You obviously haven't used Flex, Adobe's XML/Actionscript based dev produce which uses Eclipse for the development environment. There are issues with eclipse, notably memory usage, but it is a pretty 'serious' ide, with integrated debugging, UI Layout designer, etc.
There is also a new app in the works called Thermo, which should ease some of the issues with design iterations between the things animated in Flash CS3 on a timeline, and those in Flex done using the event model.
And silverlight isn't going anywhere very quickly, simply because of inertia. People are already familiar with flash, and more and more so flex. You can already go out and buy thousands of commercial Flash components, which can be used in Flex as well. Flash is coming out with x264 HD support and AAC as well.
Flex 3 is also going Open Source, which is going to go a long way towards ensuring it's continued domination in that area.
Errata: Meant to say 100,000 not 100,000k for unique vistors. This was on a single dual cpu server (2 ghz I think, whatever server beach gives us).
Storing sessions in the database also helps (Rails 2.0 wants to do it client side by default, but I'm not down with that). Memcached for sessions is an obvious big win. Putting 50k files in a directory is never good, is why you don't want to use the default.
We have used multiple servers (3-4) load-balancing before to handle high load, but that was back when we were still using Mongrel, tho it is fairy easy to throw a couple of more servers at the problem.
Re:Scaling matters if you're Digg. Are you Digg?
on
Ruby on Rails 2.0 is Done
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Every time a RoR article hits Slashdot, there is a scale/speed question that gets raised. Realistically, there are a ton of things you can do to get performance where you want it to be. The first is to dump mongrel and use FastCGI or similar. FastCGI is 3-5x faster than mongrel. Mongrel is great for low traffic sites, and for dev, don't get me wrong.
The upper limit I see with RoR/FCGI is around 2500 requests per sec, for a 'is the server alive' ping, that simply returns 'Yes'. Typical, results are in the ~100 requests per second range with moderate db access, and rendering to xml or html. 100 requests per second was enough to handle a 24 hour media buy on the frontpage of myspace for example (100,000k unique visitors-ish).
Moving your static assets off of your server and on to S3 or another CDN is obviously a big help here, so your server/bandwidth is only taken up with requests that need/affect the db. From the example above, with the MySpace media buy, the total for that day was $20-30 I believe in bandwidth costs, and this was a site with a video mixer that had tons of images/video/mp3 and large flash objects. Obviously, mongrel shouldn't be delivering your assets locally anyway, apache/lighty etc should be.
Ultimately it comes down to design and caching when it comes to getting that top performance out of it. My 100 requests/sec wasn't using MemCached or fragment caching, and the mysql db was local. Caching in Rails is a little less than helpful for highly customized for each user sites, but there are plugins that extend it like extended_fragment_cache(ing?), that allow you to templatize things like ID's, etc. Think of say a forum topic listing, where only the topics change as you paginate. With extended fragment caching, you basically draw the page once, and then pass in a hash of the variables that replace the placeholders each time you draw a new page.
Another big thing with ajax sites, is to use link_to_remote with the:update => 'some_div', rather than using the rjs/render:update stuff in the controller. escape_javascript is one of the BIG performance issues in Rails, as it is basically just multiple gsubs. Designing around that is a big win. A native C escape_javascript should be a high priority for the rails/ruby devs, with optimization for the memory allocations (ie. scan the string to see how much it will grow, allocate, and just do one pass to expand).
Quote from Pragmatic Ruby(page 22) (added bolding):
Ruby Escapes Its Past
In the old days Ruby borrowed a lot from the Perl language. One of
these features is a certain "magic" when it comes to global variables,
and probably no global is more magical than $_. For example, the
gets method has a side effect: as well as returning the line just read,
it also stores it into $_. If you call print with no argument, it prints the
contents of $_. If you write an if or while statement with just a regular
expression as the condition, that expression is matched against $_.
As a result of all this magic, you could write the following program to
look for all lines in a file containing the text Ruby.
while gets
if/Ruby/
print
end
end
However, this style of Ruby programming is rapidly falling out of fashion
with purists. As one of these purists happens to be Matz, you'll
now find that Ruby issues warnings for many of these special uses:
expect to see these features go away in the future.
That doesn't mean you have to write more verbose programs. The
"Ruby way" to write this would be to use an iterator and the predefined
object ARGF, which represents the program's input files.
