I can do the same thing with my Motorola Q as far as ringers are concerned. I frequently find a part of a favorite song I would like as a ringtone and create an mp3 ringtone with Audacity.
I have epilepsy and issues with directions/spatial orientation. I have to walk to a location several times before I can get there without becoming lost. It took me two weeks to figure out how to get to one of the places I worked a few years ago. A handheld GPS would have been helpful. I'm not saying Nokia's implementation is helpful, mind you, but there are those of us who benefit from such systems.
It's not theft, it's copyright infringement. There is a difference. A big difference. Many Slashdotters with an understanding of legal terminology have attempted to explain this before, so I'm probably being redundant, but too many people are painting this issue the wrong color.
If I steal your car, I deprive you of your car. I can use your car, but you cannot use your car. If I download a song or a film, I do not deprive you (as copyright holder) of the ability to use your property in any way. There's a very small chance I will deprive you of a sale, but there's no guarantee that you lost a sale by my download, hence copyright infringement.
While I agree that Apple's DRM is not as onerous as some Slashdotters make it out to be, it is noticeable. If I want to play my music on a friend's computer, my friend has to have iTunes and I have to use my info to share the music; I was also unable to burn any of my protected content to CD in iTunes on my recently replaced machine, and I haven't tried CD burning with my new machine, yet. So, I definitely noticed.
The 'official' campus bookstore of the university I attend is operated by Barnes & Noble, and I know Follet operates the bookstores for a few of the Bay Area community colleges, and they haven't much interest in helping students save money. Advertising for OO.org in a bookstore would be like advertising for Amazon.com or Half.com.
However, there are usually independent booksellers near most major university campuses where such advertisements would probably be welcome.
I recently purchased an e1505 via Dell's education purchase program, and Microsoft Office (a full, non-trial version) was included in the purchase price. However, Linux is my primary OS (e.g. I use it except for the rare venture into Second Life or Fantasy Grounds to play tabletop D&D), and for the majority of tasks I find Abiword is more than capable. OO is sluggish with only 512MB of RAM, and Impress and Calc have too many issues cooperating with MS Office (or vice versa) for me to use them over MS Office.
If I had to purchase MS Office it would cost me $68.50 for the standard edition (not Student/Academic); if I were a grad student or member of the teaching faculty it would cost $9.00, and for many students it's worth paying the $68.50 once to avoid the hassle of having to fix your presentations after they've been imported to Powerpoint from Impress.
I've enquired about having OO installed on the machines in the labs and lecture halls, but the IT department doesn't see the point of dealing with more software when MS Office is installed by default and trouble enough as it is.
The tax you referred to is called 'jizyah,' and it's a tax imposed on all adult, non-Muslim males living under an Islamic government; the tax was applied to Jews, Christians, and other accepted religious groups (dhimmis). If I remember correctly, the Sabeans and the Zoroastrians were the other groups.
The tax was supposed to provide impetus to convert to Islam.
Apple's notebook build quality seems to have gone down the drain since the clamshell iBook. I had to have my white iBook G3's power adapter replaced because of fraying as well; I really don't think this article is FUD.
If Zune can play the same formats as an iPod and more, I'd consider buying one. If Zune's DRM is less restrictive than Apple's or I can choose where I buy, and thus whose DRM I use, my music, I'd be much more likely to buy one. The screen already looks nicer than the Video iPod, and I could see myself watching an episode of a TV show during a flight or something.
Unfortunately, Apple did not fix my iBook G3 without fuss or without attempting to charge me. When I first phoned Apple to send my iBook G3 (with a flawed logic board) in for service, the CSR told me the only way I could be experiencing such symptoms was if I had dropped the machine. I had to take the machine to a 'local' Apple certified technician (who was about an hour from me) to have it inspected; he agreed that the problem was not one I had caused. It took a further 4 weeks to get the logic board replaced. Repeat this process three more times within the first year of ownership. Instead of replacing the iBook with a non-defective run, they continued replacing defective parts with defective parts. I ended up without the machine for a grand total of 10 weeks during the first year I owned it.
