Who won the PC wars?

Who, indeed?

Apple myths

The Mac Observer forums has a topic on "Stupid Apple Urban Legends" which enumerates a few of the popular myths and misconceptions bawled out by people using the other operating systems. These include:

• Microsoft bailed Apple out of bankruptcy in 1997.
• The iPod was designed and patents owned by HP.
• There are no softwares for the Mac.
• Apple computers cannot connect to other OS's network.
• Macs are much more expensive.

A short list. I'll find more later.

Reasons why you should dump Windows and switch to Mac OS X.

&tScot Finnie did a price comparison of the Mac vs the PC based on hardware and the result: Macs are a better value.

He followed the Mac vs PC cost analysis by comparing the value of the software. In the article, he doesn't do a head-to-head comparison of Mac software against PC software. Rather, he lists a couple of points that the reader should consider when thinking about the cost of software on a Mac:

• Don't buy the myth that there are no software for the Mac. Mac software are a plenty.


• You can run Windows (and Linux) on a Mac by using Parallels Desktop for Mac. If there is an application that you can't find a good alternative in the Mac, install Parallels Desktop, install Windows into it and run your favorite Windows app from there. Walt Mossberg even said that the new iMacs can become "blazing fast Vista computer."


• Forget all those application that starts with "Anti-". You don't need those. You don't need anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware, etc. that potentially will bog your system down and clean out your wallet.


• Suffering is not good. You don't have to wrestle with the operating system to feel that you are being productive. You're just being a masochist. Better reserve the leathers and handcuffs for the bedroom. There shouldn't be any room for pain when you're in front of your computer.

The final and most important thing about the Mac is the experience: Finnie sums it up:

The unexpected advantage I gained is that using my computer is more enjoyable. My concentration isn't broken periodically by problems, updates, security pop-ups and the like. I'm not thinking that I'm using a Mac. I'm thinking about what I'm using the computer to do -- what I'm reading, writing, figuring, buying, watching and so on. The Mac becomes just so much chrome wrapping the data I'm interacting with.

Zen of Mac and Linux users annoy sometimes.

According to Noah Gift the Zen of Mac goes:

Don't think. It just works... You are more productive on solving your other problems when you don’t think about your computer, it just works.

Some Linux users are too anal. They want to be able to tinker right down to the core of the operating system. They criticize that the Mac OS is locked down, it's too slow, and they can't get "too technical" with it. Most Linux users is they want all to be mechanics. They have forgotten how it is how to get behind the wheel. Most people in the planet do not know what's making their car run. They don't care as long as it takes them to where they are going. On the same vein, a computer should be like that. You're not supposed to worry what's making the Mac OS run, it just works. This idea is exemplified by Gift's story while he was a sys admin at Caltech.

Back in 2002, I was a systems administrator for the administration building at a Caltech, and I was solely responsible for providing support for Dr. Baltimore. Dr. Baltimore is smart. He received a Nobel Prize in his 30’s, he went to MIT, and he was the President of Caltech at the time. He is a mac guy, and that is partially why I was hired to do that job, as I have been into Mac computers for quite some time.

It was my responsibility to design and build his OS X laptop and make sure that it was an easy transition. When the time came for me to actually deliver the laptop... I finally decided to show Dr. Baltimore the terminal. I think I mentioned something like, “One of the nice things about OS X is that it has a terminal and you can do nice things like……”.

The look on his face was priceless. I don’t remember the exact specifics of the conversation, but it was roughly, “Why would I use a terminal, it is a mac, that is the whole point!”. That taught me quite a bit, as here was one of the most successful and intelligent people on planet earth and he “got” Mac. He didn’t want to think about his computer as his thinking time was spent in other areas like making sure Caltech continued to be one of the top Science Universities and doing research on curing AIDS.

What's more interesting other than the article are the comments Gift received from Linux users. Just read the comments and you will get an idea what a typical Linux user is.

One Linux user told me that us Mac users are smug. Well Linux users are snobs and clueless for most part. They have become to enamored with the machine they have forgotten what a pleasure it is to drive.

Open source and freeware softwares for the Mac.

