The collected works of Cory5412 - Page 1

Wow, You wouldn't know if he has a website other than selling on eBay from time to time, or if it would be appropriate to eMail him to see if he has something? (him or them, or her)

It's great to hear that there are sellers of SGI equipment, that aren't going to charge an arm and a leg for an old system. I will have to investigate his prices on an Octane, Indigo2 or O2 one day.

Framemaker is available on Solaris? I wouldn't have known that. How odd, especially since the discontinued the Mac version. (Along with the Mac version of Premeire, and along with putting less emphasis on Acrobat for OSX (wonderful-wonderful screen-PDF)

Of curiosity, would Mathematica 5 possibly meet your needs? That's (luckily!) still available on IRIX.

Display PDF was Adobe's invention, just liek Display Postscript, no? If Adobe didnt like it, they wouldn't have given it the blessing anyway.

Also, FCP really isn't meant to compete with Premeire, Maybe Adobe just realized that premeire was a joke? Or maybe porting premeire would've been too much a hassle, so let's jack up the price on the windows version, call it premeire pro, and still be a joke compared to final cut, avid, and everything else.

(I'd suspect though that it was FC*E* that really made adobe mad, if anything from apple at all, because FCE and iMovie are really what bites into the market that Premeire would've had.) (So I guess adobe's best strategy would've been to turn Premeire into the iMovie/FCP of the Windows platform, instead of trying to compete with free, and SEVERELY less expensive options on the mac.)

Though... whatever, that's just my wild guess

*goes on to ramble about nothingness*

Man... Boy would I love an Octane, or a G4 tower...

What're the specs on the G4 tower and which nickname was it? (Digital Audio, Gigabit, QuickSilver, etc)

All I can really offer up is the old projector, but if you want that, I might trade it. (*Though, I highly doubt that a projector which does 16 shades of gray at 640 by 480 is worth an octane or G4 to you... May as well put it out there anyway.)

Yeah, I guess that the premeire 'mindshare' thing is true, though, having used final cut before premeire... I can't see how people would want to use premeire, even avid FreeDV was more powerful and lightly more consistent and easier in certain places. (Despite the fact though, that I would loathe having to use FreeDV for anything real.) In the demo that I tried of Premeire, it really wasn't the worst thing ever, it was a simple-looking app that happens to work in OS9 on my G3, so it does have at least that in it's merits.


Hmm... MovieMaker is a joke and has been a joke IMHO. I took a look at it on my brother's PC, I had to use it in order to create a video for a school project. It lacks a titler and it doesn't *seem* to have much of an editing interface in any way. I looked at it at school recently, it's easy like iMovie, but like the earliest releases of iMovie (that i can tell) it's a joke too. It's just the same as pasting clips into an empty quicktime player window. (Something which I have done.)

Humm, Quartz. Was that not based upon, or a variant of "Display PDF" (IE: Quartz = display PDF) Or something like that? (Either way, there's alot of PDF influence in OSX, the bootpanel as an example, is saved as a PDF file.) (Which oddly enough you *can* edit in photoshop.)

well, I *do* have old socks if you'd like them plus at least one old 68k mac like a 475 (it is a 475, rather.) maybe an old PC? (*athlon 700 or P2/400) (probably not those though) and I do have the Indy....

I'll also have a 7300/200 carcass, no processor (maybe?) or memory, cdrom drive broken and the hard disc removed, if you'dl ike a system like that

... As I try to think of things that are worth trading....

The Octane mostly, as I've got macs already, but the Mac too.

zizban wrote: I like the Gimp; I hate Gimp 2.0--its over wrought and kludgy. The only thing Adobe I like is Framemaker--maybe they'll make a OS X version but I ain't holding my breath.

And Quark? is there is a better example of complete and utter disrespect for your user base?

I hear now that Quark is doing a "dual liscence" deal for XPress, so that $700 you spend to get XPress 6 at least lets you use it on two computers for working away from home or office.

When XPress 6 first came out, they were discussing it in an Issue of Macworld (I somehow, here, got Macworld from London) and they were discussing how much cheaper it would be to fly over to New York, buy it at the big apple store in the US and have some starbucks cofffee, then fly back to London and install/use it.

MAN, XPress is that much more in the UK, I think to myself after that.

Personally, I enjoy Adobe's products. Maybe it is the mindshare thing, but in my experience there is a certain thing called "compatibility with x percent of people who also are using your program" when you load yourself up with CS Suite. It's all there and you don't have to go searching for a good alternative, yes there are good alternatives, but where? How much? What do I do in the program to achieve x function that I know exactly how to do in Illustrator and/or Photoshop.

etc etc.

As far as bloat and bad interface design goes, I think that Adobe is not the only company doing that. Anyone here actually seen MS Office lately? All I hear from some people is how Office itself hasn't changed much, but somehow the fileformat's changed again and the program is bulkier. Even so, people still keep a copy of word kicking around because it's what 90% of the computing world uses

Just as a couple of thoughts, anyway

Oooh... I'd be interested in seeing a build of this that'll work on the Indy, that's for sure!

