The company that gave us the xbox360 red ring of death?
Choose your poison, because its all poison.
Me, I choose Nintendo, because at least they aren't trying to take control of my home media center the way sony and microsoft are. That and I've actually had postive experiences with their customer support. They replaced my Wii sports disc for nothing because it was scratched. They sent out those complimentary rubber shells for the wii remotes a few months after I purchased it. No company is perfect, but I find it hard to work up a real hate on for Nintendo. I don't even have to try for Sony or Microsoft.
it's pretty obvious by now that well-regulated companies acting in their self-interest ultimately further mankind's goals.
Sure. Well regulated companies might. But there lies the flaw. If the regulations were working properly companies wouldn't be patenting the fruits of basic research nor stuff they just found in nature. These are not well regulated companies. And the fact that they have lobby groups the size of congress, with budgets to match, helps ensure the regulations stay broken.
I've done both. I'd say the DIY cost me 5x what the Dell costs, but that's because my time is worth something.
The typical white box vendor will assemble, install the OS, and test for like $50 bucks. Unless your buying DELL's for $10 there is no way a custom built PC could cost 5x what a Dell costs. And I've even got my whitebox vendor 'trained' to the point that I just have to give a specs list, and he'll quote me a PC that meets those specs with parts I am likely to approve of.
Is your time really worth nothing? Or do you in fact enjoy doing the DIY stuff?
I do enjoy the DIY stuff, and *do* in fact reasearch and build my own personal system for that reason.
But when I order 10 units for work, its usually dealt with in two phone calls... the first to give the vendor the specs, the 2nd to approve/tweak the quote. Every now and then I compare to dell / hp / etc and we are generally neck and neck price wise with the dell enterprise units, but with slightly better specs. Or slightly behind the dell consumer units... but with better quality parts... and the whitebox doesn't preload it with crap like dell does with the consumer stuff.
he problem isn't DIY being "cheaper" it is that you can get a customized rig built the way you want for the purposes you need.
DIY also gives you the option to get quality parts, and build an inexpensive low spec system that will last. With dell if you go low end, you get junk. USB ports that don't output power to spec, and can't drive device loads they should be able to. Power supplies that are oddball shaped and don't last, generic dvdrws that are noisy and don't last. Low end hard drives with stripped down cache, and last years bearing technology...)
With DIY you can build a system to the same spec as dell, but for $50 bucks more put in much higher quality parts, that will have the same overall specs, but run cooler, quieter, and last longer. And if something does fail, its a standard form factor.
Jesus Christ. You weren't "entitled" to the $25 off. It might have affected your choice, but the company was attempting to entice you. So your real bitch is that "OMG, instead of getting $25 in my pocket that I didn't have before, I only effectively get $23.75".
Don't forget the stamp and envelope that he had to shell out for to claim the rebate, not to mention the actual time spent on the project. And as he didn't own scissors he had to buy a pair just to cut out the sku, and then he got sick and lost time off work after licking the cheap envelope glue. All in all he figures the MIR cost him, including lost wages while ill, $456.11.
So you're convinced that hanging on to connectors created 10 or more years ago on laptops is a good engineering design call?
They are a good design call until more people than not don't NEED it.
Here's some light reading on the topic for ya.
I have nothing against displayport. I have nothing against the progress it represents. You seem to think I somehow dislike displayport or progress in general. That couldn't be further from the truth. All 3 monitors on my desk are hooked up via DVI. And my newest one supports both displayport and hdmi as well, so it should be forward compatible with my next video card too.
But it ALSO has a VGA port, which has proven useful on many occasions. And its good to have that legacy option, because despite the fact that its 'obsolete' its still MASSIVELY IN USE. And that's on a stationery device that never goes anywhere, where having an adapter or two isn't actually inconvenient, nor apt to be left behind or misplaced. Virtually all monitors and projectors you encounter right now take VGA and will have a VGA cable hanging off them ready to plug into your laptop... so yes that is the most sensible port to put on the laptop.
If they want to add displayport too, that's awesome.
Oh yeah, that article ends with three or four advertisements for places that sell cables... cheaper than Apple's.
Glad to see you are coming around to my original argument then. That Apple grossly overcharges for them.
The better games - like Smash brothers - aren't even Wii games (How much motion control is in it?) which shows that Nintendo knows how much their control scheme is lacking.
That's some serious spin you've got there. How about, "Some games, like Smash Brothers, don't use motion control, which shows that Nintendo knows that not every single game is enhanced by motion control."
That doesn't mean the control scheme is 'lacking'.
There's no Zelda for Wii (it's a Gamecube port)
Yep it was a launch title that supported both consoles. Its more than a gamecube port, but quite a bit less than a full fledged wii game. But then launch titles are always less than what comes later. I expect we'll see another Zelda for Wii eventually.
Mario Galaxy was meh at best.
Galaxy is one of the best platformers I've ever played. Perhaps 2nd only to Wii's Super Paper Mario.
but it requires you to race so much in single player that you honestly can't play a pickup game against your friends. The guy who unlocked everything is going to dominate
Thats a problem with most party games on most platforms.
The motion controls, while innovative, are move confusing than enjoyable. Otherwise decent games end up frustrating because you don't have the right kind of control. Now there's a motion plus sensor, which for $100, lets you and your wife have the control that they should have put into the controls in the first place.
Sure and if they'd launched it at $379 it wouldn't have outsold the other consoles 2:1. They took a gamble: a lower cost system with lower specs and a new controller. It paid off. And now we're in the refinement phase. (And imitation too, based on what Sony and MS have been working on lately...)
