Makes no sense to use offline. It's purposes are to access voicemail, edit calling groups, manage contacts, control forwarding, and place calls, none of which work without a connection. (placing calls requires an IP signal to Google to program an available pass-through number for you to call with your device to route the call).
Yea, having access to your google contacts offline might be handy, but there are already easy ways to sync google and you iPhone contact list...
Uh, this has NOTHING to do with Apple. Likely, AT&T is also right in that they had no involvement. OTHER phone companies however, including those that do not yet have but are negotiating for iPhone access have some sway. (Verizon, here's looking at you).
Initially, when the Google Voice app was presented, it WAS against AT&T's contractual terms with apple. AT&T has since amended those terms opening the door, however, both google and apple admit to be "continuing research" on making this happen. I'm sure this has to do with other provider contract terms they're being cautios of.
Yes. I seriously doubt they're replace google, except as the default setting. Bing will be the new default on new or re-imaged devices. Hopefully Bing is not hard set in an update to 3.2/4.0 though, that would REALLY piss me off. NEVER change my active selections...
Actually, I would not mind seeing a case for ALL OS vendors where all apps must be signed in order to be run. Not really a process of review, but simply complete validation of who published an app so if it turns out to have illegal content the owner can be quickly found, and so that viruses basically become obsolete unless they're honest vulnerability exploits that can bypass that system (ie, no more mailware or trojans or gernal viruses, only outright hacks could infect a system).
Actually, speculation was the app is banned care of Verizon, not AT&T, as part of Apple's negotiation with them. See, on Verizon, ALL plan level support "my 5" and adding a google voice number to that, and using the convenience of the google native app, you could get unlimited free calling, and unlimited free texts, while paying only for the lowest possible plan tier.
Verizon has since (as well as AT&T) implemented a system for identifying google voice numbers, and will automatically remove them from your 5 if you add it, and backbill you for any minutes you might have used in excess of plan minutes otherwise. it is against their ToS to use a call redirection number in your fav list. until we find out for certain whether Verizon is in or out, i don;t expect Google voice to hit the device (unless the courts get involved).
1 good thing, i can now call any of my contacts in my google contact list, and on their caller ID they see my google number, not my cell phone number. there's also a generic dilaer so i can call anyone. The individual pages from the app have unique icons if you save them to the home screen (dial pad, voice mail, contacts), so you can have single click equivalents to the native iPhone apps. It;s a nice interface to the voicemail system as well, and you can also access your call history on the run (and block those pesky numbers you don't like, or add a new number to an existing contact, or manage calling groups). Basically, you no longer need to sit at a PC to manage the account.
That's because Google Voice is not a VoIP app, but a call redirection service. On a touch, the ONLY features it has are managing voice mail and contacts, it can NOT place calls.
On an iPhone, from the web app, if you select a contact to call here's what happens: 1) Google generates a "one time" number in your local area if possible. 2) Google programs this number such that an incoming call from your selected phone to that number is routed to your selected contact's phone number 3) it presents you a UI button to press to have the iPhone call the Google one-time number. 4) when you click the button, you iPhone calls Google's selected one-time number (not your contact). This call will appear on your bill as a call from your cell phone to Google and uses airtime (which depending on your plan and time of day might be free). 5) Google routes the call and rings your contacts number, presenting your Google voice number on their caller ID screen.
No, Google Voice is NOT a Voip technology. The app simple helps you place/connect calls to your multiple phones. The advantage of the app on the iPhone really boils down to a) managing your Google contacts better and b) when you place a call from your cell phone, the target sees your Google voice on their caller ID, not your cell number, so when they call back, it;s routed through Google voice. With a native app and notifications, if you choose not to pass through caller ID the app would be able to tell you who's calling while caller ID simply displays your Google voice number. (this was originally a good idea that might have enabled free calling to/from your Google voice number if you added it to your "list" but providers quickly began IDing google voice numbers and auto-remove them from your list as it;s against their ToS to use call redirection technology.
1) this has been covered in US and international case law many times. It it not disputable. The CPA is on Microsoft's side on this one, sorry. 2) The box, on the outside, indicates "License," and fine print on that box in the "requirements" area mandated to be present by law indicates where to get a full text copy prior to purchase. YOUR failure to do this is NOT microsoft's fault, the license is freely available (and Microsoft vendors are ordered to provide you a free copy in paper form as part of their partner agreement should you so request). 3) inside the box, the disk has a seal, which upon opening confirms you agree to the license. Additionally, on installing you further confirm this license agreement. 4) for OEM products, on first boot, you have to agree or decline. If you decline, it must be removed from the machine and then you can get a refund of the OEM license cost (about $30 in most cases). 5) the product registers itself online within 30 days. This is manditory, as spelled out in the License. Doing so further confirms your agreement to the terms. 6) A license is not a contract. It requires no signature on file. It is a right of use, like a ToS, and it CAN be revoked at will.
You CAN refuse the Microsoft license. You CAN return the product and use something else.
Per case rulings, you are not buying the product, you're only buying the license to use it for specific purposes for a limited time. This is covered in the US Code of Commerce, a document defined in the constitution itself, and backed up by numerous laws and the supreme court.
If you don't like it, uninstall it. unfortunately for you, the ONLY OS that can be installed on a computer without SOME form of restrictive license is the one you write yourself. Good luck with that, let me know how it turns out.
Did you CALL Microsoft on this issue? It's entirely plausible YOUR copy is not at fault, but simply an illegal distributor happened to use the same install key in their illegal copy and distributed it a few hundred times, invalidating your key. M$ can issue a new key in very short order over the phone, espeically if it's an OEM copy of if you bought it in a box and have the paper license.
