Posted on 02/04/2002 6:39:48 AM PST by gratefulwharffratt
David Coursey,
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
Monday, February 4, 2002
It's been a week since I started using a new iMac as my full-time desktop and a PowerBook G4 as my portable PC, all as part of my month-long challenge to see if I, long a loyal Windows user, could make Apple the center of my computing universe. There are still a few problems--specifically related to getting PDA data in and out of Microsoft Office.
But besides that, I've made a very smooth transition. I have even started using the Apple key instead of the Control key when cutting and pasting.
None of the photos I've seen do the new iMac justice. It's hard to take a picture of a white computer with a clear frame around the screen and make it look good. It is especially difficult to do this against a white background, as Apple is prone to do. They had the same problem with the iPod, which people thought was much larger than it is because they had seen it only on a billboard. Now, they didn't think it was that big, but...
If you are trying to show off the iMac base--about the size of a big salad bowl turned upside down--it's hard to have the monitor in a normal position. This is probably why the best pictures of the new iMac, such as they are, have been taken from the side. That shows off the arm that connects the screen to the base rather nicely.
IN USE, the base of the iMac, which contains the computer itself, essentially disappears from view, hidden by the screen. The screen--a 15-inch flat panel--has all the predictable benefits of LCD displays, but the mounting mechanism is really special. This is the first time I've been able to position a screen precisely where I want it.
Mac OS X also does an excellent job of driving the screen, with great graphics performance. I am not quite so wild about the characters that show up while I am typing using Word or the other Microsoft Office apps. Microsoft has yet to fully implement the features of OS X that put great-looking fonts onto the screen.
This was likely lost in the rush to get a version of OS X to market and will be resolved in a future release. The "poor" quality of the Microsoft fonts is noticeable because the rest of the computer looks so great, not because it's putting my eyes out or anything.
The iMac has no fan--actually it has a fan, but I've never heard it--meaning my office is quieter than it used to be. The fan is thermally controlled, so it turns on only if the machine heats up. The iMac also has a very small footprint, leaving me with a lot of unused desk space.
If I were making any changes to the iMac, I'd increase the screen resolution (1024x768 is standard) or go to a 17-inch screen. The higher resolution is a personal preference (I need more open windows sometimes), and boosting the screen size would make the machines too expensive. To think of it, so would the increased resolution.
I'VE DISPENSED with the Apple one-button mouse that came with the machine. I replaced it with a Microsoft optical mouse with all the buttons and a thumbwheel. I just plugged it in, and it worked immediately. While the stock Apple mouse--with its single button--doesn't support right clicking, all the iMac apps seem to. This gives me access to a wide range of shortcuts I've grown used to under Windows. "Real" Apple users know you can control-click the one-button mouse to access the right-button features, but I still like my extra buttons and the thumbwheel.
The transition to the Mac way of doing things has been pretty easy, once I got the hang of the docking bar that is the OS X equivalent of the Windows start menu. Now that I have all my frequently used apps in the dock, I am a pretty happy camper.
Based on my experience, I have no reservations whatsoever recommending an iMac as a family's new or next home computer. Only really hard-core gamers would have trouble with a Mac, and those people should be looking at the new gaming consoles anyway.
I'M TEMPTED to say that Apple should have waited to make OS X the standard operating system for its consumer Macs, at least until there was better support for things such as Palm PDAs, media players for Windows Media, and Real Networks file formats. But as Steve Jobs told me on Day 1 of my Mac odyssey, there are some things that simply won't happen until the OS becomes the Apple standard.
I can't really disagree with that logic, so this is more a warning that you may find yourself working in classic mode from time to time. I am doing my very best to remain totally in OS X, so I have to admit that my concerns about this issue may be inflated.
As for working from the iMac, I can only hit the corporate Exchange mail server using a POP client or a Web browser. This isn't a problem for me, but it may be for a few of you. I also have not tried to find a VPN client, so I need to call our IS department and inquire.
