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I mortgaged my future with a Mac

rachelbythebay.com

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Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#71

Post by crististm »

rosser wrote: post #63
crististm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what? You end up confirming what I said: it's an application issue - be it free or proprietary. But in her case, phone syncing in a proprietary world is more of a problem. I think she meant it like "I'm dependent on MAC Technology and I can't get out".

(FYI, an appreciable number of the downvotes you're receiving are probably because you're consistently using male pronouns for the author of a post on rachel bythebay.com. You might want to fix that, and your assumptions...)

Thanks

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#72

Post by spindritf »

epistasis wrote: post #4

I'm not sure I understand the specific complaints in the post. The metadata in iTunes is stored in a standard way, attached to the audio files themselves. All the playlists, repeated track infromation, etc, is stored in an XML file with simple structure. This should be as easy to convert as if the music database had been stored anywhere else. Similarly, for iPhoto, much of the metadata is attached to the photos thems…

> Storing data in any application results in some restrictions in how that data can be transformed and/or used in the future.

And not all applications are equal in that regard. I store plenty of data in Dropbox, never run into any problems. Same with git, mutt, Shotwell, Rhythmbox... Usually, exporting doesn't involve any action. All the data is just stored in files that can be used by any application.

There is a strong correlation between free software and convenient data formats. Why pretend that all software has those same problems to a similar degree?

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#73

Post by gvb »

phaus wrote: post #57
keithpeter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, that was my first thought. My takeway from the article was that the real annoyance in her life (therefore the itch that a programmer has to scratch, and thus help the rest of us) was iPhone related. Rachel-by-the-bay is a dyed-in-the-wool linux-sysadmin so I gather from her Web pages, and has recent experience with software defined radio. Ubuntu phone is 'proper' linux but at a very early stage of devel…

Have you heard anything to suggest an off switch for the Amazon integration? I love Amazon, I like Ubuntu, and I even liked Unity once the performance issues were fixed, but I don't want to see Amazon advertisements unless I open my browser and navigate to amazon.com. Edit: Thanks guys. I wasn't aware that we already had a work-around.

sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping

Ref: http://askubuntu.com/questions/192269/how-can-i-remove-amazo...

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#74

Post by rjbond3rd »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #8
ybaumes wrote: post #2

This post would constitute a good/constructive reply to the latter article : 25 Years to Mac - How Ubuntu Pushed Me Away from the PC[1] [1][ http://randomdrake.com/2013/02/23/25-years-to-mac-how-ubuntu... ]

Based on that article, I think Ubuntu probably would push me away from the PC, too. I used a variant called "Goobuntu" (guess where...) during my tenure at one particular company, and it was a mixed bag. I'm not sure how much was due to Ubuntu itself and how much was from the local meddling, but it was wonky in ways my Linux boxes normally aren't. Put it this way - my machine at work was some beastly multi-proc Penti…

DIY is a great lifestyle. And it comes with many positive benefits, not least of which affect mood and outlook.

I'm typing this on a 7-year-old Thinkpad X60s, and with the right Firefox add-ons, surfing feels more responsive than on my (untuned, unoptimized) i7. The clunker is way more fun.

Getting something relatively "perfect" and finished is just not as fun as having something which needs a lot of fixing, assembly, experimentation, etc. If only for the feeling of control, transparency and understanding how things work, it's worth it.

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#75

Post by blub »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #67

I'm constantly amazed by how many informed people have allowed themselves to be locked into the iTunes ecosystem. Apple has made it pretty clear in recent years that iTunes for Windows was the exception, and that they are never going to build software for other platforms ever again. I know that there is some convenience to buy iTunes if you are using Apple devices. Of course, most of that convenience is due to restri…

I don't see what you mean. All my music in iTunes is neatly organized inside the Music folder - DRM free and easily copied to any device. The iPhone is a different matter, you have to accept that you will lose (a lot of) freedom for the syncing convenience. There are some apps that allow you to exchange data over wifi through FTP/WebDav when one does not want to use iTunes at all.

