The only thing that might change for the end user is the price
I see lots of people making this claim, but there obviously are no reason to expect the price to drop. There are no factors in changing from PPC to Intel x86 which will make any significant change in pricing. The price difference for the processor are not very big, and the cost for Apple making their custom boards will not change either. The reason x86 hardware are cheaper have one major factor, the competition between the different manufacturers keeping the profit margin low. While Apple having no direct competition does not have to deal with that factor to the same degree, and choose to keep their margins on a more comfortable level. Changing processor architecture does not change any of this. Except if Apple gets a real great deal on those CPUs with Intel, they may increase their profit even more.
I have been helping out a friend who have a small company selling computers and equipment, and to me it looks like 2 out of 10 computers sold are AMD64s. Much the same as for P4's, the AMD's are actually slightly ahead. The rest of the systems sold are various AMD Semprons, mainly the 2500+ on motherboards with on-board graphics. Looks like cheap are what most people want.
Then again, the marketplace is littered with unsuccessful alternatives to desktop Windows
And don't forget the most important one in this regard, NeXT.
Apple will think twice before refighting that particular battle!
Given Steve Jobs role now, and formerly with NeXT, that sounds very likely.
Thanks for you input on the drivers, even if it was limited:-)
We are buying from the lesser of "evils/stupids".
Sad but true. Since I fortunately don't have immediate need of a new printer, I going to use the time to consider the lesser evil/stupids. Perhaps the difference are to small to matter to me, and I may decide to go for the best overall bargain(eventual drivers included) on price/preformance.
Perhaps HP and Epson are nicer for Linux, but since both company's have started playing at silly buggers with their replacement cartridges. Trying to shut down cartridges cloners by way of DMCA and such tactics. Or placing restrictions similar to the sone policy in CSS on the cartridges. I'm starting to consider buying a Canon anyway, besides giving EUR 29.95 to a Linux company does not bother me so much. It looks like the drivers from Turboprint.de both are easy to install and of high quality. Have you tried the FreeEdition? I know the print quality is lower, but I'm curious how well it works/installs.
Hardware keyloggers? What a strange concept, where do people get those ideas? I know I would newer have conceived the idea of such a beast, and I AM a hardware guy.
Why not port the Qt version? There is already Qt for windows.
Jokes aside, if you use the nox version of Konqueror, you will already have a functional browser. And not simply a html widget and a javascript interpreter which is what webkit/webcore are.
That's pure nonsens, since the KDE coders have been busy and not sitting around waiting for Apple. They have been creating lots of code in khtml/kjs in the two years since Apple forked the code. If you bother to look over the WebCore source tree you will see lots of patches pulled from the KDE tree incorporated into WebCore. In lots of areas it's the Apple coders who have been trying to keep up with the KDE coders, not the other way. But they have had access to the KDE cvs/svn, having had a much easier job. Since Apple finally has started giving similar access, making it easier for the KDE developers they can now spend more time to writing new code and less time reworking the Apple changes.
Never had any problems with my nForce2 board, it has always worked flawlessly whitout any problems. The only thing was that windows 98 demanded lots of reboots, and manually removal of some drivers when I upgraded to the nForce board. Nothing unexpected there, the Mandrake install only informed me of the hardware changes. Users of older 2.4 kernels (Debian?) and 2.2, may have problems becouse they lack the forcedet(sp) network driver. It's in the 2.6 kernels and backported to the later 2.4 series I think. Besides you can also use the nvidia provided network driver, since already you use the graphics driver there are no reason not to.
The 20 people situation are what I called a explicit collaboration situations, and is one exception when you have to share editable documents. In most cases this kind of scenarios happen inside organizations or special collaborations groups, and they already have a IT policy/agreement set in place for this kind of work(or you get one rather quickly).
I did not say people should run the latest version of Acrobat, the same way you don't use the latest MS office on the machines from '00. You may use older versions of Acrobat, or you can perhaps use a Xpdf version. So yes I assume everyone can run PDFs. Afterall I know for a fact I can read any PDFs I create on my old Pentium 100MHz running win95.
The totally unscientific nature of the tests does not really matter anyway since it's measures the most useless parameter ever used in benchmarks for desktop software. The measurement of startup time for this class of software are pure nonsens. Since the time actually spent doing real work with the application are gigantic compared to startup time, whether it's 1 s or 1 minute. It means nothing compare to spending 10 minutes or more writing a letter or the whole workday writing on a report.
I see no reason why Apple should try to prevent this, and they said as much too(but they wont give any support). For Apple it does not really matter if their MacPentiums boot Windows or not. Afterall Apple has already got the money for the machine inclusive OS. In fact if some people buys a the more expensive Apple hardware to run windows on rather than cheap PC clones, Apple makes even more money.