The lack of OS X support for both Palm and Pocket PC devices is, however, troublesome. I think this will be worked out, at least for Pocket PC (and only with the help of a third-party developer) in a few weeks. Palm OS support will doubtless come, though I cannot today tell you when with any level of confidence. Six months seems likely.
I'VE HAD NO trouble exchanging files with colleagues, sending and receiving e-mail, or browsing the Web. And the free mail client Apple provides, though lacking a calendar function, works very well. Actually it's a better pure mail client than Microsoft's Entourage, its office productivity suite for the Macintosh platform.
It's for this reason that so many Mac users have separate calendar, contact management, and e-mail programs. The single-solution approach, àla Outlook and Entourage, is very attractive, but I am looking at other options as well.
The iPod is a fantastic MP3 player, and iTunes does a good job of managing my music. I want to find a "disco" software package, which I believe exists, to do some mixing, but the basic dubbing of music from CD (or Internet) to computer to iPod works very well.
THE MORE I USE IPHOTO, the more useful I find it. The program is not a photo editor, although it will allow you to crop a photo, correct red eye, and convert color images to black and white.
But iPhoto really shines in managing a large photo collection, thanks to its ability to vary thumbnails of the photos from very tiny to full-screen. This means you can zoom back and easily scroll through hundreds or, more likely, thousands of photos and then zoom in to pick the one you want.
iPhoto is also great for sharing your images. While the program does not have an easy way to resize and e-mail an image, it does a very nice job of collecting photos into books, which you can print at home or have commercially printed by Apple ($30 for 10 pages, and the books are really quite nice). iPhoto can also be used to create slide shows, HTML photo pages, and, of course, order prints.
OVERALL, I'D RATE the Macintosh photo "experience" significantly superior to Windows XP, although XP has the basics covered.
I have not played with iMovie, but finally have an idea for a home movie project (lacking kids, I have no ready players), so I am planning to compare the Mac and XP cinematic experiences this weekend.
Another area in which OS X has a little maturing to do is support for streaming media. Microsoft Media Player doesn't support all its formats on the new OS, meaning I can't listen to a number of online radio stations. Real doesn't seem to have announced an OS X version of RealPlayer, though I suspect one will appear.
So that's where things stand after the first week of "Mac Month" here in my office. About the only thing I am still using the XP box for is some instant messaging (especially during the radio program) and to keep the Outlook telephone directory open when I need to make a quick phone call.
I used to be a sys. admin. at a small ISP. We DID have one box with NT on it. Because the owner FORCED us to use Winbloze for that service. It was his pet peeve. And HE had to keep up with the security patch du jour for it.
The other boxes were Linux. I built them ALL and set them all up.
BTW "wintel" is not the same thing as running BSD on Intel HW. There is a BIG difference. In your last post you said you used a BSD based OS.
Even YOU are smart enough to stay away from MS for the important stuff.
The last team based development project I was involved with, was with a workgroup in a Fortune 50 Corporation. 6 programmers, 3 used NT for their dev box, 3 used Red Hat. The servers were ALL Linux. (Except for the data we pulled off of the mainframe, to be massaged)
Look, Jobs has done something very good with Apple since he came back. I don't think anybody wants to see the company or computer line go under. I certainly don't want to see AMD or Intel or MS disappear.
Now, I really wouldn't want to Apple become so dominent that it's OS is used on 95 percent of the desktops, either. I think the quaily of the product would certainly suffer. Complacency may have been the problem in its earlier era of dominance.
Pity too, considering the high tone you carry on your profile. But, as I said in a previous post; to some, these issues take on a religious air; you would seem to be one of those people.
As to ISP's, well, the one's I deal with are mostly UNIX. But then, I don't actually go into the buildings. Perhaps, beneath the shell of UNIX, lies a heart of sturdy Windows NT servers, forced to hide from the harsh bigotry of those who would dare prefer another platform.