There wasn't much of a second year. The logic board failed as soon as the warranty expired (and because of the way Apple chooses to sell AppleCare as insurance instead of an extended factory warranty, it was unavailable in my state), and the display's backlight went shortly before the logic board. It turns out that there was an issue with that particular series of iBook where the sharp plastic molding in the hinges abraided the wiring providing power to the display every time the lid was opened or closed, which eventually led to the connection being severed.
A few months after I had already purchased the aforementioned Dell, Apple finally instituted their logic board replacement program, but they still wanted to charge me $499 to repair the display problem. I gave the machine to my brother, along with an old CRT (with a Trinitron tube, those things last forever, btw), and after the logic board died again, I couldn't be bothered to send it to Apple for replacement yet again.
Dealing with Dell is something like being in purgatory or the first circle of Hell whereas dealing with Apple is like being in the sixth or seventh circle of Hell. Dell is certainly imperfect, and I've had my share of hassles, but whether it's a personal machine or one used by a family member's small business, I've not experienced the same level of downtime and outright refusal to repair design flaws.
As much as I loathe Apple's manufacturing and QA practices, if you bought an Intel Mac, you could easily run Windows XP without resorting to VMWare or VirtualPC to do it. So, your complaints seem largely baseless in light of the new generation Apple computers being able to run Windows natively.
If your engineering applications require hardware specifications an Apple can't offer, okay. Use Windows, please; nobody is twisting your arm. I use both Windows and Linux myself, but I can meet my Windows needs by running Windows inside of VMWare Player or QEmu, and I use Linux for my day-to-day computing. If Linux couldn't meet my day to day computing needs, I wouldn't use it; it's that simple.
Of course it crosses a privacy line, for me at least. When I shop at Amazon.com, I generally know what I want to buy already, and I very rarely pay any attention at all to Amazon's recommendations. I think this is a case of Amazon trying to over-extend itself; I shop Amazon for the low prices and the hassle free shopping experience, but if they do begin asking for too much information, I will have to take my business elsewhere.
Honestly, with all the 'problems' I've read about with the MacBook and MacBook Pro, plus the problems I've experienced with Apple portables since the iBook G3, it seems like Apple sells "low quality cheap crap" for more than Dell or another PC vendor. Just because Apple charges more for their hardware doesn't mean its quality is better, and as Apple has proven time and again it usually isn't.
Westerners might blame the Ottoman Empire, because they were on the wrong side of WWI, but most middle easterners are more likely to blame Western powers like England for completely bungling things up while various Ottoman provinces were turned into mandates and given over to Western powers to (mis)manage. The Balfour declaration didn't help either.
From a certain perspective, the West (largely England) made its bed and now we're lying in it. Western powers did a fair bit of nation-building and propping up corrupt governments.
From that perspective, our continuing support of Israel over and above the Palestinians has been nothing but fuel on the flames of a fire started circa 1919. A Muslim acquaintance described Western treatment of Arabs and Muslims as very similar to US treatment of Native Americans; they were resettled and forced to live with ethnic groups they didn't get along with, regardless of long-standing tribal or religious feuds, and then people who were foreign to the area were introduced into the mix and supported by the League of Nations.
I don't think it's ridiculous to say that Western powers bear at least some responsibility for all of this; it's fairly obvious just from looking at history.
You seem to be propagating the fallacy of simple majority rule. The law exists, in part, to protect the minority from the majority. The Courts have ruled, time and again, that so long as the nativity scene is not the only religious display, it's permissible. The problem usually arises when a municipality puts up a nativity scene and someone says, "Do you mind if we put a menorah up as well, seeing as Chaunakah is right around the corner?" and the municipality refuses to do so. That's showing favoritism to the majority, and that's why it's not legal.
A paid holiday (which in many places can 'float' if the employee would like) is given to every city employee regardless of their religious preference or lack thereof.
Public life needn't be devoid of any reference to 'god' or religion... George W. Bush makes plenty of Christian references while standing behind a podium with the Presidential Seal on it, but they're generally acceptable because he is not advocating that the government support one religion over another. You're welcome to talk about your religion in public, as a private citizen or as a non-government supported organization, but the government cannot establish or support any one religion over another.
It doesn't seem like things have changed much in Apple world since my iBook G3. I seriously thought about getting a MacBook or an MBP to replace my old Inspiron 1000, but this just seems to be proof that a leopard doesn't change its spots.
Good luck getting something that works.
