This is so clearly fraud that the MD attorney general should have completed the arrest warrant for key members of Vastech's management by tomorrow morning. With arraignment hopefully postponed until Monday morning, the managers will be well motivated to correct the situation after they post bail.
In all seriousness, rebate letters that contain irreplaceable original receipts should be handled with the same care as bank deposits, and the same penalty should apply as would apply if a Bank manager discarded all of the night deposits for a bank branch.
I call this fraud and criminal negligence, and if nobody is prosecuted, it will be a travesty of justice.
Can you name one successful big government program ? The only one I can think of is the Manhattan Project. Common big government poster projects are the federal highway system, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Moon landing, Social Security. Arguably, all of those were either expensive boondoggles or outright failures or had negative side effects beyond their utility. Even if you like some of those and don't blame the Army Corps and Big Government corruption for the New Orleans disaster as this week's Time Magazine does...
How about Linden Johnson's war on poverty or his public housing system ? How many more people were poor after the program than before ? If like me, you can't think of many big government successes, you might be a Libertarian.
If you think the war on drugs is a war on Americans and an abuse of power, you might be a Libertarian.
If you think "That government which governs least governs best", you are a Libertarian.
I taught 8th grade science, and we were always encouraging students to take as much math as possible.
Unfortunately, students make short sighted decisions in 8th grade that determine whether they are on the calculus track or not. You must start on the path that leads to calculus in 8th grade or it is unlikely you can catch up by 12th grade.
We held an annual pep-rally for 7th graders encouraging them to enroll in math and science courses in 8th grade. If they don't, they are closing doors for future opportunity. Without calculus in high school, it is difficult to be accepted directly into technical/science degree programs in universities. At a minimum, some remedial college math is likely to be required. If you think you might want to be an engineer, scientist, doctor, mathematician, actuarial, astronaut, architect, etc. you should take the most advanced math offered by your school.
In fact, with few exceptions, if you want a high paying job that doesn't require graduate school, you are well served to take advanced math in high school.
Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) online registration site: "In order to use this site, you must have JavaScript Enabled and Internet Explorer version 6. Download it from Microsoft or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to register."
The nations #1 news source: "The new AP Online Video Network is powered by Microsoft's MSN Video, meaning you must use the Microsoft browser, Internet Explorer (IE), to view it online."
Microsoft's Windows Update page only works in IE.
Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) does not show all content unless IE6 is used. It doesn't even work completely with IE7.
Oh, so that naturally explains why the internet is full of Microsoft IE ONLY web sites. Microsoft won't be able to transition lockin to the web ? That must explain Microsofts rush to implement open web standards!
Mac OS X traces its roots to the Mach micro kernel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_kernel and BSD flavors of Unix. (Yes, I know that OS X has diverged substantially from Mach now).
Like most operating systems, Mac OS X has bottlenecks by design that tend to limit concurrent thread execution within the kernel. There is an excellent article at http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10-4.ars/ 4
Only one thread can use a bottlenecked resource at a time. When multiple threads (application threads or kernel threads) need simultaneous access to a resource, all but one thread must wait. Threads that could theoretically run concurrently on multiple cores end up running sequentially because all but one thread are waiting to access the resource. Apple has made the locking (concurrency protection) within the kernel finer and finer grained with each release of Mac OS X. In Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger, the bottlenecks are very fine grained, and in practice the system is very efficient allowing concurrent execution on multiple cores.
That being said, Mac OS X is far from perfect or optimal. There is lots of room for improvement, and Apple seems to be following the path of continual evolution rather than revolution at this point. Remember that for the last six years or so, every Mac OS X update/release has run faster than previous versions.
What is it about developing software for Mac OS X that you dislike compared to Linux ?
Are you using Cocoa, Carbon, Java, BSD/POSIX APIs, X Server ?
Are you using X-Code, eclipse, something else ?
