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Apple Businesses

EvangeList closes down 119

Posted by Hemos from the sound-the-horns dept.
Otter writes " The EvangeList mailing list, the rallying point of the MacOS community during Apple's darkest years, has come to an end. Guy Kawasaki writes, "In the past two years Apple has experienced a stunning turnaround. This is due to many things including the steadfast loyalty of Apple's customers--and EvangeListas are the most steadfast of the steadfast. The original purpose of EvangeList was to counteract the negative news about Apple and Macintosh, and I believe that EvangeList has served its purpose--fantastically, as a matter of fact. So after discussing what we should do with EvangeList with the folks at Apple, we've decided to retire the list." As Apple has come off the critical list, EvangeList has pretty much petered out. Looks like Team Slashdot will be moving up in the distributed.net rankings. " Man, what's a guy to do? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
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EvangeList closes down

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  • Pardon my cynicism (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So after discussing what we should do with EvangeList with the folks at Apple, we've decided to retire the list.

    Conjecture: Could it be that Apple, on the virge of something that could finally be considered success, didn't want a listful of raving lunatic advocates scaring everyone away?

    Fairness: Guy K. is actually a hell of a guy, and he's done a lot of positive stuff with the 'List. It's all the other ranting maniacs that made it such a queasy pit.

    Muttering: I'm actually glad to see it go. It was fairly easy to filter out when it was organized: much of the 'List consisted of the choir being preached at. Now it'll be that much harder to contain.

  • Vog ergog, na ethschmer fimts (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    resident Mac-uber-alles evangelist on alt.destroy.microsoft.

    Mbo hvotgra! Nu, bevakasha de broodjes vong khoglolydet dnefriu ob -- juy ne qt'milu verklemt. Da, da. :)


    this type of arboreal troll will become saracen.

    Vem, vim, vem. Oohlapyu plach'ngurd vnivrers flughafen, bahnhof, gare.


    Zlibdy-nibdy! ;-)

  • Look at the numbers. Slashdot's already surpassing the EvangaListas in RC5. Last I checked the stats (a couple days ago), Slashdot's keyrate was half again EvangaListas', with 2/3 the number of members...

    At current rates, it'll be a year or so before Slashdot actually passes the EvangaListas in the overall standings, because the EvangaListas built up such an overwhelming lead before Slashdot became a power to be reckoned with. It'll happen, though, assuming no one finds the key before then. The rates'll change, too... and the relative delta lately has been very much in Slashdot's favor...

    And, for the record, my CPU power isn't going to either Slashdot or the EvangaListas... my 1.5Mk/s goes to trying to keep the Vermont Technical College Computer Club in at least the top 200... (We were as high as 20, once, in the days immediately after RC5-56... Then the big boys got their CPU power switched over...)
  • A few years ago, I'd have agreed with "it's not the hardware, but the software, that's lacking". With no SMP support in G3, though, the hardware appears to be lacking, at least in some respects, at the moment, too. On the other hand, Apple's finally borrowed^Owritten a real OS, so the software's catching up to the rest of the world.

    Those of you who've read Neal Stephenson's essay (Those of you who haven't, go read it now. I mean it. It may be the best piece of writing that's _ever_ been linked from Slashdot.): What does this mean for Apple's future? Are they going to continue to be a hardware-oriented company? (If so, expect no MacOS X for x86, ever.) Are they going to try to get into the OS sales business? (If so, expect a good x86 port in the immediate future.) Are they going to try to do both? (If so, expect a really crappy x86 port. Solaris x86, anyone?)

    And I won't mention Photoshop/GIMP, because that issue's been done to death more than once. Everyone knows what the relative strengths and weaknesses are. GIMP kicks ass, and it's free (and Free), but it's missing a couple of vital features that professionals really need. (CYMK. I don't know what it is, but I know that they need it.)

    The games situation appears to be fast on its way to rectifying itself. I've always said, give me Civ for Linux, and I can die happy. Well, it's on its way.

    And I've been seriously considering putting together a Linux box for my (_completely_ computer-illiterate) grandmother. A Mac is _way_ over her competency level, and all she wants to do is browse a certain web site and maybe send email, so I'm thinking about setting her up an old machine that mounts everything possible read-only, boots straight into X with Netscape basically as the window manager, dials the modem automatically, and can be just turned off when she's done with it. I'd be able to do updates and repairs on it, if necessary, remotely, which is an important feature, because she lives close to a thousand miles from us.
  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    Primitive? Are you deranged? How many "new" or "high end" windoze features are old mainstream mac features?

    Multiple monitors, auto poweron/off, SCSI, the ability to boot from any drive you connect(except the new fruity colored machines), RISC processing, a complete GUI these are all things that Apple's Engineers brought to the market YEARS before HewlettComPackarDell even though of them.

    LK
  • Posted by F.A.N.G.:

    I really do not understand Apple's marketing plan for the Macintosh, I never did. No EvangeList would have been necessary without their suicidal marketing.
    It seems as if they want to marginalize their product with bemusing ads filled with weirdos, artists, and assorted freaks(and bad grammar). At best they can get the market towards which they are aiming. In reality they can only achieve a portion of this segment.
    In rare cases they do focus on the superior technology and other features and benifits of Macs, but then they would counter this with some Feliniesqe tragic clown pleading with the masses to "Think Different(ly)".
    I imagine the boardroom:
    guy1) We can show off the vastly superior graphics of our system by rendering complex wireframe images. Twice as fast as a PC, that will impress people!
    guy2) No, we should have a fuzzy black and white still from the "Bicycle Thief", with dirty typewriter font for our tagline.

    BUT Versus PC's, which is the least "conformist" machine?
    Mac: One manufacturer. You get the models and options Big Apple says you want.
    PC: hundreds of manufacturers, hundreds of models.
    You can home brew any system you desire, and you don't need a NEA grant to buy one.

    I like Macs, love them even. But I cringe with every new ad campaign.

