I don't like applications assigning right click menus. What is in the context menu in maya that could not be in regular menus? If there are items I need to reference constantly, I can put those in a menu. If not, then I can put other things in the right-click menu. The problem is not just that complex applications require lots of controls. The problem is that simple program developers cannot resist adding them as well and relying upon them being there. That is the difference right now. Application developers cannot rely upon the crutch of an extra button. It may be there, it may not, depending on the user. By making it clear that developers cannot rely upon it, Apple prevents 99% of developers from doing so. That 1%, just suck (like maya).
Textedit has no right click menu assigned, so I put useful things there. Notepad has junk there, so I cannot put useful things there. Apple has thus saved me time, and I prefer that. It sounds like a success to me, and to many of us that actually would rather have a choice.
If you are talking about Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, it actually only requires 64mb of RAM and 8mb of video-RAM. If you are talking about something else, then this is the first I have heard of it. I'm not a huge star wars fan these days though, so it is not surprising that I would be ignorant. Do look into USB audio devices. It is as digital as any other digital audio and there are some pretty cool devices these days.
Who would really rather have a one button mouse over 2-buttons-with-wheel goodness.
I would rather have 4 buttons on my mouse. I do not, however, want apple to make or ship it. If that happened my buttons would as useless as in windows when application developers start assigning useless crap to secondary buttons. Apple shipping with only one button forces developers to keep it simple and leaves power users extra buttons to assign to what they need. I'd say Apple is right on with their policy. The only feature that would help would be the ability to swap the trackpad button for multiple buttons on a laptop. If they could make that modular and swappable then they would have the perfect combination.
On top of that users don't have to manage their keys so its not a matter of having your mother manage 2 keys making running as admin more secure, which by the way, is the dumbest statement I've read all day.
Having two valid keys makes cracking much easier in many cases. Sometimes it is illegal for an administrator to have access to a user's data, especially in government and health industries. Automated attacks on services that will grant a user access to the known administrator account, do not necessarily grant them easy and predictable access to all user accounts. I said "in this way" running as admin is more secure, not that running as admin was more secure in general.
I don't see why your average home user would run EFS at all.
Yeah yeah yeah, users are too dumb to have access to these features, admins should run it all, blah blah blah. There are plenty of cases where users need encryption and where admins should not have access to that data both for home users and in government and business. Just because you can't imagine them, does not mean they don't exist. Maybe you should work with intelligent people if you think your users are too dumb and irresponsible to handle important data securely. I'm sure there is lots of functionality that you don't see the need for, that does not mean the need does not exist.
I give my opinion, it's different then your worshiping all things OS X so I must be paid by MS.
Yeah, because my saying that there are flaws in OS X's encryption implementations (which I mention earlier) obviously is indicative of my worship. What I said is, "I hope MS is paying you" since the alternative is that you are really, really dense. What my original point was is that the Windows implementation is flawed because it fails to account for certain uses, is not flexible, presents unnecessary avenues for attack, and fails to inform user's as to its behavior. They should improve this particular aspect of this implementation. Then I cited how one other system handles it in a much better way. I'm sure there are other good solutions that I am not aware of.
Is it so hard for you to admit that this could be done better and that it would improve things? All I have heard so far are lame excuses as to why it really isn't too bad, or as broken as all that, or why nobody would want it to work the other way anyway.
The MS implementation is very poor. Other implementations are better. I listed several reasons. A superstar of the encryption field listed several reasons in the article this thread discusses. Get a clue.
Missing feature 1: the ability to turn off a second, unnecessary, admin key.
Reason: In many cases having a second key is not useful, like on a single user system. It adds another key for attacks and another account to be hacked that will grant access. It makes automated attacks easier. In some settings administrators may not have as much security clearance as particular users.
Missing feature 2: notification for users of whether or not another account can decrypt a file/volume/partition.
Reason: So users know what is happening whether or not they are administrators. This keeps clueless people from losing the only password and keeps people from relying on encryption that is not necessarily secure.
Damn. This is not rocket science. I hope English is not your first language.
Apple does not ship multi button mice for a very good reason. If they did, application developers would require the use of multiple buttons to use their application, just like on windows. This just complicates the interface and makes it harder for power users who do use multi-button mice to customize their system. Right now all 4 buttons on my mice have functions. If Apple shipped two button mice, one of mine would be used up by Application designers, and not be available for what I actually want it to do.
The best reason not to ship multi-button mice by default is that Windows does, and it sucks. Functionality no one uses is crammed into a contextual menu. Even fucking notepad has the second button assigned to crap, meaning the user can't assign it to do something actually useful. I know my workflow better than application designers do. One of my buttons activates expose, another has features tied to each app, that I have assigned, not the application designer. My text editor has spell checking, thesaurus, dictionary lookup, translation services, read aloud, etc. My ray-tracer has batch scripts. This is much more useful than another way to activate random features already in the menus, or the only way to active some feature that should be in the regular menus.
A single button mouse enforces good application development and customization. It also keeps things simple, the learning curve short, new and very remedial users happy, and makes things much easier for the disabled who need alternate interfaces. Multiple buttons are fine for power users, but I sincerely hope Apple never makes them standard since it will make as big of a mess as it is on Windows.
