nagromme
May 5, 02:35 PM
I get maybe 1 dropped call a year in a medium-to-large US city (top 50, not top 10!). For all I know it was the other party who dropped. But there are still dead zones that bug me—mostly in rural areas but also in random suburban spots.
Unfortunately, the other carriers seem to be dead in the same spots!
And AT&T customer service is miserable. (I’ve never needed customer service for phone stuff, but I have their DSL as well) At the same time, my friends with Sprint and Verizon have horror stories and are itching to switch carriers! Asking which one has worse customer service seems silly when they ALL seem so bad. Not bad every time, but bad often enough that I’d want to change carriers.
There are no good US carriers in my view :( At least AT&T lets me use voice and data at the same time.
There seems to be a real split in this thread: people who get lots of dropped calls with the iPhone and people who get none. I haven't had any dropped calls in the two years I've had my iPhone. But there have been many calls that never rang and instead went straight to voicemail.
I'm wondering if Apple might have produced a slew of defective iPhones, and those are the ones that are dropping calls. It's so strange that people are having such vastly different experiences, regardless of the call area. It sounds more like a hardware/software problem.
My guess is regional variation—even from neighborhood to neighborhood in the same city. That, and having contacts that use different networks. The drops aren’t necessarily caused from your own end. (One person might talk to a lot of land lines and another might talk to a lot of T-Moble people. If T-Mobile drops calls in that neighborhood, the person might think his iPhone was to blame.) So it’s hard to compare two peoples’ experiences. But it’s easy to know the whole situation isn’t acceptable!
Unfortunately, the other carriers seem to be dead in the same spots!
And AT&T customer service is miserable. (I’ve never needed customer service for phone stuff, but I have their DSL as well) At the same time, my friends with Sprint and Verizon have horror stories and are itching to switch carriers! Asking which one has worse customer service seems silly when they ALL seem so bad. Not bad every time, but bad often enough that I’d want to change carriers.
There are no good US carriers in my view :( At least AT&T lets me use voice and data at the same time.
There seems to be a real split in this thread: people who get lots of dropped calls with the iPhone and people who get none. I haven't had any dropped calls in the two years I've had my iPhone. But there have been many calls that never rang and instead went straight to voicemail.
I'm wondering if Apple might have produced a slew of defective iPhones, and those are the ones that are dropping calls. It's so strange that people are having such vastly different experiences, regardless of the call area. It sounds more like a hardware/software problem.
My guess is regional variation—even from neighborhood to neighborhood in the same city. That, and having contacts that use different networks. The drops aren’t necessarily caused from your own end. (One person might talk to a lot of land lines and another might talk to a lot of T-Moble people. If T-Mobile drops calls in that neighborhood, the person might think his iPhone was to blame.) So it’s hard to compare two peoples’ experiences. But it’s easy to know the whole situation isn’t acceptable!
firestarter
Apr 23, 04:25 PM
I don't think many people say they're Catholic to fit in or be trendy... Maybe Jewish, but definitely not Catholic.
Your arguments would probably be stronger if you dropped this 'trendy' idea. Atheism is gaining in popularity in the US, and that increase in popularity may in part be due to other attributes of the atheist social group. But membership of social groups has always been this way... how many 'theists' go to church because they like to meet people, sing and have a cup of tea on a Sunday?
To label as 'trendy' is to apply a dismissive label, which I don't believe forwards the argument.
I've concluded American Atheists who are continually challenged on their beliefs and "surrounded by enemies" are more likely to read into atheism and all it entails, rather like a convert to a religion knows the religion better than people who were born into it. Europe is very secular, compared to the US at least, and thus a lot of people are "born into" atheism/secularism.
I think you're probably right. American atheists probably aren't 'intellectually lazy' as they're forced to justify their position much more than a European atheist would be. They've consciously chosen to reject an established belief and choose an alternate - some thought and decision process would be involved in that.
It's easily possible for a European atheist to not be exposed to religion, grow up happily with their own set of ethics and morals, and never be challenged over their lack of belief. Intellectually lazy? Not really... why should anyone have to jump through hoops to prove the non existence of a god?
Your arguments would probably be stronger if you dropped this 'trendy' idea. Atheism is gaining in popularity in the US, and that increase in popularity may in part be due to other attributes of the atheist social group. But membership of social groups has always been this way... how many 'theists' go to church because they like to meet people, sing and have a cup of tea on a Sunday?
To label as 'trendy' is to apply a dismissive label, which I don't believe forwards the argument.
I've concluded American Atheists who are continually challenged on their beliefs and "surrounded by enemies" are more likely to read into atheism and all it entails, rather like a convert to a religion knows the religion better than people who were born into it. Europe is very secular, compared to the US at least, and thus a lot of people are "born into" atheism/secularism.
I think you're probably right. American atheists probably aren't 'intellectually lazy' as they're forced to justify their position much more than a European atheist would be. They've consciously chosen to reject an established belief and choose an alternate - some thought and decision process would be involved in that.
It's easily possible for a European atheist to not be exposed to religion, grow up happily with their own set of ethics and morals, and never be challenged over their lack of belief. Intellectually lazy? Not really... why should anyone have to jump through hoops to prove the non existence of a god?
arkitect
Apr 15, 10:14 AM
You're a classic example of the bigotry that's so ominous within our own community.
*Sigh* Think what you will about me. But I am not the one saying it is wrong for the media to project a positive message about being gay.
In case you have forgotten, re-read your post (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=12397061&postcount=41) which I responded to .
*Sigh* Think what you will about me. But I am not the one saying it is wrong for the media to project a positive message about being gay.
In case you have forgotten, re-read your post (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=12397061&postcount=41) which I responded to .
FX120
May 2, 01:22 PM
This is partially because due to a design flaw in Windows, many third-party applications won't even run unless they have administrator access (silly, no?).
So outdated software or poor programming = Design flaw in Windows?
Don't get me wrong, I have some legacy applications that won't run without elevated permissions, but they're just that, legacy applications. I suppose Microsoft could just take Apples approach and forcibly antiquate software.
So outdated software or poor programming = Design flaw in Windows?
Don't get me wrong, I have some legacy applications that won't run without elevated permissions, but they're just that, legacy applications. I suppose Microsoft could just take Apples approach and forcibly antiquate software.
iliketyla
Apr 20, 07:18 PM
After hearing some parts of your mind, you definitely correlate well with your Android device.
I know, right?
God forbid someone have an opinion that differs from yours.
It doesn't matter how that differing opinion is presented, if it differs you don't like it.
Typical fanboys.
I tried to be respectful by stressing the fact that an Android phone works best FOR ME, and by also giving credit where it's due because the iPhone is a beautiful piece of machinery.
But to no avail.
I know, right?
God forbid someone have an opinion that differs from yours.
It doesn't matter how that differing opinion is presented, if it differs you don't like it.
Typical fanboys.
I tried to be respectful by stressing the fact that an Android phone works best FOR ME, and by also giving credit where it's due because the iPhone is a beautiful piece of machinery.
But to no avail.
firestarter
Apr 23, 04:25 PM
I don't think many people say they're Catholic to fit in or be trendy... Maybe Jewish, but definitely not Catholic.
Your arguments would probably be stronger if you dropped this 'trendy' idea. Atheism is gaining in popularity in the US, and that increase in popularity may in part be due to other attributes of the atheist social group. But membership of social groups has always been this way... how many 'theists' go to church because they like to meet people, sing and have a cup of tea on a Sunday?
To label as 'trendy' is to apply a dismissive label, which I don't believe forwards the argument.
I've concluded American Atheists who are continually challenged on their beliefs and "surrounded by enemies" are more likely to read into atheism and all it entails, rather like a convert to a religion knows the religion better than people who were born into it. Europe is very secular, compared to the US at least, and thus a lot of people are "born into" atheism/secularism.
I think you're probably right. American atheists probably aren't 'intellectually lazy' as they're forced to justify their position much more than a European atheist would be. They've consciously chosen to reject an established belief and choose an alternate - some thought and decision process would be involved in that.
It's easily possible for a European atheist to not be exposed to religion, grow up happily with their own set of ethics and morals, and never be challenged over their lack of belief. Intellectually lazy? Not really... why should anyone have to jump through hoops to prove the non existence of a god?
Your arguments would probably be stronger if you dropped this 'trendy' idea. Atheism is gaining in popularity in the US, and that increase in popularity may in part be due to other attributes of the atheist social group. But membership of social groups has always been this way... how many 'theists' go to church because they like to meet people, sing and have a cup of tea on a Sunday?
To label as 'trendy' is to apply a dismissive label, which I don't believe forwards the argument.
I've concluded American Atheists who are continually challenged on their beliefs and "surrounded by enemies" are more likely to read into atheism and all it entails, rather like a convert to a religion knows the religion better than people who were born into it. Europe is very secular, compared to the US at least, and thus a lot of people are "born into" atheism/secularism.
I think you're probably right. American atheists probably aren't 'intellectually lazy' as they're forced to justify their position much more than a European atheist would be. They've consciously chosen to reject an established belief and choose an alternate - some thought and decision process would be involved in that.
It's easily possible for a European atheist to not be exposed to religion, grow up happily with their own set of ethics and morals, and never be challenged over their lack of belief. Intellectually lazy? Not really... why should anyone have to jump through hoops to prove the non existence of a god?
Multimedia
Nov 1, 01:49 AM
FBDIMMs are designed for maximum bandwidth, not for best possible latency, so they cope with this better than any other kind of memory. You may read that bandwidth is the bottleneck for these processors. However, that is only the case for pure copying operations. Code that calls memcpy () on all eight cores simultaneously will run out of steam quite quickly. However, most code does actually do some work with that data (like video compression), and the bandwidth won't be that big a problem.
Lets say you compress a two hour dual layer DVD with Handbrake at 1 Megabit per second. DVD = 9.5 GB takes ages to read from DVD, takes about two seconds to copy in memory. Copying the 1 Megabit takes two dozen microseconds. Most of the action will happen in L2 cache, so you should be fine.Thank you for the positive feedback. But I don't rip anything from DVDs much at all. I crush EyeTV2 broadcast recordings with Toast 7.1 (UB) to DVD Images on hard drives. Then I 2-pass rip from those images with Handbrake to mp4 so I'm not having any optical bottleneck at all. From what you say, this should be much faster like I'm hoping with all those cores.
Lets say you compress a two hour dual layer DVD with Handbrake at 1 Megabit per second. DVD = 9.5 GB takes ages to read from DVD, takes about two seconds to copy in memory. Copying the 1 Megabit takes two dozen microseconds. Most of the action will happen in L2 cache, so you should be fine.Thank you for the positive feedback. But I don't rip anything from DVDs much at all. I crush EyeTV2 broadcast recordings with Toast 7.1 (UB) to DVD Images on hard drives. Then I 2-pass rip from those images with Handbrake to mp4 so I'm not having any optical bottleneck at all. From what you say, this should be much faster like I'm hoping with all those cores.
dicklacara
Apr 12, 10:50 PM
Does anyone know if the new FC will take AVCHD files natively as Premiere CS5 does?
AVCHD...RED in supported and immediately rendered.
AVCHD...RED in supported and immediately rendered.
aegisdesign
Sep 20, 05:57 AM
If Apple could include at least a DVD burner and ideally a DVR hard disk as well, then I could actually start replacing the other machines I have rather than just adding to them and cluttering up my living room.
Er, that's what your Mac is for.
All these calls for adding tuners, hard drives and burners are missing the point. Those functions belong in the host computer. iTV is just a method of getting the content from your Mac/PC to your stereo or TV.
In Microsoft terms, it's a media center extender, nothing more, albeit a pretty one.
If it's got a hard disk in it that's used for anything more than caching your iTunes Library file and thumbnails, I'd be very surprised.
Er, that's what your Mac is for.
All these calls for adding tuners, hard drives and burners are missing the point. Those functions belong in the host computer. iTV is just a method of getting the content from your Mac/PC to your stereo or TV.
In Microsoft terms, it's a media center extender, nothing more, albeit a pretty one.
If it's got a hard disk in it that's used for anything more than caching your iTunes Library file and thumbnails, I'd be very surprised.
dethmaShine
May 2, 09:13 AM
Actually there's been malware for OS X since it was introduced. There is malware for every operating system.
Nothing can defend against user stupidity.
Well, that's true.
Thanks for correcting me.
Nothing can defend against user stupidity.
Well, that's true.
Thanks for correcting me.
~Shard~
Oct 28, 10:32 AM
I don't know if Intel ever changed it, but one of the historical reasons you couldn't make a scalable multi-cpu x86 system is that x86s did bus snooping. Once you got more than ~3-4 x86s on the same bus the bus would be saturated by snooping traffic and there would be little room for real data. I think that's why Intel is pushing multi-core so much, it's a hack to work around Intel's broken bus. The RISC cpus (MIPS et al) didn't do that, that's why all the high cpu count systems used them.
Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the info. :cool:
Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for the info. :cool:
sisyphus
Sep 20, 11:01 PM
First things first, I presume that the HD is there to put a great deal of stuff easily in reach. When SJ did the demo, the unit had all the album art/DVD covers on there as well as a synopsis etc... That could all be easily stored on the "iTV" reducing the need to access it all the time.
Obviously it will also act as a temporary cache for downloaded movies/online trailers. I suspect the biggest use of the HD will be the ability to buy/rent movies directly from the unit.
A bit of a "far out" idea is maybe to use the unit as a pseudo PVR in the future. If you were to say, pay $5 to watch the "insert big sporting event final here" online. You could pause it and use the HD to store data while you had to go use the facilities because you really shouldn't have finished off that Super Big Gulp before the game even started.
An even better use would be a rental download that would stay on the iTV for a week prior to being "blipped".
Apple doesn't want a PVR they want better than PVR. Instant demand to anything! However Apple isn't big enough for that. Instead all of the media companies will do it for them. Why? Greed, pure and simple greed. The thought of making money for no additional work is too lucrative for them. Why bother punchine out DVDs when you can send the master to Apple. Let them encode it and handle all the distribution problems. Look as Disney. They made $1,000,000 in one week for doing NOTHING. Why do you thing WalMart is scared (when was the last time you heard that?) Walmart succeeds because they force the best price from manufacturers. Someone has figured out the ultimate price reduction on the product - no physical media period! There is no way to undercut that.
Studios aren't dumb either. This is actually a way for them to increase profits! As the price of purchase goes down, more people will buy. However they were able to reduce the price without reducing profits! (This is my assumption that the profit on each download is = to the DVD profit). Now guess what. The studio can actually increase their profits. Lets say for the real movie buffs they could release a $2 "Extras" download that would contain most the of stuff on DVDs that most people never actually watch. The hard core people would jump on it. The average people would just be happy with their basic movie.
The next step is HD. Who is really going to care about HD-DVD vs. Blue-Ray if you could just download it in HD and store it on your umm... HD. :D Apple's near term goal is to replace your DVD player. However the longer term goal is to make the Mac your entire content delivery system.
That being said in the near term the iTV is perfect for me IF Apple allows movie rentals. I think the reason that they didn't debut the movie rentals is the lack of a shipping iTV. I can just hear SJ at MWSF saying that the "most demanded feature for the movie downloads and iTV is rentals." Unfortunately living in Canada means I'll be waiting until it they are playing ice hockey in hell for this service to make it north.
At home we have several TVs. If each TV were to (eventually) have an iTV it would mean access to all my media anywhere in the house. Should somebody like Elgato or TiVo be really smart and find an extremely simple way of meshing their products with the iTV I could access all of my data from anywhere in the house anytime. I'm just waiting to see where all of the pieces will be by January. I suspect they'll be far more cohesive than most people here expect.
Obviously it will also act as a temporary cache for downloaded movies/online trailers. I suspect the biggest use of the HD will be the ability to buy/rent movies directly from the unit.
A bit of a "far out" idea is maybe to use the unit as a pseudo PVR in the future. If you were to say, pay $5 to watch the "insert big sporting event final here" online. You could pause it and use the HD to store data while you had to go use the facilities because you really shouldn't have finished off that Super Big Gulp before the game even started.
An even better use would be a rental download that would stay on the iTV for a week prior to being "blipped".
Apple doesn't want a PVR they want better than PVR. Instant demand to anything! However Apple isn't big enough for that. Instead all of the media companies will do it for them. Why? Greed, pure and simple greed. The thought of making money for no additional work is too lucrative for them. Why bother punchine out DVDs when you can send the master to Apple. Let them encode it and handle all the distribution problems. Look as Disney. They made $1,000,000 in one week for doing NOTHING. Why do you thing WalMart is scared (when was the last time you heard that?) Walmart succeeds because they force the best price from manufacturers. Someone has figured out the ultimate price reduction on the product - no physical media period! There is no way to undercut that.
Studios aren't dumb either. This is actually a way for them to increase profits! As the price of purchase goes down, more people will buy. However they were able to reduce the price without reducing profits! (This is my assumption that the profit on each download is = to the DVD profit). Now guess what. The studio can actually increase their profits. Lets say for the real movie buffs they could release a $2 "Extras" download that would contain most the of stuff on DVDs that most people never actually watch. The hard core people would jump on it. The average people would just be happy with their basic movie.
The next step is HD. Who is really going to care about HD-DVD vs. Blue-Ray if you could just download it in HD and store it on your umm... HD. :D Apple's near term goal is to replace your DVD player. However the longer term goal is to make the Mac your entire content delivery system.
That being said in the near term the iTV is perfect for me IF Apple allows movie rentals. I think the reason that they didn't debut the movie rentals is the lack of a shipping iTV. I can just hear SJ at MWSF saying that the "most demanded feature for the movie downloads and iTV is rentals." Unfortunately living in Canada means I'll be waiting until it they are playing ice hockey in hell for this service to make it north.
At home we have several TVs. If each TV were to (eventually) have an iTV it would mean access to all my media anywhere in the house. Should somebody like Elgato or TiVo be really smart and find an extremely simple way of meshing their products with the iTV I could access all of my data from anywhere in the house anytime. I'm just waiting to see where all of the pieces will be by January. I suspect they'll be far more cohesive than most people here expect.
ddtlm
Oct 7, 11:14 AM
I'd be more impressed with these "tests" if the pro-Mac cowards had used a top-of-the-line Athlon system (1.8ghz is available for duals, 2.13ghz is pretty much available for singles) or a top-of-the-line P4 (2.0ghz? haha!). The 2.0ghz P4 runs on the old 400mhz FSB whereas there is a 533mhz FSB P4 clocking at 2.8ghz available. They also make no mention of memory type used on any platform. For the P4, PC1066 RDRAM is tops, for the Athlon the new nForce2 with 2 channels of 333mhz DDR is tops (although I will admit that chipset still has a one-month ETA). OK, so maybe use the VIA KT400 for the Athlon, it's pretty good.
And what's his quote about a dual Xeon 2200 probably being top dog? Other than the fact you can get Xeons at 2.8ghz as well...
Anyway I think these tests are crap. But they will suffice so that "Macs are fastest!" freakos can keep them in mind and make vauge statements about how Macs and PCs are about the same speed in "tests". (Those people annoy me.)
And what's his quote about a dual Xeon 2200 probably being top dog? Other than the fact you can get Xeons at 2.8ghz as well...
Anyway I think these tests are crap. But they will suffice so that "Macs are fastest!" freakos can keep them in mind and make vauge statements about how Macs and PCs are about the same speed in "tests". (Those people annoy me.)
coochiekuta
Mar 13, 02:21 PM
surely other forms need to be developed more so their cost can go down but nuclear power i think is very much needed. after an oil spill do you give up on oil? there is risk in most things.
NebulaClash
Apr 28, 08:33 AM
Do you still see masses of people with White or Black iPods?
Yes. A very common sight even in 2011.
Yes. A very common sight even in 2011.
ddtlm
Oct 7, 11:18 AM
Backtothemac:
prince william and harry
Remembering ma: Prince William
prince william and harry
DakotaGuy
Oct 9, 10:21 AM
The funny thing is if I had never read a message board I would have never went and looked at a PC, because I just have always bought Macs, after 4 or 5 years, just went to the dealer and picked up a new one, I never used a PC except at school, which schools stuff is always years out of date anyway, so I just figured that this is what you had to pay for a good, fast, computer that will last 4 or 5 years, I have always been comfortable and pleased with my Macs, but this next when the DV is ready to be replaced, I am going to be smarter then I used to be and not just walk into the Apple dealer and pick up a new one, I am going to shop around and see if I like these all new PC's with XP. If I can save money and end up with a much faster, easier to use computer, then I am dumb to just go Apple like I always have. I don't know a lot about this freaking processor or that floating point, gigaflop, or whatever crap, I just want to buy something that works well and is a good value and I am sorry to say, but I have been blind to PC's and I see they have came so much farther then Macs have and also Microsoft is making some excellent software now. I am sad...because I used to love my Mackie and Booker, but now I get the point how crappy they really are compared to the PC's. ;o(
wdogmedia
Aug 29, 01:18 PM
Can we talk about Greenpeace's environmental track record for a minute?
- They mourn the millions of gallons of gasoline burned by cars, but refuse to support diesel fuel, which, while slightly more polluting than gas, is nearly twice as efficient, meaning collective fuel consumption would be cut dramatically.
- They champion E85, which provides only about 70% of the efficiency of gas and requires nearly a gallon of gas to manufacture per gallon of E85.
- Ditto the above for hydrogen-based fuels.
- They've indirectly caused the deaths of thousands of starving Africans by preventing the development of genetically-engineered foods.
So who is Greenpeace accountable to?
- They mourn the millions of gallons of gasoline burned by cars, but refuse to support diesel fuel, which, while slightly more polluting than gas, is nearly twice as efficient, meaning collective fuel consumption would be cut dramatically.
- They champion E85, which provides only about 70% of the efficiency of gas and requires nearly a gallon of gas to manufacture per gallon of E85.
- Ditto the above for hydrogen-based fuels.
- They've indirectly caused the deaths of thousands of starving Africans by preventing the development of genetically-engineered foods.
So who is Greenpeace accountable to?
deannnnn
May 6, 10:07 PM
For christ's sake -- Arn, why not make a sticky for people who's phones work?
It's difficult for people who do not live in New York City to understand this issue. You should be happy that your iPhone works for you where you live, not upset at people who have difficulties with it.
It's difficult for people who do not live in New York City to understand this issue. You should be happy that your iPhone works for you where you live, not upset at people who have difficulties with it.
UnixMac
Oct 11, 09:36 AM
Oh well, I'm out of my league on this.... I'll defer to others..
Macky-Mac
Apr 24, 11:15 AM
..... If he does exist one must assume that he intends the Bible to be read literally. If he didn't then why did he go through the whole bother of having it written by the disciples in the first place if people were just going to change and reinterpret it willy nilly based on whatever the current political or social ideals of the time are?
not at all......God is perfectly aware that people make mistakes. Indeed, they can't be trusted to get anything perfectly right, so if God wanted the Bible to have been taken literally, he have written it out himself and wouldn't have involved people in the project in the first place
not at all......God is perfectly aware that people make mistakes. Indeed, they can't be trusted to get anything perfectly right, so if God wanted the Bible to have been taken literally, he have written it out himself and wouldn't have involved people in the project in the first place
leekohler
Apr 15, 09:07 AM
This is great to see. Good job, Apple!
Huntn
Mar 13, 07:40 AM
Washington Post 12Mar2011 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/12/AR2011031205493.html?hpid=topnews):
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation at the reactor exceeded legal limits and that it was "highly possible" a partial meltdown was underway.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation at the reactor exceeded legal limits and that it was "highly possible" a partial meltdown was underway.
javajedi
Oct 9, 04:34 PM
Originally posted by TheFink
One point you are missing is that I can upgrade my PC 5 times over and still have the cost be lower than buying a new Mac. So a mac can run modern apps 5 years later. For the same price, I can get a PC, drop a new HD, video card, and CPU in a few years later and then end up with a leading edge PC, and not a bleading edge mac. My B&W G3 isn't even upgradable to the speeds of the current iMacs. With a PC a new mobo and CPU will get me into whatever is the current CPU class....
Very ture. For better or wose, that is what happens when you get locked into a single vendor that sells proprietary hardware *or* software.... just look at Sun :)
One point you are missing is that I can upgrade my PC 5 times over and still have the cost be lower than buying a new Mac. So a mac can run modern apps 5 years later. For the same price, I can get a PC, drop a new HD, video card, and CPU in a few years later and then end up with a leading edge PC, and not a bleading edge mac. My B&W G3 isn't even upgradable to the speeds of the current iMacs. With a PC a new mobo and CPU will get me into whatever is the current CPU class....
Very ture. For better or wose, that is what happens when you get locked into a single vendor that sells proprietary hardware *or* software.... just look at Sun :)
