Posts by Stacy 421 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jun 2009
I'll go with the last window opened part - I do think that's quite cool.
I have to ask though - did you do A/B tests or put the machines next to each other? And were they are the same quality - or an el cheapo Windows machine (and I include expensive HP machines there too!) vs the Apple? These things make a difference.
Not that you would ever believe someone who says something bad about Apple / good about Windows...
But, it's a mid 2011 Sandy Bridge MacBook Pro 13" i5 - installed with Snow Leopard and with the free upgrade voucher for the Apple Store for Lion (about a week or two after Lion was released). It was expanded from 4GB to 8GB and had a faster, bigger HDD fitted when I assumed the performance was from the slow, small HDD Apple fitted as standard. With the upgrades it was much faster, but still not a patch on the Windows machines I have.
The screen, whilst a terrible resolution is at least better per colour reproduction than the 4 year old machine. But not as good as the Sony.
Oh, and by faster wakiing up from sleep I mean usable. The screen comes on much faster with the Mac. Within a second or so. But you can't enter your password for another 10 seconds or so. The Windows machine is ready to go when the screen turns on. After about 2 or 3 seconds.
Lion straight from the App store to installed. No messing, no nothing.
Windows straight from Sony / OEM Disc (depending on the machine), no messing, no nothing.
The MacBook Pro takes a little over a minute to boot. The Windows 7 machines take a little under a minute to having El Reg in the browser.
I wanted to like the Mac (You fdon't spend that kind of cash in the expectation that you are not going to like it now do you?), but after trying to like it for 9 months I've given up. It's a 1300 euro web browser (and even that isn't fun).
The POS HP I have to use in the office *is* slow as hell. But then that goes back to my point about comparing crap computers or decent ones.
Having not tried Linux I couldn't say...
Me and my other half prefer working on a 4 year old Core2 Duo (admitedly top of the line when it was brought) running windows 7 than our 8 month old MacBook Pro i5 Sandy Bridge with double the memory as well. Let alone the Sony i7 Sandy Bridge that we have as our DTR laptop. In fact it lies in the study unloved and unused most of the time.
People like Macs compared to the (cehap) tat you can easily buy from shops with Windows on it. Not for similar computers!
I thought I'd try it out when I needed a new machine last year. We won't be trying another. I hear similar stories from others who use good quality windows machines and then try Macs. Only cheap windows to Mac seems to return the 'Wow!' response.
Nah, after wanting to throw my MacBook Pro out of the window too many times in the last 7 months I've owned it I can't think of anything to like about it.
Slower to boot than windows, slower to wake from sleep than windows, more updates!!! (WTF - I was not expecting that!) and more system crashes.
Mac's are good because people who would not be prepared to pay 800 euro for a 17" windows laptop will pay 2500 euros for a 15" MacBook Pro. Because it's Apple. Then they act surprised that it's so much better than the awfulness they had before (which I advised against buying in the first place as I knew it was going to be awful and I was going to have to support it!)
I have a system that is aimed more at music than AV (centred around a Cyrus AV Master for DAC and Sound Processor functions, with several AMPS to drive the speakers). No HDMI, just 2 Optical, 2 COAX Digital and 2 analogue.
The music reproduction is amazing, but the lack of inputs is a pain in the neck!
I hadn't though of a splitter though (I was concentrating on Optical to COAX converters, expensive and difficult to find) - I'll have to search for one; thanks for the tip!
How can a player of this price not include a coax digital as well! (Nothing against optical digital, just that I have two inputs of each and it's nice on the expensive components to pick which to use, so that the cheaper ones can take the optical inputs where you don't get a choice!)
I think that 1080p is FullHD and 1080i is only HD ready. My first flat panel was labeled HD ready and could display 720p and 1080i, my current 1080 24p and is labeled FullHD.
For the active 3D you display a full picture for one eye, then display a full picture for the other. So you have the full 1920*1080 picture for both eyes. That's why the refresh rate is so high on those screens - it allows the picture to flick between the two fast enough so that you as a viewer don't notice (hahaha).
I think :)
a Hi-Fi for listening to classical music in all it's fidelity and are looking at these things?
