Yes, you have to authorize your PC... ONCE, and assuming it continues to function the same you'll have no problems.
Actually, even that's untrue. When you first install OS X, it asks you to register your Mac, but there is no authorization in place at all. There isn't even a serial number to enter from your OS X disk.
The quote itself is referencing third-party apps. Try comparing Adium to Pidgin, or TextMate to pretty much any other GUI text editor, or iWork to OpenOffice (not really a third-party app, but you get the picture). As a general rule of thumb, apps written for the Mac are better thought-out visually, are more consistent both with themselves and with the rest of the system, and often manage to do this without sacrificing power or features.
Hell, even Microsoft is susceptible to this: just look at their Bing iPhone app, and compare it to their own WinMo equivalent. It's like night and day.
I'm working at Microsoft as we speak (literally, I'm waiting for some code to compile), and I don't know a single person who got in thanks to their connections. The easiest way to get into a company like this, and the way that most of my coworkers got in, is to be a college hire.
Now obviously, if you're far past college then this won't apply to you, but if you are a student, find out when Microsoft/Apple/Google is coming to recruit at your school -- and trust me, at least one of them recruits there.
I went to the University of Arizona and got hired because I was friendly, talkative, and competent, in no particular order. In fact, the only reason I went with Microsoft was because Apple doesn't recruit from the UofA, and the Google recruiter pissed me off by having a holier-than-thou attitude through the entire interview. Now in hindsight, I'm glad that I went with MS -- the pay is above-average, the benefits are outstanding, and the hours are as reasonable as you want them to be. I've never felt pressured to work more than 40-45 hours a week; in fact, my coworkers are more likely to talk me out of staying longer. Meanwhile I have a friend who took a job with Google who works a minimum of 50-55 hours a week, every week. That may not be the norm there either, but that's still a bit much for me.
If you try to install it on a PC with a hacked EFI emulator, it might work, but you can't really complain if it doesn't work very well.
Ah, but that's the kicker -- people will still expect it to work, and the brand will still be tarnished. The problem isn't with Bob the Hacker(tm) screwing around with OS X on his gaming rig: Apple has already made it clear that they don't care about this, as it doesn't affect anyone but Bob.
What they won't stand for is some company selling these pseudo-Mac clones right alongside other beige boxes. If Psystar wins this case, it will open the door for anyone to sell Mac clones in any retail outlet they choose. That means Dell could slap OS X on a $400 laptop and sell it in Best Buy right next to the MacBook display. This is the watering-down that Apple so desperately wants to avoid.
Apparently Microsoft also hates themselves: Bing-ing for "why does pepsi suck?" (sans quotes) gives an article titled "Why exactly does Vista suck so much?" as its FIRST hit:
You're missing a pretty interesting one: Project Helium. It's a pretty well-guarded secret outside the walls of Redmond, but for a while Microsoft seriously considered releasing the 360 chipset. as an "add-on" for PCs. That is, your desktop tower would hold two full chipsets: the standard x86 motherboard and CPU, and a second chipset, which consists of everything you need to run 360 games. In the end, the project was scrapped, but not before Microsoft managed to pour a good chunk of change into researching it.
Oh, and if you do ever get the chance to meet someone high in the Xbox development food chain at Redmond, make sure to ask about it. The look on their face is always priceless.
This is only an issue for Macs with a Mini DisplayPort (that is, only the new MacBook and MacBook Pro). Older Macs with DVI and VGA ports will continue to be unaffected, as these connectors don't support any protection.
If Safari becomes the default browser on these systems, you end up with critical vulnerabilities in a browser installed on non-tech-savvy individuals' computers. Fortunately, simply installing Safari doesn't make it the default browser. I'm not saying that I support what Apple did, but I think that people are having a bit of a knee-jerk overreaction here.
I see this argument, and I just don't buy it. Around 6-8% of computers sold are Macs (I don't know exactly where those numbers came from; back me up if you can), and virtually none of them use any type of virus scanner. That's tens of millions of virgin systems! If someone were to write a destructive, self-replicating virus for OS X, they'd be legendary. Who'd want to pass up that kind of bragging rights?
Sure, obscurity helps. But the classic Mac OS had plenty of viruses, and much less market penetration. That can't be a coincidence...
Will the new iWork suite open old Claris/Appleworks documents? http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/#compatible Yep. I don't know about the old version of iWork, but since it doesn't have Numbers, it's almost a moot point.