OK, if you give the user the option to choose if they have an Admin have a backup key
First, the admin chooses if there is a key, not the user. The user is informed. Second, if a user wants to encrypt something for job security, well they can always use any 3rd party tools they want and neither Windows nor OS X will easily stop them.
It is Microsoft recognizing that a business needs to access to everything no matter what happenes to its people.
It is MS recognizing one type of customer (business with a admin that is not the user) and ignoring the rest of their customers. Why run as a regular user and have two keys to worry about? You might as well run as admin and only have one. In this way running as admin is actually more secure.
MS makes things easy for one kind of user, and really hard for the other. Apple makes it easy for either. I can't believe you are arguing against functionality to make a machine more secure and easier to use in a home setting. You must be one of the worst MS apologists I have ever seen. I really hope they are paying you to astroturf.
The radeon 9200 chip they have is ok for playing basic mpg's or tetris but that's about it.
Can you point out one shipping game for the mac that the mac mini does not meet the requirements for? I mean UT2004, WOW, Warcraft3, Neverwinter Nights, Halo, etc. all seem to have minimum requirements below its specs. I think Doom3 requires another.2 GHz of processor power, but it has not shipped yet as far as I know. Complaining that a shipping system has sub-par graphics for gaming when it will play any current game is a little premature. At least wait till there is a game it won't play, OK?
*no* mac's have upgradable sound.
USB. USB sound is pretty popular right now both among audio professionals and amateurs. There is a ton of USB audio gear available. Get a clue.
Every time I sit down at my Mac to work with Maya, the first thing I do is plug in a three-button mouse with scroll wheel -- and so does everybody else.
...because Maya can't make a simple interface that is easy to use. No, wait hold on for a second and hear me out. To type this message, I right-clicked on an item in an RSS feed. I middle-clicked to zoom some windows out of my way, and I regularly super-secret-4th-button-click to run words through a thesaurus in some applications. I super-secret-4th-button-click to take screenshots in Bryce and drop them into a temp folder. If my RSS reader, or my browser, or my ray-tracer, or my layout application, or my text editor required more than one button, I would need 5 or 6 buttons in order to accomplish these tasks. Because they only require one button, the other buttons are mine to assign however I like. Maya sucks for requiring more buttons to be useful. Those are my damn buttons, why should they get to assign them? Application and OS designers need to keep the operation simple, so that power users can get specialized hardware with extra controls and actually use them to their potential. Everyone works differently and has different priorities. Everyone needs different functions available to them.
Do you honestly believe that if Apple shipped a 3 button mouse as standard application designers would not assign functions to all of those buttons thus ruining my workflow? If so, why do you believe that, given that on Windows they assign functions to two buttons for damn near every stupid text editor, movie player, and web browser?
You are basically arguing that application designers know better than you, what functions should be mapped to your buttons. They will be able to predict your workflow, and will never assign stupid or useless functionality that will prevent you from doing something better (as is the case on Windows.) I think you're very wrong.
it is a FLAW, a big, huge, honking flaw the designers and their apologists steadfastly refuse to admit, probably for reasons of pride and irrational fandom.
Please provide a logical reason why users should have to have more than one button. I would be very pissed if Apple introduced multi-button mice as standard on even the professional line. Single button mice are simpler. They are easier for novices as anyone who has watched a new user click both buttons interchangeably or sometimes both at once can attest. More buttons can be useful, but they are needed. That is a good thing. Keeping things simple makes the learning curve smaller and allows for more customization. I use a 4 button mouse every day, but I'd much rather get to choose what the buttons do, and assign them to the most common and useful features for me, rather than leaving it up to either the OS or application designer. The minute Apple made multi-button mice standard, application designers would require them to run their app, and I would need a 5 button mouse to still have the same functionality.
everyone I know who has a mac absolutely hates the one-button mouse, again without exception
Well I don't, and I know a lot of people who agree with me. Let me ask you this, are all your friends ex-wintel hardware users? Did they learn using a multi-button mouse and become used to relying on it, or did they start with a one button mouse? I get the feeling you and your friends are just too set in your ways to learn something better. There is no functionality in OS X that requires more than one button. If you want more, great buy a new mouse. Don't try to force everyone else to fall into the Windows trap and have to have more controls to do the same thing. That is very inefficient.
So MS solves the problem exactly the way everyone else does (alternate keys and key holders) and your upset becase...
I guess I was not clear enough. Let me explain this in really little words. MS does not allow users to utilize the Windows encryption without their being a second key owned by the admin account. This is a flaw in many settings. Their should be an option to either have an administrative key (for workstations where the user is not that admin and there is no expectation of privacy) or not have an admin key (for personal workstations where having a second key is just a liability). Further, the user should be informed which is the case. This is just another example of Windows being designed with regular users needing admin accounts and encourages the practice of always running as admin.