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#76

Post by MatthewPhillips »

blub wrote: post #75
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #67

I'm constantly amazed by how many informed people have allowed themselves to be locked into the iTunes ecosystem. Apple has made it pretty clear in recent years that iTunes for Windows was the exception, and that they are never going to build software for other platforms ever again. I know that there is some convenience to buy iTunes if you are using Apple devices. Of course, most of that convenience is due to restri…

I don't see what you mean. All my music in iTunes is neatly organized inside the Music folder - DRM free and easily copied to any device. The iPhone is a different matter, you have to accept that you will lose (a lot of) freedom for the syncing convenience. There are some apps that allow you to exchange data over wifi through FTP/WebDav when one does not want to use iTunes at all.

I guess I'm thinking of TV shows and movies, which are DRMed.

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#77

Post by vetinari »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #11
conroe64 wrote: post #3

It had me until she wrote (when comparing to iOS) " Android is obviously out of the question since it's just a different flavor of the same garbage". How can an opensource OS be just another flavor of the entirely closed and walled off iPhone?

iOS: sell your soul to Apple. Android: sell your soul to Google. The thing is, I already did the second one to a far greater degree than most people ever do. I'm not about to repeat it.

I'm using an Android phone without Google.

It is business phone, so all the mail-contact-calendar data live on Exchange server, not on Gmail.

The only one thing that you really need google account for is the Play Store. If you do not need anything from there or can get the applications from elsewhere, I cannot not see why you could not use Android phone without google account.

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#78

Post by mtts »

derefr wrote: post #60
mtts wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Then there's my phone. How do you use one of these things without a computer upon which to sync your data and backups?" >> Windows VM? That only works when you disable USB on the host (which makes USB keyboards and mice temporarily unusable) while the Windows VM is running. And even then it sometimes just stops working after a while. It's one of the reasons I ditched my iPhone and got an Android device.

What VM program were you using? In VMWare, at least, whenever a device with a "new" USB hardware ID is plugged in, it prompts you whether it should attach it to the host or guest (and you can change this for each device at any time.)

I used VMWare. And no, just attaching the "new" USB hardware to the guest was not enough. iTunes only saw the iPhone if the Linux host did not have the USB modules loaded (and in fact had them blacklisted so they wouldn't be loaded automatically either).

It is (or was, don't know, this was about two years ago) a known problem: http://www.ivankuznetsov.com/2009/10/upgrading-iphone-firmwa...

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#79

Post by keithpeter »

phaus wrote: post #57
keithpeter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, that was my first thought. My takeway from the article was that the real annoyance in her life (therefore the itch that a programmer has to scratch, and thus help the rest of us) was iPhone related. Rachel-by-the-bay is a dyed-in-the-wool linux-sysadmin so I gather from her Web pages, and has recent experience with software defined radio. Ubuntu phone is 'proper' linux but at a very early stage of devel…

Have you heard anything to suggest an off switch for the Amazon integration? I love Amazon, I like Ubuntu, and I even liked Unity once the performance issues were fixed, but I don't want to see Amazon advertisements unless I open my browser and navigate to amazon.com. Edit: Thanks guys. I wasn't aware that we already had a work-around.

12.10 Ubuntu has a system setting about privacy. There is an OFF button there. Can't remember the precise location but you can switch off the Amazon integration in the Home search.

Re: I mortgaged my future with a Mac

#80

Post by WiseWeasel »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #67

I'm constantly amazed by how many informed people have allowed themselves to be locked into the iTunes ecosystem. Apple has made it pretty clear in recent years that iTunes for Windows was the exception, and that they are never going to build software for other platforms ever again. I know that there is some convenience to buy iTunes if you are using Apple devices. Of course, most of that convenience is due to restri…

iTunes Music Store sells standard format AAC files which can be played anywhere, freely converted, etc.; there's no DRM or anything. How is iTunes locking you in?
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