Tuesday, March 3, 2009

A very wonderful opportunity...

...has just presented itself in the form of you potentially paying $1000 for 4 gigs of RAM:

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MB419LL/A?mco=NDE4Mzg5MA

Also, did you know that FileMaker is "#1 name in databases"? You do now!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sergey,

Many of your reader read reddit also ... So maybe you could consider a "via reddit" somewhere in the post or title, (if a topic was indeed obtained from there). Just to save our time.

DzembuGaijin said...

Ha ha ha :-)

so much for not giving a "flying fuck" :-)

LOL

I would not comment on Apple sales strategy and pricing. Some thing tells me that they do it better than I would. But in general... when I see a 399$ 15'' Vista Laptop in Staples I wonder how much margin left : that could not possibly be good for a maker, but hell, may be they get their $ from putting a crap were on it. Again, I have a very vague idea about sales and marketing, but as far as I remember from one of the books on the subject, the profit of airline will be maxim if planes will fly half full or some thing: in realty it is all much more complicated, of course and they use timing and other things to "trim" fat ( reach ) first and then go more affordable. Like DVD for example. But beat me :-)

For the record, 4GB is "free" - build in and you can get your RAM in NewEgg or Frys. 1000$ is option for 8GB configuration. That is not exactly the same as 4GB for 1000$ :-) for many reasons. But let me speculate: 4GB on OS X is *FUCKING LOT*. My development MacBook Pro have only 2GB! and I even run VM with Windows when I need - not the best, but , hell, I delivered products on this configuration. So, people who *NEED* 8GB must be a serious people, duh :-) Like they may not give a "flying fuck" about such small amount and rather get a PERFECT working computer OUT OF THE BOX: no need to waste time. They will also tax deduct I would guess. So it is... al ... NONSENSE. I would say some people will LOVE to have 8GB option on iMac. This is a new "feature" of h/w , btw.

Here is a joke: this 1000$ tag is just a "bite" for people like you: NOW YOU GIVE FUCK. AAPL goes UP and Apple brand is stronger now. YEAAAAH!!
Latter they may drop price on RAM upgrade: they did so in the past. :-)

Now... for REAL CHEAP SKATES.

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MB463LL/A?mco=NDE4Mzg4Mw

599$ will buy you a beautiful box that now have NVIDIA ! and faster. I still have Intel GPU based one and it ROCKS even with 1 GB of RAM and slower CPU. It is OS X, not windowz, duh.

Now... when you buy Apple, you not just get fucking beautiful UI and your favorite "perfect round buttons" :-) but you get a VERY WELL ENGINEERED product. Both in H/W and S/W.

NO SPAM, NO CRAP. But it does come with iLife for free ( 80$ option!) That will immediately allow you to do all you need with "hobby" photo/video/audio.

You can get iWork for 80$ if you need "office". It is very "slick" product too. I love it.

There are Adobe Elements you may want to add ( I did) and there are TONS of free and not free applications for a specific needs.

I would not even mention Safari 4 Beta :-) ( some say it is almost 40 times faster than IE 7 ), but who cares, right ?

You loved UNIX when you was young, OS X has it in core. Yes, there is command line, just for you if you need it. But you do not give fuck abut UNIX anymore, I would assume :-)

Mac's run windowz as well, if you need, yo :-)

Anyway, choose is very clear, baby :-)

There are two types of people: one who do not have a choice ( like you ) and may be sore about it or not, and there are people who can , like students or myself.

When it come to choise, you can get

1) a SMOKING PILE OF CRAP - M$ & partners offer - you can get it as cheap as 400$, but you'd better pay at least 1K$ or more anyway, just to get freaking OS running.

You will get VIRUSES, SPYWARE and yeah !!! CRAPWARE- they will spam and slow you down.

Make sure you throw all you old h/w out :-)

and prepare get a new computer to run "next" OS from M$ :-)

When you get a box you will have spend a few days just to get it minimally work. And you will HAVE to get some s/w like antivirus. and basic tools for media.

Then you will cry after each update . Then it will slow down for no fucking reason. Then XLS document will give you infection or worm will go without any action on your part. You will waste some more time doing cleanup.