  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    >>Mutiple Monitors: Only really used by people doing graphics arts, etc, and most of them just buy one huge monitor. Very little demand. The PC has always been strictly determined by what people are willing to pay for.>Auto Power on/off: Actually, it's not really that old, and is only slightly older than the ATX form factor, which is fully capable of doing automatic power on/off >SCSI: Well, I could equally say that it took macs a long time to support IDE. It's a matter of which standard was chosen at the beginning. And IDE pretty much always has been and probably always will be cheaper than SCSI, which no doubt had a good bit do do with it being chosen for the PC.>RISC: WGAS? It's not like having a non-RISC processor makes PC's inherently(sp?) inferior.>GUI: Have you ever seen one of the machines Xerox Parc put out? Looks remarkably like a mac, so I don't think mac people are in a position to claim invention there. I learned to use DOS before I was 7, and could copy and move files around, run WordPerfect (4.2 for DOS), play games, etc. It is only very recently in the history of computers that having a GUI was seen as a necessary thing. 90% of what I do with a computer still involves typing things into a text prompt, be it the comment entry in slashdot, or an xterm. I am not a slackware-cli-is-god-all-else-must-die type, and I rather dislike those who are, but nonetheless, I find it much faster to use the keyboard for things. Thus I have keyboard hotkeys for virtually everything. >People bitch about Windows crashing all the time. However, many fail to note what the dialog on the mac that is the equivalent of the GPF dialog in windows looks like. On the mac, it has a bomb icon and a button that says Restart. About 35% of the time, the machine is so hosed that you can't even click on the restart button. In windows, you at least have some hope of recovering from the app crashing.
    OK, maybe you can recover from an app crashing after a GPF but how often is it that you can't use your mouse or your screen doesn't refresh, or the house of cards falls and you get repeated GPFs? The MacOS way of dealing with program errors is less likely to cause other problems. Like, eg. if the crashed app corrupts your write cache.

    Linux is a great server OS, Windoze is a great gaming OS, the MacOS is a great productivity OS.

    LK
  • The EvangeList was best when it was a group of FUD Fighters (there's a band name idea!) and worst when it was a rabid pack of Mac-Maniacs...

    We need more FUD Fighters...

  • MacOS 8.6 (in beta, should be released in a couple weeks) has preemptive multi-tasking. And SMP(real) for up to 64 processors. And a new memory protection manager (though, not as good as Linux). These improvments are brought by a new kernel called NuKernel. Uses technology from the Copland project.
    It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
  • It certainly will run Mac OS X, due for release later in the year. It will also run Mac OS X *Server*, out now, unsupported.
  • I don't see how this will really help Slashdot go up in rc5 statistics except in the very long term. Slashdot has already been taking first in the daily statistics, and they are far enough behind in the overall statistics that even with the EvangeListas gone completely (and there will probably still be a lot people who don't switch off of that team anyway.) it would take months to close the gap in overall blocks at the current rate team Slashdot is going. Not to mention that I think that the Seti at home project is going to draw a lot of people away from rc5 anyway. I've already switched my machine over to setiathome. I think we've proven the point about encryption, and even if we break the current rc5 challenge, I don't think the point will be emphasized that much more. On the other hand, if we can actually pick up signals from other intelligent life, well the possibilities are endless. Regardless of the odds, that's where I'm putting my cpu cycles.
  • It's not downsizing that cut Apple's expenses, not at this point. What cut Apple's expenses in the long (current) run was the most sophisticated and effective supply-chain management in the industry. Apple is manufacturing Macs with only *one day* of inventory! That is by far the best performance of any computer manufacturer. And, considering new hardware has roughly the shelf-life of, well, an apple, vendors need to move it before it rots and has to be dumped at below cost. In other words, Apple isn't hemmorhaging money trying to unload last year's models to make warehouse space and working capital for this year's models - unlike the Apple of yesteryear, and unlike most PC manufacturers.

    There is more to the new iMac and G3 lines than packaging. By dumping the old product lines, Jobs also dumped inefficient manufacturing techniques. Apple is now making just three different computers, varying only in CPU speeds, disk, and RAM - this also simplifies the manufacturing process. No, the success of Apple today didn't come from downsizing, it came from quality.

    That being said, i completely agree that OS/X is desparately needed, and on EVERY new Mac (not just servers). The sad Mac, i think, is seeing such a wonderful interface on such wonderful hardware with such junky OS internals. It pains me to think that NT is significantly superior to MacOS internally. Personally, i think the beginning of the downhill slide for Apple was when they didn't put hardware memory protection and preemptive multitasking into System 7 (at a time when they were almost ready to drop the last of the 68000-based Macs). If they'd fixed the internal problems back then, i think MacOS could have dominated the market.

    But that's neither here nor there. I don't think Apple is out of the woods yet, but they've definitely found a trail. In the end, Linux is FAR more likely to kill the Mac than Windows. Why? Because like the Mac, people LOVE Linux.
  • But it could have been much worse. This is likely the ending for the EvangeList that Guy Kawasaki dreamed of: the EvangeList ended because it is no longer needed. Not because Apple died. Not because someone sued. Not because Billy won. Because Apple won a major victory (if you'll check the latest stats, Apple's market share in the retail channel has gone past 10% once again). And, from all indications, it's only going to get better for the foreseeable future.

    And, as in all great legends, the EvangeList will return in the Mac's time of greatest need to vanquish all enemies and secure the Mac's place in the industry once and for all. Wait; Apple already secured its place in the industry. Oh well; you know what I mean...
  • Technically, MacOS is inferior ( Memory protection comes to mind ). However due to the responsible behavior of Mac ISVs and the alleged cleanness of the API ( Apple doesn't shift it to kill competitors ) Macs are surprisingly stable.

    Not crash proof like Linux but I have seen Macs left on 24/7 and used most of the time ( 2x10 hour shifts ) that don't go down for weeks at least.

    Also Mac device drivers tend to behave nicely.

