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Intel and More Inside (O'ReillyNet)
O'Reilly has published
coverage of Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote.
"When Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivers his Macworld keynote address, it is some of the best theatre you will ever see. This year, in a little over an hour and a half, he reported on Apple sales statistics, introduced the many changes in iLife '06, rushed past the lack of much in the way of improvements to the iWork suite, and introduced the new Intel-based iMac. Almost as an afterthought. he let the audience know that there was one more thing. Nearly 90 minutes into his talk he just casually mentions the PowerBook is being replaced by the Intel-powered MacBook Pro. Pure theatre."
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Intel and More Inside (O'ReillyNet) Posted Jan 12, 2006 23:52 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] This might be relevant to LWN readers once Linux runs on the new machines, and it will be amusing when Wine or Crossover then allows Windows apps to run on them.
Intel and More Inside (O'ReillyNet) Posted Jan 13, 2006 0:06 UTC (Fri) by dr_lha (guest, #86) [Link] No particular reason why you'd need to install Linux on these new Intel Macs to run Wine on them.
Intel and More Inside (O'ReillyNet) Posted Jan 13, 2006 0:33 UTC (Fri) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] ...if you don't care about flexibility or freedom.
Intel and More Inside (O'ReillyNet) Posted Jan 13, 2006 0:55 UTC (Fri) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] ... to run your proprietary applications you refuse to let go of.
Intel and More Inside (O'ReillyNet) Posted Jan 13, 2006 1:41 UTC (Fri) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link] ...since you are forced by mandate from the US Government to run certain 'Doze-only (cr)applications from time to time.
Intel and More Inside (O'ReillyNet) Posted Jan 13, 2006 9:06 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] What about my freedom to choose the app that best solves my problem?
Like, for a word processor that is actually USABLE I choose WordPerfect (though, in trying to become Word-like, it has become far *less* usable. OOo writer is equally unusable because it is Word-like, though I have yet to try v2).
Cheers,
Intel and More Inside (O'ReillyNet) Posted Jan 13, 2006 10:52 UTC (Fri) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link] Agreed. Unfortunately, Keynote is far superior to OOo at the last stage I tried (1.1.x). Superior to MS ppt als, I might add. Sadly, viewers of a presentation tend to care about the presentation ... not the inherent beauty in the underlying presenter software. Here's hoping (praying?) that OOo presenter will be stronger one day, and that Apple may switch to ODF formats one day.
Details Please? Posted Jan 13, 2006 18:31 UTC (Fri) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] While existing free software does a reasonable job with any word processing task I can image, I'm prepared to believe that WordPerfect is the only reasonable choice for power users in this domain. But naked assertion is not enough. Can you be specific about what's missing? Otherwise it's tempting to conclude that by "usable" you mean "conforms to arbitrary expectations I've accumulated over years of using WordPerfect."
Details Please? Posted Jan 14, 2006 0:14 UTC (Sat) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] If OO.o is so awful, I find it hard to believe that (X)Emacs can't be massaged to solve whatever usability problems you're having.
Wrong Number? Posted Jan 14, 2006 0:32 UTC (Sat) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link] I believe you intended to attach this to some other post. Perhaps the sibling by vblum?
Wrong Number? Posted Jan 14, 2006 1:45 UTC (Sat) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] Yes, my apologies, this should have been in reply to vblum.
Details Please? Posted Jan 16, 2006 9:06 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] Otherwise it's tempting to conclude that by "usable" you mean "conforms to arbitrary expectations I've accumulated over years of using WordPerfect." Somebody else put it very well for me. WordPerfect is "stream based" (like TeX). You type in your text, telling it what sort of formatting you want "as you go". Word and that ilk are frame/object based - you type in your text, and then you go back and format bits of it. For example, I've been told that if you delete a paragraph mark in Word, it deletes ALL the formatting in that paragraph! To my mind, very weird! But to address your comment in particular that I've quoted, no it does not conform to the arbitrary expectations I've accumulated over years of using WordPerfect. What it DID do when I first started using it was "conform to the arbitrary expectations I'd accumulated over years of using word processors"! My favourite word processor was PrimeWord (aka WordMarc Composer). I also had access to Wordcraft. I knew both of them in depth (ie I provided in-house technical support for them to a motley crew of secretaries). And then WordPerfect came on the scene and just blew me away with how good it was! In short, I *started* using WordPerfect because it was good enough to grab my attention and win against a previously entrenched favourite. If that isn't a glowing reference, I don't know what is! Cheers,
Darwine Posted Jan 13, 2006 2:38 UTC (Fri) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Linux is not needed for that. Wine has been ported to Darwin/x86. The port is called Darwine.Besides, LWN is not "Linux Weekly News" anymore.
