New Mac Pro Retinal Has No Optical Drive And No Ethernet - Duh - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 03:22:18 am
content: Greetings EEVBees:--The new Macs Pros are bound to leave some cursing a blue streak, like the Furnace Fighting Father in Christmas Story. See the below link for a very funny article about Apple's latest cock-up, and and recollections of past bone headed moves, whereby Apple forced people to accommodate the future, years to soon:http://www.reghardware.com/2012/06/15/something_for_the_weekend_apple_retina_display_angst/--And in other news, a working Apple 1, was sold by Southeby's for $374,500. Unsubstantiated rumors are going around, that the PC was sold by phone bid, to an extremely cheerful Australian with a high pitched voice. Hmmm!"In the heat of battle, my father wove a tapestry of obscenity that as far as we know, is still hanging in space over Lake Michigan."Ralphie ParkerBest RegardsClear Ether

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 03:54:30 am
content: Crap article, IMO.I totally understand the lack of optical drives, they are a big "meh". No ethernet port, that I also understand... when was the last time you plugged your laptop to a wired network?The real crappy aspect is the trend towards no upgrade support for devices.

author: 8086
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 03:58:43 am
content: Quote from: AntiProtonBoy on June 18, 2012, 03:54:30 amYesterday.Though, I agree with the optical drive thing, there is little need for it really. Ethernet is very useful to some people though.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 04:38:24 am
content: Who needs optical drives... It's all download and streaming anyway. And backup is done in the cloud...The future has been here at least a year...As for lack of ethernet.. That is a bit annoying. For security reasons i refuse wifi in the house. Same at work. No wifi allowed. ..

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 04:53:28 am
content: Dear AntiProtonBoy:--Thanks for your comment. Please allow me to gently and respectfully, chide you a little.--Assume for a moment that you have only the following. A high speed internet connection which is not wireless, (a $5 to $20 cost per mo.). A new Apple Mac Pro, and a brand new, in the box, Apple Airport router or equivalent. How do you connect?--You are on the road in East Yahoo. The motel does not provide wireless, but does have the old obsolete wall jack, which allows management to have complete positive control of access. How do you connect?--You do not have a Desktop and you suspect the Cable Modem or the Router, or maybe even (yikes) the Apple Mac Pro is not functioning. How do you check, it?--A young woman, whose Email address, you misplaced, posts you a DVD disk containing pictures of her and her girlfriends on the beach in Cancun....--Next Apple will do away with USB, and tell you to just, get wireless cameras, scanners and what not, and use the cloud. They will tell you "Don't be a fuddy duddy." Enter the future, eschew backward compatibility, and tell the Old Folks and anyone who is not at the absolute latest level of technology to just p*ss off." Eh?"You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 1012 to 1."Ernest Rutherford 1871 1937Best RegardsClear Ether

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 04:59:36 am
content: And, as Apple is of the opinion that you only need ONE........ A necessity is an 8 port USB hub, an external DVD writer, an external USB/ethernet adaptor, another mouse, a tablet and such.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 05:46:14 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on June 18, 2012, 04:38:24 am*Quite apart from the fact that what you said is impossible,the future sucks,it always has!Bugger! now I'm doing it too!PS: The "future" is apparently around 1988 to the spell check on this site----- It got all upset with wifi,offering "wife","Fifi" & "Wini"It also tries to get me to change Google to "Go ogle".Of course,both "wifi" & "Google",like "Queensland Roar",are Bleep-ing stupid names!!Sorry,-----"In" joke!

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 05:52:48 am
content: Quote from: SgtRock on June 18, 2012, 04:53:28 amI don't use Airport, but I believe its default factory settings should allow access to the device over wireless.QuoteUse my phone and other myriad of Wifi capable devices to test connectivity. If they all fail, then router is dead. If not, take the laptop back to the Apple "genius" bars and let them deal with it.QuoteLook I'm not saying ethernet was absolutely redundant. It's still very useful. My point was, your average sixpack joe will practically NEVER use ethernet when he's got the laptop on the couch while watching football. Everyone I know uses WiFi exclusively in their home and when going to places. Not once in my travels have I seen a motel, restaurant, cafe, toilet without WiFi access.If you are in a situation where you don't have an optical drive to view the junk people sent you, then too bad. How often does that happen? Never. There are so many ways around this: Either upload the content of the DVD at work with an old PC using optical drives to dropbox, or copy to USB, etc. What if there are no computers that use optical drives any more? Well I guess that tells you something profound: Optical media is obsolete, and hence sending optical media over mail is akin to sending a floppy disk.

