I’ve recently had some debate with someone who is best described as a fanboy. Except that she’s a girl.
The topic of our conversation was, in part, Blackberry. Not the naturally occurring capsule of fruity goodness, mind, but the seemingly popular mobile device by Research in Motion. You see, this person just bought one of Apple’s new iPhone 3Gs, and was keen to point out some issues that she thought the Blackberry did better with. This led to some absolutely useless arguing over personal preference, but it also got me thinking about the topic of mobile phones in general; now, I can say with certainty, smart phones are for dumb people.
It seems that the company behind the recently-reported OpenMac computer may be even shadier than originally suspected.
Several recent happenings have called into question the integrity (and even the existence) of PsyStar, the company behind the “Open Computer” paradigm. No, it doesn’t just stop at EULA violations for pre-installing OSX.
They say history repeats itself. Did you ever think that would apply to the computer world?
As perhaps a testament to Apple’s growing market share, Mac clones have reappeared on the market. This time, they come in the form of a $400 “Psystar OpenMac,” which ships with OSX 10.5 Leopard and offers full compatibility with Mac software.
Wondering why it’s not illegal? It just might be, but there isn’t much Apple can do about it.
Here’s what GOP hopeful (really hopeful) Mitt Romney has to say on the number one issue in America: Mac or PC? (from techcrunch.com)
“I have a PC. My sons have a Mac and swear by it, but I have a couple PC’s. 3 out of the 5 boys I believe are on Macs, and they swear by them, but I’m a creature of habit, I’ve got my PC.”
Well, Mitt, you’ve just proved that you’re yet another zealot practicing blind allegiance… and not only a PC user, but a Mormon at that.
At least there’s hope for your kids… well, 3 out of 5, anyway.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Well, actually, no, it’s just another MacBook iteration.
I have to say, I was excited about this product when I first heard about it in a Macworld report. In fact, I thought it was such a great announcement that it was on par with the iPhone.
I was wrong. Very wrong. In fact, to be honest, I don’t even want one. And for a new Apple product, that’s a bad thing. Mind you, it’s not the aesthetics that are wrong with the new MacBook Air. Instead, for the first time since the G4 Cube, Apple may have made a bad decision: form over function.
No, you didn’t read that wrong; they cite many reasons why XP is, in fact, an upgrade to the horrible Windows Vista.
The facts that XP is “faster and more responsive” than Vista and that it is far more reliable are mentioned, as well as XP’s “cartoony” look compared to Vista’s “Aero-Glass” (which is funny, because I couldn’t stand that cartoon look and feel after having used Windows 2000 for a while). The “loss of sleekness” (not like Vista ever actually had any) is not a problem, according to the report, due to improvements elsewhere.
The author even mentions some Vista bugs… I mean, “features” that he misses sorely:
I also miss the “orphaned windows” I got on Vista, dialog boxes that would not go away, in a sense they became part of the desktop, since you could drag a selection from within them, despite the fact that the Glass would render the selection below them. Such crazy graphics bugs appear to be a thing of the past.
In spite of all this, the question must be asked: why be forced to use an obsolete operating system to have a stable machine? Buy a Mac!
MP3 has been the dominant format behind (illegal) music downloading for years now, and a while back, our friends at Microsoft tried to kill it.
The Windows Media Audio (WMA) format offered an all-important money-making feature: Digital Rights Management (DRM). In a nutshell, this allowed sites that use WMA to have to authorize the playback of a WMA song. In other words, only the person who downloaded it may use it.
This is all well-and-good, except for the fact that the industry giant iPod doesn’t play WMA, as it is an Apple product with no ties to Microsoft. And, therefore, WMA has been slow going since its inception, and, if new movement in the music industry is any indication, it may soon be dead.
Yes, it’s true. I’ve spoken to several people at UC Davis who actually bought a Mac running Leopard instead of being stuck with a PC pre-loaded with Vista. Good call.
To celebrate, here’s one of Apple’s newest ads, cashing in on Vista’s inferiority. Enjoy.
