I'm not sure what happened to that guy. I'm no linux or unix guru, and I failed completely when I tried to get Bugzilla up and running on a fresh Linux box. But I had no trouble at all getting TRAC to work, and I was thrilled to find it's just like subversion: functional enough and easy enough to use that people actually use it. While it may not do everything, it does many things easily enough that people actually use it instead of trying to get around it. I think Trac + Subversion is a tremendous example of the potential of open source.
Who's going to do the weighing? What criteria are they going to use? What if I don't agree with those criteria. How do I get something on the list to be weighed? (I find it annoying that my neighbor's dog barks a lot. I think we should ban dogs.)
I spent some time, recently, trying to find something like that, but decided that everthing I could find was too expensive. Instead, I bought an HP Network ScanJet 5 on eBay, and used the wonderful, customized installation CD provided by David S. Madole (http://www.madole.net/scanjet/) to install FreeBSD on it. Now I have nearly everything I wanted: quick, good quality scans, a large ADF, and the ability to email or fax directly from the device. The only minor detail is that to scan duplex pages, I have to reload the stack, when prompted. The scanning software automatically assmbles the pages in the correct order, I just have to load the stack twice, instead of once.
I think the worse problem is that the gizmos free up "brain cycles" by dealing with things that people used to have to think about, themselves, but people don't use those extra cycles to pay attention to where they're going. They use them to talk on cell phones, eat, or daydream. The net result, many times, is that cars that should make driving easier and safer end up making drivers less observant and more dangerous.
That's one of my favorites, since people always seem to think they mean a large change when they use "quantum leap." Surely some physicist somewhere started the use of that phrase by convincing a friend to use it while laughing at him behind his back.
So, what criteria did you use to decide the need for laptops in third-world countries is "worth more" than my need for an additional hard drive for my home file server? If all people are created equal, how did you get to be the judge of everyone else's need?
Isn't it great that nobody's forcing you to use it, then? Personally, I'm extremely glad to have the choice. I choose to use Mac OS X, you can use something else.
I personally hate all those extra menu bars in Windows, even when I'm using my big LCD display, and think that the Mac tends to use more sensible keyboard commands to let me avoid using the mouse. I find that I use the mouse much less, on my Mac, than I do on a Windows machine, and think that helps my productivity. Heck just the CMD-Tab vs. CMD-` distinction must save me several minutes a day. I've never really understood the big deal with tabbed browsing, since I can just switch between browser windows with CMD-`
Actually, that was a very insightful comment. What do you suppose people used to use those "boom boxes" with dual cassette decks and 2X "dubbing" capabilities for? Copying tapes for friends, of course. I think I've probably always owned some form of cassette recorder since 1980, and I believe I recorded a school lecture once, and recorded myself pretending to read a radio commercial for a class assignment once. Other than that those recorders were only used for taping music off the radio and copying tapes. So, clearly, cassette recorders should be banned.
The point is not whether there are some, or even any uses of the technology that you think are "good." P2P software is just a tool. It cannot be good or bad any more than a butcher knife is good or bad.
I don't think that's really true. Do you know anyone who bought an iPod because of the add campaign? People bought them because they were well made, and more importantly, extremely easy to use. The coolness happend later, it seems to me.
(Arizona is the only state I know of which still allows non-concealed carrying of a firearm, and even they have laws similar to CCW states - e.g. no carrying in liquor stores. Open carry IS allowed on private property [e.g. your home], which is why most shooting ranges sport openly armed employees. They simply can't go outside like that.)
Colorado allows open carry, and you do, occasionally, see someone, even in a town like Pueblo, openly carrying a pistol. Never seen anybody get too excited about it.
I think you're right. Further, I think many tech managers are starting to realize that the "Certified Idiots" they've been getting aren't as good as the non-certified guys, so I think they're paying less attention to certifications than they used to.
I agree that lazy installers are more a problem than graphics drivers are. I recently installed Lotus Notes on Mac OS X, and it tried to reboot my machine! There is no way installing an application on Mac OS X should require a reboot.
Sorry, you must be a Windows user. You're used to Microsoft releasing a new operating system that runs slower and is more insecure every decade or so. Apple makes their operating system work faster and do more on a regular basis, and asks you to buy a new version every couple of year, if you want the new stuff.
I'll give you that "Apple makes some expensive stuff." Since you're completely free to buy it or not, depending on whether you think it's worth the price, and many people like me continue to buy it, I can't see how you justify the "often overcharges" part.
Cell phone companies that lock you into contracts and restrict hardware manufacturers' ability to innovate could be described by your "screw customers over" statement, but I don't see how Apple could be charged with doing that.
I'm one of those people who are still asking, "why?" I admin my own server and use IMAP. Since I travel regularly, I'm more likely to have my PowerBook than an internet connection. Mail.app lets me have my mail with me, search it, work offline, move things onto and off of the server, if I want to. And of course I can use the web mail client on the server to read mail from any other machine. So why would I let Google search through all my mail and target me with ads?
I have an iGo Juice power supply for my laptop that uses various tips to power different laptops, and has a splitter that uses its own set of tips for low-power devices like cell phones and such. The Juice can handle up to 70 watts, so if you don't try to power a laptop, too, I'd think you should be able to split the non-laptop side several times. Then you could use the standard tips to provide the final output voltages you need.
I did try it, but it's not actually iTunes, it just provides an interface that sort of looks like iTunes, and uses Remote Apple Events to control iTunes running on the remote laptop. I'm currently using a simpler version of the same concept. Liveable, but far from ideal.
I have the same problem, but haven't been able to explain it very well, apparently, because everybody gives me the same advice you're getting.
Here's the way I've tried to describe it elsewhere:
I have a server under the house, with several large drives on it, that contains > 300 CDs worth of music in Apple Lossless format. I have two Macs that access that music via iTunes, one in my office and one in the kitchen. I have an old WallStreet PowerBook in the den, connected to the stereo, and use it to play music from that server, too.
What I would like to do, is use iTunes on either the computer in the office or the one in the kitchen to play music on the stereo. I think the Airport Express would do exactly what I want, except I hate to pay for another piece of hardware, when I have a laptop sitting there, already. Besides, I've already run wires, so I don't need the wireless part.
I've experimented with using command-line Unix tools or VNC to remotely control the laptop connected to the stereo. That works, but VNC is painfully slow, and command-line tools are no fun.
Does anybody know of some way to make something other than an Airport Express show up in iTunes as a remote speaker. Heard of an open-source project to do that which I could help out with? Have another idea for what I'm trying to do?
I don't want to sit in the den, with the laptop that is connected to the stereo. I want to sit in my office, run iTunes on the computer in my office, and hear music coming out of the den.
Boy, I couldn't disagree more! USB is great for low-speed connections to peripherals. That's what it was designed for. But I don't want my external hard drive to have to contend with the mouse for bandwidth! I want a separate, high speed connection for storage, which is exactly what Firewire is designed for. Of course, I can't possibly permit either the mouse or the hard drive to affect my refresh rate, so I definitely want a separate, high bandwidth connection for my monitor. And my network connection is sometimes pretty fast, but has severe latency problems, compared to my keyboard, hard drive, or monitor, so I'd like a separate connection for the network.
So lets, see, my Mac has USB for the keyboard and mouse, Firewire for my external hard drives, a VGA port for the monitor and a 10/100/1000 ethernet port for network. Looks just about perfect! Oh, and guess what, my iPod will plug into either the USB or the Firewire ports, how convenient!
I had a 100, and it was actually quite different from the 140 and 170. It was made for Apple by Sony. Besides being much lighter and thinner, it used a lead-acid battery and some seriously advanced power management features to get almost unbelievable battery life.
I used to carry mine to take notes in my college classes. A key combination would put the machine to sleep, and touching any key would instantly wake it back up. I could easily get through eight hours of classes on one battery charge.
I'd have to agree that the 100 was a much more innovative machine than the bigger ones.
Ok, I'll waste some space, too. I've owned dozens of Macs, since the orignal with 128k and 1 floppy, and they've all had on-button mice. As a consultant, I've used Windows with multi-button mice for just as long.
I love Macs and the Mac OS, even though there are sometimes things I think could be better, but I've never hated the on-button mouse. In fact, I really can't say I've even wanted one with more buttons.