For serious fidelity you need a serious system - something in the range of a Cyrus setup (small boxes the same as here, but infinitely better quality sound) linked up to, at minimum, something along the lines of a set of CM9's. Not something that you are going to find for even close to 1000 pounds. You'll get something good for that money I'm sure, but not amazing. It depends on what you want to spend, and what you can justify to yourself.
As another poster has said something along the line of Tocata and Fugue do have very deep bass, and you need an amplifier with the power, and speakers capable of translating that into sound to reproduce the feeling you get standing in front of cathedral organ playing the sound. Of course it is never going to match the real thing, but you can get quite close.
If you have your own file system you can get enough music streamers that will do that for you.
>If you don't lock your wheels, your ABS system does *nothing at all*. It doesn't make any difference whatsoever to an unlocked wheel. So your stopping distance, if you don't lock the wheels, is absolutely 100% identical.
>If, however, you *do* lock the wheels, then the ABS does something: it unlocks the wheel. This means that you can get some retardation from the wheel, rather than just sliding across the road. This *dramatically* shortens the stopping distance.
That's exactly what I was saying!!!!!! ABS releases the brakes to allow the wheels to rotate, this allows them to regain tracktion. Then the brakes are reapplied until they lock again. Repeat as required. The same as with manual cadence braking, just much, much faster than a human can achieve. Obviously skidding to a stop takes longer than using ABS, but then braking just short of the the point of where the ABS is needed will be better still as your brakes will never be released (at that point you are not slowing down as your brakes are not applied).
>Perhaps. But ABS isn't there for when you do everything completely right - it's there to pick up the pieces when you make a mistake. Have you ever made a mistake? I certainly have
I beleive that I said ABS had saved the front end on my car. I'm human (last time I chekced) so yes I make mistakes.
>Even imagining that ABS might generate grip that isn't there shows just how little you understand the technology.
Again, that is exactly what I was saying. When you try to stop on sheet ice the ABS works perfectly, but the the grip just an't there for it to be efective. And this can happen even at tiny speeds. I never said it would generate grip. In fact I said exactly the opposite.
What I said is that correct winter tyres help more in the winter than relying on ABS to stop you...
So yes, I do have an inderstanding of how it works, and I also know that if I ever use it (not often) then it means I have put myself into a stupid situation where I've had to jam the brakes on too hard.
I can't beleive that in this day and age there is still so much ignorance surrounding ABS...
It does not stop you faster in a straight line - in fact it increases the distance from stopping without locking the wheels in the first place. It works by releasing and reapplying the brakes when the wheels stop turning so that you still have control over your car to (as a couple of others have said) to steer around the obstacle rather than careening into the back of it.
Learning how your car reacts on different road surfaces and knowing how hard to hit the brakes in an emergency will improive your stopping distances.
And in my experience it fails on ice... It does 'work' but it doesn't slow you down as the grip just isn't there before you start. Using winter tyres (not an option in the UK due to the stupid insurance companies I know) has a much bigger impact on stopping distances in wintery conditions than the ABS.
And no I don't think I am Dancia Patrick, and yes I have had the front end of my car saved on one occasion by the ABS kicking in and allowing me to keep control. But it isn't something I try to rely on!
I think the saftey systems on modern cars are great (look at the falling death rates on the roads) but people do need to realise that it is not an excuse to drive 1m from the car in front...
I have been buying Asus for nearly a decade now and their kit is amazing!
In 2006 I brough one of their W2 models with a beautiful 17" screen that was pin sharp, had a great resolution and a sub-woofer that was powerful enough to make the laptop something that you could listen to music on and still enjoy it, a top end chip and plenty of RAM. And all housed in brushed alluminium case that looks better 5 years on than my MacBook Pro 13 looks after 5 months!
The problem is that they also produce 400GBP 17" laptops that are, well, terrible. (As most at that price are). Maybe they need to make a low end brand and keep Asus for the good kit?
It's not about getting rid of those jagged lines, it's about desk top real estate. I use 2 FullHD monitors in the office and that is still not enough. I wanted 2 of the 27" monitors, but our budget would not even get close.
As Terry Pratchett said when asked why he has 6 of the monsters on his desk when writing 'Because I could not fit 8 in the room'.
