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From what you guys said, I suppose it's possible that the picture is real. I sure haven't seen anything like that myself...but I haven't been in academia for a while.

Must be hard for some families to pay the premium for a Mac laptop.
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Must be hard for some families to pay the premium for a Mac laptop.

I don’t know if the picture is real, either. But if it is, I can sort of hear “baaa, baaa” in the background. What a bunch of sheep. Would it have made any difference if Jefferson had written the Declaration of Independence on papyrus or parchment?

Save the money, mom and dad, and buy a Dell or K-mart special for your kid. Reading, writing, and learning should be more than a fashion statement.

A friend of mine with kids just bought them e-Machines for something like $230.

Hey, it was what was in their budget. It's a computer and it works. 2GB of memory, and runs Windows. They've had no problems with it so far.

Apple won't be able to keep up the yuppie overpricing forever. And if they do, they're going to have to offer more than smoke and mirrors to make it worth it.

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Tech columnist Lee Gomes in the Wall Street Journal asked his readers for suggestions on what Microsoft should include in Windows 7. Today (6/11) he published a sample of the responses. He led off with this:

quote:

For starters, any tech columnist who uses the word "Windows" in a story, even when talking about double-glazing, will inevitably hear from a certain vocal subset of Macintosh enthusiasts whose idea of a well-crafted argument is an email saying, "Why don't you just ditch Windoze and buy a Mac you brain-dead moron or maybe you're on the take from Bill Gates like all the others are."

I got one or two of those, as expected....

What they should include in Windows is a complete redesign of the user interface, going in entirely the other direction from the Mac. In other words AWAY from visual superabundance, rather than toward it.

Simple, sedate, readable, logical, good contrast, well-placed controls, less-is-more icons...

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Needless to say, this was one of the suggestions he mentioned:

quote:

...I also received many others that raised the notion of the Macintosh much more felicitously. It was the biggest single issue raised by the respondents.

M.B. Deans, for instance, said someone should just plunk Macintosh in front of the Windows team and say, "Here. Make it work just like this."

Vista must be pretty fucking awful if the X-Mac is held up as the ideal.
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I am increasingly dismayed by Vista. I use it less than the Mac, but holy crap. Installing software or Windows updates is fucking absurd.

The fact is, BOTH the Windows and Mac interface could be much better. This is something that has not changed from the early days of thalo.net's interface discussions.

We still need something as brilliant as the original desktop metaphor to come and rescue us. There's still way too much happy horseshit and crap that doesn't work. I still, every day, DREAM of a computer interface that's a joy to use. Like the legacy was. With all its warts, the legacy had something. It was more effortless and enjoyable to use. The Mac now, is an endurance test for me and my patience. It's not smooth and easy and intuitive anymore. it's got too many bullshit quirks and things that don't work well. The idea of how things SHOULD work, in your brain, don't match up to how they DO work, in the reality of the system.

The interface doesn't BEHAVE. It doesn't always do what you tell it. It's not well ORGANIZED with respect to functionality or design. There's shit in there that still makes no sense, stuff that doesn't work... stuff that is counterintuitive.

We still have five designs going on concurrently when all we need is one. We have twenty different ways to do the same thing, and then that thing turns out to not even be useful to us.

Every time I look at an over-rendered icon, I want to puke now. I never go, WOW, what great graphics!! I always go: fuuuuck, more overdesigned bullshit.

I suppose it's like cartoons. There's PIXAR-style rendering, and then there's more flat and graphical hand-drawn Bugs Bunny. The Pixar stuff is fine, it has its moments... but Bugs was simple and in many ways BETTER. 2D sometimes is better because of focus and contrast and telling a story sparingly. The super-rendered crap, you often get caught up in how beautiful and "almost realistic" a reflection is, and MISS the friggin' story.

We're all going to go see WAL-E and probably love it. But we'll be looking at textures and reflected light, and hopefully a story will come out of all of it. The old timers could tell that same story with pencil, pen and ink, gouache and some acetate.

I watch Bugs and STILL laugh. I can't bear the thought of kids looking at those works of art and going, hmmm, funny, but not enough modeling on Bugs' form. How come he doesn't cast a shadow? How come his fur doesn't look like real fur?

I was trying to get an XP machine to see a printer today. It was impossible. As the user I had no control at all. The assistant had full control. Broeder Rico had zero control.

XP and I am sure Vista are a waste of time.

AOL news just did this big thing about "Should you buy a Mac or a PC?" They concluded PC by a mile, because the platform still accounts for 90% of the software out there. The Mac is every bit the niche market for pros as it ever was... all they've done is add a few casual users to the mix.

And they compared price of hardware, side-by-side. And the Mac is just way more expensive. So all things considered, they said basically a consumer's best choice is a PC. I checked back to find the link, but they pulled the story, lol.

Just a long lost voice from the middle:

I bought a PC laptop (HP Pavillion w/Vista) not too long ago. Was way cheap compared to Macs, of course. It has some interface bits that I like. Some I don't. And a 17 inch screen. The obtrusive system updates and "are you sure?" turn my crank for extreme. But finally got my MDD set up again after a move, and am happy enough again with X (10.3.9). Would like 9 again, but not much on the web works there, of course. Enough for now.

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Harv, strangely enough, the original Google website works again on the classic Mac.

The Wall Street Journal website also is about 90% classic-Mac-friendly again, although slow.
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Yes, I noticed the Google fix back when I was working in 9 at my office. I've recently quit that job though and only log into 9 to access and print from PageMaker and the like. I haven't been to the WSJ site, but wouldn't want to try either. What browser are you using in 9 these days Markle?

