A Six-Step Plan for Apple 773
An anonymous reader writes "Open letter from Alex Salkever to Jobs. One thing in particular strikes me: 'The latest round of attacks on Microsoft software is terrifying. If using a Mac means servers in Russia are less likely to harvest my passwords and offer my identity to the highest bidder, I think that's an offer I'd like to hear more about.' I think he's got something there."
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
This is consistent with how SUID is designed to work.
-Rusty
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:4, Informative)
John Gruber effectively demolished that claim in this post [daringfireball.net].
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm speaking from a linux point of view; I would guess the Mac is similar.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
Umm... If you use Win2K+, it DOES have this safeguard. Unless you are already logged in as administrator, running a setup program brings up a prompt for the admin password.
I'll be shopping at an Apple Store Tonight (Score:5, Informative)
Surprisingly a lower price than other light weight notebook competitors. With her student discount she will get a 1ghz G4 ibook with 12" screen, 512 megs of ram, 60 gig drive, combo DVD-ROM/cd burner, 802.11g, firewire, usb, etc. for just over $1200. It's unfortunate that Apple doesn't have competitive pricing for desktop models and other notebooks like they do for the 12" iBook. It's really the best bang for the buck in the light weight market now.
Less aggravation and thus lower TCO- On her current aging PC I had to clean viruses and spyware off at least a half dozen times. She just can't get it on the iBook(at least not yet at any rate). My experience with modern macs has been that once they're configured they work and stay that way. Her sister's iBook from three years ago is heavily used but still works just as good as it did on day 1.
Awesome MS Office ImplementationThe latest Office edition rocks and it's cheap for students too ($149). Completely compatible, and a lot more slick too.
It runs Unix :)
Apple would be best advised to begin touting the fact that these machines are really immune to the tons of crap that are being heaped on Windows units. If they can get their prices in line with the market, they'd have a slam dunk on their hands.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, it is not just security througth obscurity. Try portscanning a Windows box and a Mac with a default install.
Re:Oh nice! I was getting worried! (Score:1, Informative)
Well, since Apple is number 301 on the list [usatoday.com], I'm guessing numbers 1-300 would not be so fond of trading spots. But, yeah, numbers 302-500 are probably a little envious.
That concludes my obvious, snide geek comeback.
Re:What's wrong with Apple (Score:3, Informative)
1. Microsoft ships there entire Office suite for MacOS X (this includes Outlook, although it has been changed slightly in a few ways... 1. it works a lot better 2. it's called entourage)
2. Mac's still ship with IE- I suggest using that to connect to your Outlook Web Access
3. If you still feel the need to manage your money with a program like quicken find a more open alternative- GNUCash works really well for most simple operations.
4. The next time a large worm or virus decides to rock the corprate (read: windows) world sit back and laugh as your colleagues scamper about.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:5, Informative)
"Admin" users on OS X are like regular users in the wheel group, while Admin users on Windows are like root.
I like Apple the way they are. (Score:2, Informative)
My point? My Mac opens up all sorts of interesting social scenarios, because they're rare enough that you instantly have something in common with someone else who's using one, and it's easy to tell when someone's using one. I wouldn't walk up to someone in a cafe with an Inspiron or Thinkpad or some crap and comment on its "design" or how 'awesome' it might be.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:2, Informative)
You should add them to the "Power Users" group for backwards compatibility. The PU group was created just for this reason. While it has quite a bit of access it doesn't have access to everything. For example the PU group has access to the %system% directory just like the Administrator. However it does not have access to write to the HKLM\...\run key which many viruses/worms/trojans/spyware adds an entry to to restart themselves when the computer boots.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm wondering where they got these statistics. I couldn't find any discussion of this on the site. They don't seem to jive with the Google Zeitgeist. In the Google Zeitgeist, all Mozilla variants seem to fall into the "other" category. At the May 2004 point, the other category seems to have a lower percentage than both IE 5 and IE 5.5 on Google. In contrast, the w3schools statistics say that Mozilla by itself is higher than all IE 5 browsers combined. Is this really only visitors to the w3schools site?
Also, looking at the second hit returned from a "browser statistics" query on Google highlights the uncertainty around this. They list 5 different sources of browser statistics that vary wildly. Here's [upsdell.com] the link.
With all the hubub over IE, it seems like there would be more discussion over this. Is the only way these statistics are being collected is from the useragent string? Are there any statistics on how often this string is being spoofed?
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
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Before you buy (Score:5, Informative)
She was initially opposed to the mac until she looked at the following benefits
Before you buy, consider this. My girlfriend recently switched from PC to Mac, too. She had about $1300 and got an old-model refurbished (they call them "refreshed" at the Apple Stores) 12" Powerbook. Faster bus, better screen, and same 60G/512MB as the iBook your girlfriend is contemplating.
When you get to the store, make sure to ask about the refreshed units in stock. They, too, qualify for the educational discount and have the same standard 1-year warranty. With the money she saves, she can get 2 years of AppleCare if she's nervous, or a copy of Office or something.
As a side note, one of my friends got a 15" PowerBook from the same Apple Store. It was the model before the 1.5 GHz speed bump, so it was like $200 less. The Apple Store also knocked an additional $100 off because, get this, the packaging was damaged.
Re:I'll be shopping at an Apple Store Tonight (Score:2, Informative)
On the contrary.
Apple isn't competative in the low end, low margin market, but they don't try to be. Try comparing a
Dell Dimension XPS 3.4GHz P4, Windows XP Professional, 512MB RAM, 60 GB ATA disk 128MB ATI Radeon Video, DVD+RW drive with a
Powermac dual 1.8 GHz G5, Panther, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB SATA disk, 128MB ATI Radeon Video, DVD-R/CD-RW.