LWN.net : Your Linux info source Posted Jan 13, 2006 7:09 UTC (Fri) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link] No, it's "Your Linux info source".But the whole debate is nonsense -- a subject doesn't have to have something directly to do with Linux to be of interest to readers of LWN. It's absurd that people whinge about *reporting* of something that isn't, or doesn't yet run, free software. Even if we were all rms-type fanatics -- we would still be interested to know that a new non-free platform existed, if only so we could bring freedom to it. Why else would a Flash player be a "priority" item for the Free Software Foundation? As things stand we're obviously *not* all fanatics, we just have an appalling collective sense of humour. It's just the news, people!
LWN.net : Your Linux info source Posted Jan 13, 2006 7:40 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Of course, advances in hardware are of interest to all Linux users. To give a notable example, Torvalds himself uses Apple hardware.I like this part very much: The power cord is now connected to the machine using a magnet so that if someone stumbles over your power cord, they won't tend to damage your machine. Apple is one of the few companies which solves these little issues; even if most of their hardware is overpriced, we benefit from these improvements if/when they trickle to other vendors.
LWN.net : Your Linux info source Posted Jan 13, 2006 8:52 UTC (Fri) by tomsi (subscriber, #2306) [Link] The power cord is now connected to the machine using a magnet so that if someone stumbles over your power cord, they won't tend to damage your machine. This just means that the next time someone stumbles over your power cord, the machine will fall to the floor and the damge will be worse...
Tumbling over power cords Posted Jan 13, 2006 9:33 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] What? That is what happens now: regular power cords may get tangled in the socket and take your laptop down with them when a perpendicular force is applied. The magnet, however, is supposed to unattach itself when any significant force is applied; think of a fridge magnet and whether it would stand a strong pull like a foot trampling on a cord.
Tumbling over power cords
Tumbling over power cords Posted Jan 14, 2006 2:10 UTC (Sat) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] The first thing I thought when I saw that magnetic power cord was that it will fail over time. Same as the old apple power supplies that caught fire, if I remember right. Seems clever but really isn't, too much engineering, too little long term though. Mac users are upper level consumers, they have money to burn, I don't.
Some things just aren't really improvements, although they seem to be. A mechanical plug will last longer than a magnetic strip. It's just like the nano's cover scratching, or the nano's non-replaceable power supplies. Style over engineering, it's a bad fit.
too much design, too little engineering, I've never dumped a laptop on the ground, same old mac philosophy, yawn, make it easy for the tech illiterate, makes sense, but it's a luxury, protect you against yourself, same problem I've dealt with for years with mac designers and gamma image settings for web sites that will only be viewed by macs 3% of the time.
Tumbling over power cords Posted Jan 14, 2006 7:57 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] What, magnets wear out? News to me.
Tumbling over power cords Posted Jan 15, 2006 3:15 UTC (Sun) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link] Just watch. Contact corrosion, weakening of the connection, whatever the cause, it will happen. There's a reason mechanical connectors have been used for this long, they work, and they are simple. Plus each time you plug and unplug the connection you clean the contact.
Tumbling over power cords Posted Jan 15, 2006 23:47 UTC (Sun) by njhurst (guest, #6022) [Link] Or are they inductive connectors, having no contacts at all?
Tumbling over power cords Posted Jan 16, 2006 0:05 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] That would be nice, but no. Just look at the animated picture in Apple's page, right where it talks about MagSafe. Clearly there are conductive (metallic) pins. I had heard that inductive connectors have significant losses and so they are not suited for high-power tasks; but apparently it is not so for electric car chargers.Contrary to what h2 said in grandparent, the MagSafe connector is not so different from a regular connector; but it is guided and held in place by magnetic forces, so it does not need to be 1 cm long. Looks good.
It's also not a new idea. Posted Jan 17, 2006 0:18 UTC (Tue) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link] Though I wasn't able to find a picture, and don't own one new enough, apparently current-generation countertop electric frypans are fitted with precisely this sort of cord, so that Darwin can't weed out people who are stupid enough to string the cord of a hot electric frypan across a corridor.
LWN.net : Your Linux info source Posted Jan 17, 2006 0:16 UTC (Tue) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link] Yes, this is the "MTV Syndrome". MTV is no longer a channel that plays rock music videos. It's a channel *for people who would watch a channel that plays rock music videos*.
Same thing here. :-)
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