    No I didn't mention Linux or *nix since the question wasn't about them :)
  • >Uh huh. What if you want to run Photoshop, some games or give a
    >computer to your grandmother

    The gimp. My mother who bairly knows where the on button is, runs linux.
  • Uh huh. What if you want to run Photoshop, some games or give a computer to your grandmother
    The gimp is better then photoshop by a good margin already.
    My mother who bairly knows where the on button is, runs linux.
    And what more then quake do you need to play? :-)
  • > Bah! Linux is good but it can't do client stuff as well as some. BeOS: way of the future baby ;)

    Can't do client stuff as well? Huh? As an experienced BeOS and Linux user I can tell you Linux does just as well, if not better, than BeOS on the client side. I'm not about to introduce an OS tax in my future computing so BeOS is, uhm, a nice toy, good idea pool, etc, but no way my main OS. The fact that Be is going to drop PPC support soon also doesn't help me very much with my BeBox :/ ...Oh well, at least LinuxPPC runs on it...

    Bedev #E-1516

  • All the fringe types are going to have to find a new fringe platform to support. They'll probably switch over to BeOS. I can very easily see BeOS becoming the next Amiga in terms of advocacy. Atleast it is technically sound. Macs have alot going for them, but MacOS is still quite technologically primitive. Maybe OS X will change things...

    Linux is good and it's politics are better, but it's also probably too mainstream for the "oppressed" these days. Who knows? Perhaps those seeking a cause will come upon FreeBSD. Instead of Mac vs. Big Evil MS, the struggle could be FreeBSD vs. Big Evil Linux. Then again, nah...


    --Lenny

    //"You can't prove anything about a program written in C or FORTRAN.
    It's really just Peek and Poke with some syntactic sugar."
  • > Primitive? Are you deranged?

    No, I'm not. It's just that I'm talking about kernels here. Unless I'm mistaken, even the 8.x series of MacOS kernels lacks pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory. These concepts have been well understood for decades and their power proven time and again. And this is not deep magic. Heck, even *I* have written a kernel with pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory.

    I don't consider a decent GUI and environment a technology, though some would argue that it is. It *is* an important aspect of computing, however. That is what I was referring to with the "many other things going for it" line.

    As for RISC, I would question your history. Unfortunately, I don't have a decent source on me to reference, so I'm not going to be able to argue with you.

    BTW- I don't consider many of Window's features "high end". I'm largely interested in computing from a systems perspective. BeOS is reminescant of MacOS in many ways, but the kernel, API, and filesystem are all far more advanced from a strictly technical standpoint. The performance (especially on multimedia) is supposed to be quite impressive as a result.


    --Lenny

    //"You can't prove anything about a program written in C or FORTRAN.
    It's really just Peek and Poke with some syntactic sugar."
  • This sounds like a large step forward technology-wise. I wish them well.

    --Lenny

    //"You can't prove anything about a program written in C or FORTRAN.
    It's really just Peek and Poke with some syntactic sugar."
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • All arguments aside, MacAddict runs on a SGI/Irix box because that's what ALL of Imagine Media's websites run on. MacAddict, IGN64, PSMOnline (or whatever its called these days), Next Generation, PC Accellerator, and all the rest.

    They all run on Irix. I really don't know *why* because it seems to give them nothing but trouble.

    --
  • i've never own a Mac and touched only first macintosh I (the little box). When i was *young* i've always said that mac was crap because there were no shell prompt, but they had good ideas in GUI, anyway, it's a pity that an old respectable mailinglist dissapear like this :-(...
    even if i'm using w98/qnx/beos on a i386 box, i wish all people using a mac will find another good support.
    --
  • I've owned personal computers since 1983 (Atari 8-bit, Atari 16/32, i486 upgraded 3x, then platform switched to Motorola StarMax Mac clone, a P120 for Win95 and Linux, then last month got a shiny BW G3). I've never subscribed to Evangelista so I don't know what I missed.

    There WAS a perception out there that these were "fanatical Amiga types" (no dis to Amiga fans), and that's why I probably avoided it. It was enough for me when I saw misinformation online that was SO inaccurate about Apple, that you have to wonder how this person finished school. You know, the stereotypes, the fud, occasional lies. Microsoft did not invent FUD for Linux... if you read the Hallow's Eve document they've implied their past FUD successes without specifically mentioning Apple.

    I also stayed away from most Mac-based journals and mailing lists because I've been using computers so long I don't want to hear someone ask how to setup Eudora or import Mickeysoft Word documents. On average, the Mac does MOST of the things I want done better than any OS, although I could draw up a long list of annoyances for any OS (though none would be as long as the M$ list). Apple stressed simplicity to the point of not being able to customize the UI. I don't like that, and I'm glad that philosophy was let go starting with System 8.

    I'm kind of sad to learn this list is shutting down, I missed out things I didn't know about like jokes, technical information, job postings and so on. It's too bad I'm learning the list was portrayed and demonized as something it was not. The lesson really is don't judge a group by its members... closer to home we see Slashdot also has a fair share of idiots, trolls, fanatics... sometimes they are who they appear to be (the world isn't perfect), and sometimes they are "the enemy" dressed up like us (like Microsoft seeding online bulletin boards and letter campaigns).

    The most important lesson in life is, "Relax, and have a homebrew".

    It's much easier now to ignore the trolls without needing to defend Apple... the more these people cling to their stereotypes lies and FUD, whatever it is about, the more they will be marginalized or portrayed as fanatics. (Of course it helps that we are all WINNING for the moment).

    Like the idiot at c|net who wrote about the death of MP3... someone said he has worked for Microsoft and besides the MS push for MP3 FUD he also wrote some inaccurate trash about Linux.

  • I'm glad that Apple's survival seems to people to now be a fait accompli, but I will miss the EvangeList. I had a feeling this was coming, with the postings getting smaller and smaller lately. Anyhow, the same way Linux and the Open Source movement represent something necessary and good for this industry, Apple does too. Say what you will about their antiquated memory management, Apple was (and is) historically the only platform designed more by artists than by engineers and focus groups. I still do a lot of work on my good old PowerBook 3400, and my non-computer savvy wife and mother both use iMacs. Yes, Linux is a fundamentally sounder platform, and I use it for more and more at home (and at work), but when I just need to fire up the machine and get something quick done, I still use my Mac.

