Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-04 16:10 , Adam Maas wrote:

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 12:45 PM, steve harley  wrote:

On 2010-05-02 09:56 , Adam Maas wrote:


an easy way to
launch seldom-used apps along with access to configuration and the
file browser.


that sounds like QuickSilver on the Mac (there are similar tools for Win&
Linux)


Not really, Quicksilver is really just a bit of UI that mostly
functions as keybindings,


QS is keybindings to a subject-verb-object language that can serve as 
shorthand for many different things one can also do other ways; like 
other shorthands, it's definitely loathable, but quite a time-saver once 
learned; i'm not mouse-phobic, btw; i resisted QS-type tools for years 
before i invested some time and saw what i was missing


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 12:45 PM, steve harley  wrote:
> On 2010-05-02 09:56 , Adam Maas wrote:
>>
>> an easy way to
>> launch seldom-used apps along with access to configuration and the
>> file browser.
>
> that sounds like QuickSilver on the Mac (there are similar tools for Win &
> Linux)

Not really, Quicksilver is really just a bit of UI that mostly
functions as keybindings, allowing keyboard lovers to ignore the mouse
more. If you aren\t mouse-phobic it's much less usable. I've tried it
and loathed it, but emacs users will likely love it.



-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 12:26 PM, steve harley  wrote:
> On 2010-05-02 06:07 , Adam Maas wrote:
>
>> My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
>> 30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).
>
> all this talk of boot times -- i do that a couple times a month
>
 About once a month on Vista. More often on my Mac (old eMac running 10.3.9)



-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[CheekyGeek]

> I think you'll find Mac zealots are a lot better looking than PC zealots,
> but they don't do as much work. I have a copy of iLoathe but it's nowhere
> near as good as Microsoft Hatred.

There's one for next year's book.
: )

Darren Addy
Kearney, NE


-- 
 "The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."
~ Dorothea Lange

"98% of all cameras and lenses are sharper than 99% of all photographers."
   ~ Anonymous

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[Bob W]

> > The one thing I really, really dislike about the Mac is the 
> obnoxious 
> > attitude of Mac zealots who insist that their way of doing 
> things is 
> > *obviously* the one true way.
> > 
> 
> As a Mac user myself, I agree with you 100%.  I don't much 
> care for OS zealots of any stripe.
> 

I think you'll find Mac zealots are a lot better looking than PC zealots,
but they don't do as much work. I have a copy of iLoathe but it's nowhere
near as good as Microsoft Hatred.



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Charles Robinson]

On May 1, 2010, at 5:41, John Francis wrote:
> 
> The one thing I really, really dislike about the Mac is the
> obnoxious attitude of Mac zealots who insist that their way
> of doing things is *obviously* the one true way.
> 

As a Mac user myself, I agree with you 100%.  I don't much care for OS zealots 
of any stripe.

 -Charles

--
Charles Robinson - charl...@visi.com
Minneapolis, MN
http://charles.robinsontwins.org
http://www.facebook.com/charles.robinson


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-02 09:56 , Adam Maas wrote:

an easy way to
launch seldom-used apps along with access to configuration and the
file browser.


that sounds like QuickSilver on the Mac (there are similar tools for Win 
& Linux)


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-02 07:55 , John Sessoms wrote:

Just a note here regarding line wrap. I understand the idea of not
setting a default line length and letting the line wrap to whatever size
the viewers window is.

Problem is, when someone quotes that text, the quoted text DOES NOT WRAP
in subsequent windows.


that really depends on the application doing the quoting; with 
format=flowed, email systems should have the information they need to 
properly re-wrap quoted content


otoh, i have a maximum text width set in Thunderbird (for readability 
reasons), which unfortunately can force it to artificially break lines, 
so my quoted text is often unnecessarily-wrapped



And that's the problem I have with Apple and the Mac. It's a closed
system. Ultimately, Steve Jobs gets to say what I can do with a Mac or
any other Apple product, although I'm sure Bill Gates would love to have
the same power over PCs running Windoze if he could have achieved it.


i think you're confusing Macs (a very open system with somewhat closed 
hardware) with iPhones (a system where one class of applications is closed)


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-02 07:58 , John Sessoms wrote:

If they've hidden it, it's NOT simple.


right, it's the experience of the non-hidden features which is simple; 
this is how it works to simplify the use of complex devices; plenty of 
other examples come to mind


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-02 09:47 , Adam Maas wrote:

Note my biggest beef with the Dock is no launcher/switcher separation.


there is a separate switcher in Mac OS -- press cmd-tab


I want to know what windows/apps I have open at a glance


there is a tool called Exposé which gives at a glance view of windows in 
one app or in all apps, there is another tool called Spaces which allows 
assigning different apps or different windows in the same app to 
different virtual screens


(i don't use the Mac OS X Dock myself - i use a keyboard-based launcher 
& an alternate switcher)


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-02 06:07 , Adam Maas wrote:

And vice-versa. I'm pretty much stuck with Windows on my main system
due to Multisim.


Windows runs very nicely within a virtual machine ...


My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).


all this talk of boot times -- i do that a couple times a month

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-02 01:40 , Joseph McAllister wrote:


I don't know if you can use other than iTunes to "play" songs on your
iPod.


yes, you can do that too, though it's harder than copying songs off an 
iPod because it entails updating a database on the Pod; there are 
supposedly tools which will also do this for the iPhone OS platform too



 Which leads me to believe if there is software
out there (and when is there ever not) that will let you play ANY kind
of music file from a disk, it can be made to play on Apple's iPod.


well, you can convert any music file to a format an iPod will play, but 
you can't change what formats iPods play -- they can't learn new formats 
unless Apple releases new firmware



The ladders and hoops Apple makes you go through with iTunes is to keep
you from making multiple copies of the DRM protected and purchased songs
that you get from their iTunes Store online.


Apple dropped DRM for iTunes-bought music content over a year ago

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Tom C]

Bob W, wrote:

> The Russian mafia has specially-trained dogs left over from the KGB days who
> can smell the traces of the 'erased' bit patterns going back over 50 years,
> then bark the binary to a team of data prep clerks punching furiously into
> computers developed from the debris of Gary Powers' U-2. You can never be
> too paranoid.
>
> B
>

That's hilarious.

Tom C.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[eckinator]

2010/5/3 Bob W :
>
> The Russian mafia has specially-trained dogs left over from the KGB days who
> can smell the traces of the 'erased' bit patterns going back over 50 years,
> then bark the binary to a team of data prep clerks punching furiously into
> computers developed from the debris of Gary Powers' U-2. You can never be
> too paranoid.

MMMRRRKK!

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[Bob W]

> > I'm surprised the government let them go. Everyone's very 
> touchy about 
> > data loss these days - where I work they take out the hard disk and 
> > have it destroyed before they let the box go.
> 
> They all have spanking new XP installs, I think destroying 
> drives is a bit over the top, there are a lot of very 
> thorough data wiping applications available. I have a friend 
> in big bank IT who has witnessed forensic data gathering, 
> it's not like in the movies.

The Russian mafia has specially-trained dogs left over from the KGB days who
can smell the traces of the 'erased' bit patterns going back over 50 years,
then bark the binary to a team of data prep clerks punching furiously into
computers developed from the debris of Gary Powers' U-2. You can never be
too paranoid.

B


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Rob Studdert]

On 03/05/2010, Bob W  wrote:

> I'm surprised the government let them go. Everyone's very touchy about data
> loss these days - where I work they take out the hard disk and have it
> destroyed before they let the box go.

They all have spanking new XP installs, I think destroying drives is a
bit over the top, there are a lot of very thorough data wiping
applications available. I have a friend in big bank IT who has
witnessed forensic data gathering, it's not like in the movies.

-- 
Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[Bob W]

> I can see now why so many people have issues, following is a 
> vid of one of my systems starting up, I leave it in standby 
> (as there is a 1w differential between off and standby). I 
> just hit the on button and it's basically ready to go. I 
> bought this one a year back (ex Gov), it cost me a little 
> over AU$500 inc shipping, dual monitors and a really 
> substancial stand and the box still had some Dell warranty.
> 
> http://www.vimeo.com/11394079
> 
> Pass: stinkingpcs

I'm surprised the government let them go. Everyone's very touchy about data
loss these days - where I work they take out the hard disk and have it
destroyed before they let the box go.



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Rob Studdert]

On 03/05/2010, eckinator  wrote:
> Are there any more such deals where it came from?

I bought a couple, I would have bought more but of couse by the time I
had enquired after receipt of the fist couple the rest were gone (he
had more than 10 sets), I've since bought three more smaller units
sans monitors for AU$210 each. There are deals to be had if you keep
your eyes peeled!

-- 
Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[eckinator]

Are there any more such deals where it came from?
Cheers
Ecke

2010/5/3 Rob Studdert :
> On 02/05/2010, Jeffery Smith  wrote:
>> Vista. I "looks" like it is ready after about 45 seconds, but trying to 
>> start an application will only get you a "program not responding" or some 
>> similar sort of error message along the top of the screen.
>
> I can see now why so many people have issues, following is a vid of
> one of my systems starting up, I leave it in standby (as there is a 1w
> differential between off and standby). I just hit the on button and
> it's basically ready to go. I bought this one a year back (ex Gov), it
> cost me a little over AU$500 inc shipping, dual monitors and a really
> substancial stand and the box still had some Dell warranty.
>
> http://www.vimeo.com/11394079
>
> Pass: stinkingpcs
>
> --
> Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
> Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
> Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio
>
> --
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.
>

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Rob Studdert]

On 02/05/2010, Jeffery Smith  wrote:
> Vista. I "looks" like it is ready after about 45 seconds, but trying to start 
> an application will only get you a "program not responding" or some similar 
> sort of error message along the top of the screen.

I can see now why so many people have issues, following is a vid of
one of my systems starting up, I leave it in standby (as there is a 1w
differential between off and standby). I just hit the on button and
it's basically ready to go. I bought this one a year back (ex Gov), it
cost me a little over AU$500 inc shipping, dual monitors and a really
substancial stand and the box still had some Dell warranty.

http://www.vimeo.com/11394079

Pass: stinkingpcs

-- 
Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Larry Colen]

On May 1, 2010, at 1:13 PM, Joseph McAllister wrote:



By the way, just so you know what an idiot I am, this fanaticism  
about computers beginning in 1973 with Atari, Sinclair, Epson, then  
Apple and Mac, with parallel interests in Porsches, a powerful audio  
video wall in the family room, and racing, cost me the dream  
marriage to my second wife. Take heed, you younger set. Never ever  
become so involved in your hobbies that you forget what is really  
important in life.





That's nothing, my marriage cost me several years of racing.

--
Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est





--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 11:40 AM, P N Stenquist  wrote:
>
> On May 2, 2010, at 10:53 AM, Adam Maas wrote:
>>
>> The sad part is there's really only two parts of the OS X UI that I
>> dislike. The Dock and Finder.
>
> I didn't like them at first, since I was accustomed to OS9, but after using
> the dock every day for years, I've grown to like it. I keep it hidden, but a
> touch of the mouse wakes it up. I use the small icons and have numerous apps
> represented there. I get a reasonably bright glowing mark below each running
> app. Quite easy to see, even with my old eyes.
> Paul

Win7's implementation is much nicer visibility-wise, the icon gets
overlayed by a transparent glowing square when the app is running.
Much better than the glowing dot.

The Dock is definitely better than how OS 9 handled app switching and
display of running apps. The move to the bright dot from the old black
caret improved things.

I prefer something of a minimalist UI personally. I've little use for
shiny bits like Expose (or the windows equivalent). All I want from
the basic UI is a good launcher, a good taskbar and an easy way to
launch seldom-used apps along with access to configuration and the
file browser. Both MS and Apple have added many features to their UI's
which I'd happily do without (and never use).

-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 11:28 AM, Graydon  wrote:
>
> On Sun, May 02, 2010 at 10:53:45AM -0400, Adam Maas scripsit:
> [snip]
>> little caret), but it still fails due to the poor assumption that your
>> launcher and task switcher should be the same thing, a UI paradigm
>> which sucked on NeXTStep and still sucks today. And it forces you to
>> stack running windows, rather than having the option of having each
>> individual window show up on the taskbar when you don't have a lot of
>> them open (one of my favourite things about the Windows-style
>> taskbar).
>
> This is why good implementations of the "dock" paradigm use viewports,
> too, and a large virtual desktop.  You can give every running
> application or application group its very own screen and switch rapidly
> between them.
>
> That would really confuse people used to the Windows Task Bar, though.
> (I know this from watching people try to interact with my standard
> AfterStep desktop setup, so it's not just my emulation of the
> turnip-nature dealing with Windows.)
>
> -- Graydon
>

I actually moved to that sort of setup for a while during the Win98
era (Running AfterStep in fact, on Linux and SunOS). I can use it, but
greatly prefer the taskbar implementation. The use of large virtual
desktops and workspaces results in an excessively complex UI
interaction (I've got the same beef with the latest fondness for
mouse/trackpad gestures, Apple, I'm looking at you here, but all the
smartphone vendors are guilty too). Workspaces/Virtual Desktops are
pretty much geek-only UI.

