A new root DNS. A new set of policies. Explicit disregard for precedents and policies created by American lawyers and (paid-for) politicians. Slightly lower bar for the Internet Death Penalty. IPv6 only. Standards-based. Vendor neutral. Consumer and techie friendly, megacorp neutral. Rational domain-name dispute policy. No ICANN.
This actually sounds tempting. I doubt it will happen but the Eurohackers will have a lovely sandbox to play in. It might be more useful than the cryptocorporate anarchy that is the Internet today. I wonder if they'll let USAians fed up with the current net join ?
And Intel chips aren't 'cool' in the temperature sense. TiBooks already get pretty hot. Add the extra heat from a P4 and the sucker will just about melt.
I just ran into an awful example of misleading use of keywords. I was doing a naval history search on google for "predreadnought". Most of the links were to porn sites that had a long list of keywords. In fact, it's 7/10 porn sites, one Peruvian maritime museum, and one from a gamer's usenet posting [1]. I have honestly no clue who came up with this particular word to put in a pornsite's meta tag.
The tenth is from a page of keywords by a guy running a how-to-promote-your-website site. I bet he gets a lot of hits.
[1] Poor crazy s.o.b. is trying to do a predreadnought battleship in GURPS.
To amplify what Phroggy said I'd like to add that Microsoft's costs for QA and support for Mac products are noticeable lower on a per-unit basis than the equivalent products on Windows. I don't have hard numbers on this, just anectdotal evidence from people who've worked in QA and testing at MS. MacOS (through OS 9) has always had fewer components than Windows (any version), so supporting it is exponentially simpler and thus less expensive. I have always been able to make a Mac desktop be very stable barring 3rd party or hardware issues, approaching Unix levels of stability (but I'm good at that), so I believe that the more stable OS will cause fewer support calls in general, and be less expensive to support.
All of this tends to show [1] that the higher unit price and lower support costs make MacOffice a nicely profitable product. And remember that MS had to eat a lot of costs to undercut and drive WordPerfect and AmiPro [2]out of the market. Over its history, Office for Windows hasn't made as much money for them as you might think. A lot of seats for WinOffice are in OEM and site licensing deals, which add millions of users, but at a lower revenue figure than a copy of MacOffice, which is covered by site licensing deals but is not in any OEM agreements at all. However, the educational pricing for MacOffice is very reasonable so a fair number of students are going the iBook, OS X, Office X route.
And I must say that EntourageX is endearing itself to me as a mail composing tool. As soon as OfficeX supports services I'll have TextWielder available in it and will finally achieve email nirvana without having to use emacs (which Apple is installing by default (along with vi))
[1] And proves nothing as I am well aware of. Gartner Group has numbers showing lower TCO for Macs, but I haven't paid for a copy of that report.
[2] Wordstar drove themselves out of the market with really shoddy work in the Win3.1 market.
I concur. Browsing in a really nice font (agency standard is FuturaBook), in Aqua, in Mozilla is reason enough to go get a Mac. I cannot overemphasize the importance of excellent text onscreen.
To be fair, IE looks great under OS X too.
Go tinker with a Mac browser in a store sometime. It has to be seen.
I failed to make my point on that topic clear. If it is US legal, then they could localize it, and sell it here. If they could sell PCs with that pre-loaded then we could have a competitor to Microsoft by this time next year. Since there is still a lot of continued support for Win98SE by hardware and game manufacturers, this would make support for the Chinese version very easy for a lot of companies. You have to run it through QA again (some might even do it), but the existing Win98 knowledge base in the user community is very large. I'd give this a shot for a pure gaming rig.
It'd be very tempting to get Microsoft off of my PC. I am concerned about the security implications. It would be so tempting to build backdoors into this, it would almost have to happen. But it will be examined very closely by a lot of very concerned and very talented hackers. SO if there is a hole in it, it will eventually eb found. Many eyes and all that.
If you must clone a Windows OS, then Win98 is a pretty good target. Microsoft et al will have a serious hissy fit. But what can they really do ? It's entirely possible that they could do a clean room implementation that would hold up in US courts (but they might not). The APIs are pretty well understood by this point, and they aren't even "competing" with Microsoft since '98 is three generations obsolete.
