I'm sorry, Pulseaudio fucking rocks. I love having every application being able to have a different volume setting. And that's just what tickled me most recently. This asshat believes that innovation comes from economic stimulation because he defines innovation as that thing that Microsoft is doing.
Answer me honestly: Does PulseAudio have that feature because they heard it would be in Windows Vista? Honestly, now, please give me an answer.
Because if PulseAudio implemented the feature after seeing that it was in a Longhorn beta, or hearing stories of Microsoft developing it, then I'd say "that thing that Microsoft is doing" is a pretty good definition. (At least as far as this case goes.)
A better example would be something that Microsoft or Apple *hasn't* done. Do you have one?
Eclipse is a fully mature, OSGi-compliant tools platform that just happens to be, in its default form, a self-hosted Java IDE. However, Eclipse itself can be transmogrified into anything you want it to be, including application servers, games, smart clients, and software that helps run both the Dutch railway and NASA's Mars rovers. That seems pretty innovative to me.
An IBM supporter would tell you that Lotus Notes could do that years ago. Which is true, even though the Notes solution sucks (IMO), it *can* do that. So there goes that innovation. Got anything else?
Whereas for a closed-source equivalent one only needs to look at clippy.
Hey, at least Microsoft's *trying* to make their software more usability. Maybe they hit, maybe they miss, but the open source world doesn't even bother to try until Apple or Microsoft have already settled the issue.
Yes, I know, I'm taking a standard throw-away Slashdot joke way too seriously. But to see open source supports complain about Clippy while they're throwing out products like the GIMP just strikes me as ironic.
I can't respond to all your claims, but tabbing at the window level was first done by the closed-source BeOS.
Also a lot of the software you list, while innovative, I frankly can't see any use for... bandwidth use per user for instance. Or multiplexing consoles... why not just open up more console windows?
mplayer has a *terrible* UI, at least on MacOS and Windows, so I don't know why it's listed. Maybe it's good on Linux, I dunno.
Word's a good example. And to help resolve the problem, Word totally changed around their UI for the latest version in an attempt to hide featuresets from the main UI but at the same time make them accessible to others who may want to use them. Surely Word 2007 isn't the end-all be-all to this problem, but it shows Microsoft's willing to make deep changes to their product to make it better.
It's quicker. Most DVD/CD/whatever players take 5-10 seconds to actually eject the tray, possibly more if it's on a turntable. With the button on the remote, you can eject the disk and by the time I stand up and walk to the device, the disk is there waiting for me. I use this all the time on my Xbox 360, and I miss it on other devices in my house.
You're right; the big problem being pointed out here is that nobody *does* usability trials. Or, if they do, they ignore the results and sell the product anyway. Do you think Apple did any public usability trials before unveiling that terrible Spotlight search interface in Finder in 10.4? Or Microsoft's most idiotic "wizard": "how do you want to index your help files?"* Do you think GIMP developers have ever spent even a second thinking about how the end user might react to something?
There are some products that have obviously gone through some usability trials. Game controllers, for instance, (not just the Wiimote, but all of them) have improved leaps and bounds in the last decade. Apple's iPod seems to have brought the practice to MP3 players, so that now even the Zune is leaps and bounds above what the best non-iPod player was three years ago.
* You might remember the dialog I'm referring to here. In Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, and XP when you opened a help file for the first time, you'd get this idiotic wizard: 1) Step one would say you're going to index the help file for searching 2) Step two asked you to choose an indexing method (with a default choice clearly marked) 3) Step three said "you're done."
The usability flaws are numerous. Firstly, if you're only making a single selection, why a three step process? A single dialog would do. Secondly, does anybody using a computer know or care what the indexing method is? Thirdly, if there's a clearly marked default, why not just index like that every time? Fourly, if there's a clearly marked default, why not just include the damned index on the install CD and save everybody the trouble? I could go on for ages about this single "wizard," ugh.
Can someone explain to my why it's utterly impossible that the fan Brent Spiner sold the visor to later sold it to Christie's? And then Christie's auctioned it?
Have we been sucked into a strange parallel universe where items can't possible be re-sold?