That said, if you think the Wii library is lacking buy another console. You aren't going to get a game like Wario Ware Smooth Moves or for your Xbox 360, and you aren't going to get Halo3 for your Wii. Its not that either library 'sucks' its that they complement eachother.
All that said, one of my favorite wii games is Radiant Dawn, a strategy game that doesn't need a controller beyond what came with the original NES.
Your argument, in case you've forgotten, was that no one should buy Apple laptops.
Nope. I was criticizing Apple pricing on upgrades as outrageous, including and especially these adapters. I still like the Apple product overall, its quality, etc. I like OSX. I think the Magsafe power adapter thing is a good idea. etc. But I dislike Apple's upgrade pricing, as well as all the adapters it requires, and their pricing of those adapters. If you took that to mean I was arguing nobody should ever buy an apple laptop... well... at this point I'm not surprised, you haven't comprehended anything else either.
And Apple released monitors THE DAY THEY RELEASED THE LAPTOPS... so monitors aren't the problem...
They aren't a problem anymore? Do you know anyone that has one? How about compared to the number of monitors, projectors, and hdtvs that people are using that do not have one? The fact that a SINGLE product from a SINGLE manufacturer exists doesn't make the problem just "go away". It doesn't "go away" until odds are good that the device in front of me that I'll need to connect to supports the connector.
And furthermore, according to the apple site, those monitors don't actually come with the mini-displayport cable you'd actually need to attach them to your laptop. So even if you bought a new apple laptop AND a new apple monitor you'd STILL have to buy a mini-displayport cable separately to actually use it.
I can forgive a throw-away consumer printer for not coming with a $5 usb cable; you can you use the one from your previous throwaway printer... but even that annoys me. But for a supposedly premium monitor not coming with a cable that nobody already has, that is required to use the monitor? Care to explain how that is anything but a ploy to squeeze few more dollars onto the sale with an overpriced cable and/or adapter.
If Apple wants to go with bleeding edge connectors, that's fine. They should have included the common connector as well so that most people could use the device without an adaptor. And at the very least the adapter should be included with the laptop.
You're entertaining. Should we keep this up until say, Christmas or so, when some OTHER new connector comes out for people to whine about? LOL!
I hear USB3 ports are backwards compatible, and that USB3 devices can be plugged into USB2 ports (running at usb2 speeds of course). My hats off to real ENGINEERS. At least somebody gets it.
You use one adapter as a crutch to hate Apple products. ROFLMAO!
I don't hate apple products. I have and use apple products. There are things I don't like about them, but that's true of all products. Any particular this escapes you? Or are you just an idiot apple fanboi who can't accept any criticism of their company? Someone who thinks that the only way anyone could have even the slightest criticism for their products must be a raving irrational lunatic fanboi... i.e. someone just like you.
You can't POSSIBLY make the argument that a DB connector for VGA was ever a TECHNICALLY better connector for laptops either... all those pins unprotected in the male half, etc.
The "technically better connector"? What is the point of a technically better connector if you need the inferior one to actually connect to anything. You think having an adapter with that inferior connector in a bag or hanging out the side of your laptop on a dongle is some how the technically superior solution?
The fact that the rest of the industry hasn't caught up to yet, isn't their problem. They will.
Fine. And when they do, THEN put a mini-display port adaptor on the laptops. Putting the bleeding edge connector on the laptop (which by definition is expected to be dragged around and attached to various things on arrival) before there is anything to connect it to is putting the cart before the horse. Let the mini display ports show up on the monitors and projectors first, and include an adapter to vga with THEM.
That way laptop owners don't have to carry a bag of adapters around with them.
Of course, I don't expect this very simple logic to penetrate.
You're very convinced you're right, but you're not. There never was any real substance to your argument. A single additional adapter to use a new port type is no big deal. Never was.
The difference between a USB port to serial adapter and a mini-display-port-to-whatever adapter is that you don't actually need an adaptor for the usb port to be useful. You might need one for what you do, and that's fine, but most people don't need an adaptor to use that port most of the time.
The same simply doesn't apply to mini-displayport. Everyone needs an adatper all the time.
That is just stupid. You can defend it all you like, but its still stupid.
The media event by all the manufacturers for the mini-DVI port was today.
Oh hurray!! I'll finally be able to attach a last generation mac to something without an adapter.
Cables/connectors they keep a-changin'.
They surely do, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, a laptop should work with the majority of the stuff that's out there today without adapters. If they want to put bleeding edge ports on it too, that's fine, but not at the expense of just working with everything people already have. It doesn't take a genius to see that's a stupid move.
Keep whining about it. It'll surely save you.
Keep lugging your bag of spare parts and dongles around. Nothing says 'it just works' like a bag of accessories.
And I really love that the macbook air fits in an envelope... wow... and you can put that envelope will fit nicely in this briefcase that contains all the accessories you'll need to actually attach anything to it... I exaggerate of course, but the point stands.
when my company handed me a laptop with no DB-9's on it, I requisitioned an adapter for working on routers, switches, Sun boxes, whatever...
There is a big difference between being handed a laptop that doesn't have a connector that's being phased out (DB9) in favor of connectors that were already in HEAVY use as its replacement (USB) and what Apple has done.
Get over it. Cables is cables. Yawn.
Needing to obtain and use an adapter on a portable device in EVERY possible use case for a connector is a design flaw. That USB port you got a DB9 adapter for was genuinely useful as a USB port, there were actually plenty of USB devices out there you might want to use. A mini-displayport is useless. There is virtually nothing that plugs into it without an adaptor.
