Mine's a simple Question -

Post #22,923 by Ashton 1/2/02 10:40:34 PM Reply	Mine's a simple Question - Is Apple (Steve's warts; lousy treatment of dealers and all) likely to survive another 5 years? If it is.. and I dunno whose opinion anyone could trust on the Way-forward machine: I just may be joining the ranks. This from necessity that W98 is doomed and I will not own anything else from Redmond. That is, cute and fuzzy as Linux appears to be .. the inaction of RH and all the other L. wannabe entrepreneurs - thus far makes it clear that it's just their hobby. 1) They missed-out totally on exploiting the XP Rollout with a snazzy demo and new distros appropriately timed and backed by the $ to buy Press. Generate stories that journalists will suck up. USE! a free advantage.. 2) This will be the clincher for me: the thus-far absence of any L. response to the BSA moves planned: even in San Francisco County, next-door to Silly Valley! If.. as I suspect.. they will budget no $ towards turning this despicable rolling HUAC-like clone (That's House UnMurican Activities Committee) against itself - if they have no spiel about the new pricing rulez from M$ and - all those other characteristics of lock-in we all know - Then I'll skip the Linux Experience thankyouverymuch. It shall remain a geek toy, right next to my Otrona with WordStar. No point in setting-up a distro for some next newbie or especially for - anyone trying to start a business. Hardware cost is irrelevant - it's the time that kills. Apple wins maybe - if it will survive [??] I am grateful for one facet of a failed enterprise: at least I didn't waste the time to become ept on YAN toy, developed according to whims of "what would be fun to do today?" - even amongst the folks who pretend to be 'marketing' a complete toy-set for real $. RIP Linux. (Unless a real surprise occurs very soon) Ashton The utter wimps..
Post #22,924 by Meerkat 1/2/02 10:57:49 PM Reply	Five years is a long time. However, the words 'Apple' and 'Beleagured' haven't shared a bed since early 1998 or so IIRC. Who can tell - maybe the Jan 7 Stevenote will garner nothing but a huge collective shoulder-shrug, the likes of which haven't been seen since the last Atlas look-alike competition. And so, the company could go south rather quickly. Or, because Steve's so clever and We All Love Him, he'd change tack and produce anther super duper product to return Apple swiftly to profitability again. My guess, uninformed as it is - if Steve is around in five years, Apple will be around in five years. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #22,983 by nking 1/3/02 2:08:07 PM Reply	Five years is a long time Anything can happen in five years. Apple could do very well and buy out Palm, or join with Sun, or get bought out by Sony or IBM. Or Apple could produce more systems like the Lisa, Apple ///, A/UX, etc and flop into an early grave? Even the original Macintosh didn't do too well the first few years. The Newton drained the company for a while as well. Will Apple dare another PDA? In 2004, the Mac will have a 20 year birthday. Will Apple bring back the Classic Macs in that Shoebox/Mr. Coffee type box with the 9 inch screens? Will the Mac-Clones come back? Will Microsoft own more of Apple? In five years Linux could get more marketshare than Apple, it seems that Linux almost doubles its marketshare every year. Imagine that Microsoft is broken up, and the MicroApps part joins with Apple? "In order to completely solve a problem, you must make sure that the root of the problem is completely removed! If you leave the root, the problem will come back later to get you." - Norman King
Post #22,931 by static 1/3/02 12:12:19 AM Reply	A Mac is strangely tempting. But I have no need whatsoever for YA peecee. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #22,952 by admin 1/3/02 10:08:52 AM Reply	Don't jump until you try: [link\|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/23531.html\|How I learned to stop worrying, and abandoned Mac OSX] Regards, -scott anderson