If it supports DirectX 8.1a well I might get a copy.
There are two basic problems with the otherwise brilliant idea of just slapping an x86 chip into what was a G4 case (modulo cooling). The first is the network effect. If OS X86 runs Windows apps just fine, then relatively few developers will be tempted to do use the (far superior) Cocoa/Quartz APIs. The other problem is that if Apple ever ships a machine capable of running Visio out of the box, then Microsoft will go into a hyper-adrenal fight-or-flight state and do their best imitation of a rabid badger on crystal meth.
The first problem marginalizes OS X and turns Apple into Dell or Gateway. They're much too good of a software house for that. The second problem will produce a reaction from MS that even a GOP DoJ can't ignore.
Given that, the concept of telling Motorolla to put up or shut up must be attractive to Steve Jobs. He might well float rumors to keep Motorolla on their toes, or to get them there in the first place.
I'm sure Apple's hardware engineers can handle the task of cooling a P4. The other components won't be affected much more than a whole new mobo would normally require. But you'd lose the vector unit and the the lower power requirements of the G4. I don't think they'll do it, since the 'books have good battery life thanks to the lower power consumption int he chips. And that's a strong selling point.
Yup. Installed QT6 and fired it right up. Did not restart Win98SE, did not have to quit Mozilla. The installer left it's cache file on the desktop after downloading it. I cleaned it up, but it might have been handy for burning to a utility CD or distributing over the LAN. It also offered to let you edit your MIME settings, and then has a screen where you make your file associations - broken up into three sections: Windows, Macintosh and Internet file types for those who aren't sure what a.wmv file (Mac users, go figure) is. It also offers to warn you if anything changes them. Five stars for the installer.
The trailer is basically just a flyby of the space station. Which looks cool. It's moody and atmospheric (or the lack thereof). The big deal is the three names shown. Cameron, Soderberg (drunk, fix later), Clooney. This should be well marketed, and has a chance of being good.
The website is nothing. Just the trailer and a "register for updates" popup. I gave them my spamtrap address at yahoo.
And we can't say this enough people, read Stanislaw Lem ! Anyone in a tech field will appreciate "The Cyberiad", and anyone reading at or above their grade level will appreciate anything he wrote.
The EULA is a pretty good one. Not like the MS licenses at all.
Apple is now allowing downloads without entering an email address. They explicitly set the email address field off in a seperate box from the OS choice. The "Download" button is centered below both of them and can clearly be used with the email field empty. And the email field is under the heading "Subscribe to Newsletters". Very nice. How's that for privacy ? The two subscriptions checkboxes are even off by default.
The EULA is standard boilerplate for Apple. It has all their usual media, disclaimer of warranty and tranfer of license clauses (You are permitted to sell your used Apple software). They also disclaim any responsibility for third-party websites. Lastly, they note that the MPEG-2 components are licensed solely for consumer use and not for " ENCODING VIDEO INFORMATION FOR PACKAGED MEDIA" (whatever packaged media really means), and then gives contact info for MPEG LA, LLC for other licensing arrangements (no URL). The Pro EULA may differ.
Not bad. It says absolutely nothing about user created content. Since the free version doesn't allow much creation, the Pro version may again have a different license.
Text of EULA follows.
ENGLISH
Apple Computer, Inc.
Software License Agreement
For QuickTime
PLEASE READ THE TERMS OF THIS SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT ("LICENSE") WHICH IS EITHER ENCLOSED IN THE SOFTWARE PACKAGE AND/OR PRESENTED ELECTRONICALLY WHEN ACCESSING THE SOFTWARE. BY CLICKING THE "AGREE/ACCEPT" BUTTON, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE, CLICK "DISAGREE/DECLINE" AND (IF APPLICABLE) RETURN THE APPLE SOFTWARE TO THE PLACE WHERE YOU OBTAINED IT FOR A REFUND.