That's been fixed already. I don't remember when, but I haven't seen it happen in a long time. (Yeah, it was really annoying.)
It wasn't fixed 4 months ago when I finally threw up my hands, said "enough of this shit" and vowed to switch. It's great that it was finally fixed, but come on! OS 9 handled unreliable networks better. Windows 95 handled unreliable networks better! That's the kind of bug there's just no excuse for... there's some very basic QA failure happening at Apple right now.
Depends on your definition of affordable. I play WoW on my quad-core 2.66 Ghz Mac Pro (with swappable ATI X1900) and it's awesome. I previously played on a Dell P4 2.4 Ghz and ATI X850.
But a Mac Pro is super overkill for this. I don't need 87 Xeon CPUs (or whatever the hell they put in them to make them so expensive), I just want to play WOW. But I can't justify the expense when it costs literally three times what a suitable Vista machine costs. I don't know what you do with it, but for playing World of Warcraft no definition of the word "affordable" fits the Mac Pro.
Tell you what, if you're willing to buy me one, I'll definitely switch back, ok?
I'm sorry your G5 sucked at WoW and couldn't be upgraded. Think of a 1.5 Ghz Celeron with an AGP slot and DDR1 RAM - there's really no way to upgrade that machine to be good either. In both cases you'd have to toss the old machine and buy a new one, since the new processors, memory, and video card wouldn't be compatible with the old motherboard.
Yeah, that's why I didn't replace it with a 1.5 ghz Celeron with an AGP slot.
What was the point of you typing that? Seriously? I don't get how it's relevant... even dirt cheap $400 computers don't use AGP anymore. And nothing's used a Celeron in ages.
Or are you implying that my G5 was as old/obsolete as a 1.5 ghz Celeron? You might have a point there if not for the following points:
1) A 1.5 ghz Celeron, even when brand new, costs something around $800. 2) My dual 1.8 ghz G5, when brand new, costs something around $2100.
Yes, yes, we all get it: You're rich, you don't care about spending uber-bucks on computers. That does't apply to me, sorry.
Yeah, the Finder sucks. Then again, Explorer also locks up on me when the share is no longer available.
Explorer sucks less than Finder in several important ways. Or at least ways that are important to me. If it locks on when shares are no longer available, I've never seen it... not to say you're wrong, just that I don't experience that problem.
Since I've never used version 9, I have no idea what's missing. I've seen some lists of "missing features" but it's always things like "some of the Apple menu functionality was replaced by the Dock, and I liked the Apple menu better". Personal preference isn't a missing feature. If there are actual missing features, I'm curious what they are?
I love how you've never used Mac OS 9 and yet you come at this problem with the approach that I'm the one who's lying.
The huge one is a spatial file browser, but like you said Finder sucks, has sucked for all the OS X releases, and I think it's probably time to give up hope for that. Too bad Apple doesn't recognize that the original designers of Mac OS might have *gasp* actually done some usability research! Or had some expertise! But no, let's trash it all and start over with mediocrity.
The feature I used all the time in OS 9 Finder that's never been added to OS X Finder is the feature where you can drag a folder window to the bottom of the screen and Finder would create a pop-up tab for it there. (They used to call this Tabbed Folders, but now when you say that people assume the tabs are in the folders, so I won't use that term.)
Apple reluctantly added colored labels back in, the 'drill down while dragging' feature back in, and they've vaguely simulated the Apple Menu behavior in a slow and irritating way, but they've never even slightly attempted to bring that feature back.
This isn't a "personal preference" it was a feature that OS 9 had and OS X does not have. (Whether or not you used this feature may be a personal preference, but that doesn't change the fact that OS X does not have it. I used it all the freakin' time.)
BTW before you criticize OS 9, or call everyone who's missing features from it a liar, maybe you could spend a few microns actually using it, huh? You won't get a response as hostile as mine next time.
A few reasons, some of which are Apple's fault and some of which aren't. The problems that are Apple-related:
1) Apple doesn't make a tablet. I've worked with tablets for awhile, and I was sold... after seeing how good the text recognition in Vista is, I was sold twice over. Now I have a slick little HP convertible that I can draw cartoons on if I'm bored, or fold the screen around and work with a database app. I could do this on an Apple by adding an expensive Wacom tablet, but it wouldn't be portable.