And I'm ever so sorry this 'bores' you. And I'm happy that you are willing to wander around with a bag of assorted adapters everywhere you go. But I'm not, and I shouldn't have to. The device should come with useful ports. If I need an adaptor to hook up to something unusual or legacy, that's fine, but when I need an adaptor to hook up to ANYTHING at all that is retarded.
LOL, as if nothing on a PC has ever "wasted your time"?
I never claimed or implied that.
There's nothing "hidden" about it.
Its hidden in that its not part of the advertised price and its not included with the laptop.
The plug is on the side of the machine. Want to plug into it, get the right cable.
And if you have nearly any windows laptop, the 'right cable' is probably already hanging off the projector or monitor.
Now... for your real root-cause problem... hiring non-dimwits might be something your company is poor at, but I can't help you there.
Right, lets shift the blame from apple not using a standard connector to the users for not carrying an adapter everywhere they go. That makes lots of sense. Millions of users all over have to buy and carry around little expensive easy to forget/lose adaptors to satisfy Steve Job's vanity. Hell I don't even object to them using mini-displayport to give you an option to drive big displays. But there is simply no reason the laptop couldn't have ALSO had a VGA port in addition to the mini displayport, and saved legions of people carrying around these stupid little dongles everywhere they go. (And the VGA port would have gotten FAR more use than the mini-displayport.)
How far would you defend this? If Apple used a nonstandard combo usb/firewire port connector and required everyone to buy and carry around a bunch of adapters would you defend that too? And blame the users every time they wanted to plug in a mouse or scanner or printer but didn't have their bag of USB-AppleFirewire/USB and Firewire-AppleFirewire/USB adapters on hand?
Sorry, I'm only going to fault people a little for forgetting something that should have been built into the device in the first place. The real blame lies with the manufacturer.
A decent comparison using the McDonalds burger analogy would be if we took a picture that was simply meant to represent a human, you would understand there are many humans and that not all humans look exactly like the picture and the picture is unlikely to be idolised and figure aspired to in the same way that of a celebrity might be.
You should be in sales. I can see it now, your selling me a new car, you show me the glossy brochure, we go through the website and order up the options I want.
Two weeks later my new car arrives. Its dented all over the place, the rear spoiler is broken, fluid is leaking out, and the back seat has a tear in it...
"Well, " you'll say, "the pictures were just meant to represent the type of vehicle you were getting. That's what we aspire for each car to ook like but its completely unrealistic think you'd actually get one that looked like that."
When I order a Hamburger, I expect it to look like the picture. I don't expect it to be identical, but if the picture shows a 3 strips of tender juicy bacon, a leaf of green lettuce, and a bit of sauce showing from the inside, on a round attractive bun, itself on a clean dry wrapper... that's what I would like to get. Too often I get a squashed greasy mess with sauce and grease on the outside of the bun and all over the wrapper, the bacon is dried out and broken, the lettuce is a big white rib, the cheese is only half on and hanging out one side, the tomato is only half on and hanging out the other...
By your own admission it *WAS* a hidden cost to Macs. Now that you *CAN* find them 3rd party, you're whining about the past.
Its still a hidden cost, its just less now.
Plus the whole selling argument Apple makes for getting a Mac is to avoid stupid technical hassles. This is a stupid technical hassle that wastes tons of time -- that's a cost too. I can't count how often Mac users have to go scurrying about because they forgot the adapter in their car or office or at home. Nor can I count how often I've huddled around some dimwits 13" or 15" screen to watch a presentation in a conference room with a projector sitting right next to it.
In this case the font had been set so large that the top left 10% or so of any single letter filled the screen. It wasn't possible to select a different resolution by looking at the screen.
Ah you so you REALLY borked it.;)
I've encountered this sort of screw up on many OSes, Mac, Windows, and Linux.
My usual solution for windows 95/98/NT3/NT4 was to pull the plug and reboot it. That got me to a known starting point. Then I just do what I want to do on a second PC via the keyboard shortcuts, and mimic it on the defective PC. It usually solved the problem. This includes idiotic moves like setting the foreground colour to be the same as the background colour, clearing mouse icons, setting the monitor to a resolution that the screen doesn't support (this happened a lot... I'd take the unit home to work on it and set it 1280x1024 or something, and then take it back to work, and the old CRT only supported 800x600, and I'd get some bizarre unsuable distored mess... if I got anything at all.
Mac's of course couldn't be fixed like this because keyboard shortcuts didn't exist for most stuff.
Actually that is an example of all food labelling in Canada, the current law allows it, a good portion of our food is grown or produced elsewhere but then is packaged in Canada, or the final processing of the food happens here, so it gets the made in Canada label allowed.
Yes, that's a general problem, and yes the 'made in Canada' label rules are a bit messed up and abused, and yes the rules are apparently under review. Hopefully under the new rules a substantial quantity of the primary ingredients will have to actually originate in Canada. But even if they do correct that defect, it won't stop people from claiming "Proudly packaged in Canada" and therefore not using the official regulated label and claim text, and simply relying on people to not clue in that "Proudly packaged in Canada" is actually different from "Product of Canada" and that for something to claim it was proudly packaged in canada all it has to do is in fact be packaged here, even if they tighten the regulations for the "Product of Canada" claim.
And with wine -- that's sort of where its at now. They are simply claiming 'bottled in the Okanagan, BC' which is true. And as long as that's all they claim, there is nothing that can be done to stop them. They aren't abusing a loose regulation... they are telling the actual truth. So fixing the rules won't help... they'll still be allowed to claim it was bottled in BC because it was.
