# Why Apple can't disable OS 9 booting completely



## Snowball (Dec 14, 2002)

Here's a common hypothetical situation:
Say I just bought a new PowerMac G4 1.4 GHz, released 1 month after this upcoming MWSF (I said _hypothetical_). Like Apple said, it can't boot OS 9 natively. I buy it with a 30 GB hard drive, but want to use an 80 GB drive I had from before. I format the HD on my old PowerMac, install it into the new PowerMac, boot the new PowerMac from the Jaguar CD, and install Jaguar onto the 80 GB HD - OK so far, right?
Here's the problem: let's say I have to use Quark 5 or some other OS 9-only program in Classic. (Many users will have to do this.) I'm stuck! I can't boot from an OS 9 CD to install Classic and I can't install 9 while booted in X because the installer needs Classic to run. The only way to get around this is install OS 9 on another Mac and copy it over to the new PowerMac (a pretty lousy "solution" if you ask me).
This leaves Apple with two choices, one ugly, one not quite so ugly: they have to either carbonize a new OS 9 installer that you download and install Classic with (ugly), or they allow CD booting of OS 9 (not so ugly). I bet they go for the CD boot option, which could prove to be very interesting. If they allowed 1/2 way OS 9 booting like that, I bet it would be much easier for OpenFirmware hackers to allow HD booting (hey, they enabled the monitor spanning in the iBook/iMac!).

P.S. MacOS Rumors seems to agree:
"Apple still plans to set January as the advent of the first Macs to be unable to boot Mac OS 9 (except from an Emergency CD)..."


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## toast (Dec 14, 2002)

I can't think of my Mac without OS9. I would understand the "OSX boot-only" argument if OSX was OS*XI*.

How can you release a OSX-boot-only computer when 80% of the printing industry uses Macs and when Quark Inc. has not released Quark 6 OSX ?

I'm stunned.


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## jarinteractive (Dec 14, 2002)

"How can you release a OSX-boot-only computer when 80% of the printing industry uses Macs and when Quark Inc. has not released Quark 6 OSX ?"

Apple stated a few days ago that they will continue to sell some PowerMacs (the dual 1.25GHz), as well as eMacs that will be able to boot into OS 9 until June 2003.  By that time, Quark is supposed to be released for Mac OS X.

Apple will probably include Classic as a part of the Mac OS X installer that is included with new computers.

-JARinteractive


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## RacerX (Dec 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by jarinteractive _
> *"How can you release a OSX-boot-only computer when 80% of the printing industry uses Macs and when Quark Inc. has not released Quark 6 OSX ?"*



First, I think it should be noted that the printing industry didn't start out using QuarkXPress, so there is no real reason that it has to continue. At one point 100% of desktop publishing was done with Aldus PageMaker. Later FrameMaker and QuarkXPress entered the picture. After a few years QuarkXPress had made some strong headway in the business and Adobe felt they needed a page layout program of their own... so they went shopping. Adobe bought FrameMaker and Aldus PageMaker thinking that they had in one step captured the market (PageMaker + FrameMaker made up the majority the layout programs in use at the time). What ended up happening was quite a surprise, QuarkXPress advanced while PageMaker and FrameMaker didn't. What was worse was that one of the best aspects of QuarkXPress was an idea that Adobe had started with it's own products... plug-ins. In the years that followed PageMaker (bought at version 5) didn't change much through version 6.5 (or even 7 as I understand it). QuarkXPress took over the market slowly increasing the cost of their program as competition fell.

The fact is that though many haven't been around long enough to see it happen, things can change. The way people are talking about QuarkXPress now is not any different from what they were saying about PageMaker some ten years ago.

Second, I haven't (and can't) boot my PowerBook from Mac OS 9 off my hard drive. I didn't install the Mac OS 9 drivers when I reformatted it (from it's original UFS format use when Rhapsody was on it). _Classic_ on that system was installed by using a disk image of a universal install of Mac OS 9.2.1 placed in a folder called _Classic_ in my Applications folder. From there I was able to install Acrobat 4, Photoshop 6, Illustrator 8, GoLive 5, and PageMill 3 (later upgrading Acrobat to 5 and Photoshop to 7). At no point did I boot this system into Mac OS 9 or the like. It went straight from Rhapsody 5.6 to Mac OS X v10.2.

I really don't see not being able to boot a system in Mac OS 9 as a problem, it sure hasn't been for me.