This particular problem (should their be a backup key and in what cases) is a solved problem on OS X. It is still a problem on Windows. Hence, MS should copy Apple's implementation. Any system has flaws. Encryption on OS X is not perfect. Nonetheless, this particular part of Apple's implementation is superior and solves the problem. This has nothing to do with MS sucking (which they do). I don't deride MS's solutions because MS created them. I am more suspect of MS's solutions because they have such a poor security record. If I complain about a problem with MS's implementation of something, however, you can be assured it is because the I think there is a problem with it, not because MS created it.
For corporations (the target market for EFS), it means that if someone is fired, quits, dies, etc. then their data is not lost foreever.
This is yet another solved problem. OS X allows encrypted user partitions and encrypted disk images. It allows an administrative key to user partitions as an option. It warns everyone what is going on when the features are enabled. This is just not that hard. MS did not quite get it right, they need to copy Apple more closely.
It is simply good business to port any OpenGL game to the mac. The porting cost is small and the rewards are large. That is why you will be hard pressed to find many commercial games that are OpenGL and don't have a mac version. At the same time, DirectX games require a lot of work to port from that technology. DirectX games are ported, but usually only when the product is already a success and there is a good expectation that it will not flop. The added time and expense of porting makes the business case much weaker unless the developers are very confident.
You may note that several very big game developers use OpenGL exclusively. This is because they are confident in their games, and have the experience to know that it is easier to start with a cross-platform system, then to try to write everything twice.
Your implication that a couple million computers (3-4 actually) sold a year makes for too small of a customer base for developers is weak. Especially given that it is the cream of the market, people willing to pay for high-end gear.
What can you actually do with the Mini Bluetooth connection?
I suspect this is pretty much intended for keyboards, mice, cell phones, PDAs, and headphones. I know the OS supports file transfer via bluetooth for both LDAP info and general files, and has some nice security options. Theoretically, it could be used for all sorts of low-bandwidth wireless applications.
where's the truly hifi Bluetooth stereo headset?
Did you just say, "hi-fi???" Can you even buy low tolerance components these days? I mean what is the worst tolerance on a commodity resistor these days?
A question: can a Mac mouse/keyboard from an old G3 system be used with the Mini?
Why do people ask questions like this on Slashdot? Google works pretty well. If it is USB it will work fine. If it is older, you will need an ADB-USB adapter, which is probably about as expensive as just buying a new keyboard and mouse.
...and there are a number of reasons why this would be higher today. First consolidation of the media companies has left a small number of major companies with a huge number of works. These companies would be unlikely to ever let the copyright on a work lapse. It makes no business sense for them to do so.
Second, automation is greatly improved. 70 years ago big companies could hire someone to renew all their copyrighted works. Today anyone with a PC can automate the task.
It is true that a large number of works would never be renewed, but as I have said three times now, this does not stop companies from hoarding important works of film, music, and literature that are a forgotten part of our heritage. I'm firmly of the opinion that if a work is copyrighted, it needs to be available for purchase at a reasonable rate. Exceptions can be made for trade secrets, but if MGM owns a film it put out in 1962 and wants it to be copyrighted, they should be required to sell me a copy on demand. Anything else is not acceptable.
Also, I have heard that Bungie was making Halo on the Mac before Microsoft came in with the big $$$.
Steve Jobs demoed it on OS X a full year before it came out. What happened was Bungie was a mac company that had started doing some Windows ports of their titles as well. MS bought them, and told them that Halo was to be X-box first, and held up the release of the mac version until long after both the X-box and PC versions were shipping.
and the graphics cards always take a while to port to Mac, too.
Most mac users either use the graphics card that shipped with their machine or a high-end workstation card. Several new graphics cards in the last few years have come out in macs before they were shipping for pcs. It is not something mac users worry about though. Drivers are all nicely integrated. I don't recall ever downloading one.
You assertion about why developers do not develop for the mac is correct from one perspective. Many developers do not see that market (even if it is there). Many more consider it, and only then discover that they are using so many Windows only technologies owned by MS that they are basically trapped. In any case, take a look at the developers who do ship mac versions right away, or with only a very short delay. You'll notice that it is the cream of the crop. If there is no business case why are the successful and profitable companies doing it? (Blizzard and ID come to mind.)
If a publisher can figure out how to convince best buy, compusa, wal-mart, etc. to carry Mac games and other mac related items. then maybe we can expect to see more mac games.
The compusa near me does carry mac games, computers, other software, etc. I prefer to buy everything online, however. Brick and mortar shops are far too slow to lower their prices. I've seen several year old games at full price.
For example, starcraft was released with one CD containing both the PC and Mac version.
Blizzard does this with all their games. Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, etc.
I've been considering starting a mac shareware game company and over charging mac users for games, because apparently they are willing to pay for it.
This is true, or very nearly so. Their are several very successful shareware game companies for the mac. Some produce very good software. The reason why so few games come out for the Mac at the same time as the PC is simple. DirectX. Yup, that is it. Most game developers only know DirectX, so that is what they develop with. It takes at least a few months to port a game that relies upon this MS proprietary, Windows only technology. All the games that have simultaneous, or near simultaneous releases are OpenGL, like Blizzard games and Doom from ID. It is a sad fact, and one that keeps many games out of the Mac market.
Macs have been notorious for having the smallest selection of crappiest games. The only decent ones are games that are ported from PC.