What needs to happen is that BC wines need to first establish a seal and label with rules that it only be used on BC grown grapes, and second, educate consumers and retailers to look for that seal, and to differentiate between the "bottled in BC' claim and the 'grown in BC' claim.
A new PowerBook hmm? It's clear you're well informed on the subject of Apple computers, given that a "new" PowerBook has to be at LEAST 3 years old at this point.
s/ Powerbook, Macbook Pro.
Same difference. Are you going to check my grammar and spelling too?
Lenovo makes a slightly fatter laptop with a VGA port. If you really hate adapters, that's probably the way to go. Personally, I don't find the size or cost of the adapters to be burdensome.
Most laptops still have a standard VGA port. Although HDMI is becoming common now. And they usually COME WITH a VGA adaptor, so its not an annoying upgrade you have to buy.
As a plus, the DisplayPort can run a big honking monitor that the VGA connector is completely unsuitable for.
So can HDMI, which is much better supported than 'mini-displayport'.
And the real kicker about Apple's mini-display port: I actually HAVE a 'big honking monitor'; its even got a displayport input. You know what I can't get: a mini-displayport to displayport adaptor. I use a mini-displayport to hdmi adaptor because no one makes a mini-displayport to displayport adaptor.
(Of course, now some helpful/.er will find some obscure website that sells one, but that's beside the point. Apple doesn't make one, and newegg and ncix and apower, and the other major online vendors I frequent don't carry one. I'm sure it probably exists somewhere, but that's beside the point.)
And there is some reason you would be forced to purchase the adapter from Apple?...
Mac hardware is no more expensive than any PC Manufacturer selling comparable hardware.
Hello! Do you see the disconnect. If Mac hardware was "no more expensive" than anyone elses, why would I need to avoid buying the adaptor from Apple? Hint: Because Apple Hardware IS MORE EXPENSIVE. Sure the base hardware is about the same price, but the Apple adapters, keyboards, mice, routers, monitors, warranty... is all a complete rip off.
The only difference being no shovelware pre-installed on your new Mac, and no need for aftermarket firewall or anti-virus.
I've never felt the need for more than firewall built into Windows. And my antivirus is provided for free by my ISP. And its only a matter of time before Macs need some resident anti-malware to protect mac users.
I've also never had to buy an adapter, OEM or 3rd party to attach my windows units into my TV or projectors. But I am the not-so-proud owner of a mini-display-port to DVI adapter, a mini-display-port to VGA adaptor, a mini-dvi to full size dvi adaptor, and a mini-dvi to VGA adaptor.
And my windows machines aren't pre-loaded with shovelware either. The big OEMs like to fill them with shovelware, but you can get them without buy staying away from their budget consumer crap.
All that said, I like Mac hardware, and even own quite a bit of it, but even as a Mac user I find I'm constantly appalled at their pricing. It was cheaper for me to buy my last laptop with 1GB RAM, get it home, pull it out and throw it away, and replace it with 4GB of 3rd party ram than it was to pay for 2GB of RAM from apple. That's right 4GB of [good brand name] 3rd party RAM cost LESS than a 1GB upgrade from apple. (Actually i didn't throw away the 1GB I pulled out, but I might as well have, because I'm not using it.)
Then don't buy it from Apple. Third party adapters are cheaper and work just fine.
For the first several months after the launch of the mini-displayport powerbooks the Apple one was the only one available.
Even now, finding a 3rd party adapter in a store is almost impossible. Sure you can get them online fairly reasonably NOW, but that's about it, and it doesn't do you any good if you need one 'today'.
And even at 3rd party prices its an added hidden cost to Macs, not to mention a hassle having to carry around a stupid adaptor everywhere you go because nobody on the planet will ever have one. I mean seriously, when was the last time you needed to do a presentation and there was a mini-displayport cable hanging off the projector or big screen monitor ready to plug into your mac? It just doesn't happen.
I'd have fired you for wasting the time needed to tear a display apart instead of sending it to the manufacturer to be repaired.
Presumably if its that much more labor to repair, the repair center is going to charge you an arm and a leg for the repair too. (And replacing the hard drive on some Mac's is absurd... the old clamshell ibooks come to mind for example. Most repair centers were charging 150$ in labour, plus the cost of the drive. And if it was an Apple repair center, the drive was stupidly overpriced too... (Apple is the only company that charges you, for example, the full retail price of a $300 GB drive to upgrade a 100GB drive to a 200GB drive... ditto absurdities like that for RAM upgrades.)
And don't get me started on what it costs to connect a new powerbook to your average projecter. What apple charges for a Mini-displayport to DVI adapter is ludicrous.
There is also the factor of poor weather and crop yield creating a necessity to import grapes in order to actually have production at all.
Then their should be less "BC wine" that year.
Note that I don't really object to the importation of grapes, especially in the event of a poor yield... I think its good that they do something so that they have -something- to sell that year. I just object to calling it a "BC wine" at that point.
BTW, it's Okanagan...we aren't known for our oak trees or casks.
lol. thanks for the correction. I knew it looked off.
Yes, you can. I'm pretty sure none of the cheap bottles of champagne we buy for New Years were imported
As the law you pointed out yourself indicated, you can't call them "Champagne" in isolation.
You -can- use the word champagne, provided, amongst other things you directly join it with its true origin. For example, "California Champagne" is ok. The point is that for the semi generics, you have to be very upfront about where they really come from.
Slashdot Mirror
So - what's left Microsoft?
The company that gave us the xbox360 red ring of death?
Choose your poison, because its all poison.
