"I mean, this is one of the lamest pro-Mac arguments I have ever read, and yet its such a frequent one. "I dont care"? Oh, ok"
Funny, my post wasn't a "pro-mac" argument (interesting that you read it as such, though), as much as it was, "Hey, dipsh!ts, we get it already! The sticker price on a PC is cheaper! Thanks for the info, now go back to installing Debian and getting the powerups on Super Donkey Kong FX!"
"I think you are refering to my post here since I mentioned Dell. And since that is so touchy someone had to mod my post to oblivion. Big surprise."
Actually, I didn't even read your post, nor, if you'll notice, did I mention Dell. After being around / for a few years. I just kind of anticipated said response.
I posted the "I really don't care" in hopes that the next time this happens, we could all move beyond this. The points for cheaper PC hardware and operating systems may be "salient", however, after SEVEN FREAKIN' YEARS of these/. type responses, Mac users (insert joke from 1993 about Mac users being vapid graphic design waifs) get the point by now. Oddly enough, the "AMD Hobbyist" crowd doesn't seem to realize two things:
1.) That the number of folks switching to Macs away from cheap PC hardware may be an indicator that for some indiviuduals, price (as reflected by pure "sticker") isn't the only indication of value. As a Mac user who switched back and forth, most lately from 2k to OS X, I don't anticipate going back. Why? Not because I have to spend a measily $200 extra on a laptop to be sure, but even if I were account for TCO as above and come to the conclusion Macs may be a better "value", it's really because I LIKE THE PLATFORM BETTER and therefore IT'S WORTH A FEW MORE DOLLARS TO ME!!!
2.) We Don't Care. Why don't we care? Well, the fact is that for the most part, Mac users don't feel the need to become computer hobbyists. Some people just focus on using our computer to accomplish tasks, not worry about how to get their 3rd party wireless card to not interfere with their cheap bluetooth dongle, de-install dancing purple gorillas or other spyware, set jumpers on our ethernet cards, figure out which anti-virus software to use or liquid cool an overclocked p4 so we can squeeze a few more cycles out of it to run Photoshop, Word, or Firefox THAT MUCH FASTER!
If you're into that sort of thing, GREAT! Bully for you! Just please, stop feeling like you're our Messiah by enlightening us about how we're missing out on $150, Super-Duper-Rollercoaster-First-Person-Shoot Em-UP-Tycoon-5, or REALLY running Weatherbug at 70 gajillion Gigahertz.
Finally, easy on the "Apple fanboy", there Chief. I think you're still a little paranoid about where my post belongs, and I'm really just taking the time to respond because your (and other similar) "I showed how a standard Dell gives the average buyer more value for the same price as the eMac" argument shows that you somehow missed the point the point.
Oh crap, here comes the "I can buy/build an AMD powered uber-monster PC running XYZ for the price of a Mac" comments.
For the past 7 years, every time there's been an article that mentions the price of an Apple computer, these people come out of the woodwork and go batsh!t trying to show us how frugal/industrious they can be without ever understanding the market dynamic.
Please, we all understand that you can build a "Most Excellent" PC with glowing neon lights and water cooling that SPECmarks the h3ll out of a dual processor G5 for $.75 Canadian and it will run Slackware and GiMP and MAME and dual boot into Windows XP Super Home edition and play Halo 7 and Duke Nuke 'em at the same time in separate windows because you're driving 18 LCDs with the Radeon super-nuclear video card that you can get at the local computer superhaus for $1.95 and two packs of bubblegum.
Mac users just don't care, Ok? We really, really, don't care.
1.) With regards to the Churchill references, Winston was not above rhetoric that served his purposes, which is pretty clearly the case here.
2.) Within context, I think he can claim to be correct in referring to "Red Hat's Linux". Not, as anon. reader so reactionarily supposes that he means that Red Hat owns or *is* Linux, but that the "OS wars" are down to those three vendors.
3.) If Schwartz is to be condemned for anything, IMHO, it's for putting Solaris in the mix. Solaris, is relegated to serving niche purposes.
This seems to be inflammation of the/. crowd for no good reason, like all the tricks the mainstream writers used to pull in '98 and '99 to get/. eyeballs to their sites. An advertisement for Sybase is at the top of this page,/. wouldn't have earned money from Sybase if I hadn't that that this article was such an obvious troll.