I'm in a shop with 15,000 employees, 2200 of us generally classed as "IT" (including everyone supporting the IT people from managers down to secretaries, IT support and programmers, helpdesk to senior server admins), and about 400 of us are the designers, implementers, and support staff of the 3,000 servers here. Of those 400, we're almost all free thinkers, with the ability to solve problems, suggest and influence designs, and effect the business. We're creative people all, as is also evident in our extracurricular activities and personal habits. We also have about 1,000 programmers on staff, the bulk of which are also highly creative people (we don;t make some huge produce, we have over a thousand home grown apps, and lots of small dev teams, many self run, so it's not a programming drone army but a lot of talented problem solvers)
Not ONE of the nearly 1/3rd of us who bring a mac to work are "hipsters", and not one of the more than half of us that have an iPhone have it because we're cool. The Mac is an extremely powerful tool for a programmer, bridging Linux, unix, and Windows together on a reliable and affordable platform. The iPhone happens to be the single least expensive 2year TCO of any smart phone available here that has native Exchange comparability and also meets DOD STIG (Blackberry is right out, WinMo requires 3rd party expensive servers), meaning it's the CORPORATE choice now that Palm is dead.
Free thinkers generally fall into the "informed buyers" category, and if you actually do the research, match your needs to a hardware class, and then price the market in that class, you'll find Apple to be a price leader almost across the board. go on, compare the Macbook 13" specs to anyone, the 15" Pro with 9600GPU, the 17", the 27", even the Pro, all cheaper than ANY comparable machine (and the 27" happens to be about $200 cheaper than you can BUILD an equivalent!). Informed buyers make good deals, and you can NOT deny on paper tha an Appel machine is not a good deal when you actually COMPARE it.
Yea, a Mac costs twice the average PC, but the "average" PC has a celeron class CPU. Noone who;s looking for a machine above that class can use a celeron, and nothing a Mac is useful for (video editing, media sharing, managing thousands of photos, playing games), runsd on low class hardware. The average gaming notebook costs over $1500. Apple's start at 1200...
Funny, back in November i went to buy my wife a new machine to replace both her aging notebook and a gaming PC. We decided on a single machine, meaning a moderate performance notebook with a descrete GPU. We also wanted to do video editing and manage a lot of photos, so a fast HDD and a good amount a RAM was a requirement.
After looking at the options from Dell, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo, Acer, and a few others, we bought a MacBook Pro 15" with the 9600M GT GPU, because it was the CHEAPEST machine that met or exceeded our needs... and with Parallels 5 that we got free with it, and a license from my Action Pack subscription to put Win 7 on it, I didn't have to buy a single piece of new software to run on the Mac.
just because Apple only sells essentially 3 base models of iMac, 4 notebooks, a single Pro system, and a mini does NOT mean they only have a few models. If you really boil it down, Dell only has about 20 models as well, they just choose to give a unique model NUMBER to each subsequent configuration offered since they prefer to sell machines in boxes ready to go. Apple's "good enough for most, configurable for everyone else" model line up means they can save tons in stocking and manufacturing logistics. That doesn't mean i can't get nearly any model mac in an array of configurations, nor does it really limit my choice. the only machine types I can't get from Apple are 1) a netbook class machine, which is completely worthless to me and to most people honestly, which is why after only 1 year of hype they're a dying breed and selling for $50 on ebay and 2) the xMac, but if I need an xMac I'm likely a gamer, and in that case I can build better than buy from ANY manufacturer Apple included, so why should they cater to that market?
"IBM Era" I hate to break it to you, the Lenovo systems are a poor imitation of their forefathers.
"trackpad vs nipple" The Mac Trackpad is SO much more than a trackpad. Full multi touch with gestures, a HUGE area to work with, extremely responsive, and more. I've LOATHED every trackpad I've ever had until this one. I always carried a mouse with my machines, even bought a nice bluetooth mouse to go with the new mac, and then took it back 3 days later after finding the mouse was actually a worse tool than the trackpad. The nipple was better than the trackpad, yes, but always inferior to the mouse, now the mouse is inferior...
"screen quality" Thinpad screens are limited now. Some of the lower end screens in the biz. (in terms of resolution, not quality). They're built for business, not graphics and response. Apple's iMacs are IPS, but the posted is wrong, just regular LED backlit in the notebooks... though they are LG panels, and QUITE good ones. (and you can get them in matte finish!)
"power connector" I've owed 7 notebooks. EVERY SINGLE ONE finally met it's end to a damaged power connector (except one killed in a vehicle accident). When i worked in retail support for a couple of years (i helped a big box form re-engineer their tech support policies and procedures, and that mean being deployed in a store to a) see what they currently did, and b) try out ways to make it better) short of failed HHDs and Memory upgrades, our #1 repair was broken power connectors, which were rarely if ever covered under warranty (they were under the store's extended policy, but not the manufacturer). MagSafe is a huge advancement. Our 2 year old has already gotten hold of the charge cable several times, and if not for that, the notebook would have ended up on the floor or with a damaged connector for sure!
"backlighting" It might be a feature, but it IS a good one. First off, MOST of us don't look only at the screen when typing. second, i often use the machine in the living room with the lights off, and knowing where to put your fingers is important. Finally, i use a LOT of different keyboards, and NONE of them have the same key layout, and without that back lighting, finding function keys etc would be difficult. However, what's more important to me is the other point he made first, and that it's a QUALITY keyboard (at least for a notebook) and after a year of use I won;t have keys falling off like all my other machines with cheap plastic keys.
No, Apple's not the only computer maker out there that makes quality. However, those that DO make quality don't compete with apple on price or performance. Lenovo is no IBM anymore, Toshiba makes crap now, Sony is too proprietary (and expensive), Dell's Adamo and other top end lines are HUNDREDS more expensive than Apple ($700 more than the competing model btw), and the other good quality machines are either boutique machines that are well built but have suck ass performance for the price or are built like toughbooks, cost extra for it, and look like ass. The age of quality built PCs has come and gone, and only Apple stands to continue the trend at reasonable prices.