author: SgtRock
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:26:43 am
content: Dear AntiProtonBoy:--Thanks again for your response. I hope you will not take it amiss if I remonstrate further. You may be correct about the latest Apple Airport, but my old one requires a wired connection to setup the handshake. So, let us see if I have this right:1) There are no places without WiFi, You cleverly dodged the question as proposed, I.E. a motel in East Yahoo, without WiFi.2) Vk6go says he does not have WiFi at home or work. Hmm! Perhaps he is hallucinating.3) The Apple Mac Pro is a great stand alone machine as long a you have an old Desktop and myriad wireless devices.--As long as you are toting around a myriad of wireless devices, you probably would not mind the added weight of a USB Ethernet hookup, just in the unlikely event that a WiFi free location is encountered."People must understand that science is inherently neither a potential for good nor for evil. It is a potential to be harnessed by man to do his bidding."Glenn Theodore Seaborg 1912 - 1999Best RegardsClear Ether

author: _Sin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:28:17 am
content: My MacBook Air doesn't have ethernet or a DVD drive either. If I need either of those things, I just plug them in. Which is what I'd do if I had one of these new MacBooks. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've done either. These new machines have quite a lot of fast external IO (both Thunderbolt and USB3) for this purpose.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:36:37 am
content: All that inconvenience you have to go through and spending so many dollars just for the lookHEY GUYS WAKE UP APPLE IS BULLSHIT

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:45:18 am
content: QuoteHorrors!They might have to call it a "docking station" or something like that.5+ years ago I had a thinkpad (X30?) whose normal use involved a dock that contained the optical drive, hardwired network interface, mouse and keyboard interfaces. I seem to recall it working fine...A true Apple believer doesn't upgrade their laptop; they just buy the newer model. Most of the agnostic PC users do the same thing; I personally decided a long time ago it wasn't worth fighting the IT department to get a system I liked "just give me the current standard model. Thank you. Send me an email when it's time to upgrade. Bye."It is a clever, and perhaps perhaps offensive, marketing maneuver to charge a price premium on the basis of leaving things missing, but technically it's pretty much a non-issue.If you don't like it, don't buy it. You're not the target market, anyway.

author: joelby
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:54:47 am
content: If you really need it, the Ethernet adaptor is $29, which isn't too bad. If you're stingy and don't require gigabit speeds, USB-Ethernet adaptors can be found on eBay for under $10. Similarly, USB-connected DVD drives are pretty cheap.Are you upset about the lack of 5 1/4 floppy drive as well? I also noticed that it had no built-in GPIB port. The nerve.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:59:00 am
content: Quote from: SgtRock on June 18, 2012, 06:26:43 amSarge,you got it wrong with (2)--That wasn't me,it wasfree_electron,& I think it was only home he was referring to.I have WiFi on my laptop,but I normally use a 3G "dongle" in the USB port to access the Internet when I'm away from home.Most of the Motel/Hotels that we've been to which have WiFi,want you to get the password from Reception,so the Bogey Man can't use it free!We did use a Hotel's Ethernet once,but it was very restricted in time if you didn't want to incur large extra costs.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 07:05:53 am
content: Quote from: AntiProtonBoy on June 18, 2012, 03:54:30 amAll the time.Far superior connection quality when recording The AmpHour for example.Dave.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 07:18:47 am
content: Quote from: SgtRock on June 18, 2012, 06:26:43 amNot dodging the question. You need to look at this from a grander perspective. Sure, you can cherry pick exceptional circumstances, like that East Yahoo motel. So what? Places like that is becoming a minority and will need to catch up. Even if the Average Joe's laptop happens to support an Ethernet port, what if he's got no cables for it? He's screwed either way. (People don't carry extra cables with them that often.)QuoteUsers on this forum are electronics geeks, nerds, programmers, with different needs compared to a non-tech user. My router doesn't have a WiFi either. Apple's target audience is not you and me. They target Apple fans with their shiny Apple devices and Apple access points and Apple cloud servers.Personally I wouldn't what a laptop without Ethernet, but I can envision a future where Ethernet is becoming less relevant for portable devices. Tablets have been working fine without it for a while now.QuoteTo do the test, in reality you'll need... 1 smart phone. That's it. People who are mobile and want a laptop will most likely have at least one other portable device that is WiFi capable.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 07:47:51 am
content: This somewhat reminds me of Apple's latest iPod Nano, which was a huge step backwards compared to the previous model --- no video camera, voice recorder, FM radio, nor built-in speaker. (It should be mentioned that the Chinese clones of them have had these features years ago --- seehttp://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=139http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=175andhttp://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=169--- not excellently implemented, but they were the first to do it, before Apple.)I can understand omitting features in models like the Macbook Air and Thinkpad X series because they're ultralights and not designed for heavy work, but doing that with their highest-end model is rather distasteful.http://archive.picturesforsadchildren.com/92/

