I believe Apple has answered this question before in a few articles I have read. Most of their user feedback has shown that folks don't want to run a resolution that high, that for many it's too small to be productive and hard on the eyes. I actually see this in real life as I have a few people I support who actually drop the resolution of the iMac down to make the screen bigger. It looks awful, because its not at its native resolution.
At my work (we are part of an institution with upwards of a hundred thousand seats) the monthly fee paid for an Exchange account confers the right to download and use Microsoft Outlook 2003 for free. It does not include the right to download and use Microsoft Entourage 2004.
Wow, either someone in your IT department is lying or very incompetent. If you are getting Microsoft Outlook 2003, then you are also getting Exchange 2004. Microsoft states it on their own web site:
The Exchange Server 2003 user CAL is required for each user gaining access to the server and entitles access rights to both editions of Exchange Server. Each Exchange Server 2003 CAL also includes Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac and permits access from Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, Outlook Mobile Access, Exchange ActiveSync, or any standard Internet-messaging client.
The only thing I can think of preventing you from receiving Entourage 2004 is if your company has older client access licenses (Exchange/Outlook 2000) and they are using their Outlook 2003 licenses bundled with MS Office 2003, rather than the software licenses provided with Exchange. Even then, that's a stretch, as Microsoft usually allows you to update the Outlook/Entourage clients even though the server and the CAL's might be an older version.
It's true that Entourage isn't provided as a download from Microsoft. At the same time, I've never seen a place to download Outlook from either. Instead, they come on a CD with the Exchange software, and updates are sent via CD to the Exchange server admin.
Finally, for a company as large as you describe (you stated 100,000 seats for Exchange), I find it hard to believe that you do not have Microsoft Office for Mac installed on any of your computers for compatibility with the rest of your company, and if you have Microsoft Office 2004, then you have Entourage 2004 to use. The older version Office/Entourage X, will work with your Exchange servers as long as they have SMTP/IMAP turned on.
However, I doubt that the Pirate Radio people would be happy with this, because they're not just looking for spectrum, they want an audience. Basically, they want spectrum on a band which everyone already has receivers for, because that's the only way they're ever going to get people to listen to them.
This is why the previous poster suggested blocking off a portion of the FM broadcast spectrum for this purpose, not creating a new band. I'm surprised the FCC didn't do this in the first place, especially considering that the FM band was very "wide open" for many years before it became as crowded as it is today.
I could definitely see them blocking of 1 MHz of spectrum (like 88MHz to 89MHz) for unlicensed, low power broadcasting, but the commercial outlets and NPR would have a fit! I could also see the block get extremely crowded, causing a mess that was similar to AM radio before the FCC was created.
What the FCC should do is extend the FM Radio spectrum as soon as VHF analog TV broadcasters go silent after the digital conversion. This could be several years down the road, but it would be worth the wait. In addition to opening up new frequencies to commercial FM broadcasters, they should also allocate more space for non-commercial/educational stations, along with a block for licensing low-power FM transmissions. I think everyone would be happy with that solution.
What open spectrum is there for non-commercial, unlicenced, radio broadcasts? Sure there is CB, and some other spectrums available used for ham radio, walkie-talkies, cordless phones, wireless, etc, but nothing for the purpose of radio broadcasting. So those that want to do this are limited to broadcasting to their backyard or becomming a pirate. Unless you're speaking of some spectrum that I'm not aware of?
And who is to say that a pirate radio operator doesn't want to connect to the Emergency Alert System? Have you talked to any pirate radio operators? Most want to serve the community they broadcast to, and many of them give more local news and information than any commercial outlet. I have spoken with a few of them, and many of them would love to officially become part of the EAS, but of course that means risking being shut down.
I know a few operators who have created some home brewed EAS devices that monitor the larger commercial broadcasters for the EAS tones, and it automatically switches the feed when the EAS tones are aired. I saw it work during one of those EAS tests, it was pretty damn cool.
So why do so many people use popular music as ringtones on their phones?
Because they want to hear something they enjoy listening to when their phone rings rather than being dicatated what to listen to by the phone manufacturer. Not everyone wants to hear the same generic ring tone.
I do see what you're getting at. Some folks do like to use ring tones as a status thing.
It's not just corruption and politics. Even in places where there are good school systems, teachers and administrators are just not getting it done with technology.