I'll give you that the selection of games on the Mac is not wonderful, but you're a little off here. There have been a number of great games that started on the Mac and then moved to the PC, or in some cases never did.
Wolfenstein 3d was a mac game before there was a Windows port, and one of the first FPS games, it ruled at the time. The Marathon series were some of the best FPS ever made and were the predecessors to Halo. Marathon 2 had voice chat with your team (and teams for that matter) ages before any PC game. The plots were also way, way better than any current FPS that I have played. I know people who installed mac emulators just to play Realmz which was a RPG that let the user create their own campaigns. How about Myth? It was at one time mac only and the most popular game ever sold (overtaken by the sims). Escape Velocity is a simple, but very fun space shoot em up that was on the mac for years before a pc port arrived. I'm sure there are plenty more.
The Mac is not the best gaming platform in the world, but most of the good titles make it to the Mac and it has some gems all it's own. Characterizing the games as crappy is way off base.
IBM is in the perfect posision - a total monopoly of the TV gaming CPU market.:D
I'm not sure you can call it a monopoly. They certainly have a head start and a promising platform. Given the open standard of the PowerPC platform, however, and Motorola's chips that already implement that standard, I'd say this is a win for consumers. Even Intel and AMD can jump on the PPC bandwagon if they like. It would not surprise me if it happened in the next few years. (Although it would not surprise me if it did not either.)
Hey - why bother working with another established console maker when you can just attempt to pilfer the competition's titles?
I think Apple would do better to play nice in this arena. Who knows what DRM schemes Sony, MS, or Nintendo could add to the hardware. Also the margins on the hardware are very small, sometimes negative. That is not a good way for Apple to make money. If their console runs another companies games, then that other company will be the one pulling in the licensing profit. Console makers get paid by game developers, which get paid by the users.
they could even include iTunes with the box and a docking station or connection for an iPod.
That is actually not too bad of an idea, and it is something Nintendo would probably kill for to help combat music playing features from Sony and MS.
I still think it would be a money losing proposition unless they partner, or somehow sign up a pile of game developers.
The fact that they've had mixed success in getting third parties to produce even desktop software for their machines does not bode well for their ability to attract game developers to the platform, either.
Actually, developers are all about OS X. Heck I am sitting two offices away from some people developing Windows only software, that they are developing on powerbooks. I mean have you seen how much freeware/shareware there is for OS X? People love to develop on OS X. Businessmen on the other hand, aren't so keen on investing a pile of money into funding development for OS X, given it's small market share. Many of them just don't want to bother. Even big, entrenched players like Adobe, are less than stellar about committing to developing their products on OS X. Partly this is because so many companies have stupidly moved to MS owned technologies, and are now trapped. Partly this is just because management does not see the business case.
Development on OS X is great. Development for OS X is a dream job for many. It is a profitable endeavor as proved by many companies. What many suits don't get is that Mac users are generally more affluent and willing to shell out money for things than the typical user. They are also often power users and aficionados that devote a relatively large portion of their funds to computing. You occasionally see a company like Adobe kill off development for a product on the Mac, even though it accounts for more than half of their user's. Thick skulled managers either assume that the Mac is dying and are trying to save money by getting ahead of the curve, or don't pay attention to their market share. Framemaker, for example, was cancelled after crappy sales for about 2 years (after they failed to make an OS X native version which everyone was waiting for).
Basically, I disagree that they cannot find developers, but agree that they cannot find a large number of big development houses. Smaller shops do a lot better on the Mac. No what Apple will do if they are smart, is partner with Sony or Nintendo, and include an emulation environment with OS X. That way they get the games, and the development is taken care of by an already established player.
Would it be too much to speculate that Apple can easily come out with a iGame console similarly sized like a Mac Mini?
I'd much rather see them partner with an established console maker. The key to a successful console is the games. You need a lot of them. You need a few really good ones. You need at least one excellent, exclusive title. This would be really hard for Apple to swing all at once.
I'd like to see them partner with Nintendo or Sony to release a built in gaming environment and compatible drives with the media. These companies make their real money on games and the licensing fees. Apple computers could all be extra consoles that sell more games. It would give games an extra market, it would solve the lack of games problem on OS X, and it would provide some 3rd parties with the opportunity to sell game pads and accessories.
That would be a killer feature for Tiger. I don't think it is going to happen, but I'd really like to see it.
For instance, a publisher might be more willing to market and distribute your work if they're assured that their investment won't become suddenly pointless just because some maniacal ex decided to run over you with her Ford Expedition.
Or, if you want to make sure your children are taken care of, or a publisher is worried about their investment you could get insurance, like everyone else.
Copyright law is supposed to promote arts and sciences, not profit from arts and sciences. No matter how well you pay them, authors will not come back from the dead and make more works. There is no point in extending copyright beyond the death of the author.
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I don't like applications assigning right click menus. What is in the context menu in maya that could not be in regular menus? If there are items I need to reference constantly, I can put those in a menu. If not, then I can put other things in the right-click menu. The problem is not just that complex applications require lots of controls. The problem is that simple program developers cannot resist adding them as well and relying upon them being there. That is the difference right now. Application developers cannot rely upon the crutch of an extra button. It may be there, it may not, depending on the user. By making it clear that developers cannot rely upon it, Apple prevents 99% of developers from doing so. That 1%, just suck (like maya).