I routinely develop software for a variety of Unix systems, and I find Mac OS X just as comfortable and any other Unix. I can't think of many developer tools for Linux that is not also available for Mac OS X (Maybe the IBM/Rational Tools Suite ?). Some of the Mac OS X tools like Interface Builder, Shark, CHUD, and OpenGL Profiler are best of breed.
I have never lived in Kansas, but I have had Aerospace customers there. Here, I googled a few current job openings in Wichita (at least some of which probably pay 100K):
Aerospace Manufacturing Estimator : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS Aerospace Sales : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS Aerospace/Aircraft Sales : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS Assistant Avionics Lab Lead : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS Aviation Courseware Writer : Computer Training Systems, Inc. : Wichita, KS CNC Machinist : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS CNC Programmer : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS CNC Programmer : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS Design Engineer : Top Echelon Network : Kansas City, KS Engineering Supervisor : TECT Aerospace : Wellington, KS Estimator : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS Helicopter Pilot : US Army Recruiting Company : Manhattan/Junction City, KS Hone Operator : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS Manufacturing Estimator : Select Search, LLC : Wichita, KS Mechanical Engineer : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS PMEL Technicians / mtc-00001513 : MTC Technologies : Wichita, KS Production Planner : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS Purchasing Manager : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS Quality Inspector : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS Senior Aerospace Buyer : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS Strategic Business Unit Manager : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS Supply Chain Procurement Agent 4 : Spirit AeroSystems Inc. : Wichita, KS Technical//Training Writer : Select Search, LLC : Wichita, KS Tool Builder : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
The parent post very nicely explains things, and contributes to more sleepless nights for me. As described by the parent post, software patents are indeed a hopeless situation.
EFI is used by more than just Apple. For example, HP Itanium systems use EFI. By virtue of being "extensible", EFI is vastly better than the BIOS which has frankly failed to evolve since Compaq reverse engineered it in the early 1980s.
It has been ridiculously difficult for me to track down this information via msdn. I did find this high level description of Vista's "GPU Scheduler":
From the document, I can not detect any feature of Vista's "GPU Scheduler" that is not also present on Quartz Extreme. It is also interesting that WDDM requires much higher graphics card specs than Quartz extreme and doesn't seem to do anything more.
Also, what the hell? - Windows Graphics drivers are only NOW partitioned into separate user and kernel parts and only with WDDM compatible cards ? Further: "According to the crash analysis data collected during the Windows XP timeframe, display drivers are responsible for up to 20 percent of all blue screens"
Is there any more information publicly available on WDDM and the "GPU Scheduler" ?
Is there any data to back up a claim that Quartz Extreme has more latency than WPF ? Is there any documentation regarding how WPF and WDDM reduce latency ?
Every Mac since approximately 2002 has been capable of using Quartz Extreme. How many Windows PCs can currently use WDDM ?
Here is a good arstechnica link: (specifically page 4, but it's all interesting)
Quoted from from Apple:
"The Quartz Compositor is an advanced windowing system that manages the onscreen presentation of Quartz 2D, OpenGL, and QuickTime content. Where other windowing systems merely broker screen real-estate out to an application, the Quartz Compositor acts as a "visual mixing board" to composite each application's graphic content into Mac OS X's hallmark look and feel. The Quartz Compositor actually "owns" all of the pixels in the frame buffer and works in conjunction with each application to gather window content and move it to the frame buffer in an optimal fashion. This centralized approach allows for full and pervasive compositing support, live window dragging, and frees the application from the burden of double buffering animated screen content.
On systems with recent display cards, the Quartz Compositor harnesses the power of OpenGL technology to leverage the display card's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to accelerate window updates and compositing effects. This functionality, known as Quartz Extreme, frees the system CPU to focus on application code as opposed to moving pixels, thereby dramatically improving system performance and application responsiveness. Quartz Extreme also allows for new classes of applications that need to seamlessly composite 2D, 3D and video together into a seamless display. Before Quartz Extreme, on-the-fly compositing of the various media types was too CPU-intensive to attempt without specialized hardware. The power of Quartz Extreme makes such applications relatively simple to develop."