Nah, I think Dell's plan for continued profitability is to continue turning the PC into a commodity. I buy Dell because Dell is affordable, and I get more for my money. $970 buys a decent portable computer for a student, and the computer will do far more than just basic word processing to boot.
But no, Dell's business model definitely doesn't appear to revolve around selling high-end machines to everyone.
I'm a Slackware user myself; I normally use Slackware 10.2 on an Inspiron 1000, and I just recently ordered an E1505 which will most likely be loaded with Slackware. However, I don't think Slackware is a good candidate for pre-loading onto consumer machines, or business machines for that matter.
I use Slackware because, despite its lack of GUI configurators, it's highly customizable and fairly easy (if time consuming) to configure. It took me two years of using Slackware to get to that point. I'm very particular about the way my computer handles certain events. I don't like to automount removable media, for example, and I'm picky about which packages are installed. In other words, I'd just reconfigure the installation anyhow.
Most administrators I know are similarly picky and customize the Slackware installation routine specifically for their needs. Buying pre-loaded machines probably wouldn't save them any time, either.
What are the target markets for machines with Linux pre-loaded? Business desktop/notebook users by the look of things. Given that, it seems that a company like Dell would do better to pick something like Ubuntu with machine-specific drivers included.
As Dell noted, Linux users tend to be shippers for their favorite distro, and they gripe when they perceive their distro as being slighted. The Linux community tends to setup a no-win situation. Dell goes out on a limb and ships machines with RedHat, there's not much of a market in the general consumer/business world, and they stop.
Unfortunately, current plans for a stable versus unstable Wikipedia branch don't appear to address the flaws with the philosophy behind Wikipedia, one of which is the lack of qualified scholars. A Wikipedia administrator is not, by virtue of being an administrator, anymore qualified to dub an article 'stable' than a normal user of Wikipedia.
If Wikipedia is going to go through the trouble of creating a stable branch, Wikipedia ought to consider soliciting scholars and other qualified individuals to scrutinize articles for factual content rather than mere conjecture or personal opinion. In most colleges and universities Wikipedia is not considered a suitable source for research, even as a jumping off point, because its information cannot be verified.
That would make almost anyone in a managerial role 'communist.'
There is something wrong with $5.15 an hour; there's nothing wrong with taking a look at a minimum wage which hasn't been raised in a decade and saying "Hey, look, over 30 million Americans who work full time jobs cannot make ends meet, and we need to do something about it."
People on the internet are too quick to throw around charges of "communist" or "socialism" when they lack even a rudimentary understanding of what either of those philosophies advocate.
This sounds fairly similar to what the IRS does to American Nationals who make over a certain amount of money working in a foreign country. I don't think they can currently tax corporations in the same way as they can citizens, but thanks to the notion of corporate personhood aren't corporations also 'people' for tax purposes?
I also had a G3 iBook that died immediately out of warranty. It also died four times while it was in warranty; each time, the iBook required a logic board replacement.
Apple still wouldn't admit it was a widespread problem (it was).
After the machine went out of warranty, the display died because of the way the wiring for the LCD backlight was run through hinges with sharp edges. Every time a user opens and closes the lid of a G3 iBook, it abraids the wiring. Eventually, the LCD backlight will stop functioning because the connection is severed completely.
This was a late-model iBook, purchased approximately 5 months before the G4 iBook made its debut. I didn't want to end up disliking Apple, but trying to get $499 out of a customer to fix a design flaw is ridiculous. At the time, Apple had not yet begun the gratis replacement of G3 logic boards, so it would've cost me ~$689 for that plus $499 for the display. That adds up to $1200 or ~$110 more than I paid in the beginning.
When your lifestyle necessitates a portable computer that functions at least 95% of the time, and you know that Apple is fairly well known for producing lemons, Apple isn't an option. Comparing the iBook's track record with the very cheap Dell portable I purchased to replace it, I've only had to send it in for service twice; one of those times was because it flew from one end of a bus to the other when the bus was in an accident, and the other was because, after 2 years of 10-12 hours of constant use a day, the motherboard needed replacing.
The Dell service and support hasn't been perfect, but the machine has only been out of my hands for a total of six days since I've owned it. If a PC manufacturer ever starts making eye-candy machines and installs Ubuntu by default, it could represent real competiton.
