Life in the Mac lane

[jcpeace]

and the 2008 award for the best use of admin privs goes to......................

[MCA™]

Cool!  Have you tried it yet?  Does it stream or download?

It's streaming, but you have to download a plug-in first. The streaming quality was OK- not great- for the one movie I watched.

Hey, who did that? I want names. A shaltered post in a thread... This is totally new territory.

« Last Edit: Today at 14:52 by MCA »

 

[RB]

Cool!  Have you tried it yet?  Does it stream or download?

It's streaming, but you have to download a plug-in first. The streaming quality was OK- not great- for the one movie I watched.

Hey, who did that? I want names. A shaltered post in a thread... This is totally new territory.

[bdlaw]

Cool!  Have you tried it yet?  Does it stream or download?

It's streaming, but you have to download a plug-in first. The streaming quality was OK- not great- for the one movie I watched.

[RB]

Cool!  Have you tried it yet?  Does it stream or download?

It's streaming, but you have to download a plug-in first. The streaming quality was OK- not great- for the one movie I watched.

[bdlaw]

Cool!  Have you tried it yet?  Does it stream or download?

[RB]

For all you Netflix subscribers and Mac owners, I just got an email from Netflix informing me that Macs now have the Netflix "watch instantly" capability.

[TheFang]

RCA cable.

[RB]

I have a Macbook with the "Tiger" operating system. I have purchased certain TV shows and movies from iTunes and would like to somehow play them on my Panasonic flat-panel plasma TV. Can anyone explain to me, in relatively simple terms, what I need to do to be able to watch these shows and movies on my TV? There has to be a way to do it without purchasing Apple TV, right?
 

[CeeDub]

Halo sucked.
 

Say goodbye to viruses!

[Robocub]

Add-on's time.

Anyone have any experience with console-style controllers for mac?  I tried to start playing Battlefield 2142 this weekend and realized I will never be terribly facile in the game if I have to use the mouse and keyboard....

I play Halo: Combat Evolved on my Mac for years, both a PPC and a newer Intel iMac. I use an Xbox controller with USB connector and this free nifty driver. download here: http://tattiebogle.net/index.php/ProjectRoot/Xbox360Controller/OsxDriver

[NON]

http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations/Steve_Jobs.php

http://www.campaignmoney.com/apple_computer.asp?pg=2

[duke_of_earl]

Add-on's time.

Anyone have any experience with console-style controllers for mac?  I tried to start playing Battlefield 2142 this weekend and realized I will never be terribly facile in the game if I have to use the mouse and keyboard....

Gaming on a Mac?  Here comes trouble...   Actually I'm curious how games perform on the new architecture, cause they sucked on the PowerPC.

duke

[bdlaw]

Add-on's time.

Anyone have any experience with console-style controllers for mac?  I tried to start playing Battlefield 2142 this weekend and realized I will never be terribly facile in the game if I have to use the mouse and keyboard....

[justiceiro]

Knowing what you do with the photos, I would stick ith photoshop elements.  However, if you want to shoot RAW, then I think you should get Lightroom- using your better half's student discount, it should be about $100, and it has the best rendering engine evah.

[elgoodo]

i just want to say SCREW STEVE JOBS for cutting capacity on the ipod classic.

[Frank M]

I don't use a Mac, but for photography I use a combination of Nikon Capture NX to handle RAW files and Adobe Photoshop CS2.  In most cases, PS is overkill; it does a thousand additional things most people don't need.  Consider Adobe Lightroom 2, which is cheaper and targeted specifically at photography.  I haven't used it myself, but I've heard a lot of praise from both professional and amateur photographers.   

BTW, "Adobe CS3" refers to a suite of programs, which is is geared toward graphic design professionals.  Not surprisingly, it's expensive.  Spend the money on a lens

For audio, I like Adobe Audition (used to be Cool Edit Pro). 


Have fun!

Sitting in the mail-room or already on it's way to me is my first Apple computer in 20 years.

Would love some advice on software- most of all I want to be able to work with photos fairly intensively (digital darkroom, not graphic design), create/record/edit music, and maybe play a few games.

Thoughts?

Oh- specs- I broke down and got the iMac with a bunch of goodies.

[bdlaw]

Get Adobe CS3 it has Photoshop, it's the best program for photo manipulation, I use it at work and at home. Iphoto is great for removing red eye.

I hope you ordered additional memory, at least 1 gig more, 2 is prefered

4 total.

[07310]

Get Adobe CS3 it has Photoshop, it's the best program for photo manipulation, I use it at work and at home. Iphoto is great for removing red eye.

I hope you ordered additional memory, at least 1 gig more, 2 is prefered

[kitten]

I think there is some stuff you can do to your photos in iphoto but I think if you really want to get into the retouching aspect you have to get photoshop... or at least the dumbed down version which I think exists, iirc.

btw... welcome to the party!

macs rule!

[jennymayla]

Sitting in the mail-room or already on it's way to me is my first Apple computer in 20 years.

Would love some advice on software- most of all I want to be able to work with photos fairly intensively (digital darkroom, not graphic design), create/record/edit music, and maybe play a few games.

Thoughts?

Oh- specs- I broke down and got the iMac with a bunch of goodies.

I know your wife knows the way to the Short Hills Mall -- go there and play around at the Apple store there.  You could also hit any one of the mutliple stores in the city but I like the Short Hills one too and it's not as crazy hectic.  Minus the mall part.  

Also, take advantage of all the classes, demos and training sessions the Apple store offers!   It's really fun.

[TheFang]

Sitting in the mail-room or already on it's way to me is my first Apple computer in 20 years.

Would love some advice on software- most of all I want to be able to work with photos fairly intensively (digital darkroom, not graphic design), create/record/edit music, and maybe play a few games.

Thoughts?

Oh- specs- I broke down and got the iMac with a bunch of goodies.

Then it'll come with everything you need.

[bdlaw]

Sitting in the mail-room or already on it's way to me is my first Apple computer in 20 years.

Would love some advice on software- most of all I want to be able to work with photos fairly intensively (digital darkroom, not graphic design), create/record/edit music, and maybe play a few games.

Thoughts?

Oh- specs- I broke down and got the iMac with a bunch of goodies.

[bdlaw]

Unless they changed the internal design, Vaio motherboards sit right on top of the power supply and have a tendency to melt over time. 

[LadyDi]

SamS, what about a Vaio?  A wee expensive, but I've liked it when I used it and a lot of coworkers have them and adore them.  Mac thinks it's cute with the new air, but Vaio has a super small and light job.  It'll run you about $1500 - $1800, tho.

