DIY Multi-touch

[#1 Mustang Fan]

I've seen a Mac kernel Panic way too many times.

And Mac's do get viruses. The first virus ever was created for the Mac.

EDIT: Oh and I heard some ridiculous thing that Mac was talking down windows 7 at some point recently.

[Rasmus]

With regard to the computers: when you ask your computer to perform a task, there are a sequence of steps the computer must carry out in order to process the command. The architecture of a mac allows it to perform the same function as a pc, but in fewer steps, making it faster. As a result, a 3gHz mac is faster than a 3gHz pc, which makes an exponential difference when handling large graphic, movie and music files.

You are not referring to the RISC PowerPC architecture vs. the mixed CISC and "RISC" x86 architecture, are you?

The best implementations of RISC and CISC performed the same around the turn of the millennium. And if you compare the two, the CISC will actually have fewer instructions pr. task, and the programs will be shorter. RISC just has a more optimized instruction set with all instructions being the same size and excutable in the same cycle. That said, with the P2, Intel had a superscalar cpu with on-chip cache that performed single cycle executions - a RISC bargaining point - pretty darned well. While RISC might have had the upper hand in the 80's and early 90's, CISC evolved and subsequently outperformed RISC for desktop purposes.

Eventually Jobs & Co. acknowledged the fact that the Power Architecture couldn't keep up with x86 - which funny enough was around the 3GHz mark - and subsequently Macs started running on Intel as of mid-06.

I'm speaking strictly about the hardware, not the OS design principles. I'm also not saying one is better than the other. Apple still sells tonnes more RISC than CISC cpus with the ARM family processors in their iPhones and iPods.

While I will gladly admit to Macs being terribly user friendly compared to earlier Windows and *nix desktops, I see their main selling point today being their sleek design. Windows on the other hand has evolved into being much more user friendly. My favorite example of this is my technically inept parental units, who managed to pick up a laptop running Vista and use it.

Anyway, I don't pay for my computers, so personally I don't really care what I use, as long as it gets the job done. I'm mostly management and to lesser extent technical these days anyway, so my weapon of choice for a number of years has been IBM/Lenovo T and X series laptops because of their durability.

And what's that about not being able to rename drives in Windows?

[Rockefella]

Apple vs Windows wars will never end, similarly to Republican vs Democrat or Atheist vs Theist. It always makes for good fun though

[Matra et Alpine]

^ true, but it's good when noobs come in with ancient "myths" on both sides.

Apple do NOT support MacOS running on any harware other than their own. I should have been more specific. Driver support for the more esoteric items isn't gonna happen for the non-Apple PC capabilities ..... not YET

Personally I think Apple missed the boat. THey should have offered a version of MacOS in the open market place priced at a "reasonable" point. That woudl have been so way ahead of wht MS were pushing at the time theyh'd have stood a chance of world domination. BUT Jobs couldn't see beyond the Apple brand and product design
Now with Windows7 there's no real reason to go Mac for anyone and if they try to bring it to the open makr et NOW then it's gonna be asked to square up to microshaft on one front and eunochs on the other good times !

[fisetdavid26]

Apple do NOT support MacOS running on any harware other than their own. I should have been more specific. Driver support for the more esoteric items isn't gonna happen for the non-Apple PC capabilities ..... not YET

Suka has been running MacOS X on his laptop for a while, and it's not a Mac laptop. It's possible, it's just not officially supported nor supposed to work, but apparently it can be done. Thank you Intel for making this task a little bit easier.

H4x.

[switters78]

I've seen a Mac kernel Panic way too many times.

And Mac's do get viruses. The first virus ever was created for the Mac.

EDIT: Oh and I heard some ridiculous thing that Mac was talking down windows 7 at some point recently.

