Gilles Tran wrote:

> 47e0e0b4$1@news.povray.org...
>> Zazzle offers some PHP especially for this purpose, in fact...
> 
> PHP? They have a flash panel with rotating images, but I wouldn't use this 
> in a signature...
> However they have a blog panel in Javascript that you could use in your 
> blog.

Hmm, actually you're right, it *is* Flash, not PHP...

Personally, I'm still annoyed that I can't link to my Zazzle gallery 
from my blog. (Or rather, I can, but WordPress strips the star off the 
end of the URL...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v7 wrote:
>>> I just meant that Macs are very rare. [Despite all of Apple's efforts.]
>>
>> Less common. I wouldn't say rare. I know half a dozen people who use 
>> them, and we all started using them completely independently.
> 
> Well, maybe it's because I work in the wrong field, but I've never ever 
> seen a real, live Mac except on TV. To me, that seems pretty rare. 

I only work with one of those people.


>>> buy 3 seperate PCs.
>>
>> That's very impressive, I had no idea you could buy PCs that cheaply. 
>> Although I personally certainly wouldn't risk it.
> 



> 
> So I guess *three* is a slight exaggeration. But only slight...

That would be a much lower spec machine than the minimac, I would guess. 
Would the motherboard have anything other than a token graphics card? I 
bought an Asus mobo for about that price and it can only do VGA, 16-bit 
colour. The minimac will have a much better graphics card, and ethernet, 
and firewire.

> I suppose if you wanted to be picky, the OS will cost you 2x that amount 
> alone, assuming you're getting it from Micro$oft... [And when you buy a 
> Mac, you're partly paying for a proprietry OS, so I guess that would be 
> a fairer comparison.]


linux). Don't forget, it's not just the OS, there's a lot of bundled 
software too, including a very well-stocked UNIX flavour (yesyes, I 
know, technically that is part of the OS). Oh, and the mini's optical 
drive will be a DVD-reader too, at the very least.

>> My use of 'significant' is certainly arguable. However, you act as if 
>> Macs are forever outside your price range, like Aston Martins to a 
>> second-hand Peugeot owner*. They're not. I bet you spent more on your 
>> last graphics card than I did on my last Mac. :)
[snip]


Okay, bad example through wild guess-work :) But my previous statement 
still stands. Yes you can buy a top-end Mac for upwards of 2 grand but 
the same can also be said of a PC. I have personally used several PC 
laptops priced at under 500 quid and several Mac laptops priced at 700 
quid and up, and I know which I consider better value for money, by 
quite a long way.

Please note, I'm not trying to persuade you to buy a Mac - it *is* a lot 
of money to spend on something you don't know much about. And many 
people won't like them. And you're a gamer, so you definitely can't 
replace your PC with one. I'm just saying that it's not the 
order-of-magnitude difference you seem to be focusing on!

I do get annoyed by their excessively smug marketing, tho.

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>> Well, maybe it's because I work in the wrong field, but I've never 
>> ever seen a real, live Mac except on TV. To me, that seems pretty rare. 
> 
> I only work with one of those people.

Well, as you know, I don't know many humans...




>>
>> So I guess *three* is a slight exaggeration. But only slight...
> 
> That would be a much lower spec machine than the minimac, I would guess. 
> Would the motherboard have anything other than a token graphics card? I 
> bought an Asus mobo for about that price and it can only do VGA, 16-bit 
> colour. The minimac will have a much better graphics card, and ethernet, 
> and firewire.

OK, well I just bought a new motherboard for my grandparent's PC. I 
don't recall the price off the top of my head, but Socket AM2 (i.e., it 
accepts an Athlon64 X2 CPU), supports up to 4 GB RAM, has an onboard 
nVidia GeForce 6200 graphics card, onboard stero sound, onboard gigabit 
Ethernet, 6 USB ports, and I *think* it might even have Firewire. All 

that as far as I could throw it!)

Similarly, a drive that can read and write CD, DVD (+/-) SL/DL in all 

to cost money, but today you can bearly buy a drive that *doesn't* 
support writing every format known to human kind.

The Mini Mac has, what? Well it has a low-end Intel Core 2 Duo processor 
[which never the less is pretty damn expensive], 1 GB RAM, a working 
graphics card, working sound card, gigabit Ethernet, lots of USB, 
firewire, 80 GB HD, and a DVD drive. I can only assume most of the price 
is coming from the expensive Intel CPU and the Mac OS software.

>> I suppose if you wanted to be picky, the OS will cost you 2x that 
>> amount alone, assuming you're getting it from Micro$oft... [And when 
>> you buy a Mac, you're partly paying for a proprietry OS, so I guess 
>> that would be a fairer comparison.]
> 


Well, true.

> Oh, and the mini's optical 
> drive will be a DVD-reader too, at the very least.

That's not expensive any more.


> 
> Okay, bad example through wild guess-work :)

Uh, yeah. ;-)

> But my previous statement 
> still stands. Yes you can buy a top-end Mac for upwards of 2 grand but 
> the same can also be said of a PC.

And my point is that a few years back, I put together a really high-spec 

Apple virtually doesn't *sell* anything that cheap. Their *entry level* 
stuff costs that much.

