The problem here isn't that we shouldn't strive to educate users. The problem is that the user being poorly educated in these matters isn't an excuse for running somebody over.
The "problem" to which you refer is an integral part of human nature. So essentially you're saying "it should be like this", which of course is no help at all. It is the way it is and in light of that it's apparent that the average user is indeed to blame when they get pwned. Any other conclusion is just silly.
WTF are you talking about? There is certainly adware that runs on windows as well as on Mac OS. It's just a normal part of the [proprietary] software ecosystem, like shareware or trialware. Usually the advantage of adware is you can use the software while enduring the ad or pay money for the ad-free version.
This business of Apple being constantly praised uncritically or damned irrationally on slashdot is getting really old. Steve Jobs is neither your saviour nor the antichrist, and iAd is just a way for developers to offer an ad-sponsored software option.
you were doing fine until you felt the need to bash on the OS. IMHO that was unnecessary and discredited your remarks.
I didn't "bash" anything or anyone, just calling it as I see it. If you think about the fact that it would be trivial for Apple to support as many filesystems as Linux does, it becomes obvious that what I said has merit. Steve Jobs may have been Apple's saviour as far as profitability goes, but he's also been responsible for making some kinds of interoperability very difficult. Lack of support for filesystems other than FAT and HFS+ is just one example, but IMHO it's inexcusable. With a userland rooted in BSD there's just no good reason why OS X should not be the king of interoperability, it would be so easy! But the same kind of thinking that causes a Linux or BSD install on a Mac to be labeled "Windows" in the boot menu (because "Mac" and "Windows" are the only OSes acknowledged by the boot code) means you can't have any filesystem Jobs doesn't like. Only the most hardcore of fanbois would not see the problem with this.
A protective, walled garden for the iPhone is one thing (though not my thing, BTW) -- withholding what should be basic functionality on a general-pupose computer is something else altogether.
I bought my first computer, a Mac SE, in 1987. My current Mac, purchased in 2009, will probably be my last. But I suppose the millions of new customers gained selling CE devices will more than compensate Apple for the few serious geeks who will migrate to other brands. They seem to have lots of rabid non-geek fans now.
Unless you're using Tiger or earlier, UFS is not an option. The last two versions do not support UFS at all. However, HFS+ support in Linux is pretty good. Otherwise you're looking at mac-fuse for ext2/3, which IME is pretty slow and buggy. I thinks Jobs has gone out of his way to make OS X incompatible with OSes other than windows. Maybe he's afraid of what will happen if everyone becomes aware they have other choices.
Rather than lose China, I'd comply with the government's wishes and obey the law (i.e. filter). Nice guys who "do no evil" ultimately finish last.
--
My XP PC is slowly dying. Have an old Mac w/ 10.5 you want to get rid of? I'll pay shipping : ) harleykevin@netscape.com
It's amusing you still believe "nice guys finish last" while you're fine with being evil but have to resort to begging for other people's used, cast-off hardware. The lesson seems to be lost on you, but in a nutshell it's a myth that evil triumphs while good fails. In fact, "good" and "evil" have absolutely nothing to do with success or failure. To believe otherwise is simple superstition.
So while for you it might be "a prison" perhaps for Apple's happy customers it's a "playground".
Really, just buy what you like and stop worrying about what other people are buying. It's supposed to be all about choice, remember?
The gap is permanent. As a casual gamer I know this because once in a while when I try to play some "advanced" game I find that just learning the rules and controls takes more time than I meant to spend playing the game, so I give up and go back to a simpler game I already know. We don't all have the time to devote to "advanced gaming", you know... Even when I was a kid I didn't have that kind of time available for such frivolity. Work, work, work!
You appear to be advocating "protecting terminally ill patients from themselves". Seeing as how they are already terminally ill that seems just a bit silly. Who better to experiment on than a terminally patient with nothing to lose who is willing to give it a shot?
Our health care choices are already far too restricted -- ever notice how the word "prescription", which actually means "recommendation" is used as if it means "license"? If you need a substance but the witch doctors who represent Big Pharma say you don't you can be imprisoned for posessing it -- now that's real insanity!
