardware, and the market for people willing to shell out for a Mac, but who don't want to use OS X as their base OS, is really, really small.
Personally, I run Windows and Kubuntu on top of OS X and it works just fine. I'm not sure what you lose over the setup you propose and I know what you gain, support for system services for native applications. If you're intent upon running Linux not in an emulation environment, I recommend waiting for Leopard and using Bootcamp. The rapid suspend will let you quickly switch between OS X and Linux, both running natively (with one suspended and one running). You can run Windows on top of your Linux install.
Something to consider is that Linux is quite a ways behind OS X when it comes to automatically moving to new hardware. One of the nicest things I've found with OS X is that when I get new hardware, I simply select the upgrade from and old machine option and all my files, applications, passwords, user accounts, etc. are migrated to the new machine over a firewire connection. When using OS X as the base OS, this includes my Linux and Windows VMs, but I don't know if it would include a Linux partition and if it did I don't know how much a mess the drivers would be if that partition was cloned on the new hardware. Until Linux catches up in this area, it will stay in a VM so I can more easily migrate it. Besides, I don't know of any disadvantages to running Linux in a VM versus natively.
Content searching has been around since at least Windows 2000.
How long a technology has been around is not the issue. If I performa search on my Windows XP box I do not find keywords that are not in the filename. There may be a way to do it, but if so I've never seen it.
Using the theory above, a competitor (or anyone who feels like playing spoiler) can wait for MS to announce new OS features, and then implement them (poorly or otherwise) as a standalone product, forcing MS to make significant changes in the name of "fairness." Talk about unfair competition!
First, a competitor need not only release the product, they have to have people legitimately purchasing it (that is to say no kickbacks). No sales means no existing market. Second, if MS is really worried about that happening, well they can just start providing new features modularly so that anyone can plug in replacements. That is good for the industry anyway.
...but my feeling is that this should ultimately be Microsoft's decision (or at least the market's decision) instead of that of a judge.
Do you understand how monopolies affect markets? Bundling with a monopoly means there is no free market and people can make the right business decision and the end result is still the less innovative and more expensive product winning. As for letting Microsoft decide, there is a system of economics where we rely not upon greed to motivate innovation and low prices, but instead rely upon altruism and businessmen doing the "right thing." It is called "extreme socialism," and it doesn't work so well.
Capitalism works because it relies upon greed and self interest, but places those qualities in competition with other people's greed and self interest in such a way that innovation is rewarded with cash. Businesses get cash and the people get innovation. Letting any one business bypass that system and just decide on their own if they feel like innovating in a market or if they'd rather just take over without innovating and make money regardless, returns very poor results. We're probably a decade or more behind where we could be in the desktop OS and Web/Internet technologies because MS's monopoly has dominated them. MS has no reason to release a browser that is more capable and can handle modern standards, so they don't and we all suffer. Letting them do the same thing to dozens of other markets is unacceptable.
My big problem with this is that "search" feels like a core OS feature--your computer isn't very useful if you can't find anything, after all!
Okay, time for some perspective. Assuming you can agree to the basic principal that leveraging a monopoly in one market to gain in another needs to be illegal because it breaks the free market, how do you go about defining things in legal terms? Well, obviously some things have to be bundled to be useful. So you look at markets, after all that is what economists and judges are concerned about. MS allowed a market for indexed search to appear before they implemented it themselves. People paid for software to perform such searches with money, with personal data that was sellable, and by looking at ads. Once that has happened, it is a separate market and MS needs to enter it on a level playing field. Otherwise, they discourage innovation and retard progress i markets that people thing they might enter.
There has been a search feature in every version of windows since at least 95 (I don't remember about 3.1.)
Sure there has, but that is searching by filename, not searching inside the contents of various kinds of file formats and extracting matching words.
Desktop search was also an announced feature of Vista before Google announced Google Desktop Search, so it seems disingenuous for them to claim to MS is somehow trying to muscle them.
It doesn't matter when you announce something. For all we know Google has had this project in the works since the day the company was founded. All that matters from a legal perspective, and sensibly from the perspective of enforcement, is what the state of the market is when MS brought it to market. After all, if MS is confident theirs is better, why not give consumers a choice on startup between MS's search and Google's and let the best algorithm win. That is fair and it results in better products for everyone.
First, Google offers a version of Google desktop on OS X that uses the same APIs that Spotlight does. They don't use the same API's as Vistas search because not all of them are public and MS does not provide an easy way for them to stop the built in search function, so the user ends up running both with a performance penalty.
Second, there is normally nothing illegal about bundling two products in existing separate markets. It is illegal to leverage a monopoly in one market into an existing, separate market. The classic way to do this is by bundling a product from the monopolized market with one from the other market. That is illegal. Note, Apple does not have monopoly influence on the desktop OS market and MS does. If Apple were to bundle their searching with a product where they do have monopoly influence (they are close with the iPod) it would be illegal for them as well. Do you see the difference?
You can disable Spotlight and install Google search if you want but that's no different from Windows.
The benefit the iPhone provides most of us (in geekdom), is that it is a revolutionary way to surf the web on a mobile device.
I don't think the iPhone brings any huge benefit to geeks. It is aimed squarely at the more casual user market who doesn't mind paying for something that works easily and is learnable. I don't use half the features of my existing phone, and it does not have a lot of what the iPhone does. I probably would use those features if they were simple and I did not have to spend time learning them and setting them up properly. That is where the iPhone is targeted. Just as the iPod mostly was aimed at people with portable CD players by making a digital player easy enough to be convenient, the iPhone is targeting people without a smartphone who have avoided them while waiting for a really good UI/experience to emerge.
That said, it's overpriced for what it is.
The iPod was more expensive and had smaller capacity than a Nomad. I think the iPhone is priced right for their target.
Apple makes a habit of ensuring that you as a consumer are 'locked in' to their platform.
Well, I'm typing this on a MacBook. The only way it locks me into another Mac going forward is incidentally (software compatibility) and by being superior to other offerings. All my data is stored in formats that can either work on another platform or convert easily. How have they locked me in?
There is an argument for lock in on the iPod, but it does not hold up to close scrutiny. Sure there is DRM, but when it came out it was the weakest DRM anyone had managed to get the recording industry to agree to and since then Apple has fought hard to get them to agree to go without it. Also, since Apple knows about how many songs on their iPods come from iTunes versus from CDs and P2P, they know that any such lock-in is incredibly small compared to the bad press it can bring them.
Now I'm not saying Apple is acting towards anything but their own profit margins, but I just don't see how they are using any real lock-in, except where forced to do so by external companies.