I'd like to add my 2 most important reasons: 1) best dollar to performance ratio of any machine I compared it to that had discrete graphics. (aka, it was the price leader in performance vs the competition) 2) iLife. That one simple free suite of software saves me HOURS a month managing all the pictures and video we take of the family. It does it quick, intuitively, and offers all the features I need and more.
I've been a mac user all my life, but my job is PCs, and my personal machine is an over clocked quad core rig dual booting Win 7 and Linux. I've tried just about every video editing and photo management app available on the PC. ALL of them suck compared to what the mac comes with.
top this off with the "well built" design aesthetics, the nice components like mimo dualband wireless-n and bluetooth you can't even upgrade most laptops to have, and 6+ hour (I'm not kidding, that's wirelessly connected editing web sites for more than 6 hours) battery life, the apple machines are best dollar for the tech.
Exactly. You don't edit Video on a Celeron processor, you don't do much multitasking on a netbook, you don't manage a 50,000 photo database in 1GB of RAM, and you don't play Crysis on any of the above. If you need computing power, you have to pay for it. Once you compare a GOOD PC to a Mac or MacBook, you quickly see the Macbook is actually the better deal in both features and performance for the price. Once you actually use iLife to do some real work, you'll also see it;s value in time, not just dollars.
Yup. I've been doing fine with PCs for a few years (missed the Mac, but didn't feel the need). The Wife and I wanted to use iLife for video editing and photo management, but were looking at a Mini to do that, or a real low end iMac (maybe even a used one).
When we started looking to replace both hew gaming PC and her notebook at the same time, we quickly decided (as she's not a hard core gamer, and will do fine with a mid-low end GPU), that it was cheaper to get a gaming laptop that to get both a decent desktop and a cheap laptop. When we went looking, a PC laptop was in the plans, and we were going to postpone getting an iMac.
We looked at Dell, HP, Acer, and Toshiba. NONE of them had anything that met the performance class of a MBP for less money unless it was in the desktop replacement class (near 10lbs, 17", 90 minute battery if you were lucky) and still maybe came in a hundred bucks less than a Mac. We got a 15" MBP with the 9600M GT GPU (fastest model available), a copy of parallels Desktop 5, a laptop bag, a free photo printer, all for $1850. The best deal we ever did find otherwise was a lower speed Core duo with slower RAM in a 16" with a 9700GPU that cost $100 less but didn't have a webcam or bluetooth, was made of cheap plastic, and didn't have Mimo wireless n (let alone dual radio 5GHz support). It's warranty also cost more. Now, the wife has a great gaming rig (she plays DDO in a Win7VM run from parallels boat camp loader on top of OS X and she gets a better framerate than my 8800GTX on my PC!)
yea, especially the programmers.... Man, I hear someone new in dev is bringing their new macbook in almost daily now. (though that seems to be on pause waiting for the 27th unveailing).
Graphics guys are shifting more to PCs, video guys more to Macs, Photo people swing to Mac if they manage lots of images, and PCs if they edit lots of images. Publishers seem 50/50 at the moment (each shop uses people on both platforms, not that they prefer one or the other).
We just got a new Macbook Pro (finally), primarily because we have a 2 year old, about 200GB of unedited camcorder video, and a few thousand pics, and using a PC and sharing that stuff with family SUCKS! I'm simply in love with iLife.
Agreed. We now own our first Mac laptop (a 15" pro with the 9600M GT GPU)). It has yet to be in public and we've had it since November. Short of going with us on an extended trip, it likely will never be seen in public. I've owned 12 Macs, and I've never previously had a need to use it anywhere but home. A simple cheap notebook handles mail and web access, which is now replaced by my iPhone mostly, so I sold my notebook.
I've owned Macs for a LOT of reasons, and never once was it to show off... Our first family Mac was bought an Original Lisa used from a friend to learn hor to use a computer, and then dad quickly replaced it with a 512ke when they came out because as an accountant, my Mom could work 3 clients instead of 1 in the same amount of hours thanks to Microsoft Multiplan, the first spreadsheet application, and it was Mac only. Our school was also apple heavy and had a lot of Macs and very few DOS Boxes, so working with electronic files was easier having a Mac.
I bought my own first Mac (an LCII) in 1992 because it was not only a HELL of a lot more powerful than any windows machine at the time, i could ADD a 486 processor to it and run Windows and a mac on the same hardware (which I did).
For a while i kept buying Macs simply to avoid the expense of replacing all my software with PC software. Then for a while it was to avoid hassles with Antivirus. Finally in 2001 I broke down and bought some PC parts and built my own machine, basically, to play games and beta-test software. As i got deeper into IT support, i had to have PCs (and eventually servers) around at home a lot, so I faded away from Mac use (and OS 9 was nothing special anymore, and OS X was still new slow and buggy). From 2004 to 2009 I didn't own one (though the family did, and i continued to use their regularly, having to know how so I could help out Dad when he had an issue, Macs are not immune to user error, and they do have hardware issues same as any other PC)
Why do I own a Mac again now? 2 reasons: First, i can't buy a more powerful PC notebook for less that can handle 3D games that doesn't weigh 9 lbs or more and have a 2 hour battery life. The MacBook has a 6 hour (actually realistic) battery life, weighs 5 lbs, and cost $200 less than the Toshiba or Acer i was looking at that were not as powerful. Resason 2 is iLife! I can't BUY PC software like this for under $1000, and even then the PC software sucks... it does "just work". With Parallels and Win7 running in a VM in coherence, i can play video games in a VM with better frame rates than my PC can manage with an 8800GTX and twice the RAM... i get the best of both worlds.
