Horizen April Newsletter #2
Posted : 21 April 2005
Been a big month in the computing world ! Hence another email from me. What's inside, read on to find out...
Adobe buys Macromedia
OS X 10.3.9 update issues
Tiger imminent
ADSL2
Mac vs PC Showdown
Commentary on the industry
Make sure you read this before you see Star Wars : Revenge of the Sith in May. You will never look at the series in the same way again.
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main/
---
Adobe swallows Macromedia ... This has been pretty much everywhere but
just in case you haven't heard.
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html
http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/pr/2005/adobe_macromedia.html
Interesting to see what products get consolidated in the acquisition. In general Macromedia's support and products have been better than Adobe's, not that Adobe has been bad but ... These 2 and Quark have really been the industry's powerhouses for the whole desktop graphics industry for many years. With Quark in the doldrums and now virtually only Adobe left, what happens to competition in the market place? I wonder if the US version of the ACCC reckons it will be an anti-competitive merger/takeover? In the medium to long term I don't believe that this will be good for us the consumers. Competition is inherently good for excellence of service, products and technology advancement.
Opinions vary but Freehand is generally regarded as being better than Illustrator, same for Dreamweaver vs Go Live and Flash vs whatever Adobe uses for web animation. On the other hand Adobe rules the world with pdf technology and workflow and Photoshop has pretty much always been the key image editing app for the pros. Looking through Adobe's product list these days brings extreme deja vu reminiscent of the last time I looked at the phone book. Pro, prosumer, consumer, basic, they have the lot covered in the graphics and video fields. Macromedia aren't exactly slouches either and have created their own classic products and technologies. It would be good to see Adobe take the best of both worlds and merge products with the combined software teams from both companies. However given the inertia inevitable with such takeovers and the equally inevitable layoffs it could be a while before we see any benefits or disadvantages. It's probably going to be Adobe's way or the highway but we can only hope that in a year or 2, when the next batch of software updates get released that we will see the Macromedia influence in a good way. And the retention if not improvement of important technologies like Flash.
You might have noticed that wherever Apple has bought it's own products to market in competition to Adobe's own range then pretty soon Adobe's Mac versions get dropped. Premiere (vs Final Cut Pro), Photoshop Album (vs iPhoto) are 2 examples that spring to mind. Likely this wont change as Apple probably has the best software engineers in the world and it's hard to compete against the best especially when they own the platform. Bit like Microsoft actually.
If Apple ever release OS
X for PC, well that would truly shake the computer world. Not that I reckon
they will while
Steve
Jobs is alive
and kicking.
But never say never.
---
Mac OS X 10.3.9 Update Issues.
Some Safari bugs with OS
X 10.3.9 update. Apparently Java related mainly with some banking sites.
For those effected
reloading
the Java Update
1.42v2 and
the OS X 2005-002 security update seems to fix any issues.
On the other hand many reckon Safari is now both smoother
and faster.
Read this to see if you are likely to be effected and
the solution too :
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301380
---
Tiger is imminent, in just over a week. Thanks to all
those who have taken up my on site install offer. It
looks like
initial demand will
outstrip supply.
Just for a change. As soon as stock comes in I will
call to organise
a time to come over.
I have had the CD/DVD issue clarified. Tiger is shipping
with a DVD only but you can order the CD installers
using :
http://www.apple.com.au/macosx/pdf/Tiger_MX_au.pdf
$14.95
inc GST directly from Apple. But then you all have DVD's don't you?
---
In preparation for Dashboard I have been fiddling
a bit with Konfabulator.
Very useful utility. 95% of the widgets are absolutely useless (and that's being generous) but the other 5% more than make up for the junk.
Dashboard looks to be even better than Konfabulator and one of the things I feel most people will get immediate benefit from.
http://www.apple.com.au/macosx/features/dashboard/
Some might think it's a gimmick but with careful use (ie not having 50 widgets on screen - just cos you can) it is a surprisingly useful utility. Works with Expose too. Which if you aren't using and are on Panther, try pressing F9, F10 and F11. Pretty good hey Blows Windows users away every time they see it.
In a similar vein, Automator looks to be a pretty decent addition to the crop of extras coming with Tiger.