    (Besides, I've never seen a Usenet reader as slick as MT-Newswatcher on any other platform)
  • The fact that Be is going to drop PPC support soon also doesn't help me very much with my BeBox



    Everytime I hear something like this it gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling to use linux and know this sort of thing just cannot happen to me.

  • Bah! Linux is good but it can't do client stuff as well as some
    ? What on earth are you talking about? BeOS is nice, but they are positioning themselves as a niche product, just like Apple did. Nothing wrong with that, but you are, well, doomed to be a niche product.

    Linux "can't do client stuff"? Huh? It can do anything at all. In fact, you could share a single PC among three or four users with xterms (once people get into this idea xterms should become hideously cheap) and mount the $HOMEs via smb/nfs/coda (has anyone played with coda yet?) from the central server. Beautiful. Having a P2-500 PC on everyone's desk is a total waste. Linux would make the best client OS ever.

    Besides, I heard that BeOS has no filesystem security - is this true? If it is it has no place in a modern business.

  • Here's to Guy and John for doing an incredible job of carrying the Mac torch for many years. I enjoyed being a member of list. But, yes, our "beleagured" Apple is now KICKING ASS. And, no, Slashdot WILLNOT SURPASS the EvangeList in RC5. You r puny machines just can't keep up..... ;-)

  • yup (Score:1)

    by arielb ( 5604 )
    Apple's doing a great job now selling iMacs
  • it's not by Microsoft :)
  • If my college team would get off it's @ss, we'd be in the top 10...over 500 G3s in one lab alone...just sitting there 75% of the time...
    *drool*
  • > Yes there is, they call it Linux ;-]

    ;)

    Bah! Linux is good but it can't do client stuff as well as some. BeOS: way of the future baby ;)

    (Lets see how long this stream lasts before the admins purge it ;) )
  • I should have been more clear (OK, less incorrect :) ) with my client comment (and not written it coming off a night-and-a-half-shift ). I meant as far as productivity, useability for the stuff computers are used for, rather than the infrastructure. So... um... yeah. Stuff related to 'users'. But that's important.

    I really don't like kde or gnome that much. But Be's good.
  • I see some of the zelotenous posts for/aginst the Mac from this comment. Comments like this are not to be read into THAT much. They are not complete arguements. They are simply some points someone feels important, and most, reguardless of position or platform, *ARE RIGHT* from the persepective they were written from. I reiterate, don't read into these that much. Remember, to each his platform.

    My two cents.
  • Everyone, please take off your hats and have a moment of silence for the EvangeList. Not only did they support the Mac in it's time of need, but they taught all of us how to advocate our platform. Guy was always about doing it the "right way." No flames. No attacks. Just simple, polite letters.

    It was an institution I'm proud to say I was a suscriber to. I look forward to many years of Linux et al based on the push to be different that came from the Mac community. The List was great support for all of the beligered Mac users.

    I understand that it came to a natural demise too. I have been reading less and less of the mailings, and the last few months have piled up unred for the most part for me. I think that's something most of the list community has felt. Now that Apple isn't the butt of everyone's jokes and jabs, it really isn't needed so.

    Now if only we could get Wozniak back... WOW! that would be great.

    The Mac is Dead! Long live the Mac!
    The List is Dead. Long live its spirit.
  • So, not really focused on Evangalista, but sorta, heh, I was wondering if it's possible to join the Slashdot team in the rc5 contest...and how. Ignore my other link.... Moss Website [stolaf.edu]
  • I guess the EvangeList has accomplished what it was intended to do, but that doesn't mean there is no longer a need for dispelling myths, corrrecting inaccurate articles, (so long as Dvorak, Langa, Bray, and Brandt are around), and sharing information and solutions.

    Among other lists, there is still the MacMarines at http://www.macmarines.com [macmarines.com].

  • I'm sure many writers just avoided the topic of Apple because they just couldn't deal. It would have been in Apple's interest to have shut the thing down a long time ago.

    Yes, well, as an expatriate of EvangeList (well before its shutdown) I can say that most every post to the list that was about "unfair" coverage of Apple and the Mac was also followed by a plea from John Kalbig ("The Digital Guy") to NOT flame the writer out of existence.

    But I suspect that the extreme nature of those who read EvangeList isn't much worse than some of the frothing-at-the-mouth commentary I read on Slashdot.

    There was some good info on the 'List, too: I think I've still got the post about a person who tried to order a PC from many of the major OEMs without Windows pre-installed, with absolutely no success. (This was before the DOJ trial had started; the people on the 'List are just as anti-MS as Slashdot is, in many respects...)

    I unsubscribed from EvangeList not because of the rabid nature of the Mac enthusiasts (it was a moderated forum, so most of what I got was well-written and articulate) but after a while the "special EvangeLista deals" (aka commercial email) drowned out what little good stuff there was.

    But now, if I start crunching RC5-64 keys again, I can now switch my allegiance from Team EvangeList to Team Slashdot with a clear conscience. *grin*

    Jay (=
    (Who bought a LinuxPPC CD and is going to start learning about Linux largely because of Slashdot)
  • Too bad italic fonts look like crap on a Mac.
  • how many slashdot users like to play angel and bash the evangelist. The evangelist probably could have done a good job toning down some of the slashdot threads if they were told to hang out on these boards at all. However, I have done the "Linux users superiority complex" schpiel and will save you that nonsense.


    Evangelist wasn't *that* bad. It is really interesting to note the psychological influences throughout the computer world. The evangelists were the "black panthers". The hard-core guys willing to do anything for "the good fight". Classical majority/majority conflicts exist.


