why is there an Apple forum?
Is it so you can segregate the cultists away from non-religious people?
why is there an Apple forum?
This topic was created by dogged .
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Sunday 20th January 2013 01:20 GMT Thomas 4
Re: why is there an Apple forum?
Several months ago, there was a board meeting at The Register offices, with Mr Orlowski and the sub-editors in attendance. The meeting covered opening up the comments section into a full-blown forum. They discussed the pros and cons of such an action; increased page hits, potential liabilities and so on.
At the very end, one of the sub-editors said, "This "dogged" guy, what can we do to troll this bastard as hard as humanly possible?" and bingo, an Apple sub-forum was born.
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Friday 23rd March 2012 01:29 GMT jake
Re: It's a Herding Device ..
I, for one, love bashing apples. Well, pressing them anyway. Homemade Gravenstein Cider and Cyser are lovely, both still and sparkling. The non-alcoholic apple juice is nice, too. The fruit itself is tasty, but it doesn't keep very well[1], that's why I preserve it with fermentation. I would never accidentally leave a 35 gallon batch of hard Cider in the walk-in meat freezer overnight ...
Oh ... You mean the multi-billion dollar multinational named after the Beatles record label? ::shrugs:: Personally, we have an aging iMac that the Wife sometimes uses for video editing. Works for her, once in a while. Other than that, no iFads here ... Not bashing them, we just don't see a need for useless eyecandy bolted onto a coms tool.
[1] I grow Braeburns & Fujis for long-term storage.
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Sunday 30th June 2013 05:43 GMT piscator
Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform
Not sure whether I should start a new topic, but basically, I think the Apple Mac OS X high-point may have been Snow Leopard. I never had that experience, but I did think Leopard 10.5.8 was just perfect, especially after I "had to upgrade" to Lion 10.7.2 when I bought a new MacBook Pro. (I should have bought it 6 months earlier, then I could have had Snow Leopard).
Anyway, my Lion experiences have really led me to wonder if it is time to leave the Apple Camp. This is no small deal for me, having been a pretty happy Apple user from 1985, and first buying my own in 1989. In fact, I've never spent my own money with any other manufacturer.
What I really don't like :-
* where they fix things that aren't broken - why change the look of a UIF that just works ? (Lion's disappearing scrollbars)
* the system software has to come from Apple's Cloud if I need to re-install - no DVD in the box. I do use TimeMachine for backups, and that has saved my arse a few times, but it's not the whole answer. Where I live and work (developing country), the internet is not something to be relied on.
* most free software has to come through the Apple Store, not just Apple software
* things stop working - right now I'm having an epic time trying to get my iPod Classic (5th gen.) to sync again - it was fine to start with - a few months ago I started getting into situations where the sync is finished - unhook the iPod to find ... it's empty ! And then start all over again !! I've changed nothing - so why this problem ???
* the fact I can't shift iPod contents back onto the MacBook - yeah, I know this is not new, but it's a crazy bind just like the old days when you couldn't get any device in Europe with plug-in record-video capability.
* iTunes 11 is billed as putting my music "in the Cloud" -- wtf ?!?!?! See above about dodgy internet where I live. Anyway, it's my music, I want it local ! More to the point - I want to choose !
So, what to do ?? I don't think I can stay with Apple much longer.
There's almost too much choice out there - it's like buying toothpaste in a foreign country, one is desperate for something that looks just a bit familiar. And the choice is overwhelming - from FreeBSD to *buntu to Mint / Debian ... where to start ?? I am reading a lot of good things about Mint, especially here in El Reg land ....
If I get favourable responses to this posting, I'd like to explore those options - Xubuntu looks interesting, so does Dynebolic and those mentioned above ... I will need something that works well out of the box. I will try and keep the Mac up and running during the hand-over, so, yes, I will have to buy new hardware - probably some kind of laptop.
Thanks for reading. If you think I should start a new thread, just let me know ....
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Tuesday 2nd July 2013 13:30 GMT piscator
Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform
Thanks for that, AC 15, but getting the download is the problem !
I don't just want to fix these problems - I really want to find a better platform ! This is not easy for me, Apple has been a significant part of my life <violins>, but, you know, "darling, it's time we both moved on ...", is all I have to say to Apple these days.
The questions is ... where to ... ?
(pre-script the Fanboi icon with an "ex-")
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Wednesday 3rd July 2013 02:06 GMT jake
Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform
Really, honestly, and no bullshit?
What applications do you feel are "must haves" (and are they, really? Or are they "wants" or "preferences"? And are their alternatives? Only you can answer those questions.).
Next, what OSs do they run on? Followed by: what hardware does the OS run on? Once you figure that out, the answer(s) should be simple.
The only other question is "are you interested in learning about the underpinnings of the OS, or do you just want to use it?" ...
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Friday 19th July 2013 11:57 GMT piscator
Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform
Well Jake, thanks for your thoughtful response. And, yes, 'really, honestly and no bullshit' ....
As for your follow-on questions, last first - it was when I was leaving a software career behind that I decided to go Apple, as their stuff had worked well in the office and was kinda neat, certainly compared to Windows at the same time (this was 1988, remember), and I just wanted something that would just work. That was Apple, back then. Oh, and the stuff lasted for years - I have an iBook G3 from 2004 which still runs, and even a G3 desktop from 1998 which will still, just about, start up.
But my iPod Classic - less than two years old, is about as much use as a paperweight already. Pity, as I was really enjoying it as a media centre. So, there's one platform I think I need a most urgent replacement for - as media-player (using a TV or, in time, projector). But something as portable as the iPod would also be great, (and if it was cheap-as-chips, so much the better - make a BitTorrenting leave-at-home media-centre *and* have tunes in my pocket....)
As for what applications - nothing freaky there, I'm afraid. Like most of us, I have a collection of personal documents to develop (OpenOffice is fine), JPEGs and MP3s and AVIs etc. to enjoy. And I want a bittorrent client, obviously. Actually, I'd like to leave all that at home, so it can run all day on a better internet connection than I have at work. And I'm pretty sure all these applications (I am a F/OSS lover) run on all / most platforms. So it's the platform that this question is still about, not the applications.
So, the question isn't really what do I do, or what do I need, since there's nothing special. The question is as I first framed it - which non-Apple, non-M$ system software is really working for most people out in the real world at the, I guess you could call it, 'prosumer' segment of the market place ? Preferably something I can usefully take to work with me.
It may be that I do the media-centre replacement first, migrate my data (see above), and then keep this hardware (2012 MacBook Pro) to run something else - but the question is still, what's best out there ? Is it Ubuntu - which one ? Is it Mint ? Is it FreeBSD ? Is it a GNU-variant ?
I don't mind if this posting / thread finds another home away from this general discussion.
Thanks for reading....
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Saturday 20th July 2013 04:39 GMT jake
Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform
There is no "best". "Works for me" is optimal, end of discussion.
I use Slackware on the desktops (does all you ask), and BSD on the servers & Internet-facing hardware (again, does all you ask ... and note that OSX is BSD based).
Any change of OS has a learning curve. You have many choices. Choose wisely ... but remember, there is a reason that some FOSS options have been around for over a couple of decades ...
You're in the correct thread, IMO ... have a homebrew? :-)
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Sunday 4th August 2013 10:44 GMT piscator
Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform
Thanks for that, Jake. I checked out Slackware and it does look interesting, however, from what I read there aren't a lot of options for avoiding the command line. As mentioned earlier, I don't mind doing things on the CLI, but I'd rather not do everything that way - I think I might be looking for something with a slightly more streamlined interface, as that was my initial motivation for choosing Macintosh all those years ago. But BSD does look like it might do the business, as another correspondent has suggested, so thanks for that idea too.
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Saturday 20th July 2013 19:08 GMT Eddy Ito
Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform
Quick question, given the Lion download is a problem, is it the Apple store, the size of the download, the dodgy connection or a combination that is the main headache? I'm just curious if you wanted to be able to buy discs for a few bucks or wanted a smaller download or something you could do in chunks as available.
As for the rest of the questions. Are you up for compiling? Are you interested in keeping the older hardware alive and up to date as well as the newer MacBook?
Going cross platform limits your options somewhat distribution wise but it allows you to get your feet wet on the iBook before fully committing your main hardware. If that's the case and you don't mind the occasional compile, although the porting systems make this fairly painless, then I'd say your best bets are Gentoo Linux or [Net, Open, Free]BSD. Some others around here may know of other Linux distributions that are x86 and PPC friendly but when I still had an iBook it seemed that they all dried up except for Gentoo and I stopped looking when the iBook died.
Now then, for your iPod, you can try amarok, atunes, rhythmbox, yamipod, or banshee to name a few and if you're really game I understand there is a version of rockbox under development for the iPod classic.
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Sunday 4th August 2013 13:03 GMT piscator
Re: Long time Apple user and previous Fanboi seeks new platform
Thanks Eddy, for your interesting comment. As far as the Lion download goes, I have to say you nailed it when you wondered if it's the combination of factors which make it problematic - the size & the dodgy connection particularly. I did manage, in the end, to get an AppleStore ID sorted out, but I wasn't blown over by the speed of my first download, and I don't think I'll be going there (AppleStore) much in the future, if I can help it.
As for the iBook, I was just mentioning it, but your suggestion that I use it to lead my migration is a very good one - it's just not actually in my hands just now as I lent it to a friend in a neighbouring country but if he hasn't lost it in his last house-move, there's a good chance that could be pressed into service as suggested, in about a month's time.
I checked out Gentoo and the various BSDs - they do look good: BSD seems to have quite a good reputation, and I like the option of using ZFS for the future. No, I'm not too scared by compilations if there's a better than evens chance that they'll go smoothly ;-)
As for the iPod, again, I like your suggestions but I may not be able to try them unless I decide to fix its hard disk as I found out recently that's where the problem lies.
So,for the future, I am looking to set up 3 new systems and it would be great if "one system could rule them all" so to speak. A laptop for work & play, a 'sit at home' server for BitTorrent and watching movies, and something portable for tunes. That last item may turn out to be a mobile phone, of course, and the only way to have "one system to rule them all" then, would be an Ubuntu flavour, rather going against all the excellent advice I have here .... Interesting choices I have, and grateful for the input !
As you can probably tell, I'm not in too much of a hurry, but I think it will be this year, not next ... I don't want to be caught out by a must-have OSX upgrade, (no, Snow Leopard doesn't seem to be 'must have'), which might require me to upgrade all the software I currently have.
Thanks again to Jake & Eddy for the input so far.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