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 08:02:08 am
content: You hard drive dies or gets corrupted how do you re load the OS and drivers without the optical drive your wireless wont work without the drivers loaded (unless they put that in the BIOS or whatever its called now).

author: joelby
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 08:05:52 am
content: Quote from: G7PSK on June 18, 2012, 08:02:08 amYou can reinstall Mac OS X over the Internet using OS X Recovery, which is built in to EFI. Alternatively you could copy the installation media to a bootable USB flash drive or use an external DVD drive. I believe you can also connect to a DVD drive shared by another Mac over a LAN.

author: _Sin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 09:02:24 am
content: Seriously, if the lack of a built in ethernet port or dvd drive is an issue, buy a different laptop. It's not like Apple just forced the whole world to stop making them. Most of the MacBook Pro line still has them - just not the slimmer ones with the fancy new display.If you use those things occasionally, then just buy the external versions. I'd definitely get the external ethernet adapter because it's cheap and small. The value of the DVD drive is debateable.Are they using their premium models to "force" people to get used to some new way of working they've decided is better? Yes. They do that a lot. Pretty much every product they make misses out features which some users claim are "essential". In exchange you get something else - perhaps just a fancy looking machine, but usually something tangible, such as the new displays and smaller form-factor. It's a trade-off. Mostly they pitch it just right - pre-empting some kind of transition in the market place which was going to happen regardless, with just the right product at just the right time.Apple do not make swiss-army-knife style products, which try to be all things to all people.As a consumer, you always have a choice. If Apple really got it spectacularly wrong, I guess we'll see the products fail. Unless you actually believe that *only* sheep-like Apple fanboys buy their devices. In which case you're an idiot. Moronic hipsters with more money than sense can't be more than a tiny %age of Apple's user base. The rest of us genuinely like the products.Hell my old MacBook Pro is the best Windows machine (laptop or otherwise) I've ever owned. It's solidly built, fast and reliable.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 09:53:57 am
content: The real reason that there is no optical drive is most likely to do with itunes, they are trying to force you into buying from that source alone the next thing is you will find that the OS wont let you download music and films from any other venue.

author: Omicron
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 09:56:10 am
content: For me the most promising thing is the appearance of super fast serial busses on notebooks, like USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. These essentially take away the need for a notebook to have every which port or built in device. Case in point: you can add gigabit ethernet to the retina mac pro with a 29 dollar adapter that is so small it essentially just becomes part of your ethernet cable. That is the real future in my opinion: a notebook with a sufficient number of generic ports that you can adapt to just about anything and this without the slow performance that you traditionally had with USB 2.0 or 1.1. That applies to non Apple machines equally well and I'm sure we will see other vendors exploring the same route.

author: rr100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 10:03:56 am
content: The big problem with Apple nowadays is that being so successful many companies try to copy them, not necessarily on technical merits but just because "Apple does it" and "Apple has so much success" (so if they copy some bits they think they'll get a piece of the pie too).So you end up with laptops and phones with non-removable batteries, laptops where you can't upgrade/replace the hard drive or RAM, laptops where you need to carry/pay for things that you took for granted in your last laptop (DVD, ethernet, VGA output).

