> I don't know if apple will eventually integrate > bluetooth into its products - it might.
As of late, Apple's been doing a good job about not just introducing technologies for its own sake, but when they have something definite in mind.
With the "old Apple", they'd introduce a bunch of technologies, let them sit in your Apple Extras folder where they would get old and stale, and then kind of go away (or have minimal usage). Think OpenDoc (Cyberdog was way too slow to be useful), IrDA, the Geoport (except for that sorry modem-like thing), and other stuff.
With the "new Apple", I can think of hardly anything that is introduced that doesn't pay back some short-term dividends. Apple bought SoundJam, and then came out with the cool iTunes. They starting sticking FireWire on their computer, and then quickly came out with the iPod. We get 802.11 capabilities, and they immediately come out with the AirPort base station and Mac OS X support. Well, maybe Sherlock's kind of dying, but I think on the whole Apple's doing a good job with this. That shows some improved discipline for introducing new products, and it's a good sign of strong leadership in product management.
The fact that Apple recently added support for BlueTooth probably means that we can expect something cool, perhaps next year.
> I don't buy computers anymore; I buy components. Congratulations, pal, you're not in any of Apple's target market segments. Don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out.
> I don't think Steve Jobs is concerned with Apple > making money -- excuse me, 'increasing > shareholder value'.
I hate to say this, but this guy is a moron. Just because they're not interested in catering to the shade-tree PC builder doesn't mean they don't want to make money. In fact, Jobs clearly is interested in making Apple a profitable business. Along with Dell, Apple's one of two PC companies actually doing well during this recession. So claiming otherwise is just silly.
I tried it for the week, and I liked the concept (pure MP3s) and some of the bands (They Might Be Giants, Apples in Stereo), but I found the service lacking.
First, the quality of the MP3s was poor. 128 kbps has a little too much distortion for me to want to pay for. Second, there wasn't enough music to keep me around for the 3 month minimum.
I think they have the makings of a good service, but it's not quite there now.
> Two years ago I ripped my 270 CDs to MP3 > and pawned them to get a bigger hard drive.
I hope this will the first in a series for Slashdot, to be followed by:
- cable TV pirates on the new pay-per-view options for HBO
- shoplifters on the new Spring 2002 fashions
- old, curmudgeony phone phreaks on the new "designer" collect-calling plans
> I only listened to the SGI anthem, and found > I couldn't hate it. I'm known for mocking > stupid music (it's a good/bad habit of mine), > but I couldn't seem to do it this time.
Listen to the Ericsson theme song ("You Need Intelligence / We Can Get it / Network Intelligence / Come and See"), and you'll learn to hate again.
> I don't want Contacts taking up a top menu spot.
I think you're out of luck.
Just pretend like the folder is a banner ad for that Jodie Foster movie or for Bausch and Lomb and then ignore it. If you can learn to ignore these new giants ads on slashdot, a single folder should be easy.
I personally like the contact feature since it means I won't have to carry my Palm V around anymore.
$163 is a little too expensive, but
on
Dior iPod case
·
· Score: 2
I'd like to see more designer cases like this (maybe a little cheaper). I got a leather case for my iPod, but I'm not really happy with the way it looks. I feel like one of those people that takes a great looking European sports car and sticks a chunky, black nose bra on it.
I wish someone could come up with a protective case that complements the look of the iPod. Is white leather possible? Maybe something that doesn't look like it was stitched by angry home-ec students?
My attention span isn't long enough to read the whole article. Damn TV! You've ruined my imagination! Just like you've ruined my ability to... my ability to...
I concur. My company merged with another company about four years ago, and we still have the merger pains. The problem is things are rarely simple when merging two large companies.
Since HP and Compaq are both struggling, the turf wars within the company will be unimaginable for anyone who hasn't been through it. Things are easier when one unit is consistently profitable and growing, while the redundant unit in other company is losing market share and money. But the market situation is rarely that clear cut, and it becomes very difficult to figure out where to eliminate the redundant group and how to convince existing customers to not jump ship to a competitor afterwards.
> The official tally may take as long as six > weeks to be completed
I agree. I also think that Fiorina has nothing to lose by trumpeting a victory prematurely. If after 6 weeks, she's proven wrong, she has a lot more things to worry about than prematurely crowing about victory.