2) Apple doesn't make an affordable desktop with swappable video cards. Sadly, I'm one of the sadly World of Warcraft-addicted, and although it's virtually the only PC game I ever play, I can't spend the Apple premium for a computer that I can't even upgrade to run my favorite video game better. (I was running it on a dual 1.8 ghz G5 with a Radeon 9800 before, but that machine's too wimpy to really run WOW well with the expansion.)
3) OS X does a really, really, really crummy job of handling unreliable wifi networks. Like, you know, the one I'm connected to right now on my commuter train. At least Windows won't freeze up utterly when it can't ping a share; OS X did that regularly. And don't even get me started on Apple's.Mac service. (I hear the new version finally made improvements here, but it's too late for me.)
The last item is actually Microsoft-related, although it'll get me flamed on this board: Vista's really good. Seriously, I like it, it runs my old games I gave up back when I moved to Apple in the first place and it's definitely a move in the right direction usability-wise.
Also I'm bitter that Apple *STILL* hasn't replaced all the features of OS 9 in OS X. You can't put out version 10 of a product with fewer features than version 9! I don't know how Apple supporters justify that.
I still use the big G5 tower as a fileserver for my media files. It's got RAID-1 300GB drives in it. Other than that, no more Apple in my house.
That said, I obviously like Apple, I have nothing against them, they just aren't selling to my demographic.
Yes, "Genius Bar" is a stupid name. We all agree on that.
But I brought in a malfunctioning iBook 14" to the Apple Store.
1) They looked up the service history, saw it'd been brought in before (once for the same problem, once because I tripped with the ethernet cord plugged in and broke the port). 2) Instantly declared the computer a lemon before the lemon clause of the warranty was involved. 3) Instantly told me they're replace the iBook at no charge. 4) (Here's the part that sets them above every other computer makers, and most retailers) Walked into the back of the store, brought out a brand new 14" iBook with a faster processor and more RAM than mine had, and gave it to me. 5) Then he noticed that the one from the back didn't have a wireless card, so he pulled it from my older iBook, put it in the new one, and verified it all worked before giving it to me.
Boom. Done. Instant new laptop, no charge. Sadly, I'm no longer an Apple customer, but their retail/service experience is beyond compare. Imagine getting that level of service from Dell or HP-- you're lucky if the guy on the phone even speaks English!
It does the same with two local files on different drives. It has nothing to do with network support.
And yes, I agree that it's inconsistent and confusing to new users, but the majority of people want to make a copy when going between "devices" (whether those devices are two local drives or a local drive->network drive) because of the possibility of an incomplete copy.
In any case, even if you were correct, *one* different behavior doesn't really justify your all-caps "COMPLETELY" there.
Oh, and BTW, when was the last time you bought an RCA product? What about a Sony product? Yet when Sony was young, it was mocked as "cheap Japanese crap." Think of that next time someone mocks Google Apps.
1) Sony is "cheap Japanese crap." Ignoring all the political reasons not to buy Sony (the rootkits, the crazy DRM schemes), I've never seen a Sony DVD player last longer than 2 months. And that's three players owned by three different users. (Given, two were the same model.) Maybe Sony's high-end equipment is great, but I've never owned anything of theirs that was worth what I paid.
2) Google Apps kind of suck. I know, I know, it's Google, I shouldn't be saying this... but they do. No comparison for Office, not even remotely close. At this stage they'd have trouble going against OpenOffice.
Holy hell, he was just using an example of how a-typical the grandparent poster was. We don't need a detailed breakdown of every single goddamned CPU released in 1996 and what its maximum speed rating was. Try to see the FOREST for the TREES once in a while.
It also has a network card. If you're buying a "'net pc", you should at least have a half-decent net connection. Dial-up doesn't cut it any more. People move based on the availability of a decent net connection. Besides, if you really can't get anything other than dial-up, there's nothing stopping you from going through the local junk box and finding a real hardware-based modem. You should do that even with winboxen, since a winmodem sux, performance-wise.
