At 11:06 AM -0500 2/15/03, Mac Duff wrote:
There are other problems with Apple these days that IMHO warrant greater froth directed at them than this, and submitted for your approval are the following:
Agree with a lot of what you say, but there are a few points:
until Quark gets its act together
Of course that's not Apple's problem, but why do people cling to Quark? I know it stole a march on Pagemaker years ago, but it is the most overpriced, buggy, out-of-date software out there, and Quark shows no sign of improving the situation. We switched to InDesign at the paper some time ago, and there are no complaints; does everything Quark and Pagemaker do, plus is far more flexible. Get out from under the tyranny of Quark!!!!
A pumped up original G3 iMac design (of which, if I recall correctly, in their last quarterly report HALF OF THEIR IMAC SALES WERE OF THE ORIGINAL G3 DESIGN!!!) with 1GHz G3, PC133, USB II, NO FIREWIRE, 15" CRT, CDRW, 256MB RAM, 20GB drive. Those specs would work very well as a straight-ahead classroom solution,
I'm not sure CDRW is the best idea in a classroom situation - you don't neccessarily want to encourage the buggers to download MP3's , after all. ;7) After watching the way other students work at University, unfortunately, I'd have to reccomend a floppy drive for the package. These PC users still use floppies all the time. And you know, when I ask one of these lusers why they didn't just email or ftp the file that they're complaining is corrupted (on their floppy), all they have to say is 'I don't know how to do that'. Until we manage to raise the consciousness of PCers, Apple needs a floppy in educational Macs.
D) Apple has to accept the fact that not all computer users need a computer as feature rich as even the eMac.
Definitely - there should be a Cdn $500-1000 basic iMac available. Over Christmas, I noticed the local computer shop was selling new, way low-end PC's, starting at $300 - hard to convince those shoppers that quality counts, and they should pay $1500 for a basic iMac.
E) Recent iApps (iMovie 3, iPhoto 2) are WAY TOO DAMNED SLOW!!! And iMovie is particularly buggy.
There's a big issue - these things are near useless. And not just because of the slowness. iPhoto, which you would think that I as a photographer and Mac evangelist would love, just doesn't have the features necessary. Apple has really aimed it at beginning users with out leaving any room to grow. Also, I really don't want a cataloguing program to create duplicates and thumbnails all over the place - I shoot about 1000 pics a month, maybe more. At anyone time I may have 5000+ on the drive in use or waiting to be burnt to CD. Can you imagine the mess if I let iPhoto create dupes and thumbnails? iPhoto is too fancy a program to be so feature poor and slow. To see what it might have been, check out my favourite, iView <http://www.iview-multimedia.com/>. Small fast, respects EXIF and IPTC data, has more flexible editing and cataloguing tools. I was amazed when Apple came out with iPhoto - I had figured that they would just buy out or pirate iView's ideas. Oh, well, that's my addition to the rant� Cheers - Steve K. -- Mac Canada is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Shop Canadian, visit Mantek Services <http://www.mantek.mb.ca> Low Prices That Will Keep YOU and Your MAC Smiling Educational discounts are now available Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Mac Canada info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/mac-can.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-canada%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
