Jump to content

  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.

Mac Users Of Mtc (apple: Go Ahead, Take A Bite!)

marc.alan

By marc.alan
in Technology & Gadgets

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 1.9k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

deepdiverboy
deepdiverboy

Apple products are way overrated. And this is coming from an iMac and iPod owner.

phenom9
phenom9

YUP!!! If you have the funds to buy 1, BUY IT!!! I'm extremely happy with my 15 inch i7 4gb ram. After 3 years, i'll max my ram to 8gb. Awesome product, you won't be disappointed.   ---from a first ti

boomouse Newbie

boomouse

Posted
Posted (edited)
They're apparently dropping FW support with these new macbooks...

 

Hmmm. Apparently so. And the new MBP has only one FW800 port now. You will need a FW400 to FW800 cable to use FW400 based devices.

 

How do you use Time Machine? Is it the same as system restore? I'm just learning how to use MAC. Thanks!

 

 

Not quite. System restore just remembers the state of your system at a particular time and makes it possible to go back to that. Time Machine will effectively backup several versions of your entire hard disk as you progressively put files in it. You can set the frequency of the backups too. You of course will need a separate hard disk (internal or external) that should have enough free space as the size of your work drive.

 

===========================

 

Microsoft says we pay an 'Apple Tax'

 

That's one way of putting it perhaps. Or how about calling it 'protection money' so that Windows isn't foisted on us? Can we also call it 'anti blue screen insurance'? Oh sure, OS X gets trashed too once in a while, in the hands of a real dodo but all you have to do is to pop in the system disk and reinstall the system. You don't have to wipe the entire hard disk and reinstall everything including apps and backups. Anyway, here's a piece about a Microsoft executive talking about an Apple tax:

 

Microsoft Exec Says Mac Users Pay an "Apple Tax"

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2008/10/15.7.shtml

 

by Bryan Chaffin, 12:35 PM EDT, October 15th, 2008

 

A Microsoft executive has begun pushing the line of attack that people who buy Macs are paying an "Apple tax," and that many just don't realize it. Brad Brooks, vice president of Windows Consumer Product Marketing, argued in an interview with CNet's Ina Fried that this supposed tax comes in the form of both choice and dollars.

 

Mr. Brooks' comments came in an interview that was ostensibly about Microsoft and Vista, though in the end it was dominated by discussion of Apple. Indeed, the "Apple tax" idea entered the discussion when Mr. Brooks was asked what PC makers should do in a time of economic challenge. Mr. Brooks answer? One sentence about Microsoft investing more resources with PC makers and three and a half paragraphs about, "understanding what is really involved with what we call the 'Apple tax'."

 

"There really is a tax around there for people that are evaluating their choices going into this holiday season and going forward," said Mr. Brooks. "There's a choice tax that we talked about, which is, hey, you want to buy a machine that's other than black, white, or silver, and if you want to get it in multiple different configurations or price points, you're going to be paying a tax if you go the Apple way."

 

He also argued that Mac users won't be able to get the rich application experience enjoyed by Windows users -- he cited Microsoft Outlook and games -- and that they'll have a "technology tax" (no HDMI, no Blu-ray, and no e-SATA external drives). Then there's the "upgrade tax," as only MacPros, which start at US$2,799, are upgradable.

 

When asked if Mac and Windows compatibility wasn't at an all-time high, Mr. Brooks argued that if you want Windows, "start with a machine that was built for the Windows experience." He also cut down his own company's Mac Business Unit's main product, Office for Mac, as being "stripped down."

 

Ms. Fried also pointed out that it appeared as if more and more people were willing to pay this so-called tax, and Mr. Brooks responded by asking if "customers really know what they're getting into?" The added costs of products like Parallels, Fusion, or even a standalone copy of Windows is, he argued, something these unwitting Switchers are being duped into buying, unaware of what they're facing.

 

Even when Ms. Fried tried to bring the question back to what Microsoft wanted its customers to understand about the value of Vista, Mr. Brooks dragged the conversation back to Apple. "There's also productivity value that you get on Windows Vista that you can't get on a Mac," he said.

 

The full interview is both lengthy and interesting, and completely Apple-centric, suggesting the platform wars may not be truly dead after all. The interview coincides with a series of ads Microsoft is running that also make Apple part of its conversation by asking if users if they're a PC, a direct response to Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads.