I have worked in two institutions of higher education, and there are STILL students being accepted into colleges and universities who don't know how to do basic things on a computer, and when I mean basic, I mean, basic tasks in word processing, copying and pasting files, etc.
I hope the curriculums have changed for computer literacy courses in high school since I was there. I had the joy of learning BASIC. I wasn't taught how to use a computer, I was taught how to make a crummy program for one. As useful as the skill of computer programming can be, its still not nearly as important as knowing what a computer does, how it works, and how to use it, regardless of what brand, operating system, or platform you are running on.
I hope this new planned school helps students graduate knowing how to USE computers either in the workplace or in college. Who care's if we like Microsoft or not, at least their trying...
Thank you for that last sentence. No I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I am just soooo tired of hearing about "I can build this rig, I can build that rig" blah blah blah.
I am a BIG Apple fan. However, I have built lots of Pentium and AMD based computers over the years, for myself, for my friends, and for clients. It's lots of fun, especially for a geek like myself. I still enjoy the occasional browse on pricewatch or newegg to build a custom rig.
But let's face it, many of us here on Slashdot are in the minority when it comes to preferences and habits in hardware. Even though customers have mentioned to me they wanted the option to expand their tower based computer, most only end up adding RAM. Then 3 or 4 years down the road, they ask me to quote them a new computer. Most folks just don't care enough (or just don't remember) to expand their computers. Actually, I have upgraded more PowerMac G4's over the last few years (DVD burners, 3rd party CPU, RAM, Hard Drives) then regular custom built PC's. It's amazing how much life you can get out of PowerMac/Mac Pro workstations.
I'm definitely excited about the new 24" Mac. You are looking at the end of the 17" Mac very soon. The newest entry level is Intel GMA based, and that used to be the EDU only model. The other 17" still has ATI graphics. I think in 6 months the 17" ATI based model will be EOL'd, with the 20" dropping into the 17" price point, with the 17" Intel GMA based model still bringing up the rear.
This new hardware is great, and I just don't think that most folks care about upgrading hard drives and video cards 2-3 years down the road.
Wow. This is a major announcement. I guess they don't want most of the folks who buy Vista to be let down when they purchase it. I guess afterall they aren't copying Mac OS X, since HD playback is built into QuickTime 7.
These must be Premier ($3000) members only (those that get the free invite to the WWDC with their ADC membership). I have a select ($500) subscription, and the Leopard preview hasn't showed up yet in the downloads section.
"Read this link. It happened to my brother's Macbook and was fixed by setting the Startup Disk."
I apologize you took my quote out of context. I am not the all-knowing-god of Mac repair. I just have never seen or heard of your remedy fixing that problem before. I have actually read that article before, and if you read all the comments below it, it sounds like that no one was able to use the resolution of PRAM/Combo Disk to resolve the problem. Many of them commented the laptop went back to Apple. Some used a different method of resolving the issue. I understand that it worked for your brother but it doesn't sound like it works for anyone else./pokesyoureyes.
I have been working on Mac's for over 10 years (including new Intel based), and I have never seen pink and green vertical lines on the screen fixedby setting the startup disk. I have gotten blank white screens, black screens, screens with question marks, but never pink and green lines. I have the feeling there was more to this then booting off the CD and setting your startup disk back to the hard disk.
You can tell the prosecution of Microsoft is ending when they start killing of products, such as Windows Media Player 9 for Mac. Just proves your point further.
"Real Networks, if you want to see an appreciating community, check OS X downnload feedback, we are all happy with what you offer for years and not abandoning us like some "non spyware" monopolists did.
I have to agree with you there. RealPlayer for Mac OS X is a really nice product, compared to, um, Windows Media Player 9 for Mac. Real was one of the few companies that drastically improved their Mac OS X product in comparison to their Mac OS 9 (Classic) product.
Despite their great product, on the OS X platform, Real's best route is abandoning the player all together, and instead creating a QuickTime plugin. With a QT plugin, all of Real's formats become playable in Front Row, QuickTime, iTunes, or anything else that takes advantage of the built in QT plugins. Who really cares about what the player is anymore, anyway? It's all about the quality of the format!