They are turning into yet another Microsoft, from another angle.
The problem with Microsoft is that they are an abusive monopoly. Apple is approaching that level of influence in the iPod market, but I don't see a lot of abuse, and certainly not a pattern of it like MS has demonstrated. When and if the iPod ever is recognized as having that much market share, Apple should be forced to stop unequal bundling, but since they are already in the process of breaking that bundling via their DRMless music downloads, I don't see it as a large issue. Apple has not been afraid of competing on a level field based upon the merits of their product, and that is what MS avoids through illegal activity.
I am rather alarmed that people don't realize that Apple is no different than Microsoft in that they want market share for their devices, and they want money.
You can stop being alarmed. I've never heard anyone assert that Apple was not working to get money like every other business. As for "lock-in" I think I already covered that.
Apple is a closed architecture, especially with the iPhone.
Apple is an architecture? I thought they were a company. They sell an OS that is partially open and partially closed. They provide software of both stripes.
When people realize that Apple is no different than Microsoft
Gandhi and Jeffrey Dahmer both ate living things when they were hungry. When people realize they are no different...
Your asserting it does not make it true. Apple and MS are both for profit businesses. Apple plays fairly nicely with other vendors, partners, and the OSS community. MS has killed more of their partners than anyone can recall and are convicted criminals who based their business model on breaking the law and then tying up the
And if the mafia outbids Microsoft, well, then Microsoft will have to live with the consequences or pay more next time. Companies like Microsoft should be exposed to the true costs of their security vulnerabilities, and they will be exposed to that only if the "bad guys" are in on the bidding, because vulnerabilities aren't worth a lot to the other "good guys".
Microsoft has a monopoly and can bypass free market affects. Here's the situation: MS does not outbid the mafia. The mafia writes a worm which steals $10 from every PC's online bank account. People are angry and upset and trash their computers. Then they go buy a new one they hope won't have that problem. Maybe a Gateway will be more secure than a Dell. Since every computer in all the stores near them comes with Windows installed, people assume it is the most secure option available. They are used to dealing with a free market so they assume if there was a more secure option, it would be in stores.
Sure, MS might lose a few people on the high end to Apple, but they will profit obscenely from people buying new machines to replace their old, insecure ones. In the situation you describe, the losers are the consumers who are not gaining the advantages of a free market, but are suffering the disadvantages.
But as phones become computers I think we'll also see all the hand-rolled specialty phone OS disappear and standard OS's, fewer in number, replace them.
So long as no one OS wields enough market influence that it can ignore customers needs, it does not matter. You could have 2 OS's each with 50% of the market, or even 1 OS, so long as it is Embedded linux, and because unhappy customers can fork it, you don't have to worry that security will be ignored.
This almost has to happen for develpers to develop apps.
I disagree. It is just as likely that development environments will evolve to target multiple OS's. We already have that on PC's with Java and Flash and several other environments, and that is where there is little motivation because of the Windows monopoly.
But long term there's pressure to downselect.
I don't really see it. There is pressure to move to fewer OS's or to more platform agnostic development tools. Assuming there is no one party with a lot of influence pushing for the former, the latter is more within the power of developers, and they're the ones feeling the pain.
At some point the number of OS's will be small enough that we've lost the advantage of diversity. Or so I speculate.
I think you're mistaking my assertion. I don't assert that having a number of OS's is any better than having one (well it is, but that is not the big reason for the security difference). If 30% of all computers ran MS Windows, 30% ran MSClosedBSD, and 30% of computers ran MSNewCode3-OS, security would be almost as bad as it is today. MS would still have no motivation to fix security, because regardless of what OS a person picked, MS would still get paid. In fact, by decreasing security they could motivate people to try something else and thus increase sales.
It is not that MS is incapable of making Windows secure, it is that they have no reason to do so. It costs significant money and MS will get paid whether they do it or not. Monopolies lead to inferior products and stifle innovation. If the market is not dominated by a monopoly, then there will always be insecure offerings, but they will lose as customers move to something better and security will keep up with malware.
One might speculate that it's a good thing for linux (and mac) that China runs on Windows. It's an incubator for this kind of activity.
From what I've seen you have spam, mostly targeting English speaking Americans and Europeans and you have worms targeting anything with a fast connection, for use as a bot. I suspect that even if China was suddenly all using Red Flag Linux, worms and spam from China would still target the US.
Since linux is even harder to keep patched automatically it would not be a better situation (Flame me if you wish but please don't say something moronic as "its' as simple as "apt-get update-all".
What version of Linux on the desktop do you run? My Kubuntu install pops up a nice GUI when updates are available, and that was the default configuration. It also applies to a lot more of the userland software than Windows update does. I find it a lot easier to keep up to date than my Windows install.
And even if you believe that linux is more resistant to holes than windows that's not an issue: Remember most of these bots come in as trojans not remote execution exploits, and they don't even need to run as root--so linux is not going to be more secure against trojans people welcome into their user spaces.
I think you're mistaken here on several points. First, every study I've seen and the non-public data I have from work shows the majority of infections are from worms that do not involve user interaction, not from trojans. There are a lot more types of trojans, but they just don't spread as quickly and widely as fully automated attacks. If you're counting by infection instead of by number of malware variety, trojans are not the biggest threat.
Second, I do think the design choices of the major Linux distros are more secure than Windows for the most part, but that is not the reason why Linux will always have less chance of malware infection than Windows. Innovation, including innovation into security, is driven by market forces. Windows is a monopoly. When a Windows box is compromised, MS does not lose any money and very, very, very rarely lose any customers. Linux, due to its licensing, will never wield monopoly force in the market, thus it will always respond to the wishes of the users, who also happen to be the developers for the most part. If malware attacks against Linux were to increase in frequency enough so that Linux had to face the same level as Windows, Linux would not fare all that much better at first, but it would quickly develop better security features to mitigate the attacks, probably starting with an SELinux type approach combined with human generated white and grey-lists and some sort of an open verification scheme. User space versus root is not the most granular level of security on all Linux boxes today and if trojans became an issue on Linux, that would expand to consumer desktop systems.
Now just imagine in the future when phones become general purpose computers, not subject to reprogramming by the phone service provider. That's going to be billions of rooted computers. Yikes.
That all depends upon how many OS's and providers for phones their are. If there is a monopoly, yep we'll have terrible security and it will be a mess. If we have a healthy market with multiple competing players, I don't think it will be a serious problem.
But the fact is that these new cpu's coming out from AMD look like they're going to be the best on the market.