Engadget's reporting no WiFi via the SDIO slot. Frankly, for me, this is a deal breaker. The last thing in the world I want to do is move to a WinCE platform, but hotspots are becoming so ubiquitous that I can't help but require it.
I hate to be one to poo-poo new hardware releases, but they had since the 600 to get it right (in fact, early 600 boxes had "support for WiFi via 3rd party solutions written on them)..
I wonder if Palm has recruited Sun/Cobalt product management?
Wow, I've been waiting for someone in the pro open-source community to write an article in defense of Linux on the desktop!
It's about time, I just wonder what took so long!
Now if only somebody would write an article about how insecure Windows is, the the truth would really get out and the big companies would certainly start switching!
For more than the obvious reason that a system (or organization) shouldn't rely on self-assessment.
Anyone with experience in Microsoft patching solutions care to run Microsoft self-assessment tools (even if it is originally @stake software)?
How many self-assessment tools (with AI being as "sophisticated" as it is) would be able to properly develop it's own risk assessment? Risk Assessment methodologies themselves are still somewhat "adolescent" IMHO - OCTAVE, NIST, and COBIT all leave something to be desired. Even once methodologies mature, making systems aware of dependencies, their value to the organization and the competency of the administrators in charge of those systems doesn't exactly sound like a function that can be automated anytime soon.
Finally, in terms of simple vulnerability assessment - what tools can be said to be as comprehensive as needed? Qualys? Foundstone? My organization has to rely on more than Nessus to properly assess risks to the best of it's ability. At last count, I believe our full toolset involved 7 or 8 different assessment tools. Even if you could consolidate toolset functionality, at what point can you reduce false positives to an acceptable level? Qualys and Foundstone both reduce false positives by reducing the amount of vulnerabilities they look for - so please don't go quoting marketing numbers. There's a reason that a full security assessment (with human validation as per the OSSTM) is much more favorable over a vulnerability assessment.
No, this sounds much more like Bill Gates "digital nervous system" from the mid 90's that's worked out so well....
You know why? It marks the point at which Macs have climbed back into the ire of PC Mag editors everywhere. 3 years ago, a mac article wasn't worth the soy ink and electrons it took to create an anti-mac article.
Wow, it's like it's 1988 all over again. Some Tool nitpicks one or two items to make himself feel better because he's a Windows user for whatever reason.
Next we'll hear how overpriced Macs are.
Actually, the only difference between this and 1988 is that games used to come out first for the Mac (Real business users don't need games! Was the rallying cry).
Nah, This is fluff from Novell and Gateway Biz Dev/PR.
As iterated before there's nothing to Gateway's market share. This is an attempt to counter bad stock movement or continue good stock movement (haven't checked Novell or Gateway, and I'm way to lazy to do so now) with marketing fluffy bunnies ( a press release) by the parties involved. How many linux servers do you really think Gateway's going sell? How many would they have to sell for this to even make $100,000 in GROSS revenue for Novell?
It's fluff, next we'll see Novell/SuSE announcements from Micron and Acer, and Winbook will start selling SuSE laptops.
You'll also recognize the highly improbable "babe in the server room" ( I think I most recently saw her on the product section watchguard's site) off the same disc.
Thus "dethrone" thinking purely in market terms. Gateway is in a position where following market leaders != growth. It's all fine and good for Dell or HPaq to put poo on a stick and expect people to buy it because it's from them, or even for Apple to overcharge for less features or performance because of brand loyalty, but Gateway has neither the market share or the brand loyalty to make this a success, without going to a low-cost model. That, they have not.
Imagine, People at Gateway actually sat around a table with a white board in a conference room someone that probably smelled like day old coffee and stale garlic bagels, and thought that this functionality, at these prices (!) would launch Gateway competitively into the MP3 player market.
"I have been hard-working during 18 months in an American Corp, I know what it is about."
That's just about the silliest thing I've ever read there, Mirko. It would be just as silly for me to say "I've been to Paris twice, so I know what French people are all about, arrogant and stinky!"
Please leave absurd generalizations to the trolls.
"He says he thinks IBM is desperate to buy SCO because "the last thing [IBM wants] to hear is the testimony that is going to come out," but that SCO isn't interested in being acquired. "
Uhhh, yeah....
1.) As if the $$$ it would cost IBM to buy SCO wouldn't be pocket change.
2.) As if SCO shareholders wouldn't JUMP at the prospect of trading their stock for IBM.