Now, if i needed a box to surf, web 2.0, and send mail, no, I'd not have bought a gaming, video editing notebook, I'd have gotten some cheap 13" Acer piece of crap. I needed power, performance, and versatility, and Apple has the lowest price on that combination in every system class. I've got my eye on a 27" iMac as soon as they do the next component refresh (May/June) as currently i could not BUILD a better machine for that price. (I tried, and came out with a bill of parts $200 higher, and that was including getting the OS for free.)
I work in an office of 2200 IT people, supporting over 3,000 servers (of which more than 2,000 run Windows), 15,000 internal users, and god knows how many external registered companies that use our systems (thousands). Everyone here has a PC on their desk (some of us have as many as 3, to access some secure networks). Within our core It group, about 400 of us that actually touch systems and servers, about 1/3rd of us own a Mac. There are 2 people in my department that do not own an iPhone, and more than half the company is using one to hit our exchange servers. Not ONE of these people will tell you they bought a Mac because they're cool or popular, but near every one will grab a PC bigot and sit them down in front of one to show them how POWERFUL the machine is, how flexible it is, and why it's so much better of an OS than Windows or Linux. Then they'll politely show them dell.com and an acer machine and show them the mac is the same price or cheaper... 2 years ago when i came here, 3 guys in IT brought a Mac to work, now about 50 do, and over a hundred have one at home.
In theater maybe and even that's a generalization, but I have several close personal friends in creative writing, photographic arts, computer design/graphics, and more. Best I can tell, not only is the number of homosexuals less, actually there seems to be quite a bit MORE heterosexual sex going on in the art schools I've visited over the decades. There also seems to not only be more sex, but it's sex more consistently with the same partner and less simply sleeping around.
I think I'm going to have to ask you for some sources on your data....
Oh, btw, M$ already has an out, as the performance or reliability of the OS is not warantied in ANY WAY, so performnance costs can NOT be challenged in court. You would actually have to prove that WGA itself incurred a provable cost to you (say WGA did NOT do what it advertizes and: steals data, provides partners unwanted access to your machine, crippled legitimate licenses, caused major business disruption due to its activation, etc). Sicne it doesn't apply to VLEs, and noone has any proof it did any of the above, you would actually have to argue HARM (and inconvenience is NOT a legal definition of harm when measured in seconds per year).
WGA is only checked once every 90 days, and has no impact on system utilization or performance or startup. It is only validated when installing patches. You know nothing of this apparently.
YOU in fact don't need it, but would you prefer ACTUAL DRM in stead? I think not. It's a non-invasive system for validating vs a central system that your copy of Windows has not been installed more than the licensed number of times (and even if it has, a 5 minute phone call gets it activated anyway unless it really is a priated copy).
The first time you go to Microsoft update with an unvalidated copy, you download an ActiveX control that you run only once, this generates a unique license token based on several hardware metrics and your installed key, and a validation from a central server. After that, it is only referenced at logon to see that it exists (ond only after a cold boot), and anytime you try to install an update. THAT'S IT!
I've put dozens of hardware upgrades in my home PC. Until very recently when i installed Win7 on it through my renewed action pack subscription, I'd probably reactivated that single copy of XP Pro a dozen times. yea, it stopped auto-activating, but a phone call to an operator who picks up on the second ring (never been on hold for activations ever), got me another activation. All you ever need to tell them is that it's a hardware repair, and they activate immediately (and read you a long string of characters to type in). The first few times you do this, you don't even need to speak to a person...
There is NO limit on "upgrades" The limit is on complete hardfware reaplcement. M$ does consudder the replacement of the board, processor, ram, and video card to essentially be a "new" PC, in fact anytime more than 3 out of 5 analyzed components change all at once, a reactivation is triggered. There IS a limit on how many machines a copy of windows can be MOVED to (remove from old, install on new) and that is spelled out in the licence terms you agreed to. A copy of XP is NOT a lifdetime use copy. They're GENEROUS to even let you re-use it the 3 to 5 times they do (depending on version, it;s changed a few times). Symantec, AutoDesk, McAfee, WebRoot, and many many more do NOT permit application portability to a new machine AT ALL.
The XP license is restricted to (i think) 5 reactivations. OEM licenses are restricted to the original machine only and can't be moved. Hardware changes are permitted such that less than 3 of 5 registered devices are swapped out. If activation is required because say a motherboard with lots of onboard cvomponents was replaced, then a simple call to M$ solves the issue. They activate it anyway.
Vista was initially given 1 reactivation on new hardware, but that was later upped to 3 due to pressure. However, the license was NEVER intended to be portable to an unlimited number of machines, and certainly never allowed to be on more than 1 machine at a time. WGA ensures that only 1 copy of a valid license is concurrently installed (aside from VMs on the same hardware which there's an exception for under Pro and Ultimate versions).
If you have a copy of Windows, and buy a whole new PC, its expected if you're re-using a license on that new machine in leiu of buying a new one: 1) the one being moved is not an OEM copy. 2) if it's an upgrade, the original license terms from the last full retail version apply, which may have limits on migrations (upgrades do not have portability unless the OS upgraded was itself not an OEM version). 3) It has been moved fewer times that it was originally allocated for.
I've called microsoft a dozen times on my own personal licenses to have additional activations granted. I've done this a hundred times for companies. Its never once taken more than a 5 minute phone call to get around WGA with a legitimate copy of Windows. On 2 occasions i was re-installing a copy for a customer and it turned out to be pirated (over 1,000 active copies of the licese key were in use in once case) and they refused to activate, but in both cases the customer had other keys on hand that worked anyway.
WGA has never once prevented me from getting a machine activated, and I've done several thousand machines since XP alone....and thank god I'm no longer in that segment of the IT industry. I don't even have admin logons anymore:)
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Bingo!