Note my biggest beef with the Dock is no launcher/switcher separation.
I want to know what windows/apps I have open at a glance, but my
launcher needs are different (typically I have my standard apps load
on login, my Quick Launch bar has my most common short-time use apps).
Since I tend to run few apps and lots of windows, the Dock's
advantages (which orient towards either 1 app at a time use or many
apps/few windows) are actually weaknesses for me.

Note that on my Mac, I've got a docked Application folder, which I use
like the Start Menu, a couple docked apps which load on launch and
that's it. It's the closest I can get to my preferred configuration
and mostly, it works all-right. On Linux I run GNOME, so I have a
Windows-style taskbar and I run entirely in the first workspace, and
my Vista setup is setup to work with Quicklaunch Icons and a normal
taskbar with auto-stacking disabled.

-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[P N Stenquist]

On May 2, 2010, at 10:53 AM, Adam Maas wrote:

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 10:39 AM, John Sessoms  
 wrote:

From: Adam Maas


Vista, which is a significant upgrade over XP despite the popular
opinion to the contrary. Note I'm counting from power-on to 'all
background services started'. I can get a working UI much quicker  
than
that (about 45 seconds) but my experience is that it's always best  
to

wait until the background stuff has started.



The only real complaint I have about Vista is they changed the  
appearance,

names and locations of stuff for no apparent reason.

Makes it more difficult when I have to interact with the OS itself,  
because
I have to figure out what the new name is, where they've hidden it  
and have

a whole new learning curve for getting it to do what I want it to do.

And that's one of the reasons I'm delaying moving to Windoze 7 ...  
I'm only
now just beginning to get used to where they've hidden the widgets  
I need to
twiddle occasionally, and don't want to deal with another new  
learning

curve.

Plus, I've learned to allow Micro$oft's early adopters to deal with  
the

inevitable problems.

When is Service Pack 1 for Windoze 7 due out?

Once that's available bundled with the base OS I'll consider  
switching.




Turn off Themes and Vista becomes a lot more like earlier versions
UI-wise. Also use the Classic option for Control Panel. I found that
most of the UI changes in Vista were for the better, especially with
Explorer (finally a navigable address bar, like on GNOME or KDE). They
did absolutely screw up some of the Control Panel stuff though,
especially Networking-related stuff.

Win7's changes are far more painful as MS decided to turn the Taskbar
into a (better but still annoying) clone of one of OS X's biggest UI
fails, the Dock. Ironically MS did a better job of it than Apple did,
it's much easier to tell what docked apps are actually running on Win7
than on OS X (The Icon gets a transparent overlay rather than a wee
little caret), but it still fails due to the poor assumption that your
launcher and task switcher should be the same thing, a UI paradigm
which sucked on NeXTStep and still sucks today. And it forces you to
stack running windows, rather than having the option of having each
individual window show up on the taskbar when you don't have a lot of
them open (one of my favourite things about the Windows-style
taskbar).

The sad part is there's really only two parts of the OS X UI that I
dislike. The Dock and Finder.


I didn't like them at first, since I was accustomed to OS9, but after  
using the dock every day for years, I've grown to like it. I keep it  
hidden, but a touch of the mouse wakes it up. I use the small icons  
and have numerous apps represented there. I get a reasonably bright  
glowing mark below each running app. Quite easy to see, even with my  
old eyes.

Paul


MS cloned one, but thankfully not the
other (Finder remains an absolute fucking disaster, and singularly the
worst aspect of OS X by a large margin. It's still not anywhere near
as good as OS9's Finder, let alone a modern File Browser like Explorer
or Nautilus).

--
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above  
and follow the directions.



--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Graydon]

On Sun, May 02, 2010 at 10:53:45AM -0400, Adam Maas scripsit:
[snip]
> little caret), but it still fails due to the poor assumption that your
> launcher and task switcher should be the same thing, a UI paradigm
> which sucked on NeXTStep and still sucks today. And it forces you to
> stack running windows, rather than having the option of having each
> individual window show up on the taskbar when you don't have a lot of
> them open (one of my favourite things about the Windows-style
> taskbar).

This is why good implementations of the "dock" paradigm use viewports,
too, and a large virtual desktop.  You can give every running
application or application group its very own screen and switch rapidly
between them.

That would really confuse people used to the Windows Task Bar, though.
(I know this from watching people try to interact with my standard
AfterStep desktop setup, so it's not just my emulation of the
turnip-nature dealing with Windows.)

-- Graydon

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 10:39 AM, John Sessoms  wrote:
> From: Adam Maas
>>
>> Vista, which is a significant upgrade over XP despite the popular
>> opinion to the contrary. Note I'm counting from power-on to 'all
>> background services started'. I can get a working UI much quicker than
>> that (about 45 seconds) but my experience is that it's always best to
>> wait until the background stuff has started.
>>
>
> The only real complaint I have about Vista is they changed the appearance,
> names and locations of stuff for no apparent reason.
>
> Makes it more difficult when I have to interact with the OS itself, because
> I have to figure out what the new name is, where they've hidden it and have
> a whole new learning curve for getting it to do what I want it to do.
>
> And that's one of the reasons I'm delaying moving to Windoze 7 ... I'm only
> now just beginning to get used to where they've hidden the widgets I need to
> twiddle occasionally, and don't want to deal with another new learning
> curve.
>
> Plus, I've learned to allow Micro$oft's early adopters to deal with the
> inevitable problems.
>
> When is Service Pack 1 for Windoze 7 due out?
>
> Once that's available bundled with the base OS I'll consider switching.
>

Turn off Themes and Vista becomes a lot more like earlier versions
UI-wise. Also use the Classic option for Control Panel. I found that
most of the UI changes in Vista were for the better, especially with
Explorer (finally a navigable address bar, like on GNOME or KDE). They
did absolutely screw up some of the Control Panel stuff though,
especially Networking-related stuff.

Win7's changes are far more painful as MS decided to turn the Taskbar
into a (better but still annoying) clone of one of OS X's biggest UI
fails, the Dock. Ironically MS did a better job of it than Apple did,
it's much easier to tell what docked apps are actually running on Win7
than on OS X (The Icon gets a transparent overlay rather than a wee
little caret), but it still fails due to the poor assumption that your
launcher and task switcher should be the same thing, a UI paradigm
which sucked on NeXTStep and still sucks today. And it forces you to
stack running windows, rather than having the option of having each
individual window show up on the taskbar when you don't have a lot of
them open (one of my favourite things about the Windows-style
taskbar).

The sad part is there's really only two parts of the OS X UI that I
dislike. The Dock and Finder. MS cloned one, but thankfully not the
other (Finder remains an absolute fucking disaster, and singularly the
worst aspect of OS X by a large margin. It's still not anywhere near
as good as OS9's Finder, let alone a modern File Browser like Explorer
or Nautilus).

-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[John Sessoms]

From: Adam Maas

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 8:19 AM, eckinator  wrote:

> 2010/5/2 Adam Maas :

>>
>> My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
>> 30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).

>
> Sounds like XP, or worse Vista?
>


Vista, which is a significant upgrade over XP despite the popular
opinion to the contrary. Note I'm counting from power-on to 'all
background services started'. I can get a working UI much quicker than
that (about 45 seconds) but my experience is that it's always best to
wait until the background stuff has started.



The only real complaint I have about Vista is they changed the 
appearance, names and locations of stuff for no apparent reason.


Makes it more difficult when I have to interact with the OS itself, 
because I have to figure out what the new name is, where they've hidden 
it and have a whole new learning curve for getting it to do what I want 
it to do.


And that's one of the reasons I'm delaying moving to Windoze 7 ... I'm 
only now just beginning to get used to where they've hidden the widgets 
I need to twiddle occasionally, and don't want to deal with another new 
learning curve.


Plus, I've learned to allow Micro$oft's early adopters to deal with the 
inevitable problems.


When is Service Pack 1 for Windoze 7 due out?

Once that's available bundled with the base OS I'll consider switching.

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: Mac vs PC (was Re: K-7 replacement?)

[Adam Maas]

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 10:09 AM, John Sessoms  wrote:
>
> Sure. Easily enough done ...
>
> BTW, I'd see about getting that Dell fixed. If you're getting 15 minutes of
> "not responding" issues at boot up, you've got a broken machine.
>

That sounds like a classic example of 'Norton Brain Damage', or
something similar. Time to format & reinstall, which is still the best
way to resolve odd problems on Windows or Mac.


-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: Mac vs PC (was Re: K-7 replacement?)

[John Sessoms]

From: Jeffery Smith

Mac has some software available for it that Windows cannot touch.
That is one of the reasons for my moving to Mac. And it boots up and
connects to drives, the web, etc. in about 45 seconds. My "fast" Dell
takes about 15 minutes to get past all of the "not responding" issues
before it will actually function.

For people in the business world, Windows rules. For people who are
writers, academics, or otherwise right brained, the Mac fills some
serious voids that Windows doesn't even address. Like most of the
software from Devon Technologies and other information managers.

Jeffery

P.S. - can we change the subject line to Mac versus Windows? That
poor K-7 has been out of the mix for several days, and it deserves
better.  ;-)


Sure. Easily enough done ...

BTW, I'd see about getting that Dell fixed. If you're getting 15 minutes 
of "not responding" issues at boot up, you've got a broken machine.


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[John Sessoms]

From: steve harley

On 2010-05-01 17:31 , Rob Studdert wrote:

> That's not what I said. I simply said if the need arose (which it has)
> then you are forced into using iTunes, no other portable audio players
> require this.


each portable audio player has its strengths & weaknesses -- you have a 
choice; but if you want to copy files directly to and from an iPod, it's 
slightly hidden (because apple is ruthless about simplicity, something i 
don't like either), but ...


If they've hidden it, it's NOT simple.

Perhaps it's streamlining or some other complex ideology they're 
ruthless about.


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[John Sessoms]

From: Adam Maas

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 7:44 PM, paul stenquist  wrote:

>
>
> I've had a dozen macs. No failures other than hard drives. My daughter's 
i-book failed when she tripped over the ethernet cord and broke the port off the 
motherboard. I thought that was crappy design, but nothing else has ever failed.
>
> Surprised you had to go back to the failure issue from the i Tunes 
discussion. Too much Apple anger out there, guys. It's not healthy:-).
>
> Paul


Just a note here regarding line wrap. I understand the idea of not 
setting a default line length and letting the line wrap to whatever size 
the viewers window is.


Problem is, when someone quotes that text, the quoted text DOES NOT WRAP 
in subsequent windows.





Not surprised there, you're talking about a reasonably small sample
size from a reasonably reliable maker. I'm surprised that Joseph
hasn't if he was supporting or administrating them professionally
though.

I can just about count all my personal hardware failures on a pair of
hands, and almost half that is Seagate IDE/SATA drives from 1997-on.
Other than that, I've had a PSU failure, a few couple fans, two
mainboard failures and a pair of optical drives along witha  couple
non-Seagate Drive failures. One of the optical drives was the only
major brand-name failure I've had aside from drive failures (Two of
the Seagates were in LaCie enclosures, one was in an HP Laptop, one
was actually purchased directly and was the first of the lot and the
drive in my PowerMac 8500 croaked). Oh, and an iPod Shuffle that locks
up whenever it sees a VBR MP3.



Oddly enough, while I've had a number of Western Digital IDE Hard-Drives 
fail over the years, I've never had a Seagate IDE Hard-Drive fail? But 
then, over the years I've had more Western Digital Drives than Seagate 
Drives (about 4:1), so that might account for it.


Might be worth considering when thinking about the relative reliability 
of Micro$oft vs. Apple. Figure if you have a 9:1 PC:Mac (or whatever it 
is) ratio in the market, you can expect more problems from PCs.


If you ONLY see PCs or Macs, you're going to see reliability issues with 
ONLY PCs or Macs. The question is does one or the other give more or 
less problem in relation to its share of the market. I don't think 
either does really, although Mac suffers some in that respect simply 
because of its smaller market share. The onus is on Apple to make it 
work with the broader computing world, and I'm not convinced they're 
doing that.


I'm no fan of Micro$oft and only stick with it for now because I don't 
want to bother learning Linux ... although I might have to at some point 
in the future. But Linux at least is a really OPEN system. I'm not 
locked into a single vendor's idea of what computing should be able to 
do for me.


And that's the problem I have with Apple and the Mac. It's a closed 
system. Ultimately, Steve Jobs gets to say what I can do with a Mac or 
any other Apple product, although I'm sure Bill Gates would love to have 
the same power over PCs running Windoze if he could have achieved it.






--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Cotty]

On 2/5/10, Adam Maas, discombobulated, unleashed:

>My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
>30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).

MacBook Pro 2.4 Ghz 2 GB RAM 10.5.8

38 seconds from dead to login screen, then 3 seconds to full on.

>From sleep, less than 3 seconds.