It sounds like to me this should read
"We're really just trying to get someone to buy us. This whole OS thing has been a fUx0r since the Caldera/SCO merger, neither OS sells very well at all. For the life of me, I can't figure out why IBM won't just put down a little cash and buy us to shut us up."
Have you watched the presentation, have you seen what's available in iTunes 4?
"Rock, Rap, Jazz, Blues, Pop, Latin, New Age, Folk, Inspirational, R&B, Reggae, Electronic, Classical or something in between ? chances are you?ll find the tunes you?re looking for."
What are the chances that any of the smaller catagories available are significantly represented among the 200k (a fairly meager amount, when you think about it) tracks avail.?
I don't like Rock and/or Roll music, so the download thing doesn't really appeal. I can still go to the library and rip just about any music that interests me. What I can't get there, I can't imagine that the iTunes "Store" will have for me.
It's fairly laughable that many of the folks who complain about the price/crippling of the content are those who would never buy the content anyway. I personally, can't imagine that 80% of any "downloader"'s personal music library would ever be purchased.
I find it just as silly that Apple is crippling the content. There's a very available (albeit illegal) substitute good - one that strikes me as kiltering the economics of this undertaking towards the "failure" side.
That being said, I thought the new iPods had usable feature improvements. They are very expensive, but I think they seem to be feature/form factor competitive.
I thought the "rendevous" software side was somewhat interesting.
BTW - We made it how many posts before the predictable "I can build myself an AMD with Linux and Windows (just for games) for $1.99 and it will outrun a $3,000 Mac"?
Slashdot Mirror
"But, I can build an AMD 87GHZ box overclocked with a gajillion megs of video ram for $1.23 Canadian, why would I buy a Mac?"
Yeah, mac users aren't all *hardcore* like those Barrie Music bands! You guys r0x0r!
And in case you still miss the point of my posts, I'll paraphrase your little Rock and Roller message board:
"Its that we don't care, and we don't want it shoved down our throats""
"I mean, this is one of the lamest pro-Mac arguments I have ever read, and yet its such a frequent one. "I dont care"? Oh, ok"
Funny, my post wasn't a "pro-mac" argument (interesting that you read it as such, though), as much as it was, "Hey, dipsh!ts, we get it already! The sticker price on a PC is cheaper! Thanks for the info, now go back to installing Debian and getting the powerups on Super Donkey Kong FX!"
"I think you are refering to my post here since I mentioned Dell. And since that is so touchy someone had to mod my post to oblivion. Big surprise."
/. type responses, Mac users (insert joke from 1993 about Mac users being vapid graphic design waifs) get the point by now. Oddly enough, the "AMD Hobbyist" crowd doesn't seem to realize two things:
Actually, I didn't even read your post, nor, if you'll notice, did I mention Dell. After being around / for a few years. I just kind of anticipated said response.
I posted the "I really don't care" in hopes that the next time this happens, we could all move beyond this. The points for cheaper PC hardware and operating systems may be "salient", however, after SEVEN FREAKIN' YEARS of these
1.) That the number of folks switching to Macs away from cheap PC hardware may be an indicator that for some indiviuduals, price (as reflected by pure "sticker") isn't the only indication of value. As a Mac user who switched back and forth, most lately from 2k to OS X, I don't anticipate going back. Why? Not because I have to spend a measily $200 extra on a laptop to be sure, but even if I were account for TCO as above and come to the conclusion Macs may be a better "value", it's really because I LIKE THE PLATFORM BETTER and therefore IT'S WORTH A FEW MORE DOLLARS TO ME!!!
2.) We Don't Care. Why don't we care? Well, the fact is that for the most part, Mac users don't feel the need to become computer hobbyists. Some people just focus on using our computer to accomplish tasks, not worry about how to get their 3rd party wireless card to not interfere with their cheap bluetooth dongle, de-install dancing purple gorillas or other spyware, set jumpers on our ethernet cards, figure out which anti-virus software to use or liquid cool an overclocked p4 so we can squeeze a few more cycles out of it to run Photoshop, Word, or Firefox THAT MUCH FASTER!
If you're into that sort of thing, GREAT! Bully for you! Just please, stop feeling like you're our Messiah by enlightening us about how we're missing out on $150, Super-Duper-Rollercoaster-First-Person-Shoot Em-UP-Tycoon-5, or REALLY running Weatherbug at 70 gajillion Gigahertz.