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if those days return inside 10 years, you know. Once Microsoft stops making Office for Mac in a few years' time, and Pages supplants Word on Macs (as Safari has already done to IE),...:-) plus there are other kinds of incompatibilities to confuse the clueless. I've found pdfs that work in Acrobat/Mac but screw up formatting in Preview."
Most Word documents open right in textedit, the default text editing application that comes free with Mac OS X. As for Adobe Acrobat, by default most things will work with preview, but I agree if you adjust the settings, then yes, some PDF's won't display in Preview. But this also means that it probably won't open on an older version of Acrobat for Mac or Win. I know many places still using Acrobat Reader 4 or 5. Other freeware applications that read PDF's on multiple platforms would also probably have trouble. I think the fault here lies in what version of PDF you are using when you create the PDF in Acrobat (and what Adobe licenses out to others) rather than in Preview.app.
"I would like to put a new drive in the thing, but supposedly it has to go back to the store for that, which adds to the cost."
You seem to be a well educated user. So why did you buy an iMac when its an all in one unit and its pretty obvious that the hard drive can't be replaced? Other manufacturers have had all-in-one units with the same policies on what are user changable parts.
As for iMovie, it can be picky at times. But for the price, you still can't beat it. Please try using your hardware and editing your movie with Windows Movie Maker 2 and get back to us on how much better it is. I still think a Mac is a great all around machine. And remember, most general users aren't Linux users... but I hope that changes soon.
"My method is legal too, your method is not easier when you can't afford the hardware. As for support, I'm sorry to say but in my expirence, Apple's support really wasn't that good, so I don't trust their support with bootcamp to be any better."
Don't you have to buy the software for it to be legal, regardless of the EULA or what hardware you put it on? If you are downloading it (Apple has no legal means of downloading the whole version of Mac OS X 10.4), and you haven't purchased a copy from the store, then I don't think it's legal...
"And to uninstall a program, while it might seem like a no-brainer to drag an application to the trash to uninstall it, that does not get rid of it if you've added it to the dock. For more advanced users that's not a big deal, but it's certainly not more "intuitive" than using an uninstall applet that gets rid of everything - start menu shortcuts and all - in one swat."
Uninstallers in on the Windows platform work like crap. How many times have you browsed through the applications folder and low and behold there is still a program folder containing files for a program you installed two weeks ago? Or, when you re-organize the Start menu how you want it, and then uninstall a program, the Start menu icon isn't removed because the uninstaller isn't smart enough to search the entire start menu for its own shortcuts. And lets not get started about "3rrr2njn77y98nbfsnubnfbmpmbshithead.dll is in use by multiple programs do you wish to delete it?" How the hell am I supposed to answer that? I have no clue what the.dll does.
Please, let's not get too emotional regarding Windows uninstallers. I have seen too many clients with corrupted registries to feel otherwise. I know on the Mac that you sometimes have application support and preference files left over after you delete an application, but, they are usually harmless and take up very little space, and draggin an application icon out of the dock is a lot easier than having to fix things with regedit.exe!:-)
Then you are a lucky man. I have had over 20 OptiPlex SX model computers fail over the last couple of years because of bad capacitor's on the motherboard. At this point, its very easy to call Dell and order a new board, but when it first started happening, boy were they bitches. It took me two weeks of running diagnostics and resotring software before they believed my assessment that it was a bad board. Now, it takes me one call and a ten minute discussion before I get a board shipped out overnight.
My point, is that Apple, just like Dell, and other manufacturers, refuse to acknowledge problems early on. It's common. I have found Dell and HP to be worse than Apple on acknowledging a given defect or problem exists, only to read about it a week later, with mfr's stating that they would be repairing the given problem at no cost. Over the years I have found Apple customer support to be very good. Dell used to be up there as well, but I don't think they seem to care about customers anymore.
The Mac mini isn't really marketed towards folks like you. Maybe 5-10% of computer owners have ever even built a computer or even replaced a motherboard or processor in their computer, and I'm being generous in that assessment.
Most folks just want to sit down and use a computer that works- and for those who don't have a large budget and are looking to get away from Windows for most aspects of their computing, then the Mac mini fits in with that.
Unfortunately, Apple is still stuck doing these marketing campaigns because of computing stigma's left-over from the 1980's. I still have clients who think that they need to do all this special stuff to send a Mac user a word document. This is why they make very obvious and deliberate statements in their advertising, because most folks don't even realize what Macs have to offer.
