Are threr any PowerMac users left?
Spiros Kordilas
graphic designers or dtp assistants who use any Power Macs
(7100, 7200, 8100, 8500, 9500).
We still use 9500 for Xpress files and we dont complain about speed. How
about you PowerMac users?
Is there anybody of you in here?
It would be nice to know there are some of you left, so i can win my bet
with my customer :-)
If so drop a line :-)
Bye.
Lee Blevins
terminals but none doing production work.
The primary reason for my adobpting g4's was the network speed
improvement over the older style mac.
Del Tree
<som...@ideal.fr> wrote
>Having a discussion with a customer at work i wonder if there are still
>graphic designers or dtp assistants who use any Power Macs
>(7100, 7200, 8100, 8500, 9500).
>We still use 9500 for Xpress files and we dont complain about speed. How
>about you PowerMac users?
>Is there anybody of you in here?
Not here. G3 and G4 :-)
I had a 7200/90 and hated it. I had a 8100/200 and took a hammer to it.
I had a 9500/350 and hated it even more. I didn't like the G3 much
either (fortunately some poor mad sod is going to take it off my hands).
I _do_ like the G4 867. Except today when, in using Eye Candy 4000 for
the first time, it was taking up to 2 minutes to preview a bevel on a
teeny weeny 40MB file. I should add this Mac has 1.5GB of RAM of which a
gig is at Photoslop's disposal.
Just as well we have a nice PIII 1Gz to work on instead :-)
Oh, and yes, Eye Candy previews instantaneously on that PC.
Engineers at Alien Skin are investigating - as they say. The last I
heard they think it's connected with having an ATAPI Zip on the Mac. You
work it out - I couldn't. That's Macs for you - as pretty as Broccoli
Spears and twice as awkward. :-)
TTFN,
--
Del Tree
Joe
has a SyQuest, Orb, Sony SuperDisk, Jazz 2gig, and an optical are all hooked
up and we get all of them once blue moon). We have a 9600 that we use to
Archive and retrieve files. All of our production stations though are G3 and
G4's. The old power macs are just so slow compared to the new G3 and G4's
that anyone using them for production is wasting time and loosing money.
Joe
"Spiros Kordilas" <som...@ideal.fr> wrote in message
news:a2sa0c$gkf$1...@usenet.otenet.gr...
Allen Wessels
"Spiros Kordilas" <som...@ideal.fr> wrote:
I have customers still using Quadras as utility machines. I have plenty
of customers using 604 based machines for production work. With enough
RAM and 10/100 card they are fine for all the but the toughest jobs.
- Allen
Allen Wessels
Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
> I had a 7200/90 and hated it. I had a 8100/200 and took a hammer to it.
The 7200 line was for people who wanted a cheap machine. I tried to
talk every customer I had out of them.
You never had an 8100/200. No such aminal. The 8100 topped out at 110.
> I had a 9500/350 and hated it even more. I didn't like the G3 much
The 9600/350 was kind of touchy about RAM. I forced a vendor to provide
me a matched set of 12 128MB DIMMs to resolve a problem.
- Allen
Odysseus
>
> Having a discussion with a customer at work i wonder if there are still
> graphic designers or dtp assistants who use any Power Macs
> (7100, 7200, 8100, 8500, 9500).
> We still use 9500 for Xpress files and we dont complain about speed. How
> about you PowerMac users?
> Is there anybody of you in here?
In our shop most of the Macs in use are G3s and G4s: seven in all,
including the server, the RIP platform for the ECRM Stingray, and the
imposition & Distiller station. But we have an 8500 running the Epson
RIP for our StylusColor 3000 ink-jet printer, and a 7200 the manager
uses from time to time. Our 7100 and 8100 are retired from production
work but are still on our LAN, running SETI@home 24/7.
--Odysseus
John Doherty
<VtNqgiIa...@spamfree.fsnet.co.uk>:
>I had a 7200/90 and hated it.
I never used a 7200 myself, but I supported a handful. They
weren't the best machines I ever saw, but they weren't the
worst, either. They were very picky about network interfaces,
but otherwise worked OK.
Apple was selling 7x00/8x00/9x00 machines at about the same time
there were mac clones from Motorola and Power Computing. During
that time, we mostly bought Motorola StarMax machines, which I
liked a lot. We have a couple of those (with G3 CPU upgrades)
still in use, and I still have one personally. They still work
fine.
>I had a 8100/200 and took a hammer to it.
We never bought any 8x00 machines. At the time, they were too
expensive compared to what you could buy from Motorola.
>I had a 9500/350 and hated it even more.
We bought one or two 9x00 machines, and at least one of them is
still in use. I couldn't say whether it's a 9500 or 9600 without
going to look at it, but I think it's a 9600.
>I didn't like the G3 much either
The gray desktop G3s are good machines. We have a bunch of those
in use. I've used one myself every day for several years and
like it fine.
The blue and white G3s sucked. We bought a couple of those and
quit buying new macs until the G4 machines were available. The
G4s we've bought are fine. I use one of those every day, too.
We bought one G4 Cube, but didn't like it enough to ever buy
another one.
>That's Macs for you - as pretty as Broccoli Spears and twice as
>awkward. :-)
You seem to have had the misfortune of buying some of the worst
macs ever made.
But over the years, the set of PCs I've had to use or otherwise
be involved with is much more widely variable in quality than the
set of macs I've had to use or be involved with. Blue and white
G3s are probably among the ten worst computers I've ever seen, but
the other nine are all PCs.
