That's kinda a circular argument, though... "The hardware I might buy is that which is supported by Windows, therefore Windows will support any hardware I might buy." :-)
True, I just think the extra cost is minimal.
But that just isn't true -- the majority of web servers are running Linux these days, as are the vast majority of home routers, NAS boxes, media players, etc. Windows is fine for the average desktop computer, certainly, but in terms of the number of CPUs sold, desktop computers today are a minority -- embedded is where the real volumes are.
I am always somewhat amused how, at high-powered technical conferences (e.g., those by the IEEE) there's still typically plenty of fumbling with getting PowerPoint to work and getting the projector hooked up and all.
I did see a presentation a couple weeks ago now where the presenter was using Keynote on a Mac (the equivalent of PowerPoint) along with his iPhone that functioned both as the remote for advancing slides as well as displaying his speaker's notes, a small version of the slides, etc. Very slick -- definitely more "style" points that folks using Windows & PowerPoint.
I seem to recall that our own Tim Wescott here gives professional (as in, paid for with real money) presentations in OpenOffice Impress on a Linux laptop. I guess he would have failed the, "...but we don't have a VGA input to this project!" test...
I was surprised as just how little I missed a CD/DVD-ROM drive in a netbook. Even if you buy a copy of Microsoft Office at, e.g., Costco today, while there's a CD in the box there's also a URL to where you can just download the entire thing if you're on a netbook and don't have a portable or networked CD ROM drive handy.
It's like the chicken and the egg. Except that in this case one group laid just a few eggs, the other several thousand :-)
That's right but those are, in Keith's definition, really appliances. They have one or very few purposes so they get tested for those and that's it. And even NAS boxes that run Linux often come with a configuration disk that will only run on Windows machines.
A new USB gizmo OTOH is very different. A driver needs to be written, it needs to be tested, and then they start looking at the ROI. If 98% of potential buyers want to plug it into a Windows machine, 1% into a Linux machine, and the other 1% into a Mac, most likely they'll declare happiness to be 98% :-)
It's even more so with cut-throat priced stuff. I remember a guy who needed a big machinist's style on/off button, just that one button, that connects to USB. So I pointed such a gizmo out to him, five bucks or so. He almost jumped up, then sank back into his chair ... "There is no Linux driver".
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I'd say the way to look at it would be... Windows machines are some, say 85% of the market, Macs are 5-10%, and Linux is 1-2%. But just as Windows is so heavily dominant, it also means that the barriers to entry are much higher: If you make a really cool USB gizmo, if you're lucky perhaps you might get a couple percent of the Windows market (since there's so much competition), but you could get rather a lot of the Mac or Linux market. E.g., 10% of the Mac market is more than 1% of the Windows market, and I kinda think that there are certain peripherals where garnering that 10% of the Mac market is, if anything, easier than 1% of Windows.
I guess I figure that, at the end of the day, you can make money developing hardware and/or software for any operating system today -- and if you're good, I also tend to think there's more money in Macs right now than PCs, and of course the obvious draw for *hardware* development with Linux is that you don't have to pay per copy OS costs. (For software development, well... a lot of those Linux guys think everything should be free; I view Linux software development more as a charitable contribution to society than something I'd expect to make much money at, even though there certainly as and even I own some copies of commercial Linux software. :-) )
It's a somewhat different market, but look at how many apps there are now for iPhones vs. Windows Mobile -- the later seemed like a pretty big market up until a few years ago, and these days there's far more software for iPhones than there *ever* was for Windows Mobile. And it doesn't stop there -- Google's Android looks poised to potentially displace iPhones as the most popular phone OS development platform in the near future.
Or look at all the products you consult for -- many of them do roughly the same things as readily avaialble products from much better known and much more popular names, right? Yet someone decides to build an ever-so-slightly different widget because they figure there's a market around that will pay for whatever nichey enhancements their widget has over the competition -- it's a little sturdier or a little faster or a little more interference resistant or whatever, right? Money goes around, engineers get to have fun developing this stuff, and life goes on. I would think one of the reasons you continue working as a consultant is the exposure to multiple projects and technologies -- however nichey they might be -- rather than being lumped as, "oh, that's Joerg, he does all the ultrasound catheters designs these days and nothing else -- he's been here for a couple decades now," right? Software guys often feel the same way -- there's nothing wrong with Windows, but it can be a lot of fun to code for other OSes as well, and usually there's some angle that allows for profitability there too.