I used to enjoy building "winux" boxes, in addition to playing around with my Macs. Now I don't have the time, so I have an 17" iMac with a 3 year warranty and 5 different operating systems on it. I know for the next 3 years I don't have to worry about buying anything other than RAM, because if it breaks, its covered. Sure the marketing is coarse, but man, who cares- look at all the other crappy advertising out there, like for example, (Dude, your getting a Dell!)
"If you want to move more people more rapidly, the answer is better public transit, not more roads. More roads will lead to more traffic."
In the words of Peter Griffin, it really "grinds my gears" when I hear that argument. Where are the actual facts on that? The quesion is no different than asking what came first, the chicken, or the egg?
When it comes to Boston, the actual problem is two-fold. The first is that when highways and expressways were planned for urban areas in the Northeast, they were usually routed through ghettos and other areas of depressed property value so that the project could be completed at a low cost. This lead to highways being built in areas that weren't best suited for what was needed, the first Central Artery inclued. The second problem is that by the mid-seventies, as engineers had digested thirty years of highway building, their legs were cut out from under them by grass roots activists, environmentalists, and politicians who decided not building any more highways was the best thing. This "NIMBY" attitude (not-in-my-back-yard) dominated the seventies and eighties, and halted many projects. In Boston, this included the "Southwest Expressway" (the original planned routing of I-95 to Boston) and the inner beltway (Boston was to be surrounded by three beltways, I-495, what is currently I-95/MA 128, and the unbuilt inner beltway was was supposed to carry I-95 around Boston). Part of the problem of the central artery and the big dig is that there are not enough ways to get around or through Boston. If those projects had been built the traffic situation in and around Boston would be much improved, and the scope of the "big-dig" could have been minimized. Sometimes building more roads will reduce the traffic.
The public transportation system in Boston is excellent. Commuter rails, subway, and busses can take you to just about any part of the city and the surrounding suburbs. I have personally used them many times. People need to utilize these systems rather than use their automobile! Let's face it, most of us feel entitled to drive our cars, no matter what the cost. Despite the excellent public transportation, automobile congestion is still a huge problem, because people want to drive, and that's it. They really don't care about how they are affecting anyone else.
My point is that building roads will not lead to more traffic. The traffic only occurs if people choose to drive on the roads. Produce and sell fewer cars, convince people to use public transportation, change their perceptions... now that will lead to less traffic!
Slashdot Mirror
I believe Apple has answered this question before in a few articles I have read. Most of their user feedback has shown that folks don't want to run a resolution that high, that for many it's too small to be productive and hard on the eyes. I actually see this in real life as I have a few people I support who actually drop the resolution of the iMac down to make the screen bigger. It looks awful, because its not at its native resolution.
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/howtobuy/enterp
From the web site:
The only thing I can think of preventing you from receiving Entourage 2004 is if your company has older client access licenses (Exchange/Outlook 2000) and they are using their Outlook 2003 licenses bundled with MS Office 2003, rather than the software licenses provided with Exchange. Even then, that's a stretch, as Microsoft usually allows you to update the Outlook/Entourage clients even though the server and the CAL's might be an older version.
It's true that Entourage isn't provided as a download from Microsoft. At the same time, I've never seen a place to download Outlook from either. Instead, they come on a CD with the Exchange software, and updates are sent via CD to the Exchange server admin.
Finally, for a company as large as you describe (you stated 100,000 seats for Exchange), I find it hard to believe that you do not have Microsoft Office for Mac installed on any of your computers for compatibility with the rest of your company, and if you have Microsoft Office 2004, then you have Entourage 2004 to use. The older version Office/Entourage X, will work with your Exchange servers as long as they have SMTP/IMAP turned on.
This is why the previous poster suggested blocking off a portion of the FM broadcast spectrum for this purpose, not creating a new band. I'm surprised the FCC didn't do this in the first place, especially considering that the FM band was very "wide open" for many years before it became as crowded as it is today.
I could definitely see them blocking of 1 MHz of spectrum (like 88MHz to 89MHz) for unlicensed, low power broadcasting, but the commercial outlets and NPR would have a fit! I could also see the block get extremely crowded, causing a mess that was similar to AM radio before the FCC was created.