The Mac platform have a plethora of quality, useful software that are either freeware or shareware. For those who are interested in open source, the Mac also has its share of those. Macforge is a source to find open source projects that work or are likely to work with the Mac. Categories include applications for chatting, email, file sharing, games, graphics, video, and a whole lot more.

Speaking of freeware, Macworld has an article to briefly talks about the applications from app4Mac. These include an application launcher called RapidoStart, the autocorrection app, RapidoWrite, and a database software, RapidoSerial. You can also try out their the beta of their geotagging software, RapidoMap. All of these quality applications are for free. Give them a try. You don't lose anything.

10 Reasons Why You Should Buy an iPhone

Apple's iPhone got media mileage months before its release and less than two months later, the iPhone is still going strong. Even before being released the to public, Apple-bashers decided that the iPhone was a crap product and was sure to fail. But about two months after its release, the iPhone is still going strong. The iPhone mania has reached overseas to Europe and Asia, and from a recent poll, Europeans are eagerly anticipating the arrival of the phone that might change the industry.

Here at Asia, we have to wait until 2008 to get our hands on the iPhone. Waiting is not one of my strong suits. I get crabby and irritable when I'm asked to wait for something. But I'm also an optimist. Sometimes. I'm looking as this delay as a half-glass-full kind of thing. The 2008 Asia release actually means that folks from the US of A are doing us a great favor by beta testing the iPhone. There is also a chance that once it gets here it will be version 2. Sweet.

If you don't know what the iPhone is and you are a regular web user, you must have been accessing the Internet under a rock. Just google iPhone and you can get a lot of hits. You can also go to Mahalo to get better, friendlier search results.

For those who are itching to get an iPhone, why don't we fuel your fire even more.

A day before the iPhone was to be launched, Jim Lynch of Extereme Tech wrote Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn't Buy an iPhone. This piece bashes the iPhone as being too expensive and locked down. He calls Safari as crap. He bashes EDGE. Lynch was discouraging his readers from getting an iPhone. Why? because he wants to make sure that he's first in line at the Apple Store. It was a ruse. He wanted the iPhone and he wanted it bad.

About six weeks later, Lynch writes Ten Reasons Why You Should Buy an iPhone, but before he gets to the list he first tells a rather amusing account on how he managed to get hold on an iPhone. I'm listing the bottom five of the list here. For the rest, I suggest that you head on to Ten Reasons Why You Should Buy an iPhone. The bottom five of the list is:

10. Navigation
9. Picture and iPhoto
8. Safari
7. Multi-Touch
6. Power

As for me, am I going to get an iPhone? Not really sure. It's a neat product and all but it does cost $599 (around 35,000 pesos) for the 8GB model. That's a lot of moolah. But if version 2 comes out with a 16GB at that price point, I might just decide to sell one of my kidneys. If I do just that, I might just have enough to buy a Macbook Pro or a Macbook and a 24-inch iMac.

Hacked: iPhone.

Just less than 8 weeks after it was introduced, hackers have now managed to do a software unlock of the iPhone. (As much as I don't want to put a link to Engadget, they seem to have the exclusive on this one.) A few days before this came out, a hardware unlock was already available. However, this method requires soldering and such. Pretty scary. The software hack therefore is a better alternative for those who considers putting a soldering gun near their iPhone unthinkable. You can have your iPhone unlocked by iPhoneSimFree.com, for a fee, of course.

iMovie 08: hate it or love it.

Last week in a media event, Apple released the new aluminum iMacs, iWork 08 and iLife 08. Apple fans have been waiting for the new iteration of the productivity and multimedia suite from Apple. The latest version of iWork 08 has Pages sporting a word processor and a page layout feature and Keynote with new transitions, themes, and animations as well Actions. Actions has the Move feature, which allows users to animate an object from point A to point B. This new version of iWork also completes the productivity suite with its own spreadsheet application called Numbers.

