Piracy is up, so are sales, so are profits. Well, well, if everyone's pirating instead of buying, how do sales and profits keep climbing? There's your data, and a question to ponder while looking at it.
Yes, because my light bulbs, microwave, and toaster all talk to my electric meter. Take off that tinfoil hat before you examine your outlets, you wouldn't want to accidentally shorting out and killing you.
There may be two now, but when those who don't support Linux (whose games run on Wine) start NOT making sales to Wine users, while those who do are picking up those sales, it's possible (not likely, but possible) that others who are losing sales will take notice.
Given you cannot even articulate how Lion negatively "influences one's workflow" compared to Snow Leopard, how much *I* know isn't particularly relevant to the discussion at this stage.
Given that this is precisely what we are talking about, how much *you* know is quite relevant. It's probably a good idea to bow out of the discussion if you're not familiar with the topic. While I *am* familiar with the topic, I'm not a phychologist, UI designer, or UX designer, so, while I have a grasp of the concepts, I lack the proper terms to articulate them. Further, I've used the platform for all of 5 minutes, I simply sit next to someone who bitches about it for 40+hr/wk; though, in those 5 minutes, I did get the distinct feeling that something was amiss. Do I need to repeat that again?
Heck, I could come up with a few examples of how the OS X is "less than optimal" compared to Windows right off the top of my head.
Well, we're not comparing OSX to Windows, now, are we? We're comparing OSX to OSX, so I'd go so far as to say that your examples would be pretty pointless.
How ?
The paragragraph you quoted without context (and replied to out of context -- you see, it's fine to quote without context if you're replying in that same context, which you did not) answered that question for "about the fourth time". I can't give specifics because I'm not the one using it, I'm just the one who has to hear the one using it bitch about the inferior system "upgrade" being forced on him for 40+hr/wk. I said that, right here, in the last paragraph of my post. You must have stopped reading as soon as you started commenting.
All I can say, and I'll reword it this time, is what I've already said. I used it for a few minutes after Apple forced the "upgrade" on him and it simply was not a comfortable experience for me; he's constantly parroting the same. Since he's the one using it for 40+hr/wk, like I said, I'd have to ask him for specifics.
I'd like to point out that "similar to" need not necessarily mean "same race". It could mean same gender, same height, same weight, same age or age group, or any number of similarities. I's also like to point out the difference between the concept of preference versus requirement; you're talking about people prefering to be around similar people, which is not the same as people only wanting to be around others of the same race, which is what I was talking about.
I fully agree with the point you are trying to make, as it is a point that coexists, in reality, with the point I was trying to make. I'm not oversimplfying, you're simply misunderstanding; hopefully the above explanation helps.
How much do you understand about how one's environment influences one's workflow? If the answer was anything more than "not much" you'd already see what I'm complaining about; but, since you're directly in the target market for Lion and Mountain Lion, I don't expect you to see the problem, because, for you, it doesn't exist. There's nothing specific (that I know of, that my boss has complained about) that you *can't* do in Lion that you can do in Snow Leopard, but the workflow has changed in ways that are very much "less than optimal". The environment is one of consumption rather than creativity or creation and that does, on a psychological level, alter the workflow, as well.
All I can say, and I'll reword it this time, is what I've already said. I used it for a few minutes after Apple forced the "upgrade" on him and it simply was not a comfortable experience for me; he's constantly parroting the same. Since he's the one using it for 40+hr/wk, like I said, I'd have to ask him for specifics.
Ahh, except that I don't go around pointing out "oh hey I have a BLACK FRIEND, HOW COOL IS THAT?!", just because I can; I only trot out the fact that only about half of my friends are white (roughly proportional to the population I interact with on a daily basis, including neighbors and colleagues) when it is relavent to a point I am trying to make, mostly to preempt the "RACIST!" cries when I'm making any mention of race.
Me? It's not, I've opted to stay on Snow Leopard for the time being. My boss? Well, I'd have to ask him for specifics, but I hear him bitching about it all the time; and he's the reason we're a Mac office.
