Buying CDs. Ripping them to MP3 for personal use. Sure, the ripping part is illegal under Australian law, but it would be a brave government indeed that tried to enforce that. Even Fuehrer Philip Ruddock himself has made noises about fixing that.
Exactly.
So the choice is currently - join in, go (or stay) illegal or opt out entirely.
Maybe in future our crack team of bozos (aka the federal gov't) will manage to change copyright laws here, but the noises currently being made mean exactly nothing until a bill is produced. Expect a *lot* of opposition from well-funded industry groups to any introduction of Fair Use rights. I just don't believe it's going to get up at all.
Going (or staying) illegal is not a choice we should have to make, and in my mind it's the greater of the evils.
Every provider in Australia sells DRM-ed music online - you can't buy anything else - and it's much more restrictive than Apple's DRM. And the laws are only just beginning to be examined in light of the fact that it's still illegal to convert media format under Australian copyright law (ie illegal to go from CD to mp3). We have no fair use rights. There is no other option for portable music other than a portable cassette or CD player.
There will probably *never* be a DRM-free option here in Australia, and pretty much every other option is illegal. Given that that situation is true, Apple's iTunes Music Store is the best of the lot.
Hold out all you like, but at some point you either have to give up and join in, go illegal or just opt out of the whole portable music thing. Why cut off your nose to spite your face?
What? Mac users are all perfectly law-abiding software users, none of whom are given to the same behaviour as PC users?
I've used both from the very early days, seen many users of all flavours and they're just the same people, doing the same things. Mac users might like to be thought of as more enlightened, but we're just computer users.
And as for Amiga users... hm. I though *I* was on a niche platform..! I kid, I kid!
I've honestly never seen an argument like yours before. That Mac users are more secure because they're nicer people. I'm... a bit astounded.
That's partly true, but it's still much harder for a worm or virus to spread on OS X. It's true that there would be more attempts, and there'd probably be a few actual forms of malware for OS X out there, but the OS itself hinders their spread, not just the obscurity of it. The system doesn't allow processes the same freedom that Windows used to.
I say used to, because WinXP SP2 restricts apps a lot more than previous Win varieties. That's a good thing, and a good step for Microsoft to have taken. SP2 is full of good things for security, and I'm a big supporter of Microsoft's movements in that area.
It's not the last step though. The OS itself should be their concern, not tools such as malware utilities. That's just a band-aid solution, when in reality they need to operate.
There's a reason that there are zero viruses for OS X, and it's not as simple as security through obscurity. Even a recent cash prize for writing one has gone unclaimed. Mac users shouldn't be complacent, but OS X is very secure out of the box.
Re:No, or Apple would be marketing like mad
on
Video iPod Oct 12?
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· Score: 1
Both the Mini and the Nano were "oh - there's one more thing" announcements.
There was *no* campaign beforehand, and even a cursory glance at Apple's history shows the most they ever do is hint, but for the really big stuff they often don't even do that.
It's so trivial to get something interesting on the screen within a few minutes, and the interface exposes the power of the tool through nicer widgets.
Neither are really up to much in terms of high-powered rendering, but the interfaces present a different concept, and do it quite well. If they were any more lickable, they'd be from Apple.
I saw the first one and found it to be a pile of crap, in a bucket of cold vomit.
The acting by Toby Maguire was some of the worst acting I've ever seen. Flat, emotionless, dull. He had a strong competitor in the female lead though.
The CG was obvious in more than a few places - the way the character moved wasn't realistic, even counting for the superhero powers.
Next you'll be wondering out loud why Tomb Raider 2 didn't get a slew of Oscars.
On the other hand, Batman Begins was a good movie, well executed. What's-her-name was lame and uninspired but the rest of the film was very good indeed.
Suing children, suing disabled single mothers who claim the music was planted there, using fraud and extortion as standard business practices and wanting money for things they have nothing to do with.
The RIAA are too evil even for Microsoft to stomach!
They open sourced the Marathon Infinity engine, so maybe... just maybe...