All this said, I do think that there's no comparison for graphics between PC and Mac.  Mac eclipses PC in this regard, although some report that PCs are not as bad as Macheads think.

And the other truth is, I think the PC user interface absolutely sucks.  Even the icons are klunky, hard to find, and overly-complicated.  For instance, the wireless network tool in PC is just stupid complicated compared to Mac, and the dashboard on Mac is just so much easier to cope with.

[bdlaw]

Wednesday has a Dell laptop (Latitude) which is very nice; kind of large but the display is amazing; she runs both Windows and Linux on it.  Only problem she's had was that she was one of the many who had to replace the battery; that problem is as far as I know fixed now so new ones shouldn't have that issue.

I have had an IBM ThinkPad for several years now and love it; I wouldn't recommend buying one now though- IBM sold the business to Lenovo (Wed has one from work) and it seems a little unstable.

[SamS]

Ok, for those of you who say MAC's are over rated, what do you propose as a good alternative.  I'm in the market for a lap top as opposed to a desk top. I currently have a home pc, desk top which is about 6 years old. I'm looking for something that gives me more mobility.  I was considering the mac because of  the  "out of the box" readiness, the claim that is not as expose to virus' as PCs, and I get a discount through my employer   Still, I'm not married to it.   I don't do artistic graphic stuff and I am for the most part lazy about my picture management.  I fundamentally use my PC for word processing, internet access, occassional spreadsheet usage, storing my iTunes, chatting on WiredJc.

The other alternative I'm considering is a Dell, largely because I get a discount through work on a Dell, as I do a mac.  Also, I have a dell now, which has been pretty good to me.

[AmbushBug]

Can anyone explain why my iBook suddenly has much less battery life than it used to?  Not sure what is causing the power drain but it's a recent issue and really a hassle.

Any insight?

This isn’t a mac/PC issue, it’s a laptop issue.

Specifically a lithium-ion issue. Abruptly short battery life is the main disadvantage of laptop batteries, and it has a number of causes.

First, a Li-ion battery’s life degrades by orders of magnitude. To bring it back to Algebra class, it’s geometric, rather than arithmetic.

That is, when your battery dies, you imagine that its life drops off evenly, like a gentle hill —

But this isn’t true Instead, Li-ion batteries lose life in a curve —

so the loss starts off gradually, but gets much steeper as it goes on.¹

Also, the way people use their laptops tends to mess with battery life.

For instance, like all batteries, laptop batteries are sensitive to heat. So someone who uses their laptop a lot (say as their primary computer), or does a lot of processor-intensive computing (say multimedia editing) is going to produce more heat than their system can really deal with, and this seriously affects battery life. Add to this that most people (myself included) often sit with their laptop literally on their lap, or on other places where it can't cool itself properly, which also helps kill battery life.

Plus, every time you recharge your battery, no matter how briefly you were off A/C and on battery power, you're using up a limited supply of recharge cycles. Even if you only unplugged for a few minutes, it still works as like a recharge.²

Laptops aren’t meant to used the same way desktop computers are. I admit that I only have one computer, and it's a notebook, but I also don't expect it to survive like a desktop machine would.

¹ Also, this decay occurs whether or not you're actually using the battery, unlike, say, your typical alkaline battery in your fridge which stays pretty much fine so long as you don't use it.

² Note: I'm not sure if this is true with recent Li-ion batteries but was the case with my last machine, the final PowerBook model circa 2001 or so.

[LadyDi]

How new is it?  Welcome to planned obsolescence. They are good for about a year, two if lucky.  Then you have to junk up a landfill, and buy a new one.   And for the price of a replacement, and since your OS update will run slower after two years, hell, why not upgrade!

I'm sure PCs are no better with batteries.

Can anyone explain why my iBook suddenly has much less battery life than it used to?  Not sure what is causing the power drain but it's a recent issue and really a hassle.

Any insight?

[NON]

Can anyone explain why my iBook suddenly has much less battery life than it used to?  Not sure what is causing the power drain but it's a recent issue and really a hassle.

Any insight?

My PowerBook G4 has the same problem. It's about 3 years old, it has a battery that's about a year or so old (part of the recall). No idea what the problem is, and the tech guys at Digital Society said they couldn't diagnose anything particularly out of the ordinary with the hardware.

So it's the evil boogeyman i like to call "mac-overratedness".
 

[jennymayla]

Can anyone explain why my iBook suddenly has much less battery life than it used to?  Not sure what is causing the power drain but it's a recent issue and really a hassle.

Any insight?

[e-eff]

There's a Weekend Errands Service that might do this for you.

Luddite here again.

I don't know if this is the right thread for this, but I have a question:  Does anybody have an ipod-filling service?  Or sell pre-loaded ipods?

I do not have an ipod.  I find the barrier to entry to be too much.  I want someone to load the cds I have and load a range of other music based upon some broad criteria from me. Does anyone do this?  And what would it cost?

PG

[groucho]

I loved playing moon patrol on the apple computers in grammer school

[LadyDi]

Back in the day, I could say 100% that Apple products were waaaay superior.  In fact, just sold MCA what was the best machine I ever owned:  an ibook laptop.  Upgraded recently, and this one's a dawg--crashes, had to be reinstalled after only 6 months.  We also had a mac mini that died completely one month after its warranty was up.

I sometimes wonder if it's the intel processors--seems like a lot more lemons happened after they went intel.  But, that's just a theory.

BTW--the Air looks super-adorable, but how dumb is an $1800 piece of equipment with no CD drive?  Unless you were loaded and had three computers...

Nothing, and I mean nothing, is as bad as Applecare support.  I do better myself with a google search.  Comcast service has 'em beat.

[jennymayla]

...Growing up, my public schools were filled with various generations of Apple computers, while at home I had dos, and later Win 95....

I love this because I have distinct memories of a big school meeting in the auditorium of my grammar school when they unveiled the school's first big clunky massive computer.  It scared the shit out of us.

I also remember dying to run the slide show in social studies class and sniffing mimeographed paper.

Don't act like you don't remember that, some of you who shall remain nameless. 

[SamS]

I'm giving more consideration to getting a mac myself.

Is that what you switched over to skwirrl?  Otherwise, perhaps I should be saying, "finally, welcome to me team."

Made the switch. So far, so good. Much easier to set up and faster performance.

[skwirrlking]

Made the switch. So far, so good. Much easier to set up and faster performance.