I've noticed, and so have my black friends, that there are at least two classes of black person, just like there are various classes of every other race. One class prefers to be around other blacks because, more or less, "fuck everyone else"; the other prefers to be around anyone who's not in the other class, or any similar class of another race. It's not a race thing, it's a personality thing (though those personality types are tendent toward outward racism), and it happens in all races. There are whites who only want to be around whites, blacks who only want to be around blacks, asians who only want to be around asians (and even there, you see segregation based on country of origin), mexicans who only want to be around mexicans, native americans are perhaps worst of all in this regard simply due to how tribal culture raises them. There are also people belonging to each of these races who don't mind the company of other races, so long as they're able to avoid the "only with my own kind" types.
For the record, I get called out as a racist quite frequently. It's amazing how quickly those people back down when one of my black, mexican, puerto-rican, or japanese friends stands up.
LOL Outlook! All of your points are 100% valid for the average user. Anyone using the platform for development or contrnt creation is going to see exactly what I'm talking about in Mountain Lion and the next release after that. You, you're not one of those users, so I've already stated that, for your use case, I do agree with you; there's no need to agree to disagree, you simply don't use the system in a way that shows the flaws, so you have not seen them to be in a position to agree that they exist.
Let me ask you this: What happens when Apple's decisions drive developers away from their platform? Who's making the apps for the app store, then? It will be a few years before users like yourself begin to see the effects of this, but trust me when I say that developers are already feeling it.
Hopefully I'm wrong; hopefully Apple will turn this around and whatever comes out after Mountain Lion will be as open and accessible to power users, developers, and creative types (the latter being Apple's former niche market, now alienated) as Snow Leopard is and has been. If they do that, hopefully before it comes time for me to replace my current laptop, they'll end up back at the top of my buy list, where they were shortly after I bought the Toshiba I currently own. With the release of Lion, they were moved close to the bottom (just above HP/Compaq, eMachines, and Dell/Alienware) and with their current hardware lineup, they were removed completely. I'd love a 15" retina display on a system with an internal optical drive, upgradeable RAM, and a standard (e.g. upgradeable) SATA SSD, without the glue used to prevent the machine from being opened (case bottom glued to LiPo battery? COME ON, APPLE! EVEN YOUR TECHS CAN'T OPEN THAT!); and I'd even accept a 17" retina display with the flaws that make the 15" worthless to me, because the resolution would be INSANE. There's just nothing compelling in their current lineup, though.
It's designed around funneling users to the browser, iTunes, and the App Store (which my wife just pointed out to me as I'm typing this, "fucking sucks"). Snow Leopard *has* iTunes, a browser, and with more recent updates, access to the App Store, but the primary focus is on being a well-rounded, useable OS. Starting with Lion, the focus is on making it as much like iOS as possible and selling as much shit through iTunes and the App Store as possible, damn the rest of the user experience.
Don't really care about PPC legacy apps, I have a G3 and G4 around for those. "Save As" is a sticking point for quite a number of power users; and the more advanced the user, the more likely it is to be a sticking point. Neither of those are the type of thing I was talking about, though. I'm not talking about things your everyday user would notice (ok, inverted scrollbars are annoying as fuck!); rather, things that will cause the developer community to get fed up and leave. Which, if course, ends in little-to-no application development, reducing consumer desire for the platform, driving most normal users away, as well. The few who use their Macs only as a gateway to the iTunes teat will still be interested at that point, and those few can use a PC for that.
With Leopard and Snow Leopard, OSX was showing a set of colors I really liked; I bought in, hoping those were the true colors of OSX. Now, Lion is shifting to some new colors I'm not as fond of; hopefully OSX is just a bit ill and will get better. If these new colors Apple is shifting it towards are the true colors of OSX, it spells the first step down the slippery slope to the demise of OSX.
Who knows, maybe that's what Apple's after? There's no way in hell the shareholders would let them survive if they killed off a profitable desktop OS; if that's what they're after, they have to tank it, first.
When I said "general purpose" I was refering to an OS that lets you do what you want, consequences be damned. As a developer, that is important; as a user, not so much; as a consumer, not at all. Are yo ua developer? If not, be happy with Lion and Mountain Lion until the developers get pissed off and leave; then, hope the apps you have are all the apps you want. If all you care about is browsing the web, checking your email, and buying shit on iTunes, then Apple truly can do no wrong for you, this is their focus, all other parts of the experience be damned. You don't even need a Mac for that; the PC version of iTunes works just as well!