The best for what purpose? I evaluate chips based upon speed, price, power consumption, reliability, and "bonus features" with my needs in mind. Looking at the numbers, AMD is not winning the high end for speed, even with their next round of updates compared to Intel's current offerings. Power consumptions seems like a wash, or even a little bit in Intel's favor as well. I don't see any "bonus features" I care about in the revisions likely to ship in the next 6 months. So that pretty much leaves price, which of course will be constantly changing over time as chips are released.
Now I'm not counting AMD out for the next time I build a box, but unless that box is a really cheap server or low end pseudo-dumb terminal I don't see any reason to think AMD winning my evaluation is likely. They seem to have been well and truly outgunned and it looks like it will stay that way for a year or more based upon fab processes and roadmaps. I certainly hope they can turn it around and keep the competition fierce, but I just don't see where someone can objectively rate AMDs next round of processors as the "best."
Why is it that you think that writing an ODF->OMG converter would be easier than OOXML->OMG?
ODF is an open standard, thus you just have to follow the spec. OOXML is not an open standard since it references other, closed software behaviors. Trying to convert ODF to something else I can look at some formatting and know that needs to be a header that repeats at the top of every odd page. Reading the OOXML specification I know it is a header that is supposed to behave like headers in version 2.2 of Wordperfect for Windows. I don't know what that behavior is without finding a copy of Wordperfect 2.2 and exhaustively testing it.
My understanding is that barring the obscure imported files from ancient times issue with OOXML, its just as open as ODF.
Very few of the experts who have looked at both seem to agree with you. Even assuming you're right, what about obscure imported files? I already have had to deal with old Word.doc files that no currently marketed software can seem to read and others that no currently available version of Word can read. What makes you think the 6-10 year old files the state of Massachusetts has are all going to convert to something that will be easily readable in the future if they are converted to OOXML?
If Microsoft simply supports ODF as a file extension, doesn't MS Office remain the default office productivity suite by virtue of Excel, Powerpoint, and Word.
No, they don't. You see, if Word supports ODF, a format not tied to a specific piece of software, then there is no "default" office suite. Everyone is free to choose the application that best suits their needs. For many, this may still be MSOffice, but for a lot of others it will be something else, and that means MS loses money. Worse, when WordPerfect gains some cool new feature, it actually matters because any given individual or business can easily switch to using it and switch back when they want. This means MS has to expend money actually creating features users want and competing with other software vendors. MS does not like competing, they'd rather lock in customers and not have to pay attention to what customers want, while focusing on gaining a monopoly in a new market.
The actual programs in OO aren't up to Microsoft's level of quality, and even if they were you need to justify retraining your excel-experienced workforce to make the switch as a company.
OO is not the only competition, but lets take a look at it. Suppose only 1 in 100 of your employees need to be able to use the high end features of Excel and everyone else just needs to be able to open and edit the data. Can you move you company to OO without a lot of expense? Probably not. Can you move 99% of your company without a lot of expense? Yes. And that saves you 99% of your licensing fees to MS.
Just changing the last 3 letters of a filename doesn't seem to indicate a massive exodus away from Microsoft's software, and retraining a workforce seems to be a slight problem in moving away from Office.
Retraining costs are not as high as most people assume, and it is a recurring expense anyway with new versions of MS products coming out regularly. An important point you may be missing is that promoting ODF is not about getting people to stop using MSOffice. It is about giving users choice and flexibility so that MS has to make MSOffice a better product and so that we can be assured that we will still be able to open files 5, 10, or 20 years from now.
As part of deal with Gates and company buying 25% of Apple in non-voting shares a few years back...
In 1997 MS invested $150 million in Apple shares as part of a settlement. At the time, Apple had $1.2 billion in cash reserves. If I can get 25% of a company with $1.2 billion in real cash, for only 150 million, please show me where to sign up. I suspect the real percentage of outstanding stock $150 million represented was a hell of a lot less than 25%.
Apple has use of the MS patent library as part of the deal.
No, they don't. They do have the rights to some specific things, like the Windows implementation APIs that existed at the time, but do not have rights to use patents that has ever been publicly revealed and that I've heard of.
Technically MS owns the patent to the jogging dial thingy on the iPod too...
Apple Patent application number for the scroll wheel was #20060167982. They were sued by Quantum, who claimed it infringed an existing patent of theirs, but I've never heard anyone claim MS had a patent on it.
Are you just making this stuff up, or do you read some News site written by a really boring paranoid schizophrenic?
Indeed. And we should never criticize Microsoft, or the RIAA, or network neutrality opponents like AT&T.
It is perfectly fine to criticize anyone for anything you disagree with. It is free speech. You might notice something all the groups you listed have in common, however. Microsoft has multiple monopolies and has been convicted of abusing them. The RIAA is a cartel and has been convicted of price fixing and several other abuses of that cartel. AT&T is a government subsidized company with geographical monopolies in many areas, often enforced by local law and is also a convicted monopoly abuser.
Apple is borderline close to having monopoly influence for portable digital music players, but has never been convicted any such action. When and if Apple is declared a monopoly, then looking into how their monopoly is being leveraged makes sense. The verdict is still out on if they have any monopoly influence to abuse.
After all, if we never buy software, or music, or use the internet, these groups have no influence over our lives and we should really just mind our own business.
There are a lot of factors that make it impractical to do your job without a computer that runs Windows. Moving to a different city to get provider other than AT&T is impractical. The RIAA as assured that only their music is available in many stores and only their music is played on the radio in most locations. They've created a situation where performers have to sign with them to have a reasonable chance of reaching an audience.
So what is stopping you from buying a Blackberry? What is stopping you from buying a MP3 player from someone else? What artificial barriers are you worried are undermining the free market as is happening with all the other companies you listed?
the iPhone is an ominous trend because it signifies a future where general purpose computers don't exist, and instead you have specialized appliances which only work on proprietary networks.
I disagree. There is a move towards more specialized computers (game console, smart phone, voip box, pvr, etc.). That is normal. Generally things diverge then consolidate then diverge then consolidate in a cyclical fashion. Trying to stop people from creating new things, whether more specialized or more flexible will undermine the free market and slow innovation significantly.
I agree we need to either equally subsidize all network providers or force the existing ones to behave neutrally, but that has nothing to do with the devices that run on the network or trying to dictate what they do.
From what I gather from the article, it's irrelevant what OS you use...