I think the real problem is the design of Windows. Here's an example. In Microsoft Word, while you're writing something, how do you look back a couple of pages to refer to something else you wrote, earlier? On my Mac, I hit "page up" a couple of times, and read what I needed to read. The "page up" key didn't move my insertion point, so when I start typing, again, the screen jumps back to where I was. In Windows the "page up" key moves your insertion point, so you either have to use the mouse, or very carefully navigate back to where you want to type. Since the scroll wheel on the mouse comes close to providing "normal" Mac functionality, I use the scroll wheel a lot in Windows. I don't need it on the Mac.
Why not? Since the Mac OS 7.5 days you could replace the mouse that came with your machine and right-click. Now the Mac mini lets you chose your own first mouse, so just get one with two or more buttons.
Start-R For Run.
Are you suggesting you'd rather use Windows' limited little command line than a full Unix terminal? That you don't want the flexibility to choose your own shell (sh, csh, ksh, bash, etc.)? Or are you talking about the fact that you have to use Start-R because Windows puts all of your programs in the Start menu, so you can't find the one you want. Then my question becomes, would you rather have to know and type the name of the executable, rather than have the Dock, which only contains the applications you use often, and use a Command-A in the Finder and jump to the Applications folder for the rest of them?
Upgrade.
Upgrade what? What do you want to add that doesn't plug in to either the Firewire or USB2.0 ports? If there really is something, Apple has a whole line of machines with multiple PCI or faster slots.
Have you ever downloaded an mp3? If copyright infringment is a crime, you're now a criminal.
Have you used DeCSS to watch a DVD in Linux? That's a violation of the DCMA, and make you a criminal.
Have you ever driven a car after drinking one beer? In many states, 0.05% BAC is DWAI, which makes you a criminal.
I once lived in Chicago for a few years. While the guns I have are perfectly legal, where I live, now, just posessing them was a crime, while I lived in Chicago.
Point is, if your argument is that it's OK to track criminals, you might as well bend over so we can insert your tracker, now.
"The real usefullness would be after the fact," is exactly the point. Governments aren't going to prevent crime by catching somebody in the act, they're going to collect enough info that they can threaten to charge sombody with looking at child porn unless they rat out the "bad guys" they are "laundering money" for.
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I'm not sure what happened to that guy. I'm no linux or unix guru, and I failed completely when I tried to get Bugzilla up and running on a fresh Linux box. But I had no trouble at all getting TRAC to work, and I was thrilled to find it's just like subversion: functional enough and easy enough to use that people actually use it. While it may not do everything, it does many things easily enough that people actually use it instead of trying to get around it. I think Trac + Subversion is a tremendous example of the potential of open source.
Who's going to do the weighing? What criteria are they going to use? What if I don't agree with those criteria. How do I get something on the list to be weighed? (I find it annoying that my neighbor's dog barks a lot. I think we should ban dogs.)
I spent some time, recently, trying to find something like that, but decided that everthing I could find was too expensive. Instead, I bought an HP Network ScanJet 5 on eBay, and used the wonderful, customized installation CD provided by David S. Madole (http://www.madole.net/scanjet/) to install FreeBSD on it. Now I have nearly everything I wanted: quick, good quality scans, a large ADF, and the ability to email or fax directly from the device. The only minor detail is that to scan duplex pages, I have to reload the stack, when prompted. The scanning software automatically assmbles the pages in the correct order, I just have to load the stack twice, instead of once.
I think the worse problem is that the gizmos free up "brain cycles" by dealing with things that people used to have to think about, themselves, but people don't use those extra cycles to pay attention to where they're going. They use them to talk on cell phones, eat, or daydream. The net result, many times, is that cars that should make driving easier and safer end up making drivers less observant and more dangerous.
Surely it's a "quantum leap," too, isn't it?
That's one of my favorites, since people always seem to think they mean a large change when they use "quantum leap." Surely some physicist somewhere started the use of that phrase by convincing a friend to use it while laughing at him behind his back.
So, what criteria did you use to decide the need for laptops in third-world countries is "worth more" than my need for an additional hard drive for my home file server? If all people are created equal, how did you get to be the judge of everyone else's need?
The current Mac GUI stinks.
Isn't it great that nobody's forcing you to use it, then? Personally, I'm extremely glad to have the choice. I choose to use Mac OS X, you can use something else.
