My MidiSport X2 midi interface - just plugs into my ubuntu Box and "Just Works"(tm) . OSX wont recognise it , there are no drivers for Mountain Lion nor are there likely to be - even though there are clearly open source ones out there that work just fine on Linux.

My Keyboard and mouse (non apple variety) keymaps are all wrong, there are no drivers for OSX, various hacks and 3rd party programs have not got the keymap right at all various characters like backslash and tilda (things i use A lot) are in the wrong place. even a mac guru friend of mine could not get them to work.

cant write to NTFS external USB drives by default on OSX third party fix for this is hacky and buggy. iTunes wipes my iPod as the tunes i had on there i ripped on Linux and copied to the iPod from rhythmbox.

The one thing that amazed me about OSX is that you still need to install drivers for things - i thought (mistakenly) that it would be like Linux in this regard - most things work without the need to install extra drivers. I get told "Your not doing it right" WTF?

I bought a mac in october last year I was expecting the world and maybe even to the point where it might become my main OS but in all honesty Im really dissappointed with it. So it sits there - occasionally i fire it up to test a website.

For me the "Just Works" trophy goes to ubuntu and not OSX.

What on earth do you mean by (when referring to Linux) . "It requires too much overhead to install software" ? Im inclined to think its been a long way since you tried using linux or you have been using some old / obscure distro. cus for the most part (and im referring mainly to debian based distributions here). There is no operating system that i have seen that has a package management system that comes anywhere close to what we have on linux. I honestly cannot remember last time i encountered dependency issues (back in the early noughties sometime maybe?). You can groan about anything you like regarding linux but the one thing that really shines out there is package management.

disclaimer : Other people have preferences such as RPM (which i hate), BSD's ports system , gentoo's portage etc. - I speak generally about debian / apt-get as its a long time since i used others as described above - i Imagine they are all pretty mature nowadays.

Gender equality is one thing - but he is still enforcing stereotypical gender roles with the pink handbags and brollies!

I really dont see the problem with DRM when it comes to Netflix. For £5.00 per month I get a much better selection of Movies and TV shows than I could even consider getting from a satellite / cable subscription costing much more. There are no limits as to how many times i can watch stuff - and while i cant download the shows / movies for keeps I dont need to so long as i have an internet connection. In prinicple I dont agree with DRM - but in the case of Netflix it is well worth the money DRM or No DRM and so damn convenient.

When I consider the cost of a Netflix subscription it doesnt bother me that i dont own the content.

After having recently purchased a Mac Mini i have had a number of problems with things not working as i would expect.
Simple things like .

Using a non Apple keyboard - unlike the keyboard selection widget in Ubuntu which "Just Works(tm)" (press a couple keys and voila). Even a Mac guru friend could not get OSX to use the correct keyboard layout. Even with various 3rd party tools and hacks still certain keys on the keyboard are in the wrong places. such as backslash and tilda.

The responses i get are "your not doing it right" - considering the Mac Mini was originally punted in such a way that you can use your own keyboard and mouse - it should "Just Work(tm)" - it doesnt.

File system support - certain filesystems on external USB drives cannot be written to by default - I've had to use third party - buggy drivers to enable this again - this is an area where I would expect OSX to "Just Work(tm)" it doesnt very well in this case.

iTunes - first time i plugged my iPod into the new mac into a virgin iTunes - it wiped all my tunes when it was supposed to be sync'ing up. No explanation why.

In the mac Terminal app the page up / page down / home keys were next to pointless - i had to hack a fix in place for this.

Using the mac ports system sort of feels dirty but i really miss "apt-get install packagename" - many software packages are not compatible with Mountain Lion which has led to frustration when trying to get things to work.

Lastly hardware support is really crap - eg: i have a USB midi interface that "Just Works(tm)" on ubuntu. I understand you need to install drivers on OSX (this was a surprise to me given that i was led to believe OSX "Just Works(TM)" of course the driver is not compatible with Mountain Lion.

So Macs are shiny and all - but if you want to go outside of the box "Just Works" does not apply - not for me anyhows!

N.

Urm in respect to point 2

Google are well known for their amazing work places. Putting opinions aside there isnt a tech company in the world that i wouldn't rather have the privilege of working for ...

http://www.digitlab.co.za/files/2012/10/Work-at-Google.jpeg

even the food / chefs are legendary - heck i was gobsmacked at the buffet they put on at a tech / networking event they put on in London a few years ago.

N ...

I go out with my partner and often see families with children come for nice meal in a nice restaurant. Mum is updating her facebook status while dad's checking ebay, Junior and his sister are toying with nintendo. Parents cant communicate with each other let alone their children. I see scenes like this all the time and I really dont think its a healthy way to live together - if we cant be social as a family unit when we have gone out to be together what hope is there for mankind?

I have no problem with people using their devices for whatever they see fit - but when they have gone out for a special occaision or for a nice meal to be a family together it just seems very broken to me.

N.

"almost as fast" as they would if they were proper applications under a real OS

Just like Windows then...

I have two HP Laptops an old core 2 duo c700 and a couple years old i3 G62 . Both are still going strong - both great Linux machines. The c700 amazes me how it can still hold its own against my newer machine its a bit battered through plenty of usage. The G62 i have upgraded with additional memory and second SSD drive (in the optical bay) - its my main work machine and goes with me everywhere. While both these laptops were at the budget end of the spectrum when i bought them I feel that for the money i paid for them i got a good deal. Neither machines are going in a gallery next to any Apple devices as far as looks are concerned - but I dont have money to burn on machines that are 3 times the price for the same hardware/cpu inside. All the manufacturers you cite make high end machines nowadays out of higher quality materials if you are prepared to pay the premium.

You say that consumers want quality - of course we do - but most consumers want quality that they can afford. Apple stuff is expensive and while their phones and tablets can be had at good deals from the phone shops subsidized by contracts their computers are too expensive for the average joe.

HP Touchpad please!

"An x86 processor is a necessary component but, in itself, not sufficient to make a "PC" that can run Windows. Or, for that matter, Linux."

My moneys on Linux running on it at some point once all the security measures have been subverted. In fact i would imagine work will begin in earnest as soon
as the first consoles hit the streets.

N..

This is always the argument - that PC's will very quickly surpass the console hardware - I dont disagree with that at all. But in case you havent noticed desktop's are on their way out - at least as far as the home is concerned the next games hardware will still be in a box under the TV - be it a steam box or a PS4 / Xbox.

Most new PC's sold are laptops or if you want to count them tablets or mobile phones. Unless you havent noticed - although mobile devices have pretty reasonable
3D performance for games etc . The big barrier is the touchscreen - bar puzzle /physics type casual games its a dire experience for anything remotely like what games we are used to playing on console / pc with a keyboard/mouse/joypad.

While there is a market for anything beyond angry birds / tetris (heck id rather play tetris with a controller) there will be a place for dedicated hardware with proper physical controllers.

Does this put the source code into the public domain - and thus now might it be possible to port it to other architectures?

Ok Jailbreaking iPhones is news i guess - although why someone would buy an iPhone in the first place with the intent on jailbreaking it is a mystery to me - surely thats an admission that the phone doesnt check all your boxes. irritation aside ....

they found some icons that arent currently in use by any apps. big f***king woop. Im sure you could find a bunch of unused icons on any windows , linux, amigaOS.

Just because its Apple - this is some sort of game changing discovery that merits a wordy article on cnet - only to appear on slashdot hours later.

Come on now are the moderators that bloody nerdy now that a glimpse of a new icon gives them a semi ?

N.