thread starter
12/18/07
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
...how many would be tempted? 
link
Replies
01/03/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
2disbetter
MeanSquare said: "...not exactly on topic, but here goes:
It gives me an advantage over the long haul as well since all development is moving toward Vista if it's not already there."
This is my main reasoning behind it. From a development prospective Vista is it. And as a mini developer myself, Vista is pretty nice to work with. Things are cleaned up. XP was very open ended and had lots of loose ends. Vista is a refined piece of work. It might have hiccups now, but it's foundation is going places.
I've found the majority of people who say they don't like Vista, are just following the crowd. They don't really understand all that an OS is responsible for. OS X in particular works better as it is not geared to be compabtible on nearly as many things as a Windows system. Case in point read about hacking the OS X to get it on a Sony UX. Even after hacking it, several things still don't work.
This is not meant to say one is better than the other, but to help those complaining abotu Vista becuase it's the bandwagon thing to do, that you are comparing apples and oranges. OS X, Linux, and XP/Vista are all great OS which have their own strength and weaknessess.
Back on topic, Apple appears to be the only computer distrubtor that allows someone to use whatever OS they want. The only reason I'm not a die hard apple fan yet, is that they dont allow upgrades outside of a vary narrow field. A mac minibook would be useful though as the mini market doesn't really require expandability.
2d
01/03/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
2disbetter said: " MeanSquare said: "...not exactly on topic, but here goes:
It gives me an advantage over the long haul as well since all development is moving toward Vista if it's not already there."
I've found the majority of people who say they don't like Vista, are just following the crowd. They don't really understand all that an OS is responsible for. OS X in particular works better as it is not geared to be compabtible on nearly as many things as a Windows system. Case in point read about hacking the OS X to get it on a Sony UX. Even after hacking it, several things still don't work.
Back on topic, Apple appears to be the only computer distrubtor that allows someone to use whatever OS they want. The only reason I'm not a die hard apple fan yet, is that they dont allow upgrades outside of a vary narrow field. A mac minibook would be useful though as the mini market doesn't really require expandability.
2d"
Please don't get me wrong I am by no means any programmer nor even close to it, nor have I even had Vista on a single machine I have owned, merly "touched" it in various stores. I am not an anti Vista as much as I am anti Win individual, the only reason I haven't used Mac since 1989-90 (when I first came in contact with NeXT by visiting their manufacuring site prior to launch and used Mac at work) has been a financial and prg availability issue, now with the Intel based Macs and various options on running MS software on them I have no reason NOT to use them any more.
On the statement "Apple appears to be the only computer distrubtor that allows someone to use whatever OS they want" (btw my little ASUS EEE wants me to know its "distributor" ) , I guess that's accurate but then again you could twist it the other way around saying Apple is the only computer distributor NOT ALLOWING you to use THEIR OS on some other hardware, right? I mean technically they are the ONLY computer distributor who has anything to do with OS' right? I mean the other computer distributors are using someone else's OS so to speak, right? Does OQO, Sony, HP etc etc etc, "not allow" you to use Linux etc etc? Or maybe I'm taking your word "allow" differently than you meant it? Maybe you're saying "enables" vs. "approves" sorry let me finish my coffee
edited: Jan 03 2008
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
tnkgrl
@2disbetter I agree that there's a lot of anti-Vista sentiment from people who are just following the crowd... But then tell me why seasoned Windows users like James Kendrick and Chris Pirillo share this anti-Vista sentiment?
Personally and professionally (as a video games programmer and ex-network/system admin) Vista is not making my life/work more productive. Like others, I've experienced more performance and compatibility issues (on both newer and older hardware) with Vista than with XP, and none of the updated features in Vista really matter to me (or to most people, I'd argue).
Personally, OS X makes more sense than Windows. Professionally, I'm interested in running Visual Studio, Perforce, and Outlook (because I have to, unfortunately) - the bottleneck in my work is file I/O since I'm constantly cross-compiling code for video game consoles.