Here is a nice (PDF) presentation on Quartz Extreme from 2002:
Mac OS X's Quartz compositor also uses the graphics card's frame buffer (and texture RAM) to store window's images.
This is not an issue of "tear free" window drawing. This is an issue of not requiring sundry applications to be paged into physical RAM and executed just to drag a window or redraw revealed windows. How many times have you seen an application that is slow or frozen fail to promptly repaint its windows on Windows XP ? I see it all the time particularly with Microsoft Outlook.
Regarding speed, which do you think is a faster implementation of dragging windows: 1) copy the image of a window from graphics card texture memory to a new location in the graphics card frame buffer using the graphics card's processor. Then repeat for the portions of all other windows that have been newly revealed by the drag.
2) Page in an idle application, send it an event asking it to redraw its window at a new location and wait for the application to execute its drawing code which draws directly into the graphics card's frame buffer. If the application is busy doing something else or has crashed, waiy a long time. Then repeat for all applications that have any windows that were newly revealed by the drag.
You are correct that this apprach to window management requires more RAM than alternatives. This is the classic size vs. speed trade-off.
You are wrong that this has any impact on games for the most part. Games that are full screen bypass the window compositing system entirely and communicate directly with the graphics card via OpenGL on Mac or OpenGL/DirectX on Windows.
And frankly, if Next's and Mac OS X's approach was such a bad idea, why has Micosoft now copied it in Vista ?
For some interseting reading on the subject, see See
More to the point, NeXTstep (the basis/predecessor of Mac OS X) used this technique in 1988. Having to page in background applications just so that they could repaint their windows after being revealed only to be immediately paged back out again was stupid in Windows 3.1 back in 1991.
Here is a quote from 1998 abou this issue: "Use buffered or retained mode windows. Users will perceive better performance than non-retained windows. This will also improve virtual memory performance. When a non retained window is uncovered, the application that owns it must be swapped into memory in order to redraw the window. If there are many applications running but idle and there are many overlapping windows, this can become a serious performance hit. Retained and buffered windows have a "backing store" owned by the window server. The window server can then draw the uncovered window without any help from the window's owning application.
As a cool example of this, use a Windows 95 or Windows NT machine with relatively low RAM and run Microsoft Word and some other application like Corel Draw. Open many documents in both applications. Maximize both applications. Then minimize the application that is on top. You can wait minutes while the virtual memory system thrashes the hard disk while repainting all of those windows, and all you did was minimize an application!"
I am benchmarking various signal processing function on a variety of CPUs including PPC970 (a.k.a Apple G5) and Intel Itanium 2. I have had to both examine and optimize assembly language for both processors and their SIMD units, Altivec and SSE2 respectively.
There are some domains including signal processing and embedded system generally that require assembly langauge occasionally. Having said that, I write 100 times more C/C++ than assembly language.
Rich Text Format (RTF) was developed by Microsoft as an "open" document interchange format. A standard was published, and WordPerfect among others rushed to implement the standard. Microsoft implemented RTF, but there were several glaring bugs and hundreds of minor problems with Microsoft's non-standard compliant implementation.
When WordPerfect generated RTF documents did not open correctly in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect was blamed. To this day, RTF implementations struggle to be bug for bug compatible with Microsoft's original buggy implementation and the stadnard is next to useless.
At the low end: Mac mini 1.66Ghz Intel Core Duo 512MB memory 60GB hard drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) Free Shipping $599.00
There is no keyboard or monitor, but the computer is very small and has 2 cores.
The absolute cheapest PC Dell advertises cost $359 [with no keyboard or monitor and a single core AMD Sempron(TM) 3400+ 80Gb drive and only CD-R] and is not in the same league in mini in specs or size (if size matters to you). With Dell, just to go to AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ using integrated graphics gets you to $648. The Mini is a steal at its current price, but you are correct that Apple sells no eMachines WalMart special.