What do you use it for? I noticed it in the first few minutes I played with it on my boss' laptop ()since I had my Snow Leopard sitting right next to it, the differences were obvios immediately) and he notices it (and mentions it) every day. His was a forced upgrade, he took his MBP in because he needed to reinstall Snow Leopard and had lost the DVD, and they "upgraded" him to Lion and are now refusing to downgrade him back to what he actually paid for.
My wife, on the other hand, who browses the web, checks her email, plays games, and dabbles in Photoshop, will probably not notice much of anything other than "ooh, it's easier for me to buy shit now".
The problem is that when you drive away the developers, the apps stop coming; then, you're driving away the normal users who don't notice the changes in Lion. Unless this is corrected for in the next couple of releases, I don't see this process taking more than 10 years.
1) And the likelihood of someone who is able to compile the software not being able to RTFM and follow instructions prior to asking for help? Right, that's why they get it for free. If there's a problem in the documentation or something isn't working as it should (you know, bugs), these are the users who will contact you to let you know what they've found and how to fix it; they're, perhaps, more valuable than the users giving you cash, since they help you improve your product, so more users will want to pay you for it. For free.
2) As above, these people are discovering bugs *AND* attempting to provide fixes, where the paying users can onlike likely point to "there's a problem, I'm not sure what it is, but this isn't working right"; much more valuable data from the self-compiling users. In cases where someone is posting about build issues? Well, *someone* got it to build, right? They can help. You do make a valid point, however, about users doubling as bugtesters; and the very type of users I would want to attract for that purpose are the ones who know how to, at a very minimum, compile from source and RTFM, so it's worthwhile for me to give them a break.
It's less about the volume of support requests and more about the nature. We know to post in the forums and let the community *AND* the author (if/when he has time) help us; paying users are also being given the option of directly asking the author for help (and he'll make time because you're paying him to). Even a self-compiling user, should they require direct assistance from the author, would have to pay to get that. So, what's the problem?
I never moved any goalposts. It is fa fact that all platforms require the same mitigation techniques; it's simply that OSX (and Windows since XP SP2, most Linux distros, most of the BSDs, iOS since its 4th or 5th release, Android, BBOS, etc...) does many of them for the user, so the user need not worry about those specific techmiques. Trojans are not a hypothetical threat, they do exist on every platform (this article is about one, as a matter of fact); and they require the same mitigation techniques (read: security practices) as they do on any other platform: user education (asking if you're sure you want to do something does NOT equate to educating you about the dangers of doing so, and Apple has gone out of their way for the last decade to educate users that their Macs are safe trom these very types of attacks), attack detection and mitigation (realtime antivirus/antimalware, which will catch known threats before they can do any harm; with heuristics, they'll catch some unknowns, as well), and periodic full system antivirus/antimalware scans (which will catch previously unknown threats once they become known). It is a fact that Apple has "educated" their users that their Macs are safe, and I'll point out again that asking if someone is sure they want to do something is *not* education; a user who's told it's safe and wants to see the fuzzy bunny is going to click "YES". Anything not requiring user interaction is simply a matter of default settings; open those services up to the world and BAM the'll be attacked; Windows, as I've pointed out, has not done this since XP SP2. I still run that in a VM on a CentOS 6.2 host just like I run OSX, because both systems have a larger number of known threats currently in the wild than their Linux host and it is much easier to monitor them in VMs and roll them back should I ever need to.
I'm a Mac *USER* (40+hr/wk for work and recreationally on a teal G3 PowerMac, G4 PowerBook, and an OSX VM on my PC, as well as my wife's 17" MacBook Pro) for christ sake, but somehow I'm a hater? The fact is that/. users who know better than to click "YES" or "OK" on every dialog they see ARE A MINORITY. Windows users, who have been educated for the last 20 years that their systems *ARE* vulnerable (when was the last virus for Windows, BTW? If you want to exclude trojans and the like when discussing Mac, let's do the same for Windows) and moat of them *STILL* click "YES" and "OK" to *EVERYTHING*! You think this is gonna happen at a lesser rate on Macs because... why?