I remember playing the Marathon 1/2/infinity demos from MacWorld CDs on my 7300/200 so-long ago... it would be fun to be able to do the same on the Indy.

zizban wrote: Thats Iconbar which can be found in the downloads section of the website.

Fire up software manager and point it to http://freeware.sgi.com/Inst/ to see all the goodies you can download.

There is also Nekoware, which is more up to date but you need to have least 6.5.21m to run (I think).

No chance that this setup supports pausing and continuing downloads of the tardist files? (for us unfortunate dialuppers)... (I need to get broadband one day )

Contradulations on getting your O2 working Maciac...
If you can get at it, (IE: if it's included or available with/for 6.3) I suggest looking at the Performer Town demo... (perfly town.perfly is what I type to get it on IRIX 6.5) While it's really not "Killer-App" it's a pretty nifty setup, and I personally am awaiting the day when i can get a better system [than the Indy] that'll run it better.

I've been playing with BeOS R5.0.1 on the 7300, much better stability-wise than just plain R5

Do you still have that book, goldbug? I'd be interested in it, and I'm semi-close.

Wow! I can't say that this would be the first time I've purchased a machine that was all banged up though! when I recieved my Blue/White PowerMac G3, one of it's handles was cracked. FedEX wanted to take the whole thing because at the time i was unable to make the handle come off (I later found the allenwrenches) so I never got the insurance money from it...

:grr:

Anyway, Shipping UPS on that octane is $80, quite-alot for something that I'm more likely to use as a chair or a piece of deco-art than a computer!

Seems like he's either lying about alot of the parts (dunno, could the mobo, proc and memory ALL have died in shipping?) of this auction... ahwell. I'll keep a'lookin'

Hmm... While SGI is certainly ahead of the game as far as the technology that goes into their systems... I think that it may be time to start beefing up on some of the specifications of said technology.

I don't actually know how terrible it'd be for SGI or MIPS Technologies to produce a GHz+ processor, especially considering that Sandcraft and other similar vendors have got them going at 900MHz and other near-GHz speeds...

I think that once SGI approaches that four digit number closer, people will be less uneasy about their systems...

In addition, I think that a new workstation would be a great thing to see... inexpensive lil' thing, but also rather kickass... dual processors, inbuilt optical drive(IDE), two SATA channels, and an external scsi port.

I would not be offended at all if SGI started using not-so-expensive-and-proprietary memory too... so this thing's got to have DDR

Put it in a slab style workstation case, like the Indy and NeXTSlab, add in USB2 and 1394, onboard, with proper support in the OS and drivers, price it at $8500 (or less), and they'd sell like hotcakes. (maybe?)

I'd certainly love to see what might happen if you took the awesome underpinnings from an OS like IRIX, and applied that to Mac OS... and then applied the hardware innovations (with appropriate system modifications) to PowerPC hardware that could run Mac OS...

Can you say v14 and v16 in the new line of SGI PowerMac G5's, with quad 3GHz processors?

(yeah, I'm a dreamer )

Whoa, I wonder if the extra memory of the Octane was part of that... It looks like the octane did those renders in about half of the time of the Linux 'Book.

managed resistance wrote:

Well, you've read wrong. IRIX 6.2 is only obtainable from SGI for free if it is the original media that came with the Indy, which is the same procedure for all SGI machines/IRIX software.

That's actually what I read: You can get it free from SGI. I'm going to send a letter to SGI and inquire. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

What is safe mode? Is that single user mode? i.e. type "single" at the command monitor prompt?

I think that you can get to single user mode by using one of the init commands, I think....

http://software.majix.org/irix/admin-shutdown.shtml

This should tell you how to change the runlevel to single user...

and FWIW, My Octane was flooded with NFS mounts... they give up eventually and the machine continues to boot.

In my dealings with my Indy and now my Octane, I've learned that the number one ultra-virtue is patience. You simply can't use an SGI box if you aren't patient with it, they seem to take longer to boot up on a standard install than most other machines, and once it's there you'll have to configure it "just so" but it'll rock once you get it going.

And good luck in your letterwriting to SiliconGraphics, It's not too often that you find somebody who will actually decide that it's worth taking the time to do something like that, which is cool.

managed resistance wrote:

And good luck in your letterwriting to SiliconGraphics, It's not too often that you find somebody who will actually decide that it's worth taking the time to do something like that, which is cool.

It doesn't hurt to ask, right? The worst case scenario: they say no.

Go it Go it!

That is an excellent attitude to take, IMHO... because who knows, they might just say yes.

You could also work in there a desire for some sort of hobbyist IRIX licensing program, $100/year for a "subscription" to the latest version of IRIX in tarballs or on CDs? (there was another thread about this somewhere, I'll have to search for it.

kshuff wrote:

Cory5412 wrote: You could also work in there a desire for some sort of hobbyist IRIX licensing program, $100/year for a "subscription" to the latest version of IRIX in tarballs or on CDs? (there was another thread about this somewhere, I'll have to search for it.

Yeah, what happened to that? Any progress??