When you say "if they're too dumb to ask for it, they're too dumb to deserve it. Same goes for sewers and drinkable water" I have very mixed feelings.
Most western Europeans didn't ask for sewers and drinkable water; they had them foisted upon them at tax payer expense in the mid 19th century. That is certainly true of the first modern large scale sewer system which was built in London. "The transcript traces more than 250 years of human misery, due largely to ignorance of the hazards of poor sanitation. Citizens, physicians, politicians, inventors and police provided vivid horror stories of 'miasmas, plagues and sudden death" in the homes of London.'" http://swopnet.com/engr/londonsewers/londontext1.h tml
Ignorance is deadly but curable. Ignorance about the importance of sewers and drinkable water may seem inconceivable to many of us, but such ignorance in rampant around the world.
When I watch documentaries about poor ghettos in latin America, inevitably there are toddlers playing in open cesspools and teenagers standing around unemployed, uneducated, and idle. I see that and wonder why the teenagers aren't put to work digging sewers or at least keeping toddlers out of them. For the price of the cigarettes the teenagers smoke, children could be fed and sewers built and clean water supplies maintained. I always think to myself that people who prioritize cigarettes over sewers get what they deserve just like people generally get the government they deserve.
But then I am more charitable and assume that people live in horrid conditions because of ignorance. Ignorance causes poverty and death.
There was a documentary (I think on 20/20) about hunger in the U.S.A. A father was being interviewed and he explained that toward the end of the month, there is no bread left and the children have to go hungry for days. During the interview, the father was standing in front of his satellite dish and smoking. For the price of one pack of cigarettes, the children could have eaten basic stables like bread, potatoes, and canned vegetables for several days. For the price of the satellite dish and its likely monthly subscription, the children could have been clothed and fed.
I couldn't help thinking that the father's priorities were a little skewed and sad.
Apple laptops are quite price competitive. Check it out for yourself. I am uncertain what your gf's situation is, but are you perhapse comparing a 3 year old Mac to an new Dell ?
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1680 x 1050 pixels 2GB memory 160GB hard drive1 8x double-layer SuperDrive ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics with 256MB SDRAM Free Shipping $2,799.00
A comparable laptop with half as much memory (1GB) costs $3,699 from Dell. With a slower processor, the Dell comes in at $2,873.
So you already have LCDs for everybody. Buy $999 iMacs ($1074 with 1Gb) and give everyone dual displays...
or buy $1199 iMacs with the following specs and give everyone dual displays:
17" 1440 x 900 pixels ATI Radeon X1600 graphics 128MB of GDDR3 SDRAM Mini-DVI video out with support for DVI, VGA, S-video, and composite video output. Support for external display with digital resolution up to 1920 x 1200, analog resolution up to 2048 x 1536
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1GB memory 160GB hard drive1 8x DL SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Dual-Core Intel Xeon up to 3GHz Every Mac Pro offers the incredible power of two 64-bit Dual-Core Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" microprocessors. You choose the processor speed -- 2GHz, 2.66GHz, or 3GHz.
Slashdot Mirror
This is so clearly fraud that the MD attorney general should have completed the arrest warrant for key members of Vastech's management by tomorrow morning. With arraignment hopefully postponed until Monday morning, the managers will be well motivated to correct the situation after they post bail.
In all seriousness, rebate letters that contain irreplaceable original receipts should be handled with the same care as bank deposits, and the same penalty should apply as would apply if a Bank manager discarded all of the night deposits for a bank branch.
I call this fraud and criminal negligence, and if nobody is prosecuted, it will be a travesty of justice.
Can you name one successful big government program ? The only one I can think of is the Manhattan Project. Common big government poster projects are the federal highway system, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Moon landing, Social Security. Arguably, all of those were either expensive boondoggles or outright failures or had negative side effects beyond their utility. Even if you like some of those and don't blame the Army Corps and Big Government corruption for the New Orleans disaster as this week's Time Magazine does...