--


Cheers,
  Cotty


___/\__
||   (O)  | People, Places, Pastiche
--  http://www.cottysnaps.com
_



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 8:19 AM, eckinator  wrote:
> 2010/5/2 Adam Maas :
>>
>> My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
>> 30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).
>
> Sounds like XP, or worse Vista?
>

Vista, which is a significant upgrade over XP despite the popular
opinion to the contrary. Note I'm counting from power-on to 'all
background services started'. I can get a working UI much quicker than
that (about 45 seconds) but my experience is that it's always best to
wait until the background stuff has started.



-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[William Robb]

- Original Message - 
From: "Adam Maas"

Subject: Re: K-7 replacement?



And vice-versa. I'm pretty much stuck with Windows on my main system
due to Multisim.

My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).


My desktop is about 1 minute, 10 seconds.
I suspect it would be faster, but the built in sound on my 6 month old 
motherboard doesn't play nice with my nearly 10 year old OS, and it takes a 
little while for it to sort itself out.
I expect I'll move to Win7 pretty quick, and probably I'll go to a solid 
state drive as my boot drive.


William Robb 



--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Jeffery Smith]

Vista. I "looks" like it is ready after about 45 seconds, but trying to start 
an application will only get you a "program not responding" or some similar 
sort of error message along the top of the screen.

On May 2, 2010, at 7:19 AM, eckinator wrote:

> 2010/5/2 Adam Maas :
>> 
>> My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
>> 30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).
> 
> Sounds like XP, or worse Vista?
> 
>> On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Jeffery Smith  wrote:
>>> Mac [...] boots up and connects to drives, the web, etc. in about 45 
>>> seconds. My "fast" Dell takes about 15 minutes to get past all of the "not 
>>> responding" issues before it will actually function.
> 
> Sounds like your system is all messed up - "not responding" is not
> default Windows behaviour =P
> 
> I've yet to switch to Mac but have to give it to M$ that with Win7
> they've for the first time since 2000 Pro (and before) put an OS in my
> hands that is actually fast and stable and clean. I am super happy
> with it and since they've split it into chunks that are loaded as
> needed both startup and running are quite fast plus it works well on
> older hardware. My ex-XP Lenovo T61 runs faster under 7 than it ever
> did under XP. Vista RC1 had despite 2 GB of RAM and a reasonably fast
> CPU for all practical purposes brought it to its knees, mind you.
> 
> So if you're unhappy with Windows, you may actually want to try an
> upgrade on your old hardware. Just make sure you have a version which
> includes the XP Virtual Machine so that you can run all legacy
> software.
> 
> *end shameless plug*
> 
> Cheers
> Ecke
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[drd1135]

I'm pretty much an OS agnostic. I have a Mac and a Win system and go backAnd 
forth. The Macs are nicely made but I'm not sure they are worth the extra cost, 
for me anyway. 
-Original Message-
From: eckinator 
Date: Sun, 2 May 2010 14:19:37 
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List
Subject: Re: K-7 replacement?

2010/5/2 Adam Maas :
>
> My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
> 30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).

Sounds like XP, or worse Vista?

> On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Jeffery Smith  wrote:
>> Mac [...] boots up and connects to drives, the web, etc. in about 45 
>> seconds. My "fast" Dell takes about 15 minutes to get past all of the "not 
>> responding" issues before it will actually function.

Sounds like your system is all messed up - "not responding" is not
default Windows behaviour =P

I've yet to switch to Mac but have to give it to M$ that with Win7
they've for the first time since 2000 Pro (and before) put an OS in my
hands that is actually fast and stable and clean. I am super happy
with it and since they've split it into chunks that are loaded as
needed both startup and running are quite fast plus it works well on
older hardware. My ex-XP Lenovo T61 runs faster under 7 than it ever
did under XP. Vista RC1 had despite 2 GB of RAM and a reasonably fast
CPU for all practical purposes brought it to its knees, mind you.

So if you're unhappy with Windows, you may actually want to try an
upgrade on your old hardware. Just make sure you have a version which
includes the XP Virtual Machine so that you can run all legacy
software.

*end shameless plug*

Cheers
Ecke

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.
-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[eckinator]

2010/5/2 Adam Maas :
>
> My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
> 30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).

Sounds like XP, or worse Vista?

> On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Jeffery Smith  wrote:
>> Mac [...] boots up and connects to drives, the web, etc. in about 45 
>> seconds. My "fast" Dell takes about 15 minutes to get past all of the "not 
>> responding" issues before it will actually function.

Sounds like your system is all messed up - "not responding" is not
default Windows behaviour =P

I've yet to switch to Mac but have to give it to M$ that with Win7
they've for the first time since 2000 Pro (and before) put an OS in my
hands that is actually fast and stable and clean. I am super happy
with it and since they've split it into chunks that are loaded as
needed both startup and running are quite fast plus it works well on
older hardware. My ex-XP Lenovo T61 runs faster under 7 than it ever
did under XP. Vista RC1 had despite 2 GB of RAM and a reasonably fast
CPU for all practical purposes brought it to its knees, mind you.

So if you're unhappy with Windows, you may actually want to try an
upgrade on your old hardware. Just make sure you have a version which
includes the XP Virtual Machine so that you can run all legacy
software.

*end shameless plug*

Cheers
Ecke

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

And vice-versa. I'm pretty much stuck with Windows on my main system
due to Multisim.

My HP Laptop takes about 2 minutes to boot fully, from sleep it's
30-45 seconds. My fastest booting Mac is slower (but is a G4).

-Adam

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Jeffery Smith  wrote:
> Mac has some software available for it that Windows cannot touch. That is one 
> of the reasons for my moving to Mac. And it boots up and connects to drives, 
> the web, etc. in about 45 seconds. My "fast" Dell takes about 15 minutes to 
> get past all of the "not responding" issues before it will actually function.
>
> For people in the business world, Windows rules. For people who are writers, 
> academics, or otherwise right brained, the Mac fills some serious voids that 
> Windows doesn't even address. Like most of the software from Devon 
> Technologies and other information managers.
>
> Jeffery
>
> P.S. - can we change the subject line to Mac versus Windows? That poor K-7 
> has been out of the mix for several days, and it deserves better. ;-)
> --
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.
>



-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Joseph McAllister]

On May 1, 2010, at 20:33 , John Francis wrote:


Basically, a system of a mere 300 Mac Pros has never been
anywhere pushing the top of the performance charts in the
real world; any such claims must have come with so many
restrictions and qualifiers as to be meaningless.

In 2004 IBM retook the "fastest computer" crown with the
first "Blue Gene" system, at a paltry 36 teraflops. (The
current incarnation of that architecture has achieved
very close to a petaflop).  But even 36 teraflops is a
bit more than you could get from only 300 Mac Pros.


Perhaps you are thinking of this 2008 article:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/The_Fastest_Mac_Compared_to_Todays_Supercomputers/

This compares a single Mac Pro to the LANL Roadrunner system
(a top-of-the-line 2008 system).  It does point out that the
cost per gigaflop of a Mac Pro is significantly lower than
that of the Roadrunner system.  It also compares the Mac Pro
with a 1976 Cray 1.  no surprise - the Mac Pro is faster (by
about a factor of 1000).

More likely, though, is the 2003 Virginia tech system. That
managed an impressive 12 teraflops - good enough to be the
3rd fastest system known in 2003.  But that used a little
more than 300 Power mac G5s - in fact about four times that.
Later revisions increased performance by about 25% (and also
fixed some of the other, rather more serious, problems),
which was good enough to keep the system in the top 10 for
the next year, and in the top 20 for another year.



Yeah. I was just winging it from my old failing memory. The Virginia  
Tech system sounds like what I was remembering. I read about it. I did  
not design it or test it. I was just impressed by it's capacity /  
throughput. I defer to your remembrance of the event!


Bed time…

Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com

I couldn't remember most of what I know today
if it weren't for others sharing their knowledge
of my past on the Internet. Thank you…


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[John Coyle]

-Original Message-
From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of
steve harley
Sent: Sunday, 2 May 2010 11:30 AM
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List
Subject: Re: K-7 replacement?

On 2010-05-01 03:35 , John Coyle wrote:
> I started with computers in 1982, when the hot PC's were Commodore 64's
and
> Amiga's, with the TRS-80 the hobbyist machine.

Amiga was hot (i had one), but it came out in 1985

Ok - memory drop-out, it was a long time ago!

> I think it just has to be accepted that unless Microsoft and Windows will
> dominate the commercial and home use markets for many years to come
because
> it's now much too hard for companies and people to make the change: the
> costs in re-training and replacing hardware and legacy software would be
> unacceptable.

in fact the world is moving to the web and also to mobile platforms; 
Microsoft is off balance and vulnerable in both areas; the costs you 
mention are a requirement for businesses to compete anyway, so not a 
real impediment

Not sure that that is necessarily so in every case: spreadsheets, reports,
correspondence, accounting all have security issues which would be of
concern if they were compromised to most organisations.  Should the security
be breached for most of those for which I have worked, this would be major
problem.  I know that 'the cloud' is currently being touted as the way of
the future, but IMO, it's not a viable model for confidential documents, nor
the sort of quick little document or spreadsheet that does not need to be
available outside the organisation and is often produced by lower-level
staff.
Sure, promotional material, on-line retailing, even on-line inventory/parts
listings for non-retail sales, inter alia, are certainly most effectively
made available to everyone who may be looking for a product or service, and
the web is the ideal platform for that: I do it for my own small business,
and get most of my projects through on-line searches.  But, no way in the
world do I need or want to use on-line storage for either my business
records or my personal data. 

I'm not sure what the model is in the US, but here in Australia significant
amounts of on-line storage are very expensive, and since most individuals
are limited in the volume of uploads and downloads they can use before being
shaped, it just would not work.  My grand-daughter is quite capable of
downloading 500MB of music in a couple of hours: my monthly quota would not
last long at that rate!

It's an interesting game, predicting the future in computing: a year or so
ago I went through a stack of old computer magazines, and it was fun to read
again about all the exciting things which were going to change the face of
computing over the years and just never made it into the real world.


John in Brisbane



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and
follow the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Joseph McAllister]

On May 1, 2010, at 17:46 , steve harley wrote:


On 2010-05-01 17:31 , Rob Studdert wrote:
That's not what I said. I simply said if the need arose (which it  
has)
then you are forced into using iTunes, no other portable audio  
players

require this.


each portable audio player has its strengths & weaknesses -- you  
have a choice; but if you want to copy files directly to and from an  
iPod, it's slightly hidden (because apple is ruthless about  
simplicity, something i don't like either), but it's not really that  
hard; here's the first hit i had on a how-to search:





phone/touch/pad devices are harder; you have to jailbreak them,  
which is a high barrier for most people; the iPhone is part of a  
more highly-integrated system than the iPod; overall that  
integration is part of the value, or not, which you evaluate when  
you choose to buy, or not



I don't know if you can use other than iTunes to "play" songs on your  
iPod. But many of them can be used as hard drives/storage devices,  
platter type (Classic) or RAM based (Nano).


All you need to do it is check a box when you first set them up, or at  
a later date if you wish. Which leads me to believe if there is  
software out there (and when is there ever not) that will let you play  
ANY kind of music file from a disk, it can be made to play on Apple's  
iPod.


The ladders and hoops Apple makes you go through with iTunes is to  
keep you from making multiple copies of the DRM protected and  
purchased songs that you get from their iTunes Store online. This is  
something Apple had to set up to get the needed permissions from the  
various record labels. iTunes and the iPods support many types of  
encoded digital music; Audio formats supported: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps),  
Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3  
VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+),  
Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV and of course video; Support for 480p  
and 576p component TV out and can play H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps,  
640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the  
H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo  
audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 2.5  
Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to  
Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio  
in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps,  
640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC  
audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file  
formats.


That's a bit more than your average "MP-3" player.
Accessibility?go to  http://www.apple.com/accessibility/itunes/ipodtouch.html 
   and you 'll see voice control, gesture controlled screen for those  
who cannot see the screen, 21 languages that it can speak or obey (in  
voiceover). You can control many aspects with a "rotor" movement, like  
a dial on a piece of audio equipment. Volume, Menus selections, or  
moving through text a character at a time.



Joseph McAllister
Lots of gear, not much time

http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[John Coyle]

Not asleep, Paul, just working at the time for a software consultancy who
saw PC's as the work of the devil, but could make a business deal with HP
because of their history with them.  That's why I worked exclusively with HP
PC's for nearly two years: and yes, I did start with Visicalc too!  Didn't
think it was relevant to the thread though.


John in Brisbane




-Original Message-
From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of paul
stenquist
Sent: Saturday, 1 May 2010 10:02 PM
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List
Subject: Re: K-7 replacement?


On May 1, 2010, at 5:35 AM, John Coyle wrote:

> I started with computers in 1982, when the hot PC's were Commodore 64's
and
> Amiga's, with the TRS-80 the hobbyist machine.  

