off topic - worm warning

[DeltaOne81]

Okay, I know I should do this... but I can't resist...

[Q]The price of proprietary architecture. An unfailing law of economics.[/Q]

Nothing about the Mac is proprietary... well, very little. The PowerPC is as open of an architecture as Intel. The RAM's the same, the hard drives are the same. Your confusing proprietary with lesser used. Just because less people use it doesn't mean it's any more private. There was an article on Slashdot a month or so ago about building your own Mac, it's possible.

The Mac OS isn't anymore proprietary than Windows. Less, actually, Apple technologies adopt/create standards - like MPEG4 and 802.11b and *real* Java.

Microsoft creates it's own proprietary technologies like WINDOWS Media and their own version of Java and .NET, etc, etc.

The real economic law here is you pay more for higher quality.

If you don't wanna pay for it, that's fine. If you don't like, that's fine. But don't go making assumptions.

[gwm3]

Can any of the Mac people explain why at any given time in the Uris computer lab, or any university computer lab I've ever been in, at least 50% of the Macs are frozen?  Most of my contact with Macs has been in such labs, and my experiences have been overwhelmingly negative (i.e., I have to sit down and get up four times just to find a machine that is working).  I don't want to blame the computers, per se, but maybe they just don't function well in that environment (or maybe us PC users just don't know how to use them properly, leading them to crash).

[DeltaOne81]

Graham,

Yeah, pretty much the last guess there... more so than the users, the lab ops... how often do you think they actually go over and fix a Mac? They don't know what to do. If they did it'd take 30 seconds of their time to do a bit of maintance and make it work better in the future.

Additionally, the old SideCar that each and every one of them is running sucks majorly and crashes constantly, so 90% of it is probably SideCar's fault.

-Fred

[Tub(a)]

I've experienced the same thing, not just on the older iMacs hanging around, but on some brand spanking new machines in the music library.

Besides, gaming is much better on a PC :-P

[RedAR]

I actually have some real world reasons why the PC's are always running but the Macs are not, but I don't want to detract the discussion here, so if anybody is REALLY interested in hearing them, then email me jsan1@cornell.edu (at my spam email account).

[Jordan 04]

Finally!!

I've been waiting months for a Mac vs. PC debate to spice up this boring hockey crap! ::rolleyes::

[rhovorka]

Well, I wondered when this pissing match was finally going to flare up.  Having my roots as a Mac person myself, but having worked in the Windows world for several years (and also having a good deal of Unix box experience as well), I must say that the PC community has historically been more passionate about bashing Macs than the Mac world is in defending them.  Now I happened to have bought a Wintel Dell last year because of cost and my desire to play NHL 2002 (and I still have my old mac in case I need it), but that still doesn't mean I can't covet those nice Powerbooks and the unix-based OSX.  I've never had any major (knock on wood) OS problems with either platform, but I do prefer the OS control you have with the Macs.

But can we put a moratorium on this?  Trying to convince either side of anything is like trying to convince certain North Dakota fans that it's possible that a nationally competative team can emerge from the ECAC.

[crodger1]

Yeah, and until the Macs prove themselves by playing some real teams....

[RedAR]

but those PC's haven't really played anyone yet either!!! ::nut::

[jtwcornell91]

DeltaOne81 '03 wrote:

The real economic law here is you pay more for higher quality.

You mean like TeX, and PERL, and GNU, and Apache, and...

[DeltaOne81]

JTW,

Touché, but open source is unique in its model... a bunch of talented programs working on something and giving it away for the good of the community. I stand by my quote when it comes to software/hardware produced by companies which have to care about profits.

I do agree with Rich that neither side is gonna be convinced and that this shouldn't be dragged on. I tried to throw in my last line last time as an olive branch... if you don't like, that's fine. No one's gonna be covinced, least of all by a forum argument. But just admit your dislike is a personal choice/decision and not based on false-facts about the marketplace.

< / topic>, right? :-)

[atb9]

Well, it should be obvious to even the most dim-witted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, bhay-gn-flay-vn  ;-)

[Greg Berge]

OK, back to the actual worm.

I actually went by-the-book through the Symantec Klez removal for XP.  It isn't fun and isn't something you should do with less than a few free hours.

The other shoe dropping is that naturally it turns out my system at least was completely bug-free, so if you got an infected file from "kepler" it was sent from someplace else with my warmest regards.  I learned more about XP admin than I ever wanted to know and nuked my NAV 2002 along the way (which gave me an excuse to upgrade to 2003).

[RichS]

Greg,

Just got one today from "kepler" but did not open of course...

Thanks for the "warm regards" but I'm sure you won't mind if I dont  send you anything in return.  :-D

Thanks for the info.

[nyc94]

Not so fast about the quality of the hardware.  I bought a Powerbook in February and the paint is coming off the white edge.  Judging from the forums on Apple's own website this is a major problem common to Powerbooks manufactured between  the end of 2001 and Spring 2002.  Apple's response has generally been to blame users for causing the problems such as their aftershave (!) reacting with the paint or watches scratching the painted surface.  Consequently Apple says that the product is not defective and thus not covered by warranty.

Also, if memory serves me correct there were major problems with the case of the Powercube (or whatever it was called) cracking.