Ah, the standard open source software excuse modified for hardware. The old canard: "If it doesn't work, then you didn't really need to do it in the first place."
Let's eliminate that excuse once and for all, people. If you didn't anticipate user's needs so that something doesn't work, that is *a problem* and *should be fixed*. You can't just dismiss it with "well nobody would need to do that" because the entire reason the issue was brought up was because somebody needs to do that.
Think of the source, dudes. PC magazine does not write about linux or Macs. They write about PCs--which are implicitly Windows-based. If they did not do this, they would be pissing in their own soup and Microsoft would never talk to them again.
Could people stop modding up BLATANTLY WRONG POSTS?
PC Mag reviewed the MacBook a couple months ago, I clearly remember reading a review of it there. I'd look up the link if PC Mag's website was loading. (I'm sure some basement-dwelling Linux geek is busy DDoSing their site right now.)
Every other OS seems to handle it just fine. What's Linux's problem in this area that applications can't get any "improved performance" without changing half the system around?
Somebody's experience differs from you and it's a "total fabrication?"
Wow, did it never occur, even for a tenth of a second, that Vista works fine on some computers? Even for a hundredth of a second? Instead you call him a liar for relating his story-- christ you're rude.
Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.)
It's interesting that this document exists but, unlike the US Constitution, seems to hold no importance whatsoever.
Still, I'm glad this guy's standing up for himself.
(Completely Off-topic, but what the hell is that Dice Discussions Flash ad doing to Firefox to make it run so slow? Editors, you gotta pull this ad, this is ridiculous.)
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I'm sorry, Pulseaudio fucking rocks. I love having every application being able to have a different volume setting. And that's just what tickled me most recently. This asshat believes that innovation comes from economic stimulation because he defines innovation as that thing that Microsoft is doing.
Answer me honestly: Does PulseAudio have that feature because they heard it would be in Windows Vista? Honestly, now, please give me an answer.
Because if PulseAudio implemented the feature after seeing that it was in a Longhorn beta, or hearing stories of Microsoft developing it, then I'd say "that thing that Microsoft is doing" is a pretty good definition. (At least as far as this case goes.)
A better example would be something that Microsoft or Apple *hasn't* done. Do you have one?
Eclipse is a fully mature, OSGi-compliant tools platform that just happens to be, in its default form, a self-hosted Java IDE. However, Eclipse itself can be transmogrified into anything you want it to be, including application servers, games, smart clients, and software that helps run both the Dutch railway and NASA's Mars rovers. That seems pretty innovative to me.
An IBM supporter would tell you that Lotus Notes could do that years ago. Which is true, even though the Notes solution sucks (IMO), it *can* do that. So there goes that innovation. Got anything else?
Whereas for a closed-source equivalent one only needs to look at clippy.
Hey, at least Microsoft's *trying* to make their software more usability. Maybe they hit, maybe they miss, but the open source world doesn't even bother to try until Apple or Microsoft have already settled the issue.
Yes, I know, I'm taking a standard throw-away Slashdot joke way too seriously. But to see open source supports complain about Clippy while they're throwing out products like the GIMP just strikes me as ironic.
Every single heavy metal band has a one-armed drummer: Def Leppard
See? It's easy to prove anything if you only list the examples that prove your point!
What, the same closed, tyrannically managed software-development shop that built a complete, adored operating system around BSD?
BSD is innovative?
I mean, it proves that Apple likes open source, but it says absolutely nothing about innovation.
Okay, let's put things in a different light: open applications tend to lower boundaries to broad adoption
Then how come so few of them are broadly adopted?
I can't respond to all your claims, but tabbing at the window level was first done by the closed-source BeOS.
Also a lot of the software you list, while innovative, I frankly can't see any use for... bandwidth use per user for instance. Or multiplexing consoles... why not just open up more console windows?
mplayer has a *terrible* UI, at least on MacOS and Windows, so I don't know why it's listed. Maybe it's good on Linux, I dunno.
I have no clue what FUSE is.