1. General. The software, documentation and any fonts accompanying this License whether on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the "Apple Software") are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Computer, Inc. ("Apple") for use only under the terms of this License, and Apple reserves all rights not expressly granted to you. The rights granted herein are limited to Apple's and its licensors' intellectual property rights in the Apple Software and do not include any other patents or intellectual property rights. You own the media on which the Apple Software is recorded but Apple and/or Apple's licensor(s) retain ownership of the Apple Software itself. The rights granted under the terms of this License include any software upgrades that replace and/or supplement the original Apple Software product, unless such upgrade contains a separate license.
2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single computer at a time. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time. You may make one copy of the Apple Software in machine-readable form for backup purposes only; provided that the backup copy must include all copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the original. Except as and only to the extent expressly permitted in this License or by applicable law, you may not copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, or create derivative works of the Apple Software or any part thereof. THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS, LIFE SUPPORT MACHINES OR OTHER EQUIPMENT IN WHICH THE FAILURE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE.
3. Transfer. You may not rent, lease, lend or sublicense the Apple Software. You may, however, make a one-time permanent transfer of all of your license rights to the Apple Software to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts, original media, printed materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this License. NFR Copies: Notwithstanding other sections of this License, Apple Software labeled or otherwise provided to you on a promotional basis may only be used for demonstration, testing and evaluation purposes and may not be resold or transferred.
4. Termination. This License is effective until terminated. Your rights under this License will terminate automatically without notice from Apple if you fail to comply with any term(s) of this License. Upon the termination of this License, you shall cease all use of the Apple Software and destroy all copies, full or partial, of the Apple Software.
5. Limited Warranty on Media. Apple warrants the media on which the Apple Software is recorded and delivered by Apple to be free from defects in materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of original retail purchase. Your exclusive remedy under this Section shall be, at Apple's option, a refund of the purchase price of the product containing the Apple Software or replacement of the Apple Software which is returned to Apple or an Apple authorized representative with a copy of the receipt. THIS LIMITED WARRANTY AND ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES ON THE MEDIA INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, AND OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE LIMITED IN DURATION TO NINETY (90) DAYS FROM THE DATE OF ORIGINAL RETAIL PURCHASE. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON HOW LONG AN IMPLIED WARRANTY LASTS, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THE LIMITED WARRANTY SET FORTH HEREIN IS THE ONLY WARRANTY MADE TO YOU AND IS PROVIDED IN LIEU OF ANY OTHER WARRANTIES (IF ANY) CREATED BY ANY DOCUMENTATION OR PACKAGING. THIS LIMITED WARRANTY GIVES YOU SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS, AND YOU MAY ALSO HAVE OTHER RIGHTS WHICH VARY BY JURISDICTION.
6. Disclaimer of Warranties. YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT USE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU. EXCEPT FOR THE LIMITED WARRANTY ON MEDIA SET FORTH ABOVE AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE APPLE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, AND APPLE AND APPLE'S LICENSORS (COLLECTIVELY REFERRED TO AS "APPLE" FOR THE PURPOSES OF SECTIONS 6 AND 7) HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE APPLE SOFTWARE, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OF ACCURACY, OF QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. APPLE DOES NOT WARRANT AGAINST INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE, THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, THAT THE OPERATION OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT DEFECTS IN THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY APPLE OR AN APPLE AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY. SHOULD THE APPLE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR LIMITATIONS ON APPLICABLE STATUTORY RIGHTS OF A CONSUMER, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION AND LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. QuickTime Player automatically produces search results that reference sites and information located worldwide throughout the Internet. Because Apple has no control over such sites and information, Apple makes no guarantees as to such sites and information, including: (i) the accuracy, currency, content, or quality of any such sites and information, or (ii) whether an Apple search completed through the QuickTime Player may locate unintended or objectionable content. Because some of the content on the Internet consists of material that is adult-oriented or otherwise objectionable to some people or viewers under the age of 18, the results of any search or entering of a particular URL using the QuickTime Player may automatically and unintentionally generate links or references to objectionable material. By using the QuickTime Player, you acknowledge that Apple makes no representations or warranties with regard to the appropriateness of the content viewed through the QuickTime Player, whether on a pre-installed channel button or as a result of your search. Apple does not guarantee the sequence, accuracy, completeness or timeliness of the content played through the QuickTime Player. Apple, its officers, affiliates and subsidiaries shall not, directly or indirectly, be liable, in any way, to you or any other person for the content you receive using the QuickTime Player or for any inaccuracies, errors in or omissions from the content.