You must have been half asleep, if you missed Apple //e. I was working in NY
as a journalist, and anyone who could afford to spend more than a pittance
worked with a //e and 128k of ram. As far back as 1978, the Apple // was a
hot seller for serious users, as it was the machine that ran Visicalc. Apple
actually had a substantial business market at the time but didn't pursuit it
down the line. 




-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[John Francis]

On Sat, May 01, 2010 at 08:45:59PM +0100, Bob W wrote:
> > > I've worked in ad agencies that had huge networks of Macs 
> > -- more than 
> > > `1000 at BBDO Detroit. Problems were few and far between, non- 
> > > existent for most users. But you have to have Mac IT 
> > people. You can't 
> > > leave it to PC guys.
> > > Paul
> > 
> > Thanks Paul. Those PC folk have no idea what can be done. As 
> > I recall, a few years ago someone at some university built a 
> > setup of about 300 Mac Pros running as essentially parallel 
> > processors, and they clocked in faster than any other 
> > computer or computer array ever, including Crays. Of course, 
> > such things are only viable for 6 to 12 months when newer 
> > equipment is introduced that would best them. Such is the 
> > logarithmic world of the advances in the digital domain.
> 
> 1,000 nodes isn't a huge network.

Hell, 1000 nodes can fit in only a few cabinets. A blade
server can get, what, 4 CPUs on a blade?  I think you can
fit as many as 64 blades in a standard rackmount enclosure.
That makes it easy to build a 1024-node system.

Of course SGI were building systems with 1024 (and more)
MIPS cores a decade ago.  Nowadays they use Intel XEON CPUs.
Their current fastest system, at NASA Ames, manages roughly
half a petaflop from around 6000 nodes (each node has dual
quad-core processors).  That's with 64 nodes per cabinet.

But systems with as many as 8K Processors have been around
since before the turn of the century. And these systems
have much, much faster interconnects than any setup using
looser-coupled Mac Pros (or any other standalone systems).

Basically, a system of a mere 300 Mac Pros has never been
anywhere pushing the top of the performance charts in the
real world; any such claims must have come with so many
restrictions and qualifiers as to be meaningless.

In 2004 IBM retook the "fastest computer" crown with the
first "Blue Gene" system, at a paltry 36 teraflops. (The
current incarnation of that architecture has achieved
very close to a petaflop).  But even 36 teraflops is a
bit more than you could get from only 300 Mac Pros.


Perhaps you are thinking of this 2008 article:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/The_Fastest_Mac_Compared_to_Todays_Supercomputers/

This compares a single Mac Pro to the LANL Roadrunner system
(a top-of-the-line 2008 system).  It does point out that the
cost per gigaflop of a Mac Pro is significantly lower than
that of the Roadrunner system.  It also compares the Mac Pro
with a 1976 Cray 1.  no surprise - the Mac Pro is faster (by
about a factor of 1000).

More likely, though, is the 2003 Virginia tech system. That
managed an impressive 12 teraflops - good enough to be the
3rd fastest system known in 2003.  But that used a little
more than 300 Power mac G5s - in fact about four times that.
Later revisions increased performance by about 25% (and also
fixed some of the other, rather more serious, problems),
which was good enough to keep the system in the top 10 for
the next year, and in the top 20 for another year.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-01 21:03 , paul stenquist wrote:


On May 1, 2010, at 10:55 PM, steve harley wrote:


On 2010-05-01 19:04 , paul stenquist wrote:

I have a LaCie DVD burner that doesnt't seem to work any more. Haven't fooled 
with it enough to be sure it's dead, since I don't really need it any more. But 
I guess I should look into it.


DVD mechanisms are basically expendable; you pop open the case and add a new 
$20-30 mechanism (piles of them at MicroCenter, just check whether its SATA or 
PATA); that is assuming the case isn't glued shut in a stupid way like LaCie 
sometimes does, and hasn't got a bad power supply (can happen with any vendor, 
but the heavy cost cutters like LaCie are more prone)



Good to know. When I try to use the burner, the computer says the connection is 
bad. It's on firewire 400. The cable is okay. I've checked that. Toast can see 
it, but can't write to it or read from it.


bad but non-dead power supply could cause the firewire connection to 
work, but the drive to not respond correctly; if possible, i'd try it on 
another machine before considering a repair, and also try a different cable


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-01 20:03 , Jeffery Smith wrote:

P.S. - can we change the subject line to Mac versus Windows? That poor K-7 has 
been out of the mix for several days, and it deserves better.;-)


once we're in this deep, there's no point

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On May 1, 2010, at 10:55 PM, steve harley wrote:

> On 2010-05-01 19:04 , paul stenquist wrote:
>> I have a LaCie DVD burner that doesnt't seem to work any more. Haven't 
>> fooled with it enough to be sure it's dead, since I don't really need it any 
>> more. But I guess I should look into it.
> 
> DVD mechanisms are basically expendable; you pop open the case and add a new 
> $20-30 mechanism (piles of them at MicroCenter, just check whether its SATA 
> or PATA); that is assuming the case isn't glued shut in a stupid way like 
> LaCie sometimes does, and hasn't got a bad power supply (can happen with any 
> vendor, but the heavy cost cutters like LaCie are more prone)
> 
> 
Good to know. When I try to use the burner, the computer says the connection is 
bad. It's on firewire 400. The cable is okay. I've checked that. Toast can see 
it, but can't write to it or read from it.
Paul
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-01 19:04 , paul stenquist wrote:

I have a LaCie DVD burner that doesnt't seem to work any more. Haven't fooled 
with it enough to be sure it's dead, since I don't really need it any more. But 
I guess I should look into it.


DVD mechanisms are basically expendable; you pop open the case and add a 
new $20-30 mechanism (piles of them at MicroCenter, just check whether 
its SATA or PATA); that is assuming the case isn't glued shut in a 
stupid way like LaCie sometimes does, and hasn't got a bad power supply 
(can happen with any vendor, but the heavy cost cutters like LaCie are 
more prone)




--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-04-30 17:10 , John Sessoms wrote:

From: steve harley

i haven't checked my numbers, but i'm of the impression most of the
business world runs on the web these days; and most of the web runs on
Linux

[...]



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-L-0s-7-Z0


har har

google, youtube, flickr, yahoo, facebook and many more of the most well 
known web app providers run predominately on Linux; there is little 
direct crossover from this world to the geeky guy who gushes about his 
linux box, except that it takes the whole community of all types of 
users to make an open source project viable




--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Jeffery Smith]

Mac has some software available for it that Windows cannot touch. That is one 
of the reasons for my moving to Mac. And it boots up and connects to drives, 
the web, etc. in about 45 seconds. My "fast" Dell takes about 15 minutes to get 
past all of the "not responding" issues before it will actually function. 

For people in the business world, Windows rules. For people who are writers, 
academics, or otherwise right brained, the Mac fills some serious voids that 
Windows doesn't even address. Like most of the software from Devon Technologies 
and other information managers.

Jeffery

P.S. - can we change the subject line to Mac versus Windows? That poor K-7 has 
been out of the mix for several days, and it deserves better. ;-)
-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-01 03:35 , John Coyle wrote:

I started with computers in 1982, when the hot PC's were Commodore 64's and
Amiga's, with the TRS-80 the hobbyist machine.


Amiga was hot (i had one), but it came out in 1985


I think it just has to be accepted that unless Microsoft and Windows will
dominate the commercial and home use markets for many years to come because
it's now much too hard for companies and people to make the change: the
costs in re-training and replacing hardware and legacy software would be
unacceptable.


in fact the world is moving to the web and also to mobile platforms; 
Microsoft is off balance and vulnerable in both areas; the costs you 
mention are a requirement for businesses to compete anyway, so not a 
real impediment




--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On May 1, 2010, at 8:29 PM, Adam Maas wrote:

> On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 7:44 PM, paul stenquist  
> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> I've had a dozen macs. No failures other than hard drives. My daughter's 
>> i-book failed when she tripped over the ethernet cord and broke the port off 
>> the motherboard. I thought that was crappy design, but nothing else has ever 
>> failed.
>> 
>> Surprised you had to go back to the failure issue from the i Tunes 
>> discussion. Too much Apple anger out there, guys. It's not healthy:-).
>> 
>> Paul
> 
> Not surprised there, you're talking about a reasonably small sample
> size from a reasonably reliable maker. I'm surprised that Joseph
> hasn't if he was supporting or administrating them professionally
> though.
> 
> I can just about count all my personal hardware failures on a pair of
> hands, and almost half that is Seagate IDE/SATA drives from 1997-on.

Same here. Almost all my computer problems have been hard drives, most of them 
Seagates.

> Other than that, I've had a PSU failure, a few couple fans, two
> mainboard failures and a pair of optical drives along witha  couple
> non-Seagate Drive failures. One of the optical drives was the only
> major brand-name failure I've had aside from drive failures (Two of
> the Seagates were in LaCie enclosures, one was in an HP Laptop, one
> was actually purchased directly and was the first of the lot and the
> drive in my PowerMac 8500 croaked).

I have a LaCie DVD burner that doesnt't seem to work any more. Haven't fooled 
with it enough to be sure it's dead, since I don't really need it any more. But 
I guess I should look into it.

Although I've fooled with computers for thirty years, I'm not at all 
knowledgeable. Just kind of amused to see so much anger over brands.

Paul

> Oh, and an iPod Shuffle that locks
> up whenever it sees a VBR MP3.
> 
> Note that when I was actively supprting Mac's at a VAR, a dozen
> machines was a  week or two's worth (not all hardware failure, mostly
> software issues or upgrades/installations).
> 
> -- 
> M. Adam Maas
> http://www.mawz.ca
> Explorations of the City Around Us.
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-04-30 15:40 , Bob W wrote:

In all the years of owning PCs running DOS/Windows I've never, repeat never,
had to log a support call with anyone. That's not to say I haven't had to
fix stuff myself sometimes, but not 25 cases in 2 years.


different people use their support options differently; i don't think 
it's indicative of anything


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On May 1, 2010, at 7:56 PM, Rob Studdert wrote:

> On 02/05/2010, paul stenquist  wrote:
> 
>> I've had a dozen macs. No failures other than hard drives. My daughter's 
>> i-book failed when she tripped over the ethernet cord and broke the port off 
>> the motherboard. I thought that was crappy design, but nothing else has ever 
>> failed.
> 
> I've also had multiple Pentax camera failures, I recall you've never
> had such complaints, must be lucky I guess.

Nah, I got one of the bum DA* 16-50s, although B&H replaced it immediately. And 
I had to send my LX to Pentax for a sticky-mirror problem. Can't think of 
anything else. But those were a bummer.

> 
>> Surprised you had to go back to the failure issue from the i Tunes 
>> discussion. Too much Apple anger out there, guys. It's not healthy:-).
> 
> That sticks in my craw, had to sell the new (expensive then) iPod at a
> signficant loss (for a blind woman on a limited pension). No
> indication on all associated documentation that it wouldn't work, one
> sub version of iTunes would load but not recognise the player, the
> very next sub-version of iTunes would not loan on the PC, required an
> O/S upgrade. Could have used simple automated back copy/delete if it
> mounted as a drive as do most other USB connected portable audio
> players. But of course this is just one instance of problems with
> Apple software that I've had, I could cite many more if you're
> interested (mostly to do with Apple software trashing Windows
> installations I admit).
> 
I have no idea what you're talking about. Don't do iPod or any other music 
device, but I sympathize with the plight of the blind woman. Don't know why it 
would not loan on the PC, but I'm sure that was distressing.

Paul
> Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
> Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
> Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 8:40 PM, steve harley  wrote:
> On 2010-04-30 20:07 , Adam Maas wrote:
>>
>> 1000 stations is small compared to the Windows network I'm on, which
>> is well over 20,000 machines across North America on the same Active
>> Directory Domain.
>
> big corpses are a minority of jobs and a tiny minority of the number of
> business (for example, the first hard statistic i found was EU 2006, 99.8%
> of businesses & 67.4% of workforce was 249 employees or fewer)
>
> succeeding in very large networks is a worthy challenge, and it would be
> interesting to get some real facts about Mac vs. Windows ROI in such
> environments (networks of 20k machines are the last place one should make
> decisions based on anecdote), but this is hardly the most important
> computing challenge to most businesses
>

But large organizations are a much larger fraction of the office
computer market than they are of the total labour market, and also
they drive both business software development and the choice of
platform for smaller businesses due to interoperability concerns (If
your huge vendor/customer only uses Office, you're pretty much stuck
with it yourself, or they won't be able to reliably read the files you
send and vice versa)>

-Adam

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-01 17:56 , Rob Studdert wrote:

On 02/05/2010, paul stenquist  wrote:

Surprised you had to go back to the failure issue from the i Tunes discussion. 
Too much Apple anger out there, guys. It's not healthy:-).


That sticks in my craw, had to sell the new (expensive then) iPod at a
signficant loss (for a blind woman on a limited pension).


what does this have to do with hardware failures?