> I have personally used several PC 
> laptops priced at under 500 quid and several Mac laptops priced at 700 
> quid and up, and I know which I consider better value for money, by 
> quite a long way.

Well, the idea of an Power Mac with 8 all-powerful Xeon cores does 

around. You could almost buy a second-hand *car* for that!

Apply make some damn nice stuff. It's just that it's all extremely 
expensive. I imagine you probably do get what you pay for, but I simply 
don't have that kind of money...

> Please note, I'm not trying to persuade you to buy a Mac - it *is* a lot 
> of money to spend on something you don't know much about. And many 
> people won't like them. And you're a gamer, so you definitely can't 
> replace your PC with one. I'm just saying that it's not the 
> order-of-magnitude difference you seem to be focusing on!


laptop I bought my sister isn't quite to the same spec. But it also cost 

if that's not "an order of magnitude difference", I'm not sure what is...)

> I do get annoyed by their excessively smug marketing, tho.

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060513

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/12/14/halp-stuck-in-apple-comershal/

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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47e0ec18$1@news.povray.org...
> Personally, I'm still annoyed that I can't link to my Zazzle gallery from 
> my blog. (Or rather, I can, but WordPress strips the star off the end of 
> the URL...)

Hmm, I see some Wordpress blogs that do link to starred Zazzle URLs (for 
instance http://rainmountain.wordpress.com/). Have you tried to put the star 
in a product's URL? In any case, even if you can't trick WP into accepting 
the trailing asterisk, just put a no-star link, you won't get the extra 7% 
of referrals but that's better than no link at all.

G.

-- 
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters

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Invisible wrote:
> OK, well I just bought a new motherboard for my grandparent's PC. I 
> don't recall the price off the top of my head, but Socket AM2 (i.e., it 
> accepts an Athlon64 X2 CPU), supports up to 4 GB RAM, has an onboard 
> nVidia GeForce 6200 graphics card, onboard stero sound, onboard gigabit 
> Ethernet, 6 USB ports, and I *think* it might even have Firewire. All 

> that as far as I could throw it!)

Wow, that's good. I can't find any with onboard ethernet and > VGA 
graphics for that price. Where did you get it? (This makes a pleasant 
change, I must say ;-))

> Similarly, a drive that can read and write CD, DVD (+/-) SL/DL in all 


Sorry, you didn't mention DVD, that's all.

[snip a little]
> And my point is that a few years back, I put together a really high-spec 

> Apple virtually doesn't *sell* anything that cheap. Their *entry level* 
> stuff costs that much.

Well they do sell stuff that cheap then don't they ;-)
What about a screen? Keyboard?

> Well, the idea of an Power Mac with 8 all-powerful Xeon cores does 

> around. You could almost buy a second-hand *car* for that!


for that. :)


> laptop I bought my sister isn't quite to the same spec. But it also cost 

> if that's not "an order of magnitude difference", I'm not sure what is...)

An order of magnitude difference would be x10 to my mind. Anyway, why 
compare with the Air? A bog-standard regular Macbook has a higher spec 

HD and no optical drive - what a con). At least compare like for like!

>> I do get annoyed by their excessively smug marketing, tho.
> 
> http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060513

Snigger.

> http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/12/14/halp-stuck-in-apple-comershal/

Hmm. iCat, anyone? Is this the firewire port? *MRAAAAOW!*

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Bill Pragnell wrote:

> Wow, that's good. I can't find any with onboard ethernet and > VGA 
> graphics for that price. Where did you get it? (This makes a pleasant 
> change, I must say ;-))

OK, hold on a sec...

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132273



>> And my point is that a few years back, I put together a really 
>> high-spec PC with a boatload of RAM, very fast CPU and a quality GPU 

>> *entry level* stuff costs that much.
> 
> Well they do sell stuff that cheap then don't they ;-)

They sell *one* product that cheap - the MiniMac. (And that's the 
starting price.) Everything else is way more expensive.

> What about a screen? Keyboard?

What about them? I already own those things, so I don't need to buy any 
more...

>> Well, the idea of an Power Mac with 8 all-powerful Xeon cores does 

>> around. You could almost buy a second-hand *car* for that!
> 

> for that. :)




never have that kind of money.]

> An order of magnitude difference would be x10 to my mind.

Right. Well to me, if the prices have different numbers of *digits* in 
them, they're pretty damn far apart! ;-)

> Anyway, why 
> compare with the Air? A bog-standard regular Macbook has a higher spec 


Ah, so only 2x instead of 3x the price then. :-)

> You're paying through the nose for style (and a *tiny* 
> HD and no optical drive - what a con). At least compare like for like!

Well, you can't deny, the Air does *look* damn fine. ALL Mac products 
look pretty damn good. Jesus, I wish my website looked as sleek as 
apple.com! But, unsurprisingly, Macs come with a price tag to match...

>> http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060513
> 
> Snigger.

I *will* infect the world with CAD! >:-D

> Hmm. iCat, anyone? Is this the firewire port? *MRAAAAOW!*

o_O

No group hug for you...

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20031205

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>

> never have that kind of money.]