ARGF.each {|line| print line if line =~/Ruby/ }
You could write it even more concisely.
print ARGF.grep(/Ruby/)
In general, there's a move away from some of the Perlisms in the
Ruby community. If you run your programs with the w
flag to enable
warnings (you do run with warnings enabled, don't you?), you'll find
the Ruby interpreter catches most of them.
No, meaning $_ $! $0 and the perl special variables that some say contribute to it's illegibilty. Just saying that Ruby/Rails has identical special variables named the same, but that they are deprecated/recommended not to be used. There are also a number of quoting and array definition schemes used, like %w( ant bear cat ) or %(Escape this) that are equally 'mysterious', and have other ways to be done that are a little more transparent.
Just saying that Ruby historically has some of those same things people complain about in perl, as an observation.
Gah, reformatted to POT:
To be fair I think the iPhone is a great product. But it doesn't have a built-in reader yet, and until it does, and it works without having to tap screens (use the volume up down I guess?) then it isn't going to match the WM stuff out there.
Here is my list of things:
* iPhone lockin: can't even use it because ATT service doesn't cover my apartment in NYC.
* iTunes may be a nice feature, but mp3's are just as easy to use, and there are solutions to get iTunes in sync with your WM device. (ppcTunes, etc) Audio/Visual media playback for me is the least used functionality of my pda. Reading is the most by far.
* 8 hours of talk time: I read on my PDA for 5-6 hours a day on average, and have to recharge once a day/every other day with that. Kill me know if I talk on my phone more than 8 hours a MONTH lol. I would imagine that using an iPhone in the same manner (costantly on backlight) would give similar results in the battery department. Apple didn't go out an design new battery trech, or low power lcd's, so I just can't see how it could make that much of a difference.
* Lack of buttons as a selling point: Yes, it is a nice design, but I am very happy that I have the tiny unobtrusive buttons on the side of my device for use when turning pages when reading an ebook.
* All WM devices have numerous on screen keyboards that can be used, as well as handwriting recognition. T9, full keyboard, etc. are all usable. Personally, I love my handwriting recognition. I keep a journal on my PDA, and the act of *writing* it out increases my enjoyment, even if it does get converted into text. Is there a learning curve to a stylus? Sure, but for the millions of us who have been using one for years now, it isn't any different that having to learn some other interface. And unless you have really fat fingers, you can get away without using it for 90% of your common tasks. Apple handles that last 10%, but that isn't like light years improvement, thats incremental.
* 3rd party apps: The semi-slur against *needing* 3rd party apps to match some features of iPhone, is probably the least compelling of your arguments.
A) If you want it you can get it for free if you take a little time.
B) If it doesn't exist, I can write it myself. Sure in a few months there will be a reasonable way to get 3rd party apps onto the device, but it isn't here now.
* Not sure how, if your boss buys your phone, whether it is iPhone or WM, your boss wouldn't be able to terminate it, or ask for it back or whatever if you get fired.
* Most people don't juggle SD cards. And at least with most other phones you can add do that. I can go out and buy my 8GB SD card for 60$ today. A year from now, I will be able to buy a 16GB for the same price, and a year after that, 32GB. Meanwhile, the iPhone will be stuck at 8GB or whatever for the length of the contract, and however longer I want to use the device.
* Newer devices have some of the features of iPhone touch screen, like the HTC Touchflo. I won't say it's the same or as good, but it is there.
* Cant run anything besides WM: WM has its warts, I agree, but it is far from a joke IMO. It has been around for 8+ years. I think it is awesome the Apple is doing what it is doing, shaking up UI design, but where was Apple for the last few years?
Things I like to do with my PDA, that I can't do on an iPhone currently (without hacking it):
* ssh to servers
* VNC to my main home system
* Play Worms, Galaga, etc.
* Read ebooks.
I really think the iPhone is great, and probably the best PDA out there for the functions that it provides, but it isn't if you want anything outside of the box. I look forward to more improvements in all PDA software because of the innovations Apple is bringing to the table.
To be fair I think the iPhone is a great product. But it doesn't have a built-in reader yet, and until it does, and it works without having to tap screens (use the volume up down I guess?) then it isn't going to match the WM stuff out there.
Here is my list of things:
* iPhone lockin: can't even use it because ATT service doesn't cover my apartment in NYC.
* iTunes may be a nice feature, but mp3's are just as easy to use, and there are solutions to get iTunes in sync with your WM device. (ppcTunes, etc) Audio/Visual media playback for me is the least used functionality of my pda. Reading is the most by far.