I don't think it got anywhere, there were about 100 people who were willing to pay at least $50 for a hobbyist license. Several *(myself included) suggested upping the price, and doing it sortof on a "yearly" basis. (pay for that year, get the upgrades for that year)

I remember that it seemed close, because the person who started the thread (or who posted something and caused somebody else, like Diego, to start the thread) had actually been in contact with SGI people (lawyers, irix engineers, I'm not sure who it was), who had said that they were giving the idea of hobbyist licensing some consideration.

Though, I think that in order for SGI to really want to consider hobbyist licencing... some hobbyists need to buy boxes from them. For that to happen, the boxes need to be cheaper... and that's probably not really going to happen.

I just noticed the 'progress bars' by our names, telling how complete we are on our journey for more posts (the "Genius" level seems to be where complete is at.

Cool effect, nice job, looks awesome, etc.

It looks like an interesting company, with an interesting product. Here are a few of my problems though..

1. This is capturing software for O2. a workstation that was discontinued two or three years ago. I don't know if this is really aimed at the high end market.

2. I do think we should give nomagic the benefit of the doubt, it seems as though the product he's told us about here works well, but so far, none of us are sure on whether or not it'll be worth it. It's described as a capture application, are there any screenshots that compare this, dmrecord and the other recording rigups out there?

3. I noticed that pricing is variable. What if I'm a hobbyist with a 2-digit-number budget, who just bought his first (possibly only) SGI, a low-end O2 for some basic home movie editing. (c-vhs camcorders are less than $300). How much will you charge for a "noncommercial version, with no support" of your software?

4. I am a small business with about 20 SGI O2+ systems. We run a custom built editing app that doesn't have a capture tool built in. 1. will your app capture over 1394 and 2. how much would it cost us to license your app for all of our systems?

(I don't mean 3 and 4 to be offensive, but it seems like if we provide a scenario, or specifically request a license, we can get a better idea of the cost of the software)

5. from what I hear, the software does not change from person to person, the executable stays the same, and everything. Support and free upgrades seems to change though. that's to be expected.

6. Do you, nomagic, take suggestions for good software ideas? It seems as though our platform is still plagued by the lack of attainable-for-hobbyists nonlinear editing apps

7. can you hint at what else may be coming, other than hardware-specific apps, and discreet plugins?

Interesting, I hadn't noticed that! and here I thought that I was participating in a semi-current discusiion... and the original post is a year earlier... wow.

Oh, somebody who has one, nice.

It's question time.

Do you think that this would be worth it instead of a G5 iMac?

Right now, I'm working on replacing every computer I currently own (except maybe one or two) with either an intel-based iMac, or an iMac G5.

Pending the release of a few more universalbinary applications, do you think that it is really worth my time to invest in this new hardware base for the Mac platform just yet, or would you say, especially if I'm running applications like Aperture, (which I will be, yes I am aware that universalbinary for that isn't coming until March.) that it is more worth my time at the moment to get a G5 iMac?

I think what I will end up doing is getting the hardware, and then slowly buy applications for it, or downloading open source apps, as they become available in a universal binary form, or specifically for the Intel-based macs.

It looks good, I hope it performs and acts as well as it looks.

I think Mac OS X 10.10 looks pretty nice. I will probably upgrade my personal system within a few weeks of retail availability, although I've long since learnt my lesson about installing new Mac OS X versions on the first day -- especially even-numbered ones. The whole thing looks like a really classy evolution, finishing the work that 10.9 started, especially given that some of the applications in 10.9 still had what a lot of people call "skeumorphism" -- the choice of materials and certain interface elements still represented Steve Jobs more than it does today's Apple. (Reminders and Photo Booth are good examples of this.)

I don't know if I'd say that flat interface and skeumorphism are directly opposing forces. It's suggested here: http://www.colincornaby.me/2013/05/skeuomorphism/ that Mac OS has been skeumorphic for a very long time, but as Apple mentioned on stage at WWDC, they've definitely changed the "materials" of the OS. I actually think it looks classy, and up through 10.8, Mac OS X definitely looked really cartoony, with velvet and felt and "rich Corinthian leather" all over the place, in stark contrast to the exceedingly classy, minimalist metal and glass hardware.

If I had to pick a least favorite thing about 10.10, and this is a pretty extreme nit-pick, it would be that I question the future of the double-smile Mac face on the Finder. I didn't notice it previously, because it hadn't changed in a few years, but I now wonder if there's not a better way to call and visually represent the concept of a file manager. That face used to represent the platform as a whole, back in the time when Apple's only product was the Mac and they were always about to die, it was a reassuring and comforting friend, almost. These days, Apple has relegated it to the visual representation to a single application on the platform. Helpfully, Finder is probably the least liked application on the Mac.

My favorite thing about it? Almost everything else. It'll be interesting to see how iCloud Drive plays out. It felt very much like Shades of iTools/iDisk and Keynotes Past to me, because of course we've been seeing stuff like this for years. If Apple is correct, the whole experience could be great for those who use it. What I imagine the greatest challenge will be is deploying these "new features" in such a way that they don't bomb out or cause problems, such as when Photo Stream showed up back in iOS 6, and filled my iPod Touch to the brim, prompting me to restore the device and simply not add my iCloud/MobileMe account to it.