(Then we can find out why the thing requires 16 nVidia SLI cards working in parallel on a supercomputer just to render at a constant 60fps in complex scenes)
Malware targets weaknesses in an operating system, not a processor.
A virus that hurts Windows will be ineffective against Linux, even though they run on potentially the exact same hardware.
OS X will have the same weaknesses and strengths on x86 as it does on PPC, so you can rest a bit easier. If you're still not sure, get the final PPC revision Macs, and wait for a year or two before going to x86 Macs. You'll know all about any issues by then.
Just like drug companies that release a cure for a disease you'd never heard of, just after 'credible' reports appear in the media showing that most of the poopulation suffer from it.
It's a scare tactic, pure and simple.
However, there is a small sting in the tail - Mac users have little to nothing to worry about today. Tomorrow may be another story entirely.
Just because a virus hasn't been written doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible to write one. There's a creeping feeling in the Mac world that we can't be touched by malware just because we're using Macs. That's a dangerous attitude in the long run.
Mac users need only take advantage of the built-in security, plus enable a few options.
The Firewall should be on by default, but clicking the 'Advanced' button reveals an option for stealth mode. That's always a good idea. In fact, while you're there, turn firewall logging on and come back to read the log in a week or two. That'll highlight any attempts at breaking in.
Keep the administrative account around, but use a non-admin one for day to day tasks. There's no reason not to, and it forces a password check before any files outside the user's directory are altered.
Turn off the option to open 'safe' files after downloading in Safari.
There's a guide from the US NSA out there somewhere that's heavy going, but shows what good security looks like. Read a site like http://www.securemac.com/ once in a while to pick up a few tips.
Mac users needn't be as worried as Windows users should be, but a few ounces of prevention still go a long way.
It's better still - what happens is that the government installs it for you, when you connect to the Internet!
Their hacker department installs it on randomly selected PCs, and then you're required by law to play the game for 10-15 hours every week.
If you don't play enough, you get to play at making cheap consumer goods for the capitalist running dogs in the West.
The game solves many issues - people have something to do with their time, the game is controlled by the state with many exciting messages about foreign policy and it potentially solves labour shortages in manufacturing camps.
Reminds me of my PC at work, where the number of apps I have open means that in the taskbar my copy of (SQL Server's) Query Analyser is shown as "Query Anal" almost every time.
So what's wrong with YellowDog Linux then? If you detest the OS so much, but want (or already own) the hardware, just install Linux and be done with it.
I think there are several flavours of Linux you can go for if you don't like YellowDog.
I think YellowDog put out a Linux that's well supported on PPC hardware from Apple. I've seen a number of articles on the Internet about getting your own version of Linux up and running.
There's a heap of software for the Mac platform, and more if you add in Unix/Linux apps (when you've got source!). What is it you need?
The Mac Mini is not a powerful computer, but has power enough for just about anything below video games or serious number crunching. My iBook has about the same specs as the lesser Mini, and it does video editing, plays most recent games tolerably well, handles Office and iWork easily and is a good development machine.
What the Mini really, *really* needs is video out, and maybe surround sound. It's almost perfect for using as a home theatre device, but lacks video out and surround sound. If Apple could add those, then I'd buy one just as an entertainment unit. It would literally be perfect for me, and I could free up 25GB of space on my iBook (my CD collection).
I love the tiny form factor of the Mini, but can't buy one until it's more significantly different from my iBook.
Slashdot Mirror
And your other option here is..?
Buying CDs. Ripping them to MP3 for personal use. Sure, the ripping part is illegal under Australian law, but it would be a brave government indeed that tried to enforce that. Even Fuehrer Philip Ruddock himself has made noises about fixing that.
Exactly.
So the choice is currently - join in, go (or stay) illegal or opt out entirely.
Maybe in future our crack team of bozos (aka the federal gov't) will manage to change copyright laws here, but the noises currently being made mean exactly nothing until a bill is produced. Expect a *lot* of opposition from well-funded industry groups to any introduction of Fair Use rights. I just don't believe it's going to get up at all.