And I told you precisely where to find at least TWO fanboys. The mirror and my office. And I said nothing like your little script; did you bother reading my post?
It is impossible to argue with someone who cherry-picks quotes and argues out of context like you are doing. So, I'll leave it at this: anyone who reads what you've quoted in the contect in which you've quoted it will think you've won this; anyone who reads those same quotes in their true context, as I wrote them, will think that maybe you need to make some real arguments to counter mine. You've argued nothing and, indeed, have attacked your opponent, rather than his arguments (in typical fanboy style, thus why you were labelled as such), showing that you have no compelling case of your own. This time, I only restated my arguments and ended that with a question, which shouldn't be difficult to answer. Ball's in your court and I've got one foot on the grass, ready to head home if you don't want to play by established rules.
Ahh, the de-facto cause of rampant piracy. Note that I'm not saying this is the cause for *all* piracy, as there was still piracy when youwere allowed to return CDs; there was just much, MUCH less of it.
By charging a small fee to those most likely to require technical support, it looks like you are covering your support costs in the most fair manner possible. Hmm?
Not quite the same, you're missing the directionality, but probably close enough. With the advances in LED tech, your setup does look somewhat epic. I didn't see the treatment tanks for the irrigation system in that video, but, by the looks of that setup I'd have to assume it's at least as good as what I came up with.
Trojans exist on all platforms, by the very nature of their being an exploit of the user, not the system. Preventing, detecting, and removing them requires the same security needs, regardless of platform. Whether it's the user simply knowing better, which works on all platforms, or some bit of software to detect known malware and prevent it from executing, coupled with a bit of software do detect malware that may have been unknown at the time of installation and remove it, those measures are needed on every platform. Speaking perfectly normally, Macs do require this, either user education or detection and removal, preferably both because people do make mistakes. Nearly complete lack of any form of heuristic detection is precisely why very little Mac malware has been noticed; yes, the number is surely smaller than it is for Windows, but it is, also, surely higher than the few known variants. Why? Because Apple "educated" its users to ignore threat mitigation entirely. Now, they're being re-educated.
And I'm a hater? Read a few of my other posts, you'll find that I'm far from. I'm mostly saddened to see that Apple is now beginning to fall, just like they had set themselves up to do. As for examples of fanboys, try the mirror and my boss; beyond that, yes, look around, I won't say theyre everywhere because most seem to prefer to moderate now, rather than posting, since Mac malware has become a widely known issue, so all of their arguements can now easily be dismantled. Try looking back 6 months or farther and you'll find the posts you are looking for. Or are you trying to tell me that the fanboi population has ceased to exist since the first mention of 800,000 infected Macs?
I was refering to the user, not the system. Lion's a consumer OS with a focus on consumption of media and apps, rather than a general purpose OS, like Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion is only a step further in this direction.
That they ever said it is a problem. Now it's in all the fanboi heads and will never go away. Now, I'm not calling every Mac user a fanboi, I'm a Mac user, myself (also Linux and Windows, I use the right tool for the job and none of them are good at everythint I do), so that would be ludircrous. It also pisses me off, as a Mac user, when I'm downmodded for simply voicing my dissent with some of the decisions Apple has made in the age of Lion; some people do truly think that Apple can do now wrong and that, by pointing out what they're doing wrong and why it's wrong, I'm just trolling or being anti-Apple, or what the hell ever. The fact is that I like Snow Leopard, it's accessible enough that I can make it do what I want most of the time, and it doesn't try to push me to consume, consume, consume. Meanwhile, Lion is a huge step in the consume-as-much-as-possible direction, which, for someone who prefers to create, is a bad thing, and Mountain Lion will only make that worse. I won't get into my issues with their current hardware lineup in this post, as I've covered it in several others, but I will say that my wife, a 13 year Mac user, is looking at PCs for her next upgrade right now. Me? I'm looking for an alternative editor, to replace Coda when support (e.g. security updates) for Snow Leopard comes to an end once Mountain Lion is released.
Slashdot Mirror
Piracy is up, so are sales, so are profits. Well, well, if everyone's pirating instead of buying, how do sales and profits keep climbing? There's your data, and a question to ponder while looking at it.