>A third party developer releases a set of changes for >Safari that will make it pass the Acid2 test.
That was David Hyatt, the safari lead developer. And he only did so after one of the khtml developers bugged him about it, after the initial bragging in his blog.
>each and every change was documented separately as to why it was made.
And that was about the first time Apple did so.
But the rest are rather accurate as are your conclusion.
Since this was the first time Apple actually suplied real patches as such, and not only as a big blob of code named WebCore. And only after one of the khtml developers bugged Hyatt about it, after him bragging in his blog. Yes, I'd say the statement are rather accurate regarding the normal khtml/webcore cooporation.
What is it about all this nagging about China, Brazil et al, when the wast majority of spam still comes from the US? Not only are it sent from US based computers, zombies or otherwise. But the seller of the gods advertised are also in most cases US based.
>the higher-cost employees are the first to get laid off.
No they are not, the higher-cost employees are always in the upper-management category and are never laid off in cost saving scenarios like this.
It is amazing how many people still believe that x86 is vastly cheaper than PPC. What exactly do you think make a x86 cost less than a PPC?
And the number of processors produced don't make a big impact on the price since the architecture and complexity of the x86 chips make it initially much more expensive to produce than the PPC.
>Cheaper because of Intel? I doubt it.
Exactly, the big price difference between Apple and generic x86 hardware are not mainly caused by the price of the processor. The price difference lays in the commodity hardware contra Apples custom boards, and the resulting competition where price are one of the driving factors. Since Apple does not have competition on their hardware they can chose a much more comfortable price margin on their hardware. Given that Apple are a hardware company any possible shift to x86 will not give significant lower prices, as Apple still will not open the platform to clone makers.
Besides Apple has already changed processor architecture once, so they have experience with the process involved.
The distributors does not count, as they are just that. The key issue is the EULA, which is between the user and Microsoft. Nothing about any distributors there.
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The only thing that might change for the end user is the price
I see lots of people making this claim, but there obviously are no reason to expect the price to drop. There are no factors in changing from PPC to Intel x86 which will make any significant change in pricing. The price difference for the processor are not very big, and the cost for Apple making their custom boards will not change either. The reason x86 hardware are cheaper have one major factor, the competition between the different manufacturers keeping the profit margin low. While Apple having no direct competition does not have to deal with that factor to the same degree, and choose to keep their margins on a more comfortable level. Changing processor architecture does not change any of this. Except if Apple gets a real great deal on those CPUs with Intel, they may increase their profit even more.
I have been helping out a friend who have a small company selling computers and equipment, and to me it looks like 2 out of 10 computers sold are AMD64s. Much the same as for P4's, the AMD's are actually slightly ahead. The rest of the systems sold are various AMD Semprons, mainly the 2500+ on motherboards with on-board graphics. Looks like cheap are what most people want.
Typical home users will do no such thing, they like to have a supported platform.
Wrong, the typical home user wants cheap. Everything else is secondary, it's cheap which counts. Why do you think Dell got big, their support?
Then again, the marketplace is littered with unsuccessful alternatives to desktop Windows
And don't forget the most important one in this regard, NeXT.
Apple will think twice before refighting that particular battle!
Given Steve Jobs role now, and formerly with NeXT, that sounds very likely.
Thanks for you input on the drivers, even if it was limited:-)
We are buying from the lesser of "evils/stupids".
Sad but true. Since I fortunately don't have immediate need of a new printer, I going to use the time to consider the lesser evil/stupids. Perhaps the difference are to small to matter to me, and I may decide to go for the best overall bargain(eventual drivers included) on price/preformance.
Perhaps HP and Epson are nicer for Linux, but since both company's have started playing at silly buggers with their replacement cartridges. Trying to shut down cartridges cloners by way of DMCA and such tactics. Or placing restrictions similar to the sone policy in CSS on the cartridges. I'm starting to consider buying a Canon anyway, besides giving EUR 29.95 to a Linux company does not bother me so much. It looks like the drivers from Turboprint.de both are easy to install and of high quality. Have you tried the FreeEdition? I know the print quality is lower, but I'm curious how well it works/installs.
Hardware keyloggers? What a strange concept, where do people get those ideas? I know I would newer have conceived the idea of such a beast, and I AM a hardware guy.
Why not port the Qt version? There is already Qt for windows.
Jokes aside, if you use the nox version of Konqueror, you will already have a functional browser. And not simply a html widget and a javascript interpreter which is what webkit/webcore are.
The Gnome WebKit browser has already existed for some time.a d_id=5818624&forum_id=42686/.
