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Re: NadaNet 3.1 Released

mdj wrote:

On Jun 4, 12:56 am, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:



I see what you mean. As a long time Unix user, I found the Mac
compelling as a laptop since it offered me the best of both worlds -
a high degree of out-of-box Unix compatibility + MS Office and Adobe.
Prior to 2008 I never bothered owning a laptop, preferring my
computing 'tethered', but the 4-5 year lifespan made the cost equation
pretty compelling, even when considering the Mac price difference.
$1500 over 4 years is cheap enough for me, and the machine will
probably have resale value to boot.


I understand that Apple always marks up their hardware by a goodly
factor, and that it supports their R&D--which is a good thing.

But I still resist paying such a premium for essentially comparable
hardware.  (I can always just sent Apple a contribution if I want to
support their R&D.  ;-)



:-) It's been that way since the Apple II first shipped - I saw an old
price list recently and was astounded by the cost difference of a 4k
Apple II vs a 48k ...


In fact, it's why I bought my first ][+ as a 16K model and upgraded it
to 48K with a $60 set of DRAMs bought mailorder.  ;-)


Of course, the software the machine can run and the community around
it is a part of the value equation. Happily, there exists again the
commitment to quality that the Apple II market had, which is quite
refreshing.


Totally agree.  Apple spends at least 3x what PC manufacturer's spend
on packaging (I mean the kind you open and throw away, not the case).
;-)


Depending on who you ask, OS X is worth from nothing to quite a bit
more than the Apple hardware mark up. My own view is that Apple is a
software company that makes its own hardware, rather than a hardware
company making value added software if you see what I mean ...


I do.

...

Nice.  As someone once said, "Hell is having more than one computer."
;-)




I have five to take care of, counting my wife's, so I can really
appreciate the simplicity of your solution.

So far, network backups and syncs, combined with more procedural
discipline than I enjoy, is keeping me sane (but busy ;-).


Ouch. Our house currently has 4  - Two Mac laptops, a (Linux) PC and
an Apple IIe. Only the PC requires maintenance as it backs up the
others, but I've mostly got that automated. If you choose the right
Linux distro, you get a 5 year support cycle so software upgrades tend
to match my current hardware cycle nicely.

Electricity is getting expensive enough here that I'm considering
adding a solar panel to offset the cost of the constantly running
household server, but I'm not sure we'll keep the house long enough to
break even.


Consider a "non-penetrating" roof mount, then take it with you!

-michael

NadaNet and AppleCrate II: parallel computing for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."