Yes, because my light bulbs, microwave, and toaster all talk to my electric meter. Take off that tinfoil hat before you examine your outlets, you wouldn't want to accidentally shorting out and killing you.
There may be two now, but when those who don't support Linux (whose games run on Wine) start NOT making sales to Wine users, while those who do are picking up those sales, it's possible (not likely, but possible) that others who are losing sales will take notice.
Given you cannot even articulate how Lion negatively "influences one's workflow" compared to Snow Leopard, how much *I* know isn't particularly relevant to the discussion at this stage.
Given that this is precisely what we are talking about, how much *you* know is quite relevant. It's probably a good idea to bow out of the discussion if you're not familiar with the topic. While I *am* familiar with the topic, I'm not a phychologist, UI designer, or UX designer, so, while I have a grasp of the concepts, I lack the proper terms to articulate them. Further, I've used the platform for all of 5 minutes, I simply sit next to someone who bitches about it for 40+hr/wk; though, in those 5 minutes, I did get the distinct feeling that something was amiss. Do I need to repeat that again?
Heck, I could come up with a few examples of how the OS X is "less than optimal" compared to Windows right off the top of my head.
Well, we're not comparing OSX to Windows, now, are we? We're comparing OSX to OSX, so I'd go so far as to say that your examples would be pretty pointless.
How ?
The paragragraph you quoted without context (and replied to out of context -- you see, it's fine to quote without context if you're replying in that same context, which you did not) answered that question for "about the fourth time". I can't give specifics because I'm not the one using it, I'm just the one who has to hear the one using it bitch about the inferior system "upgrade" being forced on him for 40+hr/wk. I said that, right here, in the last paragraph of my post. You must have stopped reading as soon as you started commenting.
All I can say, and I'll reword it this time, is what I've already said. I used it for a few minutes after Apple forced the "upgrade" on him and it simply was not a comfortable experience for me; he's constantly parroting the same. Since he's the one using it for 40+hr/wk, like I said, I'd have to ask him for specifics.
Oh, look, I repeated it again, 2 more times.
I'd like to point out that "similar to" need not necessarily mean "same race". It could mean same gender, same height, same weight, same age or age group, or any number of similarities. I's also like to point out the difference between the concept of preference versus requirement; you're talking about people prefering to be around similar people, which is not the same as people only wanting to be around others of the same race, which is what I was talking about.
I fully agree with the point you are trying to make, as it is a point that coexists, in reality, with the point I was trying to make. I'm not oversimplfying, you're simply misunderstanding; hopefully the above explanation helps.
In the sucurity industry, it's not paranoia, it's job security. :)
You were going for +5, Funny, right?
How much do you understand about how one's environment influences one's workflow? If the answer was anything more than "not much" you'd already see what I'm complaining about; but, since you're directly in the target market for Lion and Mountain Lion, I don't expect you to see the problem, because, for you, it doesn't exist. There's nothing specific (that I know of, that my boss has complained about) that you *can't* do in Lion that you can do in Snow Leopard, but the workflow has changed in ways that are very much "less than optimal". The environment is one of consumption rather than creativity or creation and that does, on a psychological level, alter the workflow, as well.
All I can say, and I'll reword it this time, is what I've already said. I used it for a few minutes after Apple forced the "upgrade" on him and it simply was not a comfortable experience for me; he's constantly parroting the same. Since he's the one using it for 40+hr/wk, like I said, I'd have to ask him for specifics.
Ahh, except that I don't go around pointing out "oh hey I have a BLACK FRIEND, HOW COOL IS THAT?!", just because I can; I only trot out the fact that only about half of my friends are white (roughly proportional to the population I interact with on a daily basis, including neighbors and colleagues) when it is relavent to a point I am trying to make, mostly to preempt the "RACIST!" cries when I'm making any mention of race.
Me? It's not, I've opted to stay on Snow Leopard for the time being. My boss? Well, I'd have to ask him for specifics, but I hear him bitching about it all the time; and he's the reason we're a Mac office.