Finally, easy on the "Apple fanboy", there Chief. I think you're still a little paranoid about where my post belongs, and I'm really just taking the time to respond because your (and other similar) "I showed how a standard Dell gives the average buyer more value for the same price as the eMac" argument shows that you somehow missed the point the point.
Merry Christmas!
Oh crap, here comes the "I can buy/build an AMD powered uber-monster PC running XYZ for the price of a Mac" comments.
For the past 7 years, every time there's been an article that mentions the price of an Apple computer, these people come out of the woodwork and go batsh!t trying to show us how frugal/industrious they can be without ever understanding the market dynamic.
Please, we all understand that you can build a "Most Excellent" PC with glowing neon lights and water cooling that SPECmarks the h3ll out of a dual processor G5 for $.75 Canadian and it will run Slackware and GiMP and MAME and dual boot into Windows XP Super Home edition and play Halo 7 and Duke Nuke 'em at the same time in separate windows because you're driving 18 LCDs with the Radeon super-nuclear video card that you can get at the local computer superhaus for $1.95 and two packs of bubblegum.
Mac users just don't care, Ok? We really, really, don't care.
1.) With regards to the Churchill references, Winston was not above rhetoric that served his purposes, which is pretty clearly the case here.
/. crowd for no good reason, like all the tricks the mainstream writers used to pull in '98 and '99 to get /. eyeballs to their sites. An advertisement for Sybase is at the top of this page, /. wouldn't have earned money from Sybase if I hadn't that that this article was such an obvious troll.
2.) Within context, I think he can claim to be correct in referring to "Red Hat's Linux". Not, as anon. reader so reactionarily supposes that he means that Red Hat owns or *is* Linux, but that the "OS wars" are down to those three vendors.
3.) If Schwartz is to be condemned for anything, IMHO, it's for putting Solaris in the mix. Solaris, is relegated to serving niche purposes.
This seems to be inflammation of the
Engadget's reporting no WiFi via the SDIO slot. Frankly, for me, this is a deal breaker. The last thing in the world I want to do is move to a WinCE platform, but hotspots are becoming so ubiquitous that I can't help but require it.
I hate to be one to poo-poo new hardware releases, but they had since the 600 to get it right (in fact, early 600 boxes had "support for WiFi via 3rd party solutions written on them)..
I wonder if Palm has recruited Sun/Cobalt product management?
Wow, I've been waiting for someone in the pro open-source community to write an article in defense of Linux on the desktop!
It's about time, I just wonder what took so long!
Now if only somebody would write an article about how insecure Windows is, the the truth would really get out and the big companies would certainly start switching!
For more than the obvious reason that a system (or organization) shouldn't rely on self-assessment.
Anyone with experience in Microsoft patching solutions care to run Microsoft self-assessment tools (even if it is originally @stake software)?
How many self-assessment tools (with AI being as "sophisticated" as it is) would be able to properly develop it's own risk assessment? Risk Assessment methodologies themselves are still somewhat "adolescent" IMHO - OCTAVE, NIST, and COBIT all leave something to be desired. Even once methodologies mature, making systems aware of dependencies, their value to the organization and the competency of the administrators in charge of those systems doesn't exactly sound like a function that can be automated anytime soon.
Finally, in terms of simple vulnerability assessment - what tools can be said to be as comprehensive as needed? Qualys? Foundstone? My organization has to rely on more than Nessus to properly assess risks to the best of it's ability. At last count, I believe our full toolset involved 7 or 8 different assessment tools. Even if you could consolidate toolset functionality, at what point can you reduce false positives to an acceptable level? Qualys and Foundstone both reduce false positives by reducing the amount of vulnerabilities they look for - so please don't go quoting marketing numbers. There's a reason that a full security assessment (with human validation as per the OSSTM) is much more favorable over a vulnerability assessment.
No, this sounds much more like Bill Gates "digital nervous system" from the mid 90's that's worked out so well....
You know why? It marks the point at which Macs have climbed back into the ire of PC Mag editors everywhere. 3 years ago, a mac article wasn't worth the soy ink and electrons it took to create an anti-mac article.
Wow, it's like it's 1988 all over again. Some Tool nitpicks one or two items to make himself feel better because he's a Windows user for whatever reason.
Next we'll hear how overpriced Macs are.
Actually, the only difference between this and 1988 is that games used to come out first for the Mac (Real business users don't need games! Was the rallying cry).
Doesn't he work with Infospace? I wonder what a google search for Infospace and Microsoft turns up?