7. Limitation of Liability. TO THE EXTENT NOT PROHIBITED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL APPLE BE LIABLE FOR PERSONAL INJURY, OR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION OR ANY OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE APPLE SOFTWARE, HOWEVER CAUSED, REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY (CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) AND EVEN IF APPLE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR PERSONAL INJURY, OR OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. In no event shall Apple's total liability to you for all damages (other than as may be required by applicable law in cases involving personal injury) exceed the amount of fifty dollars ($50.00). The foregoing limitations will apply even if the above stated remedy fails of its essential purpose.
8. Export Law Assurances. You may not use or otherwise export or reexport the Apple Software except as authorized by United States law and the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Apple Software was obtained. In particular, but without limitation, the Apple Software may not be exported or re-exported (a) into (or to a national or resident of) any U.S. embargoed countries (currently Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) or (b) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce Denied Person's List or Entity List. By using the Apple Software, you represent and warrant that you are not located in, under control of, or a national or resident of any such country or on any such list.
9. Government End Users. The Apple Software and related documentation are "Commercial Items", as that term is defined at 48 C.F.R. 2.101, consisting of "Commercial Computer Software" and "Commercial Computer Software Documentation", as such terms are used in 48 C.F.R. 12.212 or 48 C.F.R. 227.7202, as applicable. Consistent with 48 C.F.R. 12.212 or 48 C.F.R. 227.7202-1through 227.7202-4, as applicable, the Commercial Computer Software and Commercial Computer Software Documentation are being licensed to U.S. Government end users (a) only as Commercial Items and (b) with only those rights as are granted to all other end users pursuant to the terms and conditions herein. Unpublished-rights reserved under the copyright laws of the United States.
10. Controlling Law and Severability. This License will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, as applied to agreements entered into and to be performed entirely within California between California residents. This License shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, the application of which is expressly excluded. If for any reason a court of competent jurisdiction finds any provision, or portion thereof, to be unenforceable, the remainder of this License shall continue in full force and effect.
11. Complete Agreement; Governing Language. This License constitutes the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the use of the Apple Software licensed hereunder and supersedes all prior or contemporaneous understandings regarding such subject matter. No amendment to or modification of this License will be binding unless in writing and signed by Apple. Any translation of this License is done for local requirements and in the event of a dispute between the English and any non-English versions, the English version of this License shall govern.
12. MPEG-2 Notice. To the extent that the Apple Software contains MPEG-2 functionality, the following provision applies:
ANY USE OF THIS PRODUCT OTHER THAN CONSUMER PERSONAL USE IN ANY MANNER THAT COMPLIES WITH THE MPEG-2 STANDARD FOR ENCODING VIDEO INFORMATION FOR PACKAGED MEDIA IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED WITHOUT A LICENSE UNDER APPLICABLE PATENTS IN THE MPEG-2 PATENT PORTFOLIO, WHICH LICENSE IS AVAILABLE FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C, 250 STEELE STREET, SUITE 300, DENVER, COLORADO 80206.
EA0156
Agreed. Until Apple adds a second button to the portables we'll have to get by with modifier keys. That adds extra chording to your daily routine, and can't be helping your wrists any.
They also evaluated a no-button mouse that would use gestures instead of clicks. I can't imagine that system would be any easier on the users. It's be very hard to explain that to someone on a tech support call. I've had to explain "right-click" to a user. That added twenty minutes to the support call (thank god for Joan, the manager, who actually cared that the users get help, not that we kept the call times down) right there. Honestly, twenty full minutes (I checked the time).
