Mac Pro machines use ECC RAM. Another reason why they're so expensive, but worth it if your creative / scientific business depends on the computer working properly.
Hmmmm, true, but that was for a very good reason - games were generally written to use 'Soundblaster compatible' sound cards, so it became a de facto standard for third-part hardware to target. Generally they weren't spoofing the cards identity to use another company's driver, they were emulating a known standard so that DOS software would work with new cards without needing patches.
A think that's a fair assessment. The logo does look like an apple, it has a leaf at the top, and does also look like a stylised 'w'. At the moment that's not an issue, but in 3 years time when Woolworths produces the next iteration of that logo and decides to go for a slightly glossy/plastic-y look, and Apple have developed the next iteration of their logo which makes the apple slightly more rounded, then Apple will be in a much better position to defend their trademark if they have already been to court over it. This sort of thing goes on all the time between companies and it's only because people are so obsessed with Apple that this is even in the news.
Now how is that fair moderation? I'm now going to post the same post again so that it's not at -1.
Why should they have to sync by Apple's supported route? Because Apple wrote and paid for the software and provides it free of charge to end users for a particular purpose. Should a Canon scanner be able to spoof as an HP device then tell you to go to the HP website and download their scanner software? Apple have put the money in terms of R&D, advertising, customer support etc. to make iTunes a very popular package. We can argue the rights and wrongs of proprietory software, but legally speaking Apple owns the rights and can do with it as they please. If you want the 'smoother sync experience' then Apple wants you to buy an iPod - ultimately they're a commercial entity to make money for their shareholders, which they won't do if they provide free software for every third party mp3 player.
OK, I see your argument, but the fallacy there is that in your example Amazon started with an open website and then closed it. In the case of iTunes, it was always written for the iPod with a secondary mechanism via XML files for third parties to write their own sync software.
A slightly better analogy would be this: Amazon and eBay both have 'marketplace' functionality which can be interacted with via specific APIs, which are also open to third parties. Company X comes along and instead of using the API uses a 'screen scrape' method of interacting with the site. eBay then implements some additional security, so Company X spoofs the MAC address of one of eBay's servers to restore the functionality. All along they could have played fair and used the perfectly good API, but for really unclear reasons just won't and everyone gets all upset about it.
I really don't understand what all the fuss is about here. If Apple wanted to be nasty they could just specify in the T&Cs of the next release of iTunes that it can't be used with Palm hardware - it's their software and they provide it gratis. I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple to require third parties to use the XML sync method.
And those three different ways would involve them putting their own time (=money) into supporting someone else's hardware. Why on earth would a for-profit commercial entity want to do that? iTunes is not charity software, it's there to make money whilst providing the consumer with a service they want.
Why should Apple provide support for a product being sold by ANOTHER COMPANY? That's not "being a prick", it's just common sense. iTunes is commercial software provided free of charge, primarily to make the iPod a more attractive mp3 player. It's also provided for use as a desktop media player and manager. As a third option, Apple has provided a way for third party devices to sync with the iTunes library, but all of the very convenient functionality is reserved for those who have purchased an iPod. Would you expect your Canon scanner software to work with your HP scanner?
Why should they have to sync by Apple's supported route? Because Apple wrote and paid for the software and provides it free of charge to end users for a particular purpose. Should a Canon scanner be able to spoof as an HP device then tell you to go to the HP website and download their scanner software? Apple have put the money in terms of R&D, advertising, customer support etc. to make iTunes a very popular package. We can argue the rights and wrongs of proprietory software, but legally speaking Apple owns the rights and can do with it as they please. If you want the 'smoother sync experience' then Apple wants you to buy an iPod - ultimately they're a commercial entity to make money for their shareholders, which they won't do if they provide free software for every third party mp3 player.
No, I didn't say that all software is tested in all scenarios, I said that in order to know that there are not faults then it must be. It's just simple logic to know that it's impossible to be completely sure that something will always work unless one tests it in every conceivable circumstance; I didn't say that is what software companies always do.
POP3/IMAP are known, well documented and quite old protocols; nevertheless I'm sure that Apple test Mail against many commonly used server packages. Problems do occur, for instance Snow Leopard supposedly supports Exchange 'out of the box', but I can crash Mail hard by pointing it at my work's Exchange server, and I have no idea why.
There's still a format to the data that is stored on the iPod, the playlists etc. I've often found that when a new software update for the iPhone or iTunes comes out I get the odd error message and it fails to sync, then a couple of days later a point update is released and it all starts to work again. I don't know the details of the files/protocols/whatever but empirically there is definitely scope for problems.
You're missing the point. No software is without faults. In order to know that there are no faults in a piece of software, it must be tested in every possible scenario. Apple would therefore have to test their software with the Palm device in order to know that there is no fault. Therefore Apple would be spending money to check that their software works with Palm's device.
Apple does not know that Palm's device will 'act exactly the same as an iPod manufactured by Apple'. It's perfectly possible that there are bugs in Palm's implementation that break the protocol and could somehow cause issues with the Mac/PC that iTunes is running on. I would hope that when Apple release a new version of iTunes they would do full regression testing with at least their current range of iPods and iPhones. There is the possibility that they could suddenly be inundated with support issues if a subtle bug in iTunes or the Palm device causes an issue. When a separate program has to be used to Sync, users understand that the sync program could be at fault. In this instance, if there is a fault, only iTunes could be to blame. To put it another way, no software company wants to release flagship software that may behave unpredictably. I'm sure these aren't the bottom lines for Apple, but I think they should at least be taken into consideration when criticising them.
Palm does not have 'no other choice'. Lots of portable music players can sync with iTunes, they just have to use a separate application that interacts with the iTunes data on the hard drive. This is how iTunes Sync works. The difference here is that Palm want their users to be able to plug their device in and have it interact with iTunes in exactly the same way that an iPod would interact. To me that would seem to be the same as HP emulating Epson protocols because Epson made a better scanner frontend and then getting upset when Epson changed their software to verify if the attached device was indeed and Epson scanner.
I don't like the way Apple make you use their software to buy music, i would rather be able to download mp3 files using any browser, so i don't use itunes.
Apple don't make you use their software to buy music, you can download music in mp3 or AAC format from any source and import into iTunes. iTunes is just a convenient way to manage the music on your iPod, if you happen to like the interface. I do, so that's fine with me. The Amazon music store is doing a great job of undercutting Apple, and have provided a nice downloader app that will manage the downloads and automatically add to iTunes. I have no brand loyalty so if a track's cheaper on Amazon I'll get it there.
Huh? How is that any more or less 'wrong' than a tax on anything else? Tax is always an artificial way for governments to get revenue, supposedly because that money goes to create and maintain the economic and social environment in which the company being taxed is able to flourish. Governments will always want to get a cut whenever money changes hands between companies, whether it's the sale of physical goods, services, or licenses and other rights.
Actually, 'decimate' means to reduce by a tenth. At least, that is the archaic meaning - when the Roman army was instructed to decimate a population, they would kill one in ten people (or one in ten men), which was usually sufficient to make a population choose subservience without reducing them to a level where they were practically useless to the empire.
There are innovations in OS X. For me, one of the most useful is iDisk, which is a seamless UI on top of RSync (or something similar). All of my smallish documents (not video edits etc.) are now on iDisk and sync perfectly between my laptop and desktop whether I'm at home or on the road. If I don't have my laptop I can use the web interface on any Mac or PC to get to my files. It's pretty simple, but for me has massively improved my ability to work on the move. Nothing revolutionary under the hood, but definitely an innovation in the GUI.
Yup. When I bought a new car last year, I did all the calculations based on local fuel prices and mileage and a 2.0 litre diesel (Ford Mondeo) was the sweet spot. Diesel is more expensive than petrol/gasoline in the UK, but the fuel economy is so much better. And I can still beat most similar family-size cars of the lights if I really want to. The other nice thing about diesel is the torque - I can have two or three passengers plus luggage and although it obviously does slow down with the load, not nearly so much as a similar petrol engine.
There's a big difference here, though. Reproducing a symphony requires creativity, it's an artistic musical interpretation of a representation of music on manuscript paper. Reproducing these paintings was difficult, but any 'interpretation' or artistry by the photographer would be a failure, because it would taint the painting with the photographer's own ideas and defeat the object. Claiming new copyright protection on that would be a bit like a book press claiming copyright on the books that they have reproduced from PDF files because of the 'art' involved in getting a properly printed book with good colour registration onto paper. Difficult -yes, expensive -yes, art - no.
You're confusing creativity and skill. When a plasterer plasters a wall, that takes a great deal of skill, and not many people can do it very well, but it's not a creative process - the whole aim is to be totally uncreative and create the most flat, bland wall possible. In fact, both of those things are probably the opposite of creativity. The aim of reproducing these paintings was to "make as much of the Collection available as possible for the public to view". The aim is to create nothing new, to make the photos as exactly like standing in front of the painting as they could possibly be. In that sense, every difference is a flaw (a failure in skill).
To put it another way, the idea is to in no way increase the amount of data in the universe by photographing those paintings, not to use a clever angle that reveals a new detail, nothing creative should be happening at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Mac Pro machines use ECC RAM. Another reason why they're so expensive, but worth it if your creative / scientific business depends on the computer working properly.