Makes no sense to use offline. It's purposes are to access voicemail, edit calling groups, manage contacts, control forwarding, and place calls, none of which work without a connection. (placing calls requires an IP signal to Google to program an available pass-through number for you to call with your device to route the call).
Yea, having access to your google contacts offline might be handy, but there are already easy ways to sync google and you iPhone contact list...
Uh, this has NOTHING to do with Apple. Likely, AT&T is also right in that they had no involvement. OTHER phone companies however, including those that do not yet have but are negotiating for iPhone access have some sway. (Verizon, here's looking at you).
Initially, when the Google Voice app was presented, it WAS against AT&T's contractual terms with apple. AT&T has since amended those terms opening the door, however, both google and apple admit to be "continuing research" on making this happen. I'm sure this has to do with other provider contract terms they're being cautios of.
Yes. I seriously doubt they're replace google, except as the default setting. Bing will be the new default on new or re-imaged devices. Hopefully Bing is not hard set in an update to 3.2/4.0 though, that would REALLY piss me off. NEVER change my active selections...
Actually, I would not mind seeing a case for ALL OS vendors where all apps must be signed in order to be run. Not really a process of review, but simply complete validation of who published an app so if it turns out to have illegal content the owner can be quickly found, and so that viruses basically become obsolete unless they're honest vulnerability exploits that can bypass that system (ie, no more mailware or trojans or gernal viruses, only outright hacks could infect a system).
Actually, speculation was the app is banned care of Verizon, not AT&T, as part of Apple's negotiation with them. See, on Verizon, ALL plan level support "my 5" and adding a google voice number to that, and using the convenience of the google native app, you could get unlimited free calling, and unlimited free texts, while paying only for the lowest possible plan tier.
Verizon has since (as well as AT&T) implemented a system for identifying google voice numbers, and will automatically remove them from your 5 if you add it, and backbill you for any minutes you might have used in excess of plan minutes otherwise. it is against their ToS to use a call redirection number in your fav list. until we find out for certain whether Verizon is in or out, i don;t expect Google voice to hit the device (unless the courts get involved).
1 good thing, i can now call any of my contacts in my google contact list, and on their caller ID they see my google number, not my cell phone number. there's also a generic dilaer so i can call anyone.
The individual pages from the app have unique icons if you save them to the home screen (dial pad, voice mail, contacts), so you can have single click equivalents to the native iPhone apps.
It;s a nice interface to the voicemail system as well, and you can also access your call history on the run (and block those pesky numbers you don't like, or add a new number to an existing contact, or manage calling groups). Basically, you no longer need to sit at a PC to manage the account.
That's because Google Voice is not a VoIP app, but a call redirection service. On a touch, the ONLY features it has are managing voice mail and contacts, it can NOT place calls.
On an iPhone, from the web app, if you select a contact to call here's what happens:
1) Google generates a "one time" number in your local area if possible.
2) Google programs this number such that an incoming call from your selected phone to that number is routed to your selected contact's phone number
3) it presents you a UI button to press to have the iPhone call the Google one-time number.
4) when you click the button, you iPhone calls Google's selected one-time number (not your contact). This call will appear on your bill as a call from your cell phone to Google and uses airtime (which depending on your plan and time of day might be free).
5) Google routes the call and rings your contacts number, presenting your Google voice number on their caller ID screen.
No, Google Voice is NOT a Voip technology. The app simple helps you place/connect calls to your multiple phones. The advantage of the app on the iPhone really boils down to a) managing your Google contacts better and b) when you place a call from your cell phone, the target sees your Google voice on their caller ID, not your cell number, so when they call back, it;s routed through Google voice. With a native app and notifications, if you choose not to pass through caller ID the app would be able to tell you who's calling while caller ID simply displays your Google voice number. (this was originally a good idea that might have enabled free calling to/from your Google voice number if you added it to your "list" but providers quickly began IDing google voice numbers and auto-remove them from your list as it;s against their ToS to use call redirection technology.
1) this has been covered in US and international case law many times. It it not disputable. The CPA is on Microsoft's side on this one, sorry.
2) The box, on the outside, indicates "License," and fine print on that box in the "requirements" area mandated to be present by law indicates where to get a full text copy prior to purchase. YOUR failure to do this is NOT microsoft's fault, the license is freely available (and Microsoft vendors are ordered to provide you a free copy in paper form as part of their partner agreement should you so request).
3) inside the box, the disk has a seal, which upon opening confirms you agree to the license. Additionally, on installing you further confirm this license agreement.
4) for OEM products, on first boot, you have to agree or decline. If you decline, it must be removed from the machine and then you can get a refund of the OEM license cost (about $30 in most cases).
5) the product registers itself online within 30 days. This is manditory, as spelled out in the License. Doing so further confirms your agreement to the terms.
6) A license is not a contract. It requires no signature on file. It is a right of use, like a ToS, and it CAN be revoked at will.
You CAN refuse the Microsoft license. You CAN return the product and use something else.
Per case rulings, you are not buying the product, you're only buying the license to use it for specific purposes for a limited time. This is covered in the US Code of Commerce, a document defined in the constitution itself, and backed up by numerous laws and the supreme court.
If you don't like it, uninstall it. unfortunately for you, the ONLY OS that can be installed on a computer without SOME form of restrictive license is the one you write yourself. Good luck with that, let me know how it turns out.
Did you CALL Microsoft on this issue? It's entirely plausible YOUR copy is not at fault, but simply an illegal distributor happened to use the same install key in their illegal copy and distributed it a few hundred times, invalidating your key. M$ can issue a new key in very short order over the phone, espeically if it's an OEM copy of if you bought it in a box and have the paper license.
This happens, it takes 5 minutes to fix.