Textedit has no right click menu assigned, so I put useful things there. Notepad has junk there, so I cannot put useful things there. Apple has thus saved me time, and I prefer that. It sounds like a success to me, and to many of us that actually would rather have a choice.
If you are talking about Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, it actually only requires 64mb of RAM and 8mb of video-RAM. If you are talking about something else, then this is the first I have heard of it. I'm not a huge star wars fan these days though, so it is not surprising that I would be ignorant. Do look into USB audio devices. It is as digital as any other digital audio and there are some pretty cool devices these days.
Who would really rather have a one button mouse over 2-buttons-with-wheel goodness.
I would rather have 4 buttons on my mouse. I do not, however, want apple to make or ship it. If that happened my buttons would as useless as in windows when application developers start assigning useless crap to secondary buttons. Apple shipping with only one button forces developers to keep it simple and leaves power users extra buttons to assign to what they need. I'd say Apple is right on with their policy. The only feature that would help would be the ability to swap the trackpad button for multiple buttons on a laptop. If they could make that modular and swappable then they would have the perfect combination.
On top of that users don't have to manage their keys so its not a matter of having your mother manage 2 keys making running as admin more secure, which by the way, is the dumbest statement I've read all day.
Having two valid keys makes cracking much easier in many cases. Sometimes it is illegal for an administrator to have access to a user's data, especially in government and health industries. Automated attacks on services that will grant a user access to the known administrator account, do not necessarily grant them easy and predictable access to all user accounts. I said "in this way" running as admin is more secure, not that running as admin was more secure in general.
I don't see why your average home user would run EFS at all.
Yeah yeah yeah, users are too dumb to have access to these features, admins should run it all, blah blah blah. There are plenty of cases where users need encryption and where admins should not have access to that data both for home users and in government and business. Just because you can't imagine them, does not mean they don't exist. Maybe you should work with intelligent people if you think your users are too dumb and irresponsible to handle important data securely. I'm sure there is lots of functionality that you don't see the need for, that does not mean the need does not exist.
I give my opinion, it's different then your worshiping all things OS X so I must be paid by MS.
Yeah, because my saying that there are flaws in OS X's encryption implementations (which I mention earlier) obviously is indicative of my worship. What I said is, "I hope MS is paying you" since the alternative is that you are really, really dense. What my original point was is that the Windows implementation is flawed because it fails to account for certain uses, is not flexible, presents unnecessary avenues for attack, and fails to inform user's as to its behavior. They should improve this particular aspect of this implementation. Then I cited how one other system handles it in a much better way. I'm sure there are other good solutions that I am not aware of.
Is it so hard for you to admit that this could be done better and that it would improve things? All I have heard so far are lame excuses as to why it really isn't too bad, or as broken as all that, or why nobody would want it to work the other way anyway.
The MS implementation is very poor. Other implementations are better. I listed several reasons. A superstar of the encryption field listed several reasons in the article this thread discusses. Get a clue.
OK, really slowly this time...
Missing feature 1: the ability to turn off a second, unnecessary, admin key.
Reason: In many cases having a second key is not useful, like on a single user system. It adds another key for attacks and another account to be hacked that will grant access. It makes automated attacks easier. In some settings administrators may not have as much security clearance as particular users.
Missing feature 2: notification for users of whether or not another account can decrypt a file/volume/partition.
Reason: So users know what is happening whether or not they are administrators. This keeps clueless people from losing the only password and keeps people from relying on encryption that is not necessarily secure.
Damn. This is not rocket science. I hope English is not your first language.
Apple does not ship multi button mice for a very good reason. If they did, application developers would require the use of multiple buttons to use their application, just like on windows. This just complicates the interface and makes it harder for power users who do use multi-button mice to customize their system. Right now all 4 buttons on my mice have functions. If Apple shipped two button mice, one of mine would be used up by Application designers, and not be available for what I actually want it to do.
The best reason not to ship multi-button mice by default is that Windows does, and it sucks. Functionality no one uses is crammed into a contextual menu. Even fucking notepad has the second button assigned to crap, meaning the user can't assign it to do something actually useful. I know my workflow better than application designers do. One of my buttons activates expose, another has features tied to each app, that I have assigned, not the application designer. My text editor has spell checking, thesaurus, dictionary lookup, translation services, read aloud, etc. My ray-tracer has batch scripts. This is much more useful than another way to activate random features already in the menus, or the only way to active some feature that should be in the regular menus.
A single button mouse enforces good application development and customization. It also keeps things simple, the learning curve short, new and very remedial users happy, and makes things much easier for the disabled who need alternate interfaces. Multiple buttons are fine for power users, but I sincerely hope Apple never makes them standard since it will make as big of a mess as it is on Windows.
OK, if you give the user the option to choose if they have an Admin have a backup key
First, the admin chooses if there is a key, not the user. The user is informed. Second, if a user wants to encrypt something for job security, well they can always use any 3rd party tools they want and neither Windows nor OS X will easily stop them.