 

--------------

 

Some responses to this article:

 

Quote
application experience enjoyed by Windows users -- he cited Microsoft Outlook

A good example. I use Outlook at work and it is the worst, most unstable, most frustrating e-mail system I've ever used. I'd use GroupWise, LotusNotes, heck even a simple IMAP mail system or Gmail before I'd recommend Outlook. Outlook is nothing to brag about.

 

As far as other apps; MS is deeply frightened. not only are more and more users moving away from Windows, you are seeing lots of people dropping Office for OpenOffice, iWork, or other non MS solutions. MS has been providing bloated, resource heavy, hard to use apps for so long they don't know what to do when the public says Enough.

 

MS doesn't understand that people are sick of paying the MS Tax. Extra support costs, forced upgrades, and overpriced applications. Heck they PAY me to work on MS S*** and even I'm sick of it.

 

* * *

 

Microsoft taxes my patience and my time. As guest number one said in his second point, I'm glad they admitted they sold everyone at our University and inferior product. Time to change to iWork and Open Office.

 

* * *

 

As Barry Schwartz has researched and written about, "choice" isn't nearly as positive as people intuitively think it is. While it's true that the PC market offers a vast array of choices in price and quality, what that does is leave customers overwhelmed, confused, and ultimately, disappointed, as they are left wondering whether one of they would have been better served by one of the alternatives they did not choose. This is the premise of Schwartz's Paradox of Choice, and I'm sure we can all think back to an episode in our lives where we experienced this ourselves. Think about standing in a store, looking over dozens of similar items on the store shelf, before reluctantly giving in and picking up one. Did you leave confident you made the best choice? Probably not.

 

Apply that to laptops. Of those $600 laptops, which are crap and which are decent? Yes, there are some hardware options that aren't yet available, like a tablet (though an aftermarket option is available), but those aren't exactly flying off the shelves in Windows land, anyway.

 

In software, it's even worse. I don't want a ton of crappy applications that do the same basic thing, none doing it well. I want one or two applications that do it well. Look at the quality of Mac shareware versus Windows. Frankly, a lot of the Windows shareware is embarrassingly bad.

 

Besides, Microsoft is being disingenuous with their "choice" racket. Microsoft isn't really interested in users having a choice of, for instance, office suites or operating systems (unless you count their 31 flavors of Vista).

 

So, choice is nice, to an extent, and the Mac market might benefit from some more. Compared to the wasteland that is the Windows market, I'll take my limited, but quality and reasonably priced, Mac market.

 

* * *

 

--if you want Windows, "start with a machine that was built for the Windows experience."--

 

So the fact that every bench test that we've seen shows that Vista actually performs better on Apple hardware than most PC's makes it an undesirable platform for Microsoft products? Let's see...1000's of possible drivers that need to be written to accommodate every possible hardware vendor used by PC manufacturers, or the Bootcamp drivers that come installed on Leopard? Seems to me that the machine best built for Windows is a Mac!! I have Office for Windows on my XP partition (which I plan to re-partition and eliminate soon). Haven't used it once. I use iWork for everything. Some Taxes are worth paying!

 

* * *

 

Want to talk about relative costs of computer systems?

 

How about the health care costs from stress related disorders that result when working on windblows crap?

 

* * *

Edited by boomouse
Link to comment
boomouse Newbie

boomouse

Posted
Posted (edited)

Now Microsoft is into "Envelopmental Journalism"

 

Here in the Philippines, those familiar with the way our mass media works also know what 'envelopmental journalism' is. The first obvious notion that comes to mind is the right one. A take-off from the late-20th century buzzword 'developmental journalism' which denotes journalistic writing that would be in support of helping third world econmies grow industries, public confidence, and generate an overall feeling of satisfaction in the people.

 

Envelopmental journalism is corruption of our mass media and that is a topic for another thread. But David Morgenstern, a popular blogger in ZDnet has reported that he was offered $15k possibly more to write a Vista vs OS X article that favors Vista. John Martellaro of The Mac Observer reports (you can also find the full Morgenstern blog about this here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2415):

 

ZDNet: Price to Sell Out Apple is $15,000

 

by John Martellaro, 4:05 PM EDT, October 21st, 2008

 

Microsoft has been working hard lately to counter Apple success. First came the US$300M TV ad campaign. Then Mr. Ballmer's suggestion that Mac users don't get the full MS Office. Then the infamous "Apple Tax" campaign amongst Mac editors. On Monday, David Morgenstern was approached, apparently by a Microsoft client, to write a technical marketing case for Vista over Mac OSX [sic] in the enterprise. The fee to be paid is $15,000.

