Late June 2009 I bought a 13" MacBook Pro (2.26 GHz, 4 GB RAM). I suppose that after just three months, the blinding "first joys" over getting a laptop have worn off. By now, I deem my thoughts about this device to be realistic and of an appropriate level. The past few weeks I attained mastery over the Mac OS through personal discovery, accompanied by a very insightful book; I bought additional software and hacked the Dock to suit my preferences.
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Member since:2006-05-10
Okay, cool, thanks for clearing that up.
Yes, I can understand how the sentence comes across a bit strange in dismissing Linux and considering Chrome OS, but here's the reason:
In this review I really wanted to avoid a thorough "why not Linux" discussion. In short, the versions of Linux I tried I did not like, the ones I've seen but have not tried myself were too much based Windows for my taste. And yes, I'm an eye-candy type of person, that is why my field of profession is "cognitive ergonomics" (or "human factors" as it is called in the U.S.). That's why I'd prefer a Phllips TV and a Nokia telephone.
Google understands the concept of eye-candy (or rather: usability testing), and that along with their "cloud" philosophy is something I really see a future in. I *could* have waited for the Chrome OS, and even though Google's first releases are usually very good, I wasn't betting my money on it.
I do NOT own an iPhone or iPod, nor do I want any. If I switch to smartphones, I'd be looking for a phone with Chrome OS. For now, I'm perfectly happy with a simple Nokia that I selected on its 1.5 week battery duration (I always forget to recharge), and an ancient 512 MB Packard Bell FunKey MP3 player.
Member since:2006-12-30
Thank you too for your reply. I appreciate your explanation, and at this point I'm sorry for calling you "apple-fan-boy". To simplify things I was put in a sort of bad mood after reading "no linux, always wanted mac" without any further details. Besides of that I'm not used to talk about rumors (this is what I consider Google Chrome OS now), that's the reason of my ironic sentence.
I'm really tired of people not using free operative systems only because, even if they don't know anything about MacOSX, Apple is known to be "cool" to their eyes... but well, I won't go on whining, it's obviously not your case and it's OT, I just wanted to tell you this "emotive background" under my previous posts
Have a good day,
Bye!
Member since:2005-07-07
Eddy seems ok with your comments, but why not show a little graciousness when your post is shown to be based on misunderstanding of grammar and lack of awareness of the Chrome OS, instead of continuing with playground fanboy name-calling?
Yes, it may seem a largely one-sided article, but there's very little to complain about on the MacBook Pro - you know the price and the styling when you go to the shop. It's a great little laptop whatever OS you choose to run on it.
Edited 2009-10-07 14:15 UTC
Member since:2006-12-30
Read my last 2 posts please, they should clarify things a little bit
Member since:2006-05-10
I *did* do my utmost to catch all the downsides though ;-) But indeed, coming up with other improvements is tough. As someone else already pointed out, these laptops have a history of minor changes accumulating to a lot of goodies. The version I have even hardly differs from the late 2008 series, so either the design team must either be out of options or it is working on radical new stuff.
As for the tone of the original post - I'd rather figure out where the problem lies, rather than than fueling a flame thread. It's not that I'm necessarily "okay" with it, but I see merit in remaining reasonable (we all have our bad days, right? some of my posts have been voted down too).
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about."This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Member since:
2006-12-30
For the last three months I've been here on planet Earth: that cloud system you are talking is still unreleased, so I assumed one can't define such a product an operative system "still not mature".
About the basic lesson.. thank you, but I don't need it even if my English is very raw: if you exclude Linux because you don't want to use it, why after few words do you talk about an OS based on Linux? This doesn't make much sense to me, even if you used a semicolon
On your last sentence: you are on the way to become a beos&apple-fan-boy eheh
Bye!
Edited 2009-10-07 10:55 UTC