I bought Jabra's noise blocking headphones and I will not work without them anymore. I am sensible to noise, and those headphones were a God send.
I have co-workers that eat apples and other stuff while programming (making a lot of noise while on it). I *hate* that noise. I also hate people humming while they work.
More often than not, I just have the headphones on, without any music, and even without the "active noise blocking on". Just that thing on my head is already enough to block most annoying sounds. It really makes a big difference in capacity to concentrate. When the noise level increases, I just turn on the noise blocking thing.
Having headphones on also help because co-workers surfing the internet are less likely to interrupt me in order to mention something "cool" that they found on the web.
Quiet? That topic was discussed in the media in Germany last week almost everyday (eg concerning various groups/institutions voicing their concerns, all of them having been disregarded today by the German government...)
I am not the GP. The topic was nowhere to be found in the "main" Dutch news media.
By the time it becomes affordable to run torrents on mobile broadband, there will be NO issue with law enforcement of file sharing restrictions. So I really don't see the point.
I did say the disease is the life style of relentless consumption that we see nowadays in most of the industrialized world.
The biggest problem is that the pollution bill is footed by everyone in the planet. People buying (and throwing away) stuff should be forced to also pay for the pollution produced by the waste and manufacturing of the goods.
Kyoto was a first attempt at trying to get handle of that. It didn't go very far.
Most users use only the most basic features of KDE/Gnome. Gnome gets those right, KDE (at least until 4.2) had the most basic desktop stuff riddled with stability problems.
As a former user of Kubuntu and KDE, I agree with what you say: Kubuntu IMHO sucks.
I believe that that is big problem for KDE. Ubuntu has become the standard "easy and ready to use" Linux desktop. It is not perfect, it has a large share of problems but it has become the standard. As most new users will try out KDE through Kubuntu, and have a bad experience.
Add to that the KDE4 fiasco, and you get as a result KDE's popularity nowdays, a mere shadow of what it was years ago (when it was the preferred choice of more than 2/3 of the folks voting at LinuxJournal yearly poll).
Tried to update from Jaunty, and the unexpected mess cost the a whole day of work. Something went wrong with GDM getting restarted during the installation of some libs. The system got corrupted being repair. Many libs were left missing, and if tried to configure or reinstall upstart (it was marked "iU") the system simply rebooted (no joke!).
Tried to install Karmic directly only to discover that the grub(legacy) fall back in case of RAID didn't work. After spending some time trying to remedy that I gave up. Installed Jaunty, and did a update to Karmic with GDM off. It worked.
The new Gnome looks better, but the installation and upgrade are indeed incredibly unreliable.
It seems to me that every article about an iphone or ipod "killer" is written by Apple fanboys or enthusiasts. I normally see it as an attempt to keep talking about Apple products even when people want to talk about something else.
My take on Android 2.0? What is clear to me is that Android (as a software platform) has the fastest evolution rate among all smartphone platforms (given its release rate), and that this new Droid and the Xperia Rachel will address one of the IMO biggest limitations of my G1: screen size, and resolution.
Other than that my dream wish list for upgrading to a new phone would be:
*video* calling through Skype or Google Voice when on Wifi
shopping list syncing integrated in the platform (like the google apps are in the G1)
GTD app syncing integrated in the platform (like google apps are in the G1)
higher screen resolution (check for Droid and Xperia)
faster Javascript processing (check for Xperia with Snapdragon)
Adobe flash (because there are simply too many pages on the web that use it)
automatic multi language text correction
Oh, and I need to still get root on it one way or another....
What about what the Iphone lacks like... a KEYBOARD. No one gives a shit except geeks who've never actually tried an iPhone keyboard for more than 4 seconds, and hence haven't discovered you can type faster on it than with a physical one.
Not trying to flame you. Honestly curious. How does the IPhone handle multiple languages? Is there any automatic language selection for the text correction?
I write email, and IM in 3 different languages. Every day. Having a keyboard helps a lot in these situations. People in the US don't write in multiple languages much? Well, in Europe there is a massive expat work force that does that all the time.
There is also this (on a newer kernel). It is the sort of necessary debugging, but that at the same time doesn't quite encourage me to migrate my data systems to ext4 at this point. http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14354#c90
I believe that both frameworks will have their own space. Android right now rules the scene as the N900 hasn't even been released.
The question of openness of Android doesn't really matter at this moment, most users have a G1 and there is a vibrant active community around this particular piece of hardware. Rooting, and turning a G1 into a full ADP (Android Developer Phone) is very well documented.
I am sure that many FOSS advocates will buy the N900, and it should be extremely well supported.
The advantage of Android is that there are more than 10 phones released this year, and many more coming next year. The problem with that is that it may fragment the Android FOSS crowd, and so we may not have a new phone with the level of individual support as the G1/ADP.
At the same time, MAEMO will probably only have a single phone out. Which will probably meant that it will overlooked by many application developers.
In practice, any Gnome/KDE GUI app will simply not run properly in the display resolution of a phone, and not lend itself well to a touch screen interface
You have many valid points, but are you aware that the resolution of the entire Maemo range thus far (ie 770, N800, N810, N900) are all 800x480? That's the same as the original 7" Asus EeePC and significantly better than most of the smartphone competition (often 480x320).
True, desktop applications will work better on a desktop machine with keyboard/mouse, but Maemo is surprisingly capable. As long as you're willing to use the stylus, most desktop applications would work reasonably well as long as right-click/hover-overs weren't required and it was reasonably thrifty with CPU/RAM.
My point is that too many KDE/Gnome stuff has its size hardcoded. A second issue, is that most have too many buttons for a small screen device that I at least would rather operate using my fingers.
Besides porting applications to a 3G connected device is different than just fixing these GUI issues. The network is very often unreliable. Android solved that by making strict requirements about how you could make network access (you need to use another thread to avoid freezing the UI). Does anyone knows how MAEMO deals with this?
As a developer, I also care about the fact that the new MAEMO APIs are scheduled for deprecation before its release. Having a stable, well documented API matters. A lot.
Please elaborate on this?
I don't know if things got clearer since this article was written. Anyways, this is what I was referring to: """ Furthermore, the difficulty of the toolkit switch between Fremantle and Harmattan is compounded by the fact that Fremantle will break compatibility with the Maemo 4.x-series, thus forcing two consecutive rewrites onto developers."""
Most users don't need root, nor have any need for source code access. Most users have access to support from the manufacturer, and are fine with that.
Judging from this guy's questions, he already had a conclusion, and started asking questions to justify his points of view. The article is flamebait beginning to end. Some notes:
In practice, any Gnome/KDE GUI app will simply not run properly in the display resolution of a phone, and not lend itself well to a touch screen interface. When you want to talk about the great stuff you can do with MAEMO, and you decide to illustrate with XEYES, I say you are out of touch with reality.
Android forces a rewrite of even Java code, but it also provides full application isolation. Nowhere the security advantages of it were considered.
Android is also offered with root access from Google (ADP) and with the Geekphone from Spain. The fact that you can also buy it in a locked state, doesn't disqualify the platform.
As a developer, I also care about the fact that the new MAEMO APIs are scheduled for deprecation before its release. Having a stable, well documented API matters. A lot.
The N900 will (hopefully) be a great phone, no need to go on bashing the competition in order to promote it.
The Amsterdam court has determined that the General Intelligence Service AIVD broke the law of freedom of press by tapping the phones of journalists of the Telegraaf daily
Slashdot Mirror
I bought Jabra's noise blocking headphones and I will not work without them anymore. I am sensible to noise, and those headphones were a God send.
I have co-workers that eat apples and other stuff while programming (making a lot of noise while on it). I *hate* that noise. I also hate people humming while they work.
More often than not, I just have the headphones on, without any music, and even without the "active noise blocking on". Just that thing on my head is already enough to block most annoying sounds. It really makes a big difference in capacity to concentrate. When the noise level increases, I just turn on the noise blocking thing.
Having headphones on also help because co-workers surfing the internet are less likely to interrupt me in order to mention something "cool" that they found on the web.