I've noticed, and so have my black friends, that there are at least two classes of black person, just like there are various classes of every other race. One class prefers to be around other blacks because, more or less, "fuck everyone else"; the other prefers to be around anyone who's not in the other class, or any similar class of another race. It's not a race thing, it's a personality thing (though those personality types are tendent toward outward racism), and it happens in all races. There are whites who only want to be around whites, blacks who only want to be around blacks, asians who only want to be around asians (and even there, you see segregation based on country of origin), mexicans who only want to be around mexicans, native americans are perhaps worst of all in this regard simply due to how tribal culture raises them. There are also people belonging to each of these races who don't mind the company of other races, so long as they're able to avoid the "only with my own kind" types.
For the record, I get called out as a racist quite frequently. It's amazing how quickly those people back down when one of my black, mexican, puerto-rican, or japanese friends stands up.
LOL Outlook! All of your points are 100% valid for the average user. Anyone using the platform for development or contrnt creation is going to see exactly what I'm talking about in Mountain Lion and the next release after that. You, you're not one of those users, so I've already stated that, for your use case, I do agree with you; there's no need to agree to disagree, you simply don't use the system in a way that shows the flaws, so you have not seen them to be in a position to agree that they exist.
Let me ask you this: What happens when Apple's decisions drive developers away from their platform? Who's making the apps for the app store, then? It will be a few years before users like yourself begin to see the effects of this, but trust me when I say that developers are already feeling it.
Hopefully I'm wrong; hopefully Apple will turn this around and whatever comes out after Mountain Lion will be as open and accessible to power users, developers, and creative types (the latter being Apple's former niche market, now alienated) as Snow Leopard is and has been. If they do that, hopefully before it comes time for me to replace my current laptop, they'll end up back at the top of my buy list, where they were shortly after I bought the Toshiba I currently own. With the release of Lion, they were moved close to the bottom (just above HP/Compaq, eMachines, and Dell/Alienware) and with their current hardware lineup, they were removed completely. I'd love a 15" retina display on a system with an internal optical drive, upgradeable RAM, and a standard (e.g. upgradeable) SATA SSD, without the glue used to prevent the machine from being opened (case bottom glued to LiPo battery? COME ON, APPLE! EVEN YOUR TECHS CAN'T OPEN THAT!); and I'd even accept a 17" retina display with the flaws that make the 15" worthless to me, because the resolution would be INSANE. There's just nothing compelling in their current lineup, though.
It's designed around funneling users to the browser, iTunes, and the App Store (which my wife just pointed out to me as I'm typing this, "fucking sucks"). Snow Leopard *has* iTunes, a browser, and with more recent updates, access to the App Store, but the primary focus is on being a well-rounded, useable OS. Starting with Lion, the focus is on making it as much like iOS as possible and selling as much shit through iTunes and the App Store as possible, damn the rest of the user experience.
Then you're not one of the affected parties and should graciously bow out of the conversation.
Don't really care about PPC legacy apps, I have a G3 and G4 around for those. "Save As" is a sticking point for quite a number of power users; and the more advanced the user, the more likely it is to be a sticking point. Neither of those are the type of thing I was talking about, though. I'm not talking about things your everyday user would notice (ok, inverted scrollbars are annoying as fuck!); rather, things that will cause the developer community to get fed up and leave. Which, if course, ends in little-to-no application development, reducing consumer desire for the platform, driving most normal users away, as well. The few who use their Macs only as a gateway to the iTunes teat will still be interested at that point, and those few can use a PC for that.
With Leopard and Snow Leopard, OSX was showing a set of colors I really liked; I bought in, hoping those were the true colors of OSX. Now, Lion is shifting to some new colors I'm not as fond of; hopefully OSX is just a bit ill and will get better. If these new colors Apple is shifting it towards are the true colors of OSX, it spells the first step down the slippery slope to the demise of OSX.
Who knows, maybe that's what Apple's after? There's no way in hell the shareholders would let them survive if they killed off a profitable desktop OS; if that's what they're after, they have to tank it, first.