It is Microsoft recognizing that a business needs to access to everything no matter what happenes to its people.
It is MS recognizing one type of customer (business with a admin that is not the user) and ignoring the rest of their customers. Why run as a regular user and have two keys to worry about? You might as well run as admin and only have one. In this way running as admin is actually more secure.
MS makes things easy for one kind of user, and really hard for the other. Apple makes it easy for either. I can't believe you are arguing against functionality to make a machine more secure and easier to use in a home setting. You must be one of the worst MS apologists I have ever seen. I really hope they are paying you to astroturf.
The radeon 9200 chip they have is ok for playing basic mpg's or tetris but that's about it.
Can you point out one shipping game for the mac that the mac mini does not meet the requirements for? I mean UT2004, WOW, Warcraft3, Neverwinter Nights, Halo, etc. all seem to have minimum requirements below its specs. I think Doom3 requires another .2 GHz of processor power, but it has not shipped yet as far as I know. Complaining that a shipping system has sub-par graphics for gaming when it will play any current game is a little premature. At least wait till there is a game it won't play, OK?
*no* mac's have upgradable sound.
USB. USB sound is pretty popular right now both among audio professionals and amateurs. There is a ton of USB audio gear available. Get a clue.
Every time I sit down at my Mac to work with Maya, the first thing I do is plug in a three-button mouse with scroll wheel -- and so does everybody else.
...because Maya can't make a simple interface that is easy to use. No, wait hold on for a second and hear me out. To type this message, I right-clicked on an item in an RSS feed. I middle-clicked to zoom some windows out of my way, and I regularly super-secret-4th-button-click to run words through a thesaurus in some applications. I super-secret-4th-button-click to take screenshots in Bryce and drop them into a temp folder. If my RSS reader, or my browser, or my ray-tracer, or my layout application, or my text editor required more than one button, I would need 5 or 6 buttons in order to accomplish these tasks. Because they only require one button, the other buttons are mine to assign however I like. Maya sucks for requiring more buttons to be useful. Those are my damn buttons, why should they get to assign them? Application and OS designers need to keep the operation simple, so that power users can get specialized hardware with extra controls and actually use them to their potential. Everyone works differently and has different priorities. Everyone needs different functions available to them.
Do you honestly believe that if Apple shipped a 3 button mouse as standard application designers would not assign functions to all of those buttons thus ruining my workflow? If so, why do you believe that, given that on Windows they assign functions to two buttons for damn near every stupid text editor, movie player, and web browser?
You are basically arguing that application designers know better than you, what functions should be mapped to your buttons. They will be able to predict your workflow, and will never assign stupid or useless functionality that will prevent you from doing something better (as is the case on Windows.) I think you're very wrong.
it is a FLAW, a big, huge, honking flaw the designers and their apologists steadfastly refuse to admit, probably for reasons of pride and irrational fandom.
Please provide a logical reason why users should have to have more than one button. I would be very pissed if Apple introduced multi-button mice as standard on even the professional line. Single button mice are simpler. They are easier for novices as anyone who has watched a new user click both buttons interchangeably or sometimes both at once can attest. More buttons can be useful, but they are needed. That is a good thing. Keeping things simple makes the learning curve smaller and allows for more customization. I use a 4 button mouse every day, but I'd much rather get to choose what the buttons do, and assign them to the most common and useful features for me, rather than leaving it up to either the OS or application designer. The minute Apple made multi-button mice standard, application designers would require them to run their app, and I would need a 5 button mouse to still have the same functionality.
everyone I know who has a mac absolutely hates the one-button mouse, again without exception
Well I don't, and I know a lot of people who agree with me. Let me ask you this, are all your friends ex-wintel hardware users? Did they learn using a multi-button mouse and become used to relying on it, or did they start with a one button mouse? I get the feeling you and your friends are just too set in your ways to learn something better. There is no functionality in OS X that requires more than one button. If you want more, great buy a new mouse. Don't try to force everyone else to fall into the Windows trap and have to have more controls to do the same thing. That is very inefficient.
So MS solves the problem exactly the way everyone else does (alternate keys and key holders) and your upset becase...
I guess I was not clear enough. Let me explain this in really little words. MS does not allow users to utilize the Windows encryption without their being a second key owned by the admin account. This is a flaw in many settings. Their should be an option to either have an administrative key (for workstations where the user is not that admin and there is no expectation of privacy) or not have an admin key (for personal workstations where having a second key is just a liability). Further, the user should be informed which is the case. This is just another example of Windows being designed with regular users needing admin accounts and encourages the practice of always running as admin.
This particular problem (should their be a backup key and in what cases) is a solved problem on OS X. It is still a problem on Windows. Hence, MS should copy Apple's implementation. Any system has flaws. Encryption on OS X is not perfect. Nonetheless, this particular part of Apple's implementation is superior and solves the problem. This has nothing to do with MS sucking (which they do). I don't deride MS's solutions because MS created them. I am more suspect of MS's solutions because they have such a poor security record. If I complain about a problem with MS's implementation of something, however, you can be assured it is because the I think there is a problem with it, not because MS created it.