* 8 hours of talk time: I read on my PDA for 5-6 hours a day on average, and have to recharge once a day/every other day with that. Kill me know if I talk on my phone more than 8 hours a MONTH lol. I would imagine that using an iPhone in the same manner (costantly on backlight) would give similar results in the battery department. Apple didn't go out an design new battery trech, or low power lcd's, so I just can't see how it could make that much of a difference.
* Lack of buttons as a selling point: Yes, it is a nice design, but I am very happy that I have the tiny unobtrusive buttons on the side of my device for use when turning pages when reading an ebook.
* All WM devices have numerous on screen keyboards that can be used, as well as handwriting recognition. T9, full keyboard, etc. are all usable. Personally, I love my handwriting recognition. I keep a journal on my PDA, and the act of *writing* it out increases my enjoyment, even if it does get converted into text. Is there a learning curve to a stylus? Sure, but for the millions of us who have been using one for years now, it isn't any different that having to learn some other interface. And unless you have really fat fingers, you can get away without using it for 90% of your common tasks. Apple handles that last 10%, but that isn't like light years improvement, thats incremental.
* 3rd party apps: The semi-slur against *needing* 3rd party apps to match some features of iPhone, is probably the least compelling of your arguments.
A) If you want it you can get it for free if you take a little time.
B) If it doesn't exist, I can write it myself. Sure in a few months there will be a reasonable way to get 3rd party apps onto the device, but it isn't here now.
* Not sure how, if your boss buys your phone, whether it is iPhone or WM, your boss wouldn't be able to terminate it, or ask for it back or whatever if you get fired.
* Most people don't juggle SD cards. And at least with most other phones you can add do that. I can go out and buy my 8GB SD card for 60$ today. A year from now, I will be able to buy a 16GB for the same price, and a year after that, 32GB. Meanwhile, the iPhone will be stuck at 8GB or whatever for the length of the contract, and however longer I want to use the device.
* Newer devices have some of the features of iPhone touch screen, like the HTC Touchflo. I won't say it's the same or as good, but it is there.
* Cant run anything besides WM: WM has its warts, I agree, but it is far from a joke IMO. It has been around for 8+ years. I think it is awesome the Apple is doing what it is doing, shaking up UI design, but where was Apple for the last few years?
Things I like to do with my PDA, that I can't do on an iPhone currently (without hacking it):
* ssh to servers
* VNC to my main home system
* Play Worms, Galaga, etc.
* Read ebooks.
I really think the iPhone is great, and probably the best PDA out there for the functions that it provides, but it isn't if you want anything outside of the box. I look forward to more improvements in all PDA software because of the innovations Apple is bringing to the table.
I'm of the complete opposite camp. I read all of my books on my PDA (HTC 6700). It is perfectly readable and easy to use. Furthermore, once you get used to your eyes not having to travel across the pages, it actually is noticeable when you read a large hardcover or printed sheet, in tracking the line changes when your eyes 'carriage return'.
Bookmarking is great depending on your product ( I use uBook), as well as highlighting, notes, strike thru, dictionary lookup with 2 taps. I have the Oxford English Dictionary on my PDA with 250,000 definitions, weighing in at 25MB. Reading a David Foster Wallace book without it would be unthinkable.
The book isn't available in ebook form? You would be surprised how easy it is to find tons of the newest release sci-fi/fantasy/bestsellers/computer books/etc. in the darker corners of USENET and IRC. It only takes about an hour of effort to have a standard 300 page paperback scanned, ocr'd and ready to be read.
For me, the 'light' came in the form of RSS(wrist not feed), and trying to hold a 5 pound tome in my hands for a few hours at a stretch. Holding a 4-5oz pda is a lot nicer on the pain.
My main concern with the iPhone would be reading with one hand. If I have to reach up and touch my screen even 20 seconds to turn a page, then it just isn't usable. I currenlty use my XV6700 (uBook) for all of my reading needs, and I have most of the buttons on the side of the device converted to 'Turn page' as I read all of my books on it. When most 300 page novels translate into 1000 pages on a PDA sized ebook reader, turning the page quickly and easily becomes VERY important.
The issue is not about the device. The issue is about the restictive service. I would go out and buy an iPhone tomorrow if Verizon carried it, as Verizon is the ONLY carrier in NYC that I get reception from in my apartment. All coverage/service is not created equal, and in my case there is literally only one provider I can use. Don't get me wrong, Verizon is a pos as well as far as their phone selection. I'm using an XV6700 that's 2 years old, and that is still the most recent model they carry in a full sized PDA phone. God forbid the HTC Touch or XV6800 be available. And of course you can't just go out and buy a compatible phone and bring it into the network.