On the other hand, if you can easily control the flow of such things, it could end up being a huge boon to those who are using the Mac as their primary desktop. (I am on the Windows side of things, personally, so I use the OneDrive application on my iPhone and my photos get funneled onto my PCs via Microsoft's servers.)

I'm particularly excited about the iPhone/iPad/Mac coherence thing. I have an iPhone and a Mac mini at home and my particular use case for this is that my Mac is in a comfortable spot where I like making phone calls, but I don't get mobile phone signal in that spot. I can put the iPhone up on the top deck of the house and connect it to a charger, say in the kitchen, and make/receive calls and texts from my Mac in the bedroom.

Sidenote about "reference" versions: Because of the network connected nature of most computers these days, running a really old version of Mac OS X without security updates is not a very good idea. One of my favorite OS X versions is 10.3, but just because that's so doesn't mean I'm going to be setting up such a system and attempting to use it as a daily driver -- nor am I going to claim that it's the "reference" release of Mac OS X, as there is not such a thing. There is simply the current version, and then the still-supported previous version. Since moving to a yearly release cadence, Apple seems to have extended support out two versions back (So today we have 10.9, 10.8 and 10.7 eligible for security updates) which is a nice gesture on their part.

The saddest part of Windows Vista and 8 is that they're each actually really technically competent operating systems, and Windows Vista is honestly what I'd consider the first acceptable version of Windows. (To the point where I am almost exclusively using Windows now, after having been vehemently against the idea eight to ten years ago.)

Of course, Vista was helped along significantly by the fact that HP, then most prolific PC OEM, was (and really continues to be, although at a lower grade) terrible at the whole "PC" thing.

Windows 8 is a big change, and a whole lot of that is improved underpinnings that have, in my experience, made an old Core2 PC with Windows 8 even faster and more efficient than a newish Mac mini (Sandy Bridge i5) with 8 gigs of ram. There was also that point after Windows Vista was released and between Creative Suite 3 and 4 (and it may actually have happened earlier) where Adobe's products were universally faster and more stable on Windows.

So, it's actually really unfortunate that the unwashed masses put such a reliance on the tech press. Of course what with Joanna Stern leading the tech press in proclaiming the MacBook Air as the best laptop (which, it arguably is) there's a possibility that people will at least end the harmful practice of moving toward older versions of Windows, and replace it with moving toward Mac OS.

The tech press' response to Windows 8 and the Surface family of PCs has started a really interesting iteration cycle within Microsoft, who is becoming way more attentive to what consumers want out of their devices. Penny Arcade had a neat article about the Surface Pro 3 , and as it turns out, media and prominent reviewers of that nature have direct contacts within Microsoft.

Some new technology has its pitfalls as does anything else, but a lot of what I see here is outright dismissal that anything other than the technology of a certain era could have any merit whatsoever. No acknowledgement of things becoming more stable, easier to use, more accessible, more affordable, and any commentary about increased performance is often met with comments about why anybody would ever need a fast computer(1) to begin with.

In terms of commiseration on the Internet -- it's not productive because what often happens is somebody (for example, commodorejohn) will express a sentiment, such as "Windows XP is the absolute pinnacle of all computing and there will never be anything better" and co-incidentally, demand that Microsoft re-add old functionality and in essence, make the current version of Windows look and work as closely to Windows 95 as possible. (Incidentally, people who grew up with Windows 3.1 seem to be quiet on the Windows 8 front, so maybe there's a really thin band of "young fogeys" that are moderately technical but feel an entitlement to their particular era of computing, and are therefore reasonably capable of being loud about it on the Internet.)

The challenge is that people who are unwilling to use the two mainstream options, Mac OS X and modern/secure versions of Windows, are also unwilling to learn how to use other secure options, such as configuring a Linux/BSD/Solaris distribution, or paying for a commercial UNIX system.

(1) Although, that sort of leads to an interesting double standard where, why on earth would it matter how fast your computer is if you want to browse the web and launch Word, but of course, they need the fastest IIfx or Amiga 3000/4000 in order to achieve any given task on a retro computer faster.

Windows XP was balky and terrible when it was new, too. The only difference now is that if somebody discovers a way to wipe everything on your C:\ disk just using some code on a web page, Microsoft is not going to fix it for you, or even attempt damage control by not releasing details about the error until after the release of the Service Pack, as they did back when SP1 came out back in the day. (Also, in re XP "balkiness" -- computer performance has since far outpaced Windows XP's needs, which means that among "commercial" operating systems, it sort of stands alone as appearing far lighter on hardware requirements. The fact that it's doing this while also making inefficient use of system resources, notwithstanding.)

Ultimately, if you don't want to deal with a commercial desktop operating system (Windows or Mac OS X) then you need to deal with, well, something else. If you don't want to deal with that, then you're left with Windows or Mac OS X again, so I suppose the question is whether you want the ability to choose your window manager and desktop environment, and configure it as such, or you want "support" and some of the other comforts of commercial software.

