Unlike Windows XP, Vista will monitor the activation status of the computer even after the initial 30-day period. If the technology later decides that a key is no longer valid, through either a software update or via some other means, it will give the user another 30-day period to rectify the situation.
So, in other words, MS has every right to revoke your license for whatever reason they desire? Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?
OK, so let's take it up a notch. Shockwave for Linux, iTunes for Linux, and so on. There are specific tools and software that is very much being left out of the loop in the Linux world.
Can we get some specifics here, please? What tools? iTunes? Apple has no incentive to cater to Linux because the vast majority of users are anti-DRM to begin with. Apple's model directly conflicts with the philosophy of open source. Shockwave? Please. That is so 1999. Besides, designers who are still coding Flash-based web sites deserve swift kicks to their buttocks.
But the fact remains that I am tired of having to boot back into my Windows install to do some pretty basic stuff.
I find his Evolution vs. Outlook comparison to be nothing more than a rant. I've tried Evolution and it runs circles around Outlook. But seriously, does that single issue merit the main complaint that Linux isn't good enough to the point where it requires a reboot into Windows?
Seems to me he is a little bitter because expects Linux programs to behave like Windows.
If anyone had been keeping up with Rob Braun's musings about Open Darwin and Apple's behavior with the OS community, this decision was simply not a matter of 'if' but 'when.' The following links below illustrate that this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision but rather the final straw:
It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure out that the holdouts on the Darwin project have finally had it with Apple.
In a nutshell: Apple have never let anyone touch their code which is a twisted beige box-grade edition of FreeBSD. If something burps no one can help outside of Cupertino. Worse, Apple deliberately makes it nearly impossible to report bugs and allow for patches to be made. This extension of Jobs' secrecy policy is why some holes remain wide open while the rest of the *nix world have patched them a long time ago.
With OpenDarwin shutting down not too long after Apple closed down OSx86, Apple execs selling Apple shares all over the place, and the exodus of two former NeXT gurus, it isn't hard to see what path Apple and OS X are heading down.
Go ahead and mod me as a troll for preaching against the Gospel of Steve, but if key players both at Apple and in the developer community do not believe in OS X (or are giving up on it entirely), how can the rest of us do so?
I absolutely detest self-checkout machines for many of the reasons already discussed here, but my biggest pet peeve happens when you run out of room in the bagging area. If you dare remove something the machine will throw a fit until it is put back. If you barely scoot your already scanned items over, the machine will think that something was pulled out and will nag you.
And how is fighting with these machines like this supposed to save time?
The RIAA is engaging in these tactics for a simple reason: they're fighting a losing battle. They want control of any and all media and will do whatever it takes to keep their decades-old model propped up.
Podcasting, Internet radio, and independent music are the new Davids fighting this Goliath and as each one becomes more and more popular in mainstream culture you can guarantee that the RIAA will look for ways to shut it all down (they're already trying with podcasts and streaming radio under the guise of royalties) or infilitrate these new forms of media with their commercial garbage. And yet again, they'll be unsuccessful just as they have been with cassette tapes and recordable CDs.
In the end, they'll be as irrelevant as an 8-track player.
Unfortunately that is easier said than done. If MySpace is consuming almost all of the resources available at computer labs, the departments need to block it.
For me, it's as simple as setting up two rules:
1. If the "To" field does not contain "@" then delete/move to trash/whatever.
2. If the "To" field does not contain "myemailaddress@someisp.net" then delete/move to trash.
Of course, these rules will trash any messages you receive from list-servs.
I'm lucky if I receive 1 spam message a week, if that. I'd say that is pretty effective spam control.
You are clearly trolling, but I'll bite. Your "average college kid" is using a computer for one of five things:
1. Checking e-mail.
2. Surfing the web.
3. Writing papers.
4. Listening to music.
(and maybe)
5. Watching movies.
A properly configured Linux "brick" can do all of that for free without requiring new hardware. And there is no planned obsolescence down the road.