Word's a good example. And to help resolve the problem, Word totally changed around their UI for the latest version in an attempt to hide featuresets from the main UI but at the same time make them accessible to others who may want to use them. Surely Word 2007 isn't the end-all be-all to this problem, but it shows Microsoft's willing to make deep changes to their product to make it better.
It's quicker. Most DVD/CD/whatever players take 5-10 seconds to actually eject the tray, possibly more if it's on a turntable. With the button on the remote, you can eject the disk and by the time I stand up and walk to the device, the disk is there waiting for me. I use this all the time on my Xbox 360, and I miss it on other devices in my house.
You're right; the big problem being pointed out here is that nobody *does* usability trials. Or, if they do, they ignore the results and sell the product anyway. Do you think Apple did any public usability trials before unveiling that terrible Spotlight search interface in Finder in 10.4? Or Microsoft's most idiotic "wizard": "how do you want to index your help files?"* Do you think GIMP developers have ever spent even a second thinking about how the end user might react to something?
There are some products that have obviously gone through some usability trials. Game controllers, for instance, (not just the Wiimote, but all of them) have improved leaps and bounds in the last decade. Apple's iPod seems to have brought the practice to MP3 players, so that now even the Zune is leaps and bounds above what the best non-iPod player was three years ago.
* You might remember the dialog I'm referring to here. In Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, and XP when you opened a help file for the first time, you'd get this idiotic wizard:
1) Step one would say you're going to index the help file for searching
2) Step two asked you to choose an indexing method (with a default choice clearly marked)
3) Step three said "you're done."
The usability flaws are numerous. Firstly, if you're only making a single selection, why a three step process? A single dialog would do. Secondly, does anybody using a computer know or care what the indexing method is? Thirdly, if there's a clearly marked default, why not just index like that every time? Fourly, if there's a clearly marked default, why not just include the damned index on the install CD and save everybody the trouble? I could go on for ages about this single "wizard," ugh.
Ok, maybe I'm a retard...
Can someone explain to my why it's utterly impossible that the fan Brent Spiner sold the visor to later sold it to Christie's? And then Christie's auctioned it?
Have we been sucked into a strange parallel universe where items can't possible be re-sold?
That's been fixed already. I don't remember when, but I haven't seen it happen in a long time. (Yeah, it was really annoying.)
It wasn't fixed 4 months ago when I finally threw up my hands, said "enough of this shit" and vowed to switch. It's great that it was finally fixed, but come on! OS 9 handled unreliable networks better. Windows 95 handled unreliable networks better! That's the kind of bug there's just no excuse for... there's some very basic QA failure happening at Apple right now.
Depends on your definition of affordable. I play WoW on my quad-core 2.66 Ghz Mac Pro (with swappable ATI X1900) and it's awesome. I previously played on a Dell P4 2.4 Ghz and ATI X850.
But a Mac Pro is super overkill for this. I don't need 87 Xeon CPUs (or whatever the hell they put in them to make them so expensive), I just want to play WOW. But I can't justify the expense when it costs literally three times what a suitable Vista machine costs. I don't know what you do with it, but for playing World of Warcraft no definition of the word "affordable" fits the Mac Pro.
Tell you what, if you're willing to buy me one, I'll definitely switch back, ok?
I'm sorry your G5 sucked at WoW and couldn't be upgraded. Think of a 1.5 Ghz Celeron with an AGP slot and DDR1 RAM - there's really no way to upgrade that machine to be good either. In both cases you'd have to toss the old machine and buy a new one, since the new processors, memory, and video card wouldn't be compatible with the old motherboard.
Yeah, that's why I didn't replace it with a 1.5 ghz Celeron with an AGP slot.
What was the point of you typing that? Seriously? I don't get how it's relevant... even dirt cheap $400 computers don't use AGP anymore. And nothing's used a Celeron in ages.
Or are you implying that my G5 was as old/obsolete as a 1.5 ghz Celeron? You might have a point there if not for the following points:
1) A 1.5 ghz Celeron, even when brand new, costs something around $800.
2) My dual 1.8 ghz G5, when brand new, costs something around $2100.
Yes, yes, we all get it: You're rich, you don't care about spending uber-bucks on computers. That does't apply to me, sorry.