I don't think that is quite true. In order to execute one of these exploits, you need to get something running on the box and that means it has a binary that will run on your OS. Once that happens, you're rooted with no security measures in software able to do anything about it. To be useful, however, the OS will still have to be taken into account at this point as well.
That is not to say no one will write a cross platform worm or a mac specific exploit for this, since it is as vulnerable (maybe more so) than Windows. This is a problem for Mac users, but maybe not quite as large of a problem as you're implying.
This is actually what this thread is discussing - Apple putting a well integrated version of Windows on every computer and its consequences.
I thought this thread was about the reason for MS's licensing terms, which forbid running the low end versions of Vista in a VM. I realize the article postulated that they might be afraid Apple would buy a copy of Windows and include it, but I don't think that really makes much sense and don't expect most people to take it seriously.
Or, as others pointed out, Apple developers may decide to use Windows as their native platform since their apps will run seemlessly on both Macs and Windows, a much bigger market.
That's assuming most Apple users will be buying Windows and some solution to make it integrate well. I don't think that is a reasonable assumption. Most of the people running Windows in an emulator are doing so because they are migrating away from Windows, or because they just need one or two apps. A few developers might drop support for the Mac, but they'd also lose that market share rapidly to someone whose software will run natively and will use all the features of OS X. The situation would be different if Apple were bundle a functioning copy of Windows, but I think that is extremely unlikely to ever happen.
Then people start mainly running Windows apps. And then people maybe see no need to use the Mac OS as the middle man...
In my experience most users who run OS X as their regular desktop for a few weeks will not even consider switching back to Windows once they are used to OS X. Apple's problem is getting them to shell out to try it without breaking their hardware tie which insulates them from MS's monopoly. MS's problem is stopping them from trying it, and trying to make using it as unpleasant and expensive as possible by making it harder to use their existing software and misc Windows programs. This licensing will probably help with the first, but may backfire for the latter, since it might just keep more users on WinXP, holding back adoption of MS's new lock-in technologies.
You have a choice as to whether or not you smoke cigarettes. Does that make a tax on tobacco any less a tax?
I am not aware of people being held at gunpoint to pay the licence fee (remember not even out Police carry guns except for a few special units).
Try owning a TV, openly without paying your fee. Defend your right to own it without paying, to the point of offering physical resistance with a weapon to any who try to deny you your right. If you are competent enough, I guarantee it will be enforced at gunpoint.
Have you complained about Radio 1's enhanced podcasts, only viewable on iPods?
No.
If not, why not?
Because I'd never heard of them and am not much of a complainer.
It is after all, a proprietary format, wholly owned and controlled by one company, which is why Creative and MS Mp3 players can't play the content.
Actually, they claim to support several different company's players on the Web site. The only proprietary format I see is Realplayer. I disagree with using that format almost as much as I disagree with WMA. Both are closed and proprietary to one company instead of standards. The only difference is real has not been convicted of crimes with regard to promoting said format.
The BBC is a multimedia company, experimenting and playing with many formats to see what works, and what is popular.
The BBC is funded by the government with money that is not collected as donations, but by force of law. As such, they take on more responsibilities than a wholly private company. Just as I would not support a government funded agency distributing patented GM grain to the poor to grow, I don't support locking them in to a given type of media. The BBC has a responsibility to the people and that includes supporting standard formats that we can be assured will be playable to posterity and which promote the free market.
That technological interest from a TV company should be celebrated not whined about.
Would you then support the government moving to all nonstandard nuts and bolts for vehicles, whose pattern is patented by one particular company? Would you vote for a bill to fund such an endeavor? Should the government be applauded for taking an interest in new (inferior) technology like the BBC is or should they be reviled for their shortsightedness?
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I've been a loyal NetFlix customer for a while. Their site is well made and their service works as advertised. Contrast this to the terrible experiences I've had with Blockbuster in the past. But I'm not one to hold a grudge. Blockbuster can win me back by making the right moves. They offer in store swapping of movies which is a small win, but not enough to make me switch. Now, they want to compete with NetFlix download service, which is all well and good, and which targets the same audience, people who want a particular movie right now. NetFlix does not support the Mac at all. All Blockbuster needs to do for me to take a serious look is to support one of the several DRM'd video formats for the Mac. Instead they paired with Movielink, whose service does not support the Mac or the iPod or the PSP. Also, their Web site is obviously broken in standards compliant Web browsers.
Congratulations Blockbuster. You found the chink in NetFlix armor, and then completely ignored it. Enjoy your death spiral.
Fair?!? It is a comparison of the available options. I don't care if one company is slow to release new version, I just care about what is available. Currently, Word is slow, unresponsive, and resource intensive. I'd rather use something that is the opposite of that. I don't care if it is a new version of MS Office or iWork, although I also care about usability and feature set.
Interesting. I haven't noticed any problems with the very few PDFs I've generated from Pages. We test out PDFs with Preview, Acrobat, and XPDF, but we don't always print them on different printers. I've never had any problem printing to anything we tried using.
...and one can even forget submitting such documents to most boutique online presses because most reject PDFs made with the Apple subsystem.Hmm, we've only changed printers twice, but a lot of our files are from the Apple PDF subsystem and none of the three had any problem processing our PDFs. Maybe we got lucky.
If the PDF export is much improved, I will be very happy because I love the simplicity of Pages.I wouldn't count on it. The PDF generation is built into OS X, so I'd bet on fixes in Leopard, not iWork 08.
In my experience Pages loads faster than Word and is much more responsive and uses a lot fewer resources than Word. I just opened a .doc file in both programs and it took Word approximately 50% more time to open it and it is consuming twice as much RAM. When opening a native file for each program, Pages loads about 300% faster than Word.
You can claim both are bloated, but one is clearly better than the other. What word processor would you consider to be not bloated?
I use all my OS's as a way to run programs. Whether an OS is hosted in a VM or hosts other OS's is something I determine by what combination provides me the most functionality, not which one is my "favorite."
Look, this isn't an OS pissing contest. I'm glad that you'd rather use OS X. I'd rather not.That wasn't an attack on your favorite OS, it was attempting to answer your question as to what my "main" OS is, although the question seems flawed to me.
No. I have a perfectly suitable workflow using Linux development tools. I have no interest in using OS X software for anything other than testing. know Windows and OS X, I just don't choose to use them. Do you really think ignorance is the only explanation for not using OS X? You really come across as a zealot.I see it exactly the opposite. I use whatever tools work the best,on the best OS they run on for my purpose. You are not interested in any tools that are different from what you already use on Linux. That makes you a lot more of a "zealot" than I am, don't you think?