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 10:31:54 am
content: The lack of ethernet I would find annoying, but the optical drive can go and stay away. They use a lot of space in the laptop and hardly get used. I'm all for a second HDD/SSD, or an additional battery, or, actually, how about a hotswap bay which can do any of those things and more?Oh, wait, hasn't my Thinkpad got that? Strange, it seems to have that. And they have done for how many years?! Well, I never would've expected that..

author: 8086
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 10:34:29 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on June 18, 2012, 10:31:54 amMy Asus convertible has that. But I don't think we'll ever see something so practical come from Apple. Form over function is their thing, as we all know.

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 10:55:08 am
content: dont forget : you can buy an apple 27" thunderbolt monitorand then you have all gigabit ethernet, firewire, usb plugs at the back of the monitoronly by plugin the thunderbolt cable on the macbook pro ...hot swap ...ok it's $1000 more but who cares ?

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 11:13:52 am
content: Quote from: AntiProtonBoy on June 18, 2012, 07:18:47 amRe (2),Sarge inadvertently "took my name in vain".I use WiFi all the time,& also suggested that a 3G dongle would get around the "away from home" Internet access problem.

author: Omicron
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 11:27:00 am
content: Quote from: 8086 on June 18, 2012, 10:34:29 amClearly Apple still manages to evoke the "love em or hate em" syndrome with so many polarized opinions. Personally I like many of their products and wouldn't agree with above statement. But then again that is purely subjective off course. So then what is it that attracts people like me to these products? I guess it would be the same thing that makes me want to watch Dave spend half an hour enthusiastically explaining a case idea for a new power supply. It's the care and effort that was spent on designing the product and the drive to come up with something new and original. It's the same thing that attracts me to the old HP and Tektronix devices. Maybe that just makes me a snob in some peoples eyes. But I much prefer that my money ends up rewarding companies that still embody this love for their products. Too many companies these days seem to be driven purely by their marketing departments with their design teams slavishly pushing out "me too" type of products instead of being allowed to use their talents come up with new and original things. Again, this is just my own personal opinion.

author: metalphreak
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 12:25:09 pm
content: My 13" MacBook pro still works as good as the day I bought it, and its now 2 generations old. My old laptop was 2/3rds the price, lasted a year before the hinge cracked, and wasn't as nice to use. I still use my iPod video 5G from like 6-7years ago.I've used the optical drive in my laptop maybe 3-4 times since I've had it, and not out of necessity. The network port is a bit annoying, but I mainly used it for direct connection to devices not on my home network (servers/routers and whatnot for diagnostics/setup).You can directly compare specifications with other brands all you want, but I've always found Apple stuff to be built to a much higher standard. Whether that premium is worth it, is completely up to you. There's a lot of things they do that I don't completely agree with, and some products are simply priced way out of my pricerange (not many people drop $2500 on a laptop, but if you look at the professional laptops from Dell/HP/Lenovo they're also up there in price).

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 12:28:17 pm
content: Oi! Bunch of whinersYou don't get it ! It's APPLE ( drool mode on .. )They will sell you a 50$ stylish white ethernet to usb dongle thingie which the sheeple will suck up like its the second coming of whatever... 'oh look what apple has invented this time. An iPlug so i can connect my network cable to a usb port. It's brilliant.. And in the perfect shade of white too ! 'One day they will make the iScrew and it will be installed personally by a 'genius' in the store under laud applause of all the people present in the store.Drop 'em and bend over please . This will only take a second... There you go sir. Now you are an official iDiot.Ironically sent from my iPad...

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 02:54:03 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on June 18, 2012, 10:31:54 amPanasonic have had that in the toughbook range since 2000 at least.

author: A Hellene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 03:09:03 pm
content: 'iDiot'!LOL, free_electron! Brilliant pun and, absolutely, on the mark!I could not agree more with everything you said (alright, 'wrote'), especially on the missing (==redundantperhaps, according to theApple Standards) Ethernet port and the non-quality and insecure WiFi connections --particularly for the workstation machines that usually are bolted on a fixed place...APPLE is the latest religion* with the selling point "us vs. them," that is providing to the clueless masses nice but overpriced gadgets to be accessing their FaceBook account 3,257 times per day; nice but overpriced gadgets that should be replaced before they 'expire' (meaning before the replacement overpriced iGadgets show their faces on the selves, right after a few months time the current ones sent most of theirvictimsowners to get yet another painful loan to acquire them).What I cannot stand is the Apple 'innovations' that find their way to the products of other firms. For example, I really hate to see the"breathing" power LED indicatorof my Dell U2410 monitor because I cannot tell the monitor power status with a single glimpse, since I have to be staring at it for at least half a second time to see if it is lit and in what color... It might be handy if you are using that fancy and overpriced iGadgets to be fishing for dumb chicks that might fall for such tricks; but it is not ergonomic --and I do not want to hear that flashing a 0.5mA freaking LED indicator will save 20mWh/day and the planet...-George(*)Oh my, discussions like this one remind me how I miss thereligion thread...