Post #23,004 by tjsinclair 1/3/02 3:39:48 PM Reply	As always, see for yourself Get over to a CompUSA, Circuit City, MicroCenter, Fry's or, if you're lucky, an Apple store and try one of those puppies out. Ultimately, an OS is a very personal choice, or at least should be. Tom Sinclair Speaker-to-Suits "Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk [...]" -- (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)
Post #23,370 by admin 1/7/02 10:17:24 AM Reply	Mailbag: most mail against the new UI [link\|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/23562.html\|Mailbag] Regards, -scott anderson
Post #23,388 by tjsinclair 1/7/02 3:07:46 PM Reply	Once again--See for yourself, make up your own mind Plus, how many people (like me) actually prefer the UI and didn't bother to write in? Tom Sinclair Speaker-to-Suits Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like "What is my purpose in life?" very quickly lacked both. -- (Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times)
Post #23,390 by admin 1/7/02 3:09:31 PM Reply	That's what I've been saying, isn't it? Especially since my first post on the subject was titled "Don't jump until you try"? :-) Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #23,417 by Meerkat 1/7/02 5:31:50 PM Reply	IIRC people whinged when Win95 came out. Just because it was all different and strange. For people that have been working with Macs for many years, it's understandable that they wouldn't want to change. I was only an occasional Mac-user before I bought my iBook - my Duo230, Mac SE, and LCIII didn't exactly have enough power to be considered useful for everyday machines. (I acquired them over the last three or four years). So, I wasn't totally into the pre-Aqua interface. It was convenient, did the job, the application-switching menu was kinda groovy, though I missed the at-a-glance view of what applications were running, which you had in Win95. And you have it in Aqua. So I'm happy. Took me about two hours of playing with OS9 on the iBook before I booted into OSX. And have pretty much stayed there ever since. It's not perfect, it does need work, but even as it is I'm quite fond. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #23,418 by wharris2 1/7/02 5:36:36 PM Reply	And some people are still moaning and griping I still think it's damn peculiar to shut down your computer from the Start menu. The one idiocy I've always bitched about is the stupid Windows NT "Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to login". (Or to get out of a password-protected screen saver.) Of all the stupid things to do; why not just do it ala OS/2, where you just hit a return to bring up the password dialog? "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #23,434 by Meerkat 1/7/02 7:23:30 PM Reply	Ctrl-Alt-Del a security measure, of sorts. Something to do with keyboard interrupts that couldn't be hijacked and stuff. I guess someone with a genuine clue will give the proper story. As for Windoze Start to Shutdown, I guess they had to innovate something to work like dragging a disc to the 'Trash' to eject it. In OS X th garbage turns to an 'eject' symbol as soon as you start dragging a disc. Phew. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #23,447 by tjsinclair 1/7/02 9:33:40 PM Reply	I guess we're just approaching from different directions <g> Tom Sinclair Speaker-to-Suits The Emperor had all the qualifications for a corpse except, as it were, the most vital one. -- (Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times)
Post #23,006 by boxley 1/3/02 3:53:59 PM Reply	considering that I have never used the mac UI except once about 1986 for a few hrs I find the OSX UI to be as useful as MS, gnome etc. Dont have to unlearn anything I guess. thanx, bill My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #23,039 by tuberculosis 1/3/02 5:28:28 PM Reply	What a whiner Yep, toss the platform. Its totally unusable without springloaded folders. Right. Its a little different. The finder has some catching up to do. There are other innovations in the finder that are pretty cool (the directory browser is an improvement). I actually like the doc - I keep it hidden on the bottom. I'd like to see a window-list menu pop up from each doc item though. I'm pretty happy to see the old mac die. The new thing is much better.