Yeah, the Finder sucks. Then again, Explorer also locks up on me when the share is no longer available.
Explorer sucks less than Finder in several important ways. Or at least ways that are important to me. If it locks on when shares are no longer available, I've never seen it... not to say you're wrong, just that I don't experience that problem.
Since I've never used version 9, I have no idea what's missing. I've seen some lists of "missing features" but it's always things like "some of the Apple menu functionality was replaced by the Dock, and I liked the Apple menu better". Personal preference isn't a missing feature. If there are actual missing features, I'm curious what they are?
I love how you've never used Mac OS 9 and yet you come at this problem with the approach that I'm the one who's lying.
The huge one is a spatial file browser, but like you said Finder sucks, has sucked for all the OS X releases, and I think it's probably time to give up hope for that. Too bad Apple doesn't recognize that the original designers of Mac OS might have *gasp* actually done some usability research! Or had some expertise! But no, let's trash it all and start over with mediocrity.
The feature I used all the time in OS 9 Finder that's never been added to OS X Finder is the feature where you can drag a folder window to the bottom of the screen and Finder would create a pop-up tab for it there. (They used to call this Tabbed Folders, but now when you say that people assume the tabs are in the folders, so I won't use that term.)
Apple reluctantly added colored labels back in, the 'drill down while dragging' feature back in, and they've vaguely simulated the Apple Menu behavior in a slow and irritating way, but they've never even slightly attempted to bring that feature back.
This isn't a "personal preference" it was a feature that OS 9 had and OS X does not have. (Whether or not you used this feature may be a personal preference, but that doesn't change the fact that OS X does not have it. I used it all the freakin' time.)
BTW before you criticize OS 9, or call everyone who's missing features from it a liar, maybe you could spend a few microns actually using it, huh? You won't get a response as hostile as mine next time.
A lot of my complaints really boil
Why not?
.Mac service. (I hear the new version finally made improvements here, but it's too late for me.)
A few reasons, some of which are Apple's fault and some of which aren't. The problems that are Apple-related:
1) Apple doesn't make a tablet. I've worked with tablets for awhile, and I was sold... after seeing how good the text recognition in Vista is, I was sold twice over. Now I have a slick little HP convertible that I can draw cartoons on if I'm bored, or fold the screen around and work with a database app. I could do this on an Apple by adding an expensive Wacom tablet, but it wouldn't be portable.
2) Apple doesn't make an affordable desktop with swappable video cards. Sadly, I'm one of the sadly World of Warcraft-addicted, and although it's virtually the only PC game I ever play, I can't spend the Apple premium for a computer that I can't even upgrade to run my favorite video game better. (I was running it on a dual 1.8 ghz G5 with a Radeon 9800 before, but that machine's too wimpy to really run WOW well with the expansion.)
3) OS X does a really, really, really crummy job of handling unreliable wifi networks. Like, you know, the one I'm connected to right now on my commuter train. At least Windows won't freeze up utterly when it can't ping a share; OS X did that regularly. And don't even get me started on Apple's
The last item is actually Microsoft-related, although it'll get me flamed on this board: Vista's really good. Seriously, I like it, it runs my old games I gave up back when I moved to Apple in the first place and it's definitely a move in the right direction usability-wise.
Also I'm bitter that Apple *STILL* hasn't replaced all the features of OS 9 in OS X. You can't put out version 10 of a product with fewer features than version 9! I don't know how Apple supporters justify that.
I still use the big G5 tower as a fileserver for my media files. It's got RAID-1 300GB drives in it. Other than that, no more Apple in my house.
That said, I obviously like Apple, I have nothing against them, they just aren't selling to my demographic.
Yes, "Genius Bar" is a stupid name. We all agree on that.
But I brought in a malfunctioning iBook 14" to the Apple Store.
1) They looked up the service history, saw it'd been brought in before (once for the same problem, once because I tripped with the ethernet cord plugged in and broke the port).
2) Instantly declared the computer a lemon before the lemon clause of the warranty was involved.
3) Instantly told me they're replace the iBook at no charge.