It's an obscure, very rickety OS built on top of DOS by a cheeky little company called "microsoft". Obviously they stole the name from the xwindows system, no doubt desperately hoping to cash in on the resulting confusion.
Wasn't Nevada also proclaimed as the dumping ground for nuclear and toxic waste?
What, you mean it isn't anymore? Last time I was there (in '87 or so) the locals were packing to drive out to the desert to witness an underground nuclear test. Those people who live in Nevada, they're quite special from what I saw. Perhaps related to Floridians.
Install Linux and enjoy your freedoms without a distortion field, DRM, book removal or mass packet collection.
Time to take computing back from the multinationals and make it personal again.
If you mean Android, you know that's a *non-free* version of Linux, right? It's owned by your carrier, who can change policies and dictate pretty much any terms they like.
You overestimate the average consumer's ability to care about things such as being able to run software from anywhere
Exactly, for the average person there are more than enough iPhone apps to do everything they care to do. Though I do prefer my blackberry, because I need a real network with proper service availability even in the sticks and also a querty keyboard is a must -- and please, fanbois, restrain yourselves from telling me yet again how great the onscreen keyboard is on your iPhone. I've tried it, and sorry but you're absolutely wrong about that.
It's effectively true, because of all the subsidies the OEMs get for installing windows. Plus the perception of the average "consumer" is "I got windows free with my computer". So while the true cost of windows is huge, almost incalculably so, it's also "cheap", as in everyone gets it without any real effort and minimal up-front expense. Which actually, is exactly like Wal-Mart if you stop to think about it...
That's a nice idea and all, but quite honestly I fail to see any "need" for microsoft products. Other than codecs for wma/wmv (and pirated windurrs in virtualbox for testing and the occasional netflix streaming), I haven't needed any microsoft products in years. The real need is to convince people (and netflix) they don't need microsoft. It's not as if they have any "killer apps" anymore. They're just coasting on the momentum they built by strong-arming the OEMs into making them the only OS available on new PCs.
The only people I can understand thinking they need ms are the gamers, and really that's on them to vote with their dollars and make the game publishers release for more platforms.
They don't, for the same reason I don't cancel my netflix membership and tell them it's because of silverlight -- because it's very inconvenient. Though I have sent about a dozen emails telling them the silverlight choice sucks...
Yes that's all well and fine, but my point is that that particular functionality has no business being an integral part of the DE. Why is kde4 trying to be an OS? Just provide the DE, or at least make it properly modular so that all this extra crap isn't a requirement. It's too much like Apple or MS, they're trying to stuff this notion of "the kde way" down everyone's throats.
I guess it's just one more example of how mainstream Linux has lost sight of the UNIX philosophy.
The more MS tries to force Bing down everyone's throats, the more determined I am to boycott Bing. It pissed me off so much the day I found that Verizon had signed a deal with MS to make Bing the exclusive (not merely default) search provider on my Blackberry. Of course, I countered by putting google at the top of my bookmarks, but really I shouldn't have to maneuver around microsoft's asshat shenanigans just to use my search provider of choice on my phone (and yes, I resent verizon for that as well).
Plus obviously one has to wonder: "If Bing is so freaking great than why is MS paying to have it force-fed all over? Like all those pop-up ads so many sites have now that resolve to Bing -- and they count those as hits for their search engine, which probably at least quadruples their numbers.
It's inconvenient to dislike MS, because they're everywhere. I'd rather be able to embrace them, I really would. But their behavior is just so objectionable in so many ways it's impossible.
In truth, akonadi and nepomuk are just a waste of system resources. Not only are they not needed, they're buggy as hell. Seems to me the kde devs have gotten lost in minutiae and forgotten that the point of a DE really is to provide a transparent, appealing framework from which to run apps. If it gets in the way or demands you read a lot of documentation, it means you're doing it wrong.
Hell, it was less effort for me to script my own DE functionality around awesome wm than to learn kde4 so I could support my users who want it.
