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A podcast about Macs done by a Mac geek for Mac geeks. Show 82. Microsoft iPod patent dispute, $50 iBook sale results in mob and injuries, Apple may be partnering with Google to sell iTunes, Apple releases Security Update 007, build your own Mac for $199 and a Hong Kong inventor files DRM patent lawsuit against Apple and others. OS X for Intel PC feedback, MSN Messenger 5 with other chat systems, Apple Certified Alliance Directory, recommendation for running Apple scheduled maintenance scripts, make sure you run the latest version of Disk Utility when repairing permissions, buyer beware when purchasing older Macs. No Tiger upgrade. Is the single processor 1.8 GHz G5 the buggiest Mac ever? Some thoughts from a MacCast listener. New music, Prozac Girl by Sunspot
We evil magicians have to make a living too.
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Nice show again Adam. About that closing song,..sounds like they Kinda Ripped off King Crimson’s ProZack Blues(from the construkkion of light-2000)
Anyway, as i had said to you in the Gmail, any advice you can give us here(without me going out and buying Tood Cochrane’s Book) on our MUG setting up a podcast…
Bill Chachkes
Well for a list of what i use to do my podcast atke a look at this thread on the forum.
re intro changes. Why? Your success has been built on your style so far, on the way you’ve done it, that’s part of the attraction and charm of the show. Apart from great information, opinions and coverage it’s what makes us keep coming back. I am all for change and progress but why mend what ain’t broke? Stay with it Adam.
For running the system maintenance cron jobs that run at night, I use the Schedule feature of Energy Saver preference panel to schedule my mac to wake up at 3:10 am every day, just in time to run the daily and weekly maintenance jobs scheduled for 3:15 am. I then have it go back to sleep at 6:00am since the monthly job is scheduled to run at 5:30 am. These are now controlled in Tiger via launchd with plist files in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons. They are named com.apple.periodic-*.plist. You can use the Property List editor to change the time values as administrator.
I think that Apple should charge more for a generic Intel PC version of Mac OS X – the full version anyway. If you think about it, every Mac OS X retail box version is an upgrade. Since every Mac sold comes with Max OS on it, then anything else is an upgrade to the full copy you already paid for with the price of the computer. Therefore $129 is upgrade pricing. A generic Intel PC will not already have an initial version of Mac OS on it to upgrade. So, the price should be $199 or whatever. After that, they could buy an upgrade version for $129. This does mean, however, that Apple has not really ever made two different OS install distributions. They never have to check for a qualifying product since if it’s a Mac, then you definitely have a version of Mac OS already. This also means anyone asking Apple to make an “upgrade” version of OS X that costs less is not really thinking it through.
Aw, Adam, you’re just getting wronger*!
Certifying individual components for OS X on Intel will do little to solve some of the hardest bugs to fix in the PC world. It is often conflicts that arise when components are assembled in certain combinations that drive people wild.
Letting Dell or other hardware vendors handle OS X support would be an unmitigated disaster. First of all, they are not qualified to do it and, secondly, they have a conflict of interest. When it comes to supporting their own hardware or an OS they license, where do you think they are going to devote more resource?
Your assumption that someone who uses OS X on a crappy PC will become an Apple customer has little basis in fact. If a user has a bad experience with OS X on a crappy PC, he will blame OS X and go back to Windows. On the other hand, if he has a satisfactory experience using OS X on a crappy PC, he’ll happily buy a slightly less crappy PC the next time (unless the cost of a Mac is very close).
Now, here’s are some facts: in the 3rd quarter of 2005, Apple sold $1,565 million of Macs and $345 million of software (and it was a conspicuously big quarter for software.) In other words, Apple makes more PROFIT from Macs than it generates in REVENUE from all software.
Windows, Linux and many BSD’s are pure software products that users can slap on any machine they want. Mac OS X is the only widely available system that works only on its own hardware. That IS a consumer choice.
The good news is that I do agree with you that those who are making market share arguments are barking up the wrong tree.
Great show! I’ll share my thoughts about the Henrico County iRiots in a later post.
Dave
* I know there is no such word. It’s being used for ironic effect.
Here’s my take on the Henrico County iRiots:
Sure, the people who went berserk to get a $50 were wrong to get so rough to get an old iBook. On the other hand, I think Apple ought to bring that woman who peed her pants out to a MacWorld keynote so Steve can give a shout out to her (like the President does during The State of The Union address.)
The iRiot happened for the same reason that Henrico County schools switched from Macs to Dells: the arrogant, out-of-touch bureaucrats in charge choose to ignore the singular passion that Mac users feel about the Mac experience.
This led them to selling them in a chaotic setting with insufficient crowd control and a method of distribution that encouraged violence. Keep in mind that the people in charge of the sale were those who chose to dump Apple. While they may have saved a few bucks on the Dells going in, the extra support that will certainly be required will cause the overall cost of the new PC’s to skyrocket. They are going to have several full-time positions devoted solely to battling VISTA (viruses, infections, spyware, trojans and adware.)
Regarding repair permissions – you can run whichever version of Disk Utility you want against whichever version of OS X you want. The permissions are stored in the package receipts on your hard disk (/Library/Receipts/) so any version of DU will be seeing the correct permissions.
Please, no banter! One of the big reasons I love the MacCast is that you get right to the point…lean and mean.
About processor upgrades. It should be obvious that dual dual-core is not amazing, it is a must. PC for one is getting the ship with desktop dual-cores, the workstations are BOUND to have dual dual-cores (in fact, they already have) so to keep the _PRO_-line in any way competative there is very little choice. Even more so if we are in 2007 before seeing Intel PowerMacs.