Given Apple's penchant for shipping shoddy first, and sometimes second, revision hardware, Apple may be more vulnerable than it realizes to bleeding a sizable portion of its userbase. This is contingent on Ubuntu being able to rival OS X and a PC-manufacturer producing pretty, solid, functional hardware.
Why does everything need to be FOSS? FOSS developers seem to enjoy writing software that's enjoyable to write. There's not much joy in writing a financial app for free. If we keep insisting that everything needs to be FOSS, we're not going to catch up in terms of marketshare. A commercial developer may be inclined to write an Open Source financial app than a bunch of volunteer developers would. IMO the FOSS community would be better off encouraging commercial development of lacking applications in order to encourage wider adoption of FOSS in general.
If I can use Linux (or *BSD), Firefox, Thunderbird, and OOo for free and then have to pay for an accounting application, I can live with that.
The only reason I'm currently using FOSS is because the FOSS I use works like I need it to work, not because it's FOSS. Most users aren't idealists.
I have to agree that most of what I want to do on a computer can be done with Linux, but I don't know how well I fit into that mythical typical user category.
I'm a student studying Anthropology, so I really only need a web browser, an e-mail client, a word processor, and something to create Powerpoint compatible presentations. When I want to game, I either play MUDs or my Xbox, so I don't need to be able to use my computer for gaming purposes.
I switched to Linux two months ago, to see if I really could use Linux for my daily needs, and with the exception of OneNote, I haven't really noticed a difference. OneNote, however, is why I'm looking in to virtualizing Windows XP. I have cerebral palsy, and I often can't read my own writing a few days later. OneNote allows me to continue taking my own notes, because I can type them in to OneNote and organize them almost the same way I would on paper; the ability to continue taking my own notes is worth the cost of a license or the trouble of pirating it for me. I realize I'm probably atypical in that regard, but in my experience there are a lot of users like me who don't really care where their copy of Windows came from so long as it works.
This is probably a little off topic and will be thusly devoured by the mods.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got the same issue. 15.4" display with 1280x800 resolution.
It's not a question of the gene pool getting dirtier as you put it, but narrower. There's a huge difference.
I can do the same thing with my Motorola Q as far as ringers are concerned. I frequently find a part of a favorite song I would like as a ringtone and create an mp3 ringtone with Audacity.
I have epilepsy and issues with directions/spatial orientation. I have to walk to a location several times before I can get there without becoming lost. It took me two weeks to figure out how to get to one of the places I worked a few years ago. A handheld GPS would have been helpful. I'm not saying Nokia's implementation is helpful, mind you, but there are those of us who benefit from such systems.
It's not theft, it's copyright infringement. There is a difference. A big difference. Many Slashdotters with an understanding of legal terminology have attempted to explain this before, so I'm probably being redundant, but too many people are painting this issue the wrong color.
If I steal your car, I deprive you of your car. I can use your car, but you cannot use your car. If I download a song or a film, I do not deprive you (as copyright holder) of the ability to use your property in any way. There's a very small chance I will deprive you of a sale, but there's no guarantee that you lost a sale by my download, hence copyright infringement.
While I agree that Apple's DRM is not as onerous as some Slashdotters make it out to be, it is noticeable. If I want to play my music on a friend's computer, my friend has to have iTunes and I have to use my info to share the music; I was also unable to burn any of my protected content to CD in iTunes on my recently replaced machine, and I haven't tried CD burning with my new machine, yet. So, I definitely noticed.
The 'official' campus bookstore of the university I attend is operated by Barnes & Noble, and I know Follet operates the bookstores for a few of the Bay Area community colleges, and they haven't much interest in helping students save money. Advertising for OO.org in a bookstore would be like advertising for Amazon.com or Half.com.
However, there are usually independent booksellers near most major university campuses where such advertisements would probably be welcome.
I recently purchased an e1505 via Dell's education purchase program, and Microsoft Office (a full, non-trial version) was included in the purchase price. However, Linux is my primary OS (e.g. I use it except for the rare venture into Second Life or Fantasy Grounds to play tabletop D&D), and for the majority of tasks I find Abiword is more than capable. OO is sluggish with only 512MB of RAM, and Impress and Calc have too many issues cooperating with MS Office (or vice versa) for me to use them over MS Office.