Flying is still pretty nice if you can get your employer to spring for chartered. The security people wait for *you* instead of the other way around. I'll never go back...
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The "problem" to which you refer is an integral part of human nature. So essentially you're saying "it should be like this", which of course is no help at all. It is the way it is and in light of that it's apparent that the average user is indeed to blame when they get pwned. Any other conclusion is just silly.
Well if they're going to have monkeys and we're getting robots at least the entertainment value should go up a bit.
Man, you fanbois are going just a little too far trying to convert others to your distro!
No, you're the one who is clueless -- about what that famous phrase actually means.
WTF are you talking about? There is certainly adware that runs on windows as well as on Mac OS. It's just a normal part of the [proprietary] software ecosystem, like shareware or trialware. Usually the advantage of adware is you can use the software while enduring the ad or pay money for the ad-free version.
This business of Apple being constantly praised uncritically or damned irrationally on slashdot is getting really old. Steve Jobs is neither your saviour nor the antichrist, and iAd is just a way for developers to offer an ad-sponsored software option.
I didn't "bash" anything or anyone, just calling it as I see it. If you think about the fact that it would be trivial for Apple to support as many filesystems as Linux does, it becomes obvious that what I said has merit. Steve Jobs may have been Apple's saviour as far as profitability goes, but he's also been responsible for making some kinds of interoperability very difficult. Lack of support for filesystems other than FAT and HFS+ is just one example, but IMHO it's inexcusable. With a userland rooted in BSD there's just no good reason why OS X should not be the king of interoperability, it would be so easy! But the same kind of thinking that causes a Linux or BSD install on a Mac to be labeled "Windows" in the boot menu (because "Mac" and "Windows" are the only OSes acknowledged by the boot code) means you can't have any filesystem Jobs doesn't like. Only the most hardcore of fanbois would not see the problem with this.
A protective, walled garden for the iPhone is one thing (though not my thing, BTW) -- withholding what should be basic functionality on a general-pupose computer is something else altogether. I bought my first computer, a Mac SE, in 1987. My current Mac, purchased in 2009, will probably be my last. But I suppose the millions of new customers gained selling CE devices will more than compensate Apple for the few serious geeks who will migrate to other brands. They seem to have lots of rabid non-geek fans now.
Unless you're using Tiger or earlier, UFS is not an option. The last two versions do not support UFS at all. However, HFS+ support in Linux is pretty good. Otherwise you're looking at mac-fuse for ext2/3, which IME is pretty slow and buggy. I thinks Jobs has gone out of his way to make OS X incompatible with OSes other than windows. Maybe he's afraid of what will happen if everyone becomes aware they have other choices.
It's amusing you still believe "nice guys finish last" while you're fine with being evil but have to resort to begging for other people's used, cast-off hardware. The lesson seems to be lost on you, but in a nutshell it's a myth that evil triumphs while good fails. In fact, "good" and "evil" have absolutely nothing to do with success or failure. To believe otherwise is simple superstition.
So while for you it might be "a prison" perhaps for Apple's happy customers it's a "playground". Really, just buy what you like and stop worrying about what other people are buying. It's supposed to be all about choice, remember ?
The gap is permanent. As a casual gamer I know this because once in a while when I try to play some "advanced" game I find that just learning the rules and controls takes more time than I meant to spend playing the game, so I give up and go back to a simpler game I already know. We don't all have the time to devote to "advanced gaming", you know... Even when I was a kid I didn't have that kind of time available for such frivolity. Work, work, work!
You appear to be advocating "protecting terminally ill patients from themselves". Seeing as how they are already terminally ill that seems just a bit silly. Who better to experiment on than a terminally patient with nothing to lose who is willing to give it a shot?
Our health care choices are already far too restricted -- ever notice how the word "prescription", which actually means "recommendation" is used as if it means "license"? If you need a substance but the witch doctors who represent Big Pharma say you don't you can be imprisoned for posessing it -- now that's real insanity!
It's an obscure, very rickety OS built on top of DOS by a cheeky little company called "microsoft". Obviously they stole the name from the xwindows system, no doubt desperately hoping to cash in on the resulting confusion.