[Case]

How it all began.

[CeeDub]

Once you go Mac  you never go back!

[elgoodo]

after reading this thread, seems like the pro-mac people out number the anti. am seriously considering ditching the Dell and going to Mac. Anyone have any bad experiences doing this?

I have to say that I've had no major issues with my G4 Powerbook (yet.)   Over two years of use.  This powerbook was my first non-iPod Mac purchase.  Personally, I'd NEVER go back to PC.  I am damn near computer illiterate in many ways, and I find the Mac is just less of a headache than a PC.  It's more intuitive, more user friendly.  And a bonus it both looks and feels nicer than a PC.  The cool factor means nothing to me in terms of status but I'm not gonna lie that I don't appreciate the fact that it looks and feels cool as fuck.

That said, I do know that Apple's customer support DOES leave a lot to be desired.  Luckily, I haven't had to use them for anything other than iPod issues.  So far.

It helps that I paid significantly less for my top-of-the-line (circa 2005) Powerbook than the Apple list price - I bought it after the Macbook pros came out, and the Apple store was trying to get rid of them.

[NON]

after reading this thread, seems like the pro-mac people out number the anti. am seriously considering ditching the Dell and going to Mac. Anyone have any bad experiences doing this?

As a 3-year long powerbook G4 owner, i would have to say that the apple markup (say about 200-300% for a PC laptop with comparable or better performance) is not ultimately worth it. I have had multiple hardware problems, which were covered by my 3-year applecare protection plan, but were still a massive pain in the ass. My battery life (even with a 1 year old battery sent as part of the recall) is now less than 1 hour.

Having just shopped for a PC laptop for EFL and weighing the pros and cons, I don't think I would replace my current powerbook with another apple laptop. It's just not worth it, regardless of the "cool" factor (which is sort of old news now).

[skwirrlking]

after reading this thread, seems like the pro-mac people out number the anti. am seriously considering ditching the Dell and going to Mac. Anyone have any bad experiences doing this?

[ianmac47]

I had been a long time Windows advocate. Growing up, my public schools were filled with various generations of Apple computers, while at home I had dos, and later Win 95. And over all, being on Dos / Windows was much better. But as of late of definitely changed my tune.

Last year I realized the time had come to replace my aging dell. Well, it wasn't that aged, but it was a dell so after 3 1/2 years, it was time to be replaced. But at the time I knew the new ultra cool windows vista was set to arrive in January, so I waited to buy a computer-- I basically made the decision to buy last summer, so waiting six months didn't seem to be a big deal.

Anyway, by February I still had not purchased a computer, largely because I was debating between Vista and sticking with XP. I finally went with a laptop running XP, mostly because it seemed buying a PC with enough power to run Vista was going to cost twice as much. Great, like I said, I was a windows advocate, and XP is stable and for the most part efficient.

This summer my better half got herself a Macbook. Her four year old HP was just not up to the tasks anymore. Mostly, all I can say is, wow, what a difference.

Printing:
When I first plugged the printer into my computer, the first thing that happened was windows told me new hardware was detected and asked if I wanted to download the drivers. Sure, of course I do. Except windows couldn't find drivers for the printer, and wanted to know if I had a disk. Um, no. So then I had to locate on the internet the correct drivers from Lexmark, and download them, and install them, and then restart my computer. 20 minutes later I finally printed the two pages of directions. On the other hand, plug the Macbook in and it printed. That was all.

Camera:
So I take a lot of digital pictures. I have about 15GB of photos. I plug the camera into my laptop, it does the whole finding drivers bit, and so on. Then I copy the photos off the camera to a hard drive. But windows keeps giving me problems deleting the photos from the memory card on the camera-- "the file is in use by some other program." Sure it is. By contrast, I plug the camera into the Mac, tell iPhoto to copy the photos to the harddrive and delete the pictures from the camera when its finished. Done.

Burning data DVD:
One of the first things I wanted to do was backup my data to a DVD. I had been using my iPod to transfer my 15GB of photos and other files between computers, but really I needed a permanent backup solution-- which DVDs are great for, because of their large size, ect.  Only Windows doesn't support burning DVDs without extra software. Only they don't mention this. So I tried both types of writable DVDs, and kept getting an error trying to burn data. Then I realized I needed to buy software to burn DVDs, or download some freeware. Ok, fine, did that, and an hour later I was starting to backup my data. By contrast, I put a blank DVD into the Macbook, and in about 30 seconds it was copying data to the DVD.

In short, I'm tired of manually doing all the things that Windows should do automatically, and which Apple has successfully programmed their software to do for me. I've had bad experiences with Macs in the past, but their current OS iteration is far superior to anything from windows. I'll hopefully never need to deal with Vista, and my next computer will almost certainly be from Apple.

[NON]

Does anyone have recommendations for Mac repair shops in NJ? I know about Tekserve, but would welcome any suggestions to avoid having to lug my desktop on the PATH.

TIA

It's also in NYC, but i had a great experience with Digital Society in the Village (either 9th or 10th street near broadway). Very nice guys, small shop, very friendly, and really reasonable.

[jcpeace]

avoiding tekserve is your first good move....

according to the apple website, there are service centers in edison, somerville, bridgewater, north plainfield and others....

just go here http://www.apple.com/buy/locator/

condolences...

[MCA™]

Does anyone have recommendations for Mac repair shops in NJ? I know about Tekserve, but would welcome any suggestions to avoid having to lug my desktop on the PATH.

TIA

[LadyDi]

I highly recommend the apple site for all tech questions about the hardware or software. Follow the support discussions path, and choose some keywords particular to your problem or questions.  Someone has probably had the same issues before and there are lots of geeks just waiting for a question that they can answer.
Don't forget to do a search in iphoto help.  I just looked there and learned some things that I didn't know. 
It looks to me as though you can create multiple libraries that do not load unless you go looking for them.  There is also a rebuild library command that sounds like it will reconcile the thumbs to the actual files.
I haven't had the need to do these things myself, as my library is not too large, and I've grown sort of disenchanted with my camera, but I'm intrigued by the multiple library idea.

One thing I really love about the Mac community is that they have awesome geek online presence.  You can google about any issue and come up with a thousand great sites on how to deal with it.  I find it much more helpful than the apple site, and have gotten myself out of some pretty major shit on my computer following the geek blogs and posts.  Try it out.