In regards to the Reference Release -- do you mean the initial release of any given "version" of Mac OS X? I'm actually not sure how to parse this article, but I imagine that what it means is that 10.5.0, 10.6.0, 10.7.0, 10.8.0 and 10.9.0 are the "reference releases" of Mac OS X. Not that Mac OS X 10.6.8 is the reference point for the entire Mac OS X family. A whole lot has changed since 2009 when Mac OS X 10.6.0 was released, and Apple's simply not willing to run their platform that way, whether or not it would cater to your particular whims.

If your whims are a commercially supported desktop operating system that rarely changes, you really should be looking at a commercial UNIX or VMS, and if you think that Apple's "fumbling around with the latest trends in UI design and functionality for the f*ck of it" gets in the way of your productivity, then I suspect you'd find it worth your time, money, and effort to move to another platform. (Also, if you're keeping your Macs for any length of time, keeping the same OS version on them for their entire lifetime is a reasonably bad idea, especially now that new major versions of Mac OS X are free for Mac owners, and Apple has not increased the system requirements for 10.9 or 10.10.) If you have "critical" applications on a Mac, and you're bad at backups, then it is good to hold off for a while, but it's a bad idea to never upgrade. It's not like Windows where Apple's committing to support any given major version for a decade.

To use a terrible car analogy -- it sounds to me as though we've reached the point where users who have been around for a while believe that the system shouldn't be changed because they know it and they like the particular options it gives you. (See: commodorejohn) Even if those options are terrible and dangerous, not only to yourself and your own data, but to the interconnected networks at large.

Back in 1984, you could have a Mac with any desktop picture you wanted, as long as that picture was a 50% gray gradient, and we've long since reached the point where that's just not what computers are anymore. As much as it's a productivity tool, it's a vehicle for personal expression, and because we've long reached the point where computers are also home appliances, you can expect them to be just as subject to design trends as anything else.

And, let's be honest, even large equipment and professionally focused equipment is subject to "design." Nikon is selling this professional level camera that has had a "retro" visual style applied, even though you could argue that this is the true pinnacle of professional camera design.

If you want to run a "legacy" interface, or a still-updated and forked release of something else, such as GNOME 2.0 (MATE) -- then you should run an operating system designed with this in mind.

When Microsoft builds Windows with a mind toward graphical applications, they're building the whole thing as a single product. It hasn't really been since Windows 95 succeeded Windows 3.1 that the file manager and program manager were divorced A: from one-another B: from the functionality of the whole system.

If you want something else, use another operating system. Something designed with the separation of the console and underlying architecture and the graphical applications in mind may honestly be a way better operating system for you, and Windows hasn't been that in over fifteen years. And just because something isn't suitable to you isn't a reason to treat it the way you do. Have you actually had an opportunity to try Windows 8 or 8.1 yet, or are you still simply repeating what Chris Pirillo said of his poor grandfather, who had to use it on a Mac in a virtual machine, back in late 2012?

There is a version of Windows Server (starting with 2008) that has had most of the graphical interface removed altogether, but to my knowledge there is no way to subsequently layer a different GUI on top of it. (It actually has a "GUI" -- what has happened is that it's got no desktop and uses a few more text management tools, but you can also launch the management console for, say, Active Directory Users & Computers on it.)

commodorejohn wrote: You didn't answer my question. How is it "terrible or dangerous," as opposed to just "not what Microsoft wants?"

I guess I am now legitimately confused. At some point, did I write that it would be "terrible or dangerous" for Microsoft to provide a legacy interface, or did I write that running Windows XP beyond 2014-04-08 is terrible and dangerous?

In the interest of expedience, I may have let those two separate issues run together a little bit.

josehill wrote: By Apple's definition, 10.6.3 is the last reference release of 10.6, since that is the last standalone, bare-metal, generic 10.6 installer that Apple shipped.

I'll be totally honest here, I have never heard the term "reference release" pertaining to Macs and Mac OS/X before today, and on the Mac scene, it has always been referred to as a retail release.

Prior to 10.7, Apple did indeed roll up additional retail releases. 10.5 and 10.4 each had retail discs pressed after the initial version.

josehill wrote: legitimate reasons to be disappointed about the direction that Apple

I am familiar with the idea that Apple has changed directions and is suddenly a different company than they were in August 2009 when Mac OS X 10.6.0 was released to the general public. I don't subscribe to this theory, and if anything, Apple has confirmed that they are as committed to the desktop platform as ever. There is a Default Narrative that has been going around for a few years that in subsequent versions of Mac OS X, Apple removes functionality and adds restrictions to the system.

To my knowledge, there is no legitimacy to this claim. No functionality has been removed, and in all cases where iOS-like functionality has been added (such as launchpad) it is totally optional.

There are precious few things I will acknowledge as legitimate changes to Mac OS X that have been annoying over the years. The main one is the changes in Spaces and Expose functionality, although I was away from the platform for a few years (from 2009 to about 2012, so I caught the tail end of 10.7 before upgrading to 10. and as such, didn't follow that development arc very closer.

