You raise some good points, but, depending on their level of tech-savvy, Mac may not be the way to go.
If the person in question is really, completely, clueless at computers, an Xubuntu box is the way to go. Think about it: the person is so clueless that they won't use the menus; you make a shortcut on the desktop to Firefox, and rename it to "Go Online", another shortcut to Writer, and that's about it. This has one great advantage over a mini: cost! Grab your old P3 from the basement, dust off the 128 megs of RAM, toss in an old CRT, add Xubuntu (or, if you've got a little more RAM, K/Ubuntu), and you've got a box that will suit their needs completely for practically nothing.
If, OTOH, they are going to want to be installing their own software, or doing something else "high-tech", then, yeah, go for the Mini.
Linux is for the completely inept or the 1337, everyone else should use Mac.
Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you this season's lame Slashdot joke! (Don't worry if you find it funny. It'll lose its charm in about ten or twenty repetitions.)
A guy with a sig like yours has no right to talk;)
Exactly that is far too likely to happen. EA takes some sort of sadistic pleasure (perhaps we could call it profit) from taking a decent game and creating hundreds of crappy tie-in sequels for it.
I for one was looking forward to Hellgate London (as in, checking their website every day, and googling constantly for new rumors), but, right now I'm probably going to reconsider pre-ordering it. In fact, I probably won't even buy it out of my longstanding hatred for EA (there's always bittorrent).
Nice one, Flagship. Way to lose sales from your most devoted fans.
I can see it now...2 million years in the future, a group of dedicated scientists and anthropologists roll back wikipedia (after a decade of hard work to get the servers back up and running) only to discover...
A picture of goatse and text next to it that reads HAHAHAHAHA YOU GOT PWN'D! BOW BEFORE GOATSE! Alas, this is the only fragment ever to be recovered from the ancient servers, but anthropologists surmise that the ancient race of man worshiped this icon as some sort of deity.
Gnuzilla and IceWeasel is a fork of the mozilla suite. It's not the same as firefox, as extensions don't work, and Epiphany has serious issues with a lot of the firefox extentions.
What I want is a browser that starts up the second I click the icon, and one where I can nuke the stuff I don't want (flash, java, videos), and install extensions for what I do want. (Adblock, tabmixplus).
That's not the problem with Linux at all. You can usually get video drivers and such to work out of the box (if X doesn't auto dectct, you can double click the fucking.run file from ATI or NVidia and it almost always works.)
I don't use linux because THERE'S NO INCENTIVE FOR ME TO!
OK, so I don't have to pay anything, vs, I grab an XP keygen. I can't play games. It's not noticably faster. Old and/or weird hardware isn't supported. You can't configure your mouse buttons 4 and 5, or enable/disable your laptop touchpad.
Obviously, these problems are getting better. You've got programs that are quicker/more intuitive than windows ones (VLC, Firefox, OO.o). The second there is a decent Linux EXCLUSIVE app, you'll see people switch in droves.
Now, mod me troll, and continue ranting about how Linux is ready for the desktop.
If you are running at a lower resolution (640*480) then simply turning on AA looks a lot better than upping the resolution. I get 25fps on Oblivion at 640 with AA, but only 16-19 when I run at 1024 with no AA (all other settings are the same.)
But, yeah, if you are already running at 1024, turning on or off AA won't make a much difference in looks.
Even small buisness are switching. There is a software development company around the block which has converted every doctor's office in my state (almost) to Ubuntu on tablet PC's. They are making a shitload of cash doing it. I've talked with a few of the employees, and they say that they NEVER get support calls. (In the year they've been running, maybe half a dozen out of a hundred companies serviced).
Moreover, my University has just switched to Kubuntu on EVERY SINGLE BOX. The admin took one look at a vista beta, and switched them the next day. Most of the university staff and researchers are going to be switched to either (K)Ubuntu or Redhat within the next two years.
Ebay or bricklink should do the trick. Also, for teachers, I believe there's several educational (read: bulk) technic sets for schools. I believe the educational program was called Dacta.
Point is, a quick ebay search for "lego technic" or "lego ####" (model number of technic set) can produce massive quantites of bricks for a practically nothing. I've also had good luck with bricklink stores in the past, but that's more for if you need one special piece.
Don't you think you'd do a little more than give a quick squeal?
Not if you didn't have the stock footage for it. What were they going to do? Bring back a 20-years-older Ford to be killed by Jabba? What, leave the scene out altogether? Impossible! Every pice of stock footage must be used! Lucas demands it!
Um, IE7 as another poster said, isn't really secure. Many people find Opera to be an excellent browser, but it doesn't compare to Firefox for just one reason: Extentions. If you're using vanilla Firefox, might as well dump it and go with Opera, but if you've ever tried stuff like adblock, slashdotter, tabmixplus, flashgot, videodownloader, or any of the other awesome extentions, you won't be able to go back to any other browser.
My school uses Packeeter. Works fine (too well) for outgoing connections (at least until you enable encryption on bittorrent), and our transfers over AIM or LAN are limited to 4mb/s.
If you can somehow encrypt your SMB transfers, you'll be fine. I'm not sure there's a way to do this though.
