The Onion pits OS X Snow Leopard against Windows 7
The satirical website The Onion often has hilarious takes on current events. This week, it turned its sights on what will undoubtedly be a big debate next year: OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) versus Windows 7. The new operating systems from both Apple and Microsoft are expected to come out next year; The Onion mocks their “differences” in the image below.
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The OS X desktop as music video
A digital filmmaker named Dennis Liu has made an amazing video for The Bird And The Bee’s lovely song “Again & Again”. The set? His Mac desktop. You sort of have to see it for yourself to understand; luckily, Dennis has dropped it on YouTube so that the world can see it in low-res glory:
Innovative, and definitely cool. It doesn’t seem to be an “official” video for the song…but if it isn’t, it oughtta be.
[Source: MacRumors forums]
Meet The Mac-Clone Mystery Man from Psystar
The mac blogosphere has torn into Psystar over the past week or so over their two models of ‘OpenComputers’ that come pre-installed with Leopard OS X. But can you blame us? Sketchy details, multiple address changes, a halt to new orders… It seemed like each day there was a new questionable detail that was cause for concern.
The latest news today on this one is that Brian Caufield of Forbes.com managed to get a short phone interview with Psystar founder, (and no doubt stressed-out) president Rudy Pedraza. Pedraza insisted that the company is the real deal and they will make good on all of their orders.
Get Psystar President Rudy Pedraza on the phone, however, and he insists Psystar is for real. “That’s just completely wrong–we’re not out to steal anyone’s money, we want to earn it,” Pedraza says.
His explanation? The company has been overwhelmed by demand. He says his credit card processor, PowerPay, locked down his account for processing too many credit cards. When he turned to PayPal, Pedraza says Psystar’s account with the online payments specialist was quickly overloaded, too.
Pedraza explains the address changes by saying he had to move the company into a 40,000-square-foot warehouse. “We have thousands of machines we have to build and ship out,” Pedraza says.
“It’s not that we can’t provide the product or [that] Apple can stop us from providing the product,” Pedraza says, adding he’ll be able to start taking orders again soon. “The truth is, we can’t process your credit card.”
Still, Pedraza is short on the sorts of details most startups won’t shut up about. He won’t go on the record about his educational background, detail his professional history or name any previous ventures. The company’s Open Computer is based on a machine put together by his brother (whom he won’t name), he says. Nor will he say how the new computer works. He will say the company has 16 employees, and he just hired four more.
Another question mark hanging over Pedraza’s venture is Apple. One of the first thing Apple founder Steve Jobs did when he retook control of the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer maker in 1997 was to shut down the companies then cranking out authorized Apple clones. It was a controversial move, but one that has been forgotten as Apple’s stock price–driven by a host of new gizmos and and updated software for Apple’s computers–has soared.
More than a decade later, Apple is gobbling up market share, largely thanks to its slick new operating system. The computer maker grabbed 6% of the U.S. personal computer market in the first quarter, according to IDC, up from 4.9% the year before.
Pedraza, however, says Apple can do better. “The real problem is you have to buy Apple hardware to use [Apple software] and that’s preventing many people that would otherwise run OS X from being able to use it,” says Pedraza, adding that he’s paying retail price for Apple’s software every time he installs it on a new machine. “I just want to help Steve Jobs make more money.”
Pedraza says he hasn’t heard from Apple about his venture–yet. Is he nervous about what Apple will say? “Nope.”
Technically, however, there is little stopping someone from building machines loaded up with Apple software. Plenty of Web sites will walk users through the process of putting OS X on a PC, says Andrew Storm, director of security operations at San Francisco-based network security specialist nCircle. “But nobody has gone mass-market with it,” he says.
So, if what Psystar is offering is doable, how can Pedraza shut up the skeptics? “If I were [him], I would go to the local news station and ask for a two-minute spot and bring a customer, bring the device with them and show it working,” Storm says. “When that happens, I think the whole story is going to turn around, and we’re all going to be eating it.”
Pedraza is promising to get a reference customer, and we’ll keep you up to date. Meanwhile, if you’re a Psystar customer, let us know how it’s gone. Better still, if you’ve taken delivery of one, send us a picture or a video. The less mystery, the better.
From the Psystar website:
“It is our pleasure to inform you that our store is up and running thanks to our new high volume payment processor. To all, we challenge you, let’s see if we can max this one out. Regarding shipping, orders placed the week of April 7th are currently being shipped. We will be shipping units out of our new facility starting Monday, April 21st, including those orders placed the week of April 14th. Orders are being shipped in the order that they were received, don’t worry, you’ll get yours soon. Upon shipment an email notification including tracking information will be sent to you, no need to ask.”
Source: Forbes
(A side note: Gizmodo put its foot in its mouth and deleted this post about Psystar being a hoax - original link was http://gizmodo.com/380488/psystar-exposed-looks-like-a-hoax. Now they have a post on Latest in Psystar Saga: Mac Clones Supposedly Shipping Right Now + New Facility Up Close)
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