That's PCs for you: even more awkward than macs, and not even
as pretty as Ms. Spears, not that that would be saying much. :-)
--
Stan The Man
beast today with FW and USB cards, processor upgrade, 768Mb RAM, two
huge 7200rpm internal SCSI drives and a huge external FW drive and it
is not much slower than my son's G4 tower or my 667MHz Titanium
Powerbook. I have always said that I won't dispense with the 7500 until
Apple grow up and offer another officially upgradable computer. It's
ludicrous that all their so-called pro machines since the PowerMac
range have been, officially at least, non-upgradable. I'm also waiting
for 'Firewire inside'.
The beauty of the 7500, now running Os 9.1, is that I know where
everything is and what everything does. I understand it. I can look
after it. And it never lets me down.
But just in case, I recently bought another on eBay for parts backup.
It cost me 80 UK pounds, which is just amazing for a really good
workhorse.
OIne day Apple will make something better for professional users but
imho, they haven't managed to do that in 7 years.
Stan
Ted & Bev
> This graphic designer does all his work on a 7500. It's a different
> beast today with FW and USB cards, processor upgrade, 768Mb RAM, two
> huge 7200rpm internal SCSI drives and a huge external FW drive and it
> is not much slower than my son's G4 tower or my 667MHz Titanium
> Powerbook. I have always said that I won't dispense with the 7500 until
> Apple grow up and offer another officially upgradable computer. It's
> ludicrous that all their so-called pro machines since the PowerMac
> range have been, officially at least, non-upgradable. I'm also waiting
> for 'Firewire inside'.
OK Stan I will bite. What isn't upgradable in the G4s?
>
> The beauty of the 7500, now running Os 9.1, is that I know where
> everything is and what everything does. I understand it. I can look
> after it. And it never lets me down.
You can do that with G4s, I can't see why not.
>
> But just in case, I recently bought another on eBay for parts backup.
> It cost me 80 UK pounds, which is just amazing for a really good
> workhorse.
I agree with that.
>
> OIne day Apple will make something better for professional users but
> imho, they haven't managed to do that in 7 years.
??????????
Ted
Del Tree
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote
>The 7200 line was for people who wanted a cheap machine. I tried to
>talk every customer I had out of them.
What a pity you weren't around when I was suckered into buying it by
that nice young sales lady :-)
>You never had an 8100/200. No such aminal. The 8100 topped out at 110.
Correct, I meant "90". After a time all these numbers sort of merge into
each other...
>> I had a 9500/350 and hated it even more. I didn't like the G3 much
>
>The 9600/350 was kind of touchy about RAM. I forced a vendor to provide
>me a matched set of 12 128MB DIMMs to resolve a problem.
Touchy? I'll say. If you touched it, it froze :-)
--
Del Tree
Del Tree
Doherty <jdoh...@null.com> wrote
>The gray desktop G3s are good machines. We have a bunch of those
>in use. I've used one myself every day for several years and
>like it fine.
Agreed. One of the best Macs Apple ever made. We had one on loan more
than once when our 9500/350 was up the spout, and I've worked on several
of the Beige desktop 300's. All were pretty solid machines.
>The blue and white G3s sucked. We bought a couple of those and
>quit buying new macs until the G4 machines were available.
Funnily enough one of the Repro houses we've been dealing with for
donkey's years has four B&W 350's. None of them have much RAM (256MB is
max I think). I've spent enough time in their shop to know that when
they say "they hardly ever fall over" they're telling the truth. Those
four Macs are really stable. And yet our 400 was pants, and your
experience suggests the same. Is that weird, or what?
>You seem to have had the misfortune of buying some of the worst
>macs ever made.
Yeah, AV and I have some things in common :-)
>But over the years, the set of PCs I've had to use or otherwise
>be involved with is much more widely variable in quality than the
>set of macs I've had to use or be involved with.
True enough, but then the sheer mix of components in any given beige box
will always mean that what combo works with one configuration will not
work with others. We chucked out an old PII266 dual mumboard last week
and a friend popped it into an old box he had kicking about and put
WinME on it and it now runs the modem and scanner he could never run
before!
In theory, if you're buying from someone like Dell (no relation) or HP
you _ought_ to get a box where all the bits sing to the same tune. IME
that's not always the case and some of the smaller, more focussed
builders will actually deliver you a more compatible machine. Of course,
if you DIY, as we often do, you have to take the time to do your
homework, and even then, there will always be the odd instance when
something, be it a modem, or a NIC, or a sound card, or a BIOS U/g
simply won't work.
But what I like about PC's in preference to Macs is that go can *always*
get them to a state of happy stability without paying a fortune for bits
or having to go through Apple.
Best,
--
Del Tree
peter
These people were jerks, the crappy machines were just one symptom of the
crappy treatment, crappy pay, crappy attitude, and crappy advancement
opportunities.
On the hunt for a new job...
Three blue and white G3's, upgraded to G4 500's and bigger/faster IDE
drives and more RAM at one place for production work.
Another just retired a bunch (couple dozen) of mixed low end PM's 4400's,
6500's, UMAX C500's, C600's and got new G4's. They had some higher end
models also of similar vintage that they were selling to employees for a
token amount.
Didn't get the job, but they did ask if I'd like an old computer with OS
7.6 and no aps... as these oldies are now stored, too valuable to throw
away, not good enough to use, perhaps they should donate them to a library
or school. Never before and probably never again will I be offered a
consolation prize for not getting a job!
The third shop had a mix of 9600's (300 and 350 MHz) and 8600's (300 MHz.)