When I said "general purpose" I was refering to an OS that lets you do what you want, consequences be damned. As a developer, that is important; as a user, not so much; as a consumer, not at all. Are yo ua developer? If not, be happy with Lion and Mountain Lion until the developers get pissed off and leave; then, hope the apps you have are all the apps you want. If all you care about is browsing the web, checking your email, and buying shit on iTunes, then Apple truly can do no wrong for you, this is their focus, all other parts of the experience be damned. You don't even need a Mac for that; the PC version of iTunes works just as well!
What do you use it for? I noticed it in the first few minutes I played with it on my boss' laptop ()since I had my Snow Leopard sitting right next to it, the differences were obvios immediately) and he notices it (and mentions it) every day. His was a forced upgrade, he took his MBP in because he needed to reinstall Snow Leopard and had lost the DVD, and they "upgraded" him to Lion and are now refusing to downgrade him back to what he actually paid for.
My wife, on the other hand, who browses the web, checks her email, plays games, and dabbles in Photoshop, will probably not notice much of anything other than "ooh, it's easier for me to buy shit now".
The problem is that when you drive away the developers, the apps stop coming; then, you're driving away the normal users who don't notice the changes in Lion. Unless this is corrected for in the next couple of releases, I don't see this process taking more than 10 years.
1) And the likelihood of someone who is able to compile the software not being able to RTFM and follow instructions prior to asking for help? Right, that's why they get it for free. If there's a problem in the documentation or something isn't working as it should (you know, bugs), these are the users who will contact you to let you know what they've found and how to fix it; they're, perhaps, more valuable than the users giving you cash, since they help you improve your product, so more users will want to pay you for it. For free.
2) As above, these people are discovering bugs *AND* attempting to provide fixes, where the paying users can onlike likely point to "there's a problem, I'm not sure what it is, but this isn't working right"; much more valuable data from the self-compiling users. In cases where someone is posting about build issues? Well, *someone* got it to build, right? They can help. You do make a valid point, however, about users doubling as bugtesters; and the very type of users I would want to attract for that purpose are the ones who know how to, at a very minimum, compile from source and RTFM, so it's worthwhile for me to give them a break.
It's less about the volume of support requests and more about the nature. We know to post in the forums and let the community *AND* the author (if/when he has time) help us; paying users are also being given the option of directly asking the author for help (and he'll make time because you're paying him to). Even a self-compiling user, should they require direct assistance from the author, would have to pay to get that. So, what's the problem?
I never moved any goalposts. It is fa fact that all platforms require the same mitigation techniques; it's simply that OSX (and Windows since XP SP2, most Linux distros, most of the BSDs, iOS since its 4th or 5th release, Android, BBOS, etc...) does many of them for the user, so the user need not worry about those specific techmiques. Trojans are not a hypothetical threat, they do exist on every platform (this article is about one, as a matter of fact); and they require the same mitigation techniques (read: security practices) as they do on any other platform: user education (asking if you're sure you want to do something does NOT equate to educating you about the dangers of doing so, and Apple has gone out of their way for the last decade to educate users that their Macs are safe trom these very types of attacks), attack detection and mitigation (realtime antivirus/antimalware, which will catch known threats before they can do any harm; with heuristics, they'll catch some unknowns, as well), and periodic full system antivirus/antimalware scans (which will catch previously unknown threats once they become known). It is a fact that Apple has "educated" their users that their Macs are safe, and I'll point out again that asking if someone is sure they want to do something is *not* education; a user who's told it's safe and wants to see the fuzzy bunny is going to click "YES". Anything not requiring user interaction is simply a matter of default settings; open those services up to the world and BAM the'll be attacked; Windows, as I've pointed out, has not done this since XP SP2. I still run that in a VM on a CentOS 6.2 host just like I run OSX, because both systems have a larger number of known threats currently in the wild than their Linux host and it is much easier to monitor them in VMs and roll them back should I ever need to.
I'm a Mac *USER* (40+hr/wk for work and recreationally on a teal G3 PowerMac, G4 PowerBook, and an OSX VM on my PC, as well as my wife's 17" MacBook Pro) for christ sake, but somehow I'm a hater? The fact is that /. users who know better than to click "YES" or "OK" on every dialog they see ARE A MINORITY. Windows users, who have been educated for the last 20 years that their systems *ARE* vulnerable (when was the last virus for Windows, BTW? If you want to exclude trojans and the like when discussing Mac, let's do the same for Windows) and moat of them *STILL* click "YES" and "OK" to *EVERYTHING*! You think this is gonna happen at a lesser rate on Macs because... why?
