* Posts by Michael 5

15 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jan 2011

Mac administrators brace for big changes to Apple-powered fleets

Michael 5

I cannot say for your experience or others... but in the enterprise levels (and below as well) that I have been directly involved with... we have service contracts with the OEM and simply just ship off the bad and provide a replacement to the user. This speeds up the process for us as well as limiting the number of employees we need to manage the support process.

With this in mind... then who really cares if you can repair yourself... who really wants that overhead and expense?

No nudes, bloated apps, Android sucks and 497 other complaints about Apple to the FTC

Michael 5

Concerning the New Zealand complaint:

I have been back and forth with Apple over this very same issues. I am an American Citizen with American Visa/MCs. I have always been able to work around things a bit by using my secondary US address. However, I recently "consolidated" my residence to one current residence in Spain.

The big problem is this... I can no longer do anything on the US store because my address is in Spain. HOWEVER, I also CANNOT do anything on the Spanish store since my CCs are American... it WILL NOT accept them specifically because of the originating country of the cards.

This has been a known issue for many years. Recently when the Dash App was removed by Apple, I started a conversation with Apple. One of the "managers" at AppleCare who was an absolute prat, told me he was going to suspend my account and report me to the fraud department.... refusing to follow my suggestion and read about this issue in my previous discussions. Its truly the case of a company how has their mojo. (IMHO)

What's losing steam at Apple? Pretty much everything

Michael 5

Re: Wrong turns

I am curious...

1) how is your "save as" missing (and my goodness Lion was a long time ago). I have always had "save as' and still do.

2) yeah - I liked Aperture - a sad decision

3) Huh? What mess is that... of course the refresh cycle bites - but other then then its an amazing bit of professional kit (not for games, or general desktop users)

4) WTF? I have a MacBook Pro 13" Mid-2014 - and I can upgrade my SSD just fine (MBPs don't use HDD btw)

5) If you are a true creative professional... then #3 is for you.... But it seems that you have not upgraded in a long long long while... hence why you complain about OS X Lion.

Not trying to flame or otherwise pick a fight.... But just that there were some serious issues with your statements.

Surface Book: Microsoft to turn unsuccessful tab into unsuccessful laptop

Michael 5

umm.... as much as I want this to be as real as the showman has presented... I cannot help but to be a bit skeptical. To many plays on words and comparisons and not enough pure pounding of the item itself tells me that it won't stand well on its own. - just my gut feeling.

Android in FOUR out of 5 new smartphones. How d'ya like dem Apples?

Michael 5

I wish we were given reasonably accurate numbers and separation of "types". It seems to me that there is a subset of "smartphones" that actually live between what is a proper smartphone and what is classified as a feature phone.

For example, if you take the Nokia S60 in its base design, it by no means matches the level of a HTC-One. The question is if you change out the OS for Android, does the OS itself qualify a phone to be a "smartphone" or are there other characteristics to be considered. I believe this is a long time debate that has never been answered and really should be answered to give proper weighting to the values that are given in the market.

Unfortunately the post-pc era (or the world of mobile computing if you prefer) is bleeding so many lines of distinction that simplified numbers are no longer meaningful.

iPad Air not very hot: Apple fanbois SHUN London fondleslab launch

Michael 5

Re: Basically it's the best tablet available for most people

@Dave 126 - you are such a tosser!

The A7 double the CPU scores of the previous chip (check our GeekBench). Couple that with OpenCL and you have the ability to really do some real if not serious computing.

Consider this also... the A7 clobbers some of the recent Intel chips used by notebooks such as the Intel Core 2 Duo L9600 2130 MHz and the Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2400 MHz. It also equals the Intel Core i7-2677M in its scoring.

Tell me that its a worthless climb for a tablet to now better some recent notebooks.

Apple slams brakes on orders of (not so cheap) plasticky iPhone 5C

Michael 5

So many are so wrong

I have been reading through the comments... and I have to say that so many of you are completely misguided.