You conveniently leave out the fact that you have to pay for Microsoft Office since it is the "de facto" for writing papers, constructing graphs, and presenting findings. That's $150 for the student and teacher edition (3 licenses). If you want to muck around with photos? You'll certainly have to cough up for Photoshop. An educational discount is already $699 for a single license. Besides, both of those suites are still not yet optimized for Macintel. If you don't mind emulating PowerPC apps at the speed of a G3, then more power to you.
Please do tell what is so difficult about navigating to the K menu in KDE or "Applications" in GNOME. If my friends who are computer illiterate can get around in Ubuntu without my help, then most certainly your typical college student won't have much of an issue with a Linux desktop either.
I switched back because of the horrid quality of Apple hardware the last few years.
And with the build quality of the MacBook family, I won't be surprised if there will be more who jump ship because they cannot find a suitable replacement for their PowerPC machines.
Right now is the worst possible time to move to a Mac. First of all the MacBooks and MacBook Pros are plagued with many issues as nicely documented here. More importantly, Microsoft and Adobe still have not ported their software over along with numerous smaller third party vendors. How do you suppose customers will feel when they realize they bought software titles that aren't even native for their machines quite yet?
Unless you use Apple's own consumer-oriented products, you are screwed for the time being.
Then of course are the issues with OS X itself. Too many to mention, but nicely summed up over at Rixstep.
I was actually hoping that the move to Intel was going to mean lower hardware prices now that under the hood there is no discernible difference in parts from bargain basement PCs. Instead, Apple continues to charge a premium for their hardware and even ask for an extra $150 for a color (e.g. MacBlack). I have owned and used Macs since 1997, but once my PowerBook breathes its last I will be migrating to a cheap PC running Ubuntu.
I'm currently dual booting OS X and Ubuntu and now find myself booted into the latter a lot more often.
I clean installed two PCs (some friend's custom PC and a Dell Inspiron 4100) with the RC. Both have Linksys WPC54GS wireless cards which have flawlessly worked with ndiswrapper.
It seems that in the RC wlan0 is no longer a recognized interface, even if you blacklist the bcm43xx driver. My workaround was to edit the ndiswrapper alias after modprobing it by changing the 'wlan0' to 'eth1' (at least that was the interface for both, YMMV). If you don't plan on using NetworkManager, the traditional way (iwconfig, System->Administration->Networking or editing/etc/network/interfaces) will not work. Once I installed the nm-applet I was online in literally a few clicks. I took the laptop around to other wireless hot spots and got online with ease.
That said, NetworkManager is a godsend for laptop users. No more dirty editing.
Can't say the same for my PowerBook G4 and its Airport Extreme. =(
The traditional mass media is becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing day thanks to the advent of blogs, podcasts, independent music, and films. You can bet your bottom dollar that the conglomerates have been looking for ways to thwart this "revolution" in mass media and get pieces of the pie - albeit unsuccessfully. This is the **AA's "last stand" - if you will - on a global scale because they want that control back and will do anything by any means necessary.
Seriously, how are they going to crack down? File John Doe lawsuits in Albania?
When a user tries to save a Word document, Office will notify that person in a large dialog with the text beneath the ad window:
"Your document C:\My Documents\Work\Important.doc will be saved right after these short messages from our sponsors."
*Crash*
Slashdot Mirror
wasn't a story by that exact title and pretty much identical posted a couple months ago?
Yup.
Windows exploits you!
From the Ars article:
Unlike Windows XP, Vista will monitor the activation status of the computer even after the initial 30-day period. If the technology later decides that a key is no longer valid, through either a software update or via some other means, it will give the user another 30-day period to rectify the situation.
So, in other words, MS has every right to revoke your license for whatever reason they desire? Am I the only one who finds this disturbing?
What could stop him in the long run?
His milking of the Mac for all its worth. Then he'll have to move on to the next big thing.
From TFA:
OK, so let's take it up a notch. Shockwave for Linux, iTunes for Linux, and so on. There are specific tools and software that is very much being left out of the loop in the Linux world.