Going (or staying) illegal is not a choice we should have to make, and in my mind it's the greater of the evils.
And your other option here is..?
Every provider in Australia sells DRM-ed music online - you can't buy anything else - and it's much more restrictive than Apple's DRM. And the laws are only just beginning to be examined in light of the fact that it's still illegal to convert media format under Australian copyright law (ie illegal to go from CD to mp3). We have no fair use rights. There is no other option for portable music other than a portable cassette or CD player.
There will probably *never* be a DRM-free option here in Australia, and pretty much every other option is illegal. Given that that situation is true, Apple's iTunes Music Store is the best of the lot.
Hold out all you like, but at some point you either have to give up and join in, go illegal or just opt out of the whole portable music thing. Why cut off your nose to spite your face?
And where did the $2 figure come from anyway?
Wow - a music player with a crap camera gimmick included!
I can't wait to ignore it!
What? Mac users are all perfectly law-abiding software users, none of whom are given to the same behaviour as PC users?
I've used both from the very early days, seen many users of all flavours and they're just the same people, doing the same things. Mac users might like to be thought of as more enlightened, but we're just computer users.
And as for Amiga users... hm. I though *I* was on a niche platform..! I kid, I kid!
I've honestly never seen an argument like yours before. That Mac users are more secure because they're nicer people. I'm... a bit astounded.
I don't believe that viruses are impossible to write for OS X, just that they're harder to spread than on Windows.
There's no need to rise to a challenge I didn't set, or to jump up with your qualifications at a moment's notice.
That's partly true, but it's still much harder for a worm or virus to spread on OS X. It's true that there would be more attempts, and there'd probably be a few actual forms of malware for OS X out there, but the OS itself hinders their spread, not just the obscurity of it. The system doesn't allow processes the same freedom that Windows used to.
I say used to, because WinXP SP2 restricts apps a lot more than previous Win varieties. That's a good thing, and a good step for Microsoft to have taken. SP2 is full of good things for security, and I'm a big supporter of Microsoft's movements in that area.
It's not the last step though. The OS itself should be their concern, not tools such as malware utilities. That's just a band-aid solution, when in reality they need to operate.
There's a reason that there are zero viruses for OS X, and it's not as simple as security through obscurity. Even a recent cash prize for writing one has gone unclaimed. Mac users shouldn't be complacent, but OS X is very secure out of the box.
Both the Mini and the Nano were "oh - there's one more thing" announcements.
There was *no* campaign beforehand, and even a cursory glance at Apple's history shows the most they ever do is hint, but for the really big stuff they often don't even do that.
Are you sure you're thinking of *Apple*?
Think Bryce and Poser for a starting point.
That's where I think they'd go.
It's so trivial to get something interesting on the screen within a few minutes, and the interface exposes the power of the tool through nicer widgets.
Neither are really up to much in terms of high-powered rendering, but the interfaces present a different concept, and do it quite well. If they were any more lickable, they'd be from Apple.
"near-perfect Spiderman movies" ?
I saw the first one and found it to be a pile of crap, in a bucket of cold vomit.
The acting by Toby Maguire was some of the worst acting I've ever seen. Flat, emotionless, dull. He had a strong competitor in the female lead though.
The CG was obvious in more than a few places - the way the character moved wasn't realistic, even counting for the superhero powers.
Next you'll be wondering out loud why Tomb Raider 2 didn't get a slew of Oscars.
On the other hand, Batman Begins was a good movie, well executed. What's-her-name was lame and uninspired but the rest of the film was very good indeed.
Suing children, suing disabled single mothers who claim the music was planted there, using fraud and extortion as standard business practices and wanting money for things they have nothing to do with.
The RIAA are too evil even for Microsoft to stomach!
Wouldn't that be nice!
They open sourced the Marathon Infinity engine, so maybe... just maybe...
(Then we can find out why the thing requires 16 nVidia SLI cards working in parallel on a supercomputer just to render at a constant 60fps in complex scenes)
Finally! It's being released after years of development.