[Binky]

I highly recommend the apple site for all tech questions about the hardware or software. Follow the support discussions path, and choose some keywords particular to your problem or questions.  Someone has probably had the same issues before and there are lots of geeks just waiting for a question that they can answer.
Don't forget to do a search in iphoto help.  I just looked there and learned some things that I didn't know. 
It looks to me as though you can create multiple libraries that do not load unless you go looking for them.  There is also a rebuild library command that sounds like it will reconcile the thumbs to the actual files.
I haven't had the need to do these things myself, as my library is not too large, and I've grown sort of disenchanted with my camera, but I'm intrigued by the multiple library idea.

[AmbushBug]

Ambush, have you put the Library in thumbnail view?  You can change the view to show little mini jpegs.  Took me a while to figure it out, but hugely helpful...and at 10,000 thumbnails...you really should consider moving some of those puppies off!  Unless you've got oodles of disk space, I'd think that's makin' you drag pretty heavy.  I only have 1000 and on my g3 oldie, it's definitely a drain.

This is exactly my problem. I've moved everything pre-2007 off my HD onto my external, but for some reason iPhoto has kept all those thumbnails, and it slows the fucker down something awful. Especially since sometimes I'll accidentially select one of them and iPhoto gets confused since the source file isn't there anymore.

Anyway . . . is there a way to get rid of thumbnail view, or just delete the old thumbnails (that is, rebuilding the library rather than just going into the "info" folder and deleting everything by hand)?

[justiceiro]

Here's the deal.

I just bought a MAc, a wolverine ESP, and a 430EX.  I am brikkity-Broke as hell.  Does anybody ahve a copy of Photoshop CS-3 (or CS-2) for the mac that they can "lend" to me until I get some scratch up to buy a licensed version which, of course, I will do.

Alternately, andy "students" out there?

[LadyDi]

Yeah, I use iPhoto Library, but it's not as helpful as I'd like, as for some reason iPhoto has kept all the thumbnails. At approaching 10,000 thumbnails, it's still pretty damn slow. I don't think Apple gave enough thought to the memory requirements of the digital photography revolution.

Still, thanks for the advice.

Ambush, have you put the Library in thumbnail view?  You can change the view to show little mini jpegs.  Took me a while to figure it out, but hugely helpful...and at 10,000 thumbnails...you really should consider moving some of those puppies off!  Unless you've got oodles of disk space, I'd think that's makin' you drag pretty heavy.  I only have 1000 and on my g3 oldie, it's definitely a drain.

Another thing I learned recently:  you should have a minimum of 5G on your hard drive to make all systems function at minimum efficiency.  Go to your hard drive, and click option i.  It will show you how much you have used, and how much you have remaining.  Turned out that I had less than 1G!  I wasn't feeling it that much, but dumping some photos and programs I really don't use, and also running MacJanitor every once in a while helped tremendously.

[AmbushBug]

Yeah, I use iPhoto Library, but it's not as helpful as I'd like, as for some reason iPhoto has kept all the thumbnails. At approaching 10,000 thumbnails, it's still pretty damn slow. I don't think Apple gave enough thought to the memory requirements of the digital photography revolution.

Still, thanks for the advice.

[LadyDi]

This you're right about, their file managment program is pretty bad. I actually think the best one was waaaay back in windose 3.x.

Their photo archiving practices and directory structure are similarly insipid. iPhoto has to load every single photo in its library it loads up, which makes no sense, and makes it hang forever when you boot it (at least if you take as many photos as Fang does). I really wish they'd fix that.

Their archiving program works very similarly to PC.  Go to iPhoto Library--it's a snap.  You can open up by year, roll, etc.  No waits, individual jpegs appear.  IPhoto is the actual application.  If you open from there, yes, you'll have to load everything up. If you've got so many that it takes a long time to load, you should probably move them off to a CD, as you are taxing the memory.  Same would go for PC.

[bdlaw]

Am I the only person alive under 50 yrs old who can't STAND "Take On Me"?  I mean, can't STAND it.  I don't understand how people even tolerate this song, let alone squeal in delight and twirl around the room like some drunken cheerleader (I've seen it.)  I've hated it since I was in like 7th grade when it came out.  I hate it then and I think I hate it even more now.  It doesn't help that this is one of those ubiquitous songs like "I Will Survive" (which I tolerate only slightly better) and "Blister In The Sun" (which I actually do like) that gets played at every lame party. 

I haven't heard any of A-ha's other work.  You can probably infer as to why that might be.

I would like to extend a hearty thanks to Justi for keeping his A-Ha CD close to his chest last Saturday.

Oh and I hate the video too.

OK, you know what, I heard and listened to this song on Comcast, and pulled the YouTube of the video today, based on the resulting ShoutBox and real life controversy of this post.

You're right.  The song IS complete and utter shit.  And the video is in fact bombastically terrible.

BUT, there is still the possibility that you may be dead to me based on your ownership and adovacy of multiple Bow-Wow-Wow albums.

 

[AmbushBug]

I'm not crazy about Mac's file management program . . . One of the things I miss about my windoze utility program is being able to make directories and move files in a snap.

This you're right about, their file managment program is pretty bad. I actually think the best one was waaaay back in windose 3.x.

Their photo archiving practices and directory structure are similarly insipid. iPhoto has to load every single photo in its library it loads up, which makes no sense, and makes it hang forever when you boot it (at least if you take as many photos as Fang does). I really wish they'd fix that.

[Mr_Grieves]

Yes, I know that stuff -).  The problem is, Apple has their way of organizing things and I have mine.  And the twains don't meet.

[Binky]

I not sure that I really understand what you need to do, but as for organizing the music files, I think itunes does everything through playlists.  When you get an unwieldy number of playlists, make a new folder, name it (like be-bop), and drag suitable playlists into it.  My playlists are individual albums, and I group them together by artist.  If you want you can put those files into another file labeled Jazz.

All of the wav files are stored in the itunes music folder according to itunes own logic based upon the track information. You organize the playlists.

Am I telling you stuff you already know?

[Mr_Grieves]

Caveat... not music related.  Sort of.

I'm not crazy about Mac's file management program although it's leaps and bounds better than Windoze MS Explorer.  One of the things I miss about my windoze utility program is being able to make directories and move files in a snap.  Maybe I'm just not used to the mac, but there doesn't seem to be a really simple way to do this.  And just so ya know, I need to use this BIGTIME to organize my music files.  Does anyone know of a 3rd party utility?  And speaking of which, how about an active Mac discussion group other than the one on the Apple site? 

[TheFang]

That sounds illegal . . . what do I get in return?