What the FCC should do is extend the FM Radio spectrum as soon as VHF analog TV broadcasters go silent after the digital conversion. This could be several years down the road, but it would be worth the wait. In addition to opening up new frequencies to commercial FM broadcasters, they should also allocate more space for non-commercial/educational stations, along with a block for licensing low-power FM transmissions. I think everyone would be happy with that solution.
What open spectrum is there for non-commercial, unlicenced, radio broadcasts? Sure there is CB, and some other spectrums available used for ham radio, walkie-talkies, cordless phones, wireless, etc, but nothing for the purpose of radio broadcasting. So those that want to do this are limited to broadcasting to their backyard or becomming a pirate. Unless you're speaking of some spectrum that I'm not aware of?
And who is to say that a pirate radio operator doesn't want to connect to the Emergency Alert System? Have you talked to any pirate radio operators? Most want to serve the community they broadcast to, and many of them give more local news and information than any commercial outlet. I have spoken with a few of them, and many of them would love to officially become part of the EAS, but of course that means risking being shut down.
I know a few operators who have created some home brewed EAS devices that monitor the larger commercial broadcasters for the EAS tones, and it automatically switches the feed when the EAS tones are aired. I saw it work during one of those EAS tests, it was pretty damn cool.
Are you making a point by copying an earlier post word for word? Maybe I've been reading this discussion for too long!
Because they want to hear something they enjoy listening to when their phone rings rather than being dicatated what to listen to by the phone manufacturer. Not everyone wants to hear the same generic ring tone.
I do see what you're getting at. Some folks do like to use ring tones as a status thing.
It's not just corruption and politics. Even in places where there are good school systems, teachers and administrators are just not getting it done with technology.
I have worked in two institutions of higher education, and there are STILL students being accepted into colleges and universities who don't know how to do basic things on a computer, and when I mean basic, I mean, basic tasks in word processing, copying and pasting files, etc.
I hope the curriculums have changed for computer literacy courses in high school since I was there. I had the joy of learning BASIC. I wasn't taught how to use a computer, I was taught how to make a crummy program for one. As useful as the skill of computer programming can be, its still not nearly as important as knowing what a computer does, how it works, and how to use it, regardless of what brand, operating system, or platform you are running on.
I hope this new planned school helps students graduate knowing how to USE computers either in the workplace or in college. Who care's if we like Microsoft or not, at least their trying...
Works for me, might not work for you.
Thank you for that last sentence. No I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I am just soooo tired of hearing about "I can build this rig, I can build that rig" blah blah blah.
I am a BIG Apple fan. However, I have built lots of Pentium and AMD based computers over the years, for myself, for my friends, and for clients. It's lots of fun, especially for a geek like myself. I still enjoy the occasional browse on pricewatch or newegg to build a custom rig.
But let's face it, many of us here on Slashdot are in the minority when it comes to preferences and habits in hardware. Even though customers have mentioned to me they wanted the option to expand their tower based computer, most only end up adding RAM. Then 3 or 4 years down the road, they ask me to quote them a new computer. Most folks just don't care enough (or just don't remember) to expand their computers. Actually, I have upgraded more PowerMac G4's over the last few years (DVD burners, 3rd party CPU, RAM, Hard Drives) then regular custom built PC's. It's amazing how much life you can get out of PowerMac/Mac Pro workstations.
I'm definitely excited about the new 24" Mac. You are looking at the end of the 17" Mac very soon. The newest entry level is Intel GMA based, and that used to be the EDU only model. The other 17" still has ATI graphics. I think in 6 months the 17" ATI based model will be EOL'd, with the 20" dropping into the 17" price point, with the 17" Intel GMA based model still bringing up the rear.
This new hardware is great, and I just don't think that most folks care about upgrading hard drives and video cards 2-3 years down the road.
Wow. This is a major announcement. I guess they don't want most of the folks who buy Vista to be let down when they purchase it. I guess afterall they aren't copying Mac OS X, since HD playback is built into QuickTime 7.
These must be Premier ($3000) members only (those that get the free invite to the WWDC with their ADC membership). I have a select ($500) subscription, and the Leopard preview hasn't showed up yet in the downloads section.
"Read this link. It happened to my brother's Macbook and was fixed by setting the Startup Disk."
/pokesyoureyes.
