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Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

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Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#71

Post by markbao »

mattmaroon wrote: post #53
xlnt wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it varies by when and what you compare. e.g. http://www.macworld.com/article/49403/2006/02/pricecompariso... has the macbook pro doing well. or this http://kb.wisc.edu/showroom/page.php?id=3045 has 150 more for macbook (not pro). they seem to have firewire and isight missing on the pc, and a modem missing on the mac. ------- i just did a comparison of imac vs dell all-in-one. imac = 1300 (add 1gig of ram) the…

The biggest problem with Apple's lineup is for people who already have a monitor they like. Your options are the mini, or a ridiculously expensive Mac Pro. There's no middle ground. Also, I don't think the mini is really price competitive even on the low end. I can get the same hardware specs for considerably cheaper elsewhere, though, of course, not with the awesome form factor/design. I really like the mini in term…

MacBook or MacBook Pro in clamshell (closed-lid) mode.

Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#72

Post by [deleted] »

dcurtis wrote: post #34
hugh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I've got no interest in counting them all up, but I thought Apple would have more products than Microsoft.

Well, think about... Windows Vista. Ultimate, Home Premium, Home Basic, Business, Enterprise, Lite. Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office Professional, Microsoft Office Standard, Office Small Business, Office Ultimate, Office Enterprise, Office Professional Plus. Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft Intellimouse, Microsoft intellimouse Explorer, Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer Bluetooth, Microsoft Intellimouse Presenter. Windows…

[deleted]

Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#73

Post by KirinDave »

rms wrote: post #22
xlnt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, they just plain don't. they all come with isights and firewire and DVD burners and such. comparisons i've seen with equivalent PCs are roughly equal. if you want lots of RAM or a larger harddrive, you probably have to buy that separately to not get overcharged, though.

OK -- I spec'd a Dell XPS M150 just now to be equivalent to the $2500 Macbook Pro. I got a better than equivalent config for $1678 -- it has 4GB of RAM, would be $1578 with 2GB of RAM. It comes with a built-in 2MP webcam and bluetooth and N-wireless. It has HDMI rather than DVI out. A bluray burner is an option, as is a 1920x1080 screen. The only thing it is missing is firewire and I don't think anyone can argue that…

I used the XPS M1530 as a model because it seemed to match more closely. For $200 less the DELL had 100gb more hard drive space but no bundled software.

I also think it's weird that they don't just offer Vista Ultimate, they make you pay extra. Who wants to buy a limited version of the OS? I'm sure the shop interface is so confusing that most people end up with the default option of the Home version just because it's so difficult to read their cramped store (I tried in both Safari and Firefox and it seemed like tiny cramped font and a poor explanation of the differences, maybe it looks better in IE?).

So yeah, you do pay a small premium for macs. It's maybe $200-$300 before tax, which isn't much, but it's real and its there.

Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#74

Post by mrtron »

jauco wrote: post #47
mhartl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same thought when I read this. I used to turn off my computer every night, until I switched from Windows (98) to Linux. In grad school, my roommate and I had uptime contests with our Linux boxes, which he won with something like 6 months of uptime. The most common causes of lost uptime were electrical power outages and moving apartments. Now, like you, I mainly run OS X, but it's on a laptop, which wreaks h…

I'm always amazed by this. Why would you keep your computer running if you're not using it? just for comparing lengths?

Laptop:

10:56 up 83 days, 1:50, 7 users, load averages: 1.05 1.32 1.12

I don't reboot - but I do close the lid to let it sleep. My main reason for not rebooting is I generally have 100 things open at any time and that 'state' is important.

Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#75

Post by LogicHoleFlaw »

DaniFong wrote: post #60
raganwald wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, I do hope you realize that "taste" and "design" are about an awful lot more than "pretty." I would say that MSFT products being "pretty" demonstrates how little they get it. They think that making something "designed" means smearing pretty on it after you're done, as if you can design a web application by building something randomly then hiring a graphic designer to make the page slook nice just before…

Okay. But throwing out Vista and Silverlight, I contend that the XBox 360, Live Maps are both highly usable, well designed products that people want. This may be true of Silverlight too, if they ever wake up and realize that good webapp, flash and UI designers/developers tend away from Windows.

I found the Xbox360 UI to be atrocious, actually. Why does the green X button turn the system on and off? Why are there 6 different versions of the Marketplace, none of them consistent? Why are there ads everywhere?

I enjoy the games themselves but the design seems extremely ad-hoc.

Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#77

Post by LogicHoleFlaw »

mrtron wrote: post #74
jauco wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always amazed by this. Why would you keep your computer running if you're not using it? just for comparing lengths?

Laptop: 10:56 up 83 days, 1:50, 7 users, load averages: 1.05 1.32 1.12 I don't reboot - but I do close the lid to let it sleep. My main reason for not rebooting is I generally have 100 things open at any time and that 'state' is important.

As memory and bulk storage become faster and faster and gain more and more capacity I think that the idea of losing application state just because your PC shut off will become a horror story to tell our children. Eventually it will become one large memory space backed by a variety of local and network stores.

Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#78

Post by narag »

curiousgeorge wrote: post #65
rms wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lenovo's T series is probably the best one in that class. Linux is well supported. Not sure that it is a better buy than a Macbook though.

Fujitsu has some good, relatively inexpensive ultralights. I use whatever their 13.3 screen model is. Anything bigger is tough to use in an airplane/cram in a bag.

I didn't mean to provoke an off-topic, but thank you anyway :-)

Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#79

Post by boredguy8 »

markbao wrote: post #71
mattmaroon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem with Apple's lineup is for people who already have a monitor they like. Your options are the mini, or a ridiculously expensive Mac Pro. There's no middle ground. Also, I don't think the mini is really price competitive even on the low end. I can get the same hardware specs for considerably cheaper elsewhere, though, of course, not with the awesome form factor/design. I really like the mini in term…

MacBook or MacBook Pro in clamshell (closed-lid) mode.

Why is Mac's answer always to buy more? I want my monitor, so I should buy a laptop at a premium and -then- I can use my monitor? Never you mind that, of course, the Macbook & Macbook Pro have no docking station, so that's a minimum of manual connections every time I disconnect/reconnect. If I never use the laptop as a laptop, I've way overspent.

I had a similar conversation at WWDC about the 'no docking station' issue. Apple's response: buy everyone a laptop AND a desktop, and use roaming profiles.

Yeah.

Re: Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

#80

Post by pchristensen »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #67
anirbas wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he did, it's surprising he didn't go years before this.

errr... he did - he's been stepping out since 2001.

Exactly, you can't just jet at the end of a day if you want your 20% of the company to be worth something when you're gone.
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