First and only maybe. Macs catching viruses has been a non-issue for as long as I can remember. And yes, I do believe they were talking down Windows 7, but that really has nothing to do with the design or the actual computer capability of a mac. It's just marketing and boasting. I thought we were talking about the the actual computers, not goofball marketing teams and bogus pr strategy. I could sit here all day and say I make better brownies than my neighbor and that his stink, etc. but that really has nothing to do with my brownies...it just means I'm a loudmouth. Apple's ability to market a laptop and an ipod to a college kid has nothing to do with its ability to engineer and build a top-notch machine on the high end. And for the record, I'm not knocking pcs, only pointing out my preference and some of the features that have made macs my favorite.

If Windows7 comes out and proves to be a solid, tried and true operating system after it's been on the market for a bit, then that's that, but I say wait until it's officially out and enough people have their hands on it, computer savvy or not, to see if it's really good. Same goes for anything. If Apple released an OS that was just a piece of crap, then all the praise prior to it's release would be a joke. No point saying my 2014 VW is better than your 2014 Ford...

[fisetdavid26]

If Windows7 comes out and proves to be a solid, tried and true operating system after it's been on the market for a bit, then that's that, but I say wait until it's officially out and enough people have their hands on it, computer savvy or not, to see if it's really good. Same goes for anything. If Apple released an OS that was just a piece of crap, then all the praise prior to it's release would be a joke. No point saying my 2014 VW is better than your 2014 Ford...

People like myself have been beta testing Windows 7 since October 2008, and I've been through 7 builds; 6801, 6956, 7000 (beta), 7100 (RC), 7127, 7137 and now on 7201 (RC2). There are several hundred thousands people beta testing it, too... if not a few millions thanks to torrent leaks.

6801 was just Vista with a shiny new taskbar, bloated, slow, and rather uncompatible, but since then it's gotten incredibly faster with each new build and it's now completely free of issues with 7201, on my computer at least. It's completely annihilating Vista's performance, and it has Windows XP Pro SP3 integrated as a sweet virtual machine, you can even entirely integrate it to Windows 7's explorer, it's fantastic. THAT's backwards compatibility.

If the RTM build is any faster than RC2 then Microsoft got a winner. I'm just awaiting prices for the Professional and Ultimate versions.

I can guarantee you it's definitely not gonna be a let down. RC2 has been said to be VERY close to the final build, so I can say that.

[switters78]

People like myself have been beta testing Windows 7 since October 2008, and I've been through 7 builds; 6801, 6956, 7000 (beta), 7100 (RC), 7127, 7137 and now on 7201 (RC2). There are several hundred thousands people beta testing it, too... if not a few millions thanks to torrent leaks.

6801 was just Vista with a shiny new taskbar, bloated, slow, and rather uncompatible, but since then it's gotten incredibly faster with each new build and it's now completely free of issues with 7201, on my computer at least. It's completely annihilating Vista's performance, and it has Windows XP Pro SP3 integrated as a sweet virtual machine, you can even entirely integrate it to Windows 7's explorer, it's fantastic. THAT's backwards compatibility.

If the RTM build is any faster than RC2 then Microsoft got a winner. I'm just awaiting prices for the Professional and Ultimate versions.

I can guarantee you it's definitely not gonna be a let down. RC2 has been said to be VERY close to the final build, so I can say that.

I guess the question is, will it work as well on everybody's machines? One of things I always liked about MacOS only working on Macs is that the machines were designed to work with the operating systems, so you don't get lots of bugs and system errors when you're using a less expensive computer. I'm currently using a 3.06 GHz Intel iMac and I've literally never had to restart because of a crash since I bought the thing, and I typically have several apps open at once like Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, plus all my email, web browser, word, spreadsheet and organizational apps. Everything works flawlessly!

Honestly though, I think if Windows7 is as good as everyone's saying, that'll only make for great competition which can only improve both products in the long run

[LeonOfTheDead]

People like myself have been beta testing Windows 7 since October 2008, and I've been through 7 builds; 6801, 6956, 7000 (beta), 7100 (RC), 7127, 7137 and now on 7201 (RC2). There are several hundred thousands people beta testing it, too... if not a few millions thanks to torrent leaks.