Oh yeah, cos it'll be the first illegal thing you've done. 

[PhillyGirl]

I hate it too, elgoodo.  I will admit to having liked it as a tween, but now it makes my head hurt when it's played.

I do however, like to twirl and screech when any of the following are played by a lame-o wedding band:  Come on Eileen, Blister in the Sun, or Sweet Caroline.

[elgoodo]

Am I the only person alive under 50 yrs old who can't STAND "Take On Me"?  I mean, can't STAND it.  I don't understand how people even tolerate this song, let alone squeal in delight and twirl around the room like some drunken cheerleader (I've seen it.)  I've hated it since I was in like 7th grade when it came out.  I hate it then and I think I hate it even more now.  It doesn't halp that this is one of those ubiquitous songs like "I Will Survive" (which I tolerate only slightly better) and "Blister In The Sun" (which I actually do like) that gets played at every lame party. 

I haven't heard any of A-ha's other work.  You can probably infer as to why that might be.

I would like to extend a hearty thanks to Justi for keeping his A-Ha CD close to his chest last Saturday.

Oh and I hate the video too.

[justiceiro]

That's uncalled for PG.  Everyone knows their best work was "the sun always shines on TV."

[PhillyGirl]

I have about a dozen CDs, but (strangely) around 100 empty CD cases.  I lose everything I ever buy, except for that pernicious second A-Ha CD that always turns up like a bad penny.

"Take on me . . . take on me.  Take me on.  Oooh ooh ooh oooooooh!"

[justiceiro]

I blow all my money on photo gear.  I can only handle three vices- quality glass, cigarettes, and (of course) the ladeez

[AmbushBug]

So AmbushBug, the Mrs. just got an iPod and wants music on it.  Since you've already gone to the trouble of ripping all your CDs can I come over and just upload all of it from yours?  I promise that I will say "thank you" even if the Fang didn't.   Cheesy

That sounds illegal . . . what do I get in return?

[Woodsy]

Take it from the Fang, who had to sit there for something like a full week while I spent every waking moment putting in a CD, ripping it, uploading it to the iPod, deleting the songs from my HD, ejecting the CD, inserting another, ripping it, uploading . . . deleting . . . ejecting . . . inserting . . . If you have a shitload of CDs (as I imagine many of us do) it can take days.

Of course, once the Fang got her iPod, did I hear a "thank you" for having already ripped all our CDs so she wouldn't have to?

Well, what do you think?

So AmbushBug, the Mrs. just got an iPod and wants music on it.  Since you've already gone to the trouble of ripping all your CDs can I come over and just upload all of it from yours?  I promise that I will say "thank you" even if the Fang didn't.   

[TheFang]

Man, you normal people amaze and confound me.  You only have 12-100 CDs?  And that's from a lifetime's worth of buying music?  I can't imagine.  You normal people are so strange.

I don't understand it either. Between Ambush and I we have probably 1500 albums (cds and lps) in the house, and there is so much more on the list to get. Sigh. We'll never make it.

[elgoodo]

I have about a dozen CDs, but (strangely) around 100 empty CD cases.  I lose everything I ever buy, except for that pernicious second A-Ha CD that always turns up like a bad penny.

Man, you normal people amaze and confound me.  You only have 12-100 CDs?  And that's from a lifetime's worth of buying music?  I can't imagine.  You normal people are so strange.

[justiceiro]

No Mac here, justi.  I come to you courtesy of a 2001 Dell laptop with old Windows XP given to my hubby by his law firm at the time.  I don't have any itunes.  I don't have any music programs.  And the CD drive is external.

An external hard drive?  You really are a luddite, PG.  I'm not in the least computer savvy and I find myself appalled, and barely able to resist a snarky comment.  Can you run the external CD and the tape drive at the same time? Does that use up all 128k?

Sorry.  Scorpions and frogs, don't you know.

Ambushbug:

I have about a dozen CDs, but (strangely) around 100 empty CD cases.  I lose everything I ever buy, except for that pernicious second A-Ha CD that always turns up like a bad penny.

[elgoodo]

Like can I go to itunes and ask for every Springsteen tune they've got?  Or do I have to do it song by song?

You have to do it album by album.  The exceptions are U2 and Stevie Wonder - for some reason, iTunes made a deal for those two catologues where you can buy the complete works of either of those two artists in one transaction.  Cheaper than album-by-album, too, I think.

[PhillyGirl]

No Mac here, justi.  I come to you courtesy of a 2001 Dell laptop with old Windows XP given to my hubby by his law firm at the time.  I don't have any itunes.  I don't have any music programs.  And the CD drive is external.

Ideally, I'd find someone who would rip all of my CDs AND add a bunch of other stuff as well since I have never been the one with a good music collection . . .   But I guess that's faster if I have to do it myself, right?  Like can I go to itunes and ask for every Springsteen tune they've got?  Or do I have to do it song by song?

One other thing.  Everytime I go visit my folks, my mother's Mac freezes on me.  Or eff's up the formatting onscreen.  Or has some other problem.  I grew up on Macs (well, we started with an Apple IIe) but my troubles with my Mom's current one have made me wary.  I thought the great thing about Macs is fewer stupid glitches?

 PG, the Luddite.

[TheFang]

Of course, once the Fang got her iPod, did I hear a "thank you" for having already ripped all our CDs so she wouldn't have to?

Well, what do you think?

Nope. haha, I'm a rude jerk. 

I've been using Macs for at least 5 years now, and I must say that I love them to the point that I get angry and easily frustrated when I have to use a pc. It just doesn't make sense to me. Even the keyboard is crappier.

Of course my one problem with Mac is since they've made video editing software so accesable and "user friendly" every schmuck with a camera now thinks he's a filmmaker and I have to work for these damn fools. Oh well, more work for me I guess.

[AmbushBug]

Have to disagree with you there, Thulsa Doom (great uncle to MF DOOM? Possibly . . . just remember ALL CAPS when you spell the man's name . . . what the hell was I talking about? Oh, right. Disagreeing with Justiceiro...).

Take it from the Fang, who had to sit there for something like a full week while I spent every waking moment putting in a CD, ripping it, uploading it to the iPod, deleting the songs from my HD, ejecting the CD, inserting another, ripping it, uploading . . . deleting . . . ejecting . . . inserting . . . If you have a shitload of CDs (as I imagine many of us do) it can take days.

Of course, once the Fang got her iPod, did I hear a "thank you" for having already ripped all our CDs so she wouldn't have to?

Well, what do you think?

[justiceiro]

Also, PG, its super easy to import CDs.  You Stick in the CD.  The mac asks "do you want to import this to iTunes?"  You click "yes."  You're done.

[justiceiro]

You can also link to someone else's machine and download thier whole iTunes library.  Over the years my hot italian chemist friend had borrowed all my CDs and put them on her mac, so when I got one, I just hooked up her laptop, and a few hours later I had several thousand songs. Just a few button clicks.

The office software for mac is a little weak, I'll admit.  Hopefully, as mac market share increases, that will change.  At work I use ACT a lot, which isn't available for apple.

But I don't work at home.  And I really really hate Bill Gates and his pack of minions, so I suppose I can't be unbiased about this.

Seriously, I hate those guys.

Imagine those semi-literate pinheads thinking they need to have some paperclip pop up and say "it looks like you're writing a letter!"  Really Jackass?  How perceptive.

Sure, you can turn the damn thing off, but why should you have to?  Why do they assume that everyone using a computer has the comfort level that 85 year old aunt ethel does, who default mass communication reference is the zeotrope?

[PhillyGirl]

Cool!  I'll check it out.

[MCA™]

PhillyGirl, this kind of service has been available for a while  -- Google 'CD ripping service' to find one. There are a couple of articles reviewing the various services too.

[PhillyGirl]

It's not so much that I "couldn't" figure out how to load it all up myself, its that I don't want to.  I truly do not have the patience for that kind of repetitive task.  Thus, I can't imagine that I will get any sort of ipod-like device until this sort of service emerges.

[Mr_Grieves]

PG asks an interesting question.  The answer is NO to the best of my knowledge.  But it's my bet that this is how people will be buying music in the future.... "uh, can have an iPod of the Beatles please?"

As you can guess from my post, I'm still on the ropes about Apple, and yes, everyone's needs are different.  I give a + [BIG] 1 to Justi's verbal tirade of MS for virtually forcing windoze users to download an "upgrade" that supposedly fights piracy.  But I digress.  I use my computer for mostly the usual - spreadsheets and word processing - Office is noticeably inferior on the Mac.  And for the life of me, I can't understand why the Palm desktop software is so sucky for the Mac -- I rely on this program hugely.  And then there's burning and listening to music a major use of my PC.  As for the latter (listening), Apple's got more built in hardware options and is far superior than windoze.  But burning, jukeboxes, converting I'm not so sure about. 

[jcpeace]

c'mon PG!! if my less-than-tech-savvy, girlfriend and her even lesser-than-tech savvy mom could rip cds and put them on an ipod.....so can you!!

the mac line of products has always been geared towards ease of use...

now get to it, girl!!

[PhillyGirl]

Luddite here again.

I don't know if this is the right thread for this, but I have a question:  Does anybody have an ipod-filling service?  Or sell pre-loaded ipods?

I do not have an ipod.  I find the barrier to entry to be too much.  I want someone to load the cds I have and load a range of other music based upon some broad criteria from me. Does anyone do this?  And what would it cost?

PG

[MCA™]

[jcpeace]

I think GLX sums it up pretty well: it depends on the mission.
I did own a windows NT system, which was in use from '99-2004. at the time of the purchase, i really needed a reliable video editing workstation that was capable of inputing both analog and digital sources. The macs video editing solution, final cut pro, was just getting off the ground then and was extrememely unreliable. this is the only PC that i ever owned, and because my professional experience was mac oriented, trouble shooting the PC was ver difficult for me.

well, things have come a long way since then and apple's pro media product line has evolved significantly. Final Cut Studio, now offers a complete solution to media...(although i think their sound programs are ass) that is fully integrated and evolves as the OS evolves.

During the past 12 years, I have purchased and administered 30-40 macs, I have rarely had significant problems with them. Mac tech support is ok to adequate and tekserve and the apple stores are filled with clowns pretending to be technicians. but these machines are so easy to administer that it doesn't really matter.

And those mac laptops can really take a beating!! I've been all over the world doing performances and sound installations and not ONCE did any of my powerbooks let me down...

I should be getting paid for this post......

[LadyDi]

Glx, respectfully disagree, but this is an unending debate.

I use a pc at work, and a mac at home.  Bought a reconditioned ibook back in 2001 from Tekserve, and report (along with all my other macs) that in my experience, they are super-rock-solid machines with little failure, super-user-friendly, and have what I consider to be the smartest tech support online from the mac-using community.  Used to be Macs were more for graphics types.  This is changing really fast with the advent of the cube and the ibook.

The great thing about mac is, even if you just want to take the red-eye out of Xmas photos, you can much more easily go back and forth between graphic needs and office needs on a Mac IMO.

I'm sorry to report that my experience with PC at work is just garbage.  Now in fairness, since we are on servers, I understand the 15 minutes it takes to start up because of all the firewalling.  I also understand that as Mac takes larger market share, I will no longer love the fact that viruses are almost unheard of on a Mac.  PC's general user interface (now, where are those temp internet files again??) is lame.

I've definitely had the best bang for my buck with my ibook.  Even at the somewhat higher price, it's been a dream machine.

My one complaint:  if you need patches for drivers, etc. Mac can be a pain. There is a much bigger need to stay up-to-date with OS.

[glx]

As much as I'd like to agree or disagree with people in this thread, I can't.  Whether or not a Mac is right for you is 100% dependant on what you do with it on a daily basis.  I work in a place that's 50% creative (application programming), 25% sales, 25% technology support, and I can tell you that of the 50% creative side, most of them use and prefer Macs.  The sales guys all prefer PC's, and the technology support is split about 50/50. 

Personally I used a MacBook Pro for the first 3 months of my current job and ended up switching back to a PC.  I *wanted* to like the MBP, but in reality spent about 75% of my time in Parallels (a Windows virtual machine that runs on OS X) for applications that I *required* that had no functional equivalent on the Mac,  so at that point it didn't seem worth it to keep the Mac (with no f!@#* two-button touchpad?  We get it already, how cute, you still have one button but can emulate two), and so switched back to a PC.

Does that mean I'm a zealot that will say that Macs are right for nobody?  No.  We actually have both in my house.  Sometimes it's the right tool for the job, sometimes it's not.

[justiceiro]

It's really hard not to blam apple for being paranoid, as most of the good "features" of windows (such as the GUI) were straight up ripped off of apple.  If Microsoft had its way, we'dd all be entering longhand data into our computers with green screens.