Do what I did: start your own project. Instead of wading through the poorly-written source code of others, generate your own code. Find a niche that has not yet been filled, and just start writing. For me, it was an equivalent to Microsoft Paint on the Mac: there are absolutely none. So I sat down with a good Cocoa programming book, and just did what I could. Fifteen thousand downloads later, and my project has exceeded my wildest expectations. (Shameless self-plug)
Neither AbiWord nor NeoOffice requires X11. Also, you shouldn't have "a hell of a time getting them to work at all". AbiWord is a drag-and-drop install, and NeoOffice is a simple package installer.
I believe he was referring to the fact that, should your application beachball (lock up), the minimize button will no longer minimize the window consistently. It often chooses to wait until the program is responsive again before minimizing. This doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
This deal is not designed to make anything better for tech junkies who already have a favorite distro and are comfortable with compiling their own kernel. The whole point of this is to make Linux more accessible for Joe Average, who uses whatever is included on his computer and is terrified to change it. By giving him a (hopefully cheaper) option to buy his laptop with Linux preinstalled, you've just converted someone who would never willing install Linux on his Windows box. This is the market segment that Linux advocates have been unable to reach for years now, and having Linux preinstalled on Dells is by far the best way to woo them.
That being said, I'm tossing my hat in for Ubuntu, which has (arguably) the best, idiot-proof experience on the market today. Don't offer a myriad of options on the order page; the only people who would understand them will probably reformat their hard drive when they get their computer anyway. Make it as simple and obvious as possible, and THEN you'll start to see some real market penetration.
I would have no problem believing that each consecutive release of a given OS should require slightly higher requirements, if it weren't for Apple's OS X. In the past five years, each consecutive release of OS X (10.0-10.4, and supposedly even 10.5, though I haven't tried it myself yet) has run faster, with better graphics and more features, than the previous version. So why exactly can't Microsoft do the same with Windows? Every release of Windows has been dog-slow compared to the previous version on the same hardware. I don't know how it works in the Linux world, but Apple has proven that OS upgrades shouldn't require a new computer as well.
Considering that I've been unofficially promised an internship at Google's Phoenix office this coming summer, maybe it's time I start to learn a little Cocoa/Xcode. After all, I've had Hillegass's book sitting on my shelf for a few months now... *starts reading*
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Actually, even that's untrue. When you first install OS X, it asks you to register your Mac, but there is no authorization in place at all. There isn't even a serial number to enter from your OS X disk.
The quote itself is referencing third-party apps. Try comparing Adium to Pidgin, or TextMate to pretty much any other GUI text editor, or iWork to OpenOffice (not really a third-party app, but you get the picture). As a general rule of thumb, apps written for the Mac are better thought-out visually, are more consistent both with themselves and with the rest of the system, and often manage to do this without sacrificing power or features.
Hell, even Microsoft is susceptible to this: just look at their Bing iPhone app, and compare it to their own WinMo equivalent. It's like night and day.
This is actually a really good summary of work at Microsoft. I was going to clarify or expand on a few points, but honestly he pretty much nailed it.
I'm working at Microsoft as we speak (literally, I'm waiting for some code to compile), and I don't know a single person who got in thanks to their connections. The easiest way to get into a company like this, and the way that most of my coworkers got in, is to be a college hire.
Now obviously, if you're far past college then this won't apply to you, but if you are a student, find out when Microsoft/Apple/Google is coming to recruit at your school -- and trust me, at least one of them recruits there.
I went to the University of Arizona and got hired because I was friendly, talkative, and competent, in no particular order. In fact, the only reason I went with Microsoft was because Apple doesn't recruit from the UofA, and the Google recruiter pissed me off by having a holier-than-thou attitude through the entire interview. Now in hindsight, I'm glad that I went with MS -- the pay is above-average, the benefits are outstanding, and the hours are as reasonable as you want them to be. I've never felt pressured to work more than 40-45 hours a week; in fact, my coworkers are more likely to talk me out of staying longer. Meanwhile I have a friend who took a job with Google who works a minimum of 50-55 hours a week, every week. That may not be the norm there either, but that's still a bit much for me.
Couldn't agree with you more. I just don't have any mod points at the moment...
Not true. Xboxes are still sold at a loss, so if anything they'd rather you bought it used.
It's the games that they desperately want you to buy new, since that's the Xbox's main profit stream.
If you try to install it on a PC with a hacked EFI emulator, it might work, but you can't really complain if it doesn't work very well.
Ah, but that's the kicker -- people will still expect it to work, and the brand will still be tarnished. The problem isn't with Bob the Hacker(tm) screwing around with OS X on his gaming rig: Apple has already made it clear that they don't care about this, as it doesn't affect anyone but Bob.