Sounds like a poor design -- I can't imagine why something that's a "big machinist's style on/off button" wouldn't present itself as a regular old USB keyboard, and as such should work just fine on Windows, Macs, Linux boxes, and even many cell phones without anyone needing to write a new driver.
I want to ask about that, just about anything i try now just works in Linux these days. vVidia and ATI(AMD) have drivers for all their display adapters. USB to serial and parallel port adapters mostly just work, = SCSI cards mostly just work, internal and external mass storage (including = raid now) mostly just works, NAS just looks like a SAMBA server and just = works. Laptops are still having some problems but that is really down to a dull rumble compared to a few years ago.
Pick your configuration and we will see if it just works or not. If you are really picky, just select a box with linux already installed from HP or Dell
Yeah, I was exagerating with that 98%. But that 85% number certainly doesn't apply around here. One elderly lady in our neighborhood had a Mac but she has moved away since. You could certainly build something that only goes into a niche market like Macs, whole companies make a living that way. But the bigger fish to fry are in the Windows world. If I had a great idea for a gizmo that's where I'd go.
To me that's more the world of gadgets. PCs increase my productivity, big time. I wouldn't know what to do with an iPhone though. Never really understood what is so important to mankind in a phone that can do apps. Heck, I haven't even used text messaging on my cell phone except once, to transmit a phone number.
Actually, the novelty factor must be somewhat higher than that. With the exception of where it replaces something that is or is perceived as unreliable.
Yes, I enjoy the multitude of projects. Except for two clients in the ag sector none is even remotely in a similar business than any other.
I don't remember the details but for some reason it had to not be a remote keyboard emulation.
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Believe it or not, I currently have a HP Laser plugged into my firewall router. No, not into a LAN port but into its good old parallel port. It turns a connected regular printer into a network printer.
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I'd agree with Linux, but even you might want, e.g., some peripherals that are only available for Macs one of these days.
Well, I'd agree it seldom makes sense to produce software for a given platform if sales aren't large enough to recover extra cost of testing on that platform. I.e., each platform should be "self supporting."
Not too many. :-)
If we are talking just strictly desktop PCs, Windows is certainly the easiest choice for maximum compatibility.
Macs definitely have much stronger market penetration with youngins'.
For a piece of software or USB peripheral, I probably would the vast majority of the time as well; I suppose it depends on exactly what the gizmo is.
Understood, and that's certainly how it should be... but the "home" PC market is larger than the "work" PC market, and almost by definition people use their home PCs primarily for games, word processing, web surfing (and I don't mean for looking up data sheets), and so on.
Most of the economy today is creating gadgets. And it's not like you'd turn down a consulting job to, say, improve the EMI or ESD performance of something like a game console (...no productivity increase whatsoever; 100% recreational...), right?
My wife and I probably exchange upwards of a dozen texts per months. Amazingly, most teens today send *well over a thousand text messages per month*. So while I don't quite get all the attraction either, from a business point of view I'll be more than happy to work on the gadgets that those folks are willing to pay a couple hundred bucks plus then upwards of another hundred bucks a month for!
When strolling the grounds of Sac State University the other day on the way to a session I arrived early. So I watched what sort of computers students were using. Almost everyone had a laptop open in front of them, or netbook. AFAICT they were all Windows-based. Ok, everyone was around
20 or older so maybe that isn't the group of "youngins" :-)
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Not just that. A central function of the family or kid's PC is doing homework on it. Then it better be compatible with whatever the school is using. I guess showing up with an ODF document would result in minor problems. But AFAIK Macs can nowadays red MS-Office docs so maybe it's ok by now.
Of course not, I'd probably enjoy that. So far I have never worked on any game consoles. Well, I built Pong as a kid, out of chips from discarded computer boards. Unsoldered with dad's butane blowtorch. But the instant it worked I gave it away because then the fun was gone.
1000 texts is nothing. One kid recently said to be sending 5000/mo, at the very least. Yikes! Carpal tunnel syndrome waiting to happen.