I've had a mac for approximately 6 months.  I finally had to give up the ghost on my old PC when the anti-virus necessary to protect that worm-ridden piece of shit of an operating system was actually killing my efficiency as badly as any virus would.  Also, microsoft wanted to download something onto my computer, called an "update" to "help improve their service to me" by "fighting piracy" by "verifying the copyright of programs running on my computer."  I believe that's called "spyware" is it not?  And every time I said "no," it would ask again at startup.  Every time.

Internet explorer is crap.  But still, you can't delete the icon from the desktop.  Why?  It's basically microsoft saying "fuck you."  If I am trying to delete internet explorer, then I celarly dont wan't internet explorer.  But microsoft wants to punish you for not using its products, and it does.


But that's just sour grapes.  Even if microsoft didn't vigourously fellate my left testicle, my iMac would be a joy to work with.

It indeed has few games.  I got civ, that's enough for me.  If I want games, I'll buy a console.  But its ability to handle graphics is superb, and smoovalicious.  It can juggle several dozen RAW files from my Canon without, whereas my PC would lock up trying to merge 3 jpegs.  As far a sgraphics goes, MAc is unparalleled.

It's also a beautiful machine.  Very simple, few cords, easy to connect and diconnect.  I wanted to take it into another room for a party last week, I moved it across the house, decided I didn't like that, and moved it back.  All of this in under five minutes!  I defy anyone to do that with a PC.

It's a well designed machine.  And it truly has been designed, rather than slapped together like an IBM tower (possibly designed by monkeys or engineers), or torked up in a black sabbathy, alienware way.  The design is conservative, lean, as "bauhaus" as one can be in this day and age.  It really deserves a place in moma.

beautiful.  I love it.  And if you used one or saw one in action, you would love it to.

[AmbushBug]

Elgoodo, your problem is specific to iPods, which are inded complicated piece of equipment. They're tiny little harddrives and ergo prone to all sorts of mechanical issues that are totally beyond the knowledge of your average Apple Store employee. For this reason, it's Apple's policy to never fix any iPod a customer brings into a store. They've decided it's faster just to give you a new one, and ship yours back to be refurbished. Still, it sucks if you weren't expecting it and didn't back it up.

As for their other support, I've generally found it to be kinda crappy but a helluva lot better than any other support I've ever dealt with. A few months ago my MacBook died within a few weeks of buying it (it was a design flaw that affected nearly every unit they sold that month) and I was able to bring it in to the Apple Store, get it diagnosed within fifteen minutes, and fixed, free of charge, by the next day. I can't imagine any company (I'm talking to you, Verizon!) competing with that.

Of course, you do have a good point that, as they become more popular, their service will probably suffer--it's easy to have great support with such a small market share. We'll have to wait and see.

[elgoodo]

The Short Hills store was the one who didn't know how to fix my ipod problem.

[Mr_Grieves]

I found a definite difference in the quality of the stores.  Also, I suppose you know, but the stores are franchises and not owned directly by Apple... for the most part.

Level 1 tech phone tech support is a joke and I get the feeling it's farmed out to India, at least on Sundays.  My only saving grace with support is with the store in the Short Hills Mall.  When I get frustrated, I call them up and speak with a "genius."  So far, they've come through.

But jeez, GENIUS BAR?!  I expected to be offered a frappuccino when I went there.

[elgoodo]

I have a theory that, as Apple's popularity soars, their quality control is going down the shitter.

I just switched to Mac about a year or two ago.  I love my G4 Powerbook;  I really do.  And unless my theory is proven correct to a RIDICULOUS degree, I have no intention of EVER going back to PC.  But I must admit I am frightened when I hear some of the horror stories of Apple as of late.  And I have some experience with the Genius Bar people that, while the end result wasn't that big a deal, certainly causes me to question the "genius" qualifications of those dudes.  Long story short - I had a problem with an ipod...a freakin' ipod.  Not that complicated a piece of equipment.  I took it in.  They were not able, or willing, to effectively solve the problem.  They gave me a new ipod.  Fair enough.  Except, even with the brand new replacement, the problem still persisted.  I googled it, and within two minutes, I diagnosed my own problem and found a way to fix it.  And I'm NOT tech savvy.

[PhillyGirl]

I would like to annouce that I don't understand a single word of MrGrieves' post. 

[Mr_Grieves]

Today's Times had this article on PC World's article about Apple.. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/business/media/14pcworld.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Before we go any further though....my limited experience.  Before I bought a Mac notebook, I only had about 4 or 5 reasons to hate them.  Most of these reasons were probably unfounded and based on some sort of prejudice about detesting apples ever since I ate a crabapple a few centuries ago.  Now that I've had my Mac for almost a solid 2 weeks, I have found meaningful reasons to love and hate them.  The fact that I had to get my Mac replaced after 1 week didn't sit too well.  Level 1 tech support sucks unless you have a half-assed question like how to use the backspace key.  The limitation of 3rd party programs is very very true, and in the end, might be a reason I get a full refund.  And it seems the 3rd party programs made for both systems are far inferior on the Mac.  I guess Office should be a given, but why does my Mac Palm desktop software suck so bad? 

What do I like?  The engineering is incredible.  The design is so much better than Windows PC's and everything seems to fit in so well together.  Not being scared to death of a virus is a huge plus.  But is that enough?  I dunno.  Someone tell me why I should love my Mac.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130994-c,macs/article.html

10 Things We Hate About Apple

It's high time we unloaded on the high-and-mighty Mac maker.
Narasu Rebbapragada and Alan Stafford, PC World

Monday, May 07, 2007 03:00 AM PDT
(Editor's note: For background on this article and its unusual history, read this note.)

The company formerly known as Apple Computer and now called simply Apple, Inc. is unique in many ways--including in its ability to drive even folks who admire it positively batty. It makes great products (usually), yet its secretiveness about them borders on paranoia, and its adoring fans can be incredibly irritating. Of course, its fans have to put up with some irritations, too: Simply being a member of the club still means you must endure unending jabs from the other side of the socio-political-techno aisle. But do they have to wear their suffering as a badge of honor?

Today, we--that's us, Narasu and Alan, veteran Mac users both--are going to get some stuff off our chests. We've enumerated ten things we hate about Apple (or its followers, or simply about the experience of using its products). But in the interest of fair play (not to be confused with FairPlay, Apple's DRM technology) we're also publishing another list--Ten Things We Love About Apple.

Use the Comment link at the end of this article to add your own gripes about Apple--or to defend it.