    It's all pretty simple. People should just chill out more and not let things get so personal. They are, after all, computers.


    regards,

    remy

    http://www.mklinux.org

  • It isn't really fair to just assume that all the mail from people who subscribed to the Evangelist were of the "you suck, mac rocks :-P" mentality. That's like saying that all the people who responded to a FUD article about Linux that they found mentioned on /. are just going to say "you suck, Linux rocks :-P", and that writers are going to give up daring to criticize Linux because they don't want their inboxes /.ed. Usually the flood of e-mails received by any writer who has written an article that contains inaccuracies about the Mac (or Linux) is going to range from the well thought out and polite, to the ones with less class and maturity than a beavis and butthead video

    The Mac needed the Evangelist because there was no organized way of fighting all the FUD and bad press for the Mac.[1]
    Linux is supported by the FSF and Open Source movement. It is also blessed with a mentality that if you think something should be done, then round up a couple of people and do it. (Just look at some of the rebuttals here on /.) With the Mac, people are less likely to do so because they think (rightly so) that it's Apple's job to advertise for the Mac. Unfortunately, advertizing only does so much. The largest problem that the Macintosh has had is industry prejudices and bias. These require a lot more than good Ads to be overcome.[2] One of the ways Apple was trying to fight back was with the Evangelist. It isn't the only way to fight back though, personally I prefer MacKiDo's style [mackido.com] (Actually, it's an interesting place to learn about some of the stunts that Intel and Micro$oft have pulled in the past[2]) Now Apple feels that it dosen't need people to evangalize the Macintosh for them anymore, which I think is a Good Thing(TM) because it's a sign that they're going to get up and start slugging it out for themselves. Given Apple's past preformances, it'll at the very least make for some cool ads ;-)

    [1]If you think the stuff about Linux is bad now, just wait till things get really warmed up.

    [2] Think about this: we all know that Linux is a superior OS for a server, yet lots of IT shops use NT. Why?

    [3] remember "know thy enemy..."

  • Yeah, the "poor downtrodden, victimized me" routine gets tiresome, and dosen't do your cause any good. Yet, much of what you're criticizing is evident everytime a FUD article on Linux shows up on SlashDot (one of the reasons for the Moderation mechanism here on /. now, all the posts that basically say "Microsoft SUCKS, the bastards!") There's always going to be someone that is going to whine about things. You just have to hope that more people come up with better ways of making your case. Since the Mac isn't Open Source,and is aimed at people who aren't neccisarially computer literate, it's kinda hard for them to contribute in ways other than advocacy.


    All those OS'es that rely on "advocacy"...


    Unfortunately, you contradict yourself. An integral part of the Open Source movement has been Advocacy (Unless you don't count RMS, ESR and the like as Advocates). That isn't to say that Linux & Open Source isn't a Good Thing (TM), only that Advocacy isn't a Bad Thing (TM). How can you say you're a part of something if you're not willing to fight for it?

  • If it's not broken, don't fix it. (I wish MS would stick with this motto for their web site, how many redirects could a redirect direct if a redirect could direct redirect).

    People use what is needed and available, when they set it up. They do not change on the whim of benchmark, or a new version.

    Addict: Hint they are running 2.0 on Solaris. Old system.

    Apple: Stability and support, SMP. Unlike slashdot, they have an income stream to keep up. Change does not come fast.
  • actually, Slashdot has been steadily beating Evangelista for a long time now. Evangelista is only ahead in the overall rankings because they got going sooner, and so built up a larger base of keys. In 4-5 months, unless the current trends reverse, Slashdot will take on #1 overall ranking in rc5.
  • Do you know what "cooperative multitasking" means? It's ancient, and it was the only thing mac os did until OSX. As far as the other things you mentioned:
    Mutiple Monitors: Only really used by people doing graphics arts, etc, and most of them just buy one huge monitor. Very little demand. The PC has always been strictly determined by what people are willing to pay for.
    Auto Power on/off: Actually, it's not really that old, and is only slightly older than the ATX form factor, which is fully capable of doing automatic power on/off
    SCSI: Well, I could equally say that it took macs a long time to support IDE. It's a matter of which standard was chosen at the beginning. And IDE pretty much always has been and probably always will be cheaper than SCSI, which no doubt had a good bit do do with it being chosen for the PC.
    Boot Flexibility: Most PC's don't have external drives. Most PC's don't even have multiple internal drives. Being able to boot off of a random drive was never something PC people were begging for. For that matter, the primary thing I have seen it used for is to fix a mac that is so broken that it won't boot at all. It take real talent to get a PC to that state, but I've seen numerous macs do that.
    RISC: WGAS? It's not like having a non-RISC processor makes PC's inherently(sp?) inferior.
    GUI: Have you ever seen one of the machines Xerox Parc put out? Looks remarkably like a mac, so I don't think mac people are in a position to claim invention there. I learned to use DOS before I was 7, and could copy and move files around, run WordPerfect (4.2 for DOS), play games, etc. It is only very recently in the history of computers that having a GUI was seen as a necessary thing. 90% of what I do with a computer still involves typing things into a text prompt, be it the comment entry in slashdot, or an xterm. I am not a slackware-cli-is-god-all-else-must-die type, and I rather dislike those who are, but nonetheless, I find it much faster to use the keyboard for things. Thus I have keyboard hotkeys for virtually everything.

    Overall, Apple has always been more concerned with image than with price or with the technology underneath the pretty picture. I have adminstered mac labs, I have programmed macs, I have programmed dos, and I have programmed windows (I have not yet programmed in X). I can say that mac wins the cheese for being the mose obtuse API, with windows coming in a close second if one ignores the existence of libraries like MFC and OWL. And I thought nothing could be worse than microsoft api documentation until I tried to read the mac os api documentation.

    Oh, and HP and Dell have not had that much to do with the development of the interface in PC operating systems. HP may have had some to do with the hardware, but I don't know that history well enough to say anything definite about it.