Let's relate, shall we?
A fellow posts a flattering piece of writing regarding his platform of choice. By post 2, the insults are flying. With rare exceptions (I count myself and two Wintel Warriors who actually remained civil among the exceptions), the insults have continued unabated.
And now here you are. Who care not a whit about Apple, which is not, by your own words, significant to you in any way. Nonetheless you have seen fit to, oh, how to put this, "'improve' the judgment of others (you) deem less enlightened."
Bless your enlightened soul.
Oh, and I'm not relating to the lime jello crack. Perhaps you're still hung up on the old iMacs? Again, somewhat strange, since I believe the three of us, including gratefulwharffratt, were comparing the newer technology of our respective platforms. Thus, the iMac of three years ago is not an issue.
You really seem to be taking this very personally. Odd, that. But, again, apparently this is a religion to some.
As you wish...
Exactly
Whatever you may think of their relative merits, would there even BE PIV or G4 chips today, without that competition? Would we have OSX and WindowsXP squaring off, without that competition?
I'd hardly think so.
That's the great thing about it. I wouldn't have an honest-to-God supercomputer on my desk if the boys at Intel were sitting on their duffs, or nonexistent. Likewise, I doubt there'd be much clamoring for Windows XP if Bill Gates ruled alone.
The honest-to-goodness My-Platform-And-No-Other crowd had best hope they never get their wish...
That would be Unix.
Nice to see a change of tone, there, Mr. Thorne. Civility is a good thing. But if you want to characterize my assessment of Apple's place in the desktop and infrastructure universe as an 'emotional outburst,' then I guess that we'll just have to differ. Now I will apologize for conflating Wintel with BSD. I should have been more precise - it doesn't mean that I don't know the difference, though. BSD is no panacea, though, as it's got more than its share of places where you can snag your sweater. But it's quite serviceable for those of us who need a kernel hack in order to squeeze a little more performance out it. Licensing is moderately cheap, and yes, I know that FreeBSD is just that. WindRiver's acquisition of the BSDi franchise and it's subsequent cutting loose of FreeBSD isn't necessarily the best news that the developer community could have gotten. Trouble with BSDi is that it's getting a little long in the tooth, not having had any significant upgrades over the last few years. FreeBSD support's up in the air now, as well.
As for Wintel, for all of the rant and rave of the Gateshaters, that alliance has delivered a workable and productive desktop environment for millions of users. That can't be argued in any way - you may not like it, but the market has its own logic. Besides, if Windows sucked as badly as some of the arrogant little snots on this thread would have it, it would have failed in the market place. We must also remember why an ostensibly superior desktop metaphor and small system OS like Apple's foundered in the first place: closed systems and proprietary hardware architecture. The market chose a system that was easily extensible, flexible and whose prices were inexorably driven lower and lower by the press of competition. Who really competed with Apple? No one did, because no one could.
Interestingly enough, back in the mid 80's, there was a company that could have given both Apple and Microsoft a run for the money. It was a Mountainview-based outfit called Metaphor Computer Systems. Founded by two of the progenitors of the Xerox Star, Don Massaro and David Liddle, the company's product was clearly superior to both the Apple and PC designs of the day. IBM, threatened by the product's direct assault on their mid-range systems (like the AS400), did what IBM usually does when it encounters small-company competition; it 'partnered' with Metaphor and subsequently killed the company off. Check out
http://www.geocities.com/metaphor_alumni/page2.html
for a look at what the company was and what it offered.
Metaphor suffered from the same thing that nearly did Apple in - a proprietary hardware architecture and a software system that just wasn't all that portable. Download the Tribute Powerpoint slideshow from the Metaphor Museum page for a more detailed history. I was one of the early Metaphorians, and was a reluctant participant in the beginning of the slide into the IBM maw. There's a lot more to the story that the slideshow doesn't get into - that's best discussed .
Put simply, had Metaphor's offering been less proprietary and more portable, it would have been an MS and Apple killer. In some respects, though, it was a little too much ahead of its time. And it wasn't ever really intended to run on a standalone desktop unit. What Metaphor offered was an object-oriented iconographic method for handling information that no one has since duplicated. Made Apple's desktop look brain-dead by comparison. Made DOS-based apps look positively stone-ax. Not that MS and Apple weren't interested, though. Somewhere in a closet on the Redmond MS campus, there's a four workstation, two filerserver Metaphor system that MS bought after Gates visited Metaphor before IBM got involved. Apple bought a similar configuration. Neither improved upon it, even to this day.
So, to get to the point of my comment - I tend to get, shall we say, impatient with folks who think themselves so clever and intellectually superior that they can rant and rave about the superiority - either way - of Apple vs MS. It's simply the wrong damn argument. In the end, we all got second best. Coulda woulda shoulda. But at the end of the day, we still get our work done whether we're looking at a Mac, Windows, or KDE desktop. Dumbasses who indulge themselves by calling Windows 'Winbloze' are protesting just a little too much, don't you think? Macs are OK as far as they go. MS has done a good job of marketing a fairly well-integrated solution that the majority of users find at least adequate. KDE / Koffice keeps a whole bunch of Linux users reasonably happy.
Pity too, considering the high tone you carry on your profile. But, as I said in a previous post; to some, these issues take on a religious air; you would seem to be one of those people.
See my comments above. Those who treat this as a religious issue are the ones wasting good oxygen. Ignorant of history as well.
As to ISP's, well, the one's I deal with are mostly UNIX. But then, I don't actually go into the buildings. Perhaps, beneath the shell of UNIX, lies a heart of sturdy Windows NT servers, forced to hide from the harsh bigotry of those who would dare prefer another platform.
Well, you'd be wrong about that one. If you think that I'm defending MS against al comers, you're not paying attention. So let's get it right: Win NT has proven itself to be a highly reliable, decently performing OS that scales nicely to the departmental level of most companies. Win 2K delivers a pretty robust desktop environment -that coupled with a collection of workaday apps flying in loose formation gets the damn job done foe most people. When you want to scale up - or scale out, for those who know what I'm talking about - *nix tends to be a better bet. The trade-off is cost of ownership. That's an argument that MS is increasingly able to win, particularly in the database engine department. I can comment in this manner, because I spent five years working on successive releases of MS SQL Server.
Gotta tell you, Unix variants still rule the data centers, even at MS. (Oops - did I just say a Bad Thing?). When power, scalability, flexibility and yes, reliability are paramount concerns, I'll implement a Unix variant in my ISP/data center/enterprise and I'll damn well hire the talent to make it all work and not whine about it. And I'll run all my office/admin stuff on Win 2K without a second thought - simply because I can buy the boxes to run it cheaper. If I were a real penny pincher with support staff with time on their hands, I'd go the Linux/KDE/Koffice route.
My own home net - five workstations, one Win 2K server, and a firewall/satellite internet gateway - runs on Win 2K Pro, Win 2K Server and Linux. And it all plays nice together.
Let's relate, shall we?
Yes, let's.
A fellow posts a flattering piece of writing regarding his platform of choice. By post 2, the insults are flying. With rare exceptions (I count myself and two Wintel Warriors who actually remained civil among the exceptions), the insults have continued unabated. And now here you are. Who care not a whit about Apple, which is not, by your own words, significant to you in any way. Nonetheless you have seen fit to, oh, how to put this, "'improve' the judgment of others (you) deem less enlightened."
Yep - and I'm not doing it a gunpoint, either. As another poster has pointed out, I simply find the implied moral superiority of TaliMacers a bit too close to the same sneering more-enlightened-than-thou attitude that is so common amongst Marxists, liberals and post-structuralist university eggheads. Some of the Wintel Warriors share the same attitude. They're wrong, too. So if others' judgment isn't improved by my arguments, I can always shrug my shoulders, walk away and let reality - and the marketplace - be the final arbiter.