Strange how both the crooked EU and USA have kept this quiet....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/swift_tftp/ [theregister.co.uk]
Quiet? That topic was discussed in the media in Germany last week almost everyday (eg concerning various groups/institutions voicing their concerns, all of them having been disregarded today by the German government...)
I am not the GP. The topic was nowhere to be found in the "main" Dutch news media.
By the time it becomes affordable to run torrents on mobile broadband, there will be NO issue with law enforcement of file sharing restrictions. So I really don't see the point.
Outright retarded article... Mobile data fees are so expensive that this whole story it makes no sense whatsoever
I've seen plenty of slow news days here where kdawson decided to publish non-sense, but this is a new low.
If there is anything I expect Android to provide wrt laptops and netbooks, is a way to buy them without paying MS tax (or Apple Tax).
LCDs (of 50") are nowhere near that. From a nice article:
Average plasma: 338 watts
Average LCD: 176 watts
http://reviews.cnet.com/green-tech/tv-power-efficiency/
I did say the disease is the life style of relentless consumption that we see nowadays in most of the industrialized world.
The biggest problem is that the pollution bill is footed by everyone in the planet. People buying (and throwing away) stuff should be forced to also pay for the pollution produced by the waste and manufacturing of the goods.
Kyoto was a first attempt at trying to get handle of that. It didn't go very far.
and yet Gnome is more popular than ever....
Most users use only the most basic features of KDE/Gnome. Gnome gets those right, KDE (at least until 4.2) had the most basic desktop stuff riddled with stability problems.
As a former user of Kubuntu and KDE, I agree with what you say: Kubuntu IMHO sucks.
I believe that that is big problem for KDE. Ubuntu has become the standard "easy and ready to use" Linux desktop. It is not perfect, it has a large share of problems but it has become the standard. As most new users will try out KDE through Kubuntu, and have a bad experience.
Add to that the KDE4 fiasco, and you get as a result KDE's popularity nowdays, a mere shadow of what it was years ago (when it was the preferred choice of more than 2/3 of the folks voting at LinuxJournal yearly poll).
Tried to update from Jaunty, and the unexpected mess cost the a whole day of work. Something went wrong with GDM getting restarted during the installation of some libs. The system got corrupted being repair. Many libs were left missing, and if tried to configure or reinstall upstart (it was marked "iU") the system simply rebooted (no joke!).
Tried to install Karmic directly only to discover that the grub(legacy) fall back in case of RAID didn't work. After spending some time trying to remedy that I gave up. Installed Jaunty, and did a update to Karmic with GDM off. It worked.
The new Gnome looks better, but the installation and upgrade are indeed incredibly unreliable.
It seems to me that every article about an iphone or ipod "killer" is written by Apple fanboys or enthusiasts. I normally see it as an attempt to keep talking about Apple products even when people want to talk about something else.
My take on Android 2.0? What is clear to me is that Android (as a software platform) has the fastest evolution rate among all smartphone platforms (given its release rate), and that this new Droid and the Xperia Rachel will address one of the IMO biggest limitations of my G1: screen size, and resolution.
Other than that my dream wish list for upgrading to a new phone would be:
Oh, and I need to still get root on it one way or another....
What about what the Iphone lacks like... a KEYBOARD.
No one gives a shit except geeks who've never actually tried an iPhone keyboard for more than 4 seconds, and hence haven't discovered you can type faster on it than with a physical one.
Not trying to flame you. Honestly curious. How does the IPhone handle multiple languages? Is there any automatic language selection for the text correction?
I write email, and IM in 3 different languages. Every day. Having a keyboard helps a lot in these situations. People in the US don't write in multiple languages much? Well, in Europe there is a massive expat work force that does that all the time.
If you actually read the whole thread, you will notice that there are 2 other users reporting it as well:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/453579/comments/80
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/453579/comments/86
There is also this (on a newer kernel). It is the sort of necessary debugging, but that at the same time doesn't quite encourage me to migrate my data systems to ext4 at this point. http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14354#c90
I don't understand your first link. That has nothing to do with corruption when writing large files.