Hmmmm, true, but that was for a very good reason - games were generally written to use 'Soundblaster compatible' sound cards, so it became a de facto standard for third-part hardware to target. Generally they weren't spoofing the cards identity to use another company's driver, they were emulating a known standard so that DOS software would work with new cards without needing patches.
A think that's a fair assessment. The logo does look like an apple, it has a leaf at the top, and does also look like a stylised 'w'. At the moment that's not an issue, but in 3 years time when Woolworths produces the next iteration of that logo and decides to go for a slightly glossy/plastic-y look, and Apple have developed the next iteration of their logo which makes the apple slightly more rounded, then Apple will be in a much better position to defend their trademark if they have already been to court over it. This sort of thing goes on all the time between companies and it's only because people are so obsessed with Apple that this is even in the news.
Now how is that fair moderation? I'm now going to post the same post again so that it's not at -1.
Why should they have to sync by Apple's supported route? Because Apple wrote and paid for the software and provides it free of charge to end users for a particular purpose. Should a Canon scanner be able to spoof as an HP device then tell you to go to the HP website and download their scanner software? Apple have put the money in terms of R&D, advertising, customer support etc. to make iTunes a very popular package. We can argue the rights and wrongs of proprietory software, but legally speaking Apple owns the rights and can do with it as they please. If you want the 'smoother sync experience' then Apple wants you to buy an iPod - ultimately they're a commercial entity to make money for their shareholders, which they won't do if they provide free software for every third party mp3 player.
OK, I see your argument, but the fallacy there is that in your example Amazon started with an open website and then closed it. In the case of iTunes, it was always written for the iPod with a secondary mechanism via XML files for third parties to write their own sync software.
A slightly better analogy would be this: Amazon and eBay both have 'marketplace' functionality which can be interacted with via specific APIs, which are also open to third parties. Company X comes along and instead of using the API uses a 'screen scrape' method of interacting with the site. eBay then implements some additional security, so Company X spoofs the MAC address of one of eBay's servers to restore the functionality. All along they could have played fair and used the perfectly good API, but for really unclear reasons just won't and everyone gets all upset about it.
I really don't understand what all the fuss is about here. If Apple wanted to be nasty they could just specify in the T&Cs of the next release of iTunes that it can't be used with Palm hardware - it's their software and they provide it gratis. I don't think it's unreasonable for Apple to require third parties to use the XML sync method.
And those three different ways would involve them putting their own time (=money) into supporting someone else's hardware. Why on earth would a for-profit commercial entity want to do that? iTunes is not charity software, it's there to make money whilst providing the consumer with a service they want.
Why should Apple provide support for a product being sold by ANOTHER COMPANY? That's not "being a prick", it's just common sense. iTunes is commercial software provided free of charge, primarily to make the iPod a more attractive mp3 player. It's also provided for use as a desktop media player and manager. As a third option, Apple has provided a way for third party devices to sync with the iTunes library, but all of the very convenient functionality is reserved for those who have purchased an iPod. Would you expect your Canon scanner software to work with your HP scanner?
Why should they have to sync by Apple's supported route? Because Apple wrote and paid for the software and provides it free of charge to end users for a particular purpose. Should a Canon scanner be able to spoof as an HP device then tell you to go to the HP website and download their scanner software? Apple have put the money in terms of R&D, advertising, customer support etc. to make iTunes a very popular package. We can argue the rights and wrongs of proprietory software, but legally speaking Apple owns the rights and can do with it as they please. If you want the 'smoother sync experience' then Apple wants you to buy an iPod - ultimately they're a commercial entity to make money for their shareholders, which they won't do if they provide free software for every third party mp3 player.
No, I didn't say that all software is tested in all scenarios, I said that in order to know that there are not faults then it must be. It's just simple logic to know that it's impossible to be completely sure that something will always work unless one tests it in every conceivable circumstance; I didn't say that is what software companies always do.
POP3/IMAP are known, well documented and quite old protocols; nevertheless I'm sure that Apple test Mail against many commonly used server packages. Problems do occur, for instance Snow Leopard supposedly supports Exchange 'out of the box', but I can crash Mail hard by pointing it at my work's Exchange server, and I have no idea why.
There's still a format to the data that is stored on the iPod, the playlists etc. I've often found that when a new software update for the iPhone or iTunes comes out I get the odd error message and it fails to sync, then a couple of days later a point update is released and it all starts to work again. I don't know the details of the files/protocols/whatever but empirically there is definitely scope for problems.
You're missing the point. No software is without faults. In order to know that there are no faults in a piece of software, it must be tested in every possible scenario. Apple would therefore have to test their software with the Palm device in order to know that there is no fault. Therefore Apple would be spending money to check that their software works with Palm's device.