And now here you are.
And here I am. We agree on that. I wish all you various desktop users well. The stuff I'm building these days serves all of you equally and without prejudice.
Wednesday, February 13, 2002
OPEN FOR BUSINESS
Posted February 8, 2002 01:01 PM Pacific Time
THE RECENT LinuxWorld in New York was the scene of some startling revelations regarding the state of open source. Last summer's show in California showed that Linux wanted to do business in the enterprise. But at this LinuxWorld, Linux looked like nothing but business in the enterprise.
The bouncing balls, flashing lights, and loudmouth magicians were few and far between. The trinkets, baubles, and T-shirts were in short supply. Instead, everywhere you looked, someone was trying to make a sale.
But these sales were not like those at conferences past. No one was hawking cheap Linux CDs or tins of caffeinated penguin mints. Even the boxed Linux distributions were in fairly short supply.
This time the sales targets were much bigger.
Did you need a server? No problem. Plenty of vendors were showing servers. Wanted something bigger? You were in luck: There was plenty of meat to eat on that bone.
Intel and AMD were both there in force. Intel in particular had a very big booth featuring the IA64 and related technologies.
From Egenera's blade technology -- which seems to be wowing the financial community -- to IBM's grid computing model, interconnected racks of machines were everywhere.
Need even more horsepower? You could take a gander at IBM's Linux-only mainframe. That's right, folks: A new model of the traditional icon of corporate computing, the IBM mainframe, supports Linux exclusively. Now someone tell me how Linux has no place in the enterprise.
Then there was Carly Fiorina. In one of the more "clueful" (the antithesis of "clueless") executive presentations on open source I have ever heard, the Hewlett-Packard CEO outlined how the company is competing in this space. She painted open source as "the democratization of innovation in technology." HP's wins in the Linux server market include such notable names as Boeing (it showed a 400 percent improvement at one-third the cost of its prior solution), Amazon.com (it saved $17 million using Linux), and DreamWorks (the creators of the movie Shrek relied heavily on Linux rendering). Suddenly, IBM's Linux wins at ETrade and Pixar don't seem so lonely after seeing HP's list.
Even NetBSD got in the act. Normally a very techie, sound, almost stoic OS that feels more like a traditional Unix than Linux, NetBSD announced a new version that purports to load a very friendly system that any corporate end-user could love.
And a note to those folks who scoffed at IBM a year ago when the company announced they would invest $1 billion in Linux development: IBM is reportedly on the verge of recouping the investment. And it didn't achieve that by selling the occasional Web and print server. The enterprise is Big Blue's game, and it is playing to win.
If you have been waiting for open source to come to the enterprise, wait no longer. It is in the enterprise now.
Very Interesting
Here's why:
better for the semi novice, surfs a lot, burns a few CD's plays a few games type?
Semi-novice says to me that you'd prefer the machine to work, with minimal tinkering. That's an iMac. The only drawback to the iMac's simplicity is: its simplicity. What you see is what you get. But what you get is pretty cool.
Surfs a lot. Well, that was the idea behind the original iMac. It's an internet computer.
Burns a few CD's. It's got the drive built in. If the one drive isn't enough, you can always add a FireWire or USB drive (2 ports and 5 ports, respectively); heck, you could check out some of the combination USB/FireWire Drives at Other World Computing. In any case, burning CD's should be quite easy.
Plays a few games. Aye, now, there's the rub. This is the most widely used criticism of the Mac Platform. And the worst part is, it's at least partially true. As I related in an earlier post, if you're used to the PC Game market, the Mac Market must seem a very forbidding place. I use my machine for Web and Graphic Design, with games on the side. Right now, my heavy hitters are Myth, Diablo II (with Expansion pack, naturally) and Unreal Tournament. None of which I have time to become good at, but all of which I enjoy.