The biggest, newest and fastest of the Power Macs, but also these too are on
the virge of retirement. Too old to be worth an upgrade.
Better collect on that bet... sure there's a few Power Macs out there and
less every day. Most of them are fine for a 7th grader to do his homework
on. In a graphics environment, only at cheap, incompetent exploiters.
Allen Wessels
Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
> What a pity you weren't around when I was suckered into buying it by
> that nice young sales lady :-)
The 7500 available at the same time was such a better buy. That
processor slot allows for a 3rd party upgrade that lets many users run
them even today. OS X is the nail in the coffin for the 604s in
business environments. While Sonnet has an installer for OS X on their
G3/G4 accelerators, I don't recommend that solution.
> >You never had an 8100/200. No such aminal. The 8100 topped out at 110.
>
> Correct, I meant "90". After a time all these numbers sort of merge into
> each other...
Um, 80, 100, 110. The 110 was a touchy beast.
> >The 9600/350 was kind of touchy about RAM. I forced a vendor to provide
> >me a matched set of 12 128MB DIMMs to resolve a problem.
>
> Touchy? I'll say. If you touched it, it froze :-)
I dunno what to say Del. I had 3 of them installed in a design studio
at Warner Bros. Since they were located 2 blocks from my home at the
time, I usually got any service calls. These machines had max'd RAM,
full scsi buses with scanners, cd burners, and RAIDO arrays. They also
had a gazillion open fonts, Quark Xtensions, Photoshop plugins, and
system extensions out the wazoo.
Now they did crash several times a week, but that is what happens when
you run configurations like that. Computers can do just about anything,
but bad things happen when you try to get them to do everything.
- Allen
Del Tree
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote
>Computers can do just about anything,
>but bad things happen when you try to get them to do everything.
Even Windoze XP pro? :-)
--
Del Tree
Stan The Man
<tpo...@ntr.net> wrote:
>> This graphic designer does all his work on a 7500. It's a different
>> beast today with FW and USB cards, processor upgrade, 768Mb RAM, two
>> huge 7200rpm internal SCSI drives and a huge external FW drive and it
>> is not much slower than my son's G4 tower or my 667MHz Titanium
>> Powerbook. I have always said that I won't dispense with the 7500 until
>> Apple grow up and offer another officially upgradable computer. It's
>> ludicrous that all their so-called pro machines since the PowerMac
>> range have been, officially at least, non-upgradable. I'm also waiting
>> for 'Firewire inside'.
>
>
>OK Stan I will bite. What isn't upgradable in the G4s?
You're not paying attention, Ted. Yes, everything is upgradable in a G4
- but only at your own risk. My 7500 was fully upgradable at Apple's
risk. It was the last machine which didn't have little stickers across
the motherboard warning users that upgrading may void their warranty.
>> The beauty of the 7500, now running Os 9.1, is that I know where
>> everything is and what everything does. I understand it. I can look
>> after it. And it never lets me down.
>
>You can do that with G4s, I can't see why not.
You can. You can get married as often as you like, if you can afford
it. But it has taken me a lot of years to become this intimate with my
7500 and I'm not going to take up with a lissome new young thing at the
drop of a hat. Not unless the argument is incontrovertible - and until
OSX becomes de rigeur, it isn't.
>> But just in case, I recently bought another on eBay for parts backup.
>> It cost me 80 UK pounds, which is just amazing for a really good
>> workhorse.
>
>I agree with that.
>>
>> OIne day Apple will make something better for professional users but
>> imho, they haven't managed to do that in 7 years.
>
>
>??????????
I don't know how Apple have got away with it. It's certainly one of the
reasons that the Mac hardly figures in the corporate computing
environment. The company accountant compares two machines, one of which
is officially upgradable (most wintel machines) and the other isn't
(all Macs) and goes with the one that accountants understand. That's
another order for 1000 PCs that Apple didn't get. You and I know that,
despite Apple's lily-livered approach, the G4 _is_ upgradable.... but
that just isn't the same as the manufacturer guaranteeing it. Certainly
not in the grey-suit world, anyway.
Stan
Allen Wessels
Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
I dunno about pro. The problem I have with Micro$oft's upgrades is that
they have more holes than swiss cheese. But now MS is going to focus on
secure computing, which means your end gets locked down to their end,
IMO.
So add a MS bill to the phone and utilities.
Ugh.
- Allen
Allen Wessels
Stan The Man <ma...@mac.comX> wrote:
> I don't know how Apple have got away with it. It's certainly one of the
> reasons that the Mac hardly figures in the corporate computing
> environment. The company accountant compares two machines, one of which
> is officially upgradable (most wintel machines) and the other isn't
> (all Macs) and goes with the one that accountants understand. That's
> another order for 1000 PCs that Apple didn't get. You and I know that,
> despite Apple's lily-livered approach, the G4 _is_ upgradable.... but
> that just isn't the same as the manufacturer guaranteeing it. Certainly
> not in the grey-suit world, anyway.
Upgrading an Windoze box is just as problematic. By the time you're
ready to upgrade, you'll often have to do major surgery. AT to ATX
case? SDRAM to DDR or RIMM? Every *try* a FCPGA to Slot 1 adapter?
And lets start looking at costs. Take a look at what is costs to
upgrade that Compaq or HP workstation with manufacturer approved parts.
- Allen
mac
my B&W G3-400. And a heckova lot better than my late unlamented Power
Computing Power Center machine (which was horrible with the same G3 card
that runs v nicely in the 7500)
Question...is adding a G4-500 zif upgrade chip effective in these things?