Some people DO have trouble with two-button mice. In going for "simple" Apple decided to leave out one more thing to explain to users. And they got along just fine. Along about OS 8 or so they added contextual menus, which used a ctrl-click. A lot of us promptly bought two button mice. OS X supports any mouse I've ever heard of, out of the box, with however many buttons (some special features do require custom drivers for the mouse) and just about any two-button mouse with a scroll wheel will work splendidly. And there's the whole command-line thingie for working that way. It doesn't do focus-follows-mouse (A bizarre concept to me) and there's only the one clipboard, but it's a very useful GUI.
That's downright creepy. About 2/3rds of the way through the hair on the back of my neck was starting to stand up. It's quite simply corporate mind control. The only bright spot is that it doens't seem to be working.
The school is struggling academically, even by D.C. standards. In 2001, a whopping 91.7 percent of students scored at "Below Basic" levels in math on the Stanford 9, a national diagnostic test. In the D.C. public schools, the figure was 72 percent among 10th- and 11th-graders, and 52 percent among ninth-graders. More than half the Marriott students were also deemed Below Basic in reading; District public-school students fared better at every grade level.
So the kids are obviously not getting an education. What they are getting is brainwashed. They aren't being educated to be adults, they're being educated to be employees.
"The No. 1 priority of the school is to create excitement about the hospitality industry," Ryan [the board chair for the school] says, "and with that is the goal of providing a superior academic background for the kids. It's a win-win thing."
With an attitude like that chairing the board, it's no wonder that they're failing the children academically. Once these children graduate with a "Below Basic" education they'll be flipping burgers for the rest of their lives. And that's specifically not the kind of jobs this school was set up to train for. A lucky few might make it all the way to head waiter or maitre'd. All thanks to a bad idea implemented poorly.
Then you can use Mozilla as an IMAP client and you're done with Microsft. If you take long enough to start using a calendar, there's a very promising calendar module for Mozilla. It's standards-based and the newsgroup shows developer interest in multiuser or workgroup funtionality.
I've used Mozilla 1.0 as a mail client in a Fortune 500 company. It works juuuust fine. Calendaring functions aside, it's as good a mail client as Outlook, without the evil.
And if you're lucky enough to be on OS X, grab a copy of Mozilla 1.0a right away. The smoothed text is strikingly beautiful on a good monitor (I'm using Futura Book at work and it looks great).
For what it's worth, Mail.app is a fine mail client, but the original questioner is not planning on buying Macs.
If they can't do their job without the computer, then the computer is a professional skill. Not just which buttons to press, but knowing what they do and how to fix it if they don't work. What can break and how to fix common problems. What kind of maintenance it needs.
As an example, lets look at a doctor who dials in to access medical records. She must be able to do this. I think we'll all agree that the finer points of Bell's theorem are well outside her scope, but she must know that it involves a phone line so she'll have to plug into into a phone outlet. Just from the fact that it involves the phone system I expect an adult with a high-school diploma to figure out that the modem needs to be conencted to the wall, that there has to be dialtone one that outlet, and that if you have to dial 9 to mke an outside call then the modem does too.
This last point shifts the blame to the users of the system. I've done a little work with a PBX or two(Meridians). And I've read up on my telecommunications background. So far as I can tell, please correct me if I'm wrong, no PBX designer has ever considered the fact that a foreign unit might need to access the system. The dialtone could indicate what, and if, you dial for an outside line. Standardize it in PBXs and modem manufacturers would imnplement the feature. No more "what do I dial ?". Just plug it in. The fact that modems don't work on a digital PBX line is annoying but probably unfixable.
That's an interface issue, but not a UI issue. A related UI issue is adding the prefix to the dialer applet. I have seen intelligent people stare blankly at me when I tell them that the hotel might require 8 instead of 9, and that they can just change it here [points to number field with cursor blinking faithfully in front of what I hope will still be a working POP next week]. They just stare. It must be too much information in one sentence, it needs to be broken down more.
Yes. Being a "computer guy" is one part troubleshooting, one part figuring it out, and one part knowing the concepts and language involved. The hardest part of the life is motivating people to want to learn a bit about it, and to get them used to figuring things out. If you can do that, only then can you claim 'guru' status.