Concerning price: I have seen a number of people mention price. But you have to look at the underlying dynamics that make up the price. A number of phones are literally being given away. There is a reason why Samsung and Apple are the only ones making recognisable profits in the Smartphone market. Just like in the PC market, too many companies have fallen victim to the price wars mentality.

Consider this: If Phone-A is sold at a 5% profit while Phone-B is sold at a 35% profit, is it safe to say that Phone-B is over priced and should be priced as Phone-A? I contend that its unsafe to expect that all companies should sell their products at razor margins. This is not necessarily good for the economy and not good for the company.

While I want a good deal for the amount of money I put down, I also want the company who I purchase into to be around for the long haul. A company who does not maintain a certain level of net profit will not survive.

Now in direct relations to this story, there are a number of considerations to take in.

If the iPhone 5S is selling better then expected, while the iPhone 5C is selling better then the leading competitor then how is that a failure?

But the most important point that can be brought up is that this article is based upon speculation and rumours that have been proven to be insanely inaccurate historically.

Apple bags top Windows feature: Blue Screen Of Death arrives on iPhone 5S

Michael 5

why is it that the actual rate of crashes was not reported by the Reg? Can I call Hate-Mongering?

Anwyay... for those that do care... the normal crash rate is under 1%

WD unveils new MyBook line: External drives now bigger... and CHEAP

Michael 5

Re: Nice to see them...

I have to admit, that a lot of peripheral companies tax Apple users. For example, I want to buy the Logitech 811 keyboard... its the same as their windows based 810. HOWEVER, they charge $20 more for it. CRAZY!

As other posters have stated; in single drive implementations, TB is overkill. A single hard drive does not have the speed to even swamp the USB3 bandwidth let alone what TB has to offer. By the way, certified third-party TB cables are only $10.

But let me respond to your comment and hopefully provide you with some tidbits to ponder.

One of the key architectural differences between TB (Firewire as well for that matter) and USB is that USB consumes CPU resources. In addition, USB uses a single path for both directions of communication. If you are constantly moving large files (think video production) then the TB benefit is much more apparent. I choose USB3 for single drive (that are not SSD). For my RAID setups, I use TB. I do not go with Fibre channel because its way to expansive and overkill.

Another benefit for TB is that I am able to create a mini network, which can be a huge benefit with doing processing queues with another machine. Shelling out for a 10Gb network just is not feasible today for a SOHO.

iOS 7 SPANKS Samsung's Android in user-experience rating

Michael 5

Re: This is clearly bollocks

Cognitive disabilities is the leading (number one) disability that society faces. As such, when designing an interface it needs to be an absolute requirement for consideration in the decision matrix. A simplified and concise interface is almost always the best approach to handle this.

Apple sells world's most expensive flash drive

Michael 5
Megaphone

Stop inciting non-sense

Is it not true that the Flash version of Lion also gives license for upgrades directly from Leopard as opposed to Snow Leopard for the download version?

Also.. keep in mind that with the physical media... you have packaging and distribution expenses. Although in this case I am sure it does not account for $40 difference.

Never the less... $69 is not a bad deal for those lacking the needed requirements.

Kit steals Mac login passwords through FireWire port

Michael 5
Megaphone

Yet another free Advert Campaign

Before your get your bangers on... know this... the same kit also applies to Windows. Its an age old issue. In simple terms.... worded in such a way as to get free advert from the blog-sphere.

Apple iCloud: Steve Jobs' own private internet

Michael 5

Very inaccurate writeup

You obviously either were not paying attention to the technical aspects, or you just are not technical enough to understand the differences.... but iCloud is not a conventional cloud service. Devices have their own local copies. iCloud from the app stand point is about propigation but with a mild failsafe mechanism. iCloud is NOT a cloud service on order to Google Docs.

Google axes Jobsian codec in name of 'open'

Michael 5

Are you serious?

you cannot be serious? So.... and open source kernel, tools, browser, server applications, and protocols are not counting? You truly have no clue (aka ignorance).

http://www.opensource.apple.com/

I am not trying to defend anyone..... but man.... lets have some honest and sincere debates. People on the net these days are just whacked.