In fact, from what I've heard, there's less than a 2 percent margin right now, which means investors are split on what to do here. That hurts the CEO's credibility in either case, which means the real winners in all of this may be Dell and IBM.
> Right away I realized there are two camps: > bewildered, disaffected Mac loyalists who > are resisting the new Mac Way and eye- > opened, gaga Unix/Linux geeks > overwhelmed with the marvellous marriage > of UNIX and GUI that is OS X.
Actually, there's a third camp. Mac OS 9 users who happily run in Mac OS X. Most of the Mac users I know fit into that category. I can only think of one or two people who haven't made the switch from Mac OS 9.
If you look further, even MacWorld magazine is focused on Mac OS X instead of Mac OS 9. Or the fact that iPhoto (a Mac OS X-only app) had over a million downloads in the past 2 months.
I'd say it's probably a vocal minority who fit into the "Give me 9 or give me death" camp. The silent majority are happy with the new OS. Or are people who have hardware that won't run Mac OS X very well or are blissfully ignorant of anything after Mac OS 8 (I'm sure they're out there).
> Oddly, a lot of the new blood is replacing the > old die-hard Mac community. They made it > through the Spindler and Amelio years, but > just can't stomach the new operating > system.
Great point.
I refuse to even drop into Classic, much less reboot into Mac OS 9. I can do all my daily work in Mac OS X, so I think it's a change for the better.
What's interesting, is when the Mac was first released, Mac users were "revolutionaries" and were happy to mock the DOS users who were stodgy and refused to give up arcane DOS commands. Today, many of those same Mac users cling to the old Mac OS 9 because Mac OS X is too new and different for them.
I have a question for those of you familiar with Notes.
Our company is talking about migrating to Lotus Notes, and I'm running Mac OS X. Will I still be able to use Entourage as my email client? I expect I won't be able to access the applications without the Notes client, but is regular POP3 mail typically available?
What exactly is Notes anyway? Is it a proprietary email and calendar system, like the old cc:Mail + some sort of calendar function?
That sound you just heard was the RIAA and the rest of the music industry sending tons of soft money to democrat Rick Boucher's opponent, whoever that person is.
Somebody get us 10 milliliters of campaign finance reform before we kill democracy in the US! Nurse? Are you there?
Companies don't have social security numbers. They have Tax ID numbers, that happen to be 9-digit numbers, but they're not the same thing. Cecil Adams can provide some enlightenment:
> Only people can get Social Security numbers, not
> corporations. When businesses file taxes they
> have to use what is variously known as a
> taxpayer or employer ID number. Like the SS
> number, it has nine digits, but it's grouped
> differently-- 00-0000000 versus 000-00-0000.
(1) Mac OS X, as in the Roman numeral for "10". Not surprisingly, this is the operating system after Mac OS 9. Roman numerals are not unheard of in the US (movies are notorious for using them), so it's not like they're using Greek letters or something like that.
(2) Mac OS X, where the "X" indicates Unix, like X-window or anything like that.
I guess it could be a triple pun, where the X means "unknown", because millions of Mac users who *thought* they knew how their Macintosh works now are confused and lost because version 10 is so different than previous versions.
But the people I've known who switched to Mac OS X all have had a short period of minor disorientation ("What's the Dock?", "Where are the control panels?", etc.), but afterwards they (like me) quickly liked it a lot better than Mac OS 9.
> but no one ever mentioned that Corel's Draw and > PhotoPaint have been available for OSX quite > some time now
And Macromedia's vector graphics application FreeHand has been available for almost a year. It has a few quirks in it, so it's clear that they rushed it out, but it was nice to have a native professional-grade vector graphics app available so soon after the OS X launch.
> touting the same old obscure algorithm in Photoshop > PC users know better though. The truth is that the only > valid metric of computer performance is Quake III frames per second.:-)
As soon as Mac users can figure out how to make money playing Quake III as opposed to using Photoshop, I'm sure they'll be willing to switch their performance metrics.
Can't connect to Windows?
on
Linux and Mac OS X
·
· Score: 4, Informative
> I was unable to get a Windows 2000 PC to see any > Macs (OSX or 9) on the network or vice-versa.