You want to write code? Go get VS and pay some $,
but that is cool, right ? Office ... yeah ... who cares.

Let's get ALL 1000's features we will never use and pay $$$$$ to M$. :-)

Yes, I did that for years and years... It started to be a pain even before "famous OS"

2) You can get a well designed computer from Apple. It will run out of the box. It will be fast and will do what it suppose to do ( but make yourself a favor and learn differences if you come from other OS and not a new to computers). It come with most s/w you need, even XCode and Documentation ( MSDN-like).

There is nothing you have to kill or uninstall and even your old HP printer will still most likely be just "connect and print" ( no need to install driver, it will be in print menu for you)

It will "JUST WORK" ( most of the time - and getting better and better at that :-)) .

Yeah ... I know you do not give a "flying fuck". You will say I am Apple fun boy.

But I just love to have a choice and I love to pick the *best toys and tools* I can afford on the moment.

I was in dos/windowz land for many years ( ~20 ?) . I had to deal with Mac's ( pain ) . It was time when first was superior to the second. But Apple worked hard, while M$ bloated and got nuts trying to monopolize OS market and control everything.

So, on the moment OS X and Mac are far superior to anything else. :-) and OS X is only getting better ( faster and even smaller!) while windowz 7 goes downhill ( bigger, slow and *ridiculously* EXPENSIVE even without Office - could be more then h/w it runs on now!) . ( look on lates 36 new "features" from Sinofski blog - now, tell me about "buttons")

and .. THANK YOU for this post and making APPLE brand stronger !!!

NAMASHTE !

DzembuGaijin said...

Small comment about FileMaker.

Yes, this is very true.

Even so every OS X come with SQL and Apache, not every one can program on top of it or want to pay $$$ for some one to make a simple DB for team or small business.

This is
"
leading easy-to-use database software
"

they also have Bento for real dummies ;-)

Now.. I saw how easy it was for our QA guy to create and maintain Bug DB and other things for team with Filemaker. and I would CONFIRM that it is ... SUPER EASY, duh ;-) Not the most elegant thing I saw ( it was a while ago), but it works great and you can make a very cool DB driven applications for team with just drag and drop and UI layout design. Like in 5-10 minutes even. And it will ... just work: no need to debug much.

So, not everybody knows SQL and can make custom DB or want to pay for that.

Now about price. 50$ for personal and easy Bento and 300$ for PRO Filemaker.

How much is the offer from M$ ? Do they even have product like this ? ( SQL Server is not it and Access probably the closest thing ... but ... not exactly and I think it come only with Office Pro and how much is that ?)

Still, no real contenders for Filemaker :-) among "big guys" and sure thing not on OS X :-)

Sergey Solyanik said...

Nope, still don't care. I don't love Windows with all my heart. I still don't hate Apple with all my heart.

The existence of idiots who would pay $1000 for 8GB of RAM is a notable curiosity though. Which is why it's here.

As far as the databases go...

SQL Express is free, up to 2 GB database. My team was using the code review tool for 2 months now (50 people, hundreds of change lists, thousands of comments), and the database is still under 400MB I allocated for it...

I can probably build a pretty nice bug database with ASP.NET and SQL express using free Visual Studio Express in under 2 hours - it will have a good web frontend, reports, etc. Maybe I should actually do it some day and throw it out on CodePlex, just for fun.

I think your problem is that you've always bought the crappiest of the crappiest Windows hardware, and you are comparing it to Apple, which is even in its crappiest form is not this crappy. Did you ever own a ~2k Windows laptop? Everything works nicely on corp-level Dells, Thinkpads, and Toshibas. This may explain that when you're railing about M$ this and M$ that - I just don't understand what is it you're talking about...

DzembuGaijin said...

:-)

>The existence of idiots who would pay $1000 for >8GB of RAM is a notable curiosity though.
They are NOT paying for RAM. :-) They pay for PRODUCT. That includes warranty, support e.t.c.