And I told you precisely where to find at least TWO fanboys. The mirror and my office. And I said nothing like your little script; did you bother reading my post?
It is impossible to argue with someone who cherry-picks quotes and argues out of context like you are doing. So, I'll leave it at this: anyone who reads what you've quoted in the contect in which you've quoted it will think you've won this; anyone who reads those same quotes in their true context, as I wrote them, will think that maybe you need to make some real arguments to counter mine. You've argued nothing and, indeed, have attacked your opponent, rather than his arguments (in typical fanboy style, thus why you were labelled as such), showing that you have no compelling case of your own. This time, I only restated my arguments and ended that with a question, which shouldn't be difficult to answer. Ball's in your court and I've got one foot on the grass, ready to head home if you don't want to play by established rules.
Ahh, the de-facto cause of rampant piracy. Note that I'm not saying this is the cause for *all* piracy, as there was still piracy when youwere allowed to return CDs; there was just much, MUCH less of it.
By charging a small fee to those most likely to require technical support, it looks like you are covering your support costs in the most fair manner possible. Hmm?
Not quite the same, you're missing the directionality, but probably close enough. With the advances in LED tech, your setup does look somewhat epic. I didn't see the treatment tanks for the irrigation system in that video, but, by the looks of that setup I'd have to assume it's at least as good as what I came up with.
Trojans exist on all platforms, by the very nature of their being an exploit of the user, not the system. Preventing, detecting, and removing them requires the same security needs, regardless of platform. Whether it's the user simply knowing better, which works on all platforms, or some bit of software to detect known malware and prevent it from executing, coupled with a bit of software do detect malware that may have been unknown at the time of installation and remove it, those measures are needed on every platform. Speaking perfectly normally, Macs do require this, either user education or detection and removal, preferably both because people do make mistakes. Nearly complete lack of any form of heuristic detection is precisely why very little Mac malware has been noticed; yes, the number is surely smaller than it is for Windows, but it is, also, surely higher than the few known variants. Why? Because Apple "educated" its users to ignore threat mitigation entirely. Now, they're being re-educated.
And I'm a hater? Read a few of my other posts, you'll find that I'm far from. I'm mostly saddened to see that Apple is now beginning to fall, just like they had set themselves up to do. As for examples of fanboys, try the mirror and my boss; beyond that, yes, look around, I won't say theyre everywhere because most seem to prefer to moderate now, rather than posting, since Mac malware has become a widely known issue, so all of their arguements can now easily be dismantled. Try looking back 6 months or farther and you'll find the posts you are looking for. Or are you trying to tell me that the fanboi population has ceased to exist since the first mention of 800,000 infected Macs?
I was refering to the user, not the system. Lion's a consumer OS with a focus on consumption of media and apps, rather than a general purpose OS, like Snow Leopard. Mountain Lion is only a step further in this direction.
That they ever said it is a problem. Now it's in all the fanboi heads and will never go away. Now, I'm not calling every Mac user a fanboi, I'm a Mac user, myself (also Linux and Windows, I use the right tool for the job and none of them are good at everythint I do), so that would be ludircrous. It also pisses me off, as a Mac user, when I'm downmodded for simply voicing my dissent with some of the decisions Apple has made in the age of Lion; some people do truly think that Apple can do now wrong and that, by pointing out what they're doing wrong and why it's wrong, I'm just trolling or being anti-Apple, or what the hell ever. The fact is that I like Snow Leopard, it's accessible enough that I can make it do what I want most of the time, and it doesn't try to push me to consume, consume, consume. Meanwhile, Lion is a huge step in the consume-as-much-as-possible direction, which, for someone who prefers to create, is a bad thing, and Mountain Lion will only make that worse. I won't get into my issues with their current hardware lineup in this post, as I've covered it in several others, but I will say that my wife, a 13 year Mac user, is looking at PCs for her next upgrade right now. Me? I'm looking for an alternative editor, to replace Coda when support (e.g. security updates) for Snow Leopard comes to an end once Mountain Lion is released.