Nah, This is fluff from Novell and Gateway Biz Dev/PR.
As iterated before there's nothing to Gateway's market share. This is an attempt to counter bad stock movement or continue good stock movement (haven't checked Novell or Gateway, and I'm way to lazy to do so now) with marketing fluffy bunnies ( a press release) by the parties involved. How many linux servers do you really think Gateway's going sell? How many would they have to sell for this to even make $100,000 in GROSS revenue for Novell?
It's fluff, next we'll see Novell/SuSE announcements from Micron and Acer, and Winbook will start selling SuSE laptops.
My Pismo had dual bays...
You'll also recognize the highly improbable "babe in the server room" ( I think I most recently saw her on the product section watchguard's site) off the same disc.
iPod Market share @ 50%.
Thus "dethrone" thinking purely in market terms. Gateway is in a position where following market leaders != growth. It's all fine and good for Dell or HPaq to put poo on a stick and expect people to buy it because it's from them, or even for Apple to overcharge for less features or performance because of brand loyalty, but Gateway has neither the market share or the brand loyalty to make this a success, without going to a low-cost model. That, they have not.
What Product Manager OK'd this?
Imagine, People at Gateway actually sat around a table with a white board in a conference room someone that probably smelled like day old coffee and stale garlic bagels, and thought that this functionality, at these prices (!) would launch Gateway competitively into the MP3 player market.
It makes the mind hurl...
"I have been hard-working during 18 months in an American Corp, I know what it is about."
That's just about the silliest thing I've ever read there, Mirko. It would be just as silly for me to say "I've been to Paris twice, so I know what French people are all about, arrogant and stinky!"
Please leave absurd generalizations to the trolls.
"He says he thinks IBM is desperate to buy SCO because "the last thing [IBM wants] to hear is the testimony that is going to come out," but that SCO isn't interested in being acquired. "
Uhhh, yeah....
1.) As if the $$$ it would cost IBM to buy SCO wouldn't be pocket change.
2.) As if SCO shareholders wouldn't JUMP at the prospect of trading their stock for IBM.
It sounds like to me this should read
"We're really just trying to get someone to buy us. This whole OS thing has been a fUx0r since the Caldera/SCO merger, neither OS sells very well at all. For the life of me, I can't figure out why IBM won't just put down a little cash and buy us to shut us up."
To say that for Just $300 I could build a faster AMD machine, and dual boot Linux and Windows XP!
Why? Because everytime there's an Apple product announcement, some smarty-pants always does and I want to be first this time!
Hah, Youngsters....
Back in my day, I used to use the IR on my original Newton to do the same thing!
and before that, we used to lug around a two man shoulder mounted IR programmable Apple IIc!
OK, I made up the IIc thing...
Looks like it's even worse, some sort of client/server interaction... Great, now they know what music I've bought...
I think so. There's an article on either macrumors.com or macslash that covers these sorts of contingencies.
Is that the 30 second song "sample" is just viral enough to infect co-workers.
Someone in your office you don't like? Give them 30 seconds of Air Supply. They'll be humming "Making Love out of Nothing At All" ALL DAY LONG!!!
Tee-Hee
Have you watched the presentation, have you seen what's available in iTunes 4?
"Rock, Rap, Jazz, Blues, Pop, Latin, New Age, Folk, Inspirational, R&B, Reggae, Electronic, Classical or something in between ? chances are you?ll find the tunes you?re looking for."
What are the chances that any of the smaller catagories available are significantly represented among the 200k (a fairly meager amount, when you think about it) tracks avail.?
I don't like Rock and/or Roll music, so the download thing doesn't really appeal. I can still go to the library and rip just about any music that interests me. What I can't get there, I can't imagine that the iTunes "Store" will have for me.
It's fairly laughable that many of the folks who complain about the price/crippling of the content are those who would never buy the content anyway. I personally, can't imagine that 80% of any "downloader"'s personal music library would ever be purchased.
I find it just as silly that Apple is crippling the content. There's a very available (albeit illegal) substitute good - one that strikes me as kiltering the economics of this undertaking towards the "failure" side.
That being said, I thought the new iPods had usable feature improvements. They are very expensive, but I think they seem to be feature/form factor competitive.
I thought the "rendevous" software side was somewhat interesting.
BTW - We made it how many posts before the predictable "I can build myself an AMD with Linux and Windows (just for games) for $1.99 and it will outrun a $3,000 Mac"?