How about Linden Johnson's war on poverty or his public housing system ? How many more people were poor after the program than before ? If like me, you can't think of many big government successes, you might be a Libertarian.
If you think the war on drugs is a war on Americans and an abuse of power, you might be a Libertarian.
If you think "That government which governs least governs best", you are a Libertarian.
I taught 8th grade science, and we were always encouraging students to take as much math as possible.
Unfortunately, students make short sighted decisions in 8th grade that determine whether they are on the calculus track or not. You must start on the path that leads to calculus in 8th grade or it is unlikely you can catch up by 12th grade.
We held an annual pep-rally for 7th graders encouraging them to enroll in math and science courses in 8th grade. If they don't, they are closing doors for future opportunity. Without calculus in high school, it is difficult to be accepted directly into technical/science degree programs in universities. At a minimum, some remedial college math is likely to be required. If you think you might want to be an engineer, scientist, doctor, mathematician, actuarial, astronaut, architect, etc. you should take the most advanced math offered by your school.
In fact, with few exceptions, if you want a high paying job that doesn't require graduate school, you are well served to take advanced math in high school.
Off the top of my head:
Zillow.com only works with IE or FireFox.
My employer's online time card system: IE only
My bank's on line bill paying system: IE only
Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) online registration site: "In order to use this site, you must have JavaScript Enabled and Internet Explorer version 6. Download it from Microsoft or call 1-800-621-FEMA (3362) to register."
The nations #1 news source: "The new AP Online Video Network is powered by Microsoft's MSN Video, meaning you must use the Microsoft browser, Internet Explorer (IE), to view it online."
Microsoft's Windows Update page only works in IE.
Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) does not show all content unless IE6 is used. It doesn't even work completely with IE7.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=2683
http://www.fedworld.gov/
Oh, so that naturally explains why the internet is full of Microsoft IE ONLY web sites. Microsoft won't be able to transition lockin to the web ? That must explain Microsofts rush to implement open web standards!
Mac OS X traces its roots to the Mach micro kernel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_kernel and BSD flavors of Unix. (Yes, I know that OS X has diverged substantially from Mach now).
/ 4
Like most operating systems, Mac OS X has bottlenecks by design that tend to limit concurrent thread execution within the kernel. There is an excellent article at http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10-4.ars
Only one thread can use a bottlenecked resource at a time. When multiple threads (application threads or kernel threads) need simultaneous access to a resource, all but one thread must wait. Threads that could theoretically run concurrently on multiple cores end up running sequentially because all but one thread are waiting to access the resource. Apple has made the locking (concurrency protection) within the kernel finer and finer grained with each release of Mac OS X. In Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger, the bottlenecks are very fine grained, and in practice the system is very efficient allowing concurrent execution on multiple cores.
That being said, Mac OS X is far from perfect or optimal. There is lots of room for improvement, and Apple seems to be following the path of continual evolution rather than revolution at this point. Remember that for the last six years or so, every Mac OS X update/release has run faster than previous versions.
What is it about developing software for Mac OS X that you dislike compared to Linux ?
Are you using Cocoa, Carbon, Java, BSD/POSIX APIs, X Server ?
Are you using X-Code, eclipse, something else ?
I routinely develop software for a variety of Unix systems, and I find Mac OS X just as comfortable and any other Unix. I can't think of many developer tools for Linux that is not also available for Mac OS X (Maybe the IBM/Rational Tools Suite ?). Some of the Mac OS X tools like Interface Builder, Shark, CHUD, and OpenGL Profiler are best of breed.
Article 2 http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/ climate-change/dn11658 states "The great majority of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was put there by the developed world, with the US alone responsible for an estimated quarter of emissions since 1750" right after the first article http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/ climate-change/dn11638 states "It is true that human emissions of CO2 are small compared with natural sources."
Which it is ? How can anybody know what to believe in the face of such huge inconsistencies ?
