Kodak to stop making digital cameras

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

So all this talk about PC makers buying from the lowest-cost supplier
and Apple using better components is all bogus? Apple's using the
same standard stuff as PCs?

there's a lot more to a computer than just a box of parts, and it
wasn't me who made that claim either.

apple generally does not use the lowest cost parts because it makes for
crappy products.

How is it you know this?

apple has made statements to that effect on several occasions. it's
also quite obvious that they don't use the cheapest parts. for example,
the displays in their products are ips not tn. i listed some other ones
in an earlier post.

Are you an Apple employee? In Purchasing?

no to both.

So you don't know. Your statement that they don't use the lowest cost
parts is your opinion, but not based on any facts.

it's based on statements they've made.

My opinion is the sort of the same. I think their specifications for
parts they order are for parts that are of good quality. My opinion
is also that they bid out and accept the bidder with the lowest price
for parts that meet their specifications. It's a quality product, and
it makes sense that their specifications are tight enough to get
quality parts.

Two things bother me about your statement, though. One, that you
presented the statement as fact and not just opinion. The other is
that all computer manufacturers provide specifications for the parts
they want bids on, and outsiders - like you and me - don't know that
their specs are for any less quality product than Apple's.

i remember steve jobs saying their competitors use the lcds that apple
rejects. it was in one of his keynotes.

As far as Apple making statement that they don't use cheap parts,
that's meaningless. What manufacturer would announce anything
different?

they didn't say 'we don't use cheap parts.'

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

The last few phones I purchased have not
required a contract or an extension of an extant contract. I have a
contract with a provider, but have replaced phones without extending
that contract or even notifying my provider that I've purchased a new
phone. It's not at all difficult or unusual to do so.

it's not difficult but it is unusual.

Why would you think it to be unusual? Look at the number of used,
rebuilt, and no-contract-required phones listed for sale on eBay, the
internet, and Craigslist. You think people aren't buying them?

sure they're buying them, but more people are buying postpaid phones.

My phones were new pay-as-you-go phones. I just took my SIM card from
my old phone and put it in the new phone. The phone no longer knows
it is a pay-as-you-go phone. It thinks it's just like the phone I
bought from AT&T.

The phone I bought is one of the phones that AT&T would have given me
for $9.95 *if* I extended my contract for two years. I paid a little
more, but didn't have to extend my contract.

so you do know about subsidized pricing.

Wal-Mart, every other big box store, drug stores, and convenience
stores sell these new phones. You think they stock them if it's
unusual for people to buy them?

they also stock postpaid phones, which is the bulk of their sales.

didn't your carrier try to get you to renew your contract by offering
you free or almost free phones?

My carrier had no idea I was buying a new phone. There's no need to
inform the carrier. It's a SIM card switch. They don't know I have a
new phone.

i wasn't talking about you notifying them. i was talking about them
notifying you, or more accurately, harassing you to renew. i used to
get called every couple of months along with all sorts of junk mail
flyers to get a cool new phone, if i renewed. now i have paygo so they
don't bother me anymore.

didn't they call to 'check to see if
you are satisfied with the service' and then go into a sales pitch?
wasn't there an insert in your bill every so often about all the new
phones they now have?

I bought a phone this way precisely *not* to need to renew my
contract. The obligation of two years of additional service means
that "free" or "almost free" phone has a cost.

but if you're going to be paying monthly anyway, the 'free' phone is
essentially free.

Who knows what things will be like in two years? I may no longer want
a mobile phone. Better service, better rates, or better offers may be
available in two years. I may not want to be with AT&T any longer
than my current contract period.

the downside is you have to make sure you have enough balance, that it
doesn't expire and buy any feature packs you might need. some people
don't mind doing that, while others can't be bothered.

In article , Neil Ellwood
wrote:

You can run linux on macs. You just have to download the correct version
of the distro. you choose (not all distros have versions for macs).

what for? all linux apps can be compiled for os x most have been ported
already. also, with os x, you can use all of the commercial software
you *can't* get on linux.