Me, I choose Nintendo, because at least they aren't trying to take control of my home media center the way sony and microsoft are. That and I've actually had postive experiences with their customer support. They replaced my Wii sports disc for nothing because it was scratched. They sent out those complimentary rubber shells for the wii remotes a few months after I purchased it. No company is perfect, but I find it hard to work up a real hate on for Nintendo. I don't even have to try for Sony or Microsoft.
it's pretty obvious by now that well-regulated companies acting in their self-interest ultimately further mankind's goals.
Sure. Well regulated companies might. But there lies the flaw. If the regulations were working properly companies wouldn't be patenting the fruits of basic research nor stuff they just found in nature. These are not well regulated companies. And the fact that they have lobby groups the size of congress, with budgets to match, helps ensure the regulations stay broken.
I've done both. I'd say the DIY cost me 5x what the Dell costs, but that's because my time is worth something.
The typical white box vendor will assemble, install the OS, and test for like $50 bucks. Unless your buying DELL's for $10 there is no way a custom built PC could cost 5x what a Dell costs. And I've even got my whitebox vendor 'trained' to the point that I just have to give a specs list, and he'll quote me a PC that meets those specs with parts I am likely to approve of.
Is your time really worth nothing? Or do you in fact enjoy doing the DIY stuff?
I do enjoy the DIY stuff, and *do* in fact reasearch and build my own personal system for that reason.
But when I order 10 units for work, its usually dealt with in two phone calls... the first to give the vendor the specs, the 2nd to approve/tweak the quote. Every now and then I compare to dell / hp / etc and we are generally neck and neck price wise with the dell enterprise units, but with slightly better specs. Or slightly behind the dell consumer units... but with better quality parts... and the whitebox doesn't preload it with crap like dell does with the consumer stuff.
he problem isn't DIY being "cheaper" it is that you can get a customized rig built the way you want for the purposes you need.
DIY also gives you the option to get quality parts, and build an inexpensive low spec system that will last. With dell if you go low end, you get junk. USB ports that don't output power to spec, and can't drive device loads they should be able to. Power supplies that are oddball shaped and don't last, generic dvdrws that are noisy and don't last. Low end hard drives with stripped down cache, and last years bearing technology...)
With DIY you can build a system to the same spec as dell, but for $50 bucks more put in much higher quality parts, that will have the same overall specs, but run cooler, quieter, and last longer. And if something does fail, its a standard form factor.
Jesus Christ. You weren't "entitled" to the $25 off. It might have affected your choice, but the company was attempting to entice you. So your real bitch is that "OMG, instead of getting $25 in my pocket that I didn't have before, I only effectively get $23.75".
Don't forget the stamp and envelope that he had to shell out for to claim the rebate, not to mention the actual time spent on the project. And as he didn't own scissors he had to buy a pair just to cut out the sku, and then he got sick and lost time off work after licking the cheap envelope glue. All in all he figures the MIR cost him, including lost wages while ill, $456.11.
So you're convinced that hanging on to connectors created 10 or more years ago on laptops is a good engineering design call?
They are a good design call until more people than not don't NEED it.
Here's some light reading on the topic for ya.
I have nothing against displayport. I have nothing against the progress it represents. You seem to think I somehow dislike displayport or progress in general. That couldn't be further from the truth. All 3 monitors on my desk are hooked up via DVI. And my newest one supports both displayport and hdmi as well, so it should be forward compatible with my next video card too.
But it ALSO has a VGA port, which has proven useful on many occasions. And its good to have that legacy option, because despite the fact that its 'obsolete' its still MASSIVELY IN USE. And that's on a stationery device that never goes anywhere, where having an adapter or two isn't actually inconvenient, nor apt to be left behind or misplaced. Virtually all monitors and projectors you encounter right now take VGA and will have a VGA cable hanging off them ready to plug into your laptop... so yes that is the most sensible port to put on the laptop.
If they want to add displayport too, that's awesome.
Oh yeah, that article ends with three or four advertisements for places that sell cables... cheaper than Apple's.
Glad to see you are coming around to my original argument then. That Apple grossly overcharges for them.
The better games - like Smash brothers - aren't even Wii games (How much motion control is in it?) which shows that Nintendo knows how much their control scheme is lacking.
That's some serious spin you've got there. How about, "Some games, like Smash Brothers, don't use motion control, which shows that Nintendo knows that not every single game is enhanced by motion control."
That doesn't mean the control scheme is 'lacking'.
There's no Zelda for Wii (it's a Gamecube port)
Yep it was a launch title that supported both consoles. Its more than a gamecube port, but quite a bit less than a full fledged wii game. But then launch titles are always less than what comes later. I expect we'll see another Zelda for Wii eventually.
Mario Galaxy was meh at best.
Galaxy is one of the best platformers I've ever played. Perhaps 2nd only to Wii's Super Paper Mario.
but it requires you to race so much in single player that you honestly can't play a pickup game against your friends. The guy who unlocked everything is going to dominate
Thats a problem with most party games on most platforms.
The motion controls, while innovative, are move confusing than enjoyable. Otherwise decent games end up frustrating because you don't have the right kind of control. Now there's a motion plus sensor, which for $100, lets you and your wife have the control that they should have put into the controls in the first place.
Sure and if they'd launched it at $379 it wouldn't have outsold the other consoles 2:1. They took a gamble: a lower cost system with lower specs and a new controller. It paid off. And now we're in the refinement phase. (And imitation too, based on what Sony and MS have been working on lately...)