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That is amazing. I guess I have become an atypical person because I've never slept with my cell phone in the bed and my average number of text messages per day is 0.5e-3 so far.
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is one of several videos promoting Southern Oregon University (in Ashland) that plays before the movies at the local theatres. Notice all the Macs... heck, I believe that video was made on a Mac, and if Trisha Zimmerman has a laptop at all, I'd bet it's a Mac!
Some of these promotional videos are pretty bad, however; they sure wouldn't make me want to attend. See, e.g.:
Sure, in the area of arts and journalism you'll find lots of Apple computers. They do have a very easy learning curve for non-tech folks. When the email on the Mac of the elderly lady croaked I was able to fix it easily even though she could not find any manuals. Apple did a nice job in that department.
Hard business :-)
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The "high powered technical conferences" I've been to have all the presentations loaded and the equipment ready to go long in advance. The only one I remember that had technical troubles was Intel's introduction of the iAPX-432. The hotel was against them (elevators going to the wrong or non-existent floors, fire alarms going off at random times,...). They should have taken it as an omen. ;-)
I've used the DVD drive in my laptop, I think, twice in six months. Once was to reload Win. :-(
When we're in B&N or Panera I look around to see what people are using. I see about 25%, or better, Macs. I keep thinking about getting my wife a Mac, but then I see the price.
More and more schools are specifying or even supplying computers for students.
I worked on a couple. Well, the processors in a couple. ;-)
I think I've received three, all from my brother on birthdays. I told him they cost me money. A call doesn't. His daughter told him the same thing, be he doesn't listen to her either. ;-)
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Mine sits on the nightstand, with my wallet and keys. I'd forget it otherwise. I run on autopilot until I've gotten to work and finished the first coffee (decaf, even).
No, no, liberals are all very tolerant of dissenting views, remember? :-) Just ask them!
Yeah, but for submitting school papers there's no need to edit the result, right?
If you're working on a lab report or somesuch with multiple people then, sure, you ought to agree on one word processor for passing files around.
I honestly think that the amount of "learning" most kids are required to do with Word and Excel doesn't amount to more than what you can teach adults in, say, a pair of one day classes assuming those adults are generally familiar with the concepts of word processors and spreadsheets from having used any other competing package. Hence, it's hard for me not to think that if schools are going to standardize on anything (e.g., the software on the computers in the libraries or whatever for the kids who don't have their own PCs), it ought to be something like OpenOffice: Anyone who's used OO will have no problem with Office, few people will ever actually use the more advanced features that Office has that OO doesn't have, and by demonstrating that OO does solve the vast majority of an individual's needs, you can save them some money as well. (Microsoft gives free or almost-free copies of pretty much everything to schools -- which is fine, I have no objections to that -- but even the "Home/Educational" version of Office is still ~$129 once you're no longer in school... this point is even stronger in other countries that aren't as rich as the U.S...)
Didn't you use the word processor and spreadsheet in Works for quite awhile anyway before upgrading to full-blown Office? :-)
You have a *very* different experience than I do. I couldn't even get Linux to run on my system last time I tried. The text was in about a 1e-9 font and there was no way to get it out of that mode. Looking at printer and scanner compatibility lists, most don't support Linux completely. The ones that are incomplete really mean "NO".
IME, it's the add-ons down the line that usually don't work. I fought it long enough that I just gave up.
Bookstores are where the "intellectuals" often hang out, they aren't exactly representative for the average Joe. The fact that us guys aren't much of a part of that is often evidenced by how much the electronics book section has shriveled. Last time I looked it wasn't even 3ft worth of shelf space :-(
Fiction, novels, esoteric stuff, there they had tons of books. Oh, and they didn't even carry AoE. So I stopped going to bookstores, nothin' there for me no more. If I need a book I preview and order online.
Here goes the tax Dollar ...
When I was a kid we had to buy any and all of our supplies, including books. Only poor families got help there. And we re-sold our books to next year's class when done. That's how it ought to be.
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Seriously, some people have a tiny hidden phobia about picking up a phone and initiating a call. But they have none of that when in front of a keyboard or keypad. Beats me why but I've seen that a lot.
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Mine's not even turned on, neither night nor day. It's only on when I am on a business trip.
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Regards, Joerg
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