pecosbill's Profile

Hmm. My MacBook has had only one problem. No Safari freezes. If you have anything in /Library/Input Managers, remove it (SafariBlock 2.1 works fine for me, FYI). You should also check /Library/Internet Plug-ins (name?) to ensure you don't have any junk in there. I had a helper file in there for Flash and it was confusing the newest version. You might want to move all the plug-ins out and add them back one file at a time. DVD sharing probably only works well on 802.11n networks and wired GigE. The one time I had wake from sleep problems LONG ago, I had to do an Archive and Install(preserving settings). Worked fine after that as there was some software not behaving with the latest OS. I don't recall what it was. As for the window closing on volume eject, OS 9 did that. Is OS X supposed to randomly pick a location? Seems like a convenience to me but I like things tidy. My one problem stems from my WPA security, I guess. The network "hangs" until I turn AirPort off and back on. Many others have it too. I did an Archive and Install with settings preservation. I think I have to kill all the related support files and start over.

Beeblebrox said "And digging themselves right into another one by bricking iPhones when customers exercise their right to open the phone to other carriers." Any iPhone owner specifically agreed via ToS to not modify their phones to "open to ... other carriers." They had zero right to do that. They knew the risks and APPLE STATED their phone might be damaged if they applied the latest firmware. Come on! What's Apple supposed to do, physically hold their hands? In case you didn't know, the iPhone is believed to be partially subsidized by the monthly fees via commission from AT&T. This bricking argument is getting tired and has always been ignorant. I liked Steven's article because it's honest and accurate. You're like the anti-zealot spewing unsubstantiated claims. For example, when did Jobs demand that DRM be removed? He suggested it, but I have seen no account of a demand. Yes, EMI was thinking of doing it before Jobs announced it and may have even given Jobs the idea. Demanded? Maybe all this zealot labeling comes from people vigorously defending falsehoods. Ignorance cannot remain unchecked! Sheesh. I hate having to correct Mac users. Apple does lock OS disks to the computer model they ship with. My G5 disk would not install on my iBook (but the OS would copy). You will hear Apple say they don't support third party applications and hardware. Most geniuses will give it a try though. I would definitely agree that Apple has taken many pages from Microsoft's playbook. I think it's too early to call them a monopoly and can cite your citation of Amazon's mp3 store as an example. Plus, the Sansa is reportedly gaining market share. My $350 laptop does NOT run Vista like a champ. It's slower than it should be for a 1.2G Celeron. We certainly don't know what negotiations exactly transpired between Apple and the music trolls. There's nothing preventing Universal from trying to undercut iTunes to cause damage/prop-up the new AmZtore. Welcome to business. My point is you cannot draw a conclusion when the underlying rules change. Think "Introductory (predatory) Pricing." And, if you recall, it wasn't until Jobs talked them into it that you could actually own your purchases for life. Up until then, it was subscription only. There's NO WAY you could have talked the trolls into DRM free music back when the store started. AND, Jobs had to talk them down to 99c. What Apple could do, now that the Store is making Apple tons of money, is reduce some of their take but I'd bet that won't happen without a concession from the trolls. The iPhone subsidy is the same as other phones. Theoretically, the initial price is discounted due to the monthly cost built in for any phone. Why do you think Apple dropped the price? It just means that once the phone subsidy is paid (whenever that is), AT&T doesn't get the gravy, Apple does. (You don't think you can get a high-end smartphone for zero initial cost, do you?) I think most large corporations are greedy and, unlike Apple these days, inept. Apple just makes great products. Yes, repair prices are obscene which is why my new rule is to always get AppleCare. And speaking of shit don't stink, I don't think there's as many people as you do who believe that Apple can do no wrong. Most of us are pissed that Jobs didn't fight back more on ringtones. Lots of theories as to why but nothing concrete. Bluegirl, why is M$ to blame if your CM system crashes? BBrox, why didn't you take your numbers file into the store with you and open it on any of many Macs that have iWork and save it out as Excel or any other supported format? BTW, *IIRC*, the format is an XML package so you should be able to extract the parts and recreate if you were in a hurry. I don't have iWork 08. And, while you're at it, let's see the laundry list of money spent on your cheap PC. Don't forget the software you must have to support it. I suspect you'll still be below the iMac. Oh, be sure to factor in your time to build it. Apple does not have a stranglehold over me. The DRM lock is due to the music trolls (RIAA) and not Apple's fault. I can get my computers repaired by third parties using hardware that they refurbished. And I can even dump OS X in favor of anything that runs on Intel. Though I wouldn't call it a stranglehold, I do think Apple needs to offer more variety of hardware. We need a mini tower that runs Core Duos with reasonable memory costs. FB-DIMMs are expensive. I'm reaaaaaally tired of people demanding that Apple open the hardware platform. Go get the cracked OS X 10.4.4 that has to be floating somewhere in the Net and have fun. Apple is a hardware company first. Their gross profits primarily come from hardware (though Leo WILL give them a nice boost). They are never going to cede that money. M$ has huge costs and lack of reliability due to their "open" hardware standards (If it was truly open, Apple wouldn't have had to hack in a BIOS layer inside EFI to boot XP). Even if/when Jobs leaves, his successor knows why open hardware will not work for Apple. It's been tried and it failed, or did you forget that? Anyone blaming a user for an OS crash should have their head examined. Unfortunately, many don't know a true OS crash/lockup or don't wait when a mounted volume abnormally drops. A kernel panic IS possible when hardware is bad (and roughly is equal to a BSOD these days). Bad power can wreak havoc too. Bad kernel extensions (kexts) will cause problems also but there are far fewer third party kexts than drivers for windows so the risk is greater for the latter. Bad kexts is also not Apple's fault though anyone installing risky code (kexts or Unsanity's APE) may need a tongue lashing (though isn't it better to go at it from a helpful side which would involve asking questions about what the user was doing?). It is Microsoft's as all different types of drivers (in XP at least) all run in the same space. Print drivers and disk drivers whereas OS X segregates them. To my knowledge, Apple also strongly discourages the kext code path.