That said, if you think the Wii library is lacking buy another console. You aren't going to get a game like Wario Ware Smooth Moves or for your Xbox 360, and you aren't going to get Halo3 for your Wii. Its not that either library 'sucks' its that they complement eachother.
All that said, one of my favorite wii games is Radiant Dawn, a strategy game that doesn't need a controller beyond what came with the original NES.
Your argument, in case you've forgotten, was that no one should buy Apple laptops.
Nope. I was criticizing Apple pricing on upgrades as outrageous, including and especially these adapters. I still like the Apple product overall, its quality, etc. I like OSX. I think the Magsafe power adapter thing is a good idea. etc. But I dislike Apple's upgrade pricing, as well as all the adapters it requires, and their pricing of those adapters. If you took that to mean I was arguing nobody should ever buy an apple laptop ... well... at this point I'm not surprised, you haven't comprehended anything else either.
And Apple released monitors THE DAY THEY RELEASED THE LAPTOPS... so monitors aren't the problem...
They aren't a problem anymore? Do you know anyone that has one? How about compared to the number of monitors, projectors, and hdtvs that people are using that do not have one? The fact that a SINGLE product from a SINGLE manufacturer exists doesn't make the problem just "go away". It doesn't "go away" until odds are good that the device in front of me that I'll need to connect to supports the connector.
And furthermore, according to the apple site, those monitors don't actually come with the mini-displayport cable you'd actually need to attach them to your laptop. So even if you bought a new apple laptop AND a new apple monitor you'd STILL have to buy a mini-displayport cable separately to actually use it.
I can forgive a throw-away consumer printer for not coming with a $5 usb cable; you can you use the one from your previous throwaway printer... but even that annoys me. But for a supposedly premium monitor not coming with a cable that nobody already has, that is required to use the monitor? Care to explain how that is anything but a ploy to squeeze few more dollars onto the sale with an overpriced cable and/or adapter.
If Apple wants to go with bleeding edge connectors, that's fine. They should have included the common connector as well so that most people could use the device without an adaptor. And at the very least the adapter should be included with the laptop.
You're entertaining. Should we keep this up until say, Christmas or so, when some OTHER new connector comes out for people to whine about? LOL!
I hear USB3 ports are backwards compatible, and that USB3 devices can be plugged into USB2 ports (running at usb2 speeds of course). My hats off to real ENGINEERS. At least somebody gets it.
You're finally catching on!
Too bad you aren't.
You use one adapter as a crutch to hate Apple products. ROFLMAO!
I don't hate apple products. I have and use apple products. There are things I don't like about them, but that's true of all products. Any particular this escapes you? Or are you just an idiot apple fanboi who can't accept any criticism of their company? Someone who thinks that the only way anyone could have even the slightest criticism for their products must be a raving irrational lunatic fanboi... i.e. someone just like you.
You can't POSSIBLY make the argument that a DB connector for VGA was ever a TECHNICALLY better connector for laptops either... all those pins unprotected in the male half, etc.
The "technically better connector"? What is the point of a technically better connector if you need the inferior one to actually connect to anything. You think having an adapter with that inferior connector in a bag or hanging out the side of your laptop on a dongle is some how the technically superior solution?
The fact that the rest of the industry hasn't caught up to yet, isn't their problem. They will.
Fine. And when they do, THEN put a mini-display port adaptor on the laptops. Putting the bleeding edge connector on the laptop (which by definition is expected to be dragged around and attached to various things on arrival) before there is anything to connect it to is putting the cart before the horse. Let the mini display ports show up on the monitors and projectors first, and include an adapter to vga with THEM.
That way laptop owners don't have to carry a bag of adapters around with them.
Of course, I don't expect this very simple logic to penetrate.
You're very convinced you're right, but you're not. There never was any real substance to your argument. A single additional adapter to use a new port type is no big deal. Never was.
The difference between a USB port to serial adapter and a mini-display-port-to-whatever adapter is that you don't actually need an adaptor for the usb port to be useful. You might need one for what you do, and that's fine, but most people don't need an adaptor to use that port most of the time.
The same simply doesn't apply to mini-displayport. Everyone needs an adatper all the time.
That is just stupid. You can defend it all you like, but its still stupid.
The media event by all the manufacturers for the mini-DVI port was today.
Oh hurray!! I'll finally be able to attach a last generation mac to something without an adapter.
Cables/connectors they keep a-changin'.
They surely do, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, a laptop should work with the majority of the stuff that's out there today without adapters. If they want to put bleeding edge ports on it too, that's fine, but not at the expense of just working with everything people already have. It doesn't take a genius to see that's a stupid move.
Keep whining about it. It'll surely save you.
Keep lugging your bag of spare parts and dongles around. Nothing says 'it just works' like a bag of accessories.
And I really love that the macbook air fits in an envelope... wow... and you can put that envelope will fit nicely in this briefcase that contains all the accessories you'll need to actually attach anything to it... I exaggerate of course, but the point stands.
when my company handed me a laptop with no DB-9's on it, I requisitioned an adapter for working on routers, switches, Sun boxes, whatever...
There is a big difference between being handed a laptop that doesn't have a connector that's being phased out (DB9) in favor of connectors that were already in HEAVY use as its replacement (USB) and what Apple has done.
Get over it. Cables is cables. Yawn.
Needing to obtain and use an adapter on a portable device in EVERY possible use case for a connector is a design flaw. That USB port you got a DB9 adapter for was genuinely useful as a USB port, there were actually plenty of USB devices out there you might want to use. A mini-displayport is useless. There is virtually nothing that plugs into it without an adaptor.
And I'm ever so sorry this 'bores' you. And I'm happy that you are willing to wander around with a bag of assorted adapters everywhere you go. But I'm not, and I shouldn't have to. The device should come with useful ports. If I need an adaptor to hook up to something unusual or legacy, that's fine, but when I need an adaptor to hook up to ANYTHING at all that is retarded.
LOL, as if nothing on a PC has ever "wasted your time"?
I never claimed or implied that.
There's nothing "hidden" about it.
Its hidden in that its not part of the advertised price and its not included with the laptop.
The plug is on the side of the machine. Want to plug into it, get the right cable.
And if you have nearly any windows laptop, the 'right cable' is probably already hanging off the projector or monitor.
Now... for your real root-cause problem... hiring non-dimwits might be something your company is poor at, but I can't help you there.
Right, lets shift the blame from apple not using a standard connector to the users for not carrying an adapter everywhere they go. That makes lots of sense. Millions of users all over have to buy and carry around little expensive easy to forget/lose adaptors to satisfy Steve Job's vanity. Hell I don't even object to them using mini-displayport to give you an option to drive big displays. But there is simply no reason the laptop couldn't have ALSO had a VGA port in addition to the mini displayport, and saved legions of people carrying around these stupid little dongles everywhere they go. (And the VGA port would have gotten FAR more use than the mini-displayport.)
How far would you defend this? If Apple used a nonstandard combo usb/firewire port connector and required everyone to buy and carry around a bunch of adapters would you defend that too? And blame the users every time they wanted to plug in a mouse or scanner or printer but didn't have their bag of USB-AppleFirewire/USB and Firewire-AppleFirewire/USB adapters on hand?
Sorry, I'm only going to fault people a little for forgetting something that should have been built into the device in the first place. The real blame lies with the manufacturer.
A decent comparison using the McDonalds burger analogy would be if we took a picture that was simply meant to represent a human, you would understand there are many humans and that not all humans look exactly like the picture and the picture is unlikely to be idolised and figure aspired to in the same way that of a celebrity might be.
You should be in sales. I can see it now, your selling me a new car, you show me the glossy brochure, we go through the website and order up the options I want.
Two weeks later my new car arrives. Its dented all over the place, the rear spoiler is broken, fluid is leaking out, and the back seat has a tear in it...
"Well, " you'll say, "the pictures were just meant to represent the type of vehicle you were getting. That's what we aspire for each car to ook like but its completely unrealistic think you'd actually get one that looked like that."
When I order a Hamburger, I expect it to look like the picture. I don't expect it to be identical, but if the picture shows a 3 strips of tender juicy bacon, a leaf of green lettuce, and a bit of sauce showing from the inside, on a round attractive bun, itself on a clean dry wrapper... that's what I would like to get. Too often I get a squashed greasy mess with sauce and grease on the outside of the bun and all over the wrapper, the bacon is dried out and broken, the lettuce is a big white rib, the cheese is only half on and hanging out one side, the tomato is only half on and hanging out the other...
By your own admission it *WAS* a hidden cost to Macs. Now that you *CAN* find them 3rd party, you're whining about the past.
Its still a hidden cost, its just less now.
Plus the whole selling argument Apple makes for getting a Mac is to avoid stupid technical hassles. This is a stupid technical hassle that wastes tons of time -- that's a cost too. I can't count how often Mac users have to go scurrying about because they forgot the adapter in their car or office or at home. Nor can I count how often I've huddled around some dimwits 13" or 15" screen to watch a presentation in a conference room with a projector sitting right next to it.
Thank you you helpful /.er. I predicted you'd come alone.
But do they ship it to Canada, and how much will they nail me for shipping? I never doubted they existed, but I've found it a royal pain to get one.
In this case the font had been set so large that the top left 10% or so of any single letter filled the screen. It wasn't possible to select a different resolution by looking at the screen.
Ah you so you REALLY borked it. ;)
I've encountered this sort of screw up on many OSes, Mac, Windows, and Linux.
My usual solution for windows 95/98/NT3/NT4 was to pull the plug and reboot it. That got me to a known starting point. Then I just do what I want to do on a second PC via the keyboard shortcuts, and mimic it on the defective PC. It usually solved the problem. This includes idiotic moves like setting the foreground colour to be the same as the background colour, clearing mouse icons, setting the monitor to a resolution that the screen doesn't support (this happened a lot... I'd take the unit home to work on it and set it 1280x1024 or something, and then take it back to work, and the old CRT only supported 800x600, and I'd get some bizarre unsuable distored mess... if I got anything at all.
Mac's of course couldn't be fixed like this because keyboard shortcuts didn't exist for most stuff.
Actually that is an example of all food labelling in Canada, the current law allows it, a good portion of our food is grown or produced elsewhere but then is packaged in Canada, or the final processing of the food happens here, so it gets the made in Canada label allowed.
Yes, that's a general problem, and yes the 'made in Canada' label rules are a bit messed up and abused, and yes the rules are apparently under review. Hopefully under the new rules a substantial quantity of the primary ingredients will have to actually originate in Canada. But even if they do correct that defect, it won't stop people from claiming "Proudly packaged in Canada" and therefore not using the official regulated label and claim text, and simply relying on people to not clue in that "Proudly packaged in Canada" is actually different from "Product of Canada" and that for something to claim it was proudly packaged in canada all it has to do is in fact be packaged here, even if they tighten the regulations for the "Product of Canada" claim.