Will it really work much faster? I've done a little bit on a G4-400 at a
customer's and it is definitely peppier than my G3 at the same cpu speed.
Theirs is an early model, mine's a late-ish model...same logic board(?) so
the 500 chip ought to work at least as well as their 400...or is there more
to it?
--
Mac Townsend,
Adcom Graphics, Fairfield, CA:
Electronic Prepress
www.adcomgraphics.com
Stan The Man
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>In article <270120020041534761%ma...@mac.comX>,
> Stan The Man <ma...@mac.comX> wrote:
>
>> I don't know how Apple have got away with it. It's certainly one of the
>> reasons that the Mac hardly figures in the corporate computing
>> environment. The company accountant compares two machines, one of which
>> is officially upgradable (most wintel machines) and the other isn't
>> (all Macs) and goes with the one that accountants understand. That's
>> another order for 1000 PCs that Apple didn't get. You and I know that,
>> despite Apple's lily-livered approach, the G4 _is_ upgradable.... but
>> that just isn't the same as the manufacturer guaranteeing it. Certainly
>> not in the grey-suit world, anyway.
>
>Upgrading an Windoze box is just as problematic. By the time you're
>ready to upgrade, you'll often have to do major surgery. AT to ATX
>case? SDRAM to DDR or RIMM? Every *try* a FCPGA to Slot 1 adapter?
I don't doubt that. But the ease of upgrading doesn't figure too
strongly in the initial corporate purchase decision. If my company is
about to invest £1m in workstations and HP, Dell, Siemens and others
have "Upgradable" splashed across the spec while the Mac is conspicuous
by the total absence of the word, then the company can only go in one
direction
>And lets start looking at costs. Take a look at what is costs to
>upgrade that Compaq or HP workstation with manufacturer approved parts.
>
I know - but it still costs less to upgrade than to buy another new
machine - which is the decision that the accountant thinks he is faced
with.
Stan
Allen Wessels
The cost to upgrade is also problematic. It may *not* cost less overall
to buy the new machine. The reason the bean counters let the upgrade
through is that it doesn't fall under the capital expenditures budget.
I've been on both sides of the procurement pipeline.
- Allen
micro serf
In a business environment, you have to factor in the time to do the
update, including all the "fiddling": Does this bios support this hard
drive? Wwhat kind of RAM is in now -- if I put in dissimilar chip
types will it work? Oops it won't boot with the new drive -- did I
damage the IDE cable? Windows is asking for the 98 CD, is 98 original
or 98 SE?I lost the jumper to change the drive for master to slave,
where do I find another? I reinstalled the OS, now I have to get the
domain admin to add the computer to the domain. I changed the NIC, now
I have to touch the DHCP server because I have to get the same IP
assigned to this new machine even though it has another MAC.
There are a LOT of gotchas associated with doing an upgrade to a
machine in service that can make it expensive when you include the
time involved.
The expertise is hard to maintain because the devil is in the details
and the technology changes so fast that the details are always
changing.
micro serf
ms...@pacbell.net
Odysseus
>
> The blue and white G3s sucked. We bought a couple of those and
> quit buying new macs until the G4 machines were available. The
> G4s we've bought are fine. I use one of those every day, too.
> We bought one G4 Cube, but didn't like it enough to ever buy
> another one.
>
the RAM; I don't remember the details but I think it was something to do
with a mismatch between the specs of pre-installed card and the upgrade;
apparently these machines are very finicky about their RAM. It's been
fine since. Our server, a G3/400, has been rock-solid except that its
original hard drive (the built-in boot disk, not the shared RAID system
with all our data) failed after a few months -- but it's been running
continuously for a couple of years with no other problems.
--Odysseus
Michael Sullivan
> Del Tree writes:
> > In article <awessels-9221AF...@news.supernews.com>, Allen
> > Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote
> > >Computers can do just about anything,
> > >but bad things happen when you try to get them to do everything.
> >
> > Even Windoze XP pro? :-)
>
> I dunno about pro. The problem I have with Micro$oft's upgrades is that
> they have more holes than swiss cheese. But now MS is going to focus on
> secure computing, which means your end gets locked down to their end,
> IMO.
Heh. I ran across this article because I went to school with one of the
authors:
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/315
It gives good descriptions of a few things which Microsoft would have to
do to get *started* on being a viably default secure platform. After
reading, just how likely do you think it is that most of these
suggestions will be implemented?
Michael
--
Michael Sullivan
Business Card Express of CT Thermographers to the Trade
Cheshire, CT mic...@bcect.com
Michael Sullivan
Sure. You win. Until this summer all but one of our production
machines were 604e machines. I heard too many horror stories about the
B&W machines to buy, and it never seemed like worth shelling out $2-3000
per workstation to upgrade. When the prices on G4s started coming down
to $1000 per, I overhauled everybody. But we're still using the 604e's
for various utility stations and for light duty work
We do almost all spot color, fairly low end with mostly page layout or
vector files. Largest projects we do in house are around 1-2 MB.
If I had a nice stable 604e machine for a workstation that did not do a
lot of work with print quality bitmap files or very long documents, I
would not necessarily upgrade unless there are noticeable waits for the
machine, or you are doing production on it full time.
We noticed slowdowns because we do a lot of file opening and printing.
the faster networking and disk structures in the newer machines made a
difference. We were also doing wholesale software and OS upgrades that
gave us slowdowns and ate so much RAM that we would have been forced to
spend a lot on old RAM which didn't seem to make sense.