3, Gear lust: that only became true when Jobs returned as he got the engineers to focus. They really have that nailed which is why they're doing so well currently. Maybe it's 7: Design, but I would have thought more of a comment on OS usability would be in order. I'm surprised that you said Vista is missing drivers from 3rd parties. I read elsewhere that at this point they're mostly there. Some (most?) of the delay can be firmly planted on the horrid DRM. From my Vista Home Basic experience, I found the following: veeeery buggy; the cancel/allow authorization thingie is horribly annoying; the number of times the entire display went black then blinked back on was pathetic; it's SLOW to resume from hibernate or suspend though hibernate might be faster than XP. Actually, the login seems the slowest part. Having 15(?) versions of an OS is a joke. Just seems a way to gouge users. We bought VHB on a $350 Toshiba to get the absolute cheapest thing possible. It's function is to record and play square dances (using a Mac would be a tragic waste) and nothing else. It only has a "Celery" processor at 1.2G and 512M ram w/ 80G HD. (Can't remember much else.) I'm an immense fan of the Macintosh though I could write a (somewhat short) list of things that still bug me. The list for XP is MUCH larger. Enormous and still growing. Haven't used VHB enough to make a real list.

I've always thought of it as "disk wrist."

Windows help is definitely better than Apples which sux royally. Windows just has more content though. I really miss the coachmarks from 8/9.

Surprising the comments are few thus far. They are right on though. I'm not sure I follow the whole windows lining up thing but my guess is you like that windows makes maximized documents appear as though they are part of the app. I think that's a matter of taste and I do like the more 3d effect that OS X has. Well, I am dismayed at the entire metaphor they've picked. It's far from consistent. Try opening two Excel Documents & two Word Docs. Click the app close button bigger red X on Word & it closes one doc. Do that on Excel. It closes both. Inconsistencies like that abound. I also find their "properties pane" tiny size maddening. Try setting preferences in Outlook. It's a wild goose chase (use help!) resulting in layers on layers of those idiotic things. As for Word on the Mac, I refuse to give M$ one cent so I would not know how zoom works. I imagine the heritage of X and XP play in this a lot. For zoom, it's likely a Carbon vs Cocoa thing (Carbon: programmer do it all -- nearly -- it's changing; Cocoa: Apple handles things for you due to Object Oriented Programming). In XP, they have legacy issues as well though I don't understand the Word vs Excel close nor the itty bitty panes. I do feel that OS X has a much less cluttered feel than 9. I have lots of rants for both platforms (well, all three: 9, X, XP). My list for Windows is MUCH longer. One also needs to keep in mind that Apple is coding at a furious (insane?) pace. Issues like this are a result. I'm in awe at what they can turn out. The days of a solid x.0 release are long gone. I'm a power user of 9 (fading fast though it fit like a glove as it was my only for so many years), X, and XP (shudder, but I had to in order to make it more tolerable).