What I want to know is why I can't by a simple 100$ DVD Burner changer/kit the just picks up a disk, puts it in the tray and popus it out when done. The cheapest ones around cost at least 600$. This seems like it would be ripe for a DIY kit. And the nice thing about DIY kits: No patents to worry about.
No one is saying you can't have patents. The point is patents shouldn't give you exclusive rights to be the only one to make something with those patents. You are *supposed* to license your patents at reasonable rates, not try to litigate people out of the market. Business method and software patents are the obvious exception here, as they should never have been allowed to begin with.
Now you may ask what 'reasonable' rates are. The benefit of patents is that if you make the product yourself, you don't have to license your own patents to yourself, which should give you an advantage over your competitors, other things being equal. SANdisk's problem is that they probably couldn't compete on price even if they did license their patents at reasonable rates, so they try to charge unreasonable rates and/or force competitors out of business.
IMO anyway
On RCN in NYC I get all digital tier 1 channels unecrypted (ie Discovery, but not Discovery Wings) including Comedy/ScfFi etc. I get nbs,cbs,abs,fox,pbshd, tnt, tbs & National Geeographic channel as far as HD goes, all on QAM. Plus the digital music channels and I can snoop on all the PPV porn I want, though it is annoying when they fast forward through the good parts:P
"It is a conventional meteorite that, when it struck, produced gases by fusing with elements of the terrain," he said. He also ruled out that the object was a satellite. "
When Windows E13v3n comes out, I'm sure I will still be waiting for a real tabbed cmd prompt like Konsole. And the SF 'Console' project, and the pay one from Lighthouse or whatever don't count since they use IO redirection and have serious flushing issues.
How this got modded interesting, I don't know, especially when you proceed to troll your own thread, lol.
First off, your title already indicates a bias against your so-called necessary proof. Most people discussing this call it 'Global Climate Change' these days, if they are doing it seriously, because of the various factors involved in 'Greenhouse Gases' and particulate matter causing 'Global Dimming'. Also the use of cult is obviously meant to be used in a derogatory way, that you somehow have an enlightened view over the brainwashed 'cult' members.
Calling people 'chicken littles' is insulting and disingenuous as well. The overwhelming majority of scientists (including most climatologists) agree that the increase in weather variability will have a negative impact on plant and animal species including humans, IN 50 to 100 YEARS. Saying, 'Hey Mom, new stop sign at this intersection,' when you are 100 yards away from it isn't being hysterical. It saying 'take your foot off the gas so we don't blow through it without noticing'.
And speaking again of 'chicken littles': Quote: "This is more government micromanagement that will do nothing but further bring us down." Pot, meet the kettle. Kettle, Pot.
And then my favorite debate tactic you used: [paraphrased] Assuming it is true, we are screwed anyway so why bother?
What are you in 4th grade?
like Ab Initio's Co>Operating System. It uses distributed file systems as well for distributed Extraction Transaction & Loading of data warehouse type applications. But it's as expensive as hell, like $5-10k per processor licensing fee. Be interesting if something like that was built on top of this.
I think one of the main reasons this isnt happening is because of the wacky licensing for Ventrilo for example....they only sell 1000 slot servers or you have to use an outside vendor for that. What's more, the terms say they can pull your contract at pretty much any time if you arent using more and more slots over time. Ventrilo is totally missing boat on this one. Teamspeak does have commercial use terms which arent too bad...~$1 per user per year.
Slashdot Mirror
You obviously haven't used Flex, Adobe's XML/Actionscript based dev produce which uses Eclipse for the development environment. There are issues with eclipse, notably memory usage, but it is a pretty 'serious' ide, with integrated debugging, UI Layout designer, etc.
There is also a new app in the works called Thermo, which should ease some of the issues with design iterations between the things animated in Flash CS3 on a timeline, and those in Flex done using the event model.
And silverlight isn't going anywhere very quickly, simply because of inertia. People are already familiar with flash, and more and more so flex. You can already go out and buy thousands of commercial Flash components, which can be used in Flex as well. Flash is coming out with x264 HD support and AAC as well.
Flex 3 is also going Open Source, which is going to go a long way towards ensuring it's continued domination in that area.
Errata:
Meant to say 100,000 not 100,000k for unique vistors.
This was on a single dual cpu server (2 ghz I think, whatever server beach gives us).