And so, with protective helmets in place, off we go:

1: Free Speech, Anyone?
Even if you're no Apple fan, this particular issue might not rise to the top of your own personal gripe list--but hey, we're journalists. So sue us.

Er, that's probably not the right turn of phrase to use, considering that in December 2004, Apple filed a lawsuit against the AppleInsider, O'Grady's PowerPage, and Think Secret Web sites for posting information about upcoming technologies that Apple had shared with outsiders under nondisclosure agreements. In the case of O'Grady, the news was of a FireWire interface for GarageBand. In the words of O'Grady himself: "yawn."

Apple pressured the sites to reveal their sources, and even worse, pressured the sites' ISPs. In May 2006, a California court said no way, ruling that online journalists enjoy the same First Amendment rights as "legitimate" offline journalists. Seems silly in today's world, doesn't it? Recently, the court ordered Apple to pay the sites' legal fees--about $700,000.

2. More Secretive Than Homeland Security
Those feds are secretive, but they're no match for Apple reps' infuriating stock answer: "We don't comment on future product plans." Being an Apple adherent means never knowing for sure if the shiny new MacBook or iPod you just bought is about to be rendered obsolete by a Steve Jobs keynote.

Of course, Apple is merely the most famous secretive Silicon Valley company, not the only hush-mouthed one. And tight lips make for explosive buzz when the company does decide to drop a bombshell. But contrast Apple's secrecy with Microsoft's lack thereof--Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and company love to talk about their company's upcoming products, and they still get their fair share of buzz. Even though many of those plans have a tendency to not actually come true.

3. Ain't Too Proud to Blame
When Apple shipped iPods containing a worm last year, instead of issuing a humble mea culpa, Apple took a swipe at Microsoft, saying, "As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it." As you can imagine, that didn't fly with security experts. How about an apology to the folks who were unlucky enough to buy the infected iPods, period?

4. iHate iAnything


Apple first floated the idea of product names with a leading lowercase letter in 1994 with eWorld, an ill-conceived online service that went belly-up after a year and a half. But when it introduced the original iMac in 1998, it hit on a phenomenal success--and prompted hundreds of third-party manufacturers to follow with sickeningly cute Bondi Blue products with names that also began with a lowercase "i." Now dozens of Apple and third-party product names begins with "i." Their manufacturers are all jumping on the bandwagon, hoping that a single letter will sway us to buy their stuff. Meanwhile, you can't even start sentences with the products' names.

Is it any wonder that we're inclined to like Apple TV in part because it turned out not to be iTV? Or that we're kind of sorry that Apple was able to strike a deal with Cisco to share the name iPhone?

5. Where's the Blu-ray?
Steve Jobs was the CEO of animated-movie studio Pixar; Apple is represented on the Blu-ray Disc Association board of directors. The Mac is supposed to be the computer of choice for video professionals.

So where is the option for a Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD player in the fancy new quad-core and eight-core Mac Pros? They're stuck with the same-old SuperDrive. Mac apologists will no doubt provide you with a complex explanation of why this makes perfect sense, but the fact is that next-generation optical drives are available and make sense for some folks, and Macs don't have them. (If the company announces support for one or the other by the time you read this, see "More Secretive Than Homeland Security" above for why we didn't know about it.)

6. Nobody's Perfect


All companies make design mistakes, and in truth, Apple makes far fewer than most. But, despite what the most extreme aficionados say, even Apple's design sense isn't anywhere near flawless. And when it makes goofs, they tend to be doozies.

Examples: The iMac's perfectly-round, ergonomically egregious puck mouse, or the Toilet-Seat iBook (complete with handle). Don't forget the Shuffle audio player, whose lack of a screen or other discernable navigation aid Apple has successfully spun as a "feature." (Yes, we know that the Shuffle is wildly popular--and yes, we'd still rather buy a player that can tell us what it's playing.)

7. Give Me a Sign
Does anyone want to tell us when the next Mac OS X software updates will hit? What security vulnerabilities Apple is working on fixing? In April, Apple released a patch that plugged more than two dozen vulnerabilities--with absolutely zero advance notice. Mac users were wide open to attacks, and they never knew it. Even Microsoft (usually) tells people when to expect patches, and often tells you how to protect yourself until the patches are ready.

8. No Good For Gaming
Browse the Apple Store's games selection--go on, we'll wait. Oh, back so soon?

That's understandable, because sorting the store's games selection by the newest available produces titles that were introduced two or more years ago on Windows. Games have always been scarce on the Mac, and Apple still can't convince many developers to make their titles compatible with its computers. Apple does equip some of its systems with high-end graphics cards, but with slim pickings to play on them, they're a waste of money for most people.

True, Apple's Boot Camp will let you run Windows games on a Mac, but we still don't know many hardcore gamers who choose to go that route.

9. Limited Selection


Apple offers just three desktop computer systems these days--and one of them is the Mac Mini, with its aging processor, piddly 512MB of RAM, and tiny 60GB hard drive. Neither the Mac Mini nor the iMac accepts internal upgrades beyond more memory, so to get a system that will accept additional components later, you'll have to spring for a dual-processor Mac Pro, which starts at a steep $2200.

You can buy a starter Windows system for less than a fourth the cost of the Mac Pro; later on, if you decide you need a speed boost, you can buy a new motherboard and CPU and probably install them yourself. If you want a speed boost on the Mac, you have to buy a whole new Mac.

In the portable realm, MacBooks and MacBook Pros are nice machines. But again, you get only three choices. Opt for Windows, and you can choose anything from palm-sized micro-PCs like the OQO Model 2 to huge, honkin' laptops that are more powerful than any mobile Mac.

10. Doesn't Play Well With Others
Give Apple credit for (finally) allowing Windows to run on the Mac. But the company still maintains a closed-door policy on many aspects of its technology. For example, iPods play only a couple of transportable audio file formats (AAC and MP3); they won't play files in Microsoft's WMA format, used by much of the rest of the world. Even the much-derided Microsoft Zune plays all three formats. And if you import WMA files into iTunes, you must wait while the application converts them to its favored AAC format.

Okay, we understand that DRM has been a necessity to get music companies to release music for sale on the iTunes Music Store. But our bigger gripe is that you can't play music purchased from the iTunes Music Store on anything but an iPod or the upcoming iPhone, because Apple won't license its FairPlay digital rights management technology to makers of other audio players. Even if those players recognize AAC files, they can't decrypt them, so they won't play. Even when Apple begins selling music without DRM, you'll pay extra for it; most tracks will still have the DRM restrictions.

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