To be honest, what OP in this thread is complaining about is changes to one of the things that has been one of the worst aspects of Mac OS X since it first shipped, the window resize/maximize button. Its behavior has been very inconsistent the entire time, to the point that I simply gave up on using it well before I left the platform back in 2009, and for users newly switching from Windows or returning from Windows, the green button's new "full screen" functionality may actually make some amount of sense.

Whether or not the "material" of those buttons and their appearance on your screen honestly seems like it would be of relatively low importance, although a number of people then chimed in about their desire for nothing to change ever. (Something even you write Apple is perfectly free to do.)

josehill wrote: A frequently updated OS that breaks applications and workflows, for seemingly arbitrary reasons, especially after being quite serviceable across many years of previous upgrades, is a step backward for most business customers.

This seems like a reason to choose an operating system that gets updated or changed frequently. In terms of applications, Mac OS X and Windows both actually have really good track records. I'll also add that in the past two years, I think there may have been one single application documented that runs on Windows 7 but does not run on Windows 8.

Of course, that's why businesses buy a particular OS -- but we're talking about consumers who want something on which to run whatever applications they use in their home. And, in this thread, we're talking about the operating system for its own sake, rather than as a suitable place to run Microsoft Word, Adobe Lightroom, or Firefox.

josehill wrote: I guess now I can be called crazy because I don't love Win8.

You make it sound like you've made an educated decision, and decided that despite the fact that Windows 7 has five years left on it, you're going to stick with Mac OS, because the interface conventions are much more predictable, and Apple has said over and over again that they don't see Mac OS and iOS merging, the way Microsoft has added a tablet interface to its desktop Windows operating system.

(I actually prefer the phrasing "Windows 7 only has five years left on it" because it better conveys the fact that I think we can expect Microsoft not to extend the support of Windows 7 three additional years like they did for XP.)

I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not you're crazy because you don't love Windows 8. I like it a lot, and I'm not going to tell you I'm not crazy in some way or another. What bothers me is not people who "don't love" Windows 8, but rather, those who are frothing at the mouth with the vehemence for their hate for something they've never used or even taken a look at various sources about.

As I mentioned earlier, Microsoft actually seems to be taking a lot of feedback and integrating it into Windows as a product. It's bringing future releases of Windows closer to Windows 7 in terms of desktop functionality, which is kind of interesting. I'm personally against this particular reneging on the no-compromise promise (as it was) of a full tablet environment and a full windowing desktop environment on the same computer. On one hand, it'll be nice to have a windowed PDF viewer, but on the other hand, I think it's going to muddy the waters of "My computer has both desktop-experience and tablet functionality" even further than Windows 8 already has.

guardian452 wrote: If that's what you like, nobody is forcing you to upgrade.

I mean, ideally they would be. My personal theory is that the terrible and dangerous commentary commodorejohn was talking about is a reference to my attitude to "old unsupported operating systems" on other web sites. Basically, old, unsupported operating systems like Windows XP (in specific contrast, to, say, Windows 95) and Mac OS X (any version, again in specific contrast to Mac OS 9.)

The main thing here is that Windows XP and (I'll go ahead and pick on a specific version) Mac OS X 10.4 are each remotely accessible, complete network operating systems. (I'm sure everybody here is familiar, but it's important that I say the words at least once.) They have mail servers built in, DNS and NTP servers and clients, FTP servers, and so on down the line, and themselves be attacked in a variety of interesting ways, and then further used to compromise other things (on a local LAN, for example.)

It's for this reason that I always advocate that if you "must" run an old OS for some reason, especially something as "robust" and network-faring as Windows XP and/or Mac OS X, that you do so on a darknet, a non-routable subnet, or completely un-networked, just depending on what you need specifically.

The older MacBook Airs with just 2 gigs of ram are definitely an unfortunate edge case, although it's good to hear that Mac OS X 10.9 and its memory compression has actually helped.

It has always been interesting to see how Apple is marketing Mac OS X. They still have an education section, but I do note that there's no science or technical computing area on the site. Apple still acknowledges them from time to time, such as in the 30-years celebration, but I suspect that there's a lot less exciting development. It would actually be interesting to see Apple pay more attention to some technical computing that's possible on the Mac Pro, but given that Apple's probably got their hands full with Final Cut and the other apps they do create for creative purposes, I don't think Apple is in a position to create that software themselves.

OpenCL actually came on board at about that time in 2008/2009 when Leopard was new and Snow Leopard was introduced, and I'll be honest, I don't actually know what scientific applications have come out for it since then. It would be really neat to see Apple showcase this again.

commodorejohn wrote: Five minutes for you, maybe. I've been using this shit eight hours a day for several months and I still find it pointlessly aggravating.

Probably the thing that took me the longest was realizing that it's no skin off Microsoft's or Windows' back if you choose to uninstall almost all of the built-in New Interface applications. I've done this and it has made some amount of difference in my daily use of Windows 8 and 8.1 on my work computer.