Ditto for AutoCAD. That's a keyboard driven program like no other. You very quickly learn to plan a drawing so that you do the first steps on the keyboard. It's a blazingly fast way to do technical drafting and it spoiled me for mouse-driven programs like Illustrator.
Slashdot Mirror
This actually sounds tempting. I doubt it will happen but the Eurohackers will have a lovely sandbox to play in. It might be more useful than the cryptocorporate anarchy that is the Internet today. I wonder if they'll let USAians fed up with the current net join ?
Yes, Yesterday.
Hmmmm.... I wonder if she has a crush on any Slashdotters ?
And Intel chips aren't 'cool' in the temperature sense. TiBooks already get pretty hot. Add the extra heat from a P4 and the sucker will just about melt.
I think you mean the US Go Congress. The Unites States Congress would fulfill the 80/20 rule.
Until then I'll pay for Apple's GUI and APIs and use them on a Free Software foundation (Darwin).
Yes. And ?
This is pretty simple. Apple is the lesser of two evils right now. Rest assured that when Apple turns to the dark side the tide will turn.
The tenth is from a page of keywords by a guy running a how-to-promote-your-website site. I bet he gets a lot of hits.
[1] Poor crazy s.o.b. is trying to do a predreadnought battleship in GURPS.
All of this tends to show [1] that the higher unit price and lower support costs make MacOffice a nicely profitable product. And remember that MS had to eat a lot of costs to undercut and drive WordPerfect and AmiPro [2]out of the market. Over its history, Office for Windows hasn't made as much money for them as you might think. A lot of seats for WinOffice are in OEM and site licensing deals, which add millions of users, but at a lower revenue figure than a copy of MacOffice, which is covered by site licensing deals but is not in any OEM agreements at all. However, the educational pricing for MacOffice is very reasonable so a fair number of students are going the iBook, OS X, Office X route.
And I must say that EntourageX is endearing itself to me as a mail composing tool. As soon as OfficeX supports services I'll have TextWielder available in it and will finally achieve email nirvana without having to use emacs (which Apple is installing by default (along with vi))
[1] And proves nothing as I am well aware of. Gartner Group has numbers showing lower TCO for Macs, but I haven't paid for a copy of that report.
[2] Wordstar drove themselves out of the market with really shoddy work in the Win3.1 market.
And that Wacom tablet should support handwriting using Ink under OS X 10.2.
I concur. Browsing in a really nice font (agency standard is FuturaBook), in Aqua, in Mozilla is reason enough to go get a Mac. I cannot overemphasize the importance of excellent text onscreen.
To be fair, IE looks great under OS X too.
Go tinker with a Mac browser in a store sometime. It has to be seen.
It'd be very tempting to get Microsoft off of my PC. I am concerned about the security implications. It would be so tempting to build backdoors into this, it would almost have to happen. But it will be examined very closely by a lot of very concerned and very talented hackers. SO if there is a hole in it, it will eventually eb found. Many eyes and all that.
If it supports DirectX 8.1a well I might get a copy.
The first problem marginalizes OS X and turns Apple into Dell or Gateway. They're much too good of a software house for that. The second problem will produce a reaction from MS that even a GOP DoJ can't ignore.
Given that, the concept of telling Motorolla to put up or shut up must be attractive to Steve Jobs. He might well float rumors to keep Motorolla on their toes, or to get them there in the first place.
I'm sure Apple's hardware engineers can handle the task of cooling a P4. The other components won't be affected much more than a whole new mobo would normally require. But you'd lose the vector unit and the the lower power requirements of the G4. I don't think they'll do it, since the 'books have good battery life thanks to the lower power consumption int he chips. And that's a strong selling point.
Not a problem, I'm getting great FPS.
I didn't see anything in the EULA about sending any info upstream.
The trailer is basically just a flyby of the space station. Which looks cool. It's moody and atmospheric (or the lack thereof). The big deal is the three names shown. Cameron, Soderberg (drunk, fix later), Clooney. This should be well marketed, and has a chance of being good.
The website is nothing. Just the trailer and a "register for updates" popup. I gave them my spamtrap address at yahoo.