 

Mr. Morgenstern posted the text of the letter.

One of our customers has asked us write up a technical marketing case for Windows Vista over Mac OSX in the enterprise. I'm contacting you to see if you know anyone who would be interested and capable of writing this based on background materials we have.

 

The candidate should have a good understanding of client systems in the enterprise and the technologies behind issues that are important in the enterprise (deployment, manageability, work group and policy management, security, suitability of developer platforms for line of business applications, tech support, licensing, TCO).

 

We have some background materials that include a 75 page technical document called "Apple in the Enterprise" and other summaries of technical points, but it all needs to be put together to make the case.

The well known Apple blogger cited a potential $15,000 fee for this work, but surmised it could be more depending on the stature of the author.

 

"Can it be that the Mac and the iPhone are gaining enough traction in the enterprise to start ringing alarm bells in Redmond? It appears so," Mr. Morgenstern wrote.

 

Other observers have agreed with Mr. Morgenstern that the percolation of the iPhone into the enterprise and its reverse halo effect, that is the clamor for Macs, along with Windows virtualization, are making headway with IT departments.

 

The recent Apple "Get a Mac" ad, called Bean Counter, highlights Microsoft's approach to selling Vista: throw money at the problem in lots of different ways rather than fixing the OS's problems. The proposal to Mr. Morgenstern and likely other authors punctuates that long standing Microsoft approach.

 

============

Some responses to this at TMO:

But Apple only has 3% market share! Why should Microsoft be scared? I don't care about how many more computers they sell each quarter, they're still stuck at 3%. Always have been, always will be. Nothing to be afraid of.

 

P.S. Steve Ballmer promised me $15,000 for posting this. I'm still waiting, Monkey Boy.

 
Ballmer's distortion field which only works on himself has Macs at 3%.

 

They've just now figured that people are migrating to Macs wholesale. Once on a Mac those users almost never return. That is a very serious kind of loss.

 

Fortunately, Ballmer is a a complete idiot. His bonehead turn at the helm of MS is the best boost Apple could have ever had. Vista, zune, DRM fiascoes to name a few of his special "monkey boy" exploits.

 

Apparently Microsoft and Ballmer don't understand the dynamics of Apple fanboy loyalty, or the strength of the Apple distortion field, or perhaps being caught in a public support of Vista might just feel like a public admission of stupidity and there's no price for that unless you are a politician on the Philippines--none of whom, I think, are Mac users.

Edited by boomouse
Link to comment
boomouse Newbie

boomouse

Posted
Posted
brand new owner of the NEW MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz right here!!

 

Congratulations! Did you get the one with front slot or side slot? Either way, you got it at the right time.

 

===================

 

Apple patents how powerful GPUs can be used to speed up general computing tasks

 

Apple Patents, Snow Leopard Technologies Solidifying Mac Advantages

 

by John Martellaro, 4:45 PM EDT, October 23rd, 2008

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2008/10/23.10.shtml

 

Apple has said that the next version of its OS, Snow Leopard, will focus on speed and stability, and at last year's WWDC, some of the technologies like Grand Central and OpenCL were publicly revealed. Behind the scenes, however, Apple is actively working on patents that will give Macs a decisive advantage over Windows-based PCs that haven't bothered to exploit such technologies in mainstream products.

 

It's well known that the software industry hasn't caught up to the hardware, especially multi-core CPUs and and the looming possibility of GPUs on the desktop, or even the lap top, with near petaflop speeds. (A trillion floating point operations per second.)

 

Three Apple patents, showcased by InformationWeeksuggest that Apple intends to solidify a technical lead in their Macs -- or at least extract patent license fees if the PC world wants to play along.

 

The first relates to parallel computing on multiple processors in which a software layer makes the GPU appear as a general purpose CPU, available to the application and OS as an additional core.

 

That's because GPUs have traditionally been structured for high throughput, multiple cores, and highly threaded, parallel graphics operations, but haven't been tailored for generalized or even mathematical calculations.

 

IW pointed out that a related patent application has Aaftab Munshi listed, a software architect at Apple who came from ATI. That patent along with an associated one, describes how multiple threads can be more efficiently scheduled amongst all the available cores made available.

 

The implications for Apple are obvious. If Apple were making inexpensive, commodity computers, they couldn't afford to delve into these kinds of technologies. However, with Apple's traditional customers, especially those professionals working in research, science, medicine, and engineering, the speed advantages of Macs, comparable to supercomputers of five years ago, could give the company a decisive market advantage.

