Thinking of getting an Apple...

Leopard

Marty_J

asininity wrote: »

True true, bill used to be considered one, suppose he still is. Wonder if he'll take the job?:D

I think the rest of Microsoft's board of directors might have something to say about that!

2000 is around the time XP came out, after ME no wonder, which was with us a long time probably explains the cooling off. Now windows 7 is here they'll probably go back up again as businesses move over.

Don't forget that Microsoft only make a portion of their profit from the sale of Windows, and they're under attack from all sides. Google in search, online services and advertising, and (before too long) operating systems, Apple as the OS of choice for premium systems, media players, and music sales, Firefox, OpenOffice, Sony and Nintendo…the list goes on and on. In practically every market they compete in, they have, for the first time in years, strong competition. And in every market they face competition, they're slipping.

The market share of Windows, IE, MS Office, and Bing, are all diminishing. Microsoft just aren't used to dealing with competitors who have both better products and the muscle to back them up.

I tried, I just dont get how to use it is all.

It's a "computational knowledge engine". Basically, it tries to answer questions or provide information on a topic rather than just redirecting to another web page.

For instance, if you wanted to know what the weather was like in Slough in 1979, and you typed "weather slough 1979" into Google it'll give you a list of the pages it has crawled containing the terms "weather" "slough" and "1979" (the top hit, for some reason, is "Slough Lesbian dating").

However, if you type the same thing into Wolfram Alpha, it'll tell you everything there is to know about the weather in Slough in 1979.

Using it is both a matter of knowing what it can be used for, and understanding how to phrase the input.

If you're interested, there's a list of examples by topic, a visual gallery of examples, and an introductory video.

It can be a very powerful tool, and it'll reward any time you spent playing around with it.

Leopard

Marty_J wrote: »

It's a "computational knowledge engine". Basically, it tries to answer questions or provide information on a topic rather than just redirecting to another web page.

For instance, if you wanted to know what the weather was like in Slough in 1979, and you typed "weather slough 1979" into Google it'll give you a list of the pages it has crawled containing the terms "weather" "slough" and "1979" (the top hit, for some reason, is "Slough Lesbian dating").

However, if you type the same thing into Wolfram Alpha, it'll tell you everything there is to know about the weather in Slough in 1979.

Using it is both a matter of knowing what it can be used for, and understanding how to phrase the input.

If you're interested, there's a list of examples by topic, a visual gallery of examples, and an introductory video.

It can be a very powerful tool, and it'll reward any time you spent playing around with it.

Yes; but I don't understand how to make it find more than basic details.

For example, if you enter "Claudia Schiffer images" or "Claudia Schiffer yacht", all it comes up with is:-

Full name: Claudia Schiffer.
Date of Birth: 25 August 1970 (age: 39 years)
Place of Birth: Rheinberg, North Rhine - Westphalia, Germany.

How do you get it to show a picture of Claudia Schiffer on a yacht ?

(Seriously. )

purt

Hi everyone,

I took the liberty of booking a personal shopper appointment in the Apple Store yesterday. It was a worthwhile exercise and I do think I'll take the plunge and buy one, although it'll probably be another two weeks before I do.

Can I just ask your opinions on the type of hard drive to go for? A techy friend of mine told me in the past to plump for a solid state drive on a laptop if I wanted it to last. When I asked the assistant in the Apple Store yesterday about them he said that a solid state drive is much faster but he then asked me if I could really justify forking out the extra cash for it.

I know from the Apple Online Store a solid state drive is a lot more expensive and doesn't give anywhere near as much memory for the cash. I'm still tempted to plump for one though. I just wondered if you guys had any thoughts.

Btw... I'm definitely going to go for a 13" Mac Book Pro.

robredz

If the OP buys a Mac, would they post their experience with it? They certainly look good.

@ leopard: what is wrong with Linux? I mean it's just fine for a cheapskate like me I fink............ think........ .

almillar

Solid state memory is catching up on hard disk drives fast, and having one lowers the number of moving parts in your laptop greatly, but they're still a tiny part of the market at the mo, and a huge compromise in storage for a vastly higher price which gets you a decent performance boost. My opinion for 95% of people is to stick with a HDD. This is one of the few parts of a laptop that you can actually upgrade later, so you could get a SSD when they're more reasonable...

purt

almillar wrote: »

Solid state memory is catching up on hard disk drives fast, and having one lowers the number of moving parts in your laptop greatly, but they're still a tiny part of the market at the mo, and a huge compromise in storage for a vastly higher price which gets you a decent performance boost. My opinion for 95% of people is to stick with a HDD. This is one of the few parts of a laptop that you can actually upgrade later, so you could get a SSD when they're more reasonable...

Thanks. That's useful to know.

purt

Hi folks,

Can I seek your advice on something? I am almost certainly going to get a Mac Book Pro 13" this week. There's just one snag...

I sometimes record audio on my PC from an external device. Sometimes a microphone, but usually a mini-disc recorder or such like. (I then edit the audio on computer).

The 13" doesn't have an audio line in slot.

I really don't want to have a 15" Mac Book. Does anyone know of a way around this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Marty_J

You need an audio interface, such as this.

ETA: Dolphin Music will have the Griffin iMic 2 USB Audio Interface for £24.99 in February. Or the Alesis Linelink at £29.99 might do the job.

Millionaire

culchied wrote: »

The 13" doesn't have an audio line in slot.

I really don't want to have a 15" Mac Book. Does anyone know of a way around this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

The 13" Macbook Pro has a single consolidated Audio in/out, Is that not the same?