    People bitch about Windows crashing all the time. However, many fail to note what the dialog on the mac that is the equivalent of the GPF dialog in windows looks like. On the mac, it has a bomb icon and a button that says Restart. About 35% of the time, the machine is so hosed that you can't even click on the restart button. In windows, you at least have some hope of recovering from the app crashing.

    That said, I think Apple is making a very good choice and a great leap forward with MacOS X. If what I have heard about it is true, then I will be curious to at least try it out and see how well it works. That is quite a compliment, given my current attitude about macs can be summed up as "I've gone through too much hell with these things. I don't want to touch it!" Granted, my attitude towards windows isn't that much better.
  • Evangelist was a godsend when it started. It provided ammo, solutions and a support group for Apple users who were being pursued with hostile intent. It sounds paranoid but working as a Sys Admin you really got to see the way management would go after Macs for no apparent reason. Evangelists helped fight those sorts of stupid biases and allowed people to get back to work.

    Its true though, Evangelist served its purpose. They are few and far between now, no more calls to action ( those were always fun ) and the news is covered better elsewhere. Evangelist is a victim of its own success and I wouldnt have it any other way.


  • Multiple monitors, auto poweron/off, SCSI, the ability to boot from any drive you connect(except the new fruity colored machines), RISC processing, a complete GUI these are all things that Apple's Engineers brought to the market YEARS before HewlettComPackarDell even though of them.


    All true, but down at the core--no preemptive multitasking, and no memory protection. That part of the OS, at least, remains primitive. Mac OS/X oughtta fix that, though.
  • ...on the virge of something that could finally be considered success, didn't want a listful of raving lunatic advocates scaring everyone away?

    Gee, I'm glad Slashdot never descends to that level.

  • Geez, that old chestnut? Very well,

    Color support no other OS can touch.
    Plug and Play that works.
    Trouble shooting takes minutes not hours.
    It's gorgeous.
    Easiest transition from analog to digital media for studio artists.
    Vast majority of design studios and service bureaus use Macs. Said businesses employ unbelievably beautiful women.
    24 bit icons w/8 bit alpha channels.

    Steve Jobs. While many consider him to be the devil incarnate, there's no denying that every thing he's been associated with just oozes impeccable design and taste. The Mac. The NeXT Cube. OpenStep. Pixar. The iMac. The PowerBook G3 Series. Someone in computing has to represent the spirit of the Constructivists, The Bauhaus and the FlatIron Building. It wont be Bill Gates, and it sure as hell wont be Linus Torvalds.
  • Ooops, been using Pine too much... hit [enter] instead of [tab], anyway, back to the plot I for another will be sad to see the Evangelist go. I was a subscriber in the dark days of being forced to use NT at work. Now I use Linux/DEC Unix in uni. and MacOS/Linux at home and everything's OK again. Roll on MacOS X so we can have something *really* nice to play with.
  • Yeah, it might have been nice if the EvangeList switched gears and became a cool-Mac-news thing instead of Mac apologetics, but I guess the advocacy was ingrained into their name. Besides, there's a whole slew of other Mac groups and websites now.

    BTW, Guy's at Garage.com [garage.com] now, a VC thing for startups.
  • Just go to distributed.net, and punch the 'top 100 teams' link. Find slashdot's team, click on the name and it'll take you to slashdot's team page.

    At the very bottom of the page it says "I want to join this team". It's a hyperlink.

    Click on it and do what it says.

    Welcome to the team.

    Hanzie.
  • then it is to give up. I'll miss the EvangList. Not only was a rallying point for the Mac community it was a darn good source of information too. Job postings, PR, articles, editorials, jokes.

    I have 879 of the 1403 digests that the Evangelist produced and I still reference them.

    It's good that it's done though... it sends a message to the computing world that Apple and it's followers no longer need a group of fanatics to go defend their cause. I think Apple is finally climbing back into the mainstream.
  • wow, so some mac-addict requested those two web pages in netcraft until they reached the top. The other top picks make perfect sense, the first two don't.
  • As a cog in the Macintosh software machine, and a longtime supporter of the Mac, I feel saddened and elated at the same time for the end of the EvangeList.

    On one hand, it has provided a rallying point for us during the dark days of Apple's recent troubles, and gave all of Macdom something we could point to and say "Look! This is what the Mac can do!"

    On the other hand, it also became a target for what I consider to be the worst kind of Mac user; the overly-hateful, PC-trashing, Microsoft-bashing nerfherders who wouldn't know a good OS if it came bundled with a free CPU. I have long felt that these users (and I admit to have raised my voice in their defense on occasion) have done more to harm Apple and the Mac platform than Apple's financial misfortunes and Microsoft's dominance of the PC market combined. The rabid rantings of these few have turned away people who might have purchased a Mac, simply because their vehemence and vitriolic venting against the Wintel platform made potential Mac users blanch at the thought of being lumped in with those fanatics.

    I use a Mac, not because it's the best platform for anything, but because it's what I like and it's what I'm used to. I like to use the MacOS because I am familiar with it, and I can make it do exaclty what I want it to do. Windows is not a bad operating system, for consumer-level use, and Linux in it's myriad flavors have much more power than I need for surfing the 'Net. The MacOS has functionality to spare for the tasks that I have to perform, as well as having plenty of software and hardware to toy around with.
    I shall miss the EvangeList, but I may not miss some EvangeListas.

    -The Cheese
  • Gee, I hate to rain on your hardware superiority parade but if Apple is so busy kicking ass and Mac is such a superior platform then why is www.macaddict.com using Netscape Enterprise 2.0 on an Irix box to run a "Mac" web site? And why for that matter is www.apple.com running Netscape 3.0 on a Solaris box?

    Before OS X Server was released, where and when did Apple claim that Macs were suitable for enterprise servers? Hmmmm?

    And if your platform is so great, why does it take about 15 minutes to install and configure 8.5 on a Mac and days or weeks on yours?

    Each platform has its own advantages; there's no such thing as a one trick pony in computers.
  • Don't tell me that www.macaddict.com needs an enterprise server. /. runs on a P2/450 with 512M of RAM. Are you telling me that Apple doesn't make a computer of this calibre?