I'm in a shop with 15,000 employees, 2200 of us generally classed as "IT" (including everyone supporting the IT people from managers down to secretaries, IT support and programmers, helpdesk to senior server admins), and about 400 of us are the designers, implementers, and support staff of the 3,000 servers here. Of those 400, we're almost all free thinkers, with the ability to solve problems, suggest and influence designs, and effect the business. We're creative people all, as is also evident in our extracurricular activities and personal habits. We also have about 1,000 programmers on staff, the bulk of which are also highly creative people (we don;t make some huge produce, we have over a thousand home grown apps, and lots of small dev teams, many self run, so it's not a programming drone army but a lot of talented problem solvers)
Not ONE of the nearly 1/3rd of us who bring a mac to work are "hipsters", and not one of the more than half of us that have an iPhone have it because we're cool. The Mac is an extremely powerful tool for a programmer, bridging Linux, unix, and Windows together on a reliable and affordable platform. The iPhone happens to be the single least expensive 2year TCO of any smart phone available here that has native Exchange comparability and also meets DOD STIG (Blackberry is right out, WinMo requires 3rd party expensive servers), meaning it's the CORPORATE choice now that Palm is dead.
Free thinkers generally fall into the "informed buyers" category, and if you actually do the research, match your needs to a hardware class, and then price the market in that class, you'll find Apple to be a price leader almost across the board. go on, compare the Macbook 13" specs to anyone, the 15" Pro with 9600GPU, the 17", the 27", even the Pro, all cheaper than ANY comparable machine (and the 27" happens to be about $200 cheaper than you can BUILD an equivalent!). Informed buyers make good deals, and you can NOT deny on paper tha an Appel machine is not a good deal when you actually COMPARE it.
Yea, a Mac costs twice the average PC, but the "average" PC has a celeron class CPU. Noone who;s looking for a machine above that class can use a celeron, and nothing a Mac is useful for (video editing, media sharing, managing thousands of photos, playing games), runsd on low class hardware. The average gaming notebook costs over $1500. Apple's start at 1200...
Funny, back in November i went to buy my wife a new machine to replace both her aging notebook and a gaming PC. We decided on a single machine, meaning a moderate performance notebook with a descrete GPU. We also wanted to do video editing and manage a lot of photos, so a fast HDD and a good amount a RAM was a requirement.
After looking at the options from Dell, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo, Acer, and a few others, we bought a MacBook Pro 15" with the 9600M GT GPU, because it was the CHEAPEST machine that met or exceeded our needs... and with Parallels 5 that we got free with it, and a license from my Action Pack subscription to put Win 7 on it, I didn't have to buy a single piece of new software to run on the Mac.
just because Apple only sells essentially 3 base models of iMac, 4 notebooks, a single Pro system, and a mini does NOT mean they only have a few models. If you really boil it down, Dell only has about 20 models as well, they just choose to give a unique model NUMBER to each subsequent configuration offered since they prefer to sell machines in boxes ready to go. Apple's "good enough for most, configurable for everyone else" model line up means they can save tons in stocking and manufacturing logistics. That doesn't mean i can't get nearly any model mac in an array of configurations, nor does it really limit my choice. the only machine types I can't get from Apple are 1) a netbook class machine, which is completely worthless to me and to most people honestly, which is why after only 1 year of hype they're a dying breed and selling for $50 on ebay and 2) the xMac, but if I need an xMac I'm likely a gamer, and in that case I can build better than buy from ANY manufacturer Apple included, so why should they cater to that market?
"IBM Era" I hate to break it to you, the Lenovo systems are a poor imitation of their forefathers.
"trackpad vs nipple" The Mac Trackpad is SO much more than a trackpad. Full multi touch with gestures, a HUGE area to work with, extremely responsive, and more. I've LOATHED every trackpad I've ever had until this one. I always carried a mouse with my machines, even bought a nice bluetooth mouse to go with the new mac, and then took it back 3 days later after finding the mouse was actually a worse tool than the trackpad. The nipple was better than the trackpad, yes, but always inferior to the mouse, now the mouse is inferior...
"screen quality" Thinpad screens are limited now. Some of the lower end screens in the biz. (in terms of resolution, not quality). They're built for business, not graphics and response. Apple's iMacs are IPS, but the posted is wrong, just regular LED backlit in the notebooks... though they are LG panels, and QUITE good ones. (and you can get them in matte finish!)
"power connector" I've owed 7 notebooks. EVERY SINGLE ONE finally met it's end to a damaged power connector (except one killed in a vehicle accident). When i worked in retail support for a couple of years (i helped a big box form re-engineer their tech support policies and procedures, and that mean being deployed in a store to a) see what they currently did, and b) try out ways to make it better) short of failed HHDs and Memory upgrades, our #1 repair was broken power connectors, which were rarely if ever covered under warranty (they were under the store's extended policy, but not the manufacturer). MagSafe is a huge advancement. Our 2 year old has already gotten hold of the charge cable several times, and if not for that, the notebook would have ended up on the floor or with a damaged connector for sure!
"backlighting" It might be a feature, but it IS a good one. First off, MOST of us don't look only at the screen when typing. second, i often use the machine in the living room with the lights off, and knowing where to put your fingers is important. Finally, i use a LOT of different keyboards, and NONE of them have the same key layout, and without that back lighting, finding function keys etc would be difficult. However, what's more important to me is the other point he made first, and that it's a QUALITY keyboard (at least for a notebook) and after a year of use I won;t have keys falling off like all my other machines with cheap plastic keys.
No, Apple's not the only computer maker out there that makes quality. However, those that DO make quality don't compete with apple on price or performance. Lenovo is no IBM anymore, Toshiba makes crap now, Sony is too proprietary (and expensive), Dell's Adamo and other top end lines are HUNDREDS more expensive than Apple ($700 more than the competing model btw), and the other good quality machines are either boutique machines that are well built but have suck ass performance for the price or are built like toughbooks, cost extra for it, and look like ass. The age of quality built PCs has come and gone, and only Apple stands to continue the trend at reasonable prices.
