low-end octane2? (was: Re: [rescue] octane question)

[Big Endian]

>  > And yet CURRENT mac owners are abandoning the platform for windows.
>>  My aunt(59 years old) bought a mac 4 years ago.  Her friends use
>>  windows PCs.  She went out and bought a PC to replace the mac because
>
>Are you kidding?  I know of *no* long-term Mac users that would even
>consider buying a PC.  Mac users are typically very loyal.

Thats what I though but she just hates computers in general (she 
hates her new HP Pavilion too, for different reasons)

>  > she couldn't read the outlook only .pst and .eml files her friends
>>  sent her.  She doesn't know that OE can read them, she doesn't know
>>  how to update her computer to later versions of the OS.  She is a
>
>Update?  Pop in CD, run the update - right?  From what I've heard, updateing
>a Mac is *way* less painful than updating Windows.  I'v got a freaking MCSE
><ducking> and even I *won't* "update" my windows laptop to anything later -
>it's always a clean install, never upgrade.  Doing a Windows upgrade can
>ruin your life.  No shit..

I've got MCSE equivalent experience(1.5 years doing NT4 admin) and 
I've never had as much trouble w/ MacOS as w/ NT.  However I've never 
had to deal w/ the updates over a modem w/ NT4. 8.6 is a 50 meg 
download(she was running 7.6 and the update to 8 cost money or 
finding a cd).  Doing that over 384kb is a *LOT* better than 28.8kb.

>  > typical American Computer user.  Its sad, its a pity but not everyone
>>  has access to someone like us (my aunt lives in boston, I live in DC)
>>  to help them with their consumer issues.  They want what works w/
>>  everybody else.  I say thats a Mac because I *KNOW* macs and I grew
>
>I see your point.  Typical American computer consumer sees advertisements on
>TV with flying people set to a Madonna song and they think that is a fair
>representation.  Uninformed users, or rather *misinformed* users will buy
>whatever the closest person tells them will work.  They don't know about
>alternatives.  For some reason, casual Windows users are seen as experts in
>interoperability of *all* computers.  Feh!

Its not even that.  Its just a fact that its "automatic" if you run 
the same stuff.

>I hate it that advertising budgets dictate what is considered as "good".  I
>really do.  I also wish Apple would BUY SOME EFFIN AIRTIME ON TV!!!  They
>really need to stop acting "different" and get the point across that MacOS
>WORKS AND DOES EVERYTHING THAT WINDOWS DOES!

But IT DOESN'T!  Its STABLE.... ok </Rant>
>
>
>  >
>>  Yes but NT is marketed at consumers, and XP is following the trend of
>>  new version windows adoption.  people said the same thing about 2k,
>>  and even about NT4 (oh, its only a shell update....).  The fact that
>>  M$ is the current choice has *HUGE* weight and people who are on the
>>  fringe are adopting new technologies now.  How many of the Fortune
>
>Er, *only* choice for preinstalled OS.  MS bashing aside, that bothers me to
>no end.  PC makers should be able to offer whatever OS they feel comfortable
>supporting.  Including older OSs, like NT4.0, Win98/ME.  Why are they forced
>to offer *only* the newest OS?  I'm happy that IBM has resisted pressure
>from MS and continues to offer Linux on workstations and servers (as well as
>other OSs).  But, as you've pointed out, the genreal public doesn't know
>about (and hasn't bothered to check) Linux or any other alternatives.

World Domination.

>Sun did A Good Thing(tm) with the sub-$1000 workstations.  But people think
>they're worthless becasue they run at half the speed of Pentiums.  Truth is,
>they're not worthless.  At all.  They're quite nice.  They're *extremely*
>nice.  But people have no idea waht the benefits of 64bit processing are.
>Damn, back to advertising again...

This goes to the idea of buying a computer based on a benchmark 
versus the usefulness test.  If I buy a computer I'm not going to say 
"Ohh... 500mhz R12k is nice... but look at this 3.5ghz P4... its 7x 
as fast!!"  I'm sure the R12k could spank the pants off the P4, but 
the criteria depend on your application.  For "home use"(word 
processing, email, mp3s, web browsing, perhaps quicken, excel,etc) 
get the cheapest POS you can get as the mhz will be wasted on you. 
For gaming... probably a reasonable Athlon and a Geforce2/3.  For 
anything else, test it w/ the application.  I buy SGI gear because 
SGI has the best all around OpenGL and multimedia support of any 
workstation class machine(I'm doing 3d work and I'm an audio junkie). 
Lots of people on this list buy sun for the wonderful 
quality/power/stability/etc for the buck.  People buy dual 800mhz G4s 
for the *INSANE* photoshop/finalcut/etc performance.  Unfortunately 
the people who buy based on application performance are a tiny 
fraction of the people who buy computers.

>  > 500 are using Windows as the primary desktop and workgroup server os?
>>  How many of them will change?  It has to start small but it also has
>>  to overcome the intertia that it already has to stay put.  People
>>  *ARE* buying P4s *BECAUSE* of the MHZ Myth to "" Steve Jobs.  I sold
>
>And makes me sick.  Really.  I get sick to my stomach every time someone
>tells me how many freaking Mhz their damn x86 computer runs.  I know they'll
>*never* need all that power, and never be able to fully utilize the
>processor anyway!  I've always said that anything over 200Mhz is completely
>wasted on the average home user.

I'd say 500mhz as Office 2k isn't really useable on 200mhz.

daniel
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