For a content creator that doesn't work with very large files or a whole
lot of files and doesn't need to run the latest and greatest software,
I'd think some of our old 7300s and 7600s might work fine even for
someone doing full time production. I'd say the places where it makes
sense get smaller every day as prices drop on G4s, but they probably
aren't gone yet.
Certainly, until OSX becomes necessary, they are just fine as general
office machines. Although iMacs are nice for the small footprint, and
they're getting *very* cheap.
x4ce
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> In article <Sy9bnWAZ...@spamfree.fsnet.co.uk>,
> Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <awessels-9221AF...@news.supernews.com>, Allen
> > Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote
> > >Computers can do just about anything,
> > >but bad things happen when you try to get them to do everything.
> >
> > Even Windoze XP pro? :-)
>
> I dunno about pro. The problem I have with Micro$oft's upgrades is that
> they have more holes than swiss cheese.
Its also MUCH more expensive for pro users, and you get the honour of
co-funding Bill Gates' villa.
x4ce
<ma...@mac.comX> wrote:
I don't doubt that. But the ease of upgrading doesn't figure too
> strongly in the initial corporate purchase decision. If my company is
> about to invest £1m in workstations and HP, Dell, Siemens and others
> have "Upgradable" splashed across the spec while the Mac is conspicuous
> by the total absence of the word, then the company can only go in one
> direction
Contrary to popular belief, you CAN upgrade macs. Its a breeze to add
additional HD's, memory, faster graphics boards (and if you happen to
have an AGP slot you can use PC GeForce boards as some of them just
work right out the box) and some manufacturers are providing CPU
upgrades so you can upgrade your old mac to a speedy G4 whenever you
feel the need to.
Stan The Man
>In article <270120020223096322%ma...@mac.comX>, Stan The Man
><ma...@mac.comX> wrote:
>
>I don't doubt that. But the ease of upgrading doesn't figure too
>> strongly in the initial corporate purchase decision. If my company is
>> about to invest £1m in workstations and HP, Dell, Siemens and others
>> have "Upgradable" splashed across the spec while the Mac is conspicuous
>> by the total absence of the word, then the company can only go in one
>> direction
>
>Contrary to popular belief, you CAN upgrade macs. Its a breeze to add
>additional HD's, memory, faster graphics boards (and if you happen to
>have an AGP slot you can use PC GeForce boards as some of them just
>work right out the box) and some manufacturers are providing CPU
>upgrades so you can upgrade your old mac to a speedy G4 whenever you
>feel the need to.
I'm afraid you are missing the point. The corporate buyer needs more
than a thrid party assurance that the machines will be upgradable. He
needs the manufacturer's assurance - and Apple gives none.
Stan
Michael S. Dodds
bucks - they should do some research.
Unless productivity and consistency are not a factor.
Del Tree
>Its also MUCH more expensive for pro users, and you get the honour of
>co-funding Bill Gates' villa.
Not if you buy the OEM versions - they're half the price - and Bill gets
half the money <G>
--
Del Tree
Allen Wessels
Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
Laugh while you can. Your fancy tricks will get you nothing when
Micro$oft begins charging you monthly for the OS and shuts down your PC
when they decide something's amiss.
:-)
- Allen
Del Tree
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote
>>
>> Not if you buy the OEM versions - they're half the price - and Bill gets
>> half the money <G>
>
>Laugh while you can. Your fancy tricks will get you nothing when
>Micro$oft begins charging you monthly for the OS and shuts down your PC
>when they decide something's amiss.
Heh heh.
Funny you should mention that. Yesterday I ripped out my entire personal
system, built it all back into a new (very swish) CoolerMaster case,
migrated the partitions (including XP) to a two shiny new Maxtors and
added a new Plextor internal SCSI burner. So that's a new PSU (tasty
500W Enermax) , new disks and another SCSI peripheral. Did XP complain
when I fired it up? Nope, not a word. Did it ask for my registration
code? Did it email Bill? Nope. It behaved as if nothing had changed. It
even installed all the drivers for the Plextor without even asking for
the XP Install disk. Awesome :-)
--
Derek (still laughing) Tree
Allen Wessels
Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
> Heh heh.
> Funny you should mention that. Yesterday I ripped out my entire personal
> system, built it all back into a new (very swish) CoolerMaster case,
> migrated the partitions (including XP) to a two shiny new Maxtors and
> added a new Plextor internal SCSI burner. So that's a new PSU (tasty
> 500W Enermax) , new disks and another SCSI peripheral. Did XP complain
> when I fired it up? Nope, not a word. Did it ask for my registration
> code? Did it email Bill? Nope. It behaved as if nothing had changed. It
> even installed all the drivers for the Plextor without even asking for
> the XP Install disk. Awesome :-)
Unless the powersupply has software drivers, you basically installed a
new SCSI drive, and it probably already had the drivers loaded for the
controller. Whoops, I forgot the case. XP drivers there?
Throw in a Firewire card, a new graphics card, and maybe a new sound
card. Do this a couple of times over the course of a year or so. Then
tell me you're still all warm and fuzzy.
- Allen
rubik
>Unless the powersupply has software drivers, you basically installed a
>new SCSI drive, and it probably already had the drivers loaded for the
>controller. Whoops, I forgot the case. XP drivers there?
>
>Throw in a Firewire card, a new graphics card, and maybe a new sound
>card. Do this a couple of times over the course of a year or so. Then
>tell me you're still all warm and fuzzy.