If I had to purchase MS Office it would cost me $68.50 for the standard edition (not Student/Academic); if I were a grad student or member of the teaching faculty it would cost $9.00, and for many students it's worth paying the $68.50 once to avoid the hassle of having to fix your presentations after they've been imported to Powerpoint from Impress.
I've enquired about having OO installed on the machines in the labs and lecture halls, but the IT department doesn't see the point of dealing with more software when MS Office is installed by default and trouble enough as it is.
The tax you referred to is called 'jizyah,' and it's a tax imposed on all adult, non-Muslim males living under an Islamic government; the tax was applied to Jews, Christians, and other accepted religious groups (dhimmis). If I remember correctly, the Sabeans and the Zoroastrians were the other groups.
The tax was supposed to provide impetus to convert to Islam.
Apple's notebook build quality seems to have gone down the drain since the clamshell iBook. I had to have my white iBook G3's power adapter replaced because of fraying as well; I really don't think this article is FUD.
If Zune can play the same formats as an iPod and more, I'd consider buying one. If Zune's DRM is less restrictive than Apple's or I can choose where I buy, and thus whose DRM I use, my music, I'd be much more likely to buy one. The screen already looks nicer than the Video iPod, and I could see myself watching an episode of a TV show during a flight or something.
Now, the important question: Does it run Linux?
Unfortunately, Apple did not fix my iBook G3 without fuss or without attempting to charge me. When I first phoned Apple to send my iBook G3 (with a flawed logic board) in for service, the CSR told me the only way I could be experiencing such symptoms was if I had dropped the machine. I had to take the machine to a 'local' Apple certified technician (who was about an hour from me) to have it inspected; he agreed that the problem was not one I had caused. It took a further 4 weeks to get the logic board replaced. Repeat this process three more times within the first year of ownership. Instead of replacing the iBook with a non-defective run, they continued replacing defective parts with defective parts. I ended up without the machine for a grand total of 10 weeks during the first year I owned it.
There wasn't much of a second year. The logic board failed as soon as the warranty expired (and because of the way Apple chooses to sell AppleCare as insurance instead of an extended factory warranty, it was unavailable in my state), and the display's backlight went shortly before the logic board. It turns out that there was an issue with that particular series of iBook where the sharp plastic molding in the hinges abraided the wiring providing power to the display every time the lid was opened or closed, which eventually led to the connection being severed.
A few months after I had already purchased the aforementioned Dell, Apple finally instituted their logic board replacement program, but they still wanted to charge me $499 to repair the display problem. I gave the machine to my brother, along with an old CRT (with a Trinitron tube, those things last forever, btw), and after the logic board died again, I couldn't be bothered to send it to Apple for replacement yet again.
Dealing with Dell is something like being in purgatory or the first circle of Hell whereas dealing with Apple is like being in the sixth or seventh circle of Hell. Dell is certainly imperfect, and I've had my share of hassles, but whether it's a personal machine or one used by a family member's small business, I've not experienced the same level of downtime and outright refusal to repair design flaws.
As much as I loathe Apple's manufacturing and QA practices, if you bought an Intel Mac, you could easily run Windows XP without resorting to VMWare or VirtualPC to do it. So, your complaints seem largely baseless in light of the new generation Apple computers being able to run Windows natively.
If your engineering applications require hardware specifications an Apple can't offer, okay. Use Windows, please; nobody is twisting your arm. I use both Windows and Linux myself, but I can meet my Windows needs by running Windows inside of VMWare Player or QEmu, and I use Linux for my day-to-day computing. If Linux couldn't meet my day to day computing needs, I wouldn't use it; it's that simple.
Of course it crosses a privacy line, for me at least. When I shop at Amazon.com, I generally know what I want to buy already, and I very rarely pay any attention at all to Amazon's recommendations. I think this is a case of Amazon trying to over-extend itself; I shop Amazon for the low prices and the hassle free shopping experience, but if they do begin asking for too much information, I will have to take my business elsewhere.
Honestly, with all the 'problems' I've read about with the MacBook and MacBook Pro, plus the problems I've experienced with Apple portables since the iBook G3, it seems like Apple sells "low quality cheap crap" for more than Dell or another PC vendor. Just because Apple charges more for their hardware doesn't mean its quality is better, and as Apple has proven time and again it usually isn't.