I don't want to be tough, but I've had no problems getting my Mac to load Windows servers via SAMBA. I do it every day, and I'd hardly say I'm an expert at SAMBA. So I'd say that rather than this being an OS X or Windows limitation, this guy may just "lack the skills to pay the bills". What was the point of the article again?
>DON'T use a lot of hacks, particularly ones that screw >with the forbidden System folder of OS X (unlike the OS 9 >System Folder, this is Apple's area--unless you really >know what you are doing, stay out. The things you usually >find in an OS 9 Sys Folder are found in your Home folder, >in the Library folder.)
Here, here! I've been hearing a lot of complaints from people (particularly on Macintouch) that say that Mac OS X is giving them problems. After listing all the things that don't work for them, they let loose that they're using Tinkertool, messed around with moving their swap file, they ran the public beta initially and never did a low-level format of their hard drive, or they're running it on a old 9600 with a G4 upgrade and the required kernel hacks to get it working.
I have had no significant problems with updates on Mac OS X. I ran the Public Beta a while ago, but I took the time to do a low-level format before moving to the final version. You couldn't pay me to go back to Mac OS 9 (in fact, on my new PowerBook, I haven't allowed Classic to start even once).
In short, if you play with fire, don't be surprised if you get burned.
I mean, if you're going to address that much hard drive space, wouldn't you use SCSI anyway?
Apple's online store shows the dual 1 GHz systems with 2x80 GB ATA drives, but with an option to do 3x72 GB Ultra 160 SCSI drives. Then, of course there's always FireWire.
Slashdot Mirror
> I've yet to see an RPG in which characters need
... uh ... still working on the bowel module
> to, er, use the facilities, which would be even
> worse ('tho realistic!).
Well, while not an RPG, in Black & White, my ape has been crapping all over Eden.
There was some real bathroom fetishist working on that game. I can imagine:
Programmer #1: Okay, we need to finish the AI routine for the opposing deity
Programmer #2: Hang on-- I'm
> I don't know if apple will eventually integrate
> bluetooth into its products - it might.
As of late, Apple's been doing a good job about not just introducing technologies for its own sake, but when they have something definite in mind.
With the "old Apple", they'd introduce a bunch of technologies, let them sit in your Apple Extras folder where they would get old and stale, and then kind of go away (or have minimal usage). Think OpenDoc (Cyberdog was way too slow to be useful), IrDA, the Geoport (except for that sorry modem-like thing), and other stuff.
With the "new Apple", I can think of hardly anything that is introduced that doesn't pay back some short-term dividends. Apple bought SoundJam, and then came out with the cool iTunes. They starting sticking FireWire on their computer, and then quickly came out with the iPod. We get 802.11 capabilities, and they immediately come out with the AirPort base station and Mac OS X support. Well, maybe Sherlock's kind of dying, but I think on the whole Apple's doing a good job with this. That shows some improved discipline for introducing new products, and it's a good sign of strong leadership in product management.
The fact that Apple recently added support for BlueTooth probably means that we can expect something cool, perhaps next year.
> I don't buy computers anymore; I buy components.
Congratulations, pal, you're not in any of Apple's target market segments. Don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out.
> I don't think Steve Jobs is concerned with Apple
> making money -- excuse me, 'increasing
> shareholder value'.
I hate to say this, but this guy is a moron. Just because they're not interested in catering to the shade-tree PC builder doesn't mean they don't want to make money. In fact, Jobs clearly is interested in making Apple a profitable business. Along with Dell, Apple's one of two PC companies actually doing well during this recession. So claiming otherwise is just silly.
I tried it for the week, and I liked the concept (pure MP3s) and some of the bands (They Might Be Giants, Apples in Stereo), but I found the service lacking.
First, the quality of the MP3s was poor. 128 kbps has a little too much distortion for me to want to pay for. Second, there wasn't enough music to keep me around for the 3 month minimum.
I think they have the makings of a good service, but it's not quite there now.
> Two years ago I ripped my 270 CDs to MP3
> and pawned them to get a bigger hard drive.