I apologize you took my quote out of context. I am not the all-knowing-god of Mac repair. I just have never seen or heard of your remedy fixing that problem before. I have actually read that article before, and if you read all the comments below it, it sounds like that no one was able to use the resolution of PRAM/Combo Disk to resolve the problem. Many of them commented the laptop went back to Apple. Some used a different method of resolving the issue. I understand that it worked for your brother but it doesn't sound like it works for anyone else.
I have been working on Mac's for over 10 years (including new Intel based), and I have never seen pink and green vertical lines on the screen fixedby setting the startup disk. I have gotten blank white screens, black screens, screens with question marks, but never pink and green lines. I have the feeling there was more to this then booting off the CD and setting your startup disk back to the hard disk.
You can tell the prosecution of Microsoft is ending when they start killing of products, such as Windows Media Player 9 for Mac. Just proves your point further.
This is why customers rip the pages out of the purchased books, not the publshers or the printers.
"Real Networks, if you want to see an appreciating community, check OS X downnload feedback, we are all happy with what you offer for years and not abandoning us like some "non spyware" monopolists did.
I have to agree with you there. RealPlayer for Mac OS X is a really nice product, compared to, um, Windows Media Player 9 for Mac. Real was one of the few companies that drastically improved their Mac OS X product in comparison to their Mac OS 9 (Classic) product.
Despite their great product, on the OS X platform, Real's best route is abandoning the player all together, and instead creating a QuickTime plugin. With a QT plugin, all of Real's formats become playable in Front Row, QuickTime, iTunes, or anything else that takes advantage of the built in QT plugins. Who really cares about what the player is anymore, anyway? It's all about the quality of the format!
"I shouldn't be at all surprised if those days return inside 10 years, you know. Once Microsoft stops making Office for Mac in a few years' time, and Pages supplants Word on Macs (as Safari has already done to IE), ... :-) plus there are other kinds of incompatibilities to confuse the clueless. I've found pdfs that work in Acrobat/Mac but screw up formatting in Preview."
Most Word documents open right in textedit, the default text editing application that comes free with Mac OS X. As for Adobe Acrobat, by default most things will work with preview, but I agree if you adjust the settings, then yes, some PDF's won't display in Preview. But this also means that it probably won't open on an older version of Acrobat for Mac or Win. I know many places still using Acrobat Reader 4 or 5. Other freeware applications that read PDF's on multiple platforms would also probably have trouble. I think the fault here lies in what version of PDF you are using when you create the PDF in Acrobat (and what Adobe licenses out to others) rather than in Preview.app.
Your absolutely right. That sentence should read "This, along with the "attitude"...". That's what happens when you post at 3AM.
"I would like to put a new drive in the thing, but supposedly it has to go back to the store for that, which adds to the cost."
You seem to be a well educated user. So why did you buy an iMac when its an all in one unit and its pretty obvious that the hard drive can't be replaced? Other manufacturers have had all-in-one units with the same policies on what are user changable parts.
As for iMovie, it can be picky at times. But for the price, you still can't beat it. Please try using your hardware and editing your movie with Windows Movie Maker 2 and get back to us on how much better it is. I still think a Mac is a great all around machine. And remember, most general users aren't Linux users... but I hope that changes soon.
"My method is legal too, your method is not easier when you can't afford the hardware. As for support, I'm sorry to say but in my expirence, Apple's support really wasn't that good, so I don't trust their support with bootcamp to be any better."
Don't you have to buy the software for it to be legal, regardless of the EULA or what hardware you put it on? If you are downloading it (Apple has no legal means of downloading the whole version of Mac OS X 10.4), and you haven't purchased a copy from the store, then I don't think it's legal...
"And to uninstall a program, while it might seem like a no-brainer to drag an application to the trash to uninstall it, that does not get rid of it if you've added it to the dock. For more advanced users that's not a big deal, but it's certainly not more "intuitive" than using an uninstall applet that gets rid of everything - start menu shortcuts and all - in one swat."
.dll does.