I'm so looking forward to the much-vaunted 'turn them out' technology.
Malware targets weaknesses in an operating system, not a processor.
A virus that hurts Windows will be ineffective against Linux, even though they run on potentially the exact same hardware.
OS X will have the same weaknesses and strengths on x86 as it does on PPC, so you can rest a bit easier. If you're still not sure, get the final PPC revision Macs, and wait for a year or two before going to x86 Macs. You'll know all about any issues by then.
... so they need to convince us there's a market.
Just like drug companies that release a cure for a disease you'd never heard of, just after 'credible' reports appear in the media showing that most of the poopulation suffer from it.
It's a scare tactic, pure and simple.
However, there is a small sting in the tail - Mac users have little to nothing to worry about today. Tomorrow may be another story entirely.
Just because a virus hasn't been written doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible to write one. There's a creeping feeling in the Mac world that we can't be touched by malware just because we're using Macs. That's a dangerous attitude in the long run.
Mac users need only take advantage of the built-in security, plus enable a few options.
The Firewall should be on by default, but clicking the 'Advanced' button reveals an option for stealth mode. That's always a good idea. In fact, while you're there, turn firewall logging on and come back to read the log in a week or two. That'll highlight any attempts at breaking in.
Keep the administrative account around, but use a non-admin one for day to day tasks. There's no reason not to, and it forces a password check before any files outside the user's directory are altered.
Turn off the option to open 'safe' files after downloading in Safari.
There's a guide from the US NSA out there somewhere that's heavy going, but shows what good security looks like. Read a site like http://www.securemac.com/ once in a while to pick up a few tips.
Mac users needn't be as worried as Windows users should be, but a few ounces of prevention still go a long way.
It's better still - what happens is that the government installs it for you, when you connect to the Internet!
Their hacker department installs it on randomly selected PCs, and then you're required by law to play the game for 10-15 hours every week.
If you don't play enough, you get to play at making cheap consumer goods for the capitalist running dogs in the West.
The game solves many issues - people have something to do with their time, the game is controlled by the state with many exciting messages about foreign policy and it potentially solves labour shortages in manufacturing camps.
Reminds me of my PC at work, where the number of apps I have open means that in the taskbar my copy of (SQL Server's) Query Analyser is shown as "Query Anal" almost every time.
If I had mod points, I'd mod that post as Insightful. I think it's pretty close to reality.
So what's wrong with YellowDog Linux then? If you detest the OS so much, but want (or already own) the hardware, just install Linux and be done with it.
I think there are several flavours of Linux you can go for if you don't like YellowDog.
Can mod points be transferred to Terry Pratchett?
I think YellowDog put out a Linux that's well supported on PPC hardware from Apple. I've seen a number of articles on the Internet about getting your own version of Linux up and running.
There's a heap of software for the Mac platform, and more if you add in Unix/Linux apps (when you've got source!). What is it you need?
God no!
Not on a Mini!
I've tried VPC on my iBook (1.2GHz, same specs as a Mini) and it's just horrible, an abomination. On a fast Mac, you're good to go, but never a Mini.
So it would teach your kid not to care so much what others think, and give him more time to focus on important things instead of video games?
Sounds like a win-win to me.
Maybe you could buy him a console and a Mac Mini.
The Mac Mini is not a powerful computer, but has power enough for just about anything below video games or serious number crunching. My iBook has about the same specs as the lesser Mini, and it does video editing, plays most recent games tolerably well, handles Office and iWork easily and is a good development machine.
What the Mini really, *really* needs is video out, and maybe surround sound. It's almost perfect for using as a home theatre device, but lacks video out and surround sound. If Apple could add those, then I'd buy one just as an entertainment unit. It would literally be perfect for me, and I could free up 25GB of space on my iBook (my CD collection).
I love the tiny form factor of the Mini, but can't buy one until it's more significantly different from my iBook.
I'm not sure I want to see a film that includes a 'ring explosion.'
I think my exact words were "Oh my god, not more of this bloody library! I can't take it! When will it end "