Having to do it every time I change a line or two of code? No thanks.You asked for the best option to run Linux, Windows, and OS X on a new Mac. I was just letting you know my opinions based upon experience. If that isn't good enough, that's fine.
Stop trying to tell me that OS X is better, especially when everything you mention is insignificant to me.I'm mentioning reasons why it is better that pertain to choosing which OS is a client OS and which is a host OS for VMs. It doesn't matter to me what you pick and I'm not trying to convince you to make a given choice, just providing info.
Look, I'm all for a healthy amount of advocacy, but in future, if you see somebody post "I've got no interest in abandoning Linux/KDE for OS X"Who's talking about abandoning Linux and KDE. I was talking about running Linux on top of OS X. I mentioned running KDE on top of OS X. I'm not emotionally committed to any OS since I use three OS's daily for the things they are best suited. In my opinion, OS X is best suited as a host OS, largely due to the limitations of using it as a client OS. I don't care if you have decided that is not for you, that's fine, but the remaining options are all poor.
Like I said, I want to run Safari for the purpose of testing. Running the Windows port is not adequate for testing compatibility with Safari running on OS X.That's too bad. I haven't seen a lot of discrepancy between the two versions and using just one for smoke testing works works for the developers where I work, although QA does a more formal testing with both platforms at a later time. In smaller shops where QA and development are the same guy, I can see where someone with strict quality rules might need both.
What do you mean by "main environment?" I use both Linux and Windows for specific programs, which I run pretty much constantly and which are critical for my workflow. Things like Adobe Framemaker on Windows and Inkscape on Linux (the OS X port sucks). All things equal, I'd rather run an application in OS X, since OS X allows me to use arbitrary system services functionality while Windows and Linux do not. That said, some applications are only available for one platform or function better on a platform. This is usually more important than the OS's contribution.
I'm not sure what you mean by that, but it doesn't sound like it has any relevance to a web developer who just wants to run Safari for testing purposes.Presumably, when you have multiple platforms running, a user might want to take advantage of programs for that platform. For example, a Web develop might want to take advantage of OmniWeb's in place editing for HTML or a user might just want to run GraphicConverter for batch image processing. Every platform has a few applications that are the best tool for a given job. I suppose a user with multiple OS's running via VMs could ignore those and stick with just the platform they know, but I don't know many users who actually do that.
Thanks, but dual-booting isn't an option. I don't want to have to stop what I'm doing in Linux just to load Safari. Example: altering a page in Kate while reloading in Safari to check the changes.It is supposedly on a few second delay to suspend and switch over, but another poster claims the feature may have been dropped. As I said, the alternative is to try to hack a VM and OS X to get it working as a guest platform, something unsupported by every major VM vendor I know of.
I don't care. When it comes to new hardware, I just do a clean install. My home directory is loaded from the network.Does this hold true for your portable as well? I haven't had to do a clean install for years. What about other user accounts on your machine? What about applications available to all users instead of installed as a given user? What about when you switch chipsets (like 32 to 64 bit) do you reinstall all your applications?
It sounds like a major pain in the butt to me, especially now that I'm used to one click setup for new machines.
Please don't try to convince me to switch. I think OS X is neat and I recommend it to friends and family, but it just isn't for me.Specifically what is the problem? Almost all the hard core Linux and BSD developers I know have migrated to OS X for their desktop and most seem pretty unwilling to go back. Seriously, the major disadvantage is that you have to run it on Apple hardware, which limits your choices. If you're already doing that, I don't know why you wouldn't run OS X as the base OS.
...having to use the godawful OS X interface all day every day.I disagree about the interface (and I've done a significant amount of work doing interface design and usability testing) but assuming you don't want to change your habits, what's wrong with X11 and your window manager of choice on OS X?
Thanks for the input though. It looks like I'm probably going to do the usual, and build a new machine from parts while sticking with my clunky old Mac laptop for testing.Good luck. An alternative might be to run Safari on Windows and see if any bugs are platform specific on Safari.
Agreed. The feature list and Excel compatibility are a big win for some of us. I'm tired of using MS Office for the Mac, because it is slow and bloated, and prone to crash. A lighter, more nimble competitor is very welcome for my light spreadsheet needs. I avoid OpenOffice on the Mac as well, since it is likewise not really there yet.
The improvements to Pages also seem significant, with some real layout power (and separate layout and word processing modes). Hopefully this will make for a lightweight Framemaker/InDesign replacement for smaller jobs. In fact, the main thing missing from iWork for my needs is ODF support.
It can be done, but you will not be getting any support from the major VM players, since running OS X in a VM is only obeying the license if it is on Mac hardware, and the market for people willing to shell out for a Mac, but who don't want to use OS X as their base OS, is really, really small.
Personally, I run Windows and Kubuntu on top of OS X and it works just fine. I'm not sure what you lose over the setup you propose and I know what you gain, support for system services for native applications. If you're intent upon running Linux not in an emulation environment, I recommend waiting for Leopard and using Bootcamp. The rapid suspend will let you quickly switch between OS X and Linux, both running natively (with one suspended and one running). You can run Windows on top of your Linux install.
Something to consider is that Linux is quite a ways behind OS X when it comes to automatically moving to new hardware. One of the nicest things I've found with OS X is that when I get new hardware, I simply select the upgrade from and old machine option and all my files, applications, passwords, user accounts, etc. are migrated to the new machine over a firewire connection. When using OS X as the base OS, this includes my Linux and Windows VMs, but I don't know if it would include a Linux partition and if it did I don't know how much a mess the drivers would be if that partition was cloned on the new hardware. Until Linux catches up in this area, it will stay in a VM so I can more easily migrate it. Besides, I don't know of any disadvantages to running Linux in a VM versus natively.
How long a technology has been around is not the issue. If I performa search on my Windows XP box I do not find keywords that are not in the filename. There may be a way to do it, but if so I've never seen it.
Using the theory above, a competitor (or anyone who feels like playing spoiler) can wait for MS to announce new OS features, and then implement them (poorly or otherwise) as a standalone product, forcing MS to make significant changes in the name of "fairness." Talk about unfair competition!First, a competitor need not only release the product, they have to have people legitimately purchasing it (that is to say no kickbacks). No sales means no existing market. Second, if MS is really worried about that happening, well they can just start providing new features modularly so that anyone can plug in replacements. That is good for the industry anyway.