I have never lived in Kansas, but I have had Aerospace customers there. Here, I googled a few current job openings in Wichita (at least some of which probably pay 100K):
Aerospace Manufacturing Estimator : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Aerospace Sales : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Aerospace/Aircraft Sales : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Assistant Avionics Lab Lead : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
Aviation Courseware Writer : Computer Training Systems, Inc. : Wichita, KS
CNC Machinist : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
CNC Programmer : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
CNC Programmer : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
Design Engineer : Top Echelon Network : Kansas City, KS
Engineering Supervisor : TECT Aerospace : Wellington, KS
Estimator : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
Helicopter Pilot : US Army Recruiting Company : Manhattan/Junction City, KS
Hone Operator : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
Manufacturing Estimator : Select Search, LLC : Wichita, KS
Mechanical Engineer : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
PMEL Technicians / mtc-00001513 : MTC Technologies : Wichita, KS
Production Planner : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
Purchasing Manager : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
Quality Inspector : Specialists Group LLC, The : Wichita, KS
Senior Aerospace Buyer : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
Strategic Business Unit Manager : TECT Aerospace : Wichita, KS
Supply Chain Procurement Agent 4 : Spirit AeroSystems Inc. : Wichita, KS
Technical//Training Writer : Select Search, LLC : Wichita, KS
Tool Builder : Personnel Services, Inc. : Wichita, KS
The parent post very nicely explains things, and contributes to more sleepless nights for me. As described by the parent post, software patents are indeed a hopeless situation.
. 05/WebObjectsOverview/index.html9 6/swol-05-cs.html
The parent notes that prior art may be irrelevant, but here are some possibilities anyway.
ARINC Specification 661-2 Cockpit Display System Interfaces to User Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARINC_661
NeXT/Apple Web Objects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebObjects
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.13/13
http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-05-19
http://www.byte.com/art/9609/sec9/art1.htm
NexT/Apple Interface Builder
EFI is used by more than just Apple. For example, HP Itanium systems use EFI. By virtue of being "extensible", EFI is vastly better than the BIOS which has frankly failed to evolve since Compaq reverse engineered it in the early 1980s.
It is well past time that BIOS went to the grave.
Why are all of the links in my posts disapearing?
s
Here are the links for the parent post:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/pretty-vista.ar
http://www.udnimweb.de/Texte/sg2002bof_apple.pdf
Links keep dissapearing from my posts! Here is teh link that goes with the parent post: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480220. aspx
It has been ridiculously difficult for me to track down this information via msdn. I did find this high level description of Vista's "GPU Scheduler":
From the document, I can not detect any feature of Vista's "GPU Scheduler" that is not also present on Quartz Extreme. It is also interesting that WDDM requires much higher graphics card specs than Quartz extreme and doesn't seem to do anything more.
Also, what the hell? - Windows Graphics drivers are only NOW partitioned into separate user and kernel parts and only with WDDM compatible cards ? Further: "According to the crash analysis data collected during the Windows XP timeframe, display drivers are responsible for up to 20 percent of all blue screens"
Is there any more information publicly available on WDDM and the "GPU Scheduler" ?
Is there any data to back up a claim that Quartz Extreme has more latency than WPF ? Is there any documentation regarding how WPF and WDDM reduce latency ?
Every Mac since approximately 2002 has been capable of using Quartz Extreme. How many Windows PCs can currently use WDDM ?
Here is a good arstechnica link: (specifically page 4, but it's all interesting)
Quoted from from Apple:
"The Quartz Compositor is an advanced windowing system that manages the onscreen presentation of Quartz 2D, OpenGL, and QuickTime content. Where other windowing systems merely broker screen real-estate out to an application, the Quartz Compositor acts as a "visual mixing board" to composite each application's graphic content into Mac OS X's hallmark look and feel. The Quartz Compositor actually "owns" all of the pixels in the frame buffer and works in conjunction with each application to gather window content and move it to the frame buffer in an optimal fashion. This centralized approach allows for full and pervasive compositing support, live window dragging, and frees the application from the burden of double buffering animated screen content.