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## MisterMe (Dec 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Snowball _
> *Here's a common hypothetical situation:
> Say I just bought a new PowerMac G4 1.4 GHz, released 1 month after this upcoming MWSF (I said hypothetical). Like Apple said, it can't boot OS 9 natively. I buy it with a 30 GB hard drive, but want to use an 80 GB drive I had from before. I format the HD on my old PowerMac, install it into the new PowerMac, boot the new PowerMac from the Jaguar CD, and install Jaguar onto the 80 GB HD - OK so far, right?
> 
> ...



All Macintosh models shipping today have MacOS 9 installed. After January 1, 2003, all Macintosh models will continue to ship with MacOS 9 installed. The only difference is that those that were introduced prior to January 1 will be bootable using MacOS 9. Those introduced after January 1 will not, but Classic should work fine.

For all the publicity given Apple's most recent announcement concerning its educational partners and Quark's announcement to its customers, these announcements are clarifications rather than news. To infer otherwise, you would have to believe that Apple has returned a squad of engineers to development of MacOS 9 for new models that will be obsolete in June. That makes no sense and it is not happening.


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## toast (Dec 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by RacerX _
> *First, I think it should be noted that the printing industry didn't start out using QuarkXPress ()
> 
> Second, I haven't (and can't) boot my PowerBook from Mac OS 9 off my hard drive. I didn't install the Mac OS 9 drivers when I reformatted it (from it's original UFS format use when Rhapsody was on it). Classic on that system was installed by using a disk image of a universal install of Mac OS 9.2.1 placed in a folder called Classic in my Applications folder. From there I was able to install Acrobat 4, Photoshop 6, Illustrator 8, GoLive 5, and PageMill 3 (later upgrading Acrobat to 5 and Photoshop to 7). At no point did I boot this system into Mac OS 9 or the like. It went straight from Rhapsody 5.6 to Mac OS X v10.2.
> ...



1) The quote you give is not jarinteractive's 
2) How old are you ? It seems I'm twice younger (at least) ! I'm 19 
3) Your jump from Rhap to OSX is unusual. Most people are jumping from OS9.22 to OSX.22 today. For those no more OS9-booting could represent some problems - loss of time, loss of OS9 settings, for instance.

I love Quark ! Anyway


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## fryke (Dec 14, 2002)

Apple is also likely to make changes to Classic that will make it an OS X installable pkg rather than an OS installer. Also, those new Macs will come with restore-CDs that contain the Classic environment, so installing a new harddrive isn't a problem, really. Just restore the system from the restore CDs and you're fine.

Btw. Apple promised to continue to sell 1.25 GHz Dual PowerMacs that can boot OS 9, so you won't be able to get the higher end models (to be released after MWSF) booting into OS 9.

I personally hoped Apple would be clear to boot OS 9 off our harddrives earlier in the process, so we could move on. It happened for me, but that's because of my choice of software (and our company's, but I'm IT head there, so...). If we were XPress users back in 2001, I'm sure we'd have found a way to go InDesign by now. I'm also sure Adobe would have been quite helpful in the task.


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## RacerX (Dec 14, 2002)

> _pointed out by toast _
> *1) The quote you give is not jarinteractive's *



That what I get for using that _quote_ button and not proof reading. 



> _asked by toast _
> *2) How old are you ? It seems I'm twice younger (at least) ! I'm 19  *



Four years ago I was twice as old as you.  Now it seems like with each passing day I become a year older! 



> *3) Your jump from Rhap to OSX is unusual. Most people are jumping from OS9.22 to OSX.22 today. For those no more OS9-booting could represent some problems - loss of time, loss of OS9 settings, for instance. *



Yeah, I'm weird that way. I do have a system that boots both 9.2.1 and 10.2.2, but it didn't seem to go with the thread (or the point I wanted to make).



> *I love Quark ! Anyway*



So do most of my clients. But then again, at one time no one could even think of using anything else but PageMaker. It was the dream app of it's time (I still use 5.0a today for personal things), but things are always changing. Hopefully this is going to push the price down on QuarkXPress though. When one app has as much power in the industry as QuarkXPress does, they can ask what ever they want. With competition comes price wars! We all win then.


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## mdnky (Dec 15, 2002)

Alot of Quark users I know are switching to InDesign (I did back when ID 1.5 came out).  Besides the familar layout with other Adobe apps, ID is a much better solution currently, and it'll work in 9 or X.  I open Quark files all the time in ID and work with them with very few problems, and the interface is relatively easy to learn if you have experience with other Adobe apps.