No
indication on all associated documentation that it wouldn't work,


Apple has been very good at documenting versions of iTunes required for 
different iPods; from your background, i'm surprised you didn't 
double-check when you mixed old and new hardware & software; those 
matters are often fussy


you don't say which iPod or version of Windows this was, but for example 
here are some tech specs, including system requirements, for a 2004 model:




i know for a fact that these system requirements were also printed on 
the outside of the box


or was there a glitch or an edge case that the system requirements 
didn't cover?



--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-05-01 17:31 , Rob Studdert wrote:

That's not what I said. I simply said if the need arose (which it has)
then you are forced into using iTunes, no other portable audio players
require this.


each portable audio player has its strengths & weaknesses -- you have a 
choice; but if you want to copy files directly to and from an iPod, it's 
slightly hidden (because apple is ruthless about simplicity, something i 
don't like either), but it's not really that hard; here's the first hit 
i had on a how-to search:




phone/touch/pad devices are harder; you have to jailbreak them, which is 
a high barrier for most people; the iPhone is part of a more 
highly-integrated system than the iPod; overall that integration is part 
of the value, or not, which you evaluate when you choose to buy, or not


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-04-30 20:07 , Adam Maas wrote:

1000 stations is small compared to the Windows network I'm on, which
is well over 20,000 machines across North America on the same Active
Directory Domain.


big corpses are a minority of jobs and a tiny minority of the number of 
business (for example, the first hard statistic i found was EU 2006, 
99.8% of businesses & 67.4% of workforce was 249 employees or fewer)


succeeding in very large networks is a worthy challenge, and it would be 
interesting to get some real facts about Mac vs. Windows ROI in such 
environments (networks of 20k machines are the last place one should 
make decisions based on anecdote), but this is hardly the most important 
computing challenge to most businesses






--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 7:44 PM, paul stenquist  wrote:
>
>
> I've had a dozen macs. No failures other than hard drives. My daughter's 
> i-book failed when she tripped over the ethernet cord and broke the port off 
> the motherboard. I thought that was crappy design, but nothing else has ever 
> failed.
>
> Surprised you had to go back to the failure issue from the i Tunes 
> discussion. Too much Apple anger out there, guys. It's not healthy:-).
>
> Paul

Not surprised there, you're talking about a reasonably small sample
size from a reasonably reliable maker. I'm surprised that Joseph
hasn't if he was supporting or administrating them professionally
though.

I can just about count all my personal hardware failures on a pair of
hands, and almost half that is Seagate IDE/SATA drives from 1997-on.
Other than that, I've had a PSU failure, a few couple fans, two
mainboard failures and a pair of optical drives along witha  couple
non-Seagate Drive failures. One of the optical drives was the only
major brand-name failure I've had aside from drive failures (Two of
the Seagates were in LaCie enclosures, one was in an HP Laptop, one
was actually purchased directly and was the first of the lot and the
drive in my PowerMac 8500 croaked). Oh, and an iPod Shuffle that locks
up whenever it sees a VBR MP3.

Note that when I was actively supprting Mac's at a VAR, a dozen
machines was a  week or two's worth (not all hardware failure, mostly
software issues or upgrades/installations).

-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Daniel J. Matyola]

I have used both Apple and PC computers for many years.  Yes, there
are problems with Apple software.  Those problems are NOTHING compared
to the problems with MS software.  Only one word in necessary:  Vista.
 XP itself was an incredibly unstable platform;  I had to install 4
upgrades, or whatever they call them, before I could get any kind of
reliability out of my XP machines.

My son is a computer administrator who has worked with both systems
for years.  As he puts it, PCs are fine hardware for Unix or Linux,
it's just when you try to load a Microsoft Virus (OS) on them that
they freak out.

Dan

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 7:56 PM, Rob Studdert  wrote:
> On 02/05/2010, paul stenquist  wrote:
>
>> I've had a dozen macs. No failures other than hard drives. My daughter's 
>> i-book failed when she tripped over the ethernet cord and broke the port off 
>> the motherboard. I thought that was crappy design, but nothing else has ever 
>> failed.
>
> I've also had multiple Pentax camera failures, I recall you've never
> had such complaints, must be lucky I guess.
>
>> Surprised you had to go back to the failure issue from the i Tunes 
>> discussion. Too much Apple anger out there, guys. It's not healthy:-).
>
> That sticks in my craw, had to sell the new (expensive then) iPod at a
> signficant loss (for a blind woman on a limited pension). No
> indication on all associated documentation that it wouldn't work, one
> sub version of iTunes would load but not recognise the player, the
> very next sub-version of iTunes would not loan on the PC, required an
> O/S upgrade. Could have used simple automated back copy/delete if it
> mounted as a drive as do most other USB connected portable audio
> players. But of course this is just one instance of problems with
> Apple software that I've had, I could cite many more if you're
> interested (mostly to do with Apple software trashing Windows
> installations I admit).
>
> --
> Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
> Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
> Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio
>
> --
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.
>

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Rob Studdert]

On 02/05/2010, paul stenquist  wrote:

> I've had a dozen macs. No failures other than hard drives. My daughter's 
> i-book failed when she tripped over the ethernet cord and broke the port off 
> the motherboard. I thought that was crappy design, but nothing else has ever 
> failed.

I've also had multiple Pentax camera failures, I recall you've never
had such complaints, must be lucky I guess.

> Surprised you had to go back to the failure issue from the i Tunes 
> discussion. Too much Apple anger out there, guys. It's not healthy:-).

That sticks in my craw, had to sell the new (expensive then) iPod at a
signficant loss (for a blind woman on a limited pension). No
indication on all associated documentation that it wouldn't work, one
sub version of iTunes would load but not recognise the player, the
very next sub-version of iTunes would not loan on the PC, required an
O/S upgrade. Could have used simple automated back copy/delete if it
mounted as a drive as do most other USB connected portable audio
players. But of course this is just one instance of problems with
Apple software that I've had, I could cite many more if you're
interested (mostly to do with Apple software trashing Windows
installations I admit).

-- 
Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On May 1, 2010, at 7:31 PM, Rob Studdert wrote:

> On 02/05/2010, Joseph McAllister  wrote:
> 
>> Who ever said iTunes was for use in radio stations? There's a big ol'stretch
>> trying to find fault with Apple.
> 
> That's not what I said. I simply said if the need arose (which it has)
> then you are forced into using iTunes, no other portable audio players
> require this. For your interest people who record radio programs often
> want copies to listen back to and sometimes they have iPods. Like Adam
> I'm blown away they none of your Mac equipment has failed bar hard
> drives, you're one lucky dude.

I've had a dozen macs. No failures other than hard drives. My daughter's i-book 
failed when she tripped over the ethernet cord and broke the port off the 
motherboard. I thought that was crappy design, but nothing else has ever failed.

Surprised you had to go back to the failure issue from the i Tunes discussion. 
Too much Apple anger out there, guys. It's not healthy:-).

Paul
> 
> -- 
> Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
> Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
> Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[John Sessoms]

From: John Francis

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 07:19:16PM -0400, Matthew Hunt wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:01 PM, John Sessoms  wrote:
> 

> > Hell, I just figured out in the last month you don't have to CTRL+ALT+DEL to
> > get Task Manager any more, you just right click on the task bar at the
> > bottom in Vista.
> 
> CTRL+ALT+ESC has launched Task Manager directly for quite a while, as well.


FWIW, you can get to task manager by right-clicking on the taskbar in XP, too.
So this isn't exactly a new feature.


Yeah, I'm just a little behind the power curve finding things out sometimes.

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Rob Studdert]

On 02/05/2010, Joseph McAllister  wrote:

> Who ever said iTunes was for use in radio stations? There's a big ol'stretch
> trying to find fault with Apple.

That's not what I said. I simply said if the need arose (which it has)
then you are forced into using iTunes, no other portable audio players
require this. For your interest people who record radio programs often
want copies to listen back to and sometimes they have iPods. Like Adam
I'm blown away they none of your Mac equipment has failed bar hard
drives, you're one lucky dude.

-- 
Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 4:13 PM, Joseph McAllister  wrote:
>
> I disagree with you on the reliability question.
>
> I've never, ever, had a Mac (after they got away from the original design,
> which suffered from heat) that failed electronically or physically, other
> than hard drives, none of which were Apple supplied drives. Never memory
> failure, cpu failure, motherboard failure, CD or DVD ROM, monitors,
> keyboards, cables, speakers, etc. Never. Much of that gear I still have, and
> it still works just fine, including two PowerBook Duos, which were
> originally a 210 and 230 models, that I upgraded to 2300c with a color LCD
> screen on one, and left the 210 upgrade with it's original B&W LCD screen.
> Both has Duo Docks which contained color monitors, hard drives, modems, and
> external connectors for all available peripherals. I last used the 2300c as
> a cash register and database for a yard sale in 2007, at which time it was
> 15 years old. I can still purchase new battery packs for it, though I won't
> for obvious reasons.
>
> When working as a consultant, or in an IT division, or personally, the only
> problems I've encountered were software or networking errors caused by
> either the users, or the wrong choice of peripheral equipment. In the early
> days, 1984 to 1987, I had my share of sad Macs pop up on me, but they could
> always be traced to such things as an over-clocked CPU coming loose in an
> aftermarket crimp socket, a memory chip's legs oxidizing in their socket and
> needing cleaning, or the connection coming loose for my "BackPack" 20 meg
> hard drive that hooked on to the back of my Mac Plus and drew power from the
> Mac's power supply.
>
> By the way, just so you know what an idiot I am, this fanaticism about
> computers beginning in 1973 with Atari, Sinclair, Epson, then Apple and Mac,
> with parallel interests in Porsches, a powerful audio video wall in the
> family room, and racing, cost me the dream marriage to my second wife. Take
> heed, you younger set. Never ever become so involved in your hobbies that
> you forget what is really important in life.
>
> It's not that life is too short, it's that you're dead for so long..
> — Anon
>
> Joseph McAllister

I used to work at a Mac VAR, my experience is they fail at the same
rate as anything else from a similar-level brand (HP, IBM/Lenovo,
Toshiba, et al). That was late 68k/Early PPC era. I was a tech later
at a retail joint (Future Shop) for a short period during the early
iMac era and I've done a lot of other side-work supporting mac's and
PC's.

Performa's were notoriously unreliable, especially the later ones
which were hackjob's design-wise. The low-end PPC 603(e) based Mac's
were probably the worst for reliability, particularly the 4400, but
the 6500 was pretty bad as well. iBooks remain notorious for
graphics-related mainboard failures, which also plagued the eMac's as
well. G3 towers (Beige and B&W) had lots of IDE problems and
particularly with the first revision B&W, could self-corrupt a HDD due
to a bad IDE controller firmware. Actually IDE reliability was a
continuous problem for Mac's from the first IDE Performa's until the
second revision B&W G3. Heat issues were the bane of the G4 towers. I
could go on, but the Mac has had quite the record of reliability
issues over the years, many design related, some (Performa's
specifically) directly due to designed-in issues rather than hardware
or software bugs.

If you've never seen a dead Mac from hardware failure, you're just
about the luckiest Mac consultant/IT guy in existence. I've replaced
enough failed hardware in Macs over the years to see that. Good
hardware overall, but nothing special on reliability.

Right now I'm sitting in a room with a Mac II, PowerBook 170, PowerMac
8500(Dead for now due to the original drive failing) and a Centris
660AV. There's an eMac and a B&W G3 350 in my living room. I like
Mac's overall. But more reliable than equivalent PC's? Nope, not a
chance.

Most reliable desktops? IBM PS/2 Model 55's. Damned things are nearly
indestructible. Even if dropped. Saw them come out of Inco's North
Mine filled with metalic dust, a vacuum later and they were usually
good to go.

-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Joseph McAllister]

On May 1, 2010, at 08:24 , Bob W wrote:



Thank dog someone has finally said it!




As long as I've got Steve Jobs' skidmarks all over my nose, I'm  
happy.




Eeuughhh




Don't be such a wimp. Try it. It's sweet..   :-)


--
It's not that life is too short, it's that you're dead for so long..
— Anon

Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com

http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html







--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Joseph McAllister]

On May 1, 2010, at 01:56 , Rob Studdert wrote:


On 01/05/2010, steve harley  wrote:

it's a really bad example, since that feature is an option; it may  
be too
helpful in the default, but the default is for people who buy  
tracks from
Apple and rip their own CDs without tweaking the track names; not  
everything
about iTunes suits me but it is one of Apple's more configurable  
apps and
it's also one of the few with a comprehensive AppleScript  
implementation


I work in radio stations, we don't use iTunes and never will but we
create buckets of audio files. Being forced to use an app like iTunes
sucks and is very indicative of Apples general behaviour IMO.



Who ever said iTunes was for use in radio stations? There's a big  
ol'stretch trying to find fault with Apple. iTunes is for me to listen  
to music while I work at the computer, to transfer to my iTouch, or  
one of several models of iPod I use every day for portable music in my  
car, at the dog park, to show others the photos or videos I've put  
together in the past few months. When I buy a CD, or borrow one from a  
friend or the library, it inevitably finds it's way into my iTunes  
library. My CDs are played once, then put away, just as my record  
albums were played once 30 years ago to transfer the sound to both  
reel to reel and cassette in one operation.