...but my feeling is that this should ultimately be Microsoft's decision (or at least the market's decision) instead of that of a judge.Do you understand how monopolies affect markets? Bundling with a monopoly means there is no free market and people can make the right business decision and the end result is still the less innovative and more expensive product winning. As for letting Microsoft decide, there is a system of economics where we rely not upon greed to motivate innovation and low prices, but instead rely upon altruism and businessmen doing the "right thing." It is called "extreme socialism," and it doesn't work so well.
Capitalism works because it relies upon greed and self interest, but places those qualities in competition with other people's greed and self interest in such a way that innovation is rewarded with cash. Businesses get cash and the people get innovation. Letting any one business bypass that system and just decide on their own if they feel like innovating in a market or if they'd rather just take over without innovating and make money regardless, returns very poor results. We're probably a decade or more behind where we could be in the desktop OS and Web/Internet technologies because MS's monopoly has dominated them. MS has no reason to release a browser that is more capable and can handle modern standards, so they don't and we all suffer. Letting them do the same thing to dozens of other markets is unacceptable.
Okay, time for some perspective. Assuming you can agree to the basic principal that leveraging a monopoly in one market to gain in another needs to be illegal because it breaks the free market, how do you go about defining things in legal terms? Well, obviously some things have to be bundled to be useful. So you look at markets, after all that is what economists and judges are concerned about. MS allowed a market for indexed search to appear before they implemented it themselves. People paid for software to perform such searches with money, with personal data that was sellable, and by looking at ads. Once that has happened, it is a separate market and MS needs to enter it on a level playing field. Otherwise, they discourage innovation and retard progress i markets that people thing they might enter.
There has been a search feature in every version of windows since at least 95 (I don't remember about 3.1.)Sure there has, but that is searching by filename, not searching inside the contents of various kinds of file formats and extracting matching words.
Desktop search was also an announced feature of Vista before Google announced Google Desktop Search, so it seems disingenuous for them to claim to MS is somehow trying to muscle them.It doesn't matter when you announce something. For all we know Google has had this project in the works since the day the company was founded. All that matters from a legal perspective, and sensibly from the perspective of enforcement, is what the state of the market is when MS brought it to market. After all, if MS is confident theirs is better, why not give consumers a choice on startup between MS's search and Google's and let the best algorithm win. That is fair and it results in better products for everyone.
First, Google offers a version of Google desktop on OS X that uses the same APIs that Spotlight does. They don't use the same API's as Vistas search because not all of them are public and MS does not provide an easy way for them to stop the built in search function, so the user ends up running both with a performance penalty.
Second, there is normally nothing illegal about bundling two products in existing separate markets. It is illegal to leverage a monopoly in one market into an existing, separate market. The classic way to do this is by bundling a product from the monopolized market with one from the other market. That is illegal. Note, Apple does not have monopoly influence on the desktop OS market and MS does. If Apple were to bundle their searching with a product where they do have monopoly influence (they are close with the iPod) it would be illegal for them as well. Do you see the difference?
You can disable Spotlight and install Google search if you want but that's no different from Windows.Yes it is, both legally and technically.
The benefit the iPhone provides most of us (in geekdom), is that it is a revolutionary way to surf the web on a mobile device.
I don't think the iPhone brings any huge benefit to geeks. It is aimed squarely at the more casual user market who doesn't mind paying for something that works easily and is learnable. I don't use half the features of my existing phone, and it does not have a lot of what the iPhone does. I probably would use those features if they were simple and I did not have to spend time learning them and setting them up properly. That is where the iPhone is targeted. Just as the iPod mostly was aimed at people with portable CD players by making a digital player easy enough to be convenient, the iPhone is targeting people without a smartphone who have avoided them while waiting for a really good UI/experience to emerge.
That said, it's overpriced for what it is.
The iPod was more expensive and had smaller capacity than a Nomad. I think the iPhone is priced right for their target.
Apple makes a habit of ensuring that you as a consumer are 'locked in' to their platform.
Well, I'm typing this on a MacBook. The only way it locks me into another Mac going forward is incidentally (software compatibility) and by being superior to other offerings. All my data is stored in formats that can either work on another platform or convert easily. How have they locked me in?
There is an argument for lock in on the iPod, but it does not hold up to close scrutiny. Sure there is DRM, but when it came out it was the weakest DRM anyone had managed to get the recording industry to agree to and since then Apple has fought hard to get them to agree to go without it. Also, since Apple knows about how many songs on their iPods come from iTunes versus from CDs and P2P, they know that any such lock-in is incredibly small compared to the bad press it can bring them.
Now I'm not saying Apple is acting towards anything but their own profit margins, but I just don't see how they are using any real lock-in, except where forced to do so by external companies.
They are turning into yet another Microsoft, from another angle.
The problem with Microsoft is that they are an abusive monopoly. Apple is approaching that level of influence in the iPod market, but I don't see a lot of abuse, and certainly not a pattern of it like MS has demonstrated. When and if the iPod ever is recognized as having that much market share, Apple should be forced to stop unequal bundling, but since they are already in the process of breaking that bundling via their DRMless music downloads, I don't see it as a large issue. Apple has not been afraid of competing on a level field based upon the merits of their product, and that is what MS avoids through illegal activity.
I am rather alarmed that people don't realize that Apple is no different than Microsoft in that they want market share for their devices, and they want money.
You can stop being alarmed. I've never heard anyone assert that Apple was not working to get money like every other business. As for "lock-in" I think I already covered that.
Apple is a closed architecture, especially with the iPhone.
Apple is an architecture? I thought they were a company. They sell an OS that is partially open and partially closed. They provide software of both stripes.
When people realize that Apple is no different than Microsoft
Gandhi and Jeffrey Dahmer both ate living things when they were hungry. When people realize they are no different...
Your asserting it does not make it true. Apple and MS are both for profit businesses. Apple plays fairly nicely with other vendors, partners, and the OSS community. MS has killed more of their partners than anyone can recall and are convicted criminals who based their business model on breaking the law and then tying up the
Microsoft has a monopoly and can bypass free market affects. Here's the situation: MS does not outbid the mafia. The mafia writes a worm which steals $10 from every PC's online bank account. People are angry and upset and trash their computers. Then they go buy a new one they hope won't have that problem. Maybe a Gateway will be more secure than a Dell. Since every computer in all the stores near them comes with Windows installed, people assume it is the most secure option available. They are used to dealing with a free market so they assume if there was a more secure option, it would be in stores.
Sure, MS might lose a few people on the high end to Apple, but they will profit obscenely from people buying new machines to replace their old, insecure ones. In the situation you describe, the losers are the consumers who are not gaining the advantages of a free market, but are suffering the disadvantages.