6801 was just Vista with a shiny new taskbar, bloated, slow, and rather uncompatible, but since then it's gotten incredibly faster with each new build and it's now completely free of issues with 7201, on my computer at least. It's completely annihilating Vista's performance, and it has Windows XP Pro SP3 integrated as a sweet virtual machine, you can even entirely integrate it to Windows 7's explorer, it's fantastic. THAT's backwards compatibility.

If the RTM build is any faster than RC2 then Microsoft got a winner. I'm just awaiting prices for the Professional and Ultimate versions.

I can guarantee you it's definitely not gonna be a let down. RC2 has been said to be VERY close to the final build, so I can say that.

the question is, will it work on my Celeron?

Seriously, the gf needs a new laptop, her old Compaq (with an uber hot AMD) died of an unidentified problem, it doesn't reach even the BIOS' setup.
So we are going to purchase a new one, since at a local shop there is a -20% campaign, only friday and saturday.
I was looking at this thingy: Compaq CQ61-104EL
-Pentium T3200 (2,16 GHz, cache L2 1 Mb)
-3 Gb ram DDR2
- HDD 250 Gb
- nVidia G103M 512 Mb
- Vista Home Premium

It goes for 500 €, so 400 € with the special offer.
I'm not sure if they still have this model, so everything similar would be good.

Despite being as cheap as possible, I'd like to have a graphic board since she could be doing something with graphic programs in a year or so, but it's not vital.

Such a notebook will accept (for real) W7 or will it be something a la Vista VS XP?
As a reference, mine needs to change some stuff in the BIOS and a bazillions new drivers, with some heavy configuration activity, to run XP.
HP sent me 3 pages of things I had to do to install XP.
I changed my mind and sticked with Vista (without any update it works decently).

[Matra et Alpine]

Yep, XP was bigger than it was meant to be .. and so all the laptop makers had filled the supply chain with machines unable to run it BUT upping the memory and disabling some of the graphics sexiness and it is fine. ( YEAH HP NOT the best at providing driver support )
Knowing they cocked it up in a number of ways with the XP release then 7 has been a different story.
I'd seriously recommend a proper video though ... you KNOW you're gonna want to play COD on it

[LeonOfTheDead]

Yep, XP was bigger than it was meant to be .. and so all the laptop makers had filled the supply chain with machines unable to run it BUT upping the memory and disabling some of the graphics sexiness and it is fine. ( YEAH HP NOT the best at providing driver support )
Knowing they cocked it up in a number of ways with the XP release then 7 has been a different story.
I'd seriously recommend a proper video though ... you KNOW you're gonna want to play COD on it

I'm not really into CODs and similar games, but something a bit more up to date than mine wouldn't be bad at all.
So a 7-swap would be possible...I may consider it for mine too once it will be released.

[fisetdavid26]

I guess the question is, will it work as well on everybody's machines? One of things I always liked about MacOS only working on Macs is that the machines were designed to work with the operating systems, so you don't get lots of bugs and system errors when you're using a less expensive computer. I'm currently using a 3.06 GHz Intel iMac and I've literally never had to restart because of a crash since I bought the thing, and I typically have several apps open at once like Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, plus all my email, web browser, word, spreadsheet and organizational apps. Everything works flawlessly!

Honestly though, I think if Windows7 is as good as everyone's saying, that'll only make for great competition which can only improve both products in the long run

As I stated in one of my previous posts 7 works on a Northwood Celery, so yes, it does work on slower machines.

the question is, will it work on my Celeron?

Seriously, the gf needs a new laptop, her old Compaq (with an uber hot AMD) died of an unidentified problem, it doesn't reach even the BIOS' setup.
So we are going to purchase a new one, since at a local shop there is a -20% campaign, only friday and saturday.
I was looking at this thingy: Compaq CQ61-104EL
-Pentium T3200 (2,16 GHz, cache L2 1 Mb)
-3 Gb ram DDR2
- HDD 250 Gb
- nVidia G103M 512 Mb
- Vista Home Premium

It goes for 500 €, so 400 € with the special offer.
I'm not sure if they still have this model, so everything similar would be good.

Despite being as cheap as possible, I'd like to have a graphic board since she could be doing something with graphic programs in a year or so, but it's not vital.