There are plenty of high priced packages for A/V work on the Mac. A  
professional has no need for iTunes.
Ask Hollywood film makers, musicians, recording studios, and so on  
what platform and software they use to do their work. The answer is  
preponderantly Mac.


Jz.


Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com

http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html







--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Joseph McAllister]

On Apr 30, 2010, at 19:20 , Adam Maas wrote:


My experience is otherwise. Mac's are good machines, but not
best-in-class for reliability, middle of the pack is more like it.
Apple's reliability rep died with the PowerMac 4400. They only have a
reliability advantage over cheap white box or really low-end hardware.
Faster? yeah, PC's are pretty much always at a given spend level with
the sole exception of the Mac Pro which is competitive against the
other workstation-class machines in its price category. Apple is
completely lacking in anything resembling competitive performance per
dollar on the desktop for less than the base-model Mac Pro, they do
better on the Laptop side, but you still pay a premium for their
machines which is not reflected in the performance.

When I bought my latest laptop, I got a machine from HP almost
identical in spec the mid-range 15" MacBook Pro aside from clockspeed
(the clockspeed was noticably lower, 2.13GHz vs 2.53 which was
current, but I saved $1000 and got otherwise high-end specs), but it
came in at less than the base model MacBook in cost, and I got
features which the Macs lack (like a dedicated docking station) This
is pretty typical of the midrange market for Laptops.


I disagree with you on the reliability question.

I've never, ever, had a Mac (after they got away from the original  
design, which suffered from heat) that failed electronically or  
physically, other than hard drives, none of which were Apple supplied  
drives. Never memory failure, cpu failure, motherboard failure, CD or  
DVD ROM, monitors, keyboards, cables, speakers, etc. Never. Much of  
that gear I still have, and it still works just fine, including two  
PowerBook Duos, which were originally a 210 and 230 models, that I  
upgraded to 2300c with a color LCD screen on one, and left the 210  
upgrade with it's original B&W LCD screen. Both has Duo Docks which  
contained color monitors, hard drives, modems, and external connectors  
for all available peripherals. I last used the 2300c as a cash  
register and database for a yard sale in 2007, at which time it was 15  
years old. I can still purchase new battery packs for it, though I  
won't for obvious reasons.


When working as a consultant, or in an IT division, or personally, the  
only problems I've encountered were software or networking errors  
caused by either the users, or the wrong choice of peripheral  
equipment. In the early days, 1984 to 1987, I had my share of sad Macs  
pop up on me, but they could always be traced to such things as an  
over-clocked CPU coming loose in an aftermarket crimp socket, a memory  
chip's legs oxidizing in their socket and needing cleaning, or the  
connection coming loose for my "BackPack" 20 meg hard drive that  
hooked on to the back of my Mac Plus and drew power from the Mac's  
power supply.


By the way, just so you know what an idiot I am, this fanaticism about  
computers beginning in 1973 with Atari, Sinclair, Epson, then Apple  
and Mac, with parallel interests in Porsches, a powerful audio video  
wall in the family room, and racing, cost me the dream marriage to my  
second wife. Take heed, you younger set. Never ever become so involved  
in your hobbies that you forget what is really important in life.


It's not that life is too short, it's that you're dead for so long..
— Anon

Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com

http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html







--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[Bob W]

> > I've worked in ad agencies that had huge networks of Macs 
> -- more than 
> > `1000 at BBDO Detroit. Problems were few and far between, non- 
> > existent for most users. But you have to have Mac IT 
> people. You can't 
> > leave it to PC guys.
> > Paul
> 
> Thanks Paul. Those PC folk have no idea what can be done. As 
> I recall, a few years ago someone at some university built a 
> setup of about 300 Mac Pros running as essentially parallel 
> processors, and they clocked in faster than any other 
> computer or computer array ever, including Crays. Of course, 
> such things are only viable for 6 to 12 months when newer 
> equipment is introduced that would best them. Such is the 
> logarithmic world of the advances in the digital domain.

1,000 nodes isn't a huge network. Even back in the mid-late 80s the retailer
I worked for had 2-3,000 PCs networked together. Nowadays we're talking in
the 10s of 1,000s. The company that is making me redundant runs almost 1,000
servers in its data centres worldwide - to say nothing of the 1,000s of
desktops and laptops they're serving.



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Joseph McAllister]

On Apr 30, 2010, at 18:52 , paul stenquist wrote:


Mac's simply don't 'Just Work' in large network environments. In
reality they require far more support time and cost in large
deployments than PC's because Apple has nothing comparable to Active
Directory and Exchange.

No corporate IT department has enough budget or headcount to survive
creating work for itself, so Macs are right out for large
organizations.
--  
I've worked in ad agencies that had huge networks of Macs -- more  
than `1000 at BBDO Detroit. Problems were few and far between, non- 
existent for most users. But you have to have Mac IT people. You  
can't leave it to PC guys.

Paul


Thanks Paul. Those PC folk have no idea what can be done. As I recall,  
a few years ago someone at some university built a setup of about 300  
Mac Pros running as essentially parallel processors, and they clocked  
in faster than any other computer or computer array ever, including  
Crays. Of course, such things are only viable for 6 to 12 months when  
newer equipment is introduced that would best them. Such is the  
logarithmic world of the advances in the digital domain.


Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com

THE SENILITY PRAYER :
Grant me the senility to forget the people
I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones I do, and
The eyesight to tell the difference.


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[P. J. Alling]

On 5/1/2010 11:24 AM, Bob W wrote:
 

Thank dog someone has finally said it!
   



As long as I've got Steve Jobs' skidmarks all over my nose, I'm happy.

 

Eeuughhh
   


MARK!

--
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Courier 
New;}}
\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20 I've just upgraded to Thunderbird 3.0 and the 
interface subtly weird.\par
}


--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[Bob W]

> 
> >Thank dog someone has finally said it!
> 
> 
> 
> As long as I've got Steve Jobs' skidmarks all over my nose, I'm happy.
> 

Eeuughhh



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Cotty]

>On 01/05/2010, Cotty  wrote:
>
>> It's less to do with how good the computers are and more to do with how
>> competent the user is at maintaining a healthy system and knowing how to
>> achieve the required result.

On 1/5/10, Rob Studdert, discombobulated, unleashed:

>Thank dog someone has finally said it!



As long as I've got Steve Jobs' skidmarks all over my nose, I'm happy.

--


Cheers,
  Cotty


___/\__
||   (O)  | People, Places, Pastiche
--  http://www.cottysnaps.com
_



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 5:37 AM, Cotty  wrote:
> I was filming a report on UK soldiers returning home to barracks from
> Afghanistan the other day. We had to shoot and edit and then send from a
> network news satellite truck. The reporter asked me if I had my [Mac]
> edit kit along, and I always do. She asked if I wouldn't mind editing
> the piece as well because her Avid [Newscutter on a PC Laptop] was
> always crashing.
>
> I shot the piece and edited it and we sent with a few minutes to spare.
>
> The above seems like a cut and dried Macfanboy 'howzat' but actually if
> one digs a bit beneath the surface, things aren't so ipso facto.
>
> The reporter barely knows how to use the laptop which is serviced and
> updated by the IT guys once in a blue moon. I am a contractor who knows
> his kit and operations inside out. Of course mine doesn't crash and hers does.
>
> If she had the Mac and I had the Windows, she would have asked the same
> thing, and I would have shot and edited and the result would have been
> the same.
>
> It's less to do with how good the computers are and more to do with how
> competent the user is at maintaining a healthy system and knowing how to
> achieve the required result.
>
> (That said, if it's shiny and has an Apple on it, I'll still buy it.)
>
> --
>
>
> Cheers,
>  Cotty
>

FCP is a massive advantage for the Mac. Nothing comparable in
capaibility and stability on the Windows side for anything resembling
the same price.

-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On May 1, 2010, at 5:43 AM, eckinator wrote:

> 2010/5/1 Bob W :
>> 
>> Anyone who thinks otherwise must explain themselves to the iNquisition.
> 
> As conducted by Paul iNquist?
> 
I am frequently asked to provide that service. I have a room in the basement 
set up specifically for the punishment phase.

> Cheers
> Ecke
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On May 1, 2010, at 5:35 AM, John Coyle wrote:

> I started with computers in 1982, when the hot PC's were Commodore 64's and
> Amiga's, with the TRS-80 the hobbyist machine.  

You must have been half asleep, if you missed Apple //e. I was working in NY as 
a journalist, and anyone who could afford to spend more than a pittance worked 
with a //e and 128k of ram. As far back as 1978, the Apple // was a hot seller 
for serious users, as it was the machine that ran Visicalc. Apple actually had 
a substantial business market at the time but didn't pursuit it down the line. 

> The first business PC's I
> used were the HP86A and then the HP desktop, complete with 128k of RAM (64k
> built-in plus 64k plug-in module), and a 5.25in floppy for storage.  Teamed
> with a daisy-wheel printer and Lotus 1-2-3 v1a, I did project costs and
> revenue forecasts which took 45 minutes to print out one page on A3 paper! 
> Next came an IBM PC, which was better specified and by then HDD's were
> standard, but usually only 5-10MB in size.  1984, the Lisa came out and I
> loved it - but: it cost, IIRC, $9000 when a PC from IBM with MS-DOS cost
> only $5-6000, and by then I had supervised the installation of over 100 PC's
> in the company I worked for.  Given the then lack of commercial software
> compared with MS-DOS machines, it was a no-brainer to stay with MS, and by
> then too MS users had access to very capable programs for WP, spreadsheet
> and database creation.  Had Apple, when they moved on from the Lisa to the
> Macintosh, not lost to the MS model in the commercial world, they might now
> be dominating that market, but they would have had to be as open to
> third-party developers as MS is (although that openness can be problematic,
> as we all know).  
> 
> I stayed away from the early versions of Windows, not using it until 3.11,
> which was relatively stable and usable: I'd concede it took a while to get
> used to, not in using the mouse, but in working out how to do things I had
> been used to doing from the command line.  I will still use the command line
> for some tasks, such as a multi-file selective move or copy, and for a fast
> and efficient search using parameters with output to a file or printer,
> which are near impossible to do in Windows (unless perhaps you write a
> script, which probably takes more time than using the command line).
> It's, I think, a matter of fact that commercial users went the PC way
> because of IBM: for a long time it was said in IT that "you can't get fired
> for buying IBM": the MS-DOS-based software suites such as Lotus and Symphony
> were comprehensive and relatively easy to use, worked well, and could be
> sourced from multiple retailers at competitive prices if they didn't come
> pre-installed.  Mac's made it in the print and graphics world mainly I think
> because they undoubtedly had a good interface for that type of work, and
> they were much faster in rendering graphics for a very long time.
> 
> Nowadays, all of my clients use Windows in various versions, and Office in
> versions from 97 onwards: backwards compatibility is much better than it
> used to be, MS has learnt the lesson from Excel 3 to 4, when every macro had
> to be re-written, an absolute nightmare which kept me away from Excel for
> years (macros I wrote in 1982 for Lotus 1-2-3 still run in the latest
> version I use, which is quite remarkable).
> 
> I think it just has to be accepted that unless Microsoft and Windows will
> dominate the commercial and home use markets for many years to come because
> it's now much too hard for companies and people to make the change: the
> costs in re-training and replacing hardware and legacy software would be
> unacceptable. 
> 
> 
> John in Brisbane
> 
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of
> Brian Walters
> Sent: Saturday, 1 May 2010 8:29 AM
> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> Subject: Re: K-7 replacement?
> 
> On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:49 -0500, "CheekyGeek" 
> wrote:
>> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Larry Colen  wrote:
>> 
>>> Apple is very good at making it easy to do the things that they think
> you
>>> should do. It can be very challenging however if you think differently.
>> 
>> While this is a fairly obvious troll line, I must respectfully disagree.
>> Anyone who lived through (and with) the popularization of computers
>> among the masses must remember what it was like to learn DOS and to be
>> fumbling through a manual to learn the cryptic command that one must
>> type (without syntax errors) to accomplish ANYTHING before the
>> Macintosh. In co

RE: K-7 replacement?

[Bob W]

> 
> > It's less to do with how good the computers are and more to do with 
> > how competent the user is at maintaining a healthy system 
> and knowing 
> > how to achieve the required result.
> 
> Thank dog someone has finally said it!
> 

That's just a variant of "blame the user for the programmers' failure". I
know that everytime we think we've made something idiot-proof they bring out
a better idiot, BUT, most people are not like us and they don't want to have
to nurture their pc like a rare orchid, or know all sorts of stuff to make
it work. 