Storing sessions in the database also helps (Rails 2.0 wants to do it client side by default, but I'm not down with that). Memcached for sessions is an obvious big win. Putting 50k files in a directory is never good, is why you don't want to use the default.
We have used multiple servers (3-4) load-balancing before to handle high load, but that was back when we were still using Mongrel, tho it is fairy easy to throw a couple of more servers at the problem.
Every time a RoR article hits Slashdot, there is a scale/speed question that gets raised. Realistically, there are a ton of things you can do to get performance where you want it to be. The first is to dump mongrel and use FastCGI or similar. FastCGI is 3-5x faster than mongrel. Mongrel is great for low traffic sites, and for dev, don't get me wrong.
:update => 'some_div', rather than using the rjs/render :update stuff in the controller. escape_javascript is one of the BIG performance issues in Rails, as it is basically just multiple gsubs. Designing around that is a big win. A native C escape_javascript should be a high priority for the rails/ruby devs, with optimization for the memory allocations (ie. scan the string to see how much it will grow, allocate, and just do one pass to expand).
The upper limit I see with RoR/FCGI is around 2500 requests per sec, for a 'is the server alive' ping, that simply returns 'Yes'. Typical, results are in the ~100 requests per second range with moderate db access, and rendering to xml or html. 100 requests per second was enough to handle a 24 hour media buy on the frontpage of myspace for example (100,000k unique visitors-ish).
Moving your static assets off of your server and on to S3 or another CDN is obviously a big help here, so your server/bandwidth is only taken up with requests that need/affect the db. From the example above, with the MySpace media buy, the total for that day was $20-30 I believe in bandwidth costs, and this was a site with a video mixer that had tons of images/video/mp3 and large flash objects. Obviously, mongrel shouldn't be delivering your assets locally anyway, apache/lighty etc should be.
Ultimately it comes down to design and caching when it comes to getting that top performance out of it. My 100 requests/sec wasn't using MemCached or fragment caching, and the mysql db was local. Caching in Rails is a little less than helpful for highly customized for each user sites, but there are plugins that extend it like extended_fragment_cache(ing?), that allow you to templatize things like ID's, etc. Think of say a forum topic listing, where only the topics change as you paginate. With extended fragment caching, you basically draw the page once, and then pass in a hash of the variables that replace the placeholders each time you draw a new page.
Another big thing with ajax sites, is to use link_to_remote with the
In the old days Ruby borrowed a lot from the Perl language. One of these features is a certain "magic" when it comes to global variables, and probably no global is more magical than $_. For example, the gets method has a side effect: as well as returning the line just read, it also stores it into $_. If you call print with no argument, it prints the contents of $_. If you write an if or while statement with just a regular expression as the condition, that expression is matched against $_. As a result of all this magic, you could write the following program to look for all lines in a file containing the text Ruby.
while gets if /Ruby/
print
end
end
However, this style of Ruby programming is rapidly falling out of fashion with purists. As one of these purists happens to be Matz, you'll now find that Ruby issues warnings for many of these special uses: expect to see these features go away in the future. That doesn't mean you have to write more verbose programs. The "Ruby way" to write this would be to use an iterator and the predefined object ARGF, which represents the program's input files. ARGF.each {|line| print line if line =~ /Ruby/ }
You could write it even more concisely.
print ARGF.grep(/Ruby/)
In general, there's a move away from some of the Perlisms in the Ruby community. If you run your programs with the w flag to enable warnings (you do run with warnings enabled, don't you?), you'll find the Ruby interpreter catches most of them.
No, meaning $_ $! $0 and the perl special variables that some say contribute to it's illegibilty. Just saying that Ruby/Rails has identical special variables named the same, but that they are deprecated/recommended not to be used. There are also a number of quoting and array definition schemes used, like %w( ant bear cat ) or %(Escape this) that are equally 'mysterious', and have other ways to be done that are a little more transparent.
Just saying that Ruby historically has some of those same things people complain about in perl, as an observation.
Of course, ruby supports almost identical $ and % shortcut functions, thought thankfully they are deprecated.