I'd like to add my 2 most important reasons:
1) best dollar to performance ratio of any machine I compared it to that had discrete graphics. (aka, it was the price leader in performance vs the competition)
2) iLife. That one simple free suite of software saves me HOURS a month managing all the pictures and video we take of the family. It does it quick, intuitively, and offers all the features I need and more.
I've been a mac user all my life, but my job is PCs, and my personal machine is an over clocked quad core rig dual booting Win 7 and Linux. I've tried just about every video editing and photo management app available on the PC. ALL of them suck compared to what the mac comes with.
top this off with the "well built" design aesthetics, the nice components like mimo dualband wireless-n and bluetooth you can't even upgrade most laptops to have, and 6+ hour (I'm not kidding, that's wirelessly connected editing web sites for more than 6 hours) battery life, the apple machines are best dollar for the tech.
Exactly. You don't edit Video on a Celeron processor, you don't do much multitasking on a netbook, you don't manage a 50,000 photo database in 1GB of RAM, and you don't play Crysis on any of the above. If you need computing power, you have to pay for it. Once you compare a GOOD PC to a Mac or MacBook, you quickly see the Macbook is actually the better deal in both features and performance for the price. Once you actually use iLife to do some real work, you'll also see it;s value in time, not just dollars.
Yup. I've been doing fine with PCs for a few years (missed the Mac, but didn't feel the need). The Wife and I wanted to use iLife for video editing and photo management, but were looking at a Mini to do that, or a real low end iMac (maybe even a used one).
When we started looking to replace both hew gaming PC and her notebook at the same time, we quickly decided (as she's not a hard core gamer, and will do fine with a mid-low end GPU), that it was cheaper to get a gaming laptop that to get both a decent desktop and a cheap laptop. When we went looking, a PC laptop was in the plans, and we were going to postpone getting an iMac.
We looked at Dell, HP, Acer, and Toshiba. NONE of them had anything that met the performance class of a MBP for less money unless it was in the desktop replacement class (near 10lbs, 17", 90 minute battery if you were lucky) and still maybe came in a hundred bucks less than a Mac. We got a 15" MBP with the 9600M GT GPU (fastest model available), a copy of parallels Desktop 5, a laptop bag, a free photo printer, all for $1850. The best deal we ever did find otherwise was a lower speed Core duo with slower RAM in a 16" with a 9700GPU that cost $100 less but didn't have a webcam or bluetooth, was made of cheap plastic, and didn't have Mimo wireless n (let alone dual radio 5GHz support). It's warranty also cost more. Now, the wife has a great gaming rig (she plays DDO in a Win7VM run from parallels boat camp loader on top of OS X and she gets a better framerate than my 8800GTX on my PC!)
yea, especially the programmers.... Man, I hear someone new in dev is bringing their new macbook in almost daily now. (though that seems to be on pause waiting for the 27th unveailing).
Graphics guys are shifting more to PCs, video guys more to Macs, Photo people swing to Mac if they manage lots of images, and PCs if they edit lots of images. Publishers seem 50/50 at the moment (each shop uses people on both platforms, not that they prefer one or the other).
We just got a new Macbook Pro (finally), primarily because we have a 2 year old, about 200GB of unedited camcorder video, and a few thousand pics, and using a PC and sharing that stuff with family SUCKS! I'm simply in love with iLife.
Agreed. We now own our first Mac laptop (a 15" pro with the 9600M GT GPU)). It has yet to be in public and we've had it since November. Short of going with us on an extended trip, it likely will never be seen in public. I've owned 12 Macs, and I've never previously had a need to use it anywhere but home. A simple cheap notebook handles mail and web access, which is now replaced by my iPhone mostly, so I sold my notebook.
I've owned Macs for a LOT of reasons, and never once was it to show off... Our first family Mac was bought an Original Lisa used from a friend to learn hor to use a computer, and then dad quickly replaced it with a 512ke when they came out because as an accountant, my Mom could work 3 clients instead of 1 in the same amount of hours thanks to Microsoft Multiplan, the first spreadsheet application, and it was Mac only. Our school was also apple heavy and had a lot of Macs and very few DOS Boxes, so working with electronic files was easier having a Mac.
I bought my own first Mac (an LCII) in 1992 because it was not only a HELL of a lot more powerful than any windows machine at the time, i could ADD a 486 processor to it and run Windows and a mac on the same hardware (which I did).
For a while i kept buying Macs simply to avoid the expense of replacing all my software with PC software. Then for a while it was to avoid hassles with Antivirus. Finally in 2001 I broke down and bought some PC parts and built my own machine, basically, to play games and beta-test software. As i got deeper into IT support, i had to have PCs (and eventually servers) around at home a lot, so I faded away from Mac use (and OS 9 was nothing special anymore, and OS X was still new slow and buggy). From 2004 to 2009 I didn't own one (though the family did, and i continued to use their regularly, having to know how so I could help out Dad when he had an issue, Macs are not immune to user error, and they do have hardware issues same as any other PC)
Why do I own a Mac again now? 2 reasons: First, i can't buy a more powerful PC notebook for less that can handle 3D games that doesn't weigh 9 lbs or more and have a 2 hour battery life. The MacBook has a 6 hour (actually realistic) battery life, weighs 5 lbs, and cost $200 less than the Toshiba or Acer i was looking at that were not as powerful. Resason 2 is iLife! I can't BUY PC software like this for under $1000, and even then the PC software sucks... it does "just work". With Parallels and Win7 running in a VM in coherence, i can play video games in a VM with better frame rates than my PC can manage with an 8800GTX and twice the RAM... i get the best of both worlds.
