What is it with Mac users and their tendency to think that everything was invented on the Mac? I've been seeing this a lot over the past few weeks as features of Longhorn have gotten leaked out. Compositing? MacOS X. XAML? There's an equivalent on Mac too. Name something on Windows and you're told it showed up on the Mac. Which is a pretty tall attitude for people who only recently seemed to have discovered preemptive multitasking or threads. Did Apple "rip off" the idea of preempti...
I'm going to write something more in depth once I get a better feel for Panther (10.3). I like my Mac. It's a fine machine. But Macs, since going to OS X (including 10.3) feel much more sluggish. I also find them very limited in how much you can change them in how they work. If Apple hasn't thought of it, you're not likely to be able to find a tool, freeware or otherwise, that will let you change its behavior. I also find the lack of freeware for it to be a major downside. I buy hundr...
When I first got my iMac I confess to having been quite disappointed. For one thing, MacOS X Jaguar was kind of crummy in my opinion. Mac users tend to be a fanatical lot and as a result tend to live in denial about the short comings of the Mac. It's like they have this unspoken rule not to publicly speak about all the problems Mac users deal with. Not being part of that cult, I had the audacity to point out the short comings here on JoeUser (will put together a list of links shortly to those...
So now that Panther (MacOS X 10.3) is out the Mac users are out again trying to convince "pee-cee" users to "Switch". The problem is, Mac advocates have no credibility at this point. They've spent it long ago. People don't like being lied to and the most vocal of Mac fanatics regularly and massively crossed the line between exuberance and outright dishonesty. Anyone who has debated in the OS wars long enough has seen what I'm talking about. Over the years argued that things like pre-emptive m...
The skin library file server over at WinCustomize took a hit today when the primary library hard drive died. Luckily, we do regular backups so it's not a total loss but very likely will lose a few files in the process. How many remains to be seen. Most of our stuff uses RAID in redundancy mode but unfortunately, because of the sheer size of the library, it's not really practical (on a budget) to do that. But boy I wish we had that set up tonight. I guess it's better tonight than say Thursday....
Did it just happen one day? That the editors of InfoWorld and PC Week (before it became eWeek), got together and decided that instead of having interesting magazines that they would instead focus on covering only the dullest stuff out there? Was it their goal to transform their magazines from thick, content rich material to being largely pamphlets that resemble more of a specialty Miller Freeman type publication that only a tiny select group would find interesting or useful? Loo...
So as I get into Panther (OS X 10.3) I'm increasingly annoyed at the $129 upgrade price. Not that Panther isn't a good upgrade but Apple has pretty much made it clear that it is a specialty shop. You're not just buying a computer, you are buying membership into an elite club. But for most people, cost matters. As a Mac and Windows user, my view is that while the Mac has some nice features, it s not nearly worth the cost involved. I mean come on, $129 for 10.3 from 10.2? That's ridiculous....
Back in 2001 Microsoft's early betas of Windows XP contained a user interface dubbed "Watercolor". But only months before the operating system shipped Microsoft completely replaced it with an entirely different look and feel called "Luna" which became known as "Windows XP Style". That move has created speculation that current Windows Vista look and feel, called Aero glass, would be replaced by a different look and feel later in the beta process. However, this week's PowerU...
Just in time for Christmas, Stardock has released the Desktop Pet. The Desktop Pet lives on your Windows XP desktop. He will interact with various included desktop objects. A sophisticated artificial intelligence engine helps bring him to life by giving him needs such as hunger, sleep, boredom, and even (ahem) the need to take a potty break. Users can set the various included desktop objects to be automated or take care of the feeding and cleaning up on their own. It a...
I wrote this article quite a long time ago, but with the recent announcement that IBM has ceased production of OS/2, it bears republishing... OS/2's fate was largely decided in mid 1991 when IBM made the decision that OS/2 2.0 would have the Workplace shell as well as "Seamless" windows. This decision ensured that OS/2 2.0 would not make it out by summer of 1991 or even the once definitive date of December 31, 1991. The reason this is important is because in April of 1992, Microsoft shipped W...
Another little treasure I found, this one from 2001 talks about how OS advocacy has limitations.
..I'm in a ranting mood...stand back! Over the years I've noticed a pretty consistent thing - there are people who really really have a problem with the concept of people making a living selling software. As a result, some of these people make it their mission to go out and harass people (like me) who make a living selling software. One example came up today. I am a news moderator on the popular tech news site Neowin.net . I think it's a fantastic site with an incredible st...
One of the things that probably annoys some users of JoeUser (bloggers in particular) is the syndication of other articles and forum posts into their blog. Why did we do that? the goal of JoeUser is very egaltarian. When I'd set up JoeUser as my personal blog I saw the pros and cons of blogging it alone. As it got more popular, I became aware of a barrier to entry into the wider world. Basically, my blog was at the mercy of an established order of elite blogs. It ...
The soap opera on the Macintosh platform continues apace as more details on the next version of MacOS X come out. In our last episode, we saw lots of debates over whether Apple's upcoming Dashboard is ripping off Konfabulator (a popular MacOS X program that has similar widget features as DesktopX has). There's a lot of debate on this and I think the final question is this: If Konfabulator didn't exist, would MacOS X have Dashboard. We can debate that all day but I think the an...
For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the MacOS X "Tiger" controversy (i.e. those of you who are normal with lives!) here's our story so far... On July 28 Apple introduced the new version of MacOS X coming out next year code-named "Tiger" at the big Macintosh developers conference. Included there were these big banners: Plus this cute graphic: Here are the key features of Tiger in a nutshell: Built in good searching iChat AV (video chatting) Dashboard ...