And we can't say this enough people, read Stanislaw Lem ! Anyone in a tech field will appreciate "The Cyberiad", and anyone reading at or above their grade level will appreciate anything he wrote.
Apple is now allowing downloads without entering an email address. They explicitly set the email address field off in a seperate box from the OS choice. The "Download" button is centered below both of them and can clearly be used with the email field empty. And the email field is under the heading "Subscribe to Newsletters". Very nice. How's that for privacy ? The two subscriptions checkboxes are even off by default.
The EULA is standard boilerplate for Apple. It has all their usual media, disclaimer of warranty and tranfer of license clauses (You are permitted to sell your used Apple software). They also disclaim any responsibility for third-party websites. Lastly, they note that the MPEG-2 components are licensed solely for consumer use and not for " ENCODING VIDEO INFORMATION FOR PACKAGED MEDIA" (whatever packaged media really means), and then gives contact info for MPEG LA, LLC for other licensing arrangements (no URL). The Pro EULA may differ.
Not bad. It says absolutely nothing about user created content. Since the free version doesn't allow much creation, the Pro version may again have a different license.
Text of EULA follows.
Agreed. Until Apple adds a second button to the portables we'll have to get by with modifier keys. That adds extra chording to your daily routine, and can't be helping your wrists any.
Some people DO have trouble with two-button mice. In going for "simple" Apple decided to leave out one more thing to explain to users. And they got along just fine. Along about OS 8 or so they added contextual menus, which used a ctrl-click. A lot of us promptly bought two button mice. OS X supports any mouse I've ever heard of, out of the box, with however many buttons (some special features do require custom drivers for the mouse) and just about any two-button mouse with a scroll wheel will work splendidly. And there's the whole command-line thingie for working that way. It doesn't do focus-follows-mouse (A bizarre concept to me) and there's only the one clipboard, but it's a very useful GUI.
I've used Mozilla 1.0 as a mail client in a Fortune 500 company. It works juuuust fine. Calendaring functions aside, it's as good a mail client as Outlook, without the evil.
And if you're lucky enough to be on OS X, grab a copy of Mozilla 1.0a right away. The smoothed text is strikingly beautiful on a good monitor (I'm using Futura Book at work and it looks great).
For what it's worth, Mail.app is a fine mail client, but the original questioner is not planning on buying Macs.
As an example, lets look at a doctor who dials in to access medical records. She must be able to do this. I think we'll all agree that the finer points of Bell's theorem are well outside her scope, but she must know that it involves a phone line so she'll have to plug into into a phone outlet. Just from the fact that it involves the phone system I expect an adult with a high-school diploma to figure out that the modem needs to be conencted to the wall, that there has to be dialtone one that outlet, and that if you have to dial 9 to mke an outside call then the modem does too.
This last point shifts the blame to the users of the system. I've done a little work with a PBX or two(Meridians). And I've read up on my telecommunications background. So far as I can tell, please correct me if I'm wrong, no PBX designer has ever considered the fact that a foreign unit might need to access the system. The dialtone could indicate what, and if, you dial for an outside line. Standardize it in PBXs and modem manufacturers would imnplement the feature. No more "what do I dial ?". Just plug it in. The fact that modems don't work on a digital PBX line is annoying but probably unfixable.
That's an interface issue, but not a UI issue. A related UI issue is adding the prefix to the dialer applet. I have seen intelligent people stare blankly at me when I tell them that the hotel might require 8 instead of 9, and that they can just change it here [points to number field with cursor blinking faithfully in front of what I hope will still be a working POP next week]. They just stare. It must be too much information in one sentence, it needs to be broken down more.
Yes. Being a "computer guy" is one part troubleshooting, one part figuring it out, and one part knowing the concepts and language involved. The hardest part of the life is motivating people to want to learn a bit about it, and to get them used to figuring things out. If you can do that, only then can you claim 'guru' status.
Ditto for AutoCAD. That's a keyboard driven program like no other. You very quickly learn to plan a drawing so that you do the first steps on the keyboard. It's a blazingly fast way to do technical drafting and it spoiled me for mouse-driven programs like Illustrator.