In the iLife suite, the photo management software iPhoto saw a big revamp, iDVD saw new themes and Garageband has the new Magic Garageband. What sent the Apple fandom abuzz though, was the new version of iMovie. Steve Jobs said that the software was made by an Apple engineer who wanted a quick way of making a movie. The old iMovie and Final Cut were too complex and took quite awhile to churn out a 5 minute clip. So the engineer decided to make his own movie editing software and Apple executives were so impressed by it that they decided to make it into iMovie 08. The new iMovie is an entirely new app and the iMovie 06 users didn't like it.

Users of iMovie 06 felt 'betrayed' and they wanted blood. The most prominent of these dissatisfied iMovie customers is David Pogue. In his blog entitled "Apple Takes A Step Back With iMovie 08" Pogue uses words like "utter bafflement", "incapable", "gets a D" and, "embarrassing" to describe his displeasure.

I can’t remember any software company pulling a stunt like this before: throwing away a fully developed, mature, popular program and substituting a bare-bones, differently focused program under the same name.

It’s unusable, in fact, for anyone doing professional work that requires any degree of precision.

I can’t help thinking that Apple would have done better to call a spade a spade, and give the new program a different name. Call it FlyMovie, or ByeMovie, or WhyMovie.

This is coming from the guy who made a music video professing his love for the iPhone.

For a few days, the web echoed the chagrin of the iMovie 06 faithfuls. They derided Apple's offering of free iMovie 06 to iLife 08 customers and saw this as an admission of guilt. (Though I think Apple already knew ahead of time that some of the users might want more control in editing their movies hence the iMovie 06 free download.)

I think that the noise generated is more likely a few shouting at the top of their lungs rather than a cacophony of a number of voices. One podcaster I regularly listen to made the observation that perhaps what the web is hearing is but the few vocal majority (made louder by David Pogue).

Through the din, Phil Shapiro of PC World said that not everyone thinks the new iMovie sucked. Shapiro noted that the co-founder of the iMovie Special Interest Group of Washington Apple Pi, Hal Cauthen, had a different opinion. Cauthen sums up his experience with iMovie 08 in his last blog posting about the app:

Overall, I’ve gone from surprised, I guess, to fascinated, and more than a little impressed. Apple again has come up with something completely original, very simple to use, stunning to look at — well this does assume you shot decent video:-) — and elegant in its execution.

Old iMovie 06 users felt betrayed, stabbed in the back. But Phil Shapiro advises reason:

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Yes. It's important to reserve judgment and not be too quick out of the gate with your reactions. Apple sometimes makes big mistakes, but they seldom make colossal mistakes.

As software users, it's our duty to look for the intentions of the software designer.

I look at the furor over the iMovie application with interest. I don't belong to anyone camp but if the iMovie 08 is designed to make a quick movie without having to trouble yourself complicated elements, then I'm all for it. The iLife suite, aside from design aesthetics and ease of use, is a way for Apple to entice people to try out their products.

Of the four apps in iLife, the only one a regularly use is iPhoto and even though I really want to use iPhoto 08, I am not about to spend $79 to pay for four apps and end up using just one. On the other hand, the new iWork is very nice to use and maybe after the 30-day trial period is over I might just grab a copy.

What is means to use a Mac.

...The unexpected advantage I gained is that using my computer is more enjoyable. My concentration isn’t broken periodically by problems, updates, security pop-ups and the like. I’m not thinking that I’m using a Mac. I’m thinking about what I’m using the computer to do — what I’m reading, writing, figuring, buying, watching and so on. The Mac becomes just so much chrome wrapping the data I’m interacting with.

From Scot Finnie of Computerworld in a repost in Macworld of his article "Mac vs. PC cost analysis revisited."

Nokia recalls 46 million phone batteries.

Are you a Nokia mobile phone user? Better go check and see if your battery's one of those being recalled because of the danger of overheating.

The list of models that might be affected:

Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60

Go to http://www.nokia.com/batteryreplacement/ to see if you are included in the battery recall program.

Ninjawords: do it quick, do it fast. The zippy online dictionary.