So long as no one OS wields enough market influence that it can ignore customers needs, it does not matter. You could have 2 OS's each with 50% of the market, or even 1 OS, so long as it is Embedded linux, and because unhappy customers can fork it, you don't have to worry that security will be ignored.
This almost has to happen for develpers to develop apps.I disagree. It is just as likely that development environments will evolve to target multiple OS's. We already have that on PC's with Java and Flash and several other environments, and that is where there is little motivation because of the Windows monopoly.
But long term there's pressure to downselect.I don't really see it. There is pressure to move to fewer OS's or to more platform agnostic development tools. Assuming there is no one party with a lot of influence pushing for the former, the latter is more within the power of developers, and they're the ones feeling the pain.
At some point the number of OS's will be small enough that we've lost the advantage of diversity. Or so I speculate.I think you're mistaking my assertion. I don't assert that having a number of OS's is any better than having one (well it is, but that is not the big reason for the security difference). If 30% of all computers ran MS Windows, 30% ran MSClosedBSD, and 30% of computers ran MSNewCode3-OS, security would be almost as bad as it is today. MS would still have no motivation to fix security, because regardless of what OS a person picked, MS would still get paid. In fact, by decreasing security they could motivate people to try something else and thus increase sales.
It is not that MS is incapable of making Windows secure, it is that they have no reason to do so. It costs significant money and MS will get paid whether they do it or not. Monopolies lead to inferior products and stifle innovation. If the market is not dominated by a monopoly, then there will always be insecure offerings, but they will lose as customers move to something better and security will keep up with malware.
From what I've seen you have spam, mostly targeting English speaking Americans and Europeans and you have worms targeting anything with a fast connection, for use as a bot. I suspect that even if China was suddenly all using Red Flag Linux, worms and spam from China would still target the US.
Since linux is even harder to keep patched automatically it would not be a better situation (Flame me if you wish but please don't say something moronic as "its' as simple as "apt-get update-all".What version of Linux on the desktop do you run? My Kubuntu install pops up a nice GUI when updates are available, and that was the default configuration. It also applies to a lot more of the userland software than Windows update does. I find it a lot easier to keep up to date than my Windows install.
And even if you believe that linux is more resistant to holes than windows that's not an issue: Remember most of these bots come in as trojans not remote execution exploits, and they don't even need to run as root--so linux is not going to be more secure against trojans people welcome into their user spaces.I think you're mistaken here on several points. First, every study I've seen and the non-public data I have from work shows the majority of infections are from worms that do not involve user interaction, not from trojans. There are a lot more types of trojans, but they just don't spread as quickly and widely as fully automated attacks. If you're counting by infection instead of by number of malware variety, trojans are not the biggest threat.
Second, I do think the design choices of the major Linux distros are more secure than Windows for the most part, but that is not the reason why Linux will always have less chance of malware infection than Windows. Innovation, including innovation into security, is driven by market forces. Windows is a monopoly. When a Windows box is compromised, MS does not lose any money and very, very, very rarely lose any customers. Linux, due to its licensing, will never wield monopoly force in the market, thus it will always respond to the wishes of the users, who also happen to be the developers for the most part. If malware attacks against Linux were to increase in frequency enough so that Linux had to face the same level as Windows, Linux would not fare all that much better at first, but it would quickly develop better security features to mitigate the attacks, probably starting with an SELinux type approach combined with human generated white and grey-lists and some sort of an open verification scheme. User space versus root is not the most granular level of security on all Linux boxes today and if trojans became an issue on Linux, that would expand to consumer desktop systems.
Now just imagine in the future when phones become general purpose computers, not subject to reprogramming by the phone service provider. That's going to be billions of rooted computers. Yikes.That all depends upon how many OS's and providers for phones their are. If there is a monopoly, yep we'll have terrible security and it will be a mess. If we have a healthy market with multiple competing players, I don't think it will be a serious problem.
The best for what purpose? I evaluate chips based upon speed, price, power consumption, reliability, and "bonus features" with my needs in mind. Looking at the numbers, AMD is not winning the high end for speed, even with their next round of updates compared to Intel's current offerings. Power consumptions seems like a wash, or even a little bit in Intel's favor as well. I don't see any "bonus features" I care about in the revisions likely to ship in the next 6 months. So that pretty much leaves price, which of course will be constantly changing over time as chips are released.
Now I'm not counting AMD out for the next time I build a box, but unless that box is a really cheap server or low end pseudo-dumb terminal I don't see any reason to think AMD winning my evaluation is likely. They seem to have been well and truly outgunned and it looks like it will stay that way for a year or more based upon fab processes and roadmaps. I certainly hope they can turn it around and keep the competition fierce, but I just don't see where someone can objectively rate AMDs next round of processors as the "best."
ODF is an open standard, thus you just have to follow the spec. OOXML is not an open standard since it references other, closed software behaviors. Trying to convert ODF to something else I can look at some formatting and know that needs to be a header that repeats at the top of every odd page. Reading the OOXML specification I know it is a header that is supposed to behave like headers in version 2.2 of Wordperfect for Windows. I don't know what that behavior is without finding a copy of Wordperfect 2.2 and exhaustively testing it.
My understanding is that barring the obscure imported files from ancient times issue with OOXML, its just as open as ODF.Very few of the experts who have looked at both seem to agree with you. Even assuming you're right, what about obscure imported files? I already have had to deal with old Word .doc files that no currently marketed software can seem to read and others that no currently available version of Word can read. What makes you think the 6-10 year old files the state of Massachusetts has are all going to convert to something that will be easily readable in the future if they are converted to OOXML?
No, they don't. You see, if Word supports ODF, a format not tied to a specific piece of software, then there is no "default" office suite. Everyone is free to choose the application that best suits their needs. For many, this may still be MSOffice, but for a lot of others it will be something else, and that means MS loses money. Worse, when WordPerfect gains some cool new feature, it actually matters because any given individual or business can easily switch to using it and switch back when they want. This means MS has to expend money actually creating features users want and competing with other software vendors. MS does not like competing, they'd rather lock in customers and not have to pay attention to what customers want, while focusing on gaining a monopoly in a new market.
The actual programs in OO aren't up to Microsoft's level of quality, and even if they were you need to justify retraining your excel-experienced workforce to make the switch as a company.OO is not the only competition, but lets take a look at it. Suppose only 1 in 100 of your employees need to be able to use the high end features of Excel and everyone else just needs to be able to open and edit the data. Can you move you company to OO without a lot of expense? Probably not. Can you move 99% of your company without a lot of expense? Yes. And that saves you 99% of your licensing fees to MS.