I personally hate all those extra menu bars in Windows, even when I'm using my big LCD display, and think that the Mac tends to use more sensible keyboard commands to let me avoid using the mouse. I find that I use the mouse much less, on my Mac, than I do on a Windows machine, and think that helps my productivity. Heck just the CMD-Tab vs. CMD-` distinction must save me several minutes a day. I've never really understood the big deal with tabbed browsing, since I can just switch between browser windows with CMD-`
Actually, that was a very insightful comment. What do you suppose people used to use those "boom boxes" with dual cassette decks and 2X "dubbing" capabilities for? Copying tapes for friends, of course. I think I've probably always owned some form of cassette recorder since 1980, and I believe I recorded a school lecture once, and recorded myself pretending to read a radio commercial for a class assignment once. Other than that those recorders were only used for taping music off the radio and copying tapes. So, clearly, cassette recorders should be banned.
The point is not whether there are some, or even any uses of the technology that you think are "good." P2P software is just a tool. It cannot be good or bad any more than a butcher knife is good or bad.
I don't think that's really true. Do you know anyone who bought an iPod because of the add campaign? People bought them because they were well made, and more importantly, extremely easy to use. The coolness happend later, it seems to me.
(Arizona is the only state I know of which still allows non-concealed carrying of a firearm, and even they have laws similar to CCW states - e.g. no carrying in liquor stores. Open carry IS allowed on private property [e.g. your home], which is why most shooting ranges sport openly armed employees. They simply can't go outside like that.)
Colorado allows open carry, and you do, occasionally, see someone, even in a town like Pueblo, openly carrying a pistol. Never seen anybody get too excited about it.
I think you're right. Further, I think many tech managers are starting to realize that the "Certified Idiots" they've been getting aren't as good as the non-certified guys, so I think they're paying less attention to certifications than they used to.
I agree that lazy installers are more a problem than graphics drivers are. I recently installed Lotus Notes on Mac OS X, and it tried to reboot my machine! There is no way installing an application on Mac OS X should require a reboot.
Sorry, you must be a Windows user. You're used to Microsoft releasing a new operating system that runs slower and is more insecure every decade or so. Apple makes their operating system work faster and do more on a regular basis, and asks you to buy a new version every couple of year, if you want the new stuff.
I'll give you that "Apple makes some expensive stuff." Since you're completely free to buy it or not, depending on whether you think it's worth the price, and many people like me continue to buy it, I can't see how you justify the "often overcharges" part.
Cell phone companies that lock you into contracts and restrict hardware manufacturers' ability to innovate could be described by your "screw customers over" statement, but I don't see how Apple could be charged with doing that.
I'm one of those people who are still asking, "why?" I admin my own server and use IMAP. Since I travel regularly, I'm more likely to have my PowerBook than an internet connection. Mail.app lets me have my mail with me, search it, work offline, move things onto and off of the server, if I want to. And of course I can use the web mail client on the server to read mail from any other machine. So why would I let Google search through all my mail and target me with ads?
I have an iGo Juice power supply for my laptop that uses various tips to power different laptops, and has a splitter that uses its own set of tips for low-power devices like cell phones and such. The Juice can handle up to 70 watts, so if you don't try to power a laptop, too, I'd think you should be able to split the non-laptop side several times. Then you could use the standard tips to provide the final output voltages you need.
I did try it, but it's not actually iTunes, it just provides an interface that sort of looks like iTunes, and uses Remote Apple Events to control iTunes running on the remote laptop. I'm currently using a simpler version of the same concept. Liveable, but far from ideal.
It looks like http://www.jackosx.com/ is exactly what I needed!
I have the same problem, but haven't been able to explain it very well, apparently, because everybody gives me the same advice you're getting.
Here's the way I've tried to describe it elsewhere:
I have a server under the house, with several large drives on it, that contains > 300 CDs worth of music in Apple Lossless format. I have two Macs that access that music via iTunes, one in my office and one in the kitchen. I have an old WallStreet PowerBook in the den, connected to the stereo, and use it to play music from that server, too.
What I would like to do, is use iTunes on either the computer in the office or the one in the kitchen to play music on the stereo. I think the Airport Express would do exactly what I want, except I hate to pay for another piece of hardware, when I have a laptop sitting there, already. Besides, I've already run wires, so I don't need the wireless part.
I've experimented with using command-line Unix tools or VNC to remotely control the laptop connected to the stereo. That works, but VNC is painfully slow, and command-line tools are no fun.