On systems with recent display cards, the Quartz Compositor harnesses the power of OpenGL technology to leverage the display card's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to accelerate window updates and compositing effects. This functionality, known as Quartz Extreme, frees the system CPU to focus on application code as opposed to moving pixels, thereby dramatically improving system performance and application responsiveness. Quartz Extreme also allows for new classes of applications that need to seamlessly composite 2D, 3D and video together into a seamless display. Before Quartz Extreme, on-the-fly compositing of the various media types was too CPU-intensive to attempt without specialized hardware. The power of Quartz Extreme makes such applications relatively simple to develop."
Here is a nice (PDF) presentation on Quartz Extreme from 2002:
Mac OS X's Quartz compositor also uses the graphics card's frame buffer (and texture RAM) to store window's images.
This is not an issue of "tear free" window drawing. This is an issue of not requiring sundry applications to be paged into physical RAM and executed just to drag a window or redraw revealed windows. How many times have you seen an application that is slow or frozen fail to promptly repaint its windows on Windows XP ? I see it all the time particularly with Microsoft Outlook.
Regarding speed, which do you think is a faster implementation of dragging windows:
1) copy the image of a window from graphics card texture memory to a new location in the graphics card frame buffer using the graphics card's processor. Then repeat for the portions of all other windows that have been newly revealed by the drag.
2) Page in an idle application, send it an event asking it to redraw its window at a new location and wait for the application to execute its drawing code which draws directly into the graphics card's frame buffer. If the application is busy doing something else or has crashed, waiy a long time. Then repeat for all applications that have any windows that were newly revealed by the drag.
You are correct that this apprach to window management requires more RAM than alternatives. This is the classic size vs. speed trade-off.
You are wrong that this has any impact on games for the most part. Games that are full screen bypass the window compositing system entirely and communicate directly with the graphics card via OpenGL on Mac or OpenGL/DirectX on Windows.
And frankly, if Next's and Mac OS X's approach was such a bad idea, why has Micosoft now copied it in Vista ?
For some interseting reading on the subject, see
See
More to the point, NeXTstep (the basis/predecessor of Mac OS X) used this technique in 1988. Having to page in background applications just so that they could repaint their windows after being revealed only to be immediately paged back out again was stupid in Windows 3.1 back in 1991.
Here is a quote from 1998 abou this issue:
"Use buffered or retained mode windows. Users will perceive better performance than non-retained windows.
This will also improve virtual memory performance. When a non retained window is uncovered, the application that owns it must be swapped into memory in order to redraw the window. If there are many applications running but idle and there are many overlapping windows, this can become a serious performance hit. Retained and buffered windows have a "backing store" owned by the window server. The window server can then draw the uncovered window without any help from the window's owning application.
As a cool example of this, use a Windows 95 or Windows NT machine with relatively low RAM and run Microsoft Word and some other application like Corel Draw. Open many documents in both applications. Maximize both applications. Then minimize the application that is on top. You can wait minutes while the virtual memory system thrashes the hard disk while repainting all of those windows, and all you did was minimize an application!"
It only took Microsoft 15 years to catch up.
I am benchmarking various signal processing function on a variety of CPUs including PPC970 (a.k.a Apple G5) and Intel Itanium 2. I have had to both examine and optimize assembly language for both processors and their SIMD units, Altivec and SSE2 respectively.
There are some domains including signal processing and embedded system generally that require assembly langauge occasionally. Having said that, I write 100 times more C/C++ than assembly language.
Rich Text Format (RTF) was developed by Microsoft as an "open" document interchange format. A standard was published, and WordPerfect among others rushed to implement the standard. Microsoft implemented RTF, but there were several glaring bugs and hundreds of minor problems with Microsoft's non-standard compliant implementation.
When WordPerfect generated RTF documents did not open correctly in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect was blamed. To this day, RTF implementations struggle to be bug for bug compatible with Microsoft's original buggy implementation and the stadnard is next to useless.
At the low end: Mac mini
1.66Ghz Intel Core Duo
512MB memory
60GB hard drive
(DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Free Shipping
$599.00
There is no keyboard or monitor, but the computer is very small and has 2 cores.
The absolute cheapest PC Dell advertises cost $359 [with no keyboard or monitor and a single core AMD Sempron(TM) 3400+ 80Gb drive and only CD-R] and is not in the same league in mini in specs or size (if size matters to you). With Dell, just to go to AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ using integrated graphics gets you to $648. The Mini is a steal at its current price, but you are correct that Apple sells no eMachines WalMart special.
When you say "if they're too dumb to ask for it, they're too dumb to deserve it. Same goes for sewers and drinkable water" I have very mixed feelings.
h tml
Most western Europeans didn't ask for sewers and drinkable water; they had them foisted upon them at tax payer expense in the mid 19th century. That is certainly true of the first modern large scale sewer system which was built in London. "The transcript traces more than 250 years of human misery, due largely to ignorance of the hazards of poor sanitation. Citizens, physicians, politicians, inventors and police provided vivid horror stories of 'miasmas, plagues and sudden death" in the homes of London.'" http://swopnet.com/engr/londonsewers/londontext1.
Ignorance is deadly but curable. Ignorance about the importance of sewers and drinkable water may seem inconceivable to many of us, but such ignorance in rampant around the world.
When I watch documentaries about poor ghettos in latin America, inevitably there are toddlers playing in open cesspools and teenagers standing around unemployed, uneducated, and idle. I see that and wonder why the teenagers aren't put to work digging sewers or at least keeping toddlers out of them. For the price of the cigarettes the teenagers smoke, children could be fed and sewers built and clean water supplies maintained. I always think to myself that people who prioritize cigarettes over sewers get what they deserve just like people generally get the government they deserve.
But then I am more charitable and assume that people live in horrid conditions because of ignorance. Ignorance causes poverty and death.
There was a documentary (I think on 20/20) about hunger in the U.S.A. A father was being interviewed and he explained that toward the end of the month, there is no bread left and the children have to go hungry for days. During the interview, the father was standing in front of his satellite dish and smoking. For the price of one pack of cigarettes, the children could have eaten basic stables like bread, potatoes, and canned vegetables for several days. For the price of the satellite dish and its likely monthly subscription, the children could have been clothed and fed.
I couldn't help thinking that the father's priorities were a little skewed and sad.
Apple laptops are quite price competitive. Check it out for yourself.
I am uncertain what your gf's situation is, but are you perhapse comparing a 3 year old Mac to an new Dell ?
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1680 x 1050 pixels
2GB memory
160GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics with 256MB SDRAM
Free Shipping
$2,799.00
A comparable laptop with half as much memory (1GB) costs $3,699 from Dell. With a slower processor, the Dell comes in at $2,873.
So you already have LCDs for everybody.
Buy $999 iMacs ($1074 with 1Gb) and give everyone dual displays...
or buy $1199 iMacs with the following specs and give everyone dual displays:
17" 1440 x 900 pixels ATI Radeon X1600 graphics 128MB of GDDR3 SDRAM Mini-DVI video out with support for DVI, VGA, S-video, and composite video output. Support for external display with digital resolution up to 1920 x 1200, analog resolution up to 2048 x 1536
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
160GB hard drive1
8x DL SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
That is prety close to what you are asking for.
Dual-Core Intel Xeon up to 3GHz
Every Mac Pro offers the incredible power of two 64-bit Dual-Core Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" microprocessors. You choose the processor speed -- 2GHz, 2.66GHz, or 3GHz.
An iMac takes no more space than an LCD display. How do you figure an iMac takes more space on the desktop than a monitor ?