Linkstew

I might bitch a lot about doing dishes, because I don't have a dishwasher and I have to do them by hand and everything. But being home this weekend has made me realize what a crappy job a dishwasher does if you just put the dishes into the dishwasher without scrubbing them a little, first. A dishwasher can't scrub butter off of a knife, for example -- that has to be done by hand no matter which way you slice it.

And doing all of my dishes by hand has shown me that lots of things don't even have to be run through the dishwasher, saving all kinds of electricity and water. Which just means that once I do have a dishwasher some day, I'll just use it sparingly, and not rely on it to actually clean everything magically for me. The commercials might like to lead you to believe that that's how it works, but it actually just leaves ugly dirty dishes.

I stayed up all night before my train ride just so I could listen to the Mac World New York keynote speech, and boy was I mostly disappointed. Mac OS X 10.1 looks great, and I can't wait to get my hands on it come (late) September. But that was the only interesting announcement, and it certainly wasn't a surprise. The hardware announcements were just... lame, basically. And despite that, these hardware announcements just cemented in my mind that I want my next Desktop computer to be a PowerMac.

Perhaps the most disappointing in my eyes was the lack of anything new for the iMac. Well, they returned the colors to sane, and they raised the speed of the processors, but that newer faster model won't actually be out until september. The iMac needs a major overhaul, and everybody was expecting it at MWNY, but it didn't come. Well, here's to hoping Apple gets it out before Christmas, because otherwise things will only get worse for them.

The portable Macs didn't receive any attention. In the case of the iBook, that's okay, because it only came out in May, and it's a very solid, feature packed machine. On the other hand, it would have been very nice to see a DVD/CD-RW combo drive added to the TiBook. Again, hopefully this machine receives an update before MacWorld San Francisco in January, because in my opinion, it's already getting stagnant.

And then there's Apple's real desktop machines -- Now, as you may or may not know, Apple recently axed the cube, which leaves just the PowerMac Tower. I really liked the Cube, but I think this move was wise on their part, given the current economic situation.

So they axed the cube, and they came out with an "all new" PowerMac G4. Well, kinda. It's got a refined look, more in line with the TiBook, but until I see it in person, I'm really uncertain about how I feel about it. Every picture I've seen of it looks like a drawing, but looking at a picture of the old G4 tower next to the QuickSilver G4 tower leaves me liking the new design better. On the whole, not that much changed with this "new" PowerMac G4, though. Sure, they increased the processor speeds, but I don't like the combinations of processor speeds available. That's about all they noticeably changed, though. They didn't add Double Data Rate RAM, which is a big disadvantage at this point. Never mind that I don't have money to buy a new computer, these new PowerMac models just aren't for me.

What do I want in a Desktop PowerMac? First and foremost, I want dual processors. They don't have to be the fastest processors available, I just want two of them. Second, and pretty much equally important, I want DDR RAM. And the third thing I want is a SuperDrive, with that crazy DVD-R/CD-RW action (Of course, then I'd also have to get a digital video camera so I can make me some DVDs). Everything else is details -- A gig of RAM, a 17" Apple Studio Display (Of course I'd like the 22" display, but I'm being kind of realistic here), a GeForce 3, and an AirPort card. Of course, the only real point that's holding that up is the DDR issue, but as long as I'm waiting, I might as well wait for USB2 and FireWire 2, as well.

Of course, I also kind of have to wait for money, but that's just details.

As far as OS X 10.1 goes -- well, it looks to me like that's what I'm going to be upgrading my family's computers to, assuming the performance is up to snuff (My family's G3's are several generations old), and assuming a few critical apps are released for OS X soon. Notably, in my dad's case, a Mac OS X native version of CorelDraw would be the best thing that ever happened to his productivity. In my brother's case, a native PhotoShop is still some way off, but I personally find performance in Classic to be acceptable. My brother would probably appreciate the stability of OS X, though, because he's bitching at me all the time about how it's supposedly my fault that OS 9.1 crashes. And in my Mom's case, the bundled software (IE and Mail.app) will more than meet her computing needs. And for all of them, that new version of Office sure looks nice. I may use Mac OS X 10.0 full time, but it definitely pisses me off at times, and I can at least recognize that 10.0 was not right for my family.

Awhile back, I mentioned that my parent's ISP, which had been bought, had been bought by Earthlink. When Onemain bought Lightspeed, the transition was nice and smooth, without so much as a change of settings required.

But then Earthlink came along, and I am so less than impressed with the way this second transition is being handled. First of all, they emailed instructions about what the new PPP login would be. Um, it's a good thing my family checks their email often, I think.

But that's barely the ridiculous part that angers me: Under Lightspeed, and subsequently Onemain, my parents paid $24.95 a month, got unlimited dial up access, and got five email addresses (all five of which, I should note, are used regularly (me, mom, dad, brother, family)). Okay, fair enough.

So then onemain/earthlink/whoever sent out a transition email to their customers, informing us that the plan that best fit our needs was the "Earthlink Light" plan. Quick summary of the earthlink light plan: $6.95 a month for six hours of online time, plus $1 for every additional hour, and 1 email address.

Um.