Ninjawords's tagline is "A really fast dictionary... fast like a ninja." Unlike other online dictionaries where you have to wait for all the various elements to load (hey, I'm living where affordable DSL has speeds up to 512 kbps only) Ninjawords loads really fast. That's because Ninjawords doesn't have the extra baggage, extra text, and extra graphics that most of these online dictionaries have. It also searches terms pretty quickly. Again, it doesn't have the bells and whistles like most but it does the job. I'm bookmarking this website for fast and easy reference.

The one word.

Christian Te from The Tianx Project frequently do IM and our conversations range from the mundane to the eccentric. But eccentric is the norm. (Hey, according to Facebook's Likeness application "Great minds think alike.") We share links to site or pictures that is sure to draw a laugh, a guffaw, or a "Hmm..."

One image that he sent me a link is this. I urge you to to look at it before you continue.

Ok? Seen it yet?

It certainly drew a laugh from me but it also managed to tickle my ink soaked brain. I suddenly wanted to capture the scene with one word. One word.

"Ironic."

"Karma."

"..."

I was at a loss. Christian also wasn't able to give me that one word.

"Bitchslapped by life."

Too long.

"Schadenfreude."

Nope.

I asked helped from the bloggers around me. They were here to help celebrate Dom Cimafranca for his 1000th blog post. Nada.

Then my brother looked over my shoulder and then he said the one word:

"Goner."

Eureka!

The Internet is Destroying Music - Elton John

I got this off Macworld UK:

As reported in the The Sun newspaper, Sir Elton suggests that the internet is destroying music. "The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff," wrote Elton in a bylined story in The Sun.

"We're talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music, and that's not going to happen with people blogging on the internet."

Read more at Macworld UK.

A lot of things ran through my mind after I read this. I searched for something that would sum the story up. I have a limited set of vocabulary but I was hoping that by some flash of inspiration the right word would come. Though not so poignant I sum this all up in one word:

Stupid.

Maybe "idiotic" is better. I don't know. "Moronic" also comes to mind. But before this becomes a cuss-fest let me try to explain.

Elton John has reportedly said:

The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff.

.

I'm sorry this is just wrong. Sir Elton John has not yet spent enough time using the World Wide Web. His statement betrays the fact that he simply does not understand the Web at all. It has become a venue for collaboration. Through social networking, individuals are able to talk, plan and coordinate with their peers on projects, eliminating boundaries and borders. One no longer needs to go out and be with another individual to share ideas and create "stuff". He seems to be insinuating that the Internet have robbed civilization of its creativity. I'm sorry, Sir John but you are wrong. One only needs to listen or watch podcasts to be able to appreciate to multitude of talent and creativity that the Web have unleashed. You can also go to YouTube to see some creative minds at work.

"We're talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music, and that's not going to happen with people blogging on the internet."

Here Sir John seems to be hinting that bloggers have done nothing. Nothing at all. I beg to differ. Bloggers, in their many shapes and form, have made subtle and not-so subtle changes on how we perceive the world. Sir John must have missed the train on this one: things have already changed and people have already changed the way they listen to music. You have the iPod, streaming radio and the raise of indie bands and labels.

All in all, Sir Elton John would like to shut down the internet for five years to " to see how the production of music is affected during that span".

Bullshit.

Who else do you think wants to shut down the internet? Three guesses.

Sir John sounds very much like the big music labels. Then again, why not, he is part of this old, clunky, rusted, greedy machinery. He is saying that the shutting down of the internet might spur creativity. What Sir John and the big music labels are actually saying is that they are not getting enough money and it's the Internet's fault. Don't mind the fact that there are more creative individuals being discover in the past year than in the last ten or twenty years. Don't mind the fact that there are singers and bands out there that are as good or are better than the established acts and performers.

Have they never stopped to think that rather than trying to shut down the internet, they, Sir John and the music labels, ought to concentrate in giving us better music?

I find Sir John's statements as greedy and self-serving. He is not concerned with creativity or the apparent declined thereof. All he cares about is his pockets. Besides he wouldn't know creativity even if it barreled down the road at 150 KPH and hit him straight on.

Sir Elton John should stop going the way of Senator Ted Stevens and just like Senator Stevens, he must face the fact the he's old and antiquated. It's time for a change of guards, individuals who has the talent and creativity that suits well with the current generation.