What, you mean it isn't anymore? Last time I was there (in '87 or so) the locals were packing to drive out to the desert to witness an underground nuclear test. Those people who live in Nevada, they're quite special from what I saw. Perhaps related to Floridians.
Agreed, actually. I said I know how to use emacs, not that I prefer it. :)
It's about precision. Those of us who know how to use emacs understand it. :)
I certainly don't agree with everything RMS has to say, but I do respect his intelligence and his conviction. Signed the petition, too.
If you mean Android, you know that's a *non-free* version of Linux, right? It's owned by your carrier, who can change policies and dictate pretty much any terms they like.
Oh, that was me. What I said was, "stop staring at me, you creepy little thing!"
Exactly, for the average person there are more than enough iPhone apps to do everything they care to do. Though I do prefer my blackberry, because I need a real network with proper service availability even in the sticks and also a querty keyboard is a must -- and please, fanbois, restrain yourselves from telling me yet again how great the onscreen keyboard is on your iPhone. I've tried it, and sorry but you're absolutely wrong about that.
It's effectively true, because of all the subsidies the OEMs get for installing windows. Plus the perception of the average "consumer" is "I got windows free with my computer". So while the true cost of windows is huge, almost incalculably so, it's also "cheap", as in everyone gets it without any real effort and minimal up-front expense. Which actually, is exactly like Wal-Mart if you stop to think about it...
That's a nice idea and all, but quite honestly I fail to see any "need" for microsoft products. Other than codecs for wma/wmv (and pirated windurrs in virtualbox for testing and the occasional netflix streaming), I haven't needed any microsoft products in years. The real need is to convince people (and netflix) they don't need microsoft. It's not as if they have any "killer apps" anymore. They're just coasting on the momentum they built by strong-arming the OEMs into making them the only OS available on new PCs.
The only people I can understand thinking they need ms are the gamers, and really that's on them to vote with their dollars and make the game publishers release for more platforms. They don't, for the same reason I don't cancel my netflix membership and tell them it's because of silverlight -- because it's very inconvenient. Though I have sent about a dozen emails telling them the silverlight choice sucks...
Yes that's all well and fine, but my point is that that particular functionality has no business being an integral part of the DE. Why is kde4 trying to be an OS? Just provide the DE, or at least make it properly modular so that all this extra crap isn't a requirement. It's too much like Apple or MS, they're trying to stuff this notion of "the kde way" down everyone's throats.
I guess it's just one more example of how mainstream Linux has lost sight of the UNIX philosophy.
The more MS tries to force Bing down everyone's throats, the more determined I am to boycott Bing. It pissed me off so much the day I found that Verizon had signed a deal with MS to make Bing the exclusive (not merely default) search provider on my Blackberry. Of course, I countered by putting google at the top of my bookmarks, but really I shouldn't have to maneuver around microsoft's asshat shenanigans just to use my search provider of choice on my phone (and yes, I resent verizon for that as well).
Plus obviously one has to wonder: "If Bing is so freaking great than why is MS paying to have it force-fed all over? Like all those pop-up ads so many sites have now that resolve to Bing -- and they count those as hits for their search engine, which probably at least quadruples their numbers.
It's inconvenient to dislike MS, because they're everywhere. I'd rather be able to embrace them, I really would. But their behavior is just so objectionable in so many ways it's impossible.
In truth, akonadi and nepomuk are just a waste of system resources. Not only are they not needed, they're buggy as hell. Seems to me the kde devs have gotten lost in minutiae and forgotten that the point of a DE really is to provide a transparent, appealing framework from which to run apps. If it gets in the way or demands you read a lot of documentation, it means you're doing it wrong.
Hell, it was less effort for me to script my own DE functionality around awesome wm than to learn kde4 so I could support my users who want it.
Flying is still pretty nice if you can get your employer to spring for chartered. The security people wait for *you* instead of the other way around. I'll never go back...
Seems NHTSA has stopped access to it now, according to Edward Niedermeyer's latest at TTAC.