Say ... HUMUS. I can say : " The existence of IDIOTS who would pay 7$ for 100 gramm of graganzoa beans paste ...". But guess what ? Not every one make it own humus. Not every one can buy proper RAM and properly install it. Not every one even WANT to do it.

They get 8G box for some serious shit: like 3D rendering, animation, video. Money is not a problem, just like it is not for you when you buy Humus in Trader Joe.

I think all OEM try manufactureres to screw you over during configuration. It is not unique to Apple. That how they optimize profit: if people pay, why sell for less? They fine tune it I believe and it is not arbitrary price tag :-)

Now about h/w: My last Laptop was a Golden Award winer for several models in raw. Put case aesthetics aside, it had a decent h/w I believe. I do not think my problem ever been a h/w: box I made or bought, may not be a TOP gaming or server spec, but I never used it as such. It was mainly text editing, compilation and web browsing and some file import export and scanning/printing. Very minimal. It all kind of worked, but I do believe problem is s/w. And drivers and crap-ware and malware.

Hunting for drivers, OS updates, viruses ( that can jump on you when you mouse over PDF file or even do noting.) Sudden slow down and crazy 99% CPU in fucking "idle process".

Like I always felt like IT guy.

As I said, I pulled the plug from my WHS. I just can not take it any more: I do not know if it got infected or what, but I got sick of pampering it up every month or so ( for a couple of years): it is fucking file server. It should just work there 24/7 without anybody doing anything. Like a 200$ NAS.

I would bet it will work just like that after I will install Lunix on the same h/w and install will probably take 10X times less than single windows update. ( My Pingo Server fresh install was 1 minute 35 second on 80GB HD)

So, I am not even blame anybody. Not M$, not hackers, not even OEM that "forgot" to write driver for my relatively new HP printer for WHS or Vista.

Like it is just a fact: no matter what you do you will regularly suffer some pain and frustration in Windows world. You can not just focus on your own tasks.

You can do it today in Mac world: pick what you need on www.apple.com/store and it all come pre-installed and ready. Open box and you can focus on your silly things.

It was fine when Windows just started and been a "Linux" like OS for geeks. I had a lot of fun, but it never matured to consumer product: just adding features and crap will not do that. Showing UAC will not make it secure when every freaking application and it plugin runs as Administrator. Like .. duh...

I still know how to program Windows better than OS X. I can use it when needed. When it works it feels even comfortable after all these years.:-)

OS X is not all roses. But it is a SUPERIOR end user experience on the moment: Out of the box.

As for DB: it is HUMUS again. Yes, both OSes have SQL in some form. There are tools and even FREE applications exist. Yes, you are SUPER SMART and you can write Bug DB. Fast. You are a programer,duh.

Filemaker, as crapy as it still is in v10. ( bugs...), is not for programers. Not really. It is a easy tool to create UI+DB that also come with templates: you pick one. You add remove some fields. You name it, may be add some graphics and choose some options. You done. Some "experts" would write a few line scripts. That's it: it is deployed and it can even send you e-mails, all by itself. No need to config much.

So, it is probably the only product of a kind for this audience. I do not think they even have any real competition. ;-)

Bottom line: LOVE and PEACE.

Let everybody pick what they like.

My only point is: if you can't or do not want "to fix your own computer" all the time, get Mac... dude ! :-)

DzembuGaijin said...

Talking about DB: If you want to spend your time, you can actually create competition to Filemaker. I would not suggest to put it on CodeFlex, make some cash, but it will not be 30 minutes so. Just to make one bitmap for single template will probably take longer than that. But it may be posable to make some kind of "Bento" like product in a few month with a small team.

Just BugDB will not cut: way too much exist. I believe Joel on Software dude even make one :-)

One note: before you attempt, and if, do some research: do not take my word for granted. May be some one else already try to steal market share from Filemaker ( not that I know of anybody)

DzembuGaijin said...

Btw, talking about 2000$ Laptop. :-) Who in M$ ( some big manager) bought a "ready for Vista" Sony for 2k$+ and now have just a "email" machine?

Like... HP, Toshiba ( good brands, not crap): if 1K$ box they sell is crap ... I feel sorry for them and M$.