O.T. Networking Problem.

Aah fuggit, was hoping someone else would be the knob to say this before I
fell into the trap.

Run Linux, ya girl's blouse. End of problems.

- sanbar

 

It's a headless unit. Therefore as an entry-point machine, you're up for
an Apple keyboard, an Apple mouse, and the funkiest goddam 19-inch Sony
LCD screen you can find just to make it asthetically useful.
I'll stick with my Powerbook 540c for the moment Wish I'd bought one of
those Cubes, though, after Apple killed production and prices on them fell
by a good $1.5k *and* at the same time making them good value instead of
hideously overpriced.

- sanbar

 

Is that your earliest Mac?

I have (one, actually two earlier one)(s) that still runs if you want to
furnish your "retro pad".

Hammo

 

Umm, no. Been a while since you used a mac?

Hammo

 

Wot Smee said.

 

For people like my parents, students, as second and third computers for the
kids and other non power users, they're the duck's guts.

There are a lot of PC users who don't use their systems for anything more
than e-mail, word processing and dial-up internet. We're not all
enthusiasts, you know.

Compare the price to white box PCs, where you get bugger-all software and
similar specs. I get blokes at work wanting me to check over their quotes
for basic PCs constantly. They don't want to play games, they don't want to
edit videos and they don't care for broadband all that much either. Most of
'em haven't used more than 6Gb of their hard drives.

Add a firewire HDD if you want storage space or keep your mp3s on your iPod.

The bundled software looks pretty good too. iLife with GarageBand and all
that...

They don't suit my purposes all that much but I may consider one for the
kids. I reckon I'd find myself using it on occasion though...

 

Any monitor, USB mouse and keyboard you have already will do. Gawd, some of
you buggers are spoiled...

 

I did until it made all my second and third NTFS partitions invisible to
Windows. Twice. Not to linux though, strangely enough...

I was able to recover all my files using linux but it gets a bit tedious
reinstalling all my windows apps, what with serials to type in, reboots
after installing software, upgrades to perform, etc. Took four days in the
end. Twice.

Compare that with Debian with apt where all software is updated at the one
time without rebooting and with no bloody serials to type in and it's enough
to put you off windows for good.

Trouble is a lot of my stuff just won't run on linux. Yet.

My linux drive is getting a PC to itself soon though...

 

Apply corporate context: I returned the (leased) keyboard/monitor/
mouse (which, since they're IBM shit, are *COMPLETELY* crapped
out anyway) with the leased box at the end of its three years.
I don't 'already have' a spare K/V/M.

G

 

Ya, you're right there. But then $799 is a bit much
methinks, compared to what I'd use in that application
from PC-land.

[...]

Who pays for the software they're putting on Mum/Dad's
PC anyway?

Oh, so it's not just me! *sigh*!

My porpoises are *begging* for an excuse to swap over from
the dark side. When I read Cringely's write up on the (then)
rumoured Mini Mac a week or so ago, I got really interested.
He thought Apple might try to buy market share with a loss-
leader price tag of USD$199-$299.

At AUD$800 though, it's really really hard not to just
buy another PC and carry on. It's "as you were" in the Mac
camp so far IMV.

G

 

17" Flat screen CRT - $170
Generic keyboard/mouse - $30

 

Having not touched a mac since the earlier mentioned 6000 series, what's
the interface for keyboard and mouse - are they USB PS2 mac specific ?

JL

 

There's a moral to this. Buy computers to last two years.
They'll cost half as much, and you'll be ahead.

-----sharks

 

You can buy ram from anywhere it doesnt have to be from mac
Network adaptors?
You can get a hard drive from anywhere as well for a mac.
Most mac stuff now can take 3rd party peripherals.
Network adaptors?

 

usb2
you can use any mouse.
In fact mac were the first to make all their computers usb ready when
the windows world was still using ps2 as standard.

 

I had an iPod for about five hours. I'm buggered if I'm going to upgrade to
poxy Windows 2000 just to run a steenkin iPod

 

Corporate politics make it far more complex than
it needs to be. Leasing doubly so.

Corporate politics make it far more complex than
it needs to be. Leasing doubly so.

Bluetooth.

G

 

I suspect (tho I can't prove it off-hand) that Apple and
Intel/AMD/IBM use different types of gigahertzes, so a
*cough* apples and apples comparison isn't necessarily
possible.

(ie: a 1.4GHz G4 processor doesn't necessarily suck
more than a 2.4GHz P4)

G

 

A bigger problem I find is that you can't get much
less than an 80Gb drive these days. Last time I looked
(before christmas), I *think* I could still get a 40Gb
disk still. So, like you, I have lots of punters with
34Gb free.

G

 

Actually, they don't. I primarily buy Dell, mostly
'cos my employer sold out big time to IBM, then when
they realised what total crap they'd gotten us in for
with IBM, they begrudgingly hopped into bed with a
second vendor as well...

(Whilst within my workplace, most people wouldn't
piss on IBM computers, I disagree with them. I *would*
piss on them)

Anyway... Dell has the same apple-like pricing structure.
They offer computers that are technically functional
(I mean that 'technically' in the legal sense) but
practically useless for about 2/3 the price of a
useful computer. Their marketeers seem to think that
they'll get the punters in with the apparently low
price, and take it from there.

They usually advertise a computer for $2000 that
becomes useful once you throw $3000 at the problem.
The numbers might go up and down a bit depending on
what it is, but the proportions remain much the
same.

G