The designers of these things have a responsibility to make them work in
their target environment - the normal home that's full of normal people -
and they are failing miserably in this. People have become so used to the
idea of PCs as mysteriously unfathomable things that are prone to apparently
random failures that destroy all their data, that people believe it's
inevitable. But it isn't. It is possible to design systems that switch on
quickly, protect your documents, pictures, music, video, games and so on,
make the technicalities invisible to the average end user, prevent virus
attacks, recover invisibly if they do succeed. It's the manufacturers and
designers who have failed to do this, not the end users.

Apple try to fool people into thinking their products are like this ("it
just works"), but evidently this is not the case. They're no better, and no
worse, than Microsoft, Linux etc.

I don't have to know anything about electronics to have a TV, stereo or
radio, a gas boiler, a washing machine etc. The same should apply to home
computers, which are for most people nowadays just another appliance.

Bob


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Rob Studdert]

On 01/05/2010, Cotty  wrote:

> It's less to do with how good the computers are and more to do with how
> competent the user is at maintaining a healthy system and knowing how to
> achieve the required result.

Thank dog someone has finally said it!

-- 
Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[Bob W]

[...]
> 
> I think it just has to be accepted that unless Microsoft and 
> Windows will dominate the commercial and home use markets for 
> many years to come because it's now much too hard for 
> companies and people to make the change: the costs in 
> re-training and replacing hardware and legacy software would 
> be unacceptable. 

I don't think they'll dominate the home market for much longer. At that
level the boxes are now largely the same - the web is the great unifier -
and the boxes will become like any other appliance. As long as people can
connect wirelessly to the web, download music, games, video, use email, show
pictures and swap files with work the rest is determined by looks, price,
cool and similar factors, not by the criteria that professional techies
think are important.

The commercial market is different because apart from highly specialised
machines you have to take the cookie cutter approach and consider the costs
and ease of mass use. The bank that recently sold us on had an estate of
over 40,000 desktop machines, several 1,000s of laptops and 1,000s of
servers in several datacentres to maintain & integrate just in the UK; the
company which bought us and is now getting rid of us, has a similar estate
spread around the world. Maintaining and supporting that, along with the
networks that pull it all together, is a very difficult and costly exercise.
Over the years Microsoft have targeted that very successfully and I don't
believe Apple is ever likely even to try to break into it. 

Bob


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[eckinator]

2010/5/1 Bob W :
>
> Anyone who thinks otherwise must explain themselves to the iNquisition.

As conducted by Paul iNquist?

Cheers
Ecke

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Cotty]

On 1/5/10, Bob W, discombobulated, unleashed:

>Anyone who thinks otherwise must explain themselves to the iNquisition. As
>you might expect.

You've not had the iCushion treatment?

--


Cheers,
  Cotty


___/\__
||   (O)  | People, Places, Pastiche
--  http://www.cottysnaps.com
_



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Cotty]

I was filming a report on UK soldiers returning home to barracks from
Afghanistan the other day. We had to shoot and edit and then send from a
network news satellite truck. The reporter asked me if I had my [Mac]
edit kit along, and I always do. She asked if I wouldn't mind editing
the piece as well because her Avid [Newscutter on a PC Laptop] was
always crashing.

I shot the piece and edited it and we sent with a few minutes to spare.

The above seems like a cut and dried Macfanboy 'howzat' but actually if
one digs a bit beneath the surface, things aren't so ipso facto.

The reporter barely knows how to use the laptop which is serviced and
updated by the IT guys once in a blue moon. I am a contractor who knows
his kit and operations inside out. Of course mine doesn't crash and hers does.

If she had the Mac and I had the Windows, she would have asked the same
thing, and I would have shot and edited and the result would have been
the same.

It's less to do with how good the computers are and more to do with how
competent the user is at maintaining a healthy system and knowing how to
achieve the required result.

(That said, if it's shiny and has an Apple on it, I'll still buy it.)

--


Cheers,
  Cotty


___/\__
||   (O)  | People, Places, Pastiche
--  http://www.cottysnaps.com
_



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

RE: K-7 replacement?

[John Coyle]

I started with computers in 1982, when the hot PC's were Commodore 64's and
Amiga's, with the TRS-80 the hobbyist machine.  The first business PC's I
used were the HP86A and then the HP desktop, complete with 128k of RAM (64k
built-in plus 64k plug-in module), and a 5.25in floppy for storage.  Teamed
with a daisy-wheel printer and Lotus 1-2-3 v1a, I did project costs and
revenue forecasts which took 45 minutes to print out one page on A3 paper! 
Next came an IBM PC, which was better specified and by then HDD's were
standard, but usually only 5-10MB in size.  1984, the Lisa came out and I
loved it - but: it cost, IIRC, $9000 when a PC from IBM with MS-DOS cost
only $5-6000, and by then I had supervised the installation of over 100 PC's
in the company I worked for.  Given the then lack of commercial software
compared with MS-DOS machines, it was a no-brainer to stay with MS, and by
then too MS users had access to very capable programs for WP, spreadsheet
and database creation.  Had Apple, when they moved on from the Lisa to the
Macintosh, not lost to the MS model in the commercial world, they might now
be dominating that market, but they would have had to be as open to
third-party developers as MS is (although that openness can be problematic,
as we all know).  

I stayed away from the early versions of Windows, not using it until 3.11,
which was relatively stable and usable: I'd concede it took a while to get
used to, not in using the mouse, but in working out how to do things I had
been used to doing from the command line.  I will still use the command line
for some tasks, such as a multi-file selective move or copy, and for a fast
and efficient search using parameters with output to a file or printer,
which are near impossible to do in Windows (unless perhaps you write a
script, which probably takes more time than using the command line).
It's, I think, a matter of fact that commercial users went the PC way
because of IBM: for a long time it was said in IT that "you can't get fired
for buying IBM": the MS-DOS-based software suites such as Lotus and Symphony
were comprehensive and relatively easy to use, worked well, and could be
sourced from multiple retailers at competitive prices if they didn't come
pre-installed.  Mac's made it in the print and graphics world mainly I think
because they undoubtedly had a good interface for that type of work, and
they were much faster in rendering graphics for a very long time.

Nowadays, all of my clients use Windows in various versions, and Office in
versions from 97 onwards: backwards compatibility is much better than it
used to be, MS has learnt the lesson from Excel 3 to 4, when every macro had
to be re-written, an absolute nightmare which kept me away from Excel for
years (macros I wrote in 1982 for Lotus 1-2-3 still run in the latest
version I use, which is quite remarkable).

I think it just has to be accepted that unless Microsoft and Windows will
dominate the commercial and home use markets for many years to come because
it's now much too hard for companies and people to make the change: the
costs in re-training and replacing hardware and legacy software would be
unacceptable. 


John in Brisbane



-Original Message-
From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of
Brian Walters
Sent: Saturday, 1 May 2010 8:29 AM
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List
Subject: Re: K-7 replacement?

On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:49 -0500, "CheekyGeek" 
wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Larry Colen  wrote:
> 
> > Apple is very good at making it easy to do the things that they think
you
> > should do. It can be very challenging however if you think differently.
> 
> While this is a fairly obvious troll line, I must respectfully disagree.
> Anyone who lived through (and with) the popularization of computers
> among the masses must remember what it was like to learn DOS and to be
> fumbling through a manual to learn the cryptic command that one must
> type (without syntax errors) to accomplish ANYTHING before the
> Macintosh. In contrast, upon seeing the first Macintosh running in an
> Office supply store without knowing anything at all about it, one
> could walk up... grab the single button mouse (which I had never seen
> before) and it was immediately OBVIOUS what one would do with it.
> Click, select, drag. One could easily learn to use both applications
> MacWrite and MacPaint without ever cracking a book. It was a paradigm
> changer: a computer which worked virtually as you thought it should.
> 
> Apple's Macintosh Interface Guidelines brought a certain sanity to the
> user. You didn't need to learn a different location for the menu
> command to open a file, or quit a program, or print. Or to close a
> window, etc. This made learning a new program so much easier as there
> were commonalitie

RE: K-7 replacement?

[Bob W]

> >
> >The one thing I really, really dislike about the Mac is the 
> obnoxious 
> >attitude of Mac zealots who insist that their way of doing things is 
> >*obviously* the one true way.
> 
> But it *is*.
> 
> Amen.

Anyone who thinks otherwise must explain themselves to the iNquisition. As
you might expect.





-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Cotty]

On 30/4/10, John Francis, discombobulated, unleashed:

>
>The one thing I really, really dislike about the Mac is the
>obnoxious attitude of Mac zealots who insist that their way
>of doing things is *obviously* the one true way.

But it *is*.

Amen.

--


Cheers,
  Cotty


___/\__
||   (O)  | People, Places, Pastiche
--  http://www.cottysnaps.com
_



-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Rob Studdert]

On 01/05/2010, steve harley  wrote:

> it's a really bad example, since that feature is an option; it may be too
> helpful in the default, but the default is for people who buy tracks from
> Apple and rip their own CDs without tweaking the track names; not everything
> about iTunes suits me but it is one of Apple's more configurable apps and
> it's also one of the few with a comprehensive AppleScript implementation

I work in radio stations, we don't use iTunes and never will but we
create buckets of audio files. Being forced to use an app like iTunes
sucks and is very indicative of Apples general behaviour IMO.

-- 
Rob Studdert (Digital  Image Studio)
Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-04-30 17:29 , Rob Studdert wrote:

On 01/05/2010, Joseph McAllister  wrote:


Most likely because you or your son captured much of the artwork using a
third party utility, or browsing Google and various bands websites. When you
re-synched, iTunes, which only uses Apples own database, and Amazon's (from
two years ago) went out and checked on all the artwork at those sites, and
deleted the rest as being not recognized.


This is such a perfect example of just what has been being said by so
many in this thread. It's their way or nothing is the Apple paradigm.


it's a really bad example, since that feature is an option; it may be 
too helpful in the default, but the default is for people who buy tracks 
from Apple and rip their own CDs without tweaking the track names; not 
everything about iTunes suits me but it is one of Apple's more 
configurable apps and it's also one of the few with a comprehensive 
AppleScript implementation



--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[steve harley]

On 2010-04-30 18:23 , Rob Studdert wrote:

On 01/05/2010, Joseph McAllister  wrote:

[snip]


BTW your mailer seems to continuously break/confuse threads, your
reply to me appeared in a thread of the same name that was running
concurrently (as it was originally split due to another misbehaving
mailer app I suspect).


Joseph's email had a correct In-reply-to: header, so i'd blame it on 
gmail barring any further evidence





--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[John Francis]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 07:19:16PM -0400, Matthew Hunt wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:01 PM, John Sessoms  wrote:
> 
> > Hell, I just figured out in the last month you don't have to CTRL+ALT+DEL to
> > get Task Manager any more, you just right click on the task bar at the
> > bottom in Vista.
> 
> CTRL+ALT+ESC has launched Task Manager directly for quite a while, as well.

FWIW, you can get to task manager by right-clicking on the taskbar in XP, too.
So this isn't exactly a new feature.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:20 PM, Adam Maas  wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 9:47 PM, paul stenquist  
> wrote:
>>
>> On Apr 30, 2010, at 7:32 PM, Adam Maas wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 12:34 PM, CheekyGeek  wrote:
> I suspect that at this point about the only thing that seperates a Mac 
> from a PC from a customer's POV is that the PC will set you back a lot 
> less money to get a machine that will perform in a similar manner.

 As a user and supporter of both operating systems, I can assure you
 that your suspicions are correct only if you similarly equate the
 driving and purchasing experience of a Yugo with a Mini Cooper.
 : )

 Darren Addy
 Kearney, NE
>>>
>>> More like the ownership experience of a Kia vs a Mini Cooper. One's
>>> pretty and popular, the other's cheaper, faster, more reliable but not
>>> so well layed out.
>>>
>> More reliable? That flies in the face of evidence and experience. Cheaper, 
>> yse. Faster, sometimes.
>
> My experience is otherwise. Mac's are good machines, but not
> best-in-class for reliability, middle of the pack is more like it.
> Apple's reliability rep died with the PowerMac 4400. They only have a
> reliability advantage over cheap white box or really low-end hardware.
> Faster? yeah, PC's are pretty much always at a given spend level with
> the sole exception of the Mac Pro which is competitive against the
> other workstation-class machines in its price category. Apple is
> completely lacking in anything resembling competitive performance per
> dollar on the desktop for less than the base-model Mac Pro, they do
> better on the Laptop side, but you still pay a premium for their
> machines which is not reflected in the performance.
>
> When I bought my latest laptop, I got a machine from HP almost
> identical in spec the mid-range 15" MacBook Pro aside from clockspeed
> (the clockspeed was noticably lower, 2.13GHz vs 2.53 which was
> current, but I saved $1000 and got otherwise high-end specs), but it
> came in at less than the base model MacBook in cost, and I got
> features which the Macs lack (like a dedicated docking station) This
> is pretty typical of the midrange market for Laptops.
>
> --

As a note, I don't consider Macs to be bad values overall. They're
excellent values to the average user, given the actually useful
software preload, reasonably good specs and generally simple ownership
experience.