Having to settle for a pathetic 1280*800 on my MacBook Pro 13" was such a come down, but as I only use it when on the train I can live with it. Sure it looks nice enough for word processing, but I just can't see enough code on the screen when I want to try and work on code or database queries.
With the exception of the STM Scout Medium bag there isn't one there that doesn't scream nerd with a laptop! And even that is a close call thing.
If you want something a bit non laptop bag lookinig then something along the lines of the Kippling laptop range is about the best I have found. Doesn't look anything like a laptop bag, has a removable sleve for the laptop so it gets two layers of protection and is long lasting.
http://www.kipling.com/nl-nl/laptop-bags/all-laptop-bags/new-becky.html?show_img=K1275474000+999
You even get the little monkey :)
And I don't just mean resolution. But pixel density, and general screen quality. I love Asus kit, and in fact from 2000 to this year brought almost nothing but Asus.
However... I would never dream of buying a 500GBP machine as the quality is just terrible - screen and build quality. No matter the brand! My Asus machines make the Apple look cheap (actually I have the apple for working on the train as it gave me the best screen / optical drive combo for the money - there is a way to annoy the Apple fans I know; tell them you brought a MBP because it was the cheap option!) but they have lasted years and have pin sharp screens with lots of desktop real estate and are wonderful for editing photos.
My sister in laws cheapo laptop is awful though - you can never see the whole screen in good quality as the viewing angle is so poor that either the top or bottom is washed out and the pixel density and colour reproduction is just a joke.
So give me the option. Some people don't want sharp screens, others do. The screen on the 13" MBP isn't bad, but it's awful after using my 11" Vaio that had 1366*768 - if it wasn't for Sony removing the optical drives from their 11" Vaios my broken one (I dropped something on the screen - f**k) would have been replaced with another.
They have lots of official partner stores - complete with Genius bars etx, and are currently destroying momumental building in Amsterdam to have a full blown Apple store.
A hidden camera would be very useful...
http://www.apple.com/nl/buy/locator/map.html?tySearch=1&viaProduct=4&viaSpecial=-1&strCountry=NLD&lat=52.2336066&lng=5.1794274&gCountry=NL
Bloody hell! You work for Apple don't you?
For the amount of money an apple gadget costs I would expect it to last me a lot longer than the two years mandated by the Dutch goverment! I was quite happy when they brought that it, and remember Apple being on the consumer programs because of their attitude.
It's unreal that any private person would seriously say 'No, please, I want LESS warrenty and protection not MORE! Let me give my money to Apple releatedly - after all it's only fair!' Wow.
Reading riddiculous statements from Apple owners is really making me think that I made a mistake buying the MB Pro I got in the summer. The kit sucks (no more than windows kit of the same cost, but certainly no less) and I get lumbered in the same category as people like you!
You need to be able to show that you can write because I would like to be able to understand the CV’s that get forwarded to me and because in this day and age even techies have to communicate with 'the outside world'. In our department we have to talk to the business a lot of the time, if you can’t communicate then you shouldn’t be working here – no cave dwelling pizza eaters here.
Sure there are issues, and what is there is not going to replace my R6...
But as first steps it's pretty good I think. I'm a complete speed freak / petrol head, but with the right vehicle I could quite easily be convertd to a speed freak / leccy head! The power source shouldn't be the make or break - the drive / ride should! I just hope they get to a real world bike soon!
It does need some noise though - even the standard exhaust on the R6 works better than the horn...
Not in my experience...
Yes Apple provide hotfixes like everyone else.
But I've yet to see a friendly forum. When searching for answers from previously asked questions I've been put off from answring by the vindictiveness of posters towards anyone who suggests that there may be a problem. When I requested help from an Apple user I know for a MacBook Pro not talking to a router (that I had attached lots of other kit to without a problem) I was simply told - Macs just work, your router must be broken.
When looking to find out why the print quality options were not turned on on my own MacBook Pro when using my printer from the built in driver (something that I was told is an advantage of Macs - all of the drivers are built in and you never need to install anything - yeah, right...) I found a forum with the same question and the user was told to go learn how to use a computer before coming and asking stupid questions. Not one single person had an answer for the poor soul that asked the question and I now print exclusiuvely from my Windows machine as they Mac still refuses to print anything except draft.