But if you never upgrade then you'll never know ...
And time to get a bigger
screen. I'm running a 21" CRT at 1280x1024
these days and it's not enough !
Give me 1600x1200 (or more). Can
you ever have a
fast enough computer, enough RAM
or HD or screen - of course not.
---
ADSL2 is hitting our shores too.
Here Telstra/Big Pond is lagging
behind
with several of
the medium and larger
ISP's
which are
going it alone
and in consortiums
to upgrade within Telstra's own
switchboards. Telstra is getting
it's slice of
the pie though by charging
ISP's $80 per connection
upgrade
and doing it
at a snail's pace. Guess Telstra
is going to get sued by
the ACCC again, and loose, again
! Will they never learn.
With most ADSL users
on 512/128 and 256/64 speed plans you can certainly see the
advantage of
ADSL2 or 2+
with speeds
of 24,000/1,000.
Actual
real life
results are reaching from 5-18Mbps
speeds so there are massive speed improvements
in using
ADSL2.
ADSL 2 plans
will start
at $30/month (same as ADSL) and so
it's a no brainer to either get or
upgrade to when your switchboard is enabled.
Finally ADSL
subscribers
will
be able to achieve
the download speeds that cable
users have been having for years. And
the upload speed is better than cable.
Start
asking your
ISP when your
area is
being connected.
Might
need another
modem depending on how new yours is.
---
Mac vs PC
Well really just a Mac Mini vs PC comparison, but then I've always been a sensationalist.
For your
$799 inc GST you get :
1.25MHz G4 in the smallest and neatest
case this side of the Blue Mountains
167MHz system bus speed
256MB RAM of DDR 333MHz (expandable
up to 1GB)
40GB 2.5" 5400rpm hard disk (expandable up to 80GB from Apple, 120GB
if 3rd party)
Combo drive (CD-RW/DVD-ROM) (superdrive
optional
ATI Radeon 9200 display graphics
with 4xAGP and 32MB DDR video RAM
Audio out port with built-in speaker
2x USB 2, 1x firewire 400 ports
56K modem and 10/100 Ethernet ports
DVI video port with VGA adaptor
OS X and software bundle (iLife,
Appleworks, Mail, Safari, iChat,
iCal, etc)
Options for wireless and bluetooth
Hmm not a bad bundle. The quietest and lowest power consuming computer on the market today. Not the fastest either but you can never have everything.
The good - small, quiet, stylish, powerful enough for most needs, excellent software bundle, flexibility to use own keyboard. mouse and display.
The bad - hard to crack open the case and expand the unit later, no microphone port unless using 3rd party extras, limited expandability cos of 2.5" hard disk and 1 RAM slot, no surround sound audio unless using 3rd party extras, lacks high end graphics grunt due to low-mid range display card, no 1000BaseT ethernet and cant add later.
Apple has their usual brain fade with on/off switches and it's at the back of the computer.
PC now ...
A Pentium isn't
really competitive price wise so I am going
with the Intel Celeron
processor
for
this comparison.
Intel Celeron 2.8Ghz
with 533MHz front side
bus (some
offer
800MHz for the
same price)
256MB DDR400 RAM
40GB PATA 7200rpm hard
disk (onboard SATA ports
also)
Sony Combo drive with
DVD playing and Nero
Lite CD
burning software
Built-in video Intel
Extreme graphics 2 chipset
Panasonic 1.44GB floppy
5.1 Surround sound
6x USB 2 ports
1x Firewire 400 port
56K modem and 10/100
Ethernet
Midi tower case (could
go shuttle case but comes
at
a premium)
Windows XP Home
Price for the bundle
is around $900 inc GST
The good - expandable and flexible, cheap MS Office OEM bundles available, on board surround sound, upgradable graphics, 2 year warranty as standard
The bad - large, noisy, no software bundle like iLife or Appleworks, high power consumption compared to Mac Mini
Amazing - the Mac Mini is cheaper! And for a directly comparable system. If you shop around for sure you can get a green guide special cheaper but not with the quality of components. And I am trying to compare Apple's with Apple's here. Again you can juggle parts and specs around forever with PC's but regardless Apple has definitely produced a very price competitive unit. Likely the PC would have the edge in performance too with it's nominally faster processor, RAM, hard disk etc. The PC misses out on the outstanding iLife bundle for which there is no direct equivalent on the PC platform.