Westerners might blame the Ottoman Empire, because they were on the wrong side of WWI, but most middle easterners are more likely to blame Western powers like England for completely bungling things up while various Ottoman provinces were turned into mandates and given over to Western powers to (mis)manage. The Balfour declaration didn't help either.
From a certain perspective, the West (largely England) made its bed and now we're lying in it. Western powers did a fair bit of nation-building and propping up corrupt governments.
From that perspective, our continuing support of Israel over and above the Palestinians has been nothing but fuel on the flames of a fire started circa 1919. A Muslim acquaintance described Western treatment of Arabs and Muslims as very similar to US treatment of Native Americans; they were resettled and forced to live with ethnic groups they didn't get along with, regardless of long-standing tribal or religious feuds, and then people who were foreign to the area were introduced into the mix and supported by the League of Nations.
I don't think it's ridiculous to say that Western powers bear at least some responsibility for all of this; it's fairly obvious just from looking at history.
You seem to be propagating the fallacy of simple majority rule. The law exists, in part, to protect the minority from the majority. The Courts have ruled, time and again, that so long as the nativity scene is not the only religious display, it's permissible. The problem usually arises when a municipality puts up a nativity scene and someone says, "Do you mind if we put a menorah up as well, seeing as Chaunakah is right around the corner?" and the municipality refuses to do so. That's showing favoritism to the majority, and that's why it's not legal.
A paid holiday (which in many places can 'float' if the employee would like) is given to every city employee regardless of their religious preference or lack thereof.
Public life needn't be devoid of any reference to 'god' or religion... George W. Bush makes plenty of Christian references while standing behind a podium with the Presidential Seal on it, but they're generally acceptable because he is not advocating that the government support one religion over another. You're welcome to talk about your religion in public, as a private citizen or as a non-government supported organization, but the government cannot establish or support any one religion over another.
It doesn't seem like things have changed much in Apple world since my iBook G3. I seriously thought about getting a MacBook or an MBP to replace my old Inspiron 1000, but this just seems to be proof that a leopard doesn't change its spots. Good luck getting something that works.
Nah, I think Dell's plan for continued profitability is to continue turning the PC into a commodity. I buy Dell because Dell is affordable, and I get more for my money. $970 buys a decent portable computer for a student, and the computer will do far more than just basic word processing to boot. But no, Dell's business model definitely doesn't appear to revolve around selling high-end machines to everyone.
I'm a Slackware user myself; I normally use Slackware 10.2 on an Inspiron 1000, and I just recently ordered an E1505 which will most likely be loaded with Slackware. However, I don't think Slackware is a good candidate for pre-loading onto consumer machines, or business machines for that matter.
I use Slackware because, despite its lack of GUI configurators, it's highly customizable and fairly easy (if time consuming) to configure. It took me two years of using Slackware to get to that point. I'm very particular about the way my computer handles certain events. I don't like to automount removable media, for example, and I'm picky about which packages are installed. In other words, I'd just reconfigure the installation anyhow.
Most administrators I know are similarly picky and customize the Slackware installation routine specifically for their needs. Buying pre-loaded machines probably wouldn't save them any time, either.
What are the target markets for machines with Linux pre-loaded? Business desktop/notebook users by the look of things. Given that, it seems that a company like Dell would do better to pick something like Ubuntu with machine-specific drivers included.
As Dell noted, Linux users tend to be shippers for their favorite distro, and they gripe when they perceive their distro as being slighted. The Linux community tends to setup a no-win situation. Dell goes out on a limb and ships machines with RedHat, there's not much of a market in the general consumer/business world, and they stop.
Linux community complains again.
Unfortunately, current plans for a stable versus unstable Wikipedia branch don't appear to address the flaws with the philosophy behind Wikipedia, one of which is the lack of qualified scholars. A Wikipedia administrator is not, by virtue of being an administrator, anymore qualified to dub an article 'stable' than a normal user of Wikipedia.
If Wikipedia is going to go through the trouble of creating a stable branch, Wikipedia ought to consider soliciting scholars and other qualified individuals to scrutinize articles for factual content rather than mere conjecture or personal opinion. In most colleges and universities Wikipedia is not considered a suitable source for research, even as a jumping off point, because its information cannot be verified.