Does anybody know of some way to make something other than an Airport Express show up in iTunes as a remote speaker. Heard of an open-source project to do that which I could help out with? Have another idea for what I'm trying to do?
I don't want to sit in the den, with the laptop that is connected to the stereo. I want to sit in my office, run iTunes on the computer in my office, and hear music coming out of the den.
Boy, I couldn't disagree more! USB is great for low-speed connections to peripherals. That's what it was designed for. But I don't want my external hard drive to have to contend with the mouse for bandwidth! I want a separate, high speed connection for storage, which is exactly what Firewire is designed for. Of course, I can't possibly permit either the mouse or the hard drive to affect my refresh rate, so I definitely want a separate, high bandwidth connection for my monitor. And my network connection is sometimes pretty fast, but has severe latency problems, compared to my keyboard, hard drive, or monitor, so I'd like a separate connection for the network.
So lets, see, my Mac has USB for the keyboard and mouse, Firewire for my external hard drives, a VGA port for the monitor and a 10/100/1000 ethernet port for network. Looks just about perfect! Oh, and guess what, my iPod will plug into either the USB or the Firewire ports, how convenient!
I had a 100, and it was actually quite different from the 140 and 170. It was made for Apple by Sony. Besides being much lighter and thinner, it used a lead-acid battery and some seriously advanced power management features to get almost unbelievable battery life.
I used to carry mine to take notes in my college classes. A key combination would put the machine to sleep, and touching any key would instantly wake it back up. I could easily get through eight hours of classes on one battery charge.
I'd have to agree that the 100 was a much more innovative machine than the bigger ones.
Ok, I'll waste some space, too. I've owned dozens of Macs, since the orignal with 128k and 1 floppy, and they've all had on-button mice. As a consultant, I've used Windows with multi-button mice for just as long.
I love Macs and the Mac OS, even though there are sometimes things I think could be better, but I've never hated the on-button mouse. In fact, I really can't say I've even wanted one with more buttons.
I think the real problem is the design of Windows. Here's an example. In Microsoft Word, while you're writing something, how do you look back a couple of pages to refer to something else you wrote, earlier? On my Mac, I hit "page up" a couple of times, and read what I needed to read. The "page up" key didn't move my insertion point, so when I start typing, again, the screen jumps back to where I was. In Windows the "page up" key moves your insertion point, so you either have to use the mouse, or very carefully navigate back to where you want to type. Since the scroll wheel on the mouse comes close to providing "normal" Mac functionality, I use the scroll wheel a lot in Windows. I don't need it on the Mac.
That's meant to be humorous, right?
Right-click.
Why not? Since the Mac OS 7.5 days you could replace the mouse that came with your machine and right-click. Now the Mac mini lets you chose your own first mouse, so just get one with two or more buttons.
Start-R For Run.
Are you suggesting you'd rather use Windows' limited little command line than a full Unix terminal? That you don't want the flexibility to choose your own shell (sh, csh, ksh, bash, etc.)? Or are you talking about the fact that you have to use Start-R because Windows puts all of your programs in the Start menu, so you can't find the one you want. Then my question becomes, would you rather have to know and type the name of the executable, rather than have the Dock, which only contains the applications you use often, and use a Command-A in the Finder and jump to the Applications folder for the rest of them?
Upgrade.
Upgrade what? What do you want to add that doesn't plug in to either the Firewire or USB2.0 ports? If there really is something, Apple has a whole line of machines with multiple PCI or faster slots.
Ah, but if everyone is a criminal....
Have you ever downloaded an mp3? If copyright infringment is a crime, you're now a criminal.
Have you used DeCSS to watch a DVD in Linux? That's a violation of the DCMA, and make you a criminal.
Have you ever driven a car after drinking one beer? In many states, 0.05% BAC is DWAI, which makes you a criminal.
I once lived in Chicago for a few years. While the guns I have are perfectly legal, where I live, now, just posessing them was a crime, while I lived in Chicago.
Point is, if your argument is that it's OK to track criminals, you might as well bend over so we can insert your tracker, now.
"The real usefullness would be after the fact," is exactly the point. Governments aren't going to prevent crime by catching somebody in the act, they're going to collect enough info that they can threaten to charge sombody with looking at child porn unless they rat out the "bad guys" they are "laundering money" for.