Noise and power ratings are becoming increasingly important to consumers and here the Mac Mini has no peer. Using a measly 20W when in use (as tested by Tom's hardware) with virtually no detectable noise combined with it's elegant and minimal footprint it looks out of place in no home or office. Shame about the brick sized power supply though ...
I'm almost computer agnostic these days, but with a definite leaning towards Apple products. Servicing both platforms now for years has given me an appreciation for the good and bad points with both platforms. In fact I have owned Macs and PCs for years (decades almost even). Windows XP was the really big leap forward for PCs where they effectively caught up with Macs - where XP was/is good enough to do most things right most of the time. However Apple has continued to update OS X very well and it still stays a step (or 2) ahead of XP, especially in security. Expect OS X to be more stable, far more secure, bit more user friendly and to come with the best home user software ever made by anyone, anywhere, anywhen.
Many PC users show me their fancy software (that they have downloaded for free from the pervasive file sharing networks). Heaven forbid they should actually buy it! But they can't use it. Trying to do home videos with PC's for example is an epic and the software is far from being user friendly. The professionals don't have a lot of issues on either platform as they are exactly that - professionals. But the average home user is another matter entirely. In fact most people would actually be better off with a Mac and they would definitely be more productive.
Couple of places where PC's reign supreme is games and complete flexibility to almost anything hardware or software wise. Apple has always put it's own spin on what hardware specifications you get from them. Most times they get it right, but the PC's simply have more options. Not that most people need these options but hey at least they are there! A major benefit with PC's is the availability of OEM versions of MS Office. Here you can buy MS Office for PC for several hundred dollars less than you can for Mac unless you go for the academic versions. But the proportion of PC users that pirate software is in my opinion far higher than in the Mac community. And you wonder why software vendors are now resorting to on-line activation. Unfortunately for them the hackers always seem to stay 1 step ahead. As the music and video industry can attest. Even after taking extreme security measures, pirate DVD's still seem to be available even before official releases. And with movie DVD's for sale at less than $20 anyway, why would you even bother to RIP and burn your own.
PC's are slightly less reliable than Mac's as is born out by consumer satisfaction survey after survey, but then again parts are usually much cheaper to replace on a PC than a Mac. Also it is easy to find a PC shop just around the corner. Apple resellers are much rarer as is good Apple support when you need it.
Funnily enough Apple's software pricing has always been very cheap, whereas MS has charged through the nose for almost everything. Licensing costs from MS are amazingly high compared to Apple's. Apple for many years had a premium hardware pricing policy but this has been relaxed in the last year or 2 and the benefits especially with products like the Mac Mini, eMac and iBook. The pro range of products : G5 desktop, iMac and Powerbook cost more but you get what you pay for and even they are more competitive than ever.
Apple's market share these days varies between 2-5% (depending who you listen to). With burgeoning computer markets in China and the 3rd world I cant see their market share going up either as they don't appear to be too interested in chasing these markets. But in the US, Europe and of course Australia, Apple maintains a very high profile - one even higher recently due to the pervasive iPod. Supposedly even Linux is closing on Apple's market share as they have surfaced with usable graphical front ends and almost automatic installers as per Apple and MS. But then all PC manufacturers would love to have as rabidly loyal and fanatical a customer base as Apple's. You only have to see all the hate email that Mac users send in to anyone who says the slightest bad thing about Mac's.
In the US in particular, Apple is shafting it's own reseller base by selling direct to the public, matching prices and in general being the bad boy on the block. But in this they are doing no worse than most of the other manufacturers as they all look at Dell and it's massive market share in envy. Court cases are in progress as we speak. It is only a matter of time before Apple brings these practices here to Australia. Pity the poor resellers then, as I don't think their business model will be sustainable. Their service isn't good enough nor their customer loyalty secure enough to withstand a battering and major competitive thrust from their major supplier. But what do I know.
And of course it has never been a better time to own a computer. They have never been as powerful, cheap or user friendly.
And it's going to better. Just watch out for the viruses on a PC ! And backup - Mac or PC ! Enjoy.