And with wine -- that's sort of where its at now. They are simply claiming 'bottled in the Okanagan, BC' which is true. And as long as that's all they claim, there is nothing that can be done to stop them. They aren't abusing a loose regulation... they are telling the actual truth. So fixing the rules won't help... they'll still be allowed to claim it was bottled in BC because it was.
What needs to happen is that BC wines need to first establish a seal and label with rules that it only be used on BC grown grapes, and second, educate consumers and retailers to look for that seal, and to differentiate between the "bottled in BC' claim and the 'grown in BC' claim.
A new PowerBook hmm? It's clear you're well informed on the subject of Apple computers, given that a "new" PowerBook has to be at LEAST 3 years old at this point.
s/ Powerbook, Macbook Pro.
Same difference. Are you going to check my grammar and spelling too?
Lenovo makes a slightly fatter laptop with a VGA port. If you really hate adapters, that's probably the way to go. Personally, I don't find the size or cost of the adapters to be burdensome.
Most laptops still have a standard VGA port. Although HDMI is becoming common now. And they usually COME WITH a VGA adaptor, so its not an annoying upgrade you have to buy.
As a plus, the DisplayPort can run a big honking monitor that the VGA connector is completely unsuitable for.
So can HDMI, which is much better supported than 'mini-displayport'.
And the real kicker about Apple's mini-display port: I actually HAVE a 'big honking monitor'; its even got a displayport input.
You know what I can't get: a mini-displayport to displayport adaptor. I use a mini-displayport to hdmi adaptor because no one makes a mini-displayport to displayport adaptor.
(Of course, now some helpful /.er will find some obscure website that sells one, but that's beside the point. Apple doesn't make one, and newegg and ncix and apower, and the other major online vendors I frequent don't carry one. I'm sure it probably exists somewhere, but that's beside the point.)
And there is some reason you would be forced to purchase the adapter from Apple?...
Mac hardware is no more expensive than any PC Manufacturer selling comparable hardware.
Hello! Do you see the disconnect. If Mac hardware was "no more expensive" than anyone elses, why would I need to avoid buying the adaptor from Apple? Hint: Because Apple Hardware IS MORE EXPENSIVE. Sure the base hardware is about the same price, but the Apple adapters, keyboards, mice, routers, monitors, warranty... is all a complete rip off.
The only difference being no shovelware pre-installed on your new Mac, and no need for aftermarket firewall or anti-virus.
I've never felt the need for more than firewall built into Windows. And my antivirus is provided for free by my ISP. And its only a matter of time before Macs need some resident anti-malware to protect mac users.
I've also never had to buy an adapter, OEM or 3rd party to attach my windows units into my TV or projectors. But I am the not-so-proud owner of a mini-display-port to DVI adapter, a mini-display-port to VGA adaptor, a mini-dvi to full size dvi adaptor, and a mini-dvi to VGA adaptor.
And my windows machines aren't pre-loaded with shovelware either. The big OEMs like to fill them with shovelware, but you can get them without buy staying away from their budget consumer crap.
All that said, I like Mac hardware, and even own quite a bit of it, but even as a Mac user I find I'm constantly appalled at their pricing. It was cheaper for me to buy my last laptop with 1GB RAM, get it home, pull it out and throw it away, and replace it with 4GB of 3rd party ram than it was to pay for 2GB of RAM from apple. That's right 4GB of [good brand name] 3rd party RAM cost LESS than a 1GB upgrade from apple. (Actually i didn't throw away the 1GB I pulled out, but I might as well have, because I'm not using it.)
Then don't buy it from Apple. Third party adapters are cheaper and work just fine.
For the first several months after the launch of the mini-displayport powerbooks the Apple one was the only one available.
Even now, finding a 3rd party adapter in a store is almost impossible. Sure you can get them online fairly reasonably NOW, but that's about it, and it doesn't do you any good if you need one 'today'.
And even at 3rd party prices its an added hidden cost to Macs, not to mention a hassle having to carry around a stupid adaptor everywhere you go because nobody on the planet will ever have one. I mean seriously, when was the last time you needed to do a presentation and there was a mini-displayport cable hanging off the projector or big screen monitor ready to plug into your mac? It just doesn't happen.
I'd have fired you for wasting the time needed to tear a display apart instead of sending it to the manufacturer to be repaired.
Presumably if its that much more labor to repair, the repair center is going to charge you an arm and a leg for the repair too. (And replacing the hard drive on some Mac's is absurd... the old clamshell ibooks come to mind for example. Most repair centers were charging 150$ in labour, plus the cost of the drive. And if it was an Apple repair center, the drive was stupidly overpriced too... (Apple is the only company that charges you, for example, the full retail price of a $300 GB drive to upgrade a 100GB drive to a 200GB drive... ditto absurdities like that for RAM upgrades.)
And don't get me started on what it costs to connect a new powerbook to your average projecter. What apple charges for a Mini-displayport to DVI adapter is ludicrous.
There is also the factor of poor weather and crop yield creating a necessity to import grapes in order to actually have production at all.
Then their should be less "BC wine" that year.
Note that I don't really object to the importation of grapes, especially in the event of a poor yield... I think its good that they do something so that they have -something- to sell that year. I just object to calling it a "BC wine" at that point.
BTW, it's Okanagan...we aren't known for our oak trees or casks.
lol. thanks for the correction. I knew it looked off.
Yes, you can. I'm pretty sure none of the cheap bottles of champagne we buy for New Years were imported
As the law you pointed out yourself indicated, you can't call them "Champagne" in isolation.
You -can- use the word champagne, provided, amongst other things you directly join it with its true origin. For example, "California Champagne" is ok. The point is that for the semi generics, you have to be very upfront about where they really come from.