For corporations (the target market for EFS), it means that if someone is fired, quits, dies, etc. then their data is not lost foreever.
This is yet another solved problem. OS X allows encrypted user partitions and encrypted disk images. It allows an administrative key to user partitions as an option. It warns everyone what is going on when the features are enabled. This is just not that hard. MS did not quite get it right, they need to copy Apple more closely.
It is simply good business to port any OpenGL game to the mac. The porting cost is small and the rewards are large. That is why you will be hard pressed to find many commercial games that are OpenGL and don't have a mac version. At the same time, DirectX games require a lot of work to port from that technology. DirectX games are ported, but usually only when the product is already a success and there is a good expectation that it will not flop. The added time and expense of porting makes the business case much weaker unless the developers are very confident.
You may note that several very big game developers use OpenGL exclusively. This is because they are confident in their games, and have the experience to know that it is easier to start with a cross-platform system, then to try to write everything twice.
Your implication that a couple million computers (3-4 actually) sold a year makes for too small of a customer base for developers is weak. Especially given that it is the cream of the market, people willing to pay for high-end gear.
If win2k is used in airplanes today and there hasn't be any crashes or problems. Then it is suitable for airplanes.
If hydrogen is used in blimps today and there hasn't be any crashes or problems. Then it is suitable for blimps.
If fossil fuels are used in industry today and there hasn't be any cataclysm or mass die offs. Then it is suitable for industry.
If there has not been a major problem yet, then there never will be. Because logic tells me that anything that has not happened yet, never will.
What can you actually do with the Mini Bluetooth connection?
I suspect this is pretty much intended for keyboards, mice, cell phones, PDAs, and headphones. I know the OS supports file transfer via bluetooth for both LDAP info and general files, and has some nice security options. Theoretically, it could be used for all sorts of low-bandwidth wireless applications.
where's the truly hifi Bluetooth stereo headset?
Did you just say, "hi-fi???" Can you even buy low tolerance components these days? I mean what is the worst tolerance on a commodity resistor these days?
A question: can a Mac mouse/keyboard from an old G3 system be used with the Mini?
Why do people ask questions like this on Slashdot? Google works pretty well. If it is USB it will work fine. If it is older, you will need an ADB-USB adapter, which is probably about as expensive as just buying a new keyboard and mouse.
only 10-15% of copyrights were ever renewed
...and there are a number of reasons why this would be higher today. First consolidation of the media companies has left a small number of major companies with a huge number of works. These companies would be unlikely to ever let the copyright on a work lapse. It makes no business sense for them to do so.
Second, automation is greatly improved. 70 years ago big companies could hire someone to renew all their copyrighted works. Today anyone with a PC can automate the task.
It is true that a large number of works would never be renewed, but as I have said three times now, this does not stop companies from hoarding important works of film, music, and literature that are a forgotten part of our heritage. I'm firmly of the opinion that if a work is copyrighted, it needs to be available for purchase at a reasonable rate. Exceptions can be made for trade secrets, but if MGM owns a film it put out in 1962 and wants it to be copyrighted, they should be required to sell me a copy on demand. Anything else is not acceptable.
Myst, not Myth.
Whoops, that was a typo, my bad.
Also, I have heard that Bungie was making Halo on the Mac before Microsoft came in with the big $$$.
Steve Jobs demoed it on OS X a full year before it came out. What happened was Bungie was a mac company that had started doing some Windows ports of their titles as well. MS bought them, and told them that Halo was to be X-box first, and held up the release of the mac version until long after both the X-box and PC versions were shipping.
and the graphics cards always take a while to port to Mac, too.
Most mac users either use the graphics card that shipped with their machine or a high-end workstation card. Several new graphics cards in the last few years have come out in macs before they were shipping for pcs. It is not something mac users worry about though. Drivers are all nicely integrated. I don't recall ever downloading one.
You assertion about why developers do not develop for the mac is correct from one perspective. Many developers do not see that market (even if it is there). Many more consider it, and only then discover that they are using so many Windows only technologies owned by MS that they are basically trapped. In any case, take a look at the developers who do ship mac versions right away, or with only a very short delay. You'll notice that it is the cream of the crop. If there is no business case why are the successful and profitable companies doing it? (Blizzard and ID come to mind.)
If a publisher can figure out how to convince best buy, compusa, wal-mart, etc. to carry Mac games and other mac related items. then maybe we can expect to see more mac games.
The compusa near me does carry mac games, computers, other software, etc. I prefer to buy everything online, however. Brick and mortar shops are far too slow to lower their prices. I've seen several year old games at full price.
For example, starcraft was released with one CD containing both the PC and Mac version.
Blizzard does this with all their games. Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, etc.
I've been considering starting a mac shareware game company and over charging mac users for games, because apparently they are willing to pay for it.
This is true, or very nearly so. Their are several very successful shareware game companies for the mac. Some produce very good software. The reason why so few games come out for the Mac at the same time as the PC is simple. DirectX. Yup, that is it. Most game developers only know DirectX, so that is what they develop with. It takes at least a few months to port a game that relies upon this MS proprietary, Windows only technology. All the games that have simultaneous, or near simultaneous releases are OpenGL, like Blizzard games and Doom from ID. It is a sad fact, and one that keeps many games out of the Mac market.