4) (Here's the part that sets them above every other computer makers, and most retailers) Walked into the back of the store, brought out a brand new 14" iBook with a faster processor and more RAM than mine had, and gave it to me.
5) Then he noticed that the one from the back didn't have a wireless card, so he pulled it from my older iBook, put it in the new one, and verified it all worked before giving it to me.
Boom. Done. Instant new laptop, no charge. Sadly, I'm no longer an Apple customer, but their retail/service experience is beyond compare. Imagine getting that level of service from Dell or HP-- you're lucky if the guy on the phone even speaks English!
It does the same with two local files on different drives. It has nothing to do with network support.
And yes, I agree that it's inconsistent and confusing to new users, but the majority of people want to make a copy when going between "devices" (whether those devices are two local drives or a local drive->network drive) because of the possibility of an incomplete copy.
In any case, even if you were correct, *one* different behavior doesn't really justify your all-caps "COMPLETELY" there.
Oh, and BTW, when was the last time you bought an RCA product? What about a Sony product? Yet when Sony was young, it was mocked as "cheap Japanese crap." Think of that next time someone mocks Google Apps.
1) Sony is "cheap Japanese crap." Ignoring all the political reasons not to buy Sony (the rootkits, the crazy DRM schemes), I've never seen a Sony DVD player last longer than 2 months. And that's three players owned by three different users. (Given, two were the same model.) Maybe Sony's high-end equipment is great, but I've never owned anything of theirs that was worth what I paid.
2) Google Apps kind of suck. I know, I know, it's Google, I shouldn't be saying this... but they do. No comparison for Office, not even remotely close. At this stage they'd have trouble going against OpenOffice.
Holy hell, he was just using an example of how a-typical the grandparent poster was. We don't need a detailed breakdown of every single goddamned CPU released in 1996 and what its maximum speed rating was. Try to see the FOREST for the TREES once in a while.
Christ, you must be fun at parties.
It also has a network card. If you're buying a "'net pc", you should at least have a half-decent net connection. Dial-up doesn't cut it any more. People move based on the availability of a decent net connection. Besides, if you really can't get anything other than dial-up, there's nothing stopping you from going through the local junk box and finding a real hardware-based modem. You should do that even with winboxen, since a winmodem sux, performance-wise.
Ah, the standard open source software excuse modified for hardware. The old canard: "If it doesn't work, then you didn't really need to do it in the first place."
Let's eliminate that excuse once and for all, people. If you didn't anticipate user's needs so that something doesn't work, that is *a problem* and *should be fixed*. You can't just dismiss it with "well nobody would need to do that" because the entire reason the issue was brought up was because somebody needs to do that.
Whoa, nice. Thanks, I'll try that next time.
Network Solutions is still good, but:
1) They're expensive, compared to discounters like GoDaddy.
2) They're becoming worse and worse. There's now something like 5 advertising screens you need to click through after you register a domain.
Think of the source, dudes. PC magazine does not write about linux or Macs. They write about PCs--which are implicitly Windows-based. If they did not do this, they would be pissing in their own soup and Microsoft would never talk to them again.
Could people stop modding up BLATANTLY WRONG POSTS?
PC Mag reviewed the MacBook a couple months ago, I clearly remember reading a review of it there. I'd look up the link if PC Mag's website was loading. (I'm sure some basement-dwelling Linux geek is busy DDoSing their site right now.)
Every other OS seems to handle it just fine. What's Linux's problem in this area that applications can't get any "improved performance" without changing half the system around?
Somebody's experience differs from you and it's a "total fabrication?"
Wow, did it never occur, even for a tenth of a second, that Vista works fine on some computers? Even for a hundredth of a second? Instead you call him a liar for relating his story-- christ you're rude.
Read the Chinese constitution, or at least just skim the guaranteed rights.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html
(See, for example, article 35:
Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.)
It's interesting that this document exists but, unlike the US Constitution, seems to hold no importance whatsoever.
Still, I'm glad this guy's standing up for himself.
(Completely Off-topic, but what the hell is that Dice Discussions Flash ad doing to Firefox to make it run so slow? Editors, you gotta pull this ad, this is ridiculous.)