Can we get some specifics here, please? What tools? iTunes? Apple has no incentive to cater to Linux because the vast majority of users are anti-DRM to begin with. Apple's model directly conflicts with the philosophy of open source. Shockwave? Please. That is so 1999. Besides, designers who are still coding Flash-based web sites deserve swift kicks to their buttocks.
But the fact remains that I am tired of having to boot back into my Windows install to do some pretty basic stuff.
I find his Evolution vs. Outlook comparison to be nothing more than a rant. I've tried Evolution and it runs circles around Outlook. But seriously, does that single issue merit the main complaint that Linux isn't good enough to the point where it requires a reboot into Windows?
Seems to me he is a little bitter because expects Linux programs to behave like Windows.
If anyone had been keeping up with Rob Braun's musings about Open Darwin and Apple's behavior with the OS community, this decision was simply not a matter of 'if' but 'when.' The following links below illustrate that this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision but rather the final straw:
A Brief History of Apple's Open Source Efforts
WebKit and Apple's Open Source Efforts
Those are just for starters. And to top it all off where Braun gets to the meat of the matter:
Why Darwin Failed
It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure out that the holdouts on the Darwin project have finally had it with Apple.
In a nutshell: Apple have never let anyone touch their code which is a twisted beige box-grade edition of FreeBSD. If something burps no one can help outside of Cupertino. Worse, Apple deliberately makes it nearly impossible to report bugs and allow for patches to be made. This extension of Jobs' secrecy policy is why some holes remain wide open while the rest of the *nix world have patched them a long time ago.
With OpenDarwin shutting down not too long after Apple closed down OSx86, Apple execs selling Apple shares all over the place, and the exodus of two former NeXT gurus, it isn't hard to see what path Apple and OS X are heading down.
Go ahead and mod me as a troll for preaching against the Gospel of Steve, but if key players both at Apple and in the developer community do not believe in OS X (or are giving up on it entirely), how can the rest of us do so?
I absolutely detest self-checkout machines for many of the reasons already discussed here, but my biggest pet peeve happens when you run out of room in the bagging area. If you dare remove something the machine will throw a fit until it is put back. If you barely scoot your already scanned items over, the machine will think that something was pulled out and will nag you.
And how is fighting with these machines like this supposed to save time?
I stand corrected.
But Al Gore uses PowerPoint. Who wouldn't want to work for him?
Who wants to take bets that someone will have a patch out there before MS does, much like with the WMF flaw?
How many more machines have to be compromised before users begin to take matters into their own hands?
The arrogance of MS is astounding. And don't say it's because of testing.
The RIAA is engaging in these tactics for a simple reason: they're fighting a losing battle. They want control of any and all media and will do whatever it takes to keep their decades-old model propped up.
Podcasting, Internet radio, and independent music are the new Davids fighting this Goliath and as each one becomes more and more popular in mainstream culture you can guarantee that the RIAA will look for ways to shut it all down (they're already trying with podcasts and streaming radio under the guise of royalties) or infilitrate these new forms of media with their commercial garbage. And yet again, they'll be unsuccessful just as they have been with cassette tapes and recordable CDs.
In the end, they'll be as irrelevant as an 8-track player.
Apple does check for TPM on OSx86. Unfortunately it's a never ending game of updating and patching to keep OS X running on non-Apple hardware.
Thurrott will still be ranting and raving about how much Windows is light years ahead of OS X and Linux.
Or if you can't use AdBlock, at least get Privoxy.
His solution to the hack that destroys a section of your profile is not that he will fix the site, but that you should install Flash 9.
Unfortunately, it won't fix the crappy member pages that crash your browser.
Unfortunately that is easier said than done. If MySpace is consuming almost all of the resources available at computer labs, the departments need to block it.
Some are already doing so.
What I do need is FAR better SPAM control.
For me, it's as simple as setting up two rules: 1. If the "To" field does not contain "@" then delete/move to trash/whatever. 2. If the "To" field does not contain "myemailaddress@someisp.net" then delete/move to trash. Of course, these rules will trash any messages you receive from list-servs. I'm lucky if I receive 1 spam message a week, if that. I'd say that is pretty effective spam control.
You are clearly trolling, but I'll bite. Your "average college kid" is using a computer for one of five things:
1. Checking e-mail.
2. Surfing the web.
3. Writing papers.
4. Listening to music.
(and maybe)
5. Watching movies.
A properly configured Linux "brick" can do all of that for free without requiring new hardware. And there is no planned obsolescence down the road.
You conveniently leave out the fact that you have to pay for Microsoft Office since it is the "de facto" for writing papers, constructing graphs, and presenting findings. That's $150 for the student and teacher edition (3 licenses). If you want to muck around with photos? You'll certainly have to cough up for Photoshop. An educational discount is already $699 for a single license. Besides, both of those suites are still not yet optimized for Macintel. If you don't mind emulating PowerPC apps at the speed of a G3, then more power to you.
Please do tell what is so difficult about navigating to the K menu in KDE or "Applications" in GNOME. If my friends who are computer illiterate can get around in Ubuntu without my help, then most certainly your typical college student won't have much of an issue with a Linux desktop either.
I switched back because of the horrid quality of Apple hardware the last few years.
And with the build quality of the MacBook family, I won't be surprised if there will be more who jump ship because they cannot find a suitable replacement for their PowerPC machines.
Right now is the worst possible time to move to a Mac. First of all the MacBooks and MacBook Pros are plagued with many issues as nicely documented here. More importantly, Microsoft and Adobe still have not ported their software over along with numerous smaller third party vendors. How do you suppose customers will feel when they realize they bought software titles that aren't even native for their machines quite yet? Unless you use Apple's own consumer-oriented products, you are screwed for the time being.
Then of course are the issues with OS X itself. Too many to mention, but nicely summed up over at Rixstep.
I was actually hoping that the move to Intel was going to mean lower hardware prices now that under the hood there is no discernible difference in parts from bargain basement PCs. Instead, Apple continues to charge a premium for their hardware and even ask for an extra $150 for a color (e.g. MacBlack). I have owned and used Macs since 1997, but once my PowerBook breathes its last I will be migrating to a cheap PC running Ubuntu.
I'm currently dual booting OS X and Ubuntu and now find myself booted into the latter a lot more often.
I clean installed two PCs (some friend's custom PC and a Dell Inspiron 4100) with the RC. Both have Linksys WPC54GS wireless cards which have flawlessly worked with ndiswrapper. It seems that in the RC wlan0 is no longer a recognized interface, even if you blacklist the bcm43xx driver. My workaround was to edit the ndiswrapper alias after modprobing it by changing the 'wlan0' to 'eth1' (at least that was the interface for both, YMMV). If you don't plan on using NetworkManager, the traditional way (iwconfig, System->Administration->Networking or editing /etc/network/interfaces) will not work. Once I installed the nm-applet I was online in literally a few clicks. I took the laptop around to other wireless hot spots and got online with ease.
That said, NetworkManager is a godsend for laptop users. No more dirty editing.
Can't say the same for my PowerBook G4 and its Airport Extreme. =(
And sadly enough, it will still be lacking for those in the PowerPC camp. I'm curious as to their rationale for using wine in their development.
The traditional mass media is becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing day thanks to the advent of blogs, podcasts, independent music, and films. You can bet your bottom dollar that the conglomerates have been looking for ways to thwart this "revolution" in mass media and get pieces of the pie - albeit unsuccessfully. This is the **AA's "last stand" - if you will - on a global scale because they want that control back and will do anything by any means necessary.
Seriously, how are they going to crack down? File John Doe lawsuits in Albania?
Get real.
When a user tries to save a Word document, Office will notify that person in a large dialog with the text beneath the ad window: "Your document C:\My Documents\Work\Important.doc will be saved right after these short messages from our sponsors." *Crash*
Just another ad service to list in AdBlock's filters. Nothing to see here...
The day MOSR becomes a credible source on /. is when not only toasters fly but water flows uphill.