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If the person in question is really, completely, clueless at computers, an Xubuntu box is the way to go.
Think about it: the person is so clueless that they won't use the menus; you make a shortcut on the desktop to Firefox, and rename it to "Go Online", another shortcut to Writer, and that's about it.
This has one great advantage over a mini: cost! Grab your old P3 from the basement, dust off the 128 megs of RAM, toss in an old CRT, add Xubuntu (or, if you've got a little more RAM, K/Ubuntu), and you've got a box that will suit their needs completely for practically nothing.
If, OTOH, they are going to want to be installing their own software, or doing something else "high-tech", then, yeah, go for the Mini.
Linux is for the completely inept or the 1337, everyone else should use Mac.
A guy with a sig like yours has no right to talk ;)
I read on digg about three seconds ago, that it in fact does work. Set the installer to XP compatibility mode, and BAM! It works!
Now, I'd love to see vista flop, but it looks like Zune won't be it's downfall. A simple patch can fix the installer.
Full blog at http://vistazune.blogspot.com/
I for one was looking forward to Hellgate London (as in, checking their website every day, and googling constantly for new rumors), but, right now I'm probably going to reconsider pre-ordering it. In fact, I probably won't even buy it out of my longstanding hatred for EA (there's always bittorrent).
Nice one, Flagship. Way to lose sales from your most devoted fans.
A picture of goatse and text next to it that reads HAHAHAHAHA YOU GOT PWN'D! BOW BEFORE GOATSE!
Alas, this is the only fragment ever to be recovered from the ancient servers, but anthropologists surmise that the ancient race of man worshiped this icon as some sort of deity.
Oh, I kid, I kid.
Hey, well, the girls might not be after him, but a million Anonymous Cowards on Slashdot sure are.
Amazing stuff.
What I want is a browser that starts up the second I click the icon, and one where I can nuke the stuff I don't want (flash, java, videos), and install extensions for what I do want. (Adblock, tabmixplus).
Parent is SOOOO not a troll.
But, don't forget that if you strip away too much, you'll end up with Lynx. Some people like at least images and css, you know?
last time I checked, VLC could do the same thing, but you don't have to fool around trying to crack it. Plus, it works on Linux...
You can usually get video drivers and such to work out of the box (if X doesn't auto dectct, you can double click the fucking
I don't use linux because THERE'S NO INCENTIVE FOR ME TO!
OK, so I don't have to pay anything, vs, I grab an XP keygen. I can't play games. It's not noticably faster. Old and/or weird hardware isn't supported. You can't configure your mouse buttons 4 and 5, or enable/disable your laptop touchpad.
Obviously, these problems are getting better. You've got programs that are quicker/more intuitive than windows ones (VLC, Firefox, OO.o). The second there is a decent Linux EXCLUSIVE app, you'll see people switch in droves.
Now, mod me troll, and continue ranting about how Linux is ready for the desktop.
But as I understand it, Apple isn't worried about piracy, because you have to be a technical uber geek to run OS X on non-Apple hardware.
...there's no cheesy midi loops.
But, yeah, if you are already running at 1024, turning on or off AA won't make a much difference in looks.
Scrap Ballmer...Let's get a dancing Linus Torvolds!
Even small buisness are switching. There is a software development company around the block which has converted every doctor's office in my state (almost) to Ubuntu on tablet PC's. They are making a shitload of cash doing it. I've talked with a few of the employees, and they say that they NEVER get support calls. (In the year they've been running, maybe half a dozen out of a hundred companies serviced).
Moreover, my University has just switched to Kubuntu on EVERY SINGLE BOX. The admin took one look at a vista beta, and switched them the next day. Most of the university staff and researchers are going to be switched to either (K)Ubuntu or Redhat within the next two years.
Linux is deffinately growing.
Hell, the utility to check and see if it works doesn't even run on Linux.
Also, for teachers, I believe there's several educational (read: bulk) technic sets for schools. I believe the educational program was called Dacta.
Point is, a quick ebay search for "lego technic" or "lego ####" (model number of technic set) can produce massive quantites of bricks for a practically nothing. I've also had good luck with bricklink stores in the past, but that's more for if you need one special piece.
Um, this is slashdot. You won't be squeezing any teets. Ever. Sorry.
Not if you didn't have the stock footage for it. What were they going to do? Bring back a 20-years-older Ford to be killed by Jabba? What, leave the scene out altogether? Impossible! Every pice of stock footage must be used! Lucas demands it!
Um, IE7 as another poster said, isn't really secure. Many people find Opera to be an excellent browser, but it doesn't compare to Firefox for just one reason: Extentions.
If you're using vanilla Firefox, might as well dump it and go with Opera, but if you've ever tried stuff like adblock, slashdotter, tabmixplus, flashgot, videodownloader, or any of the other awesome extentions, you won't be able to go back to any other browser.
If you can somehow encrypt your SMB transfers, you'll be fine. I'm not sure there's a way to do this though.
god damn, that's just too much porn. You need:
A) A girlfriend
B) A life
C A bigger RAID array to store all that crap
you don't undersand their tacitcs. It's all about fear. They are trying to scare you into thinking that if you pirate music, you'll get caught.