    True, but it does need a stable server, and the old Mac OS just didn't cut it. It was never the hardware that was lacking but the software.

    I expect most Mac sites will move to OS X Server or one of the PowerPC Linux distro's when its time to upgrade. But they aren't going to throw away a fairly new $10,000 Unix workstation just so they can be "all Mac".

    Yes there is, they call it Linux ;-]

    Uh huh. What if you want to run Photoshop, some games or give a computer to your grandmother.
  • Uh huh. Since 95. Apple has used one form of anti-aliasing or another since the Apple II.

    Nice try......
  • These concepts have been well understood for decades and their power proven time and again. And this is not deep magic. Heck, even *I* have written a kernel with pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory.

    Could you also provide backward compatibility to thousands of older apps since you would be switching to a kernel based OS? Could you also write an API that would allow a quick upgrade path for older applications?
  • GUI: Have you ever seen one of the machines Xerox Parc put out? Looks remarkably like a mac, so I don't think mac people are in a position to claim invention there.

    Have you compared the Xerox park GUI to the Macs? You seem to forget that this happend over 20 years ago. Do you honestly think Apple has made only incremental improvements to the Xerox GUI?

    No, Apple did not invent the GUI, but they have taken it light years beyond anything else (with the possible exception of the NeXT GUI).
  • In windows, you at least have some hope of recovering from the app crashing.

    Its called a force quit. Command-option-esc.
  • Rare that it will crash the computer, I work at my schools computer lab as a help/consultant,

    Wow, what a coincidence, so do I!

    and I have yet to see a mac app crash that dosn't freeze up the whole system

    Well, maybe your school's cs department is run by idiots like mine is. You see at my school, the powers that be think that letting Mac users force quit applications is bad, and disables it. So if an app freezes the gui, you have no choice but to do a hard restart.

    granted that I don't think they have the latest os upgrade

    Small world! At my school, we are stuck with 8.1 when they should have upgraded to 8.5 months ago.

    Note: Most of the lockups occure when people go to save or to print,

    Damn, we could almost be going to the same school here. The Mac printing setup is extremly half assed here.
  • 1)will it run linux (redhat-intel) on the free copy of Virtual PC?

    It should. VPC works by emulating an Intel processor, so any OS designed designed for it should work. I belive there's documentation with the CD for doing generic floppy intalls; I can look it up for you if you want as I have VPC.

    If you like Red Hat you might try LinuxPPC, which is a port of RH.

    2) will it run OSX or Darwin

    Yes, although I don't belive its supported. Reported it works just fine, but remember that OSXS has no powersaving functions (don't know if you can put it to sleep). i.e. you can't dim the screen, have the HD spin down after being used etc.

    3)is it fast?

    The Powerbook is, VPC is not. If you got the G3 300 Powerbook it would probably be equal to a 100-150 mhz Pentium. Its fine for compiling and running basic applications, but don't expect to play Quake on it or work on big files with Gimp in VPC.

    As for the Powerbooks speed, it will beat the tar out of any PC notebook currently made, because the G3 is a much cooler processor and uses less power, so you can use faster chips. However, the whole thing weighs seven pounds while you can get some damn sexy PC laptops from Sony that weigh less than four.

    4) am iwasting my time? (if you think I am, give a better reason than Mac's suck, i don't care)

    No. G3 laptops are powerhouses, and have lots of goodies like the option to use two batteries in it, fast ethernet and built in video i/o. The DVD is pretty nice too. :-) It will run OSXS/Darwin and Linux natively, and you should be able to run any PC OS out there with VPC (just don't expect it to be fast).

    If you want the most powerful and expandable laptop, get a Powerbook. If you are on the road a lot and don't want to hawl around 15 lpbs of gear (puter + accesories), get one of the new ultralight PC laptops.
  • In the end, Linux is FAR more likely to kill the Mac than Windows.

    Never going to happen. Linux is a powerful operating system beats the @#$#@ out of the old Mac OS for networking, stability and multitasking.

    However, the Mac OS returns the favor on the end user side. It has a highly polished GUI, the best way for linking applications to documents, and is the only OS where you can install new hardware or software and have it just work 95% of the time.

    Once OSX client is out, Apple with have the best of both worlds. I still plan on using Linux though and maybe even FreeBSD on my Macs.
  • the anti-aliased fonts in the UI (though that probably falls under "It's gorgeous").

    Windows? Bzzt.
    X? Bzzt.

    Anti-aliased fonts mean I wouldn't have to run my 15" screen at 1280x1024 for the letters to be clear and not jagged.

    You're right, Linus is more of a minimalist (I think).

    Bill Gates? Definitely a surrealist ;-)
  • Yeah, whatever. If they're antialiased, why do they still look jagged on my box?
  • but I figured it out. Searching on MS's Knowledge Base for Antialiased turns up the fact that antialiased fonts are a Microsoft Plus! enhancement!

    So unless they're a part of Windows 98, antialiased fonts cost you extra, while on Macs they're free. :-P(and on X they're just not available yet :( )
  • This will happen to Slashdot too one day.
  • I've been using my old 520c for RC5 for some time, and it still beats out my friends' PCs with 200MHz+ PII. It seems they have trouble multitasking that advanced OS of theirs.
  • My comment refers to multitasking. I am able to do only a few keys a second while running it in the background, while my Windoze friends can't even get RC5 to run without being in the front. This is on a variet of Win32 versions, and none of them can beat me while we're multitasking.

    For the uninformed, the 520c runs at 25MHz, despite Apple's insistance that it's 50, using a 68040 without a FPU.
  • This is no fun! I've been an Evangelista for the past few years now, and I don't know what I'm gonna do for links and software updates. Sure I get other Mac-oriented mailing list, but none of them are quite as much fun as Evangelist. Now I guess I'll have to actually *visit* Mac Web sites.