Such a notebook will accept (for real) W7 or will it be something a la Vista VS XP?
As a reference, mine needs to change some stuff in the BIOS and a bazillions new drivers, with some heavy configuration activity, to run XP.
HP sent me 3 pages of things I had to do to install XP.
I changed my mind and sticked with Vista (without any update it works decently).

Not bad, but 1MB of L2 cache is nowhere near enough. I took a quick look at Dell Italia's website, an Inspiron 15 with a Core 2 Duo T6400 (2.0GHz, 2MB L2, 800MHz FSB) which is better than a Pentium Dual-Core T3200 (BTW it's 2.0GHz as well, not 2.16GHz, and its FSB clock is 667MHz) with 4GB of DDR2-800, a 320GB SATA 5400 rpm hard disk, an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 256MB, and a 15.6" 1366 x 768 screen for 629 €. I'd definitely fork out the additional 129 € (+ taxes and shipping I suppose) since it's a much, much better computer. Plus it's a Dell, not a Compaq, and Compaq = worse than HP, and you don't want that. You definitely don't.

I'd make due with the OEM Vista Home Premium OS, then on October 22 I'd torrent Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and wave goodbye to the OEM misery. Of course don't call Dell for technical support if you go that way

BTW 64-bit is a necessity with 4GB of RAM, as 32-bit OS can technically see 4GB of RAM but in reality they can only use about 3.5 ish.

[LeonOfTheDead]

Thanks for the info on the Compaq<HP, being an HP user, I know what you mean.

The Dell though is much mroe expensive then 129 €, actually 229 €, since the final price at the local shop has the -20% offer.

ATM she uses the laptop for internet and office, some GIMP and Lightroom.
Her previous one had an AMD Sempron, 1,6 GHz, 768 MB ram, no video.
Slow, but it was working, uo to two day go.

The possibility of using graphic programs in the future shouldn't be so relevant. Buying an expensive computer to use really use it in a year or so would mean I start using it when it's depreciated by an amount equivalent to the purchase (now) of a low end one.

Now, I'm going to buy it at the shop for that offer.
Any other advise (like no Compaqs) would be really appreciated.


EDIT: the cpu of the Compaq is the T3400, not T3200, my bad.

[fisetdavid26]

Thanks for the info on the Compaq<HP, being an HP user, I know what you mean.

The Dell though is much mroe expensive then 129 €, actually 229 €, since the final price at the local shop has the -20% offer.

ATM she uses the laptop for internet and office, some GIMP and Lightroom.
Her previous one had an AMD Sempron, 1,6 GHz, 768 MB ram, no video.
Slow, but it was working, uo to two day go.

The possibility of using graphic programs in the future shouldn't be so relevant. Buying an expensive computer to use really use it in a year or so would mean I start using it when it's depreciated by an amount equivalent to the purchase (now) of a low end one.

Now, I'm going to buy it at the shop for that offer.
Any other advise (like no Compaqs) would be really appreciated.

Oh yes, I didn't read properly, didn't see the -20%. At 400 € there's no better deals, at least not at Dell.

And I only really recommend Dells and MacBooks for laptops I've got friends with Toshibas, Acers and Sonys, and they work well, I've only ever heard horror stories with HP, and even worse with Compaq. Acers are not fantastic thought, but good.

My suggestion to torrent Win7 still stands though, I've had a Compaq Presario with XP in the past and it came with so much crap I spent an entire afternoon uninstalling stuff and cleaning the registry after a clean reinstall, very infuriating. I formatted my hard disk and reinstalled Windows to wipe out all the crap I had (viruses, spywares), and what do I get? Eleventy billion useless games and embedded ads. That very day I knew I was done with OEM OSes for ever.

Just turn off Aero in Win7 and you'll be flying.

[LeonOfTheDead]

Thanks Lt Fizet!
Tomorrow I'll call the shop to see what they got, then I'll list it here.
It's 40 minutes away (bus=crap), so I'm not going there just to check, just on Friday morning for the real deal.