author: ivan747
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 03:18:32 pm
content: Quote from: SgtRock on June 18, 2012, 04:53:28 amSomebodyhad to start phasing out older technologies. They provide adapters, if you really depend on ethernet. As for DVDs, you only need another computer (PC or Mac) with a DVD drive and an Apple program to let the MacBook Pro "borrow" it.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 03:50:12 pm
content: Quote from: A Hellene on June 18, 2012, 03:09:03 pmScientology could learn a lot from "the church of Apple"1) waaay more followers2) even more expensive stuff to buy3) fanatical following that will vehemently defend anything4) make way more money.5) better pavlovian conditioningQuoteit's gotten to the point where you have to watch out when shopping not to run in to people.i was in a store yesterday looking at some chees and i step forward , luckily i noticed that 'bimbo' in front of me had just whipped out her iPhone to look at an incoming text. she blocked the wholelane to reply to it. there were at least 3 other people growling...It' unbelievable. They hear the plingploing and the world just freezes.Other scenario : i walk in golden gate park. Young couple sitting romantically under a tree , picknick basket by their side , .. or so i thought .. until i looked closely : each staring at their own iphone with their earbuds in... sigh ...Oh yeah i have an iPad and an iMac too. for two reasons : iPad is great to stay in touch with mom on the other side of the world , who doesn't know how to use a computer but could figure out the iPad in 2 minutes. Facetime is great. ( yeah there's skype too but it; too cluttered. facetime is 1 button. )and she can take picture and email with a few button pushes. so if she gets a letter she can't figure out i can help. Dad died in february and i bought two ipads that i tuned to the same account so i can 'manage' her machine. whatever i do appears on her box through the magic of the cloud.As for the iMac .. you need one if you want to make apps or use iAuthor to make books ... no escaping. i got a demo model at 50% off (27 inch 2010 model)Mac's are good for simple things. But as soon as you want to do something even remotely out of their scope of mind .. bugger all ...I had a situation this morning. I'm in facetime and mom shows a document.. eh. i need a screen shot. on a Pc there is a convenient key 'prtscrn' ( has been there since it was dos 1.0 )On a mac ? i took me 5 minutes to figure out you need to do a fingercramp inducing option-shift -4, then hit the space bar , then click on the window you want to capture ... WHAT THE FUCK APPLE ? And they laugh at ctrl-alt-del ....I made fun of appletarts that were pissing on microsoft. Of , so you have a mac ? i guess you must really like microsoft then since you bought a machine that is built to run Microsoft word , Microsoft excel , Microsoft powerpoint and even Microsoft Internet Explorer -GRIN- ( this was when apple didn't even have their own browser ...I got nothing against apple or their machines. As said i have two ( i even have an iphone ) but to me computers and operating systems are just a tool like a screwdriver is. you use the machine to make something with it. it's just a bit of hardware , running a piece of system management code (the Os ) that let's you run one or more programs that make your life easier.Not something to get all glazy eyed and dribbling drool over... ( if it had the Agilent logo on it and a couple of bnc connectors on the front i could understand the drooling factor)I'm secretly hoping apple will make a toilet next. So you can tweet your friends on facepalmbook "iPood on the iCrap. Posted from my (now slightly brown) iPad"Ps : I do not take myself too seriously , and neither should the reader of this post

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 04:10:56 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on June 18, 2012, 03:50:12 pmThat's pretty sad. This kinda reminded me of a bunch dudes going out and hang out in general. There they were, sitting around, and nobody was talking. They all stared at their bloody phones.