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## fryke (Dec 16, 2002)

Hmm... I've been using InDesign since day one, and quite clearly, it has its appeals (or I would have dumped it again). Yet, InDesign can't compete with XPress' workflow solutions for many people, meaning, a switch would just be too expensive for them.

That's also a reason why Quark takes so long to come on board of OS X, apparently, because right now they're just not able to provide the same quality of workflow in OS X that they can in OS 9. XPress is heavily dependant on plugins (that'll need updates) as well as the integration of all the bits and parts. However, I would have welcomed a client only version that would allow at least a partial transfer to Mac OS X. Service bureaus and design studios and papers could then switch to OS X on most of the machines, leaving only a few on OS 9 for the integration.


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## cellfish (Dec 16, 2002)

Would I be dumb to say that I actually like OS 9 a lot and am only using OS X because it's the only thing that Apple still supports? I mean I know the advantages of OS X, I like its stability ... I like Mail.app in particular. But OS 9 is just so quick and honestly, I find its simplicity quite appealing. I guess it's probably just me.


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## baldprof (Dec 16, 2002)

I think people will choose the tool most appropriate to the task. A successful business requires that. People will continue to use older computers and OSes as long as they think it suits them. 
I didn't come to the Mac until OS X had started, so I don't have any attachment to OS 9. 
What I think is that there may be some hardware changes coming that will require an OS X only boot. Otherwise, one could repartition, install OS 9 by itself, and switch boot locations to allow booting into OS 9 so that the policy would mean nothing.
I think 2003 will be an interesting year for hardware.


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## Factor41 (Dec 16, 2002)

> I love Quark!... So do most of my clients.


Why can't we have clients like that?! If one more of ours tries to supply a print job in Powerpoint, I'm gonna unplug and leave the planet for good. OS X or not.


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## ApeintheShell (Dec 16, 2002)

What i don't understand is if people were so eager to drop OS 7.5-8.5 why they hug OS 9 so comfortably?

Get over it, we all have our operating system preferences but Mac OS X is the only Mac OS that will get the new software with new capabilities.
Quark is left behind because it decided not to port. Even if there is a new quark xpress
will it remain?

I don't hold the rumor crystal ball but Quark coming to OS X is not holding OS X boot only back. It's a personal resistance to upgrade to a
new operating system. 

When the print industry does upgrade to Mac OS X they'll be complaining it'll hurt business
to upgrade to Mac OS XI. 

Just the same argument all over again.


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## spuchee (Dec 17, 2002)

Apple definitely needs more leverage to persuade education institutions and the print industry to upgrade to OS X.  When M$ announced the whole software activation scheme for XP, a lot of people complained.  However, M$ still got its way.  Moreover, Office 11 will only work on the newest Windows OS.  That may turn off some people as well, but M$ certainly has much more leverage in terms of market share and financial resources.


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## stizz (Dec 21, 2002)

> _Originally posted by toast _
> *I can't think of my Mac without OS9. I would understand the "OSX boot-only" argument if OSX was OSXI.
> 
> How can you release a OSX-boot-only computer when 80% of the printing industry uses Macs and when Quark Inc. has not released Quark 6 OSX ?
> ...



House of Blues for instance uses several g3's for their video production and remote tv broadcasting to their venues around the country. Most of these machines run 8.6 with a few just recently upgraded to 9.2. Some of the software these machines need to run simply do not exist for OSX yet. They are considering buying new G4's to replace these old workhorse G3's, but doing so requires that they also scrap a software solution that works well for them and replace it with something that doesnt exist yet. So they are going to have to buy used G4's that still boot 9 if they want to upgrade at all. The over-all mood there is that they got screwed.


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## buggerit (Dec 21, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Factor41 _
> __________________
> Home
> Quicksilver G4/867 1152Mb 120Gb OS 10.2.2 Zip250 Stylus1290 ProSpeakers iSub USB2.0 Bluetooth (& T68i) etc
> Custom Black & Platinum PowerBook G3/300 384Mb 20Gb OS 10.2.2 FW



USB 2.0? On a "mirrored drive door" G4? (not quicksilver btw)

Please let me know how you achieve this!

 - Max


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## fryke (Dec 21, 2002)

with a PCI card perhaps.  or he means that he's using a usb2 bluetooth adapter, although i don't know of any.


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## Trim1 (Dec 22, 2002)

This means BOOT from 9 they ar'nt  saying no classic. This means no dual boot. Classic is gunna be around for a while. i still use 9 but 10X is the @#$%. Upgrade it's more than worth it. period.