Of course you don't! I gave the wrong link... (my bad).
The actual link is be http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910#Possible%20corruption%20of%20large%20files%20with%20ext4%20filesystem
Ext4 in Ubuntu 9.10 is specially problematic, as there are reports of corruption when writing large files:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910#Switching%20to%20ext4%20requires%20manually%20updating%20grub
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/453579
I have a "rooted G1 turned into ADP".
Currently running Cyanogen's 1.6 mod, and it is remarkably stable.
The problem I have with my G1 is its low ringing volume, and the weak trill function. I mis calls all the time.
Android 2.0 SDK is out! Check out the goods here:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/10/announcing-android-20-support-in-sdk.html
Highlights:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.0-highlights.html
I believe that both frameworks will have their own space. Android right now rules the scene as the N900 hasn't even been released.
The question of openness of Android doesn't really matter at this moment, most users have a G1 and there is a vibrant active community around this particular piece of hardware. Rooting, and turning a G1 into a full ADP (Android Developer Phone) is very well documented.
I am sure that many FOSS advocates will buy the N900, and it should be extremely well supported.
The advantage of Android is that there are more than 10 phones released this year, and many more coming next year. The problem with that is that it may fragment the Android FOSS crowd, and so we may not have a new phone with the level of individual support as the G1/ADP.
At the same time, MAEMO will probably only have a single phone out. Which will probably meant that it will overlooked by many application developers.
No. I had it right ;-)
What that article states is that
In practice, any Gnome/KDE GUI app will simply not run properly in the display resolution of a phone, and not lend itself well to a touch screen interface
You have many valid points, but are you aware that the resolution of the entire Maemo range thus far (ie 770, N800, N810, N900) are all 800x480? That's the same as the original 7" Asus EeePC and significantly better than most of the smartphone competition (often 480x320).
True, desktop applications will work better on a desktop machine with keyboard/mouse, but Maemo is surprisingly capable. As long as you're willing to use the stylus, most desktop applications would work reasonably well as long as right-click/hover-overs weren't required and it was reasonably thrifty with CPU/RAM.
My point is that too many KDE/Gnome stuff has its size hardcoded. A second issue, is that most have too many buttons for a small screen device that I at least would rather operate using my fingers.
Besides porting applications to a 3G connected device is different than just fixing these GUI issues. The network is very often unreliable. Android solved that by making strict requirements about how you could make network access (you need to use another thread to avoid freezing the UI). Does anyone knows how MAEMO deals with this?
As a developer, I also care about the fact that the new MAEMO APIs are scheduled for deprecation before its release. Having a stable, well documented API matters. A lot.
Please elaborate on this?
I don't know if things got clearer since this article was written. Anyways, this is what I was referring to:
"""
Furthermore, the difficulty of the toolkit switch between Fremantle and Harmattan is compounded by the fact that Fremantle will break compatibility with the Maemo 4.x-series, thus forcing two consecutive rewrites onto developers."""
http://lwn.net/Articles/341391/
I second this.
Most users don't need root, nor have any need for source code access. Most users have access to support from the manufacturer, and are fine with that.
Judging from this guy's questions, he already had a conclusion, and started asking questions to justify his points of view. The article is flamebait beginning to end. Some notes:
The N900 will (hopefully) be a great phone, no need to go on bashing the competition in order to promote it.
Some official numbers about tapping in the NL http://www.bit-byters.net/?p=50
Illegal tapping of newspapers in the NL:
http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/07/09/nisnews-nl-dutch-newspaper-suing-state-for-phone-tapping-journalists/
http://badnewsfromthenetherlands.blogspot.com/2009/10/court-intelligence-service-illegally.html
The Amsterdam court has determined that the General Intelligence Service AIVD broke the law of freedom of press by tapping the phones of journalists of the Telegraaf daily
I run Tomato in mine WRT54GL(v1.1). I reboot it every 6 months or so. No problems whatsoever handling P2P traffic. (YMMV)
A home made router would not only use more electricity but also be bigger. Also most old cheap boxes would require a cooling fan.