Now, if i needed a box to surf, web 2.0, and send mail, no, I'd not have bought a gaming, video editing notebook, I'd have gotten some cheap 13" Acer piece of crap. I needed power, performance, and versatility, and Apple has the lowest price on that combination in every system class. I've got my eye on a 27" iMac as soon as they do the next component refresh (May/June) as currently i could not BUILD a better machine for that price. (I tried, and came out with a bill of parts $200 higher, and that was including getting the OS for free.)
I work in an office of 2200 IT people, supporting over 3,000 servers (of which more than 2,000 run Windows), 15,000 internal users, and god knows how many external registered companies that use our systems (thousands). Everyone here has a PC on their desk (some of us have as many as 3, to access some secure networks). Within our core It group, about 400 of us that actually touch systems and servers, about 1/3rd of us own a Mac. There are 2 people in my department that do not own an iPhone, and more than half the company is using one to hit our exchange servers. Not ONE of these people will tell you they bought a Mac because they're cool or popular, but near every one will grab a PC bigot and sit them down in front of one to show them how POWERFUL the machine is, how flexible it is, and why it's so much better of an OS than Windows or Linux. Then they'll politely show them dell.com and an acer machine and show them the mac is the same price or cheaper... 2 years ago when i came here, 3 guys in IT brought a Mac to work, now about 50 do, and over a hundred have one at home.
In theater maybe and even that's a generalization, but I have several close personal friends in creative writing, photographic arts, computer design/graphics, and more. Best I can tell, not only is the number of homosexuals less, actually there seems to be quite a bit MORE heterosexual sex going on in the art schools I've visited over the decades. There also seems to not only be more sex, but it's sex more consistently with the same partner and less simply sleeping around.
I think I'm going to have to ask you for some sources on your data....
Oh, btw, M$ already has an out, as the performance or reliability of the OS is not warantied in ANY WAY, so performnance costs can NOT be challenged in court. You would actually have to prove that WGA itself incurred a provable cost to you (say WGA did NOT do what it advertizes and: steals data, provides partners unwanted access to your machine, crippled legitimate licenses, caused major business disruption due to its activation, etc). Sicne it doesn't apply to VLEs, and noone has any proof it did any of the above, you would actually have to argue HARM (and inconvenience is NOT a legal definition of harm when measured in seconds per year).
WGA is only checked once every 90 days, and has no impact on system utilization or performance or startup. It is only validated when installing patches. You know nothing of this apparently.
YOU in fact don't need it, but would you prefer ACTUAL DRM in stead? I think not. It's a non-invasive system for validating vs a central system that your copy of Windows has not been installed more than the licensed number of times (and even if it has, a 5 minute phone call gets it activated anyway unless it really is a priated copy).
The first time you go to Microsoft update with an unvalidated copy, you download an ActiveX control that you run only once, this generates a unique license token based on several hardware metrics and your installed key, and a validation from a central server. After that, it is only referenced at logon to see that it exists (ond only after a cold boot), and anytime you try to install an update. THAT'S IT!
lol, nice catch...
I've put dozens of hardware upgrades in my home PC. Until very recently when i installed Win7 on it through my renewed action pack subscription, I'd probably reactivated that single copy of XP Pro a dozen times. yea, it stopped auto-activating, but a phone call to an operator who picks up on the second ring (never been on hold for activations ever), got me another activation. All you ever need to tell them is that it's a hardware repair, and they activate immediately (and read you a long string of characters to type in). The first few times you do this, you don't even need to speak to a person...
There is NO limit on "upgrades" The limit is on complete hardfware reaplcement. M$ does consudder the replacement of the board, processor, ram, and video card to essentially be a "new" PC, in fact anytime more than 3 out of 5 analyzed components change all at once, a reactivation is triggered. There IS a limit on how many machines a copy of windows can be MOVED to (remove from old, install on new) and that is spelled out in the licence terms you agreed to. A copy of XP is NOT a lifdetime use copy. They're GENEROUS to even let you re-use it the 3 to 5 times they do (depending on version, it;s changed a few times). Symantec, AutoDesk, McAfee, WebRoot, and many many more do NOT permit application portability to a new machine AT ALL.
The XP license is restricted to (i think) 5 reactivations. OEM licenses are restricted to the original machine only and can't be moved. Hardware changes are permitted such that less than 3 of 5 registered devices are swapped out. If activation is required because say a motherboard with lots of onboard cvomponents was replaced, then a simple call to M$ solves the issue. They activate it anyway.
Vista was initially given 1 reactivation on new hardware, but that was later upped to 3 due to pressure. However, the license was NEVER intended to be portable to an unlimited number of machines, and certainly never allowed to be on more than 1 machine at a time. WGA ensures that only 1 copy of a valid license is concurrently installed (aside from VMs on the same hardware which there's an exception for under Pro and Ultimate versions).
If you have a copy of Windows, and buy a whole new PC, its expected if you're re-using a license on that new machine in leiu of buying a new one: 1) the one being moved is not an OEM copy. 2) if it's an upgrade, the original license terms from the last full retail version apply, which may have limits on migrations (upgrades do not have portability unless the OS upgraded was itself not an OEM version). 3) It has been moved fewer times that it was originally allocated for.
I've called microsoft a dozen times on my own personal licenses to have additional activations granted. I've done this a hundred times for companies. Its never once taken more than a 5 minute phone call to get around WGA with a legitimate copy of Windows. On 2 occasions i was re-installing a copy for a customer and it turned out to be pirated (over 1,000 active copies of the licese key were in use in once case) and they refused to activate, but in both cases the customer had other keys on hand that worked anyway.
WGA has never once prevented me from getting a machine activated, and I've done several thousand machines since XP alone. ...and thank god I'm no longer in that segment of the IT industry. I don't even have admin logons anymore :)