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## Factor41 (Dec 23, 2002)

> USB 2.0? On a "mirrored drive door" G4? (not quicksilver btw)
> 
> Please let me know how you achieve this!


USB2.0 Connect from Adaptec - PCI card, for the occasional HD I have to get stuff off. And it is a Quicksilver, not a mirrored door one. The Bluetooth adapter is just USB1.1. Maybe I should invest in some commas!


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## Sirtovin (Dec 23, 2002)

My Soultion is of course... Time to reinvest in Apple... and do away with the OS- 9 programs and offer people who have OS-9 programs good one time only rebates to pay for the new OS X programs etc.

Invest in Apple means... Future... If you continue to rely on old tech... like your Quick Silver's etc... and the old tech Mac's... Mac is surely going to suffer... New Machines do call for drastic measures... Who will be for it... and who will whine about it being way to much...


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## Factor41 (Dec 24, 2002)

> If you continue to rely on old tech... like your Quick Silver's etc...


I'd hardly call Quicksilvers old tech! There's not much between them and your current model.

I'd be happy to get rid of OS 9 right now if Quark would sort themselves out and give us what we're waiting for, but you can't just expect everyone to jump straight to new machines. While you might well have the luxury of getting a new G4/G5 or whatever as you please, there are people out there still using Quadras and Performas. When they get a chance to eventually upgrade, maybe to an iBook, to make that step to OS X, they're going to want some return on their investment before it becomes unsupported and obsolete. And they're not going to be able to afford to replace all their software in one shot, discounted or not.


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## Sirtovin (Dec 24, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Factor41 _
> *I'd hardly call Quicksilvers old tech! There's not much between them and your current model.
> 
> I'd be happy to get rid of OS 9 right now if Quark would sort themselves out and give us what we're waiting for, but you can't just expect everyone to jump straight to new machines. While you might well have the luxury of getting a new G4/G5 or whatever as you please, there are people out there still using Quadras and Performas. When they get a chance to eventually upgrade, maybe to an iBook, to make that step to OS X, they're going to want some return on their investment before it becomes unsupported and obsolete. And they're not going to be able to afford to replace all their software in one shot, discounted or not. *



You're right I should not have said QuickSilver.  but the point is waiting for Quark to go OS-X... is ridiculous... Surely there are other programs like Quark one can by for OS-X.

I still believe that people need to change with the times.


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## Factor41 (Dec 24, 2002)

Yeah, there's InDesign, which is possibly better than Quark and if it was just a case of one user, one computer, sure, just change, but when you have a whole production process using Macs, Imagesetters, CTP, all sorts of RIPs and whatnot, plus your entire customerbase, and a lot of specialised software which you simply cannot get for OS X, you've got to be patient. This is why Apple haven't just told Quark to go jump. Its a whole process that you need to change and it'd be a whole lot smoother a transition if you could at least have an X version of Quark to use as a starting point.

I do agree with your sentiment - we do need to get on to X and push the platform forward. Lets just not try to run before we have any legs.


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## Sirtovin (Dec 24, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Factor41 _
> *Yeah, there's InDesign, which is possibly better than Quark and if it was just a case of one user, one computer, sure, just change, but when you have a whole production process using Macs, Imagesetters, CTP, all sorts of RIPs and whatnot, plus your entire customerbase, and a lot of specialised software which you simply cannot get for OS X, you've got to be patient. This is why Apple haven't just told Quark to go jump. Its a whole process that you need to change and it'd be a whole lot smoother a transition if you could at least have an X version of Quark to use as a starting point.
> 
> I do agree with your sentiment - we do need to get on to X and push the platform forward. Lets just not try to run before we have any legs. *



I again agree...

The future of Mac depends on both it's loyal customers... "Switchers also like me" and of course Software developers...


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## Factor41 (Feb 3, 2003)

Well, looks like they've gone and done it, no more OS9 booting with Quark still many moons away. Not totally convinced by the premium priced OS9-ables so now's Adobe's chance to get InDesign the market it once had with PageMaker. Brave move by Apple risking losing people to Quark on Windows (maybe), but as a wise man once said, "the people crazy enough to think they can change the [printing] world, are the ones who do"


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## Snowball (Feb 3, 2003)

What happens now to the people with new Macs who need a disk fixing program thanks to disk errors? All the current disk utility CDs won't boot a new Mac, so we have to wait for Disk Warrior 3*, and even then will it work with OS Xs UNIX permissions as well as it did in OS 9? I really hope so...but somehow amidst these OS X problems like files that never delete, permissions conflicts that didn't exist under OS 9, and the fact that a sudden power off will cause huge directory errors that don't happen on 9, I wonder if OS X, after already having had 3 revisions, will ever really have the same solid file structure OS 9 had.
In 9, I could pull the plug and have things working fine on reboot. On X though I run Disk Utility and always find errors in the drive...