Very helpful friendly people...
How about because all of the Apple faithful like to carp on about how fantastic Apples are, how they never break, just work and have no bugs?
I use Apple machines and Windows (and iPhones and Android ones). They are all the same - full of bugs and annoying as hell. The difference is that when you have a problem in Windows and Android you can generally find help, when something breaks in an Apple you can generally find lots of people telling you that Apples never break and it must be some external problem.
I have a desire, and i love it. It's got a great screen, is quite quick and does the job I want very well.
That aside If you install more than a couple of apps you suddenly start getting the 'Phone memory low' messages and have to start moving apps to the storage card, or uninstalling apps all together.
The lack of memory is my biggest gripe against the thing. And it cost me a lot more than that Sony costs...
That said... It is a beautiful looking phone and I would gladly swap my Desire for it if I was looking for a new phone!
I had an MR2 which anyone who was not into cars initially mistook for a Ferrari (as I am sure was Toyota's idea when they designed it!)
There are also companies producing 'Kit' cars that do exactly what you say here. You buy a skeleton car and fit your own seats, engine gearbox (steering, suspension et al) and you have a Countach, AC Cobra, Lotus 7, 355GTS etc etc etc. (Well look alike anyway!) There is a whole industry surrounding this!
I updated my father in laws MacBook Pro, and my own MacBook Pro recently and it took an age and multiple reboots before it said my software was up to date.
Neither was an OS update (in fact the 1.xGB of mine was immediately after updating the factory Snow Leapard to Lion!)
A very windows experience! Especially the way the time remaining seems to fluctuate (no one told me before I fot the machine that Macs are worse than Windows in time estimation!)
You managed to crap all over your own point there!
Yes people do buy BMW's for a reason. And I imagine it's the same reason people buy iPhones. Badges carry a lot of clout these days :)
The 3G was a great phone compared to the rest of the market - it's just a shame the market moved and the iPhone didn't - which is why I now have a HTC Desire (that 'just works' with much less hassle than the 3G ever did) and the iPhone is a music player plugged into my stereo.
The ribbon is +/- three rows of tool bars (which most people I know have on their screen). So it takes up no more space. If you hide the toolbar you actually have more space than with the toolbars.
But then people just love to hate MS. If they don't change they are dinosaurs, and if they do then they get slated because people have to learn something new.
It took me a while to get used to them, but I love the ribbons. If you really want your tool bars then get office on a Mac - then you get both :)
I hate almost everything about Apple - from the way it does business to the way that they treat their company as a religion or cult (and the fact that almost everyone I know who has an Apple is a stupendiously annoying fanboi that just repeats the Apple mantra of "must be the other things fault, Apples work out of the box, they never break, they are perfect" anytime they or someone else have problems) - but I'm amazed to find anybody who says they can't do marketing.
Surely the *only* thing they can do is marketing!
Before apple made the iPad Windows tablets were... Lets see now... From the view they have used in their pictures...
4:3 ratio rectangles with rounded corners and (as Windows has done since Windows 95) displayed a grid of icons on the desktop (or as Apple like to call it the home screen).
Yup - revolutionary!
I'll give you the glossy screen that reflects all the light sources! I didn't see those on the earlier tablets.
I went from XP to Vista to Windows 7 with a lot of development tools and obscure hardware support applications installed.
The upgrade advisor said what would work, what wouldn't work and what they couldn't be sure off.
It even does the same when you install software on it if there are known compatibility issues (and what the solutions are to the problem - if known of course).
And so far it has got everything right... And the Windows Ecosystem is way larger than the Mac ecosystem...
But then I forgot MS sucks, and when they break compatibility it is a crime against the world, and telling people what apps are broken before you start is a terrible idea; when Apple does it people should just accept that installing a new OS may break stuff with no warnings given...
But surely it should be compared with the same computers in all tests - not pick computers at random so you can't see which the overall better performer is?
Is it being compared to 1800 machines (the 15" Apple and the Sony F21), or the cheaper 13" inch Apple and Sony C?
And for the battery which Sony Viao F are we talking about? The 3d monster F21, or the more sedate F13s?
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