So I'm using XP for work with two striped 10K rpm SATA drives, tons of RAM and a fast multi-core CPU. When I tried it, Vista made very little difference (while adding new problems) - upgrading from a single 7200 rpm SATA drive made a difference! For artists at my work 64-bit XP made more of a difference running Maya than Vista.
Going forward I'm considering a high-end Mac Pro with tons of RAM and striped SSDs running OS X, with Visual Studio running in XP hosted by VMWare Fusion. As for Outlook, I'm pushing to replace it with Entourage or Google calendar/mail.
01/03/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
MeanSquare
ecsk2: Exactly right. Out of the box, Apple OSX works on a very small subset of Intel reference designs and then only those with the "magic identifier" that tells the OS it's an Apple product. However, the geniuses over at OSx86 have figured out all manner of ways of getting around the identifier "issue" and developed OSX drivers for non-Apple-supported hardware. On the other hand, any Intel device capable of running OSX can also run Windows XP and (as far as I know) Vista so you can more or less easily run both OSes on an Apple machine, where it takes some work to run OSX on a non-Apple device. (Of course, Apple doesn't support non-Apple equipment and often seems intent on "breaking" the "fixes" that allow it OSX to work on them.)
If I had my "druthers," I'd be running OSX on all my machines. I like the OS. I like the way it works pretty much all the time. You can say the same about Linux, but Linux often requires you to roll up you sleaves and plug away with arcane script commands and edit configuration files written in their own arcane parlance. OSX only "requires" that if you want to run it on non-Apple hardware and then only to get it up and running during the install process. Like OSX, Windows does everything in the GUI, but (I think almost entirely) because it supports all manner of Intel-esque hardware, doesn't support an particular incarnation to the level that OSX does without the help of the manufacturers. (In other words, Windows will run passibly on virtually anything and well on devices where the manufacturer (or, in the case of Intel reference designs, the chip manufacturer) provides a set of optimized drivers.)
Oddly enough, some manufacturers do actually support Linux at least to some extent. OQO and HP both provide Linux drivers for (at least some of) their equipment. Intel also provides Linux drivers, many of which are open-source, which is how the OSx86 people have been able to create a number of their OSX drivers.
But for me, it all comes down to the software. The elegance of the OS is secondary to my ability to run the software I want to run and the bulk of development is still Windows first and other OSes second if at all. I'll be the first to admit that "the software I want to run" includes some pretty specialized items, so I'm also the first to admit that my situation is in no way universal.
At some arbitrary point in the future (probably not as far away as I think) the "small" drives and SSDs on handtops will reach a capacity where the space needed Parallels, VMWare, etc., or even the venerable dual-boot and multiple OSes will be negligeable compared to the over-all capacity. At that point, I'll probably still kvetch , but I'll move to OSX as my primary boot, even if it does mean a lot of tweaking.
In an ideal world, Apple wouldn't lock up OSX and it would be easier to install on a variety of devices. In that same world, most manufacturers would give you an option of which OS you'd like pre-installed. As it is, we have to live in our messy little world for the time being.
01/03/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
2disbetter
tnkgrl, I understand that with the new OS there is going to growing pains. I have had the pleasure (read NOT) of working with XP 64. I found it extremely unstable and not supported very well by Microsoft. (must have been there push to get vista out the door) Your experience might vary, and/or you might have had better support and used a later build.
Vista has a ton of problems (that can't be stressed enough), but what I'm talking about (and this is bad for any developer to say, let alone do repeatedly(speaking of Microsoft here)) is that in the future it WILL be better, not by a little but a lot, over XP, and it will be the standard that gets the support. XP will go the way of 2000 and 98.
As for your needs, I can totally understand how OS X works for you. My target audience is windows platforms, and as such I've stuck where their OS.
ecsk2, I hear you on your confusion. Apple does lock their OS. As much as the free world would love for them to stop doing this, Apple, and I'm sure everyone else can agree, does not have a large enough hold on the PC industry to do so. If they where to unlock their OS, I strongly beleive Apple sales would plummet outside of die hard fans, and professinals (excluding Ipod like products).