One is called Atlantis http://www.akcaagac.com/index_atlantis.html/
Or you may build Galeon with WebCore http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thre
In addition it seems that WebCore has been imported into the Gnome CVS for some reason (http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/gnome-webcore/)
That's pure nonsens, since the KDE coders have been busy and not sitting around waiting for Apple. They have been creating lots of code in khtml/kjs in the two years since Apple forked the code. If you bother to look over the WebCore source tree you will see lots of patches pulled from the KDE tree incorporated into WebCore. In lots of areas it's the Apple coders who have been trying to keep up with the KDE coders, not the other way. But they have had access to the KDE cvs/svn, having had a much easier job. Since Apple finally has started giving similar access, making it easier for the KDE developers they can now spend more time to writing new code and less time reworking the Apple changes.
Never had any problems with my nForce2 board, it has always worked flawlessly whitout any problems. The only thing was that windows 98 demanded lots of reboots, and manually removal of some drivers when I upgraded to the nForce board. Nothing unexpected there, the Mandrake install only informed me of the hardware changes. Users of older 2.4 kernels (Debian?) and 2.2, may have problems becouse they lack the forcedet(sp) network driver. It's in the 2.6 kernels and backported to the later 2.4 series I think. Besides you can also use the nvidia provided network driver, since already you use the graphics driver there are no reason not to.
The 20 people situation are what I called a explicit collaboration situations, and is one exception when you have to share editable documents. In most cases this kind of scenarios happen inside organizations or special collaborations groups, and they already have a IT policy/agreement set in place for this kind of work(or you get one rather quickly).
I did not say people should run the latest version of Acrobat, the same way you don't use the latest MS office on the machines from '00. You may use older versions of Acrobat, or you can perhaps use a Xpdf version. So yes I assume everyone can run PDFs. Afterall I know for a fact I can read any PDFs I create on my old Pentium 100MHz running win95.
The totally unscientific nature of the tests does not really matter anyway since it's measures the most useless parameter ever used in benchmarks for desktop software. The measurement of startup time for this class of software are pure nonsens. Since the time actually spent doing real work with the application are gigantic compared to startup time, whether it's 1 s or 1 minute. It means nothing compare to spending 10 minutes or more writing a letter or the whole workday writing on a report.
First rule of delivering documents to anyone in a electronic format, is using pdf.
It's only in explicit collaboration situations when it's expected for the recipient to edit or change anything, you should use anything else.
>Apple-branded MacPentium will NOT boot Windows.
I see no reason why Apple should try to prevent this, and they said as much too(but they wont give any support). For Apple it does not really matter if their MacPentiums boot Windows or not. Afterall Apple has already got the money for the machine inclusive OS. In fact if some people buys a the more expensive Apple hardware to run windows on rather than cheap PC clones, Apple makes even more money.
>You've totally missed the point. Let's review.
Yeah, lets do that, since you miss a few points.
>A third party developer releases a set of changes for
>Safari that will make it pass the Acid2 test.
That was David Hyatt, the safari lead developer. And he only did so after one of the khtml developers bugged him about it, after the initial bragging in his blog.
>each and every change was documented separately as to why it was made.
And that was about the first time Apple did so.
But the rest are rather accurate as are your conclusion.
Since this was the first time Apple actually suplied real patches as such, and not only as a big blob of code named WebCore. And only after one of the khtml developers bugged Hyatt about it, after him bragging in his blog. Yes, I'd say the statement are rather accurate regarding the normal khtml/webcore cooporation.
I'm going to bow deeply to show my respect, once I'm finished laughing...
What is it about all this nagging about China, Brazil et al, when the wast majority of spam still comes from the US? Not only are it sent from US based computers, zombies or otherwise. But the seller of the gods advertised are also in most cases US based.
>the higher-cost employees are the first to get laid off.
No they are not, the higher-cost employees are always in the upper-management category and are never laid off in cost saving scenarios like this.
It is amazing how many people still believe that x86 is vastly cheaper than PPC. What exactly do you think make a x86 cost less than a PPC?
And the number of processors produced don't make a big impact on the price since the architecture and complexity of the x86 chips make it initially much more expensive to produce than the PPC.
>Cheaper because of Intel? I doubt it.
Exactly, the big price difference between Apple and generic x86 hardware are not mainly caused by the price of the processor. The price difference lays in the commodity hardware contra Apples custom boards, and the resulting competition where price are one of the driving factors. Since Apple does not have competition on their hardware they can chose a much more comfortable price margin on their hardware. Given that Apple are a hardware company any possible shift to x86 will not give significant lower prices, as Apple still will not open the platform to clone makers.
Besides Apple has already changed processor architecture once, so they have experience with the process involved.
And it's much better having a company hold the monopoly than the goverment, afterall you can't trust goverments.
The distributors does not count, as they are just that. The key issue is the EULA, which is between the user and Microsoft. Nothing about any distributors there.