Mac users: new Macs

[plainsong]

My bluetooth experiences have been completely opposite, being far easier on windows with support for many more options - ICS anyone?

Of course it is possible to use ICS on the Mac as well, but you need the terminal to do it, using BSD's pppd.

So I still say that the bluetooth experience is better on windows, but the new G5's coming with antennae to up the range is a good thing. Every little counts..

I "made the switch" last summer and haven't looked back. I always preffered a Next environment anyway, so it's so much more pleasent to use. Just because I'm pointing out problems doesn't mean I don't prefer the Mac. For the 2 big problems I have with the mac, there are 50 I have with Xp Pro.

 

[archosman]

Can you actually build one? I've seen people at work who built their own PCs and wondered if you could do the same...


Quote:

Originally posted by lan Well I built my own mac because I need one but I've never bought one. Hopefully this will make the G4 upgrades much cheaper so I can upgrade. What's up with only 3 PCI slots? For "pro" users that can be filled with sound, video capture, and scsi cards. I would've had a 4th just in case.

 

[cyberhazard]

Quote:

Originally posted by archosman Can you actually build one? I've seen people at work who built their own PCs and wondered if you could do the same...

You can not build a Macintosh.

You can build a unit that will run the OS, but it's going to cost ya.

 

[chadbang]

Just for the sake of interest: I work for a large newspaper. Approximately half of the 100 machines we use to layout the paper are Macs.

 

[lan]

Well if you are pretty knowledgable and patient, you can wait for parts to appear on ebay and used/3rd party mac related company's sites (smalldog, macsales, etc.). You can't easily build a mac but it's definitly possible. All I got was powersupply, motherboard, cpu, and video card. Everything else is same as PC hardware except the case. I just mounted mine with a bit of effort into PC case.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by plainsong My bluetooth experiences have been completely opposite, being far easier on windows with support for many more options - ICS anyone?

ICS? What exactly are you trying to do?


Quote:

So I still say that the bluetooth experience is better on windows

With a sample size of one

I'm actually not trying to defend OS X here -- I've just been working with both platforms trying to get Bluetooth to work, and Windows is a mess right now in terms of Bluetooth support. The rants on the Windows-centric boards and in PC publications seem to agree -- it's a mess

The things OS X supports via Bluetooth actually work, which to me means better support. But we're getting off on a tangent here

Quote:

the new G5's coming with antennae to up the range is a good thing. Every little counts..

The current G4 towers also have antennas built into the enclosure, as do the current 17" and 12" PBG4s

 

[grinch]

panther screenshots were leaked today on slashdot.. thought you dorks might want to see.

http://www.deskmod.com/panther/

 

[plainsong]

Internet Connection Sharing - I wanna surf the web with my Tungsten using my Mac's ethernet connection via bluetooth. On our Xp Pro computer this is a snap - but you have to be a terminal jockey to get it to work with a mac.

Well, if you wanna generalize the whole bluetooth thing - then yeah on the Mac it's more stable. No drivers to install or anything. And on Xp it's the basically depends on what crap you have already installed, and how decent the dongle is that you got.

Speaking of Mac gripes, here's another one. And I'm not sure where the fault lies because some think it's Windows and some think it's Mac, and that's Windows-Mac networking. Sometimes the mac remembers where smb://spqr/consulate is, but lately I've been getting good ole error code -36. So it's forgotten, and I have to use the ip, only we're using dynamic ips, so it changes. Grrrr. I think it's both Windows, and Mac's fault.

And don't even get me started on video conferencing solutions..

If I were using Windows it would be a whole host of other problems, but these are the ones that I encountered with Mac. No OS - no matter how much we enjoy using it - is perfect.

Quote:

Originally posted by MacDEF ICS? What exactly are you trying to do? With a sample size of one I'm actually not trying to defend OS X here -- I've just been working with both platforms trying to get Bluetooth to work, and Windows is a mess right now in terms of Bluetooth support. The rants on the Windows-centric boards and in PC publications seem to agree -- it's a mess The things OS X supports via Bluetooth actually work, which to me means better support. But we're getting off on a tangent here The current G4 towers also have antennas built into the enclosure, as do the current 17" and 12" PBG4s

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by plainsong Internet Connection Sharing - I wanna surf the web with my Tungsten using my Mac's ethernet connection via bluetooth. On our Xp Pro computer this is a snap - but you have to be a terminal jockey to get it to work with a mac.

LOL, I was trying to figure out what you meant by "ICS" (ICS is the acronym for a standard calendaring protocol, so you can see why I was confused

). IP over Bluetooth is supposedly coming on the Mac side with 10.3.


Quote:

Well, if you wanna generalize the whole bluetooth thing

Isn't that what we were doing?

Quote:

Speaking of Mac gripes, here's another one. And I'm not sure where the fault lies because some think it's Windows and some think it's Mac, and that's Windows-Mac networking. Sometimes the mac remembers where smb://spqr/consulate is, but lately I've been getting good ole error code -36. So it's forgotten, and I have to use the ip, only we're using dynamic ips, so it changes. Grrrr. I think it's both Windows, and Mac's fault.

Connecting to Windows shares via SMB/CIFS is a pain in the %*# for Macs and other Unix machines, but it's mostly due to problems with Windows and/or the local DNS system. Windows systems have troubles when you try to connect via the SMB/CIFS protocol using a domain name. On the whole, it's better to use the actual IP address. The -36 error is the most common result

(On "standard" Unix machines I have the same problem -- only a different error, of course.)