What they aren't is good values on price vs performance (with the
exception of the Mac Pro) or more reliable than comparable systems
from comparable vendors.


-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 9:47 PM, paul stenquist  wrote:
>
> On Apr 30, 2010, at 7:32 PM, Adam Maas wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 12:34 PM, CheekyGeek  wrote:
 I suspect that at this point about the only thing that seperates a Mac 
 from a PC from a customer's POV is that the PC will set you back a lot 
 less money to get a machine that will perform in a similar manner.
>>>
>>> As a user and supporter of both operating systems, I can assure you
>>> that your suspicions are correct only if you similarly equate the
>>> driving and purchasing experience of a Yugo with a Mini Cooper.
>>> : )
>>>
>>> Darren Addy
>>> Kearney, NE
>>
>> More like the ownership experience of a Kia vs a Mini Cooper. One's
>> pretty and popular, the other's cheaper, faster, more reliable but not
>> so well layed out.
>>
> More reliable? That flies in the face of evidence and experience. Cheaper, 
> yse. Faster, sometimes.

My experience is otherwise. Mac's are good machines, but not
best-in-class for reliability, middle of the pack is more like it.
Apple's reliability rep died with the PowerMac 4400. They only have a
reliability advantage over cheap white box or really low-end hardware.
Faster? yeah, PC's are pretty much always at a given spend level with
the sole exception of the Mac Pro which is competitive against the
other workstation-class machines in its price category. Apple is
completely lacking in anything resembling competitive performance per
dollar on the desktop for less than the base-model Mac Pro, they do
better on the Laptop side, but you still pay a premium for their
machines which is not reflected in the performance.

When I bought my latest laptop, I got a machine from HP almost
identical in spec the mid-range 15" MacBook Pro aside from clockspeed
(the clockspeed was noticably lower, 2.13GHz vs 2.53 which was
current, but I saved $1000 and got otherwise high-end specs), but it
came in at less than the base model MacBook in cost, and I got
features which the Macs lack (like a dedicated docking station) This
is pretty typical of the midrange market for Laptops.

-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 9:52 PM, paul stenquist  wrote:
>

>> --
> I've worked in ad agencies that had huge networks of Macs -- more than `1000 
> at BBDO Detroit. Problems were few and far between, non-existent for most 
> users. But you have to have Mac IT people. You can't leave it to PC guys.
> Paul
>

1000 stations is small compared to the Windows network I'm on, which
is well over 20,000 machines across North America on the same Active
Directory Domain.

You can do large networks on Macs, but it's hard on the systems guys,
because they don't have the tools that the PC guys do to reduce
workload on large networks and you tend to have to segment the
networks into smaller, semi-independent sections. Front-end issues are
similar these days (PC's in a large network tend to have more
standardized hardware than Macs, simply because Apple dictates
hardware on new machines and will change things every 6-12 months, PC
makers tend to have long runs on their Business-class products and
these days they don't arbitrarily change hardware because that leads
to losing contracts for the next systems buy). You also have increased
software deployment issues (it's a LOT easier to deploy to Windows
Machines in a Active Directory network than to Macs unless the latter
are Netbooting, which is not likely on a large network due)

And yes, you needs specialists for each OS, and for each major
software deployment The only thing funnier than a PC guy
troubleshooting a Mac issue is a Mac guy troubleshooting a PC issue.
-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On Apr 30, 2010, at 7:39 PM, Adam Maas wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 1:03 PM, CheekyGeek  wrote:
>>> As an IT person in the business world...
>> 
>> There you go.
>> Windows?PCs provide IT people with a great deal of job security by
>> creating a heck of a lot of more confused & discombobulated users and
>> hardware support issues.
>> You have a horse in this race, but one that makes the point opposite
>> the one you attempted to make.
>> 
>> Darren Addy
>> Kearney, NE
>> 
> 
> Actually, Windows is popular in the business world because it
> integrates well and has a solid network backend and Mac's are a royal
> PITA to deal with in large numbers due to the primitive management
> tools and lack of any reasonable groupware solutions. Mac OS X Server
> is something of a joke for any use other than as a *nix server doing
> web/mail/dns.
> 
> In this day and age there's little in the way of hardware support
> issues. You have a standard configuration from the vendor and a
> software image. Load the image, drop the box, you're done. If it
> breaks, re-image. That doesn't work, swap for another box and have the
> vendor come in and service the broken machine. A users files are in
> their profile so they come right over when they login. Machine swaps
> are simple and the only part that takes any time is the user's first
> login (as their roaming profile copies over then).
> 
> Mac's simply don't 'Just Work' in large network environments. In
> reality they require far more support time and cost in large
> deployments than PC's because Apple has nothing comparable to Active
> Directory and Exchange.
> 
> No corporate IT department has enough budget or headcount to survive
> creating work for itself, so Macs are right out for large
> organizations.
> -- 
I've worked in ad agencies that had huge networks of Macs -- more than `1000 at 
BBDO Detroit. Problems were few and far between, non-existent for most users. 
But you have to have Mac IT people. You can't leave it to PC guys.
Paul

> M. Adam Maas
> http://www.mawz.ca
> Explorations of the City Around Us.
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On Apr 30, 2010, at 7:32 PM, Adam Maas wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 12:34 PM, CheekyGeek  wrote:
>>> I suspect that at this point about the only thing that seperates a Mac from 
>>> a PC from a customer's POV is that the PC will set you back a lot less 
>>> money to get a machine that will perform in a similar manner.
>> 
>> As a user and supporter of both operating systems, I can assure you
>> that your suspicions are correct only if you similarly equate the
>> driving and purchasing experience of a Yugo with a Mini Cooper.
>> : )
>> 
>> Darren Addy
>> Kearney, NE
> 
> More like the ownership experience of a Kia vs a Mini Cooper. One's
> pretty and popular, the other's cheaper, faster, more reliable but not
> so well layed out.
> 
More reliable? That flies in the face of evidence and experience. Cheaper, yse. 
Faster, sometimes.
> -Adam
> Owned Mac's and PC's, still do. Aside from the Mac Pro's, I'll take an
> HP over a Mac any day for ownership experience and bang for the buck.
> Especially if I have to deal with a service department.
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Matthew Hunt]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 8:23 PM, John Sessoms  wrote:

> Does any vendor still send a guy out to fix broken hardware on site?

Yeah.  We've had a guy come out to fix our $65,000, 42 TB storage arrays.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[paul stenquist]

On Apr 30, 2010, at 7:19 PM, Adam Maas wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 7:09 PM, paul stenquist  
> wrote:
>> 
>> On Apr 30, 2010, at 6:58 PM, P. J. Alling wrote:
>> 
>>> On 4/30/2010 6:27 PM, Bob W wrote:
 [...]
 
> Here I can agree with you both. The CPU was not quite up to
> speed for
> a GUI system when Apple introduced the Macintosh in 1884.
> 
 That must have been the iSteam.
 
>>> 
>>> I believe it was hand cranked and machined entirely out of brass...
>>> 
>> Before there was GUI on the Mac, you could run Quark Catalyst -- a mac-like 
>> desktop -- an an apple //c or //e. Now that was slow. Apple //GS introduced 
>> GUI at about the same time as the Mac launch, but the // processor made it 
>> weird for some applications.
>> Paul
> 
> The //GS was actually a much more capable machine than the early Macs
> were, but had some PC-like hoops you had to jump through for software
> compatibility, a //GS really wasn't all that closely related to the
> earlier // models and that resulted in some software oddities where
> programmers had coded close to the hardware and expected certain
> behaviours.
> 
I had a hot-rod //GS with an accelerator that  hopped it up to a full 3 
megahertz. The standard machine was 1 megahertz. It had  8 megs of ram, and a 
40 meg hard drive.  I wrote numerous magazine articles with it, and my kids did 
a lot of artwork with Dazzle Draw. I even shot some digital still photos with 
it using color eyes and a vhs movie camera. It was a good machine. 
Unfortunately, my wife talked me into giving it to her sister many years ago. 
> -- 
> M. Adam Maas
> http://www.mawz.ca
> Explorations of the City Around Us.
> 
> -- 
> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
> PDML@pdml.net
> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
> the directions.


-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Doug Franklin]

On 2010-04-30 20:10, John Sessoms wrote:


Heck, I knew somebody who actually bought an Apple LISA.


Hell, /I/ bought a Lisa.  And IBM paid for it!  [I was doing competitive 
analysis for a division marketing PCs at the time, as a co-op student!]


--
Thanks,
DougF (KG4LMZ)

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Doug Franklin]

On 2010-04-30 20:23, John Sessoms wrote:


Does any vendor still send a guy out to fix broken hardware on site?


Yes, if you pay the support contract costs.  I had a Lenovo tech in my 
cubicle a month ago replacing a motherboard because it had dicky 
connections to the memory slots.


--
Thanks,
DougF (KG4LMZ)

--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Joseph McAllister]

On Apr 30, 2010, at 17:10 , John Sessoms wrote:


Heck, I knew somebody who actually bought an Apple LISA.


Please!   We just don't talk about her anymore.   So sad…


Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com

http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html











--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Joseph McAllister]

On Apr 30, 2010, at 16:53 , Adam Maas wrote:


If you were in a 100+ machine network and had all Mac's, you'd be out
a job because the damned network wouldn't work or you'd be stuck with
a Microsoft, Sun or IBM backend. MS owns the office space today
because they sell network infrastructure software as well as the
desktop OS. Apple sells the Desktop OS and a slightly enhanced version
as a 'Server' OS which isn't any more than a standard *nix server.
You'd still need your Windows Servers on the backend to run Exchange
(or suddenly all your users lose their integrated scheduling and mail
and pushing to their blackberry's, and the clustering which makes said
services reliable on any platform) and you need a viable
authentication system, which means either Sun or Active Directory
since Apple doesn't offer anything which scales, and some sort of
solution for pushing software updates at controlled times (no SMS) and
all the other network management tools which OS X Server lacks
(because it's not designed for large-scale network deployments, but
rather small 10-50 user networks).


That is true today, most likely because Apple is content to be where  
they are as far as scaling goes. Given the percentages of installed  
base it makes no sense for Apple to try to build on large enterprise  
structures. PCs have won that battle. The hardware has been developed  
and the software written to support it. 20 years ago, that was not the  
case. Apple had poured a great deal of money into trying to compete  
with Unix and Micro$oft. They had the tools and and connectivity to  
install Macs (and Apples) into school systems and universities that  
demanded hundreds or thousands of seats with servers, connections to  
the mainframes, and Internet access.


But M$ got more installed at lower costs in more schools faster, and  
though they whimpered about it, Apple caved and changed their model,  
and it's needed development to the small network, the individual, and  
personal mobility. The tools for large scale got left behind, though I  
know some school systems still do use all Macintosh. I haven't run one  
since the mid 90s, so I don't know how they do it.


I still subscribe to a Mac Managers "List" that generates a few  
questions a day, and maybe a couple of summaries a week. It sure ain't  
what it used to be. 15 years ago it was a'hoppin' with posts, and I  
was one of the few who went to SF each year to pay homage to  
Cupertino, and party with the anointed Apple Techs. They had their  
probable final party this year (sans moi) because the bar that had  
hosted it for the past ten was closing.  


Today's example: "I have an Intel iMac running OS X 10.5.8 which  
intermittently. but regularly has problems maintaining its SMB  
connection to a Windows 2003 Small Business Server (SBS) shared  
folder. None of the other Macs in the office have this problem and  
most of the Macs are the exact same model of iMac running OS X 10.5.8…"


Life goes on…  until

It's not that life is too short, it's that you're dead for so long..
— Anon

Joseph McAllister
pentax...@mac.com

http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html







--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.

Re: K-7 replacement?

[Adam Maas]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 8:23 PM, John Sessoms  wrote:
> From: Adam Maas
>>
>> In this day and age there's little in the way of hardware support
>> issues. You have a standard configuration from the vendor and a
>> software image. Load the image, drop the box, you're done. If it
>> breaks, re-image. That doesn't work, swap for another box and have the
>> vendor come in and service the broken machine. A users files are in
>> their profile so they come right over when they login. Machine swaps
>> are simple and the only part that takes any time is the user's first
>> login (as their roaming profile copies over then).
>>
>
> Does any vendor still send a guy out to fix broken hardware on site?
>
> That used to be my job before I got laid off in 2000. No chance of any call
> back because the company was sold to China while I was mobilized.
>
> Got outsourced to "advanced replacement" ... if you've got broken hardware,
> they send you a refurbished replacement unit & you use the box it came in to
> ship the broken one back using a prepaid UPS label.
>

Yeah, they still do that, but the guy who goes out is probably a
specialist from Unisys or one of the other on-site support contractors
who provide logistics and techs to the major (and minor) vendors. It's
all about what support contract you have, on-site is more expensive
and the base Warranty is drop-ship based.


-- 
M. Adam Maas
http://www.mawz.ca
Explorations of the City Around Us.

-- 
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow 
the directions.