I hope this will the first in a series for Slashdot, to be followed by:
- cable TV pirates on the new pay-per-view options for HBO
- shoplifters on the new Spring 2002 fashions
- old, curmudgeony phone phreaks on the new "designer" collect-calling plans
> I only listened to the SGI anthem, and found
> I couldn't hate it. I'm known for mocking
> stupid music (it's a good/bad habit of mine),
> but I couldn't seem to do it this time.
Listen to the Ericsson theme song ("You Need Intelligence / We Can Get it / Network Intelligence / Come and See"), and you'll learn to hate again.
So, has Microsoft said anything about conduit support for Palm PDAs? My Palm V is just gathering dust waiting for Entourage X synchronication.
> I don't want Contacts taking up a top menu spot.
I think you're out of luck.
Just pretend like the folder is a banner ad for that Jodie Foster movie or for Bausch and Lomb and then ignore it. If you can learn to ignore these new giants ads on slashdot, a single folder should be easy.
I personally like the contact feature since it means I won't have to carry my Palm V around anymore.
I'd like to see more designer cases like this (maybe a little cheaper). I got a leather case for my iPod, but I'm not really happy with the way it looks. I feel like one of those people that takes a great looking European sports car and sticks a chunky, black nose bra on it.
I wish someone could come up with a protective case that complements the look of the iPod. Is white leather possible? Maybe something that doesn't look like it was stitched by angry home-ec students?
My attention span isn't long enough to read the whole article. Damn TV! You've ruined my imagination! Just like you've ruined my ability to ... my ability to ...
[turns on Itchy and Scratchy]
A Fargo reference deserves a response!
I concur. My company merged with another company about four years ago, and we still have the merger pains. The problem is things are rarely simple when merging two large companies.
Since HP and Compaq are both struggling, the turf wars within the company will be unimaginable for anyone who hasn't been through it. Things are easier when one unit is consistently profitable and growing, while the redundant unit in other company is losing market share and money. But the market situation is rarely that clear cut, and it becomes very difficult to figure out where to eliminate the redundant group and how to convince existing customers to not jump ship to a competitor afterwards.
> The official tally may take as long as six
> weeks to be completed
I agree. I also think that Fiorina has nothing to lose by trumpeting a victory prematurely. If after 6 weeks, she's proven wrong, she has a lot more things to worry about than prematurely crowing about victory.
In fact, from what I've heard, there's less than a 2 percent margin right now, which means investors are split on what to do here. That hurts the CEO's credibility in either case, which means the real winners in all of this may be Dell and IBM.
> Right away I realized there are two camps:
> bewildered, disaffected Mac loyalists who
> are resisting the new Mac Way and eye-
> opened, gaga Unix/Linux geeks
> overwhelmed with the marvellous marriage
> of UNIX and GUI that is OS X.
Actually, there's a third camp. Mac OS 9 users who happily run in Mac OS X. Most of the Mac users I know fit into that category. I can only think of one or two people who haven't made the switch from Mac OS 9.
If you look further, even MacWorld magazine is focused on Mac OS X instead of Mac OS 9. Or the fact that iPhoto (a Mac OS X-only app) had over a million downloads in the past 2 months.
I'd say it's probably a vocal minority who fit into the "Give me 9 or give me death" camp. The silent majority are happy with the new OS. Or are people who have hardware that won't run Mac OS X very well or are blissfully ignorant of anything after Mac OS 8 (I'm sure they're out there).
> Oddly, a lot of the new blood is replacing the
> old die-hard Mac community. They made it
> through the Spindler and Amelio years, but
> just can't stomach the new operating
> system.
Great point.
I refuse to even drop into Classic, much less reboot into Mac OS 9. I can do all my daily work in Mac OS X, so I think it's a change for the better.
What's interesting, is when the Mac was first released, Mac users were "revolutionaries" and were happy to mock the DOS users who were stodgy and refused to give up arcane DOS commands. Today, many of those same Mac users cling to the old Mac OS 9 because Mac OS X is too new and different for them.
> (Posted anonymously because I can't remember if that Gartner study was classified or not. :-P )
the whole time I was reading your reply, I couldn't figure out why it was anonymous. Thanks for all the details.
Any moderators out there, please mod the parent answer up.
I have a question for those of you familiar with Notes.
Our company is talking about migrating to Lotus Notes, and I'm running Mac OS X. Will I still be able to use Entourage as my email client? I expect I won't be able to access the applications without the Notes client, but is regular POP3 mail typically available?