I would suggest having a look at the titles available to the Mac OS. If there aren't enough, in your opinion, then there's your choice. Click here to check out games available for the Mac Platform.
Good luck in your shopping. One thing to remember: if you're even considering a Mac, go somewhere with an honest to God Mac Department. I'm thinking either MicroCenter or one of the Apple Stores, here. No offense to any other retailer, but they're picking kids off the street, paying minimum wage, etc. They're not getting computer experts (for either platform, actually).
Another trick of the trade is: Don't Buy RAM From Catalogs. A friend of mine had to maintain an iMac network in the school where he works. He was having a fit over the price of "Mac RAM". I explained that Mac Ram was plain old PC RAM. He showed me the catalog he was buying from. Twice the market rate, at least! Buy RAM from someone like Other World Computing. They have lifetime guarantees and good prices.
I hope I've been helpful to you. If you wish to contact me directly regarding computer or design matters, feel free to drop me a line. We can do the 'ol e-mail thang.
There is not much that I could add to his description.
However, you must also think about potential future problems that could arise from purchasing a Macintosh. If you DO buy a Mac, there is a VERY GOOD chance that you will quickly learn to LIKE the machine, and when that happens, it will only take a few nanoseconds for condescending people here to call you a 'Mac Kool-Aid drinker.'
:-)
F.U.D.
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The ole mainstays of anti-Mac people everywhere.
Analysts, Amazon say iMac sales strong
Yawn. So much opinion and inaccuracy, where shall I begin??
Our school district is going to switch from Macs at the middle school and elementary school campuses because of the complications of upgrading to OSX
This simply means that you have PRE-G3 hardware, before mid- 1997. If the hardware is not too old, then that is ONLY a reflection of the poor quality of your support personnel.
The comparable Winbloze PC Hardware at that time was a Pentium ONE, 233 Mhz, or the Pentium TWO 300 Mhz.
Try running Winbloze XP on PC Hardware that old. Furthermore, I am STILL running an 8100 here with OS 9 on it, so your implication that the older Macs are somehow obsolete does NOT hold water. I can give you a whole bunch of legitimate reasons for replacing legacy HW that is that age, NONE of which involve any so-called "complications of upgrading to OS X." But it sure sounds like a good reason to the uninformed, to make Macs sound less long-lived than PCs.
and because Macintosh is going to go with the liquid crystal (or whatever they are called) monitors-- kids stab them full of holes or write on them with permanent ink.
Oh yes, NOW we have discovered some of your evidence of Apple's "stupid decisions." Nearly every other Human on the planet believes that going from CRT based monitors to an LCD based monitor is a GOOD thing, except you. The LCD monitors will probably use about one-third of the electricity of the older, less efficient CRT type monitors, and the LCD monitors also take up much less desktop space than the bulky, heavy, heat generating CRT type monitors.
But what REASON do you give for grumbling about Apple's decision to IMPROVE the iMac?? Because the delinquents in your school can deface them more easily. I am certain that Apple is to blame for the sky being one shade of blue too dark today, too.
If our local district is doing it, so are others.
SOURCE????
If that is NOT Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt wrapped in an anecdotal, biased statement meant to DISCOURAGE other people from considering buying a Mac, then I do not know what is.
Apple is making some stupid decisions that may cost it a good part of its customer base
Source?? Verification?? Enumeration of so-called 'stupid decisions??' How will they hurt sales?? MORE F.U.D.!!!!
I could sit right here and say that Billy Gates has the mark of the Beast tattoed on his ass too, but it would STILL only be my opinion.
part of its customer base-- which isn't that big, anyway
Don't buy a Mac, because there aren't many of them, and I heard from the friend of my Aunt's cousin's brother-in-law, who works in Cupertino, and he said that Apple was on the verge of going bankrupt. I would NEVER buy a product from a company that is going down the tubes. Classic F.U.D.
Are you reading a script fresh off the Microsloth press?? Is your name REALLY Billy Gates??
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