And I have my own complaints about OS X

but it's a major step up from OS 9!

 

[plainsong]

Even with those gripes, and I only have three of em - I can't even count "no pocketpc sync" anymore what with Pocketmac and MissingSync (I've used missing sync for Clie, and it was wonderful - this is the one I have high hopes for) competing for our money.

And OhphoneX is a workable solution for video conferencing. It's not pretty, but it works.

Yes, smb mysteriously stopped working with the domain name only when my husband did a Windows Update.

This is the one thing I like about a Unix platform - if you can't find what you want, chances are has a found a way to do it through the shell.

Before school starts I must install X11 and Gnome

 

[fiddler]

Quote:

Originally posted by grinch panther screenshots were leaked today on slashdot.. thought you dorks might want to see. http://www.deskmod.com/panther/

Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
old news, yo
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
i heard about it loooooong time ago
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
they're fake
eugene says:
oh really?
eugene says:
...
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
look at the mail.app picture
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
the working offline
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
look at the o in working
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
it's ****ed up
eugene says:
oh yeah..
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
#2: the about finder window
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
Finder version 10.3
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
it's usually Mac OS X version, or something else
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
never just "Finder version 10.3
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
"
eugene says:
ah..
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
#3: there's no build number on the desktop
eugene says:
this "expose" thing doesn't exist then?
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
if this was to be seeded to developers, they would want to know what build they're using
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
it might, but don't bet on it 'till monday?
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
#4: activity monitor doesn't use macosX colours
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
the green, red, and blue... not OSX
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
they're windows colours
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
macosx uses aqua on grey
eugene says:
huh?
eugene says:
you mean the boxes?
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
the cpu monitor colours are off
eugene says:
... you scare me you know that?
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
#5: the video box
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
there's a windows XP status bar on the bottom
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
which shows progress
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
there's no camera plugged in, so there's obviously nothing happening
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
(that's just good sense)
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
#6: title bar magnification
if you look at the desktop with the censored boxes, the main bar is at a different magnification than the windows
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
it may be a feature of expose, tho
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
#7: ichat/yahoo messenger
ichat supposedly incorporates this, so why would there be two programs?
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
ohyeah, #8, in the activity monitor, they're not all lined up properly
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
also
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
maybe the most damning thing
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
(i had to decrease resolution to spot this)
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
the % nice at the bottom of the activity monitor
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
the 0.00 uses a comma rather than a .
Love and Honour, equal only to Possession says:
which is most likely a simple blunder by some european photoshopper

(Posted from an MSN chat I just had with a scary Mac fanatic)

 

[FrostyMMB]

This stuff actually posted at Apple's online store, so the occurance of this posting of the G5 specs is no rumor. Akamai hosts Apple's stuff, and they're extremely secure, so I can't imagine this as a hack job on Apple's site, but an actual mistake. There are plenty of people who actually went there and saw it for the twenty or so minutes that it was posted, and below you can see a screenshot, but I can imagine that someone will try to say it's a photochop, regardless.

http://idisk.mac.com/dougcpa/Public/g5.jpg

Notice the image under Choose your PowerMac G4 that has all the G5 specs. I've got that image saved as well.

maverick_12, too little, too late? This type of thing has been said for years, and has yet to ring true. The 970, especially, is not little by any accounts, considering that nothing x86-64 has much pull behind it in comparison for consumer applications. Wait for unbiased benchmarks (aka not Apple's, not Intel's, not AMD's) against competing consumer chips (64 or 32 bit). Then have your say about the raw power of the aged x86.

All computer companies are in a slump. Apple isn't losing as bad as most of the rest.

Considering that the Pentium 4 is still at 3.06Ghz and the G5/970 is rumored, read expected, to be released on Monday June 23rd, I don't think we'll see 4Ghz P4s or comparable 64bit x86 processsors then. Should we not see the G5/970 on Monday, expect them in September. There must be a reason why Jobs has a two hour keynote at WWDC on Monday. Thats twice the usual time, and I don't think he can talk pure Panther for that long.

It wouldn't hurt to educate yourself on the topic before trying to make an argument. Read up on the 970 and it's multiprocessing capabilities and then start talking about performance.

 

[aeberbach]

Quote:

Wait for unbiased benchmarks

Quote:

Read up on the 970 and it's multiprocessing capabilities and then start talking about performance.

I prefer the first piece of advice.

Nobody has any real numbers on useful tasks under MacOS X yet.

 

[jpelg]

Quote:

Read up on the 970 and it's multiprocessing capabilities and then start talking about performance.

Personally, I love the idea and practice of using multiple processors (my Wintel system has two). The typical problem here is that, up until recently, Apple's OS did not take full advantage of SMP. On top of that, there are so few apps (on either platform) that do, as well. This is is truly unfortunate, IMO, and therefore not an argument that will win many people over.

Still, those new G5 machines sound sweet. And there are some things that Apple just does right.

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally posted by jpelg Personally, I love the idea and practice of using multiple processors (my Wintel system has two). The typical problem here is that, up until recently, Apple's OS did not take full advantage of SMP. On top of that, there are so few apps (on either platform) that do, as well. This is is truly unfortunate, IMO, and therefore not an argument that will win many people over.

Ah a fellow SMP user.

Once you go 2, you can't go back even if it's a super fast single processor.

Thing is, it doens't really matter to me if there aren't many SMP aware apps because the other advantage of SMP for me is multitasking capability. I don't like the slowdowns on a single CPU machine. That's why I prefer SCSI drives also.