>
>- Allen
>
they changed the xp upgrade deal, the hardware database resets itself
every 120 days
which should satisfy everyone except the most hardcore upgrader
Allen Wessels
Microsoft's goal is revenue stream. Eventually that means the OS as a
service.
They'll accept 2 steps forward, one step back to get there.
- Allen
Peggy
work-arounds for lockouts caused by Win product activation problems. The
article (and discussion) is at
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020131S0005
It might be a good idea to check out the info there. As far as I can tell
really applies only to NTFS (not FAT32) systems.
Peggy
"Del Tree" <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:$erQMjBwePY8Ew$y...@spamfree.fsnet.co.uk...
Del Tree
wrote
>Fred Langa reported in his Langalist on an article in Information Week about
>work-arounds for lockouts caused by Win product activation problems. The
>article (and discussion) is at
>http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020131S0005
>
>It might be a good idea to check out the info there. As far as I can tell
>really applies only to NTFS (not FAT32) systems.
>
>Peggy
Thanks for that, Peggy. Another item to add to my growing "Round Tuit"
list :-)
FWIW we now have XP on three PC's and it's making our lives a lot easier
and more productive; that is, once you've been through the initial pain
threshold which I won't tell you about...<G>
One of the nicest surprises is the network speed. We used to get around
2.5 - 3.5MB/sec on a good day with biggish (20MB + image files). I'm now
seeing consistent transfers of 9MB/sec - which is just about as quick as
100Base gets. And that's with the same old cabling and the same Switch
as we were using with 98SE. Even the Mac pulls data from the PC's at the
same speed - magic :-)
Best,
--
Del Tree
Del Tree
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote
>Microsoft's goal is revenue stream.
It's mine, too. Does that make a me a criminal? :-)
--
Del Tree
Allen Wessels
Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
Means vs ends, Del.
- Allen
Matthew Taylor
news:awessels-9AFA5A...@news.supernews.com...
>
> > they changed the xp upgrade deal, the hardware database resets itself
> > every 120 days
> > which should satisfy everyone except the most hardcore upgrader
> >
>
> Microsoft's goal is revenue stream. Eventually that means the OS as a
> service.
>
> They'll accept 2 steps forward, one step back to get there.
If you look at what most of the other manufacturers are doing, they all seem
to be headed this way. They all need to keep up their revenues, while
everyone now has software, so money is only made from upgrades.
A lot of CAD software has worked on what is pretty much a subscription model
for a long time.
Also, it benefits the hardware manufacturers. If everyone's software is
automatically upgraded, the chances are that people will need more powerful
hardware to run it on sooner than they would have otherwise.
Matthew
Allen Wessels
"Matthew Taylor" <matthew....@NOSPAM.mtaylor.co.uk> wrote:
> If you look at what most of the other manufacturers are doing, they all seem
> to be headed this way. They all need to keep up their revenues, while
> everyone now has software, so money is only made from upgrades.
Agreed. However, many people use multiple applications to accomplish
their tasks. The difference with the OS being a subscription model is
that if *they* decide you aren't up to date, you can't use *their* OS,
*your* appications, and *your* hardware.
> A lot of CAD software has worked on what is pretty much a subscription model
> for a long time.
Vertical market software is somewhat different.
> Also, it benefits the hardware manufacturers. If everyone's software is
> automatically upgraded, the chances are that people will need more powerful
> hardware to run it on sooner than they would have otherwise.
I am not fond of the idea of MS determining when I can use *my* hardware.
- Allen
Del Tree
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote
>I am not fond of the idea of MS determining when I can use *my* hardware.
Nor am I. Without getting into a long debate about this let me merely
say that IMO the whole issue of XP activation has been hyped out of all
proportion.
Do you honestly believe that someone of my modest intelligence and
notoriety for political incorrectness on this newsgroup would have
installed XP on three PC's if I thought that it seriously limited my
freedom to upgrade and modify the hardware in those PC's whenever I
please?
In the three instance that I personally know about where users have made
such substantial changes to hardware over such a short period that the
XP activation wizard popped up, a simple phone call to MS was all it
took to re-activate Windoze. In none of those instances were the users
asked what hardware they'd changed or why.
Revenue stream is one thing, Allen, commercial suicide is quite another.
Bill the Beast did not get where he is today by biting the hand that
feeds him. It is simply not in MS' s interests to make things as hard
for XP users as you seem to imagine they are.
Personally I think XP Pro rocks and is worth every penny of the license
fee. And, in case you've forgotten, I am not now, and never was or will
be, an apologist for MS's shortcomings, nor their more questionable
software, practices and aims. But I do know a damn good OS when I see
and use one and XP is it.
Best,
--
Del Tree
Allen Wessels
Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
> Nor am I. Without getting into a long debate about this let me merely
> say that IMO the whole issue of XP activation has been hyped out of all
> proportion.
Not when Microsoft requires their little ID card in so many other areas.
> Do you honestly believe that someone of my modest intelligence and
> notoriety for political incorrectness on this newsgroup would have
> installed XP on three PC's if I thought that it seriously limited my
> freedom to upgrade and modify the hardware in those PC's whenever I
> please?
Yes. Have you ever been fishing? You don't reel in the fish in one
motion. Gotta have a bit of play in there.
> In the three instance that I personally know about where users have made
> such substantial changes to hardware over such a short period that the
> XP activation wizard popped up, a simple phone call to MS was all it
> took to re-activate Windoze. In none of those instances were the users
> asked what hardware they'd changed or why.
I've never had to ask MS's permission in the past to use my hardware.
> Revenue stream is one thing, Allen, commercial suicide is quite another.
> Bill the Beast did not get where he is today by biting the hand that
> feeds him. It is simply not in MS' s interests to make things as hard
> for XP users as you seem to imagine they are.
Bill did 2 things in college: 1) program, 2) play poker. And he has
learned to play for the highest stakes. He has also heavily invested in
hiring people who get to help make the rules.
> Personally I think XP Pro rocks and is worth every penny of the license
> fee. And, in case you've forgotten, I am not now, and never was or will
> be, an apologist for MS's shortcomings, nor their more questionable
> software, practices and aims. But I do know a damn good OS when I see
> and use one and XP is it.
I understand that you're pragmatic.
So is our boy Bill. And he thinks big.
- Allen
Michael Sullivan
Of course that's every company's goal. Microsoft's goal, OTOH (along
with a lot of other software companies) seems to be to find ways to make
you continue to pay, even when the new product doesn't do anything
compelling. Corner the market, then make it difficult to run unless you
keep upgrading, whether or not the upgrades do anything helpful.
That's just the old useless non-backward compatible upgrade game we've
been playing for so long.
Adobe and Quark are, of course, the past masters at it in the publishing
and prepress field.
This hardware tie-in is a new little srategem.
Do you expect your customers to keep paying in perpetuity for work you
already did and got paid for a year ago? If you, for instance, put a
time bomb in a web site you designed so it stops working in a couple
years so they have to pay someone (maybe you?) to make a new one for
them. If you didn't specifically sell your services on a subscription
basis -- would you consider this practice ethical? I wouldn't. That
seems roughly like what MS was trying to do (though they appear to have
backed off for now), they were just tying the time bomb to nearly
inevitable hardware upgrades.
If they are going to do this, they should just be up front and sell the
licenses as a subscription. It's not impossible to sell software this
way, and if anyone has the monopoly power to get people to fork it over
against their desires, it's Microsoft. I'd still hate them, but I'd
respect them a little more.
That's the ethics thing that really bugs me with software. With so many
companies, the game is to find ways to really be selling a subscription
but still be able to advertise it as if you're buying an unlimited term
license.
Del Tree
<mic...@bcect.com> wrote (snipped some):
>Microsoft's goal, OTOH (along
>with a lot of other software companies) seems to be to find ways to make
>you continue to pay, even when the new product doesn't do anything
>compelling.
Hmm. Call me an old cynic but doesn't just about every company _try_ to
do this nowadays? Whether it's Quirk asking a small fortune for Xpress
5.0 or bigger fish like Symantec reducing the period during which you
are entitled to "free" virus updates and no longer supporting products
which were only released two years ago, it amounts to the same thing. I
believe it's called "adding value". What it means in practise, as you
have so astutely deduced, is to allow the company (hereinafter called
"The greedy bastards") to charge you for something you're not getting.
The only difference between the your local hardware store doing it and
Microshaft doing it is that ripping off a few shoppers does not make a
Fleet Street editor's heart beat faster, MS doing it to millions of
users who have invested heavily in their products, does.
Not that our little emporium is guilty of any of these dubious
practices. If it were, I'd be driving around in an F40 and not a Reliant
Robin.
>Do you expect your customers to keep paying in perpetuity for work you
>already did and got paid for a year ago? If you, for instance, put a
>time bomb in a web site you designed so it stops working in a couple
>years so they have to pay someone (maybe you?) to make a new one for
>them. If you didn't specifically sell your services on a subscription
>basis -- would you consider this practice ethical? I wouldn't. That
>seems roughly like what MS was trying to do (though they appear to have
>backed off for now), they were just tying the time bomb to nearly
>inevitable hardware upgrades.
Given the nature of the self-seeking society we live in which values
wealth and status above all things I do not see why you should find it
so surprising that large corporations would seek almost any means to
increase their profitability and market share. The larger the
corporation and the greater the monopoly it exercises over it's market
the easier it is to ride roughshod over what still passes for "honest
business practice" and to do pretty much what it likes. That MS came
unstuck in their attempt to fleece us of what little shekels we possess
simply demonstrates as your esteemed countryman remarked " that you
cannot fool all of the people all of the time." If MS were alone in
these practises and aims I would agree with you. But it is not. It is
just bigger and therefore finds it much easier to get away with it,
that's all. The problem and the issue is not MS, IMV, but what we, as
citizens of the so-called "free economy", consider to be moral and fair
business practices and those which we consider to be immoral and unfair.
It has always seemed to me that what is "fair and moral" is apt to
undergo very rapid change when the "poor bastard" becomes a "rich and
greedy bastard". In a word - hypocrisy. I do not condone MS's practices
but I do not condemn them either. I condemn the environment and business
culture which has fostered them and allows them to flourish - in other
words, the culture of greed and every man (or woman) for himself (or
herself) which we euphemistically call "Western Civilization"
Best,
--
Del Tree
Del Tree
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote
>Not when Microsoft requires their little ID card in so many other areas.
OK, I'll bite on that one. So where's this "ID card" I need in "so many
other areas", Allen? And while you're about it convince me that having
to make a 1 minute phone call during which the type and extent of any
hardware changes I've made is not even mentioned puts me in Bill's back
pocket?
You might also want to ask yourself how often the average business user
changes or upgrades hardware in their XP PC? Don't forget, you're
allowed at _least_ four changes every 120 days. That's 12 a year. Now I
cannot speak for you or anyone else here but if I made 12 changes to
hardware in a year on one PC that would be one well-shagged computer.
