Recent Comments:
Apple's quality dwindling: My MacBook Pro sob story {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Aug 1st 2008 1:06PM "As for losing faith in Apple, I understand your point of view, but what the heck else are you going to use? Windows? :) You won't get any support from Dell or any of the other bargain-basement manufacturers.
At least with Apple they take care of you, because they seem to respect the fact that you're paying a premium, and you should be treated that way."
I have to disagree here... This is one of the things troubling my own decision between an MBP and another brand's prosumer laptop. I'd like to go OS X, but Apple simply doesn't offer the kind of support I am willing to pay good money for.
I currently own a cheap Dell laptop and added an affordable 2-year enhanced coverage plan that includes accidental damage repair. They will pay for technicians to make house calls and overnight the parts to them. I had a minor sound card issue and my motherboard was replaced by the next day.
AppleCare is really just extended warranty support - mail it in or take it to an Apple store. As someone who relies on one machine for both school and work, I don't have time for that kind of turnaround. I would *gladly* pay extra for this kind of service from Apple were it available, but I'm not sure if I can afford the potential future cost of repairs and turnaround.
The Bill Day giveaway (part 3) - Zune 80GB (black) {Engadget}
Jun 29th 2008 6:09PM Visual Studio makes for an awesome IDE.
The Bill Day giveaway (part 4) - Windows Vista Ultimate {Engadget}
Jun 29th 2008 6:03PM Vista's automatic file backups and complete hard drive image backups are a lifesaver.
IBM updates free office suite, launches Lotus Symphony 1 {Download Squad}
Jun 15th 2008 10:13PM Downloaded it to a pretty new box with 2.5GB of RAM... I usually try not to be pessimistic about 1.0 software, but this app is SLOW, SLOW, SLOW! Very reminiscent of OpenOffice 1, but even slower. OpenOffice has enough trouble breaking off a piece of Microsoft's pie, this will just make things even more confusing unless somebody at IBM really steps it up.
A sketchpaper version of the iPhone {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Jun 5th 2008 8:35PM Does this support rotation between portrait and landscape? :-D
Apple to introduce OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" at WWDC? {Engadget}
Jun 4th 2008 10:11PM Carbon deprecated? IIRC, iTunes is still Carbon... So that would have to mean something completely rewritten in the near future for that app...
Amazon MP3 has little or no effect on iTunes {Download Squad}
Apr 15th 2008 10:27PM I don't think you're seeing this from the right perspective.
Amazon is #4 in overall sales because they have something very successful: the highest-selling CD store online. Apple is now #1 overall because it has been around for five years and has led the growing music downloads model.
But despite their position, digital downloads are still far behind physical CDs in terms of units sold. That will change over time, yes, but Amazon's MP3 unit is so young that it is far too early to rule it out as a threat to iTunes.
Apple has a five year headstart, and a commanding lead in mind share of iPod owners. Amazon MP3 has successfully created a product that requires minimal skill to get downloads onto an iPod, and if they can position themselves properly, they will be able to open up the DRM-Free downloads landscape to their advantage (and to that of consumers because of the competition)
Vista beats OS X? Really? {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Apr 9th 2008 6:19PM Your post is generally flamebait. As an official noncombatant in the Mac vs. PC wars, I generally won't get into it.
However, your post is completely baseless on the security argument - let's talk specifics instead of marketing mumbo-jumbo and uneducated FUD. (Disclaimer: I do network security for a living.)
Vista and Tiger/Leopard do incredibly well with security compared to previous customer OSes. Currently OS X market share is skyrocketing, and so I anticipate a growth in viruses and attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in Mac OS over the next few years.
As it stands, OS X has more holes and potential exploits than Vista, but this doesn't mean that there are as many in-the-wild attacks as there are for Vista. An educated cracker can easily compromise an OS X system. Don't believe me? Vista lasted over 24 hours longer than OS X in the PWN TO 0WN contest this year. ( http://dvlabs.tippingpoint.com/blog/2008/03/28/pwn-to-own-final-day-and-wrap-up ) And that was a public contest. Imagine the ease of exploiting the OS in the underground community. The only reason it doesn't happen often is because of the relatively low amount of people who would be susceptible to such an attack.
Also, since Apple overwhelmingly is focused on consumer systems, when Microsoft also has huge enterprise workstation and server deployments, it doesn't take an expert to realize who has higher stakes when it comes to responding to security vulnerabilities (when the entire Fortune 500 uses your product, you have to respond to threats.) This is why Microsoft has less unpatched vulnerabilities and faster zero-day response than Apple ( http://security.itworld.com/4940/microsoft-patches-faster-than-apple-080327/page_1.html )
The rest of your article is mostly hype as well, and I honestly expected more than fanboyism from a blog like TUAW. We don't need psychological reinforcement to think we're using the better OS. Both companies are doing quite well, and Vista isn't really the monster that most make it up to be. When I get my MBP, it will be dual-booting with Vista, and in another year or two when Macs are more prevalent, it'll probably be running some pretty heavy Antivirus on the OS X side as well.
AVG Anti-Virus 8.0 coming tomorrow {Download Squad}
Feb 27th 2008 10:43PM Sorry for the double-post; I forgot. Check out http://av-comparatives.org for raw, unbiased data that compares all the major antivirus products. AVG isn't the worst by any means, but when there are better free clients out there, it simply doesn't make the cut.
AVG Anti-Virus 8.0 coming tomorrow {Download Squad}
Feb 27th 2008 10:41PM As a guy who does Antivirus maintenance for 500+ machines daily, I can't exactly say that I am a fan of AVG. They have a high rate of false positives and let many in-the-wild exploits through. Avast! is a better free client, but still not good enough as NOD32, Kaspersky, or Symantec AV Corporate Edition (not Norton). I've used them all, and prefer NOD32 at home (cheap!) and SAV in the enterprise.