What they won't stand for is some company selling these pseudo-Mac clones right alongside other beige boxes. If Psystar wins this case, it will open the door for anyone to sell Mac clones in any retail outlet they choose. That means Dell could slap OS X on a $400 laptop and sell it in Best Buy right next to the MacBook display. This is the watering-down that Apple so desperately wants to avoid.
One word: WebKit.
Apparently Microsoft also hates themselves: Bing-ing for "why does pepsi suck?" (sans quotes) gives an article titled "Why exactly does Vista suck so much?" as its FIRST hit:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=why+does+pepsi+suck%3F&go=&form=QBLH&qs=n
Split personality, anyone?
Ah, no mod points today. +1 Hitchhiker's Guide Reference
We really need a Mod -1: Didn't Get The Joke
Better than coming early. ZING!
You're missing a pretty interesting one: Project Helium. It's a pretty well-guarded secret outside the walls of Redmond, but for a while Microsoft seriously considered releasing the 360 chipset. as an "add-on" for PCs. That is, your desktop tower would hold two full chipsets: the standard x86 motherboard and CPU, and a second chipset, which consists of everything you need to run 360 games. In the end, the project was scrapped, but not before Microsoft managed to pour a good chunk of change into researching it.
Oh, and if you do ever get the chance to meet someone high in the Xbox development food chain at Redmond, make sure to ask about it. The look on their face is always priceless.
This is only an issue for Macs with a Mini DisplayPort (that is, only the new MacBook and MacBook Pro). Older Macs with DVI and VGA ports will continue to be unaffected, as these connectors don't support any protection.
I see this argument, and I just don't buy it. Around 6-8% of computers sold are Macs (I don't know exactly where those numbers came from; back me up if you can), and virtually none of them use any type of virus scanner. That's tens of millions of virgin systems! If someone were to write a destructive, self-replicating virus for OS X, they'd be legendary. Who'd want to pass up that kind of bragging rights? Sure, obscurity helps. But the classic Mac OS had plenty of viruses, and much less market penetration. That can't be a coincidence...
Actually, Moonlight is produced by the folks that brought you Mono.
Do what I did: start your own project. Instead of wading through the poorly-written source code of others, generate your own code. Find a niche that has not yet been filled, and just start writing. For me, it was an equivalent to Microsoft Paint on the Mac: there are absolutely none. So I sat down with a good Cocoa programming book, and just did what I could. Fifteen thousand downloads later, and my project has exceeded my wildest expectations. (Shameless self-plug)
Neither AbiWord nor NeoOffice requires X11. Also, you shouldn't have "a hell of a time getting them to work at all". AbiWord is a drag-and-drop install, and NeoOffice is a simple package installer.
I believe he was referring to the fact that, should your application beachball (lock up), the minimize button will no longer minimize the window consistently. It often chooses to wait until the program is responsive again before minimizing. This doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
Yes.
This deal is not designed to make anything better for tech junkies who already have a favorite distro and are comfortable with compiling their own kernel. The whole point of this is to make Linux more accessible for Joe Average, who uses whatever is included on his computer and is terrified to change it. By giving him a (hopefully cheaper) option to buy his laptop with Linux preinstalled, you've just converted someone who would never willing install Linux on his Windows box. This is the market segment that Linux advocates have been unable to reach for years now, and having Linux preinstalled on Dells is by far the best way to woo them. That being said, I'm tossing my hat in for Ubuntu, which has (arguably) the best, idiot-proof experience on the market today. Don't offer a myriad of options on the order page; the only people who would understand them will probably reformat their hard drive when they get their computer anyway. Make it as simple and obvious as possible, and THEN you'll start to see some real market penetration.
I would have no problem believing that each consecutive release of a given OS should require slightly higher requirements, if it weren't for Apple's OS X. In the past five years, each consecutive release of OS X (10.0-10.4, and supposedly even 10.5, though I haven't tried it myself yet) has run faster, with better graphics and more features, than the previous version. So why exactly can't Microsoft do the same with Windows? Every release of Windows has been dog-slow compared to the previous version on the same hardware. I don't know how it works in the Linux world, but Apple has proven that OS upgrades shouldn't require a new computer as well.
Considering that I've been unofficially promised an internship at Google's Phoenix office this coming summer, maybe it's time I start to learn a little Cocoa/Xcode. After all, I've had Hillegass's book sitting on my shelf for a few months now... *starts reading*