The Wide, Wide World of Apple

[DontSayBanana]

It's Bananaboy, he's full of misinformation. 

Lay off the ad hom bullshit, plz. Somebody's full of something here, but it's not me at this moment.

Typical cable install procedure is to connect the cable at the pole, make sure it runs unbroken into the house, contact dispatch and get them to start transmitting to the point of service. Quickest way to check if service is on is to flick on the TV if the customer has TV service through the cable company. Connect modem to cable line. If they don't contact dispatch and get them to allow the computer on the firewall ("wall guard" in Comcast jargon), the modem won't pull an IP address and you can't connect.

Installation tech would have been an easy job option for me if it hadn't been for severe acrophobia; I can't climb poles.

[citizen k]

Nice backtracking pipsqueak. 

[citizen k]

It's Bananaboy, he's full of misinformation. 

Lay off the ad hom bullshit, plz.

No. 

[Barrister]

I never did an update on Snow Leopard.

When it came to OS X:

-upgrade was very simple, no hassles, no problems
-once it is done... honestly, when they said "no new features" they weren't kidding.  I can't tell a difference.  At.  All.  I guess it's worthwhile down the road once people take advantage of some of the new features.
-perhaps its because I upgraded the King of Macs.  It was always fast.  I think startup/shutdown might be faster, but I'm not sure.  Slower Macs might see more of an difference.


When it comes to Windows:

-at first I didn't realize I needed to upgrade Bootcamp, so I only did it today.
-the only upgrade hiccup.  It said I needed to restart.  I did, but it restarted into crappy VGA graphics.  I hit "upgrade" a second time, went through the process, and everything's fine.
-the only noticeable improvement also - now I can access my Mac partition in Windows.  That might be worth the $29 just by itself.

[Barrister]

My wife asked to get a new printer, since we have a nice colour printer for pictures, but it is crap for black and white text.

So, being cheap, I bought a Brother Laser printer for $80.  I expect it to burst into flames at some point.

It came with drivers, but when it came to OS X the manual was talking about OS X 10.3 and 10.4 (Snow Leopard is 10.6).  I didn't trust it, so I simply plugged the printer in.  OS X immediately identified the printer, asked if I wanted to download drivers, did so, and within 5 minutes I was printing.

Then I went to install XP drivers.

I tried the same process - merely plugged in the printer.  It did auto-detect a new printer, and did say it would download a driver, but it then hung on the process - after 15 minutes I had to restart the computer.

Then I went to manually install some drivers.  I went to the brother website, took some searching, did download the driver.  Went to install, had to follow some convoluted instructions, and after about 10 minutes it did work.

Plug-and-Play was definitely not true for this cheap printer.  It certainly does work under Windows, but the advantage definitely goes to OS X.

[garbon]

Yay Mono!

[DontSayBanana]

My wife asked to get a new printer, since we have a nice colour printer for pictures, but it is crap for black and white text.

So, being cheap, I bought a Brother Laser printer for $80.  I expect it to burst into flames at some point.

It came with drivers, but when it came to OS X the manual was talking about OS X 10.3 and 10.4 (Snow Leopard is 10.6).  I didn't trust it, so I simply plugged the printer in.  OS X immediately identified the printer, asked if I wanted to download drivers, did so, and within 5 minutes I was printing.

Then I went to install XP drivers.

I tried the same process - merely plugged in the printer.  It did auto-detect a new printer, and did say it would download a driver, but it then hung on the process - after 15 minutes I had to restart the computer.

Then I went to manually install some drivers.  I went to the brother website, took some searching, did download the driver.  Went to install, had to follow some convoluted instructions, and after about 10 minutes it did work.

Plug-and-Play was definitely not true for this cheap printer.  It certainly does work under Windows, but the advantage definitely goes to OS X.

This is one instance where I defend the higher-priced stuff. A lot of peripherals companies who make things "for Windows" save money by using crappy in-house development tools to build the drivers and they "pass the savings" on to you.  Also, cheap stuff is not likely to have undergone certification in the "logo testing" program, where Microsoft would be able to catch a lot of the glitches and help get them fixed.

[CountDeMoney]

Fuck Apple.