 

Recent but unconfirmed reports from NVIDIA suggest that it may be possible, in principle for the new MacBook Pros to access both graphics cores in a computational mode, even though Leopard currently forces the user to log in and out to switch netween them. TMO is looking onto those reports. Snow Leopard could change that from a computational standpoint.

 

In time, PCs, which are already perceived as uncool, could become even more solidified by Apple marketing as the stodgy computer on which one simply reads e-mail and writes memos in MS Word. Apple's "Get A Mac" TV commercials will have plenty of fodder to work with.

 

All that is required is for Apple Mac developers to get on board and use the Apple hardware to differentiate themselves, much as iPhone developers already have to their great advantage.

 

The operations GPU's are inherently "mathematical calculations". They have simply been more specific calculations than are generally useful.

 

GPU's are becoming more powerful, and the operations they can perform are being expanded so that the output of their calculations can be used for things not typically considered as 'graphical'.

 

Apple has been using and enabling developers to use the GPU to perform various operations on images and videos if the GPU supports performing the operation, or performs the same operation using the CPU, only more slowly, if the GPU can't support the operation.

Link to comment
irvin1130 Newbie

irvin1130

Posted
Posted
Congratulations! Did you get the one with front slot or side slot? Either way, you got it at the right time.

 

===================

 

 

 

Apple Patents, Snow Leopard Technologies Solidifying Mac Advantages

 

by John Martellaro, 4:45 PM EDT, October 23rd, 2008

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2008/10/23.10.shtml

 

Apple has said that the next version of its OS, Snow Leopard, will focus on speed and stability, and at last year's WWDC, some of the technologies like Grand Central and OpenCL were publicly revealed. Behind the scenes, however, Apple is actively working on patents that will give Macs a decisive advantage over Windows-based PCs that haven't bothered to exploit such technologies in mainstream products.

 

It's well known that the software industry hasn't caught up to the hardware, especially multi-core CPUs and and the looming possibility of GPUs on the desktop, or even the lap top, with near petaflop speeds. (A trillion floating point operations per second.)

 

Three Apple patents, showcased by InformationWeeksuggest that Apple intends to solidify a technical lead in their Macs -- or at least extract patent license fees if the PC world wants to play along.

 

The first relates to parallel computing on multiple processors in which a software layer makes the GPU appear as a general purpose CPU, available to the application and OS as an additional core.

 

That's because GPUs have traditionally been structured for high throughput, multiple cores, and highly threaded, parallel graphics operations, but haven't been tailored for generalized or even mathematical calculations.

 

IW pointed out that a related patent application has Aaftab Munshi listed, a software architect at Apple who came from ATI. That patent along with an associated one, describes how multiple threads can be more efficiently scheduled amongst all the available cores made available.

 

The implications for Apple are obvious. If Apple were making inexpensive, commodity computers, they couldn't afford to delve into these kinds of technologies. However, with Apple's traditional customers, especially those professionals working in research, science, medicine, and engineering, the speed advantages of Macs, comparable to supercomputers of five years ago, could give the company a decisive market advantage.

 

Recent but unconfirmed reports from NVIDIA suggest that it may be possible, in principle for the new MacBook Pros to access both graphics cores in a computational mode, even though Leopard currently forces the user to log in and out to switch netween them. TMO is looking onto those reports. Snow Leopard could change that from a computational standpoint.

 

In time, PCs, which are already perceived as uncool, could become even more solidified by Apple marketing as the stodgy computer on which one simply reads e-mail and writes memos in MS Word. Apple's "Get A Mac" TV commercials will have plenty of fodder to work with.

 

All that is required is for Apple Mac developers to get on board and use the Apple hardware to differentiate themselves, much as iPhone developers already have to their great advantage.

 

The operations GPU's are inherently "mathematical calculations". They have simply been more specific calculations than are generally useful.

 

GPU's are becoming more powerful, and the operations they can perform are being expanded so that the output of their calculations can be used for things not typically considered as 'graphical'.

 

Apple has been using and enabling developers to use the GPU to perform various operations on images and videos if the GPU supports performing the operation, or performs the same operation using the CPU, only more slowly, if the GPU can't support the operation.

boom do you think by end of this year or 1st quarter next year the snow leopard will be available for new mac? And will it work for old mbp's?

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...