Macs have been notorious for having the smallest selection of crappiest games. The only decent ones are games that are ported from PC.
I'll give you that the selection of games on the Mac is not wonderful, but you're a little off here. There have been a number of great games that started on the Mac and then moved to the PC, or in some cases never did.
Wolfenstein 3d was a mac game before there was a Windows port, and one of the first FPS games, it ruled at the time. The Marathon series were some of the best FPS ever made and were the predecessors to Halo. Marathon 2 had voice chat with your team (and teams for that matter) ages before any PC game. The plots were also way, way better than any current FPS that I have played. I know people who installed mac emulators just to play Realmz which was a RPG that let the user create their own campaigns. How about Myth? It was at one time mac only and the most popular game ever sold (overtaken by the sims). Escape Velocity is a simple, but very fun space shoot em up that was on the mac for years before a pc port arrived. I'm sure there are plenty more.
The Mac is not the best gaming platform in the world, but most of the good titles make it to the Mac and it has some gems all it's own. Characterizing the games as crappy is way off base.
IBM is in the perfect posision - a total monopoly of the TV gaming CPU market. :D
I'm not sure you can call it a monopoly. They certainly have a head start and a promising platform. Given the open standard of the PowerPC platform, however, and Motorola's chips that already implement that standard, I'd say this is a win for consumers. Even Intel and AMD can jump on the PPC bandwagon if they like. It would not surprise me if it happened in the next few years. (Although it would not surprise me if it did not either.)
Hey - why bother working with another established console maker when you can just attempt to pilfer the competition's titles?
I think Apple would do better to play nice in this arena. Who knows what DRM schemes Sony, MS, or Nintendo could add to the hardware. Also the margins on the hardware are very small, sometimes negative. That is not a good way for Apple to make money. If their console runs another companies games, then that other company will be the one pulling in the licensing profit. Console makers get paid by game developers, which get paid by the users.
they could even include iTunes with the box and a docking station or connection for an iPod.
That is actually not too bad of an idea, and it is something Nintendo would probably kill for to help combat music playing features from Sony and MS.
I still think it would be a money losing proposition unless they partner, or somehow sign up a pile of game developers.
The fact that they've had mixed success in getting third parties to produce even desktop software for their machines does not bode well for their ability to attract game developers to the platform, either.
Actually, developers are all about OS X. Heck I am sitting two offices away from some people developing Windows only software, that they are developing on powerbooks. I mean have you seen how much freeware/shareware there is for OS X? People love to develop on OS X. Businessmen on the other hand, aren't so keen on investing a pile of money into funding development for OS X, given it's small market share. Many of them just don't want to bother. Even big, entrenched players like Adobe, are less than stellar about committing to developing their products on OS X. Partly this is because so many companies have stupidly moved to MS owned technologies, and are now trapped. Partly this is just because management does not see the business case.
Development on OS X is great. Development for OS X is a dream job for many. It is a profitable endeavor as proved by many companies. What many suits don't get is that Mac users are generally more affluent and willing to shell out money for things than the typical user. They are also often power users and aficionados that devote a relatively large portion of their funds to computing. You occasionally see a company like Adobe kill off development for a product on the Mac, even though it accounts for more than half of their user's. Thick skulled managers either assume that the Mac is dying and are trying to save money by getting ahead of the curve, or don't pay attention to their market share. Framemaker, for example, was cancelled after crappy sales for about 2 years (after they failed to make an OS X native version which everyone was waiting for).
Basically, I disagree that they cannot find developers, but agree that they cannot find a large number of big development houses. Smaller shops do a lot better on the Mac. No what Apple will do if they are smart, is partner with Sony or Nintendo, and include an emulation environment with OS X. That way they get the games, and the development is taken care of by an already established player.
Would it be too much to speculate that Apple can easily come out with a iGame console similarly sized like a Mac Mini?
I'd much rather see them partner with an established console maker. The key to a successful console is the games. You need a lot of them. You need a few really good ones. You need at least one excellent, exclusive title. This would be really hard for Apple to swing all at once.
I'd like to see them partner with Nintendo or Sony to release a built in gaming environment and compatible drives with the media. These companies make their real money on games and the licensing fees. Apple computers could all be extra consoles that sell more games. It would give games an extra market, it would solve the lack of games problem on OS X, and it would provide some 3rd parties with the opportunity to sell game pads and accessories.
That would be a killer feature for Tiger. I don't think it is going to happen, but I'd really like to see it.
For instance, a publisher might be more willing to market and distribute your work if they're assured that their investment won't become suddenly pointless just because some maniacal ex decided to run over you with her Ford Expedition.
Or, if you want to make sure your children are taken care of, or a publisher is worried about their investment you could get insurance, like everyone else.
Copyright law is supposed to promote arts and sciences, not profit from arts and sciences. No matter how well you pay them, authors will not come back from the dead and make more works. There is no point in extending copyright beyond the death of the author.