Just changing the last 3 letters of a filename doesn't seem to indicate a massive exodus away from Microsoft's software, and retraining a workforce seems to be a slight problem in moving away from Office.Retraining costs are not as high as most people assume, and it is a recurring expense anyway with new versions of MS products coming out regularly. An important point you may be missing is that promoting ODF is not about getting people to stop using MSOffice. It is about giving users choice and flexibility so that MS has to make MSOffice a better product and so that we can be assured that we will still be able to open files 5, 10, or 20 years from now.
In 1997 MS invested $150 million in Apple shares as part of a settlement. At the time, Apple had $1.2 billion in cash reserves. If I can get 25% of a company with $1.2 billion in real cash, for only 150 million, please show me where to sign up. I suspect the real percentage of outstanding stock $150 million represented was a hell of a lot less than 25%.
Apple has use of the MS patent library as part of the deal.No, they don't. They do have the rights to some specific things, like the Windows implementation APIs that existed at the time, but do not have rights to use patents that has ever been publicly revealed and that I've heard of.
Technically MS owns the patent to the jogging dial thingy on the iPod too...Apple Patent application number for the scroll wheel was #20060167982. They were sued by Quantum, who claimed it infringed an existing patent of theirs, but I've never heard anyone claim MS had a patent on it.
Are you just making this stuff up, or do you read some News site written by a really boring paranoid schizophrenic?
It is perfectly fine to criticize anyone for anything you disagree with. It is free speech. You might notice something all the groups you listed have in common, however. Microsoft has multiple monopolies and has been convicted of abusing them. The RIAA is a cartel and has been convicted of price fixing and several other abuses of that cartel. AT&T is a government subsidized company with geographical monopolies in many areas, often enforced by local law and is also a convicted monopoly abuser.
Apple is borderline close to having monopoly influence for portable digital music players, but has never been convicted any such action. When and if Apple is declared a monopoly, then looking into how their monopoly is being leveraged makes sense. The verdict is still out on if they have any monopoly influence to abuse.
After all, if we never buy software, or music, or use the internet, these groups have no influence over our lives and we should really just mind our own business.There are a lot of factors that make it impractical to do your job without a computer that runs Windows. Moving to a different city to get provider other than AT&T is impractical. The RIAA as assured that only their music is available in many stores and only their music is played on the radio in most locations. They've created a situation where performers have to sign with them to have a reasonable chance of reaching an audience.
So what is stopping you from buying a Blackberry? What is stopping you from buying a MP3 player from someone else? What artificial barriers are you worried are undermining the free market as is happening with all the other companies you listed?
the iPhone is an ominous trend because it signifies a future where general purpose computers don't exist, and instead you have specialized appliances which only work on proprietary networks.I disagree. There is a move towards more specialized computers (game console, smart phone, voip box, pvr, etc.). That is normal. Generally things diverge then consolidate then diverge then consolidate in a cyclical fashion. Trying to stop people from creating new things, whether more specialized or more flexible will undermine the free market and slow innovation significantly.
I agree we need to either equally subsidize all network providers or force the existing ones to behave neutrally, but that has nothing to do with the devices that run on the network or trying to dictate what they do.
I don't think that is quite true. In order to execute one of these exploits, you need to get something running on the box and that means it has a binary that will run on your OS. Once that happens, you're rooted with no security measures in software able to do anything about it. To be useful, however, the OS will still have to be taken into account at this point as well.
That is not to say no one will write a cross platform worm or a mac specific exploit for this, since it is as vulnerable (maybe more so) than Windows. This is a problem for Mac users, but maybe not quite as large of a problem as you're implying.
I thought this thread was about the reason for MS's licensing terms, which forbid running the low end versions of Vista in a VM. I realize the article postulated that they might be afraid Apple would buy a copy of Windows and include it, but I don't think that really makes much sense and don't expect most people to take it seriously.
That's assuming most Apple users will be buying Windows and some solution to make it integrate well. I don't think that is a reasonable assumption. Most of the people running Windows in an emulator are doing so because they are migrating away from Windows, or because they just need one or two apps. A few developers might drop support for the Mac, but they'd also lose that market share rapidly to someone whose software will run natively and will use all the features of OS X. The situation would be different if Apple were bundle a functioning copy of Windows, but I think that is extremely unlikely to ever happen.
Then people start mainly running Windows apps. And then people maybe see no need to use the Mac OS as the middle man...In my experience most users who run OS X as their regular desktop for a few weeks will not even consider switching back to Windows once they are used to OS X. Apple's problem is getting them to shell out to try it without breaking their hardware tie which insulates them from MS's monopoly. MS's problem is stopping them from trying it, and trying to make using it as unpleasant and expensive as possible by making it harder to use their existing software and misc Windows programs. This licensing will probably help with the first, but may backfire for the latter, since it might just keep more users on WinXP, holding back adoption of MS's new lock-in technologies.
You have a choice as to whether or not you smoke cigarettes. Does that make a tax on tobacco any less a tax?
I am not aware of people being held at gunpoint to pay the licence fee (remember not even out Police carry guns except for a few special units).Try owning a TV, openly without paying your fee. Defend your right to own it without paying, to the point of offering physical resistance with a weapon to any who try to deny you your right. If you are competent enough, I guarantee it will be enforced at gunpoint.
No.
If not, why not?Because I'd never heard of them and am not much of a complainer.
It is after all, a proprietary format, wholly owned and controlled by one company, which is why Creative and MS Mp3 players can't play the content.Actually, they claim to support several different company's players on the Web site. The only proprietary format I see is Realplayer. I disagree with using that format almost as much as I disagree with WMA. Both are closed and proprietary to one company instead of standards. The only difference is real has not been convicted of crimes with regard to promoting said format.
The BBC is a multimedia company, experimenting and playing with many formats to see what works, and what is popular.The BBC is funded by the government with money that is not collected as donations, but by force of law. As such, they take on more responsibilities than a wholly private company. Just as I would not support a government funded agency distributing patented GM grain to the poor to grow, I don't support locking them in to a given type of media. The BBC has a responsibility to the people and that includes supporting standard formats that we can be assured will be playable to posterity and which promote the free market.
That technological interest from a TV company should be celebrated not whined about.Would you then support the government moving to all nonstandard nuts and bolts for vehicles, whose pattern is patented by one particular company? Would you vote for a bill to fund such an endeavor? Should the government be applauded for taking an interest in new (inferior) technology like the BBC is or should they be reviled for their shortsightedness?