They are within about $20 of each other.
And it's the PowerMac that's cheaper.
And substantially faster.
When Apple moves the G5 down to the iMac line, I expect them be competative at the midrange desktop market as well. I doubt they will even try for the low end, since they would have to start sacrificing features that they and developers can currently count on.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:1, Informative)
Yes, I did. You might want to double-check that your account does not have admin privileges. Mine doesn't, and installing an app globally does require me to enter a password.
Re:Perpetual Marketshare? (Score:2, Informative)
If I remember correctly, market share is calculated from the total number of computers sold. This is fine with PC's that have to be replaced every 1.5 years or so. However, Macs they tend to be used much longer than that.
One of Apple's biggest markets is 'artistic' or 'creative' users. Once those people spend the time and energy to learn a computer, they stay with it. It still does the job they paid for it to do, why replace it just because there is something newer and faster?
The Macs in our house are 3.5 and 8 years old and both are still used every day!
Market share does not reflect this longer life span of Apple computers. To accurately show the ratio of Macs vs PCs being used, some measure of useful life time must be included in the calculation, not just number of units sold. I would expect the acutal 'usage share' of Macs to be between 10% and 20%, just because the Macs have a much longer useful life.
Maybe the cost comparisons between Macs and PCs should also be adjusted to reflect this difference. Would you rather pay $1000 for a PC that needs to be replaced no later than 2006 ($500 per year) or $1500 for a Mac that can still be doing the job you bought it for in 2010 ($250 per year)?
Naive (Score:3, Informative)
Apple play to the high end of the market. They don't make their profit by selling lots of machines, they make it by selling few machines at a higher margin. Selling to the lower end would kill Apple for sure. They're smarter than that!!
Re:Great security but no choices (Score:1, Informative)
<sarcasm>Yeah, I really hate that menacing guy that came with my Mac, who flicks my earlobe really hard when I try to use other music playing and movie editing software.</sarcasm>
What the fuck are you talking about, you idiot? Apple doesn't force you to do shit. You don't like an app the Mac comes with, drag it to the Trash and it's gone, and you're free to download and use something else.
Let's see you do that with, say, IE or Outlook Express on Windows, to name two. You may choose to not use them, but good luck uninstalling them.
Re:He's just another sheep (Score:5, Informative)
First--you're making the far-too-common mistake of equating "market share" with "installed base". They're not the same. Market share means what percent of computers being sold are Macs. Installed base means what percent of computers being used are Macs. The latter number is much higher than the former. This is largely because Macs last longer than PCs.
Second, perhaps you should think about just what "sheep" means. It means following the majority opinion without thinking for yourself. Your answer sounds very much like the majority opinion--speaking of a 1% marketshare, when most unbiased estimates put it at at least 3 to 4 times that, saying that raising marketshare is the only way to "save" Apple--and most importantly, thinking that a low marketshare means that Apple needs to be saved.
Here's a hint: it doesn't.
Apple's doing just fine.
Dan Aris
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
In WinXP, no one writes software to be run in limited user mode. Many programs take extensive setup, after-the-fact registry hacking, and all kinds of permissions twiddling just to make them WORK when you're not an administrator. And even then, they're not always multi-user safe. Why should I have to install additional software to let users burn CD's, Nero? Why are even power users and administrators allowed to randomly drag stuff in and out of %systemroot%\system32? In reality, I have no problem with dragging and dropping, but Javascript programs and IE have no business making
If you install an app, it should be accessible in your userspace, no hassle. If you want something entered that affects all users, you should be prompted, password or not. Granted, most people would still click "OK", but I'm tired of having exploits pop malicious
When diligence and a top-notch working knowledge of the system are no longer enough to protect you, something's obviously broken. We're no longer looking at simple "Click me and win!" viruses -- newer viruses hop around the network at will. Simply plugging a box without the latest Windows Updates into the network, you'll catch a virus.
I'm typing this from a WinXP box, but each week that goes by, I put more money into my Mac savings jar than the last.
--Jasin Natael
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:3, Informative)
Take note people. All too much advocacy is done in a foaming mouth-zealot kind of way instead of calm, explaining and moreover when appropriate.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:1, Informative)
"how about the original?" [mit.edu]
Yeah, except that no. (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing magic about this, just good old unix permissions. The closest thing to magic is that if I attempt to drag something in there as a non-admin user, the Finder won't just fail with an error; it will pause, ask me for an admin user's auth, and proceed if I can supply it. Which of course is not technically groundbreaking, just good design.
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:2, Informative)
Simple: OS X does not allow you to set up a root account.
You can do it, but you have to go to Netinfo manager and set one up, and have to be a nerd to know how to log in to it (tell it to have you type username and password instead of click on it, and type root, otherwise it doesn't show up). The average user isn't confronted with the choice to be root user, and almost no Mac users run as root. Most Mac experts recommend never running as root- on the Macworld forums I once suggested someone fix a problem with an undeletable file by deleting it as root, and other people recommended not to do so because root is dangerous for a non-geek user (can delete system folder, for example).
A normal user has no clue there even exists the CHOICE of running as root- a nerd can figure out how to do it easily. The DEFAULT account in OS X is not root. On the other hand, the default account in Windows is an admin.
Re:Step Seven (Score:3, Informative)
I just installed SideTrack [ragingmenace.com]
Now the right edge of my pad is a vertical scroll section.
The top left corner activates expose's show all windows (F9)
The bottom left corner is a right click