Gah, reformatted to POT: To be fair I think the iPhone is a great product. But it doesn't have a built-in reader yet, and until it does, and it works without having to tap screens (use the volume up down I guess?) then it isn't going to match the WM stuff out there. Here is my list of things: * iPhone lockin: can't even use it because ATT service doesn't cover my apartment in NYC. * iTunes may be a nice feature, but mp3's are just as easy to use, and there are solutions to get iTunes in sync with your WM device. (ppcTunes, etc) Audio/Visual media playback for me is the least used functionality of my pda. Reading is the most by far. * 8 hours of talk time: I read on my PDA for 5-6 hours a day on average, and have to recharge once a day/every other day with that. Kill me know if I talk on my phone more than 8 hours a MONTH lol. I would imagine that using an iPhone in the same manner (costantly on backlight) would give similar results in the battery department. Apple didn't go out an design new battery trech, or low power lcd's, so I just can't see how it could make that much of a difference. * Lack of buttons as a selling point: Yes, it is a nice design, but I am very happy that I have the tiny unobtrusive buttons on the side of my device for use when turning pages when reading an ebook. * All WM devices have numerous on screen keyboards that can be used, as well as handwriting recognition. T9, full keyboard, etc. are all usable. Personally, I love my handwriting recognition. I keep a journal on my PDA, and the act of *writing* it out increases my enjoyment, even if it does get converted into text. Is there a learning curve to a stylus? Sure, but for the millions of us who have been using one for years now, it isn't any different that having to learn some other interface. And unless you have really fat fingers, you can get away without using it for 90% of your common tasks. Apple handles that last 10%, but that isn't like light years improvement, thats incremental. * 3rd party apps: The semi-slur against *needing* 3rd party apps to match some features of iPhone, is probably the least compelling of your arguments. A) If you want it you can get it for free if you take a little time. B) If it doesn't exist, I can write it myself. Sure in a few months there will be a reasonable way to get 3rd party apps onto the device, but it isn't here now. * Not sure how, if your boss buys your phone, whether it is iPhone or WM, your boss wouldn't be able to terminate it, or ask for it back or whatever if you get fired. * Most people don't juggle SD cards. And at least with most other phones you can add do that. I can go out and buy my 8GB SD card for 60$ today. A year from now, I will be able to buy a 16GB for the same price, and a year after that, 32GB. Meanwhile, the iPhone will be stuck at 8GB or whatever for the length of the contract, and however longer I want to use the device. * Newer devices have some of the features of iPhone touch screen, like the HTC Touchflo. I won't say it's the same or as good, but it is there. * Cant run anything besides WM: WM has its warts, I agree, but it is far from a joke IMO. It has been around for 8+ years. I think it is awesome the Apple is doing what it is doing, shaking up UI design, but where was Apple for the last few years? Things I like to do with my PDA, that I can't do on an iPhone currently (without hacking it): * ssh to servers * VNC to my main home system * Play Worms, Galaga, etc. * Read ebooks. I really think the iPhone is great, and probably the best PDA out there for the functions that it provides, but it isn't if you want anything outside of the box. I look forward to more improvements in all PDA software because of the innovations Apple is bringing to the table.
To be fair I think the iPhone is a great product. But it doesn't have a built-in reader yet, and until it does, and it works without having to tap screens (use the volume up down I guess?) then it isn't going to match the WM stuff out there. Here is my list of things: * iPhone lockin: can't even use it because ATT service doesn't cover my apartment in NYC. * iTunes may be a nice feature, but mp3's are just as easy to use, and there are solutions to get iTunes in sync with your WM device. (ppcTunes, etc) Audio/Visual media playback for me is the least used functionality of my pda. Reading is the most by far. * 8 hours of talk time: I read on my PDA for 5-6 hours a day on average, and have to recharge once a day/every other day with that. Kill me know if I talk on my phone more than 8 hours a MONTH lol. I would imagine that using an iPhone in the same manner (costantly on backlight) would give similar results in the battery department. Apple didn't go out an design new battery trech, or low power lcd's, so I just can't see how it could make that much of a difference. * Lack of buttons as a selling point: Yes, it is a nice design, but I am very happy that I have the tiny unobtrusive buttons on the side of my device for use when turning pages when reading an ebook. * All WM devices have numerous on screen keyboards that can be used, as well as handwriting recognition. T9, full keyboard, etc. are all usable. Personally, I love my handwriting recognition. I keep a journal on my PDA, and the act of *writing* it out increases my enjoyment, even if it does get converted into text. Is there a learning curve to a stylus? Sure, but for the millions of us who have been using one for years now, it isn't any different that having to learn some other interface. And unless you have really fat fingers, you can get away without using it for 90% of your common tasks. Apple handles that last 10%, but that isn't like light years improvement, thats incremental. * 3rd party apps: The semi-slur against *needing* 3rd party apps to match some features of iPhone, is probