Rotflmaoshthra!!

ok back to topic.

I love me my Apples.

Why?

DUH!

Acer make decent laptops , and i would pick them over HP because for some times now HP hardware has been suspect,  Apple ? No way , Agreed they make the coolest Hardware , but for me Computer is not just about cool , i also need freedom,control and full ownership , IMHO , apple thrives on hype and perception , and we have 5 MAC mini here at work , and as the sysadmin i kept them where there are really needed , the store room. Ok to be fair i tried using one , i really tried , but after a failed attempt at installing ssh , and getting scp to work , i lost hope and gave up , yeah it feels cool when u move the mouse to the bottom and some little icons get bigger , but the one click mouse and the whole enviroment just , pisses me , really is apple has easy as claimed?, because as a power user i felt very much in a cage , and all that for what a mac book of 120gb 1gb ram for 250k , its insane , please give me a dell xps m1330 , yeah and make it the ubuntu preinstalled ,  , 320gb(7200rpm free sensor),4gb ram,core 2duo 2.2,fingerprint  reader,2.0 webcam how much does it cost 135k, i had an ipod touch once , but after getting tired of playing hide and seek with jobs over i device i own , but which he controls , i promptly sold it and got a nokia n810 , never felt happier , apple makes great hardware and awesome software , but please give me freedom

Rotflmaoshthra?

What's the extra shthra for?

You throw a hard punch for a petite lady. But i'd rather be punched by you than, than, than, oh forget it. It hurts.

Mac people, y'all are trailblazers. Keep the fight against monopoly up.

Gotta run now

vescucci:

Gotta run now

and u wasted one full post just to say that.
and u are making me waste one full post now

LOLOL

oh my.

Thank God Bigrovar is just one pesin.

Gamine:

LOLOL

oh my.

Thank God Bigrovar is just one pesin.

fortunately many people agree with me and they don't buy apple for the same reason , they are over priced , i could get something cheaper and just as classy for half the price of a macbook , e.g dell xps m1330 , read about it ,

bigrovar:

Acer make decent laptops ,  and i would pick them over HP because for some times now HP hardware has been suspect,   Apple ? No way ,  Agreed they make the coolest Hardware ,  but for me Computer is not just about cool ,  i also need freedom,control and full ownership ,  IMHO ,  apple thrives on hype and perception ,  and we have 5 MAC mini here at work , and as the sysadmin i kept them where there are really needed ,  the store room. Ok to be fair i tried using one ,  i really tried ,  but after a failed attempt at installing ssh ,  and getting scp to work ,  i lost hope and gave up ,  yeah it feels cool when u move the mouse to the bottom and some little icons get bigger ,  but the one click mouse and the whole enviroment just ,  pisses me ,  really is apple has easy as claimed?,  because as a power user i felt very much in a cage ,  and all that for what a mac book of 120gb 1gb ram for 250k ,  its insane ,  please give me a dell xps m1330 , yeah and make it the ubuntu preinstalled ,   ,  320gb(7200rpm free sensor),4gb ram,core 2duo 2.2,fingerprint  reader,2.0 webcam how much does it cost 135k,  i had an ipod touch once ,  but after getting tired of playing hide and seek with jobs over i device i own , but which he controls ,  i promptly sold it and got a nokia n810 ,  never felt happier ,  apple makes great hardware and awesome software ,  but please give me freedom

im in concord with your assessment regarding Acer (though "decent" was a little harsh).

yes Apple makes the coolest hardware but it goes beyonnd being simply cool. they make advanced hardware with innovations that genuinely make the experience easier.

for instance in Macbooks you have multitouch control which let you use the trackpad in ways never done on conventional pcs(pinching to zoom and enlarge fonts, two finger down downflick to scroll, three finger swipe to move web pages etc).

also, as i mentioned earlier, Apple machines run OS X, windows, Linux and BSD so you have the best of other breeds. as well, the software fully utilizes the hardware because they were tailor-made to fit each other like a glove.

Mac machines hardly lag or lockup.

i agree with you on the freedom bit, but i can understand Apple working hard to safeguard their patents since it is their innovations that give them leverage and secure Apple's market share. if Macs became PCs, who'D pay extra for them?

And midn you Apple doesnt create the hype; its fans do. All steve jobs had to do was announce a new product ("one more thing" and you can bet your salary the world will stand up and listen. i mean, Nokia makes new phones every quarter, creative Labs and the rest make new MP3 players all the time but they hardly get a remark on CNN and the rest.

Apple ANNOUNCES iphone in january 2007 and the world stood up.

Apple launched a new ipod last few weeks and everyone listened. online blogs like Gizmodo, Engadget, TUAW and Arstechnica caught the furor.


that says something. even Android is getting less coverage than iphone/ipod.


you said you tried installing SSH and failed? why would you want to do that? Mac OS X already comes with SSH and SFTP built. perhaps you tried installing a GUI frontend, but why would a power user do that?

the less-technically savvy can install Fugu or JellyfiSSH GUIs to make life easier, but a power user doesnt need those. besides, Terminal gives you a tremendous amount of control beyond the User Interface options. since you know your way around Unix im surprised at your predicament. perhaps you really werent into the whole Mac Thing, given your Open Source credentials. i relate to that.

And yes Apple is as easy as claimed.

in fact, its supereasy. most people are not power users, im sure you know, and a lot of peole get dumbfounded by the intricacies of modern day computing (even though its being watered down as against what obtained in the oldies). just check out this forum and notice the astounding pleas for help for the most mundane computer issues.

about 80% of the computing public DO NOT want to go down to the command line or source code or kernel; they just want to type that document or touch up that pic or watch a movie or surf the net or play some cool music.

and Apple makes it a whole lot easier to do that (imovie, itunes, iphoto, iworks etc). most peope don't care about the closed standards Appe uses as long as they can tye that darn documenmt in record time without too much hassle.

i really respect your opinions and your standings on opensource inspire me, but on tis issue i think you've taken a very biased stance; you don't like Apple not because the machines are subpar, but because it is closed to your opensource philosophy.

as you said in your closure; "Apple makes great hardware and awesome software , but please give me freedom".

that says it all.

while i was typing 5 ew posts came up. im still on with bigbrovar.

you missed the point: Apple is not just about hardware, afterall they use intel boards same as everbody else.

its the software, thats the key. at the end of the day, your user experience is made or marred by the interaction between you and the software layer. that is why i earlier raised the point that beyond visual aesthetics, most windows machines on similar or same specs are not much different. its the operating system you interact with, and if that OS is poorly designed (as arguably Vista is) then your experience may be marred regardless of your base specs.

not so with Apple. Mac OS X goes beyond Core 2 Duos and copious amounts of RAM. its the way the OS was designed to use the resources effectively and efficiently.

no one can argue that OS X is superior to windows (execept in Media Center hub mode and gaming). 

therefore, Dell XPS may or may not have better specs than Mac, but that doesnt mean the user experience will be better. windows is windows and we know its antics.

the OS on MAc gives a different and unique experience, so that makes mac exclusive. by the way ive used XPS briefly and i respect it as an affordable gaming monster.

@vesc

you mean this Acer ferrari?

or this ferrari?

since you like Acer ferraris, how about an ASUS lamborghini?

or even a Hummer H3 laptop?

and the Dell XPS M1710

MEHN!!!



You see why One should just stick with Apple

Ex Inferis Baba Mac VS Bigbrovar Baba Baba Linux

You guys should just get a room and do the Royal Rumble. whoever comes out fist, wins. (putting my bet on Ex, shit that guy can punch o, remember vessucci)

Ex Inferis:

since you like Acer ferraris, how about an ASUS lamborghini?

Shit men, i love the Acer Ferrari and Asus Lamborghini. Imagine the unprecedented style of Effyzie i could do with those kinds of laptops. Gosh.

Gamine:

MEHN!!!



You see why One should just stick with Apple

Yes, i see your point. But if you cant afford the Apple or using a mac is just too weird for you, then those are also good choices for attracting the ladies.

How is using a mac "weird" for anyone?

@samir101ng

HA! falling for style over substance? guilty!!!

actually those systems have something under the hood beyond looks, some of the sexiest systems on the planet. and now with Hackintosh we can install OS X on windows machines, so one can still get any of these car-themed monsters and still hold their heads up.

meanwhile its not a contest between me and bigbrovar. he likes Linux, i like Linux and OS X. he has a great argument for open source and is one of the most respected members of Nairaland.  im not worthy of flaming his point of view.

i tried once and was hopelessly beaten.

@gamine

hallo, darlin', seems we share lots in common beyond a healthy contempt for humanity.

your rep has gone up a notch in my Book of Wonderful People, seeing your die-hard love for Apple.

go Elf!



(at the risk of turning this blessed forum into a bordello).

KarmaMod:

How is using a mac "weird" for anyone?

Some people have been so brain washed by the microsoft windows virus (especially nigerians) that they cant accept any system without a start menu or windows media player. As Ex said, you should see the amount of people looking for help on so many small issues. Talkless of test driving a whole new radical operating system such as OS X no matter how easy.

Ex Inferis:

@samir101ng

HA! falling for style over substance? guilty!!!

actually those systems have something under the hood beyond looks, some of the sexiest systems on the planet. and now with Hackintosh we can install OS X on windows machines, so one can still get any of these car-themed monsters and still hold their heads up.

meanwhile its not a contest between me and bigbrovar. he likes Linux, i like Linux and OS X. he has a great argument for open source and is one of the most respected members of Nairaland.  im not worthy of flaming his point of view.

i tried once and was hopelessly beaten.

@gamine

hallo, darlin', seems we share lots in common beyond a healthy contempt for humanity.

your rep has gone up a notch in my Book of Wonderful People, seeing your die-hard love for Apple.

go Elf!



(at the risk of turning this blessed forum into a bordello).

My guy bone. If i fall for style over substance but it can get me enough babes, wallahi no froblem. FYI those systems pack one hell of a puch. Have you seen their specs ?

@samir101ng

i rethunk my comment re: " falling for style over substance" and i realized that we do it all the time-


-when we meet a new girl   


with the exception of Gamine and some remarkable ladies here in Nairaland, most of the babes out there are windows machines: all specs in fancy colors but slow in gratifying your needs.

smart women are naturally attracted to Apple: remember the biblical Eve ( though Adam took too much a bite and earned Divine wrath for the rest of us).

that same Apple Adam bit is the logo on our Apple machines, it says becareful how you use.

and whats with saying "froblem" in your post? are you making fun of my fulani roots? because if you are i'll come after you all the way to Gombe with an ice Pick with First degree Murder in mind.

Ex Inferis:

@samir101ng

i rethunk my comment re: " falling for style over substance" and i realized that we do it all the time-


-when we meet a new girl   


with the exception of Gamine and some remarkable ladies here in Nairaland, most of the babes out there are windows machines: all specs in fancy colors but slow in gratifying your needs.

smart women are naturally attracted to Apple: remember the biblical Eve ( though Adam took too much a bite and earned Divine wrath for the rest of us).

that same Apple Adam bit is the logo on our Apple machines, it says becareful how you use.

Yes O !!! Now we are on the same page. Here's this for a good analogy. Most naija babes are pc's, the good one's are apple macs. hehe lol How come you are not on YIM ? let's talk.

samir101ng:

Yes O !!! Now we are on the same page. Here's this for a good analogy. Most naija babes are pc's, the good one's are apple macs. hehe lol  How come you are not on YIM ? let's talk.

you mean, the good ones are expensive, performing, in short supply, secure and easy to get along with but totally closed up?

i agree wit you, sounds like the ideal sophisticated lady

as against generic blah mass produced, cheap and underperforming, fickle and fussy, fat, prone-to-every-virus-known-to-man demography, abi?

ps: i dont do IMs.

ROFLMAO. Abeg, i never break fast o, give me a few minutes please lol. Now back to topic, for anybody interested in buying a new desktop, my advice is to get an Acer Veriton Desktop. They are cheaper and have one hell of a spec. Hey Ex, have you observed recently that every edition of PC World, PC Magazine or Computer Power User have quite a lot of adverts for Acer and Asus. Haven't been seeing Asus products lately in nigeria though.

@samir101ng

hmm, the way yo carry on about girls, methink you are deprived.

anyway:

yah Acer figures massively in major product review magazines because they pay for advert space and because they are a major pc maker. its only in naija that this knowledge is thin. and the good thing is their product line is varied unlike HP which designs everything either as a pavilion or LIKE a pavilion.

Acer was there first with the metallic-looking lid and the swinging tablet lid, and swivelling 240 degree webcams, and their computers come with useful Acer eMAnagement software extensions that truly work; unlike HP which stuffs up its boxes with AOL trialware and HP Games (most of which you can find on Yahoo Games begging to be downloaded) and HP Advisory etc.

bloatware that serve no purpose esides clogging up your very finite hard drive.

ASUS, which makes lots of motherboards as well as full-fledged machines, also suffers the same fate as Acer.

part of the problem lies with initial importers; they are not as discerning as some of us so they buy the rage and force it down a number of gullible throats.

well, my brother-from-another-mother ( i was once asked to translate it into Hausa by our complementary street jester, so i tried "dan uwana daga wata uwa").

have to go break my fast, check in laters.

asha ruwa lafiya.

@ Ex

To dan uwa an sha ruwa lafiya. Kazo gombe ina jiran ka. Kai ba fulatanin ina ne ?

Back to topic:

Check out the specs of the Acer Veriton 6900 Desktop we bought recently at home;

1. 17" LCD Display
2. Intel Core 2 Duo processor 1.83Ghz with 800 Mghz FSB with Intel V pro technology.
3. 1 GB DDR2-RAM
4. DVD-+RW Drive
5. 160GB Hard Drive
6. Vista Business (Original)
together with the other stuffs for a round price of N115,000. Try getting a HP desktop with that configuartion. And this was when the Core Duo chips where just coming out around december last year (2007).

It has been so interesting reading posts of Nigerians on these subjects after i've made so much comparative analysis about a year ago. Well i've been opportuned to make use of the best of desktops and laptops over the years though most times i still fall in love with our first PC, the 386 machine which has been working perfectly for close to 20 years now. who can beat that Drop it from a 10 story building and it'll have no scatch.

Now to all your posts and contributions on these subjects, i'll say while some guys are trying to paint facts, others borrow comments and still others just follow. I'm currently employing the services of acer aspire 5560 and have sent my battery to them for the replacement exercise. I have played with one of apple's most innovative product the macbook air, Toshiba portege R500, HP pav 9370 and Ferrarai 1705. But note i'm not the owner, just have access cos of the nature of my work.

To me they all tried, have their ups and downs and serves various services for the people who want them. I stopped taking sides with BRAND NAMES AND PRODUCTS because that's what they are, just names, big names, big marketing more money and nothing more inside that some movable silicon chips.

When it comes to software, the Mac and Windows have both failed, though they have tried the more in their functions. Bill gates microsoft OS have been hacked into several times and when apple came with the  advert of  "i'm not a PC but a Mac" that threw up apple sales worldwide, in less than 3 months the leap A virus elvolved and caused the worst damages ever for mac users and even other destructive events followed. This even lead to lawsuits against apple back then.

But now this is a fact:

Mac computers are partially protected from virus attacks because of a concept called security through obscurity. Apple has a reputation for keeping its operating system (OS) and hardware a closed system -- Apple produces both the hardware and the software. This keeps the OS obscure.
Traditionally, Macs have been a distant second to PCs in the home computer market. A hacker who creates a virus for the Mac won't hit as many victims as he or she would with a virus for PCs, but that would soon change as more mac users get on.

Some persons dont even know these 2 OS have similarities for example
All of these systems work in protected mode.
They can run on Intel-compatible platforms.
TCP/IP support, common protocols.
Graphical User Interface.
On each platform they can support applications to run the same tasks.

But they also got their differences

Similarities between Vista and Mac OS X may benefit Apple, believe analysts at the JMP Securities. They argue that, in the context of almost synonymous features among the two operating systems, users will perceive switching to Leopard on Mac than to Vista on a PC as the same thing, That was a report on my PC mag of June 2007 edition

The best desktop operating system to use depends on what its intended use will be and who will be using it. There is no specific operating system which can be called "the best" overall, and since most current operating systems share most common and advanced features there is much debate on the topic.
My solutions

Get urself a Whitebook
Fether a Linux kernel for your taste
You're the most secured guy in the world, who can beat that?

The game continues, the debate hotter, we live on
thx

@
Ex Inferis

u are spot on , apple makes great product , we all know that , even Mark Shuttleworth the man behind ubuntu admits that Linux real competition is apple, the macbook pro is what a computer should be , but like u said , freedom for me comes first , i tot about getting a mac and installing ubuntu on it but , when i saw the dell ubuntu xps m1330 i was sold and so far it just works , and its a great machine which IMHO can stand up to the Macbook pound for pound , but that is just me , about the ssh thingie , my problem was with ssh into the machine , and i could not scp , i had some files on the mac that i wanted to store on my fileserver , i tried scp but it didnt work . maybe port 22 is closed by default on a mac ,

@Djcn

well said.

ive said a number of times that OS is mostly (or should be) a matter of personal preference, however it shouldnt be assumed that a monopoly or a volume seller is the best vendor offereing the best wares out there.

Mac is obscure, to use your term, only in the bigger picture of computing in a population that buys heavily into wiondows machines. but the truth is MAc is most often a niche machine because besides SGI machines, the design and entertainment industry uses Macs predominantly more than PCs. in the US where most of Apple's profit (a substantial profit, beating HPs and Dells of tis world) come, businesses buy PCs more while home users prefer Apple. that is probably because businesses have the advantage of an IT department to attend to the problems of windows while home users do not have such luxury.

Apple does not rely on security by obscurity; Mac OS is secure because like Linux it requires admin privileges WITH A PASSWORD to make changes or install applications. you are always logged in as a standard user and that is a concept windows borrowed in Vista. Unix is inherently secure because of the way it treats accounts and admin privileges, and Darwin is very secure.

Apple is so sure of its security that firewalls come off by default.

now i know that vista has failed (because it has not hit the intended installation base, hence the rush to release windows 7 by 2010), just like windows ME failed. but i cannot see how MAc OS X can be said to fail since steve jobs isnt trying to create a monopoly. the smaller segment of Mac owners he has targeted pay a premium over pc users and this premium secures Apple's high profits againts windows OEMs.

think about it: if steve jobs wanted to conquer the world with Mac OS X, he will make it run on Windows Machines. not even virtual machines like parallels and VMWare are allowed to run OS X in a PC environment. to run OS X on PC one needs to go through a complicated hack job and still suffer incompatibility issues.

as for security none beats BSD. its so secure its alsmost a paranoid machine.

and yes Macs work almost the same as windows because they both use certain preset computing standards and conventions, but the consistent point is its easier on Mac.

i daresay Apple is happy with its consumer base. after all the ipod and iphone are locked devices and yet they are selling like hot cakes.

here's a quote from PC WORLD of July 2007, page 95, item 9 in its list of top ten products of 2007 (mind you, its a PC magazine!):

" quick:name a good vista feature that goes beyond what's in Tiger. Yeah, we can't either."

and that comparison is with Tiger, not Leopard.

@bigbrovar

you don't need to open a port. you only do that if ipfw was manually enabled and firewall rules are applied. however if port 22 is closed why not try 23? just telnet the ip of the fileserver to confirm the port is open (it will ask for your password if it is, but of course you knew that), or try slogin.

anyway just check your firewall rules, go to Terminal and type sudo ipfw list, if port 22 is closed then you will probaly see " deny ip from any to any" in the ipsw list. modify the rules to "allow ip from any to any"


remember i do use Linux and i like it a lot more than i do windows, and it has its strenght over OS X, but the problem with Linux is too many distros. i wish they could just get togeter and make an Uber Linux to end all OS.

afterall, the potential is there.

@samir101ng

yah, I'm fulani from Bauchi, so consider me a neighbor. actually we gave you Gombe denizens your freedom.

you owe me, dude.

@Djcn

your mention of 386 nearly brought tears in my eyes. ours was a 286 (believe it) witha dot matrix printer running DOS. later we got a 386 with OS/2 and when we got windows 3.0 i was dying for a 486 witha a Cyrix processor. then i was reading lots on MMX tecnology and looking at Presentation Manager wit suspicion.

those were the days of Lotus, Borland, etc.

@bigbrovar

you don't need to open a port. you only do that if ipfw was manually enabled and firewall rules are applied. however if port 22 is closed why not try 23? just telnet the ip of the fileserver to confirm the port is open (it will ask for your password if it is, but of course you knew that), or try slogin.

the firewall rule is fine ,  i use scp on all my GNU/Linux clusters without problem ,  again i think its a problem with the mac ,  or most likely a setting i didnt understand ,  which i didn't have enough patients to explore , 

anyway just check your firewall rules, go to Terminal and type sudo ipfw list, if port 22 is closed then you will probaly see " deny ip from any to any" in the ipsw list. modify the rules to "allow ip from any to any"

i actually don't use the mac anymore ,  like i said its great and cool interface ,  but nothing i can't get in gnome ,  which i very much used to ,   

remember i do use Linux and i like it a lot more than i do windows, and it has its strenght over OS X, but the problem with Linux is too many distros. i wish they could just get togeter and make an Uber Linux to end all OS.

its not going to happen ,  many people share your view , but it ignore the very foundation that GNU/Linux  is built on ,  openness and freedom ,  and choice ,  there are over 10 thousand distros probably but you wont have a problem if You know what You want ,  in the end there are just 3 major type of distros from which every other distro kind of evolved from ,  Debian,RedHat, and Slackware ,  , and the huge number of distros are there to meet the varying needs of users .those who runs servers ,  prefer RedHat,CENTOS,Slackware etc,Desktop users prefer Ubuntu,Mint,Opensuse,fedora, low hardware use,puppy,goblinx, etc hope You get the point ,  but underneath its still the same Kernel,the same gnome,kde,xfce,lxde etc,  just different ways of doing the same thing ,  i for me that brings motivation and competition ,  with freedom comes elegance , 

afterall, the potential is there.

Just look at the netbook revolution

My days!!

Tech speech unlimited!

@Samir

Weird eh,

i was branded "weird" just coz i play games, do graphics and listen to rock music back in sch.

I now went further with my Mac, they were like "Girl! ur either weird or a white girl"

i was just like get a life, ma pipu.

@Ex, Anything for you eh

@Topic,

Sure as Djcn said,

The user and function is key

what works for me may not work for another this is where we include the ever useful One mans pot of fura. . . . .

ive had an Acer the motherboard fried faster than potato in a forestfire,

Hp which has dropped more times than the share price of kunu
its one rugged system i tell ya.

The mac works for me as a designer, i would never skimp on this factor.