That would make almost anyone in a managerial role 'communist.'
There is something wrong with $5.15 an hour; there's nothing wrong with taking a look at a minimum wage which hasn't been raised in a decade and saying "Hey, look, over 30 million Americans who work full time jobs cannot make ends meet, and we need to do something about it."
People on the internet are too quick to throw around charges of "communist" or "socialism" when they lack even a rudimentary understanding of what either of those philosophies advocate.
This sounds fairly similar to what the IRS does to American Nationals who make over a certain amount of money working in a foreign country. I don't think they can currently tax corporations in the same way as they can citizens, but thanks to the notion of corporate personhood aren't corporations also 'people' for tax purposes?
I also had a G3 iBook that died immediately out of warranty. It also died four times while it was in warranty; each time, the iBook required a logic board replacement.
Apple still wouldn't admit it was a widespread problem (it was).
After the machine went out of warranty, the display died because of the way the wiring for the LCD backlight was run through hinges with sharp edges. Every time a user opens and closes the lid of a G3 iBook, it abraids the wiring. Eventually, the LCD backlight will stop functioning because the connection is severed completely.
This was a late-model iBook, purchased approximately 5 months before the G4 iBook made its debut. I didn't want to end up disliking Apple, but trying to get $499 out of a customer to fix a design flaw is ridiculous. At the time, Apple had not yet begun the gratis replacement of G3 logic boards, so it would've cost me ~$689 for that plus $499 for the display. That adds up to $1200 or ~$110 more than I paid in the beginning.
When your lifestyle necessitates a portable computer that functions at least 95% of the time, and you know that Apple is fairly well known for producing lemons, Apple isn't an option. Comparing the iBook's track record with the very cheap Dell portable I purchased to replace it, I've only had to send it in for service twice; one of those times was because it flew from one end of a bus to the other when the bus was in an accident, and the other was because, after 2 years of 10-12 hours of constant use a day, the motherboard needed replacing. The Dell service and support hasn't been perfect, but the machine has only been out of my hands for a total of six days since I've owned it. If a PC manufacturer ever starts making eye-candy machines and installs Ubuntu by default, it could represent real competiton.
Given Apple's penchant for shipping shoddy first, and sometimes second, revision hardware, Apple may be more vulnerable than it realizes to bleeding a sizable portion of its userbase. This is contingent on Ubuntu being able to rival OS X and a PC-manufacturer producing pretty, solid, functional hardware.
Why does everything need to be FOSS? FOSS developers seem to enjoy writing software that's enjoyable to write. There's not much joy in writing a financial app for free. If we keep insisting that everything needs to be FOSS, we're not going to catch up in terms of marketshare. A commercial developer may be inclined to write an Open Source financial app than a bunch of volunteer developers would. IMO the FOSS community would be better off encouraging commercial development of lacking applications in order to encourage wider adoption of FOSS in general.
If I can use Linux (or *BSD), Firefox, Thunderbird, and OOo for free and then have to pay for an accounting application, I can live with that.
The only reason I'm currently using FOSS is because the FOSS I use works like I need it to work, not because it's FOSS. Most users aren't idealists.
I have to agree that most of what I want to do on a computer can be done with Linux, but I don't know how well I fit into that mythical typical user category.
I'm a student studying Anthropology, so I really only need a web browser, an e-mail client, a word processor, and something to create Powerpoint compatible presentations. When I want to game, I either play MUDs or my Xbox, so I don't need to be able to use my computer for gaming purposes.
I switched to Linux two months ago, to see if I really could use Linux for my daily needs, and with the exception of OneNote, I haven't really noticed a difference. OneNote, however, is why I'm looking in to virtualizing Windows XP. I have cerebral palsy, and I often can't read my own writing a few days later. OneNote allows me to continue taking my own notes, because I can type them in to OneNote and organize them almost the same way I would on paper; the ability to continue taking my own notes is worth the cost of a license or the trouble of pirating it for me. I realize I'm probably atypical in that regard, but in my experience there are a lot of users like me who don't really care where their copy of Windows came from so long as it works.
This is probably a little off topic and will be thusly devoured by the mods.