I have (new since I last posted about my 8.1 system at work) a pair of 24-inch displays and what's really neat about 8.1 is that the launcher now only shows up on one of them, and I can save my desktop space and taskbar space by making use of the launcher.

commodorejohn wrote: But "terrible or dangerous" is just typical Cory5412-brand ludicrous hyperbole.

I've been writing this post for a while, but where did I write terrible or dangerous? Was it in reference to building a classic UI for Windows 8 ("Windows 7.8" has been a suggested name for a desktop-only fork of Windows, though I think this is a bad idea from a product standpoint.)

Or, was I maybe talking about the security abomination that is Windows XP?

Well, I certainly did write that then. I can only attribute it to my having started a post, moved on to a work-related task, and then continued writing it when I was done, and now, mere hours later, I have literally no idea what I was talking about.

Unless I was trying to go for a Windows 3.1 commentary, although it doesn't actually read to me like I was doing that.

I have no real opinion either way on what Microsoft providing an alternate UI to Windows 8 would be like. Presumably, they're Microsoft and they have a lot of man-power to throw at it after all, a different skin on Windows 8 wouldn't be terrible and dangerous. At least you'd be using a patched operating system.

It's possible that I was actually writing about "the option" to just run Mac OS X 10.4 or Windows XP. This option does exist, but running old and outdated software of quite that calibre (compared, again, to Mac OS 9, as one example) is terrible and dangerous, in well-documented ways. This is doubly so if you're running a server edition, but by and large the server bits are there in the desktop versions.

What's even more depressing about the Windows XP installed base figures, which as of March were still close to 33% -- of Internet-connected computers that regularly visit search web sites is that, well, what they're actually measuring is essentially hits to Google/Bing/Yahoo. It doesn't actually count industrial control machines that has never spoken TCP/IP in its life, nor does it count machines sitting on unroutable networks, nor does it count other industrial and vertically integrated machines, such as cash registers and money terminals. That percentage, be it 1/3 or if it has actually gone down to 1/4, 1/5 or 1/6, is desktop computers that have people sitting at them that are trying to use them to accomplish tasks of some sort.

And, although nobody's going to die, using Windows XP on the Internet is a lot like if you were able to buy a Ford Taurus, except it was manufactured in 1920 and nobody has ever changed the oil or otherwise done any sort of upkeep on it except for that one time all four tires blew out at once in 1980, because well, they were old. New tires got put on it, but nobody really fixed the wheels, which naturally got messed up during the tire incident of 1980. So, this car is old, it goes about a half a mile on a gallon of fuel, it can't even get up to more than about 30 miles an hour, and it's dangerous to everybody in and around it.

But, you all already knew that.

Now back to your regularly scheduled commentary about the window decorations in the next version of Mac OS X.

guardian452 wrote: But at the time... it was like "wow! my computer is turning into a facebook machine, man!"

I'm sure this isn't what you meant by it, but there are actually people out there who dislike the fact that any given machine they buy can likely be afforded and used by a much less technical person and used for accessing web sites and viewing videos.

Computers and the Internet are the phones of our era, whether we use them to conduct hard-hitting journalism, serious business, or just staying in touch with friends and playing FarmCrush Saga III.

I don't think the point was ever to make your Mac into a Facebook machine, as much as to simply make that access more convenient, should you want it. That turning point where in 2005 or 2006, Mac laptops began to outsell Mac desktops was also the point at which many Mac laptops were being bought by college students, and it was probably at that point that Macs started being Facebook machines for many people anyway.

I know (hope) nobody here was actually thinking it (that it's bad that computers are usable by non-technical people), but, y'know, just to put it out there I guess. I think it's great that computers are easy to use and that the vendors continue to put effort into researching different form factors and different user experiences, to make computers easier to use as they truly become the telephones of the era, for all your general purpose two-way communication and information needs.

</ramble>

Trippynet wrote: They wanted to create a unified and touch-based interface that they would force onto Windows users to make them get used to it.

It'll be interesting to see what Microsoft does with subsequent releases of Windows. 8.1 Update 1 brought some more "desktop-like" functionality to the New Interface ("Metro," though Microsoft isn't allowed to call it that) and either Windows 9, Windows 8.2 or Windows 8.1 Update 2 (whatever it gets called) is already slated to bring back the start menu, and they're making it worse (from my perspective, at least) by introducing windowed New Interface applications.

That and the start menu as you knew it in Windows 7 is literally never coming back. What's going to be in Windows 9 is a small rectangle that shows up at the bottom of the screen and shows Start screen tiles. You're not getting the Control Panel link back (though you can add control panel, run, et al as links on the Start Screen) and I'm going to lose my giant 1920x1200 launcher that shows every program my computer <i>has</i> in a single go.

We'll see what configuration options, etc it has, however. This all may be enough to win over the new "Windows 7 forever, and it's not even really better than XP" crowd, which seems to make itself so very well known on some web sites.

For the better part of a year or so, on all of my computers (The Surface RT all the way up to my big work desktop with dual 24-inch monitors, with various other desktops and traditional laptops on the way) I used Windows 8 in the perceived Microsoft way. Metro-based PDF reader alongside desktop Firefox/Chrome/IE, PuTTY, with some Metro Zune thrown in for good measure. I don't actually think that's what Microsoft wants. In fact, it took one of Microsoft's UX developers posting about this issue to make me re-consider my own thoughts on it, and realizing that I'd been causing some of my own "problems." (i.e. switching between the PDF reader and whatever I was working on, on smaller-screened computers.)

Of course, whether or not "content creators and content consumers don't need to exist in the same space" works out has yet to be seen. I vaguely suspect that the new responsive Microsoft will throw out the whole idea and completely cede the tablet market before the idea has an opportunity to take hold. (Which I also consider unfortunate, because the Surface RT/2 and any potential successors therein are the most portable ways to run Word/Excel/OneNote for Windows.)

guardian452 wrote: But when you use something other than Facebook or twitter or googleplus or <other mainstream site> it's kind of a slap in the face, cheap advertising every time you do run into it.

There is that aspect. Fortunately, the Mac has long been a development playground and basically anybody is free to add any kind of addition to it. One of the other neat things in iOS 8 is that being able to add third party add-ons with that kind of functionality is on the docket, so the folks at app.net or Pinterest or Tumblr or whatever can add that functionality to their app, or build a new app for the iPhone that has that functionality -- much in the same way it's been possible to add System Services on the Mac and add things like menu bar icons to write posts this whole time.

If your next plans involve moving away from AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX anyway, Tyan (and Supermicro, among others) already makes motherboards that accept processors you can buy today.

Plus, if you do have plans on running Solaris (and if I were looking for UNIX with a support contract, Solaris is probably where I'd go), it's ported to platforms for which Tyan makes motherboards as well.

It will of course be interesting to see what happens with OpenPOWER, but I have a feeling it will take a while to become a commercially available product you can acquire any way other than either hovering around Google's dumpsters , or literally fabbing the chips and building the boards yourself. (In the fires of the Forest of Doom or whatever.)

If you're interested in Linux but you really are just completely opposed to x86-64 (just to put out there what Tyan is building), you could investigate the nVidia Jetson , ARM development board.

I don't really know what else is out there in terms of "open" platforms that aren't Intel. Is there like, an ATX board that will accommodate an Itanium processor hanging around, or something?

Kira wrote: What exactly do you mean by that? Microsoft has already demonstrated a start menu (not just a miniature start screen) with a striking resemblance to the legacy start menu, including the control panel being there.

It would appear I've mis-remembered the images. Though, that's a Windows "9"/Threshhold thing and we have Windows 8.1 Update 2 in the pipeline, and just like that thing where the Windows 8 we saw in the beta wasn't quite like the final product, Microsoft may fine-tune that new start menu.

It'll be interesting to see if whatever the "new start menu" is gets the new Windows 7 contingent to move forward, or if we get the same situation I've seen with Windows XP users still on XP with no antivirus or firewall (on purpose!) to this day because they feel entitled to Microsoft simply never changing anything.

So, I haven't had anywhere near as much face-time with it as I would have liked, but I recently tried Mac OS X 10.10 public beta on a 2008 MacBook Pro with a 2.4GHz Core2Duo on the 965 chipset, 4 gigs of ram, and a GeFORCE 8600mGT graphics card. It also has Ye Olde spinning hard disk. It's a work computer I'm basically only keeping it around as a take-home box should the occassion come up, until such a time as the GPU kicks the bucket.

Anyway, it's actually pretty good. There's essentially a single bug I've been able to uncover, which is that in the upgrade from 10.6.8 (which apparently isn't technically supported, but it worked flawlessly and happened very quickly) one of my long-named VPN connections (something like "MMM VPN (PPTP)") has caused the icons in the list of network connections to move out of the display area.

It's fast, I'm trained not to use the resize buttons so I haven't looked at those yet, and I'm pleased with the visual effect of the re-texturing of Mac OS X (which started but wasn't finished in 10.9) has been completed.

Of course, for the entire time I've owned a Mac OS X computer (from 2003 to today, with one or two year-long spots where I didn't) I was almost always running the most recent version, so I'll certainly put this on my personal mac mini when it gets released.

I'll put my face in front of it for some more time soon and post it to my personal blog, but my main reason for doing it was to see what the performance was like. It's good, and it's fairly fast. It's no slower than 10.6.8 was on that hardware, and I feel qualified to make that assessment, given that I upgraded from 10.6.8 to 10.10 and used them both on the same hardware on the same day.

hamei wrote: That's a no ! You are 68000% wrong.

Hah, I see what you may have done there! I'm on the 68k Mac scene! If I were known for Apple II stuff, would you have written that I was 6502% wrong? Please tell me you would have.

hamei wrote: There are Windows 2000 users who refuse to change because :

1) No newer version of windows brings anything of value to the table

Okay. I mean, I don't agree with this, but anything I write will trigger such a huge response that I don't even consider it worth it "for the viewing audience at home."