author: _Sin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 04:34:05 pm
content: IME the horde of Apple hating fanatics is larger, dumber, and considerably more vocal than the group which blindly buys any Apple product.Not sure I'd catergorise the latter as a "religion", but the former... maybe

author: metalphreak
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 05:07:18 pm
content: Command + Shift + 3 = screenshot of everything conveniently saved to a file on your desktop.Windows makes you open paint to save it.In either case, its hardly a difficult operation.Don't blame your lack of experience using the OS as its fault and not your own(btw the blinded apple hating people are just as bad as the blindly apple loving people... how about you just evaluate what you want/need and get on with it. Obviously they are doing something right to get where they are now...)Innovation is just as much about creating the idea as well as making it into a usable and accessible product.What I like most about OSX is you get pretty much all the basic tools you need out of the box. Want to merge multiple PDF documents? Built in to the preview app. Windows? Go buy adobe acrobat or something else. Want to print a document to PDF? Built in. Windows? Go download a third party app (there's good free ones, and is something I always install on a windows PC).Know what I don't like? The bloody window management system. As in, maximising/resizing windows. In windows you can just use the Win + Arrow keys to move windows around. I love that.I also find there are just as many fanatics for other products (Samsung Galaxy S3 and so on), just as many bimbo's with HTC phones blocking aisles, and so on. People just have this thing for picking on Apple. It makes me laugh because you know damn well Apple is so good at what they do (marketing!) it makes people react like that.

author: A Hellene
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 05:34:42 pm
content: I am sorry to hear about your loss, free_electron. I also lost my father last year in March, so I know perfectly well what the loss of a beloved family member feels like...Quote from: free_electronI am familiar with Apple's products, since I was given one of the firstMacBooks as a New Year's present. After trying to get myself familiar with it and saw the restrictions ("you can runonlythe applications we approve of") and ethics (blatant spying on the users' habitsin favor of the obvious personalized advertisement, if not for any other more sinister reasons) of the Apple products and company. Right after that, I repacked it, returned it back and never looked at the Apple products again.Of course, it is not thatthese things happenin the Apple products only: I have literally castrated the Win7 platform I am using, by permanently disabling more than 50 services that are not there for my own interests; services that should be not there in the first place... I am just using wintel because most of the serious programs that exist today have been written for this specific platform.Quote from: free_electronThis is true! My family is also communicating with my brother, who lives on the other side of the pond, using Skype. I was reluctant to get an easy-to-use iPad for my mother, who now has a feather-class Sony VAIO laptop, in which I have also taken care of the Win7 platform indiscretions.Quote from: free_electronThis is my point, exactly! What they all are to me, is tools. One platform is good for some tasks, as another platform is good for some other ones. What irritates me is the marketing techniques some companies utilise to get themselves fanatic customers. Additionally, I have nothing against the people using Apple products. What pisses me off is that almost not one of them can see how Apple has trapped them into becoming their fanatic customersfor life, by using despicable religious techniques...Now, I would not really wish to comment on euphemistical deceiving terms I can read, like "The Cloud" or "Green Development" or any other ones of this kind...-George

author: baljemmett
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 05:45:30 pm
content: Quote from: metalphreak on June 18, 2012, 05:07:18 pmYou know why that's the case for Windows, right? It's because every time Microsoft add some new feature that was previously the domain of third-party add-ons, they find themselves staring down the business end of another anti-trust lawsuit. It happened with the browser, the media player, the firewall; the anti-virus got released as an add-on to sidestep it. I can just imagine the howls of protest if they included things like PDF tools...(Of course, OEMs could include such things out-of-the-box with new machines, but the vendors presumably don't offer suitable kickbacks so instead we get a pile of crap that does nothing useful or particularly well. Gah.)