So while I see Apple making it happen in the future, I can see why apple intertwine their macs with OS X so rigidily.
01/03/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
tnkgrl
@2disbetter I hope you're right about Vista getting better. As for 64-bit XP, I'm not using it myself - it's only being deployed for the artists at my work who run Maya and want to load large scenes into memory without paging issues.
01/03/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
tnkgrl said: "
Going forward I'm considering a high-end Mac Pro with tons of RAM and striped SSDs running OS X, with Visual Studio running in XP hosted by VMWare Fusion. As for Outlook, I'm pushing to replace it with Entourage or Google calendar/mail."
That's what I have now with 9GB ram but no SSD, and what became my first ever Mac.
01/03/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
MeanSquare said: "
In an ideal world, Apple wouldn't lock up OSX and it would be easier to install on a variety of devices. In that same world, most manufacturers would give you an option of which OS you'd like pre-installed. As it is, we have to live in our messy little world for the time being."
I care to differ on this, as we know what that leads to when you have ONE company develop software but NO HARDWARE, MS has tried that.
I strongly believe that part of Apple's success is that they do BOTH hardware and software, can you imagine if this was true in the automotive industry that the company assembling the actual car would have relatively little to say about the engine and would just have the options ONE BIG company would offer with not real other options?
edited: Jan 04 2008
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
MeanSquare
It all depends on design philosophy. If you're looking to get something that does a couple of things really well, the custom-built design is the way to go. You can streamline in all kinds of ways. The issue is when you decide you want it to do something different. You may find yourself going up against all the choices made in the design streamlining. As an example, to run WiFi on my UX, I have to replace the internal WiFi card with one that's MAC OS compatible (because the drivers aren't there for the one that's built in), but with Windows I can use the existing card or I can replace it with an 802.11n model and put in drivers for that.
That said, the design philosophy follows the course the companies have taken. Apple wants to sell both hardware and software, so they build it so that so that it only works together (without a lot of work). Microsoft doesn't build hardware, so they have to build the software to be as flexible as possible so that it will run on as many platforms as possible. (Althought they could do a lot better at that with a lot more modular design.)
The design philosophy has another consequence though. Microsoft covers about 91.8% of the personal computer market. Apple covers about 7.3%. The remainder is Linux/Unix and some really esoteric stuff. Certainly some of the credit for market share has to do with marketing, but remember which is the better marketing company.
edited: Jan 04 2008
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
The scenario of having to swap the wifi card in your UX or as more recently has been on the topic in the ASUS EEE is all tied into the subject of this thread though. People like us and more and more want a smaller portable Mac, once that exists the need to create one is ot there in the same fashion.
I have to confess I was somewhat anti iPhone after I learned of all the limitations (no 3rd party sw etc etc) but having had one now for some 6 mos or so I have to say I don't think of it's limitations much anymore due to how nicely everything works, one example being wwan <-> wlan jumping, I've never seen ANY portable device due it as smoothly ever etc etc.
BTW on the topic of iPhone and 3rd party sw, I just picked up a Leopard box at oe of my local Apple stores and saw a couple of boxes of some language sw for the iPhone, this has to be intended to be installed onto it right? I didn't know anything like that was officially available already...also can't seem to find it on the Apple online store either?
01/04/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
Btw see the picture in here and notice the mousepad
link
01/04/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
MeanSquare
Well, that trackpad will certainly give you a lot of positional control (Actually, I could see doing something like that and then including an overlay template and software that would allow you to create a whole set of soft-keys, but I suspect the source is Photoshop rather than Apple.)
01/04/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
MeanSquare said: "t I suspect the source is Photoshop rather than Apple.)"
...like the Engadget title indicates yeah.
01/04/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
Did some reading in the thread the picture showed up in and whereas there's a book in Swedish in the picture and the pic is hosted on a "bayimg.com" website registered in Sweden also there's a million theories on there as what is what..
Anyhow what I found somewhat interesting is this mockup with the Apple BT keyboard as the starting point:
link
01/04/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
ecsk2
Haven't we been talking about ideas like this forever now
link
Register / login
|