In article , Mxsmanic
wrote:

sure it is. it's exactly the same as if you took it in for repair.

Show me Apple's written statement to this effect.

show me apple's written statement that says swapping parts means it's
no longer 'apple branded.'

it's obvious what it means.

Not in a contract, it isn't. I'm surprised that the license doesn't contain a
section with definitions.

you seem to be surprised a lot.

it is a complete system built by apple, just one that has been repaired.

Building a machine out of scrap isn't the same as repairing it.

except that it's not built out of scrap. it's an apple-branded computer
that had one or more defective parts replaced with working parts. those
parts could be new or could be the very same part taken from another
mac. that does *not* in any way turn it into a non-apple computer.

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:20:36 -0500, nospam
wrote:

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

So all this talk about PC makers buying from the lowest-cost supplier
and Apple using better components is all bogus? Apple's using the
same standard stuff as PCs?

there's a lot more to a computer than just a box of parts, and it
wasn't me who made that claim either.

apple generally does not use the lowest cost parts because it makes for
crappy products.

How is it you know this?

apple has made statements to that effect on several occasions. it's
also quite obvious that they don't use the cheapest parts. for example,
the displays in their products are ips not tn. i listed some other ones
in an earlier post.

Are you an Apple employee? In Purchasing?

no to both.

So you don't know. Your statement that they don't use the lowest cost
parts is your opinion, but not based on any facts.

it's based on statements they've made.

Oh, that's a reliable source of information. If the company announced
something like about their own product we can always accept that as
gospel.

do you have any evidence that they are lying? didn't think so.

some of those comments were made during apple's quarterly earnings
calls. that's not exactly a place where you want to lie.

Two things bother me about your statement, though. One, that you
presented the statement as fact and not just opinion. The other is
that all computer manufacturers provide specifications for the parts
they want bids on, and outsiders - like you and me - don't know that
their specs are for any less quality product than Apple's.

i remember steve jobs saying their competitors use the lcds that apple
rejects. it was in one of his keynotes.

Well, there you go. If Jobs said it, then it has to be true. No
business executive would ever say anything positive about his product
or negative about a competitor's product unless it was the unvarnished
truth.

do you have any evidence that he's lying? didn't think so.

And you claim Apple people are not cultish.

less than the bashers are, that's for sure

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

I bought a phone this way precisely *not* to need to renew my
contract. The obligation of two years of additional service means
that "free" or "almost free" phone has a cost.

but if you're going to be paying monthly anyway, the 'free' phone is
essentially free.

You *really* don't understand things. If my present contract expires
at the end of the month, and another provider offers a better monthly
rate, I would have incurred a cost for that "free" phone because I
couldn't change to the better deal.

if your contract expires, you can change to any plan on any carrier at
any time. only *during* the contract are you locked down. if another
carrier offers a better deal and you aren't under contract, by all
means switch. some people even switch while in a contract and eat the
early termination fee because the other deal is be better.

I would incur a cost for the
"free" phone if I decide I no longer need a mobile phone after the end
of the month. If my provider offers an ever better "free" phone in
three months, I would not be able to take advantage of that.

that's the downside of a contract. however, if you are going to pay a
monthly rate anyway, then you might as well take advantage of the
subsidized phone, since there is no discount if you don't.

You confuse "no out-of-pocket expense today" with "free".

no, i do not.

Who knows what things will be like in two years? I may no longer want
a mobile phone. Better service, better rates, or better offers may be
available in two years. I may not want to be with AT&T any longer
than my current contract period.

the downside is you have to make sure you have enough balance, that it
doesn't expire and buy any feature packs you might need. some people
don't mind doing that, while others can't be bothered.

Do you have reading disability? I replaced the SIM card in the
pay-as-you-go phone with the SIM card from my damaged contract phone.
The new phone functions as a contract phone. There is no "balance"
consideration. It is the SIM card, not the phone, that determines
this functionality. As far as AT&T is concerned, I'm on the same plan
at the same rate as before.

i was talking about pay as you go plans, which require a balance to be
maintained. if you don't renew it, the balance is lost. that's the
cheapest way to keep a mobile phone for low usage calling patterns.

for contract plans, if you swap a phone, you are still under contract
and you are still paying off the subsidy of your original phone, even
though you bought a new one to replace it. not only that, but the
carriers will sometimes replace a lost or damaged phone without
extending the contract.

On 2012-02-23 09:08:33 -0800, Whisky-dave said:

On Feb 22, 3:53*pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
Whisky-dave writes:
Can you actually build such a thing by yourself I doubt it.

Sure you can. Most cults, in fact, are built by one person.

Which one's ?
Sure if you're talking religion perhaps.
But I didn't buy a Mac because of steve jobs.

That's a relief to know. Neither did I.
I bought a Mac (actually several Macs) because they were the best
computer for ME, and in my experience and opinion, function far more
reliably and issue free than WinTel machines I experienced at work, and
friends dealt with at home.


Few things are done for that reason, think of cult things we they done
for that reason.

Steve Jobs really did do it explicitly for that purpose. He wanted it tha
t
way. That's why he was so inflexible on so many points, and why Apple
maintains such an iron grip on its products. It's Apple's way or the high
way.

What do yuo mean by that are you really saying no one else can make
smart phones or computers ?
Most peole are pretty free to buy the computers they want, unless its
for business and coperate or even education.

Yup! The market place is out there and folks are entitled to their choice.


Not usually, think of clothes, cars..., cameras....

In each of these cases, I can think of brands that are dramatically
overpriced.

In your opinion, for you product A might be over priced, but for
someone else maybe not.
I see most cars that cost more than a Mac as over priced.
Why would someone buy a car for 30,000 , when you can get a car
costing 10,000.
It must be becdause the 30,000 car is overpriced is that what you're
saying ?

The majority of cars have a wheel at each corner and one to use for
stearing.....
so why the 20k differnce .

If you are not sure of that, then public transport is probably going to
be the best option for you. ;-)


--
Regards,

Savageduck

In article , tony cooper
wrote:

for contract plans, if you swap a phone, you are still under contract
and you are still paying off the subsidy of your original phone, even
though you bought a new one to replace it. not only that, but the
carriers will sometimes replace a lost or damaged phone without
extending the contract.

What's this? I thought you think the phone is "free". What am I
paying off?

the free phone is subsidized with a contract, but the scam is you pay
the same monthly fee whether you get a phone or not, nor does the price
change after the subsidy is paid off at the end of the contract. if you
buy a phone somewhere else in the middle of the contract, you are still
paying for the subsidized phone you got when you initially signed the
contract.

On 2012-02-23 06:23 , Neil Ellwood wrote:
On Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:53:15 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

I used Macs a few times decades ago, but they've always been to
expensive to buy on spec. I know what PCs can do, so I stick with those.

I can only run Mac OS X on a Mac I can also run linux and windows XP
(haven;t tried W7) on 3 of my macs at least.

If Macs were really so great, you wouldn't need to be able to run other
operating systems on them.

You can run linux on macs. You just have to download the correct version
of the distro. you choose (not all distros have versions for macs).

Any intel Mac can be loaded with any x86 distro (attention to whether
the 64 bit distro will run requires a little attention to the actual
hardware).

Pretty much all PPC Macs have a Linux distro available for them. Maybe
not the particular Linux distro you prefer.

With VMWare Fusion I run Mac OS X and WinXP at the same time.

Indeed, when I had Linux installed under Fusion I could run Mac OS X,
Windows and Linux all at the same time. (Though there was no good
reason to do so other than to see how well it would work).

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

On 2012-02-23 08:31 , Mxsmanic wrote:

Building a machine out of scrap isn't the same as repairing it.

If you take 3 imacs, each broken in a different way, but amongst them
enough parts to make a complete working unit, then you have repaired one
of them with parts from others. In a legal sense, the "nameplate"
bearing part that survives is the repaired unit.

There is no requirement at all that a Mac be repaired with new parts,
nor for that matter, with parts from Apple.

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).