:-)
Uninstallers in on the Windows platform work like crap. How many times have you browsed through the applications folder and low and behold there is still a program folder containing files for a program you installed two weeks ago? Or, when you re-organize the Start menu how you want it, and then uninstall a program, the Start menu icon isn't removed because the uninstaller isn't smart enough to search the entire start menu for its own shortcuts. And lets not get started about "3rrr2njn77y98nbfsnubnfbmpmbshithead.dll is in use by multiple programs do you wish to delete it?" How the hell am I supposed to answer that? I have no clue what the
Please, let's not get too emotional regarding Windows uninstallers. I have seen too many clients with corrupted registries to feel otherwise. I know on the Mac that you sometimes have application support and preference files left over after you delete an application, but, they are usually harmless and take up very little space, and draggin an application icon out of the dock is a lot easier than having to fix things with regedit.exe!
Then you are a lucky man. I have had over 20 OptiPlex SX model computers fail over the last couple of years because of bad capacitor's on the motherboard. At this point, its very easy to call Dell and order a new board, but when it first started happening, boy were they bitches. It took me two weeks of running diagnostics and resotring software before they believed my assessment that it was a bad board. Now, it takes me one call and a ten minute discussion before I get a board shipped out overnight.
My point, is that Apple, just like Dell, and other manufacturers, refuse to acknowledge problems early on. It's common. I have found Dell and HP to be worse than Apple on acknowledging a given defect or problem exists, only to read about it a week later, with mfr's stating that they would be repairing the given problem at no cost. Over the years I have found Apple customer support to be very good. Dell used to be up there as well, but I don't think they seem to care about customers anymore.
The Mac mini isn't really marketed towards folks like you. Maybe 5-10% of computer owners have ever even built a computer or even replaced a motherboard or processor in their computer, and I'm being generous in that assessment.
Most folks just want to sit down and use a computer that works- and for those who don't have a large budget and are looking to get away from Windows for most aspects of their computing, then the Mac mini fits in with that.
Unfortunately, Apple is still stuck doing these marketing campaigns because of computing stigma's left-over from the 1980's. I still have clients who think that they need to do all this special stuff to send a Mac user a word document. This is why they make very obvious and deliberate statements in their advertising, because most folks don't even realize what Macs have to offer.
I used to enjoy building "winux" boxes, in addition to playing around with my Macs. Now I don't have the time, so I have an 17" iMac with a 3 year warranty and 5 different operating systems on it. I know for the next 3 years I don't have to worry about buying anything other than RAM, because if it breaks, its covered. Sure the marketing is coarse, but man, who cares- look at all the other crappy advertising out there, like for example, (Dude, your getting a Dell!)
"If you want to move more people more rapidly, the answer is better public transit, not more roads. More roads will lead to more traffic."
In the words of Peter Griffin, it really "grinds my gears" when I hear that argument. Where are the actual facts on that? The quesion is no different than asking what came first, the chicken, or the egg?
When it comes to Boston, the actual problem is two-fold. The first is that when highways and expressways were planned for urban areas in the Northeast, they were usually routed through ghettos and other areas of depressed property value so that the project could be completed at a low cost. This lead to highways being built in areas that weren't best suited for what was needed, the first Central Artery inclued. The second problem is that by the mid-seventies, as engineers had digested thirty years of highway building, their legs were cut out from under them by grass roots activists, environmentalists, and politicians who decided not building any more highways was the best thing. This "NIMBY" attitude (not-in-my-back-yard) dominated the seventies and eighties, and halted many projects. In Boston, this included the "Southwest Expressway" (the original planned routing of I-95 to Boston) and the inner beltway (Boston was to be surrounded by three beltways, I-495, what is currently I-95/MA 128, and the unbuilt inner beltway was was supposed to carry I-95 around Boston). Part of the problem of the central artery and the big dig is that there are not enough ways to get around or through Boston. If those projects had been built the traffic situation in and around Boston would be much improved, and the scope of the "big-dig" could have been minimized. Sometimes building more roads will reduce the traffic.
The public transportation system in Boston is excellent. Commuter rails, subway, and busses can take you to just about any part of the city and the surrounding suburbs. I have personally used them many times. People need to utilize these systems rather than use their automobile! Let's face it, most of us feel entitled to drive our cars, no matter what the cost. Despite the excellent public transportation, automobile congestion is still a huge problem, because people want to drive, and that's it. They really don't care about how they are affecting anyone else.
My point is that building roads will not lead to more traffic. The traffic only occurs if people choose to drive on the roads. Produce and sell fewer cars, convince people to use public transportation, change their perceptions... now that will lead to less traffic!
There must be something more to this. Wouldn't a site with this many subscribers be co-located?