WTF! You spent 6000 of your hard earned cash without even bothering to find 
out the price of new cars?!?!?!

A brand new small car can be bought in the 7000-9000 pounds range (eg 
Peugeot 107/207 type car).  For 25,000 you'd be able to get a pretty fast 
luxury family car.

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scott wrote:

> WTF! You spent 6000 of your hard earned cash without even bothering to 
> find out the price of new cars?!?!?!

Well nobody else in my family has ever been able to afford a new car. 
All the cars we've ever owned have been ancient wrecks. The car I have 
is actually about the nicest car anybody I know has ever had. [Well, 
until my sister bought a second-hand sports car a few months ago...]

It's not like I went to a shop and just purchased the first thing they 
offered me. I visited quite a number of places, looking at various cars. 

rubbish, so I declined. Similarly, I saw a rather nice Vaxhual Astra for 

how hard you boot it, it JUST WON'T MOVE! Huge 2 liter engine, and it 
goes slower than my old 1.1 L Ford... WTF?

> A brand new small car can be bought in the 7000-9000 pounds range (eg 
> Peugeot 107/207 type car).  For 25,000 you'd be able to get a pretty 
> fast luxury family car.

I doubt it - the "luxury cars" they show you on Top Gear all cost a damn 



perfectly reasonable price. In fact, he seemed to think it was a pretty 
damn good deal. And he's owned a hell of a lot of cars...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> actually quite keen... until I drove it. No matter how hard you boot it, 
> it JUST WON'T MOVE! Huge 2 liter engine, and it goes slower than my old 
> 1.1 L Ford... WTF?

I have a 1.9 Astra at the moment and I hate it (I didn't have any choice in 
the matter).  A) the turbo-lag is so bad that it's dangerous sometimes, you 
put your foot down and nothing happens for at least 1 second, *then* it 
goes.  B) You cannot turn off the really agressive traction control, so you 
are going round a bend and suddenly it cuts the power for a second or two, 
C) it's front wheel drive D) all the controls feel like they are connected 
to jelly.  I can't wait until I get the replacement.

>> A brand new small car can be bought in the 7000-9000 pounds range (eg 
>> Peugeot 107/207 type car).  For 25,000 you'd be able to get a pretty fast 
>> luxury family car.
>
> I doubt it - the "luxury cars" they show you on Top Gear all cost a damn 


They are getting on for supercars, like Aston Martins, Porsches and 
Ferraris, certainly not family cars.  I'm talking about cars like a BMW 320, 
Audi A4 etc, Mercedes C Class, all would be looked upon as a luxury family 
car and cost about 25k (compared to say a basic Ford Mondeo or Peugeot 407 
which can be had for around 15000 pounds).  You can even get a brand new 
Porsche for 33k.


> perfectly reasonable price. In fact, he seemed to think it was a pretty 
> damn good deal. And he's owned a hell of a lot of cars...

Oh yeh, I wasn't disputing whether it was a good deal or not, just that you 
can buy a perfectly decent brand new car for under 10k, a basic family car 
for 15k, and a fast luxury family car for 25k.

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Invisible wrote:
>> Wow, that's good. I can't find any with onboard ethernet and > VGA 
>> graphics for that price. Where did you get it? (This makes a pleasant 
>> change, I must say ;-))
> 
> OK, hold on a sec...
> http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132273

Nice. Ebuyer is now bookmarked.

>>> And my point is that a few years back, I put together a really 
>>> high-spec PC with a boatload of RAM, very fast CPU and a quality GPU 

>>> *entry level* stuff costs that much.
>>
>> Well they do sell stuff that cheap then don't they ;-)
> 
> They sell *one* product that cheap - the MiniMac. (And that's the 
> starting price.) Everything else is way more expensive.

Well, it starts at 399 actually but that doesn't alter your point!

>> What about a screen? Keyboard?
> What about them? I already own those things, so I don't need to buy any 
> more...

But Apple don't sell DIY bits. So it's a bit unfair to compare with that 
scenario. "I already own a MacBook* so I don't need to buy one. Free!"

*Haha, I typed McBook by mistake the first time, how crap a laptop would 
that be. Although, you'd probably get a drink and fries with it...

>>> Well, the idea of an Power Mac with 8 all-powerful Xeon cores does 

>>> around. You could almost buy a second-hand *car* for that!

>> car for that. :)


Cars are not expensive second-hand unless you want an almost-brand-new one.


> never have that kind of money.]

See Scott's reply.

>> An order of magnitude difference would be x10 to my mind.
> Right. Well to me, if the prices have different numbers of *digits* in 
> them, they're pretty damn far apart! ;-)

999 and 1,000 ? (cheap shot, I know ;-))

>> Anyway, why compare with the Air? A bog-standard regular Macbook has a 

> 
> Ah, so only 2x instead of 3x the price then. :-)


than it is, though.

> Well, you can't deny, the Air does *look* damn fine.

I can't, and I won't! :)

>> Hmm. iCat, anyone? Is this the firewire port? *MRAAAAOW!*
> 
> o_O
> 
> No group hug for you...

Hey c'mon, it's an honest mistake anyone could make...

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