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 05:54:04 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on June 18, 2012, 02:54:03 pmThinkpads have had them since 1993.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:15:32 pm
content: Well i hate iCrap devices as much as any hater does, BUT!I genuinely have me reasons for hating CrappleFirst, i DID try all the crApple devices before.1) MacbookOh sounds so good, software's shit and is just a modified FreeBSD with a Mach Kernel and costs money then FreeBSD2) iPadCrappy thing has everything thrown out!3) iPhoneSLOW AND SLOW AND SLOW battery life short like F**K SO MANY LIMITATIONS SO MUCH COST4) That mini apple tv thingNow really look at that thing, you call that nice? I CALL THAT FUGLY! THE DESIGNERS AT APPLE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING!It's just a china box with a shitload of crap inside5) Marketing department"Fastest phone on the market" OH REALLY?! THE IPHONE 4 LAUNCHED AFTER THE MYRIAD OF A8-1GHZ DEVICES AND IT'S SLOW AS HELL6) Design DepartmentReally all their designs if you squint, might look a little good7) Hardware Design DepartmentBeing so slow at designing ( HA they just took samsung's stock SoC design ) and end up releasing a long time after Samsung and HTC has done so,QualityBitch please, it's all made in china, once you drop either of the devices, all bets are off, the quality is complete crap and it's all overpricedIf you think YOUR macbook is good, bitch please.My mom spent 499USD and gets a spankin' 15.6" with 1.4GHz Quad-Cores with 8GB Ram and TWO graphic processorsDo you get it with you crApple laptop? No.

author: Omicron
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:48:14 pm
content: Quote from: _Sin on June 18, 2012, 04:34:05 pmAmen to that!Oops...didn't want to get all religious there ;-)

author: _Sin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 06:52:56 pm
content: Nurse! DaveXRQ hasn't taken his medicine again!

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 07:26:52 pm
content: Quote from: metalphreak on June 18, 2012, 05:07:18 pmi had an email ready , all i need is to include a screenshot of 1 active window ( not the whole bloody screen ).in windows : ALT-Prtscrn , click email tool hit ctrl-v to insert ...on apple ctrl-option-4 , hit spacebar to get the camera tool then click on the window you want to grab . it throws this a sa file on the desktop. i dont need a stinking file ! i need it on the clipboard ! click mail tool , drag file in... send email , drag temporary file to trashcan , click trash icon - delet all trash , click yes on propmpt ... yeaarghhhhh ! why so complicated ? this is boneheaded !simple things should be simple.By the way i am not an 'apple hater' nor an 'apple fanatic'. It's a machine that lets me do things. and that's it. As a technical person ( when doing electronics ) i wouldn't touch a mac with a long stick.... you can't muck with the innards , there's virtually no electronics related software for it , and i'd be pissing my pants worrying i might fry it and lose a wad of money ... and that's perfectly fine. That is not the macs target audience.If i need a machine i can take a soldering iron to i'll get a cheap 50$ mobo with a 100$ cpu and solder away. if i fry it i get a new mobo and swap the cpu over. Then again , i wouldn't touch that homebrew computer with a long stick if i had to do some serious graphics work (premiere / final cut / lightroom / aperture / illustrator etc .. ) Gimme the mac. The display alone. Finding a pc monitor with 2560x1280 is a pain in the butt... and windows still hasn't figured out how to do 32 bit color... they're stuck at 24 ... )if i need a filer in a corner that can chug away as a NAS : i'll happily install loonix.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 07:29:41 pm
content: Quote from: _Sin on June 18, 2012, 06:52:56 pm

author: _Sin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 07:56:37 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on June 18, 2012, 07:26:52 pmIf you're holding down ctrl, your screen-grab *does* go to the clipboard. If not, you get a file.So yeah, slightly more long winded than on windows, if you want a window rather than the screen, but not as long winded as you make out.

author: rr100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 08:29:37 pm
content: Uh, TIME-OUT!You can copy/paste either way on either box, that's a software issue! How did we end up with this big fight about copy/paste?! It's not like Windows can materialize an Ethernet port or optical drive out of thin air while mac OS can't (or the other way around).

author: caroper
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2012, 10:59:26 pm
content: I wonder how much my Lisa is worth now?I better dig it out and see if it still works.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2012, 04:43:26 am
content: Probably a lot more than my Mac ( original 128k unit, with all the signatures inside the case).

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2012, 08:53:47 am
content: Quote from: metalphreak on June 18, 2012, 12:25:09 pmThe Pro (aluminium cased) models weren't too bad (although I think they're a bit overpriced), but the old regular plastic-cased MacBooks seemed to have used an inferior plastic composition and tend to crack around the edges. A quick search on the Internet of "macbook crack" shows this defect clearly.I prefer Thinkpads, never had any problems with them.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2012, 09:49:53 am
content: Quote from: amyk on June 19, 2012, 08:53:47 amYeah thinkpads are tough as shit