Post #23,053 by tjsinclair 1/3/02 7:27:58 PM Reply	Aqua's just another UI to me but I will admit it took me some time (about 5-6 months) to really get into the groove, reflex-wise. However, I was able to be productive in a much shorter time (within the first hour.) It's kind of hard to explain, I suppose... Anyway, it seems that folks who are used to moving between platforms might have an easier time of it. Ironically enough, spring-loaded folders are supposed to be back with the 10.2 update. In addition, I think Apple has been amazingly responsive to user feedback with OS X. Tom Sinclair Speaker-to-Suits "While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane, d'you see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe." Treatle nodded. "I hadn't looked at it like that," he said, "But you're absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance." -- Discworld scientists at work (Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites)
Post #23,063 by Ashton 1/3/02 9:12:09 PM Reply	Thanks.._________I think {sigh} There won't ever again be a no-brainer choice in this bizarre 'field', I'm beginning to notice. And the Blackcomb threat? promise? (especially with the added fillip of Bugging the shit out of Larry Ellison! -- surely a major preoccupation in the middle-aged Billy-mind?). All this stuff now in abeyance - pending our all finding out if .. .. Judge K-K is a wimp, too [??] Amazing set of dominoes being positioned. As Tom suggests - it is a personal preference thingie - re the UI. And maybe ignorance is bliss, for one unaccustomed to previous Mac UI variants. Probably best (for me) that I never experienced the Next Step environment, which appears to be right up there with OS/2 Workplace Shell.. in the kudos list. On my list: go visit local Apple dealer reel soon. Will post my incompetent first impressions for your amusement and guffaws :-\ufffd Hell.. it'll be 'New' anyway! but a Kia or a Bugatti .?. Ashton
Post #23,070 by Meerkat 1/3/02 9:27:50 PM Reply	Bugatti looks with Kia performance. BTW is it just me or has everyone else made the association that KIA = Killed In Action? Oh, and I mean a nice Bugatti, not one of those interesting prototypes. OS X, or more specifically Aqua, has a huge 'Ooh' and 'Aah' factor because it does indeed look fab compared to anything else. I believe it's quite wonderful to work with on G4 machines, but on my 500MHZ iBook (G3), I wouldn't accuse it of outperform Phar Lap. Heck, at times I wouldn't accuse it of outperforming Fatso the Wombat. However, it's primarily because I'm trying to do too much in 192 Mb of RAM. Despite its occasional bouts of wombattedness, it's still very much a pleasure to use. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #23,077 by nking 1/3/02 11:01:15 PM Reply	More than just "Eye Candy" Aqua is nice, but what else can it do that other OSes can't? "In order to completely solve a problem, you must make sure that the root of the problem is completely removed! If you leave the root, the problem will come back later to get you." - Norman King
Post #23,079 by Meerkat 1/3/02 11:28:42 PM Reply	It's a Mac. I know that doesn't answer the question though. I guess my fondness for OS X is part practical, part principal. A very big plus for me is that it isn't (very) Microsoft. Another plus is the good tie-in between the hardware and the software. Like, regardless how many driver updates and things I've done, my PC still has its times where it flatly refuses to wake from sleep, things like that. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #23,083 by nking 1/4/02 12:18:27 AM Reply	It's an Amiga The same argument can be used for the Amiga, which ironically, is still being sold. AmigaOS 3.9 is the latest OS release and 4.0 isn't that far away. It isn't made by Microsoft, and it isn't Windows. It has a nice GUI, and a stable OS. The Amiga One/AmigaDE is migration to the PowerPC platform. It can run PC programs via emulators if need be, just like a Macintosh. it doesn't have any big egos behind it, like Apple has Jobs, but it is a nice little system that could. I still do not see a reason why I should switch to OSX, but I would like to try it someday and see what all the fuss is about. "In order to completely solve a problem, you must make sure that the root of the problem is completely removed! If you leave the root, the problem will come back later to get you." - Norman King
Post #23,087 by tjsinclair 1/4/02 12:25:34 AM Reply	I don't think anyone here is insisting you switch... Tom Sinclair Speaker-to-Suits The place looked as though it had been visited by Gengiz Cohen [footnote: hence the term "wholesale destruction"]. -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies)
Post #23,142 by nking 1/4/02 2:01:06 PM Reply	Sorry then I must have had flashbacks to the MacJihad days? "In order to completely solve a problem, you must make sure that the root of the problem is completely removed! If you leave the root, the problem will come back later to get you." - Norman King
Post #23,148 by Meerkat 1/4/02 4:03:02 PM Reply	Remember: You have free will. If anyone were to start insisting that I switch to, say, XP, I would have to insist that they bugger off. You can expect a fair amount of 'ooh, Os X is really fab!' in the Mac forum, for some reason :) Amiga had a GUI'd unixish system some 15 years before Apple released one. The big diff between Mac success and the Amiga's lack of? Commodore. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #23,159 by nking 1/4/02 5:07:41 PM Reply	I tend to forget that working for lawyers kind of drains the free will from one's system. :( "In order to completely solve a problem, you must make sure that the root of the problem is completely removed! If you leave the root, the problem will come back later to get you." - Norman King
Post #23,177 by tjsinclair 1/4/02 7:01:28 PM Reply	That's quite all right. Think nothing of it.... Tom Sinclair Speaker-to-Suits "You're not allowed to call them dinosaurs anymore." said Yo-less. "It's speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons." -- (Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Bomb)

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