Let's try to keep a sense of proportion and reality here. The sort of
user who _might_ make that many changes in a year could well be a gaming
addict, and as this is very often the chap who does not like to pay for
lunch, let alone software, I have absolutely no problem with Bill making
it very much harder for him to continue the piracy which costs all of us
money.
>Yes. Have you ever been fishing? You don't reel in the fish in one
>motion. Gotta have a bit of play in there.
You've been spending far too much time hanging out in those Area 52
newsgroups, Allen. :-)
>I've never had to ask MS's permission in the past to use my hardware.
Nor did, or do I. You really are starting to sound paranoid. In the
examples I quoted you, the individuals were _not_ asked what they'd
changed or why they'd changed it. They could have installed their copy
of XP on a completely different PC for all the MS minion cared. What
they didn't do, and cannot do under the system Bill has devised is to
_ACTIVATE_ their copy of XP on _MORE_ than one PC. And I have no quarrel
with that, do you?
>Bill did 2 things in college: 1) program, 2) play poker.
What slender choices history hangs upon. If only Bill had stuck to the
usual pursuits of football and girls you and I would be arguing about
the pros and cons of Amiga versus Apple licensing. :-)
>I understand that you're pragmatic.
>So is our boy Bill. And he thinks big.
Let him. In the greater scheme of things his time upon this stage of
fools is but the blink of an eye.
Best,
--
Del Tree
Michael Sullivan
> Bill did 2 things in college: 1) program, 2) play poker.
Yes, and from someone I know who went to college with him, he was much
better at the latter. No surprise to you, I imagine.
Genius programmers make millions, not billions. It's genius marketers
and deal cutters that make the billions.
Allen Wessels
mic...@bcect.com (Michael Sullivan) wrote:
> Yes, and from someone I know who went to college with him, he was much
> better at the latter. No surprise to you, I imagine.
He knows how to bet. He knows how to cover the odds and he has the best
lawyers.
He is playing for the really high stakes. He wants billions of end
users paying in each month.
The only way to plug that swiss cheese OS of his is for all the holes to
have pipes back to MS.
This is not a good thing.
- Allen
Allen Wessels
Del Tree <d...@spamfreeuser42nospam.freeuk.com> wrote:
> OK, I'll bite on that one. So where's this "ID card" I need in "so many
> other areas", Allen? And while you're about it convince me that having
> to make a 1 minute phone call during which the type and extent of any
> hardware changes I've made is not even mentioned puts me in Bill's back
> pocket?
1 minute? I salute you.
The ID is called Passport.
> You might also want to ask yourself how often the average business user
> changes or upgrades hardware in their XP PC? Don't forget, you're
> allowed at _least_ four changes every 120 days. That's 12 a year. Now I
> cannot speak for you or anyone else here but if I made 12 changes to
> hardware in a year on one PC that would be one well-shagged computer.
> Let's try to keep a sense of proportion and reality here. The sort of
> user who _might_ make that many changes in a year could well be a gaming
> addict, and as this is very often the chap who does not like to pay for
> lunch, let alone software, I have absolutely no problem with Bill making
> it very much harder for him to continue the piracy which costs all of us
> money.
I agree, so long as it doesn't inhibit my use of a machine and software
I've spend thousands of dollars on. This *was* the initial threat XP
posed.
> You've been spending far too much time hanging out in those Area 52
> newsgroups, Allen. :-)
I am talking about what is essentially the admitted goal of Microsoft.
Ever heard of .NET? Microsoft wants to be there between every
transaction getting a nice micro payment for every packet.
> Nor did, or do I. You really are starting to sound paranoid. In the
> examples I quoted you, the individuals were _not_ asked what they'd
> changed or why they'd changed it. They could have installed their copy
> of XP on a completely different PC for all the MS minion cared. What
> they didn't do, and cannot do under the system Bill has devised is to
> _ACTIVATE_ their copy of XP on _MORE_ than one PC. And I have no quarrel
> with that, do you?
None. But I choose not to ask permission to use something I've
purchased. I get enough of that sort of thing from the government.
> >I understand that you're pragmatic.
> >So is our boy Bill. And he thinks big.
>
> Let him. In the greater scheme of things his time upon this stage of
> fools is but the blink of an eye.
I can only admire someone who can maintain that perspective. Just don't
forget to watch where you're planting your feet every now and then.
- Allen
Del Tree
Wessels <awes...@pacbell.net> wrote (snipped some):
>I agree, so long as it doesn't inhibit my use of a machine and software
>I've spend thousands of dollars on. This *was* the initial threat XP
>posed.
Agreed. I'm using XP _NOW_ because it's far and away the best OS for
what we do here. That does not mean I'll be using it forever. Remember,
we do use Macs too, so all our eggs are by no means in one basket. Who
knows what I'll be using in 3 or 5 years from now?
>None. But I choose not to ask permission to use something I've
>purchased. I get enough of that sort of thing from the government.
OK. You've made your point and it's one I have some sympathy for.
But the bottom line for me is that XP delivers a level of stability,
speed and productivity that 9x did not and cannot. "Permission" is a
small price to pay for the benefits I'm seeing. I went into XP with my
eyes open and my hand on my wallet (i.e. we bought OEM copies at 100
squids a piece and not retail copies at over 200). By the time Bill gets
around to putting his evil NET scheme into operation I'll either be
retired, or using some other OS. In either case, the result will be the
same.
>I can only admire someone who can maintain that perspective.
Well, that's nice to know :-)
>Just don't
>forget to watch where you're planting your feet every now and then.
You can bet on it, Allen.
Best,
--
Del Tree