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IE 5.1.7. In 8.6. But IE 5 is an antique. You're almost grateful when you can visit a website without crashing. Videos? Multimedia? Forget it.

I almost tried iCab or Mozilla, as Brad suggested. Even downloaded them. But I decided not to bother. 8.6 doesn't support the version of Java now being used, regardless of the browser. I'll get a new computer in the near future and solve the problem that way.
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Markle I have suggested time and time again that you use Mozilla. Mozilla is way better than IE. IE is crap.

Again the reason videos and multimedia are a problem for you is not because of the software it is because your machine is running a processor that can not handle the content code. Your video card can not handle the content code. I suggested 5 years ago for you to upgrade your CPU and video card.

You would be happily computing along all this time in realtime instead of waiting for your CPU to catch up with every action you make.

I'll get a new computer in the near future and solve the problem that way.

Yeah, I tried iCab too but couldn't get it to work very well. Mozilla 1.2 (even better than 1.3, I think) seems to be the best remaining browser for OS 9. I don't use IE because it just bogs down OS 9 so bad. You click on something and then the computers is frozen while IE figures our how to render the page. It's awful. But maybe it works better in 8.6. I'm sure it must.

Again, I'd recommend an inexpensive PC ($400) just to run the internet. It's a real pleasure using Firefox on Windows XP. It doesn't get any better than that as far as legibility and usability. The best feature of all (and one that is indispensable but often is sorely lacking or implemented so poorly as to be near useless) is the ability to make all type on the screen bigger with just a press of a button. Safari, to its credit, will do this. But there's no easy way to get rid of the blurry type. And if you have a hi-res LCD, you don't need antialiasing. Leave the G3 for printing out stuff and running the primary programs you need. I've got two different computers on my desk and it works just fine. Consider it. But it must be hell trying to do the internet on with a Classic browser. Time to junk it.

quote:

Again the reason videos and multimedia are a problem for you is not because of the software it is because your machine is running a processor that can not handle the content code.

Rico, AFAIK the main problem is the outdated Flash-Plugin in OS9 (or 8.6) and the outdated Javascript and CSS-Engines of IE or Mozilla. Mozilla is a little better, but also unusable on many sites.
The final nail in the coffin of OS9 was (for me) that even Mozilla couldn't handle the blogger-site. CPU Speed is not the issue, it's "just" the software. Sad, but true.

BNs recommendation is 100% correct, you still can do real print-work on OS9, but everything Web-based is a pain. Get another Computer... :-) Crappy. :-/ ... Recently i was asked to do a black and white vector-illustration of some technical part of a car. I did it in Freehand 9 on OS9. Holy shit, this thing worked great again. Pure concentration to the core stuff. The lousy browsers on OS9 can be a positive thing too, because nothing can distract you from your work. :-) Lurking into youtube or any other fancy site using recent webdesign? Forget it, back to work.

I did it in Freehand 9 on OS9. Holy shit, this thing worked great again.

Smooth as a baby's bottom, ain't it? I really don't know how you artist types (I'm a hacker) can cope with OS X. I really don't. The precision of the "feel" is just not there for me. You'll have to email a copy of that vector illustration, smithz. I love seeing that kind of stuff. Unless you're a worse hacker than I am. I've done some truly high quality maps and a few logos. And there still isn't anything that can touch creating lines and curves as Illustrator 8. Now, I know this could cause a big, bare-knuckles fight because I have a friend who absolutely hates Illustrator and swears by FreeHand. Me, I hate FreeHand because it's so damn hard to select stuff. It's maddening. The the Bezier curves are better in Illustrator as well. But I know that amazing quality work can be done in either program, because I've seen it. Long before Illustrator gained the ability to place bitmapped graphics (let alone assign color to them), FreeHand could do this. So FreeHand became a de facto page layout tool for some people, at least for small jobs or ads.

Then Illustrator 10 came out and it's like somebody poured molasses in the innards of it. No longer so smooth, but still pretty good.

quote:

I don't use IE because it just bogs down OS 9 so bad. You click on something and then the computers is frozen while IE figures our how to render the page.

Yeah, and it frequently decides wrong. You should see some of the screwed-up renderings I get. Text superimposed on top of other text, pictures blocking the sight of other pictures, text on top of pictures, or running beyond the screen with no horizontal scroll bar.....
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Smithz that is only part of the problem. Quicktime plays a large role in rendering a lot of the content. Markles machine is running something like a 266Mhz CPU with video on the motherboard that can be 6MB VRAM at most if it was expanded. He may only have 2MB or 4MB. The video component of his machine can not handle Quicktime 6.0.3 properly. QT 6.0.3 is the version of QT needed to be most effective. His machine can not handle running it.

quote:

Originally posted by Markle:
Yeah, and it frequently decides wrong. You should see some of the screwed-up renderings I get. Text superimposed on top of other text, pictures blocking the sight of other pictures, text on top of pictures, or running beyond the screen with no horizontal scroll bar.....
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Markle, if you eBay you should keep an eye on auctions like this one for a MDD Dual 1.25. This is the machine I bought new and is the last to dual boot 9 & 10 natively (why I bought mine new). I have two hard drives in mine, one for 9 and one for 10.

Another problem with 9 these days of course is buying new add-on hardware that will work with 9 (see wireless networking). Firewire and USB 2 are nice to have too. I recently noticed I still have another ADB trackball floating around though if you need it!