A quick check reveals the "Earthlink Unlimited" plan, which clocks in at $21.95 a month for unlimited access and 8 email addresses. Lightspeed only ever offered that one plan, and hence, anyone who was ever a Lightspeed customer going through this transition should have been given the Unlimited plan by default, with an option to downgrade if so desired, instead of being autofuckingmatically downgraded. Heck, the Earthlink unlimited plan actually features more email addresses for $3 less a month.

Besides the fact that we clearly have five email addresses that the Light plan doesn't support, my brother is online more than I am. My parents probably would have paid more for online access for a month than they pay for rent.

I can't fathom what kind of moron planned this transition, unless it was some guy who was trying to figure out how to make the Onemain purchase pay for itself in a single month. And then when everyone bitched, they could just say "Oh, we emailed you what we were doing. But we'll fix it now. But you still have to pay, because you didn't get your account changed at the time."

I'm only tangentially involved in this, and it just makes me whistling mad. I can only imagine how all the old school Lightspeed customers feel. So much for support and service. Apparently it's all about "How can we fuck over our customers?"

And the worst worst part is that of the national ISP's (including AOL, MSN, Earthlink, et cetera), I by far like Earthlink the best.

I fear.

Now first, there are the superficial, consumer level differences between the three consoles. This Christmas, parents are going to find three options for video games. First, there's the newcomer on the block. Microsoft may be well known in your average household, but they don't make games. I don't know how big a factor that will be in the war, but articles like this CNN article painting the Xbox in a bad light are going to filter into the collective unconscious and make it difficult for the Xbox to sell itself with it's $300 price tag -- especially compared to the cheaper options. Some of the extra price of the Xbox might be explained away with it's internal hard drive, built-in broadband connectivity, and the ability to play DVD's. But according to this Xbox FAQ, an additional controller will have to be bought for the Xbox to play DVD's. So total price of an Xbox Christmas: $380 ($300 console + $30 dvd remote + $50 game).

Next, there's the well established Sony Playstation 2. The PS2 also plays back DVD's, without a separate remote. Sony just announced plans for a hard drive and online connectivity, but your first time buyer likely won't get those in their innitial purchase -- especially if they're more than $100. So from a parents perspective, the PS2 has many more games than Xbox, and a PS2 Christmas package will be $335 ($250 console + $34 memory card + $50 game).

And then there's Nintendo. Nintendo is an established name in home video games, so that aspect shouldn't concern buyers like it might with Microsoft. Additionally, the Game Boy will act as a trojan to sell Gamecubes. The Total Gamecube Christams package will cost $280 ($200 console + $30 memory card + $50 game).

Okay, so Nintendo will show off their outstanding graphics, and sell some Gamecubes, because they're the cheap option, and parents are all about cheap. This is good for Nintendo. But wait, there's more!

According to this article, Microsoft is going to lose $130 on each Xbox sold (not even counting marketing and distribution), and according to the article quoted in this message (popup window warning), Sony is also selling it's PS2's at a loss. I can't find a reference, but all the news leading up to Nintendo's price announcement indicated that they would make a profit off of both the Gamecube and the Game Boy Advance. When Nintendo announces their financial results later this week, we'll find out for sure what the financial situation of Nintendo's consoles... But with a monopoly on portable gaming, there's no reason Nintendo would sell the Game Boy Advance at a loss, and Nintendo has learned from their N64 mistakes and the Gamecube was designed to be cheap. If nothing else, the Gamecube is probably saving $50 on plastic...

So how did Sony and Microsoft plan to make money selling game consoles? Well, it's all about Game Licensing. This article talks a little about game licensing. In short, a piece of every game sold goes to the console maker, so the more consoles sold makes for more games sold makes for more money coming in. Microsoft is trying to lure game makers with cheaper costs, but that just means it's going to take more games sold to make money, which means it's going to take more consoles sold to sell the games, and being in a difficult position to sell consoles, Microsoft is going to be in a sticky situation. To say the least.

One notable difference between the Nintendo way of doing things and the Sony/Microsoft way of doing things is that Nintendo had price in mind, and so didn't include things like DVD playback by default. In fact, if you want DVD on your Gamecube, a separate company will be making a Gamecube DVD player hybrid. In fact, DVD playback is a big part of Sony's problems. People are buying PS2's as DVD players that can also occasionally play games -- with this mindset, Sony doesn't sell the games they need to recoup their licensing fees. With this in mind, Microsoft's approach of tacking DVD functionality on via an optional remote is very price smart.

Now you might point out that Sony managed to succeed in Microsoft's position once -- Nintendo was the established brand, and Sony waltzed in with a $300 console and took it all away. But Microsoft's position is hardly the same as Sony's. When Sony did it's thing, Nintendo had yet to release the N64. This time, though, Microsoft will be the last to release. When Sony did it's thing, the N64 wasn't shaping up to be all Nintendo said it would be, while Sony delivered more. When Sony did it's thing, they introduced a new media to the gaming scene, while Nintendo stuck by their carts. This time, everyone has agreed that Discs are the way to go. In other words, Microsoft is going to need to brainwash everyone for the Xbox to succeed, and in the face of the established PS2 and amazing (and fun) games of the Gamecube, the Xbox is going to have a very difficult time of things.