    To relate, things just aren't going my way lately. Just earlier this month Emu World News closed shop, and now this. I don't know what I'm gonna do if Slashdot (my last, favorite Web site that is still updated) goes away, too. I'll be hacking my Mac without anywhere to take a break at!
  • Hahahahahahahaha,
    Rare that it will crash the computer, I work at my schools computer lab as a help/consultant, and I have yet to see a mac app crash that dosn't freeze up the whole system, granted that I don't think they have the latest os upgrade, but still, I think that on a PC you have a much better chance of surviving a program crash.
    (Note: Most of the lockups occure when people go to save or to print, and they mostly happen using Word, so it could also be proving that if you put crap on a good system, it is still crap. The adobe PS drivers are pretty crappy too. but who am I to say anything, you can't judge a computer on the way it acually performs in real life now can you.)

    josh
  • i have a Mac IIcx running NetBSD 1.3.2, and used it when my PC (running NetBSD as well) crapped out. it ran Emacs almost as fast as my Pentium 100. it was a perfectly usable and respectable machine, and even if it pales in comparison to the K6-2/350 that now sits on the rack, i have to respect that a Mac almost ten years past its prime was still useful.

    PC hardware just can't do that.

  • Eep! (Score:1)

    by Utoxin ( 26011 )
    Oh my. I can't believe this... I hope they aren't closing the website down! I've used that website as a wonderful jumping point on the web for years. They are an awesome group of people, and probably some of the most dedicated folks I know. I was never a true member of that group, but I believed in the same things as them. I hope to see more of that caliber of people in the future.
    --
    Matthew Walker
    My DNA is Y2K compliant
  • {shrug} Apple's a business. Whatever we are, here on /., it's not a business! :)
  • Could it be that Apple, on the virge of something that could finally be considered success, didn't want a listful of raving lunatic advocates scaring everyone away?

    I don't know how many newspaper and magazine columns I've seen in the last couple years in which the writer complains that after giving a positive-but-not-100%-positive review of some Apple product, his/her mailbox filled up with flame of the most vile kind from the EvangeListers. In fairness, I did see a small number of columns in which a writer corrected him/herself after having misdescribed or failed to take note of some Apple product, and thanked EvangeListers. On balance, however, I can't imagine the EL was winning Apple many friends in the press. I'm sure many writers just avoided the topic of Apple because they just couldn't deal. It would have been in Apple's interest to have shut the thing down a long time ago.

  • how is the Powerbook G3? I'm considering buying one. But I have a few questions first...

    1)will it run linux (redhat-intel) on the free copy of Virtual PC?
    2) will it run OSX or Darwin
    3)is it fast?
    4) am iwasting my time? (if you think I am, give a better reason than Mac's suck, i don't care)
  • This sounds good. I'm looking into portable systems, and i will Hopefully get one this summer sometime. I used to use MacOS 7 at school alot, so i got kinda used to the interface. I don't mind lugging the extra weight around (not that i travel alot, just enought to want a portable.) If Ido buy one, i definitly want OSX, because it is Unix based (stable and pretty :-)

    I am also looking into the intel laptops, but they aren't "alternative" enough for me, and, besides, i hear its a pain to install linux on them (or other alternative OS's).
  • Multiple monitors and auto poweron/off are high end features?!?
  • Until you go flying off the road into the ditch and have to stand there waving your arms.
  • err, that's the top two servers that netcraft was used to determine. what has that got to do with anything precisely?

    dave
  • Some of it is going to be fixed with 8.6 which is coming out in a few weeks. Silly little technical thing, but hey.

    As it is, I've had 8.5.1 up and running for about 2 weeks.

    That's with photoshop, dreamweaver, and (gasp) IE 4.5
  • Ah, but it's usually too late by that point. And force quitting rarely works cleanly; in most cases, you end up stuck in the forcequit dialog, with neither button working. It's no secret that the MacOS's stability could use some help (like OS X).

    But I never get far enough to lock up, 'cause I have MacsBug ;)

    ________________________________________________ ___

  • E crestebior falkoth noogoob? Vas tiel dikos qisqalt.

    Grettiudusyl,

    ikotHemalisk Yrtuth
  • I'm really tired of hearing the "poor downtrodden, victimized me" routines. People who play that sympathy card deserve to get nothing. It's a cop-out.

    You can bet that those fringe players never contributed anything to their marque, other than (not so) tit-for-tat negative press. Linux people write real code, and if they can't code, they document. That's positive! That's why Linux shines while Apple annoys.

    The Linux Thing is a genuine social phenomenon that's really, really good. All those OS'es that rely on "advocacy" to increase visibility will always be also-rans because they spend all their time talking about the weather, but never do anything about it, so to speak. Or to put it another way- "He who has the most code wins."

    Of course I could be all wrong and pigs really do fly...

  • These two top figures look really suss! Surely, there's got to be some sort of figure fudging going on here. You can't tell me that some magazine site written in swiss gets more visitors that Microshaft, Yahoo or Altavista. In fact the rest of the list reads like sites people actually know and visit (no offense to the swedes).

    I'd put my money on these two site artificially inflating their 'request' rate to get on the top of the list. I simply can't believe that microsoft only got 2539 requests but some obscure magazine in sweden got 6868. Those figures simply don't make sense. Does anyone know whether you could use some sort of robot to manipulate those figures?

    Oh! And while your having another look check the rest of the list. Mac seems to be there twice! Not a great showing. Especially since if what you're saying is true, then surely Apple themselves would choose to use a Mac using WebSTAR instead of Solaris running Netscape.

    MintSlice

  • unless it a MS app, then your screwed
  • what kind of voodoo magic have you done to keep IE 4.5 from crashing hourly? I'd like to know cause that form-fill button is a lazy person's dream...
    OT, I know. Sor.
  • Derek Currie is the resident Mac-uber-alles evangelist on alt.destroy.microsoft. Maybe now that they've lost their stomping grounds, this type of ardent troll will become scarcer. Of course, if hornets are forced out of their nest, they tend to become mad... :)

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