Apple does not know that Palm's device will 'act exactly the same as an iPod manufactured by Apple'. It's perfectly possible that there are bugs in Palm's implementation that break the protocol and could somehow cause issues with the Mac/PC that iTunes is running on. I would hope that when Apple release a new version of iTunes they would do full regression testing with at least their current range of iPods and iPhones. There is the possibility that they could suddenly be inundated with support issues if a subtle bug in iTunes or the Palm device causes an issue. When a separate program has to be used to Sync, users understand that the sync program could be at fault. In this instance, if there is a fault, only iTunes could be to blame. To put it another way, no software company wants to release flagship software that may behave unpredictably. I'm sure these aren't the bottom lines for Apple, but I think they should at least be taken into consideration when criticising them.
Palm does not have 'no other choice'. Lots of portable music players can sync with iTunes, they just have to use a separate application that interacts with the iTunes data on the hard drive. This is how iTunes Sync works. The difference here is that Palm want their users to be able to plug their device in and have it interact with iTunes in exactly the same way that an iPod would interact. To me that would seem to be the same as HP emulating Epson protocols because Epson made a better scanner frontend and then getting upset when Epson changed their software to verify if the attached device was indeed and Epson scanner.
I don't like the way Apple make you use their software to buy music, i would rather be able to download mp3 files using any browser, so i don't use itunes.
Apple don't make you use their software to buy music, you can download music in mp3 or AAC format from any source and import into iTunes. iTunes is just a convenient way to manage the music on your iPod, if you happen to like the interface. I do, so that's fine with me. The Amazon music store is doing a great job of undercutting Apple, and have provided a nice downloader app that will manage the downloads and automatically add to iTunes. I have no brand loyalty so if a track's cheaper on Amazon I'll get it there.
Huh? How is that any more or less 'wrong' than a tax on anything else? Tax is always an artificial way for governments to get revenue, supposedly because that money goes to create and maintain the economic and social environment in which the company being taxed is able to flourish. Governments will always want to get a cut whenever money changes hands between companies, whether it's the sale of physical goods, services, or licenses and other rights.
The statement "more attacks means more exploits" needs to be proven. It's perfectly possible that there are more attacks using the same few exploits.
Any antivirus software will tell you that you need to disable other antivirus software in order for it to run.
touche!
Actually, 'decimate' means to reduce by a tenth. At least, that is the archaic meaning - when the Roman army was instructed to decimate a population, they would kill one in ten people (or one in ten men), which was usually sufficient to make a population choose subservience without reducing them to a level where they were practically useless to the empire.
Erm, when it comes to something as global as automobiles, segregation will never work.
You need compatibility, ease of use, and cost effectiveness.
This basically means one car manufacturer was always going to come out dominant.
There are innovations in OS X. For me, one of the most useful is iDisk, which is a seamless UI on top of RSync (or something similar). All of my smallish documents (not video edits etc.) are now on iDisk and sync perfectly between my laptop and desktop whether I'm at home or on the road. If I don't have my laptop I can use the web interface on any Mac or PC to get to my files. It's pretty simple, but for me has massively improved my ability to work on the move. Nothing revolutionary under the hood, but definitely an innovation in the GUI.
Yup. When I bought a new car last year, I did all the calculations based on local fuel prices and mileage and a 2.0 litre diesel (Ford Mondeo) was the sweet spot. Diesel is more expensive than petrol/gasoline in the UK, but the fuel economy is so much better. And I can still beat most similar family-size cars of the lights if I really want to. The other nice thing about diesel is the torque - I can have two or three passengers plus luggage and although it obviously does slow down with the load, not nearly so much as a similar petrol engine.
I vote for "taped behind your balls" as the next Slashdot meme.
There's a big difference here, though. Reproducing a symphony requires creativity, it's an artistic musical interpretation of a representation of music on manuscript paper. Reproducing these paintings was difficult, but any 'interpretation' or artistry by the photographer would be a failure, because it would taint the painting with the photographer's own ideas and defeat the object. Claiming new copyright protection on that would be a bit like a book press claiming copyright on the books that they have reproduced from PDF files because of the 'art' involved in getting a properly printed book with good colour registration onto paper. Difficult -yes, expensive -yes, art - no.
You're confusing creativity and skill. When a plasterer plasters a wall, that takes a great deal of skill, and not many people can do it very well, but it's not a creative process - the whole aim is to be totally uncreative and create the most flat, bland wall possible. In fact, both of those things are probably the opposite of creativity. The aim of reproducing these paintings was to "make as much of the Collection available as possible for the public to view". The aim is to create nothing new, to make the photos as exactly like standing in front of the painting as they could possibly be. In that sense, every difference is a flaw (a failure in skill).
To put it another way, the idea is to in no way increase the amount of data in the universe by photographing those paintings, not to use a clever angle that reveals a new detail, nothing creative should be happening at all.