What exactly is Notes anyway? Is it a proprietary email and calendar system, like the old cc:Mail + some sort of calendar function?
Thanks!
That sound you just heard was the RIAA and the rest of the music industry sending tons of soft money to democrat Rick Boucher's opponent, whoever that person is.
Somebody get us 10 milliliters of campaign finance reform before we kill democracy in the US! Nurse? Are you there?
> Passively sniffing a box is a much more
> subtle way of eavesdropping than cracking
> open the box or plugging in a new MAC.
But I thought in that commercial Apple said there was no Step 3.
*ducks*
Companies don't have social security numbers. They have Tax ID numbers, that happen to be 9-digit numbers, but they're not the same thing. Cecil Adams can provide some enlightenment:
> Only people can get Social Security numbers, not
> corporations. When businesses file taxes they
> have to use what is variously known as a
> taxpayer or employer ID number. Like the SS
> number, it has nine digits, but it's grouped
> differently-- 00-0000000 versus 000-00-0000.
Read the whole thing at the Straight Dope.
Of course, I'm not a tax lawyer.> Then why doesn't Apple spell it "MacOS 10"?
Simple, it's a double pun.
(1) Mac OS X, as in the Roman numeral for "10". Not surprisingly, this is the operating system after Mac OS 9. Roman numerals are not unheard of in the US (movies are notorious for using them), so it's not like they're using Greek letters or something like that.
(2) Mac OS X, where the "X" indicates Unix, like X-window or anything like that.
I guess it could be a triple pun, where the X means "unknown", because millions of Mac users who *thought* they knew how their Macintosh works now are confused and lost because version 10 is so different than previous versions.
But the people I've known who switched to Mac OS X all have had a short period of minor disorientation ("What's the Dock?", "Where are the control panels?", etc.), but afterwards they (like me) quickly liked it a lot better than Mac OS 9.
> but no one ever mentioned that Corel's Draw and
> PhotoPaint have been available for OSX quite
> some time now
And Macromedia's vector graphics application FreeHand has been available for almost a year. It has a few quirks in it, so it's clear that they rushed it out, but it was nice to have a native professional-grade vector graphics app available so soon after the OS X launch.
> touting the same old obscure algorithm in Photoshop :-)
> PC users know better though. The truth is that the only
> valid metric of computer performance is Quake III frames per second.
As soon as Mac users can figure out how to make money playing Quake III as opposed to using Photoshop, I'm sure they'll be willing to switch their performance metrics.
> I was unable to get a Windows 2000 PC to see any
> Macs (OSX or 9) on the network or vice-versa.
I don't want to be tough, but I've had no problems getting my Mac to load Windows servers via SAMBA. I do it every day, and I'd hardly say I'm an expert at SAMBA. So I'd say that rather than this being an OS X or Windows limitation, this guy may just "lack the skills to pay the bills". What was the point of the article again?
>DON'T use a lot of hacks, particularly ones that screw
>with the forbidden System folder of OS X (unlike the OS 9
>System Folder, this is Apple's area--unless you really
>know what you are doing, stay out. The things you usually
>find in an OS 9 Sys Folder are found in your Home folder,
>in the Library folder.)
Here, here! I've been hearing a lot of complaints from people (particularly on Macintouch) that say that Mac OS X is giving them problems. After listing all the things that don't work for them, they let loose that they're using Tinkertool, messed around with moving their swap file, they ran the public beta initially and never did a low-level format of their hard drive, or they're running it on a old 9600 with a G4 upgrade and the required kernel hacks to get it working.
I have had no significant problems with updates on Mac OS X. I ran the Public Beta a while ago, but I took the time to do a low-level format before moving to the final version. You couldn't pay me to go back to Mac OS 9 (in fact, on my new PowerBook, I haven't allowed Classic to start even once).
In short, if you play with fire, don't be surprised if you get burned.
I mean, if you're going to address that much hard drive space, wouldn't you use SCSI anyway?
Apple's online store shows the dual 1 GHz systems with 2x80 GB ATA drives, but with an option to do 3x72 GB Ultra 160 SCSI drives. Then, of course there's always FireWire.