Here I am, wanting to get the battery replaced in my poor little 2nd gen black and white audio only 20GB iPod...but noooo....I can't just drop it off and get it replaced....I HAVE to make a Genius appointment at my local Apple store, so they can try to sell me another iPod.
"But we don't know if it's really the battery or not"....bullshit, it's from 2004 for fuck's sake, you assfucks.
No, I don't want a new iPod...no, I don't want to watch videos, or movies, or take pictures.  I want my iPod battery replaced, so I can listen to motherfucking music.

Fuck Steve Jobs.  Get more cancer, you fucking fuck.

[derspiess]

Fuck Apple.

Here I am, wanting to get the battery replaced in my poor little 2nd gen black and white audio only 20GB iPod...but noooo....I can't just drop it off and get it replaced....I HAVE to make a Genius appointment at my local Apple store, so they can try to sell me another iPod.
"But we don't know if it's really the battery or not"....bullshit, it's from 2004 for fuck's sake, you assfucks.
No, I don't want a new iPod...no, I don't want to watch videos, or movies, or take pictures.  I want my iPod battery replaced, so I can listen to motherfucking music.

Fuck Steve Jobs.  Get more cancer, you fucking fuck.

If you have a small screwdriver, you can replace it yourself pretty easily.  A battery should cost $10 or less on ebay.

[Valdemar]

I'll try not to frase this as another.. "why Apple is so damn propretarian.."

But I really need to understand this:

When I plug in my Ipod nano to get some fresh power it automatically triggers Itunes. Fine.

When I then wants to hear some of the music ON the nano while it is plugged in the Itunes refuses to play??

Itunes refuses to recognise the songs on the nano because it cannot find the one in the main (PC) library (which is understandable since they are on a portable drive).

So, why cannot apple, A stop being so damn propriatare so I can actually PLAY my nano songs. And B play the songs from the nano when it is plugged in?

V

[Cerr]

Has anyone tried Rockbox?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockbox

I'm curious as to how well it works. I definitely consider it if I had an Ipod. It allows for drag and drop, so you can avoid using Itunes.

[Barrister]

This is one instance where I defend the higher-priced stuff. A lot of peripherals companies who make things "for Windows" save money by using crappy in-house development tools to build the drivers and they "pass the savings" on to you.  Also, cheap stuff is not likely to have undergone certification in the "logo testing" program, where Microsoft would be able to catch a lot of the glitches and help get them fixed.

But why was the process so painless on OS X?

[derspiess]

I'll try not to frase this as another.. "why Apple is so damn propretarian.."

But I really need to understand this:

When I plug in my Ipod nano to get some fresh power it automatically triggers Itunes. Fine.

When I then wants to hear some of the music ON the nano while it is plugged in the Itunes refuses to play??

Itunes refuses to recognise the songs on the nano because it cannot find the one in the main (PC) library (which is understandable since they are on a portable drive).

So, why cannot apple, A stop being so damn propriatare so I can actually PLAY my nano songs. And B play the songs from the nano when it is plugged in?

V

Can't you just move the songs from the portable drive to the pc's internal hard drive?

[Barrister]

Can't you just move the songs from the portable drive to the pc's internal hard drive?

To appease rights holders the iPod was deliberately designed so that you could not take songs from the iPod onto another computer.  It will hold music, but can not be used to transfer music.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

I'll try not to frase this as another.. "why Apple is so damn propretarian.."

But I really need to understand this:

When I plug in my Ipod nano to get some fresh power it automatically triggers Itunes. Fine.

When I then wants to hear some of the music ON the nano while it is plugged in the Itunes refuses to play??

Itunes refuses to recognise the songs on the nano because it cannot find the one in the main (PC) library (which is understandable since they are on a portable drive).

So, why cannot apple, A stop being so damn propriatare so I can actually PLAY my nano songs. And B play the songs from the nano when it is plugged in?

V

you can change the open itunes automatically thing in "preferences"

Um i play tracks from my nano while it's plugged in all the time.

um never had that problem. (I have music on three different partitions 3 on 2 drives) despite having my library technically as one of those. It's called drag and drop (and disallow itunes from copying or any other automated bullshit) All Apple software (especially Itunes) needs to be neutered, and or spayed in the "my preferences" menu. If you actually let apple run your apps you are doing it wrong .

I find if you ignore apple as much as possible when it comes to itunes, it's rather versatile. There isn't anything I've wanted to use it for that I can't figure out how to (or dl a user script to do for me)