*Drive 10, while bootable in X, has never fixed all the problems on my drive and is really expensive for what it offers.


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## serpicolugnut (Feb 3, 2003)

Apple had little choice to kill booting in to 9 on new machines for two reasons...

1) OS 9 requires hardware enablers for each new piece of hardware it needs to run on. This requires a significant amount of work on Apple's part to create, maintain and troubleshoot...

2) If Apple keeps supporting OS 9, people will not feel compelled to adopt OS X, which means developers won't be as quick to develop for it, which makes the entire platform as a whole weaker, and diminishes sales of new computers, the area where Apple makes it's money.

As for Quark...

Based on Xpress 5.0's sales (which are abysmal), and 6.0's proposed feature set (which is weak) and expected upgrade price (which is quite high compared to other upgrades), I think you've witnessed the beginning of the end for Quark. Their customer base begrudgingly sticks with them, and are always looking for a lifeboat off the platform. InDesign 2 is that lifeboat. The only question is when to jump ship. 

It's no wonder why it's taking Xpress so long to Carbonize their app. It's really a poorly written piece of software. Even on OS 9, it still uses so many old API calls, it'll be a miracle if it makes a mid 2003 release.

InDesign has a long way to go before it dethrones Xpress, but it's momentum is building, and Quark has yet to offer any compelling reasons not to switch.... (unless you really like working in OS 9 and dig constant system wide crashes)...


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## sheepguy42 (Feb 3, 2003)

Something nobody has suggested as to a solution for the problem this thread proposed:
Select the OS 9 install disk (bootable) as your classic system, under the Classic PrefPane. Then run Classic, run the installer to install 9 on your HD, shut down classic, and tell classic's prefpane to use the OS 9 now on disk for Classic.
I haven't tried this, but I presume it works. Anybody care to try?


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## fryke (Feb 3, 2003)

As you can backup your preinstalled 'Classic' system folder by just copying it, it's no real problem. OS 9 doesn't need to be 'installed', a simple _copy_ of an OS 9 installation will do.

Btw.: The OS 9 CD _can't_ be used as Classic environment afaik.


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## toast (Feb 3, 2003)

All the bad you can write on XPress I agree with. However your 'lifeboat' writes PostScript Level 3 whereas my printhouse is PostScript 2 equipped. Changing RIP would cost them over 15 000 ($15.000), hence they will not change until the RIP dies (and that's in a long time).

Quark may be old. But PostScript 2 is old too. As far as my knowledge goes in prepress, I can assure you Quark XPress 4.11 combined to Acrobat Distiller 4.0 produce the best PDF 1.4 (Acrobat PDF 4.0) stuff ever for PostScript Level 2 RIPs.

It's a question of compatibility: computers evolve very much faster than RIPs. The DTP industry needs CTP software that works with the RIPs, they don't need Quartz Extreme and  new fancy browsers.

In one line, I need the software that goes with my RIP. This software needs OS9. I'm fixed.

(Plus, I must tell you OS9 has not crashed for about 6 months at home.)



> _Originally posted by serpicolugnut _
> * InDesign 2 is that lifeboat. The only question is when to jump ship.
> 
> (...) compelling reasons not to switch.... (unless you really like working in OS 9 and dig constant system wide crashes)... *


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## Kazrog (Feb 3, 2003)

I wonder if some genius will write a hack utility to boot into OS 9 on the new powerbooks and powermacs. I certainly hope so, as my music software, MOTU's Digital Performer, does not exist for OS X yet. I'll let everyone know if I find a solution myself...


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## branded24 (Feb 3, 2003)

I think they don't want the computers to boot into OS 9 because if you can boot into OS 9, all the security of OS X is worthless.  You can access everything in 9.  If they want to get the corporate market's attention, they'll have to eliminate security holes like that.  (a lesson M$ could learn from)


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## Snowball (Feb 3, 2003)

Anyone notice I hit the nail right on the head with my quick Power Mac prediction of 1.4 GHz? Well, they're actually 1.42, but still! That's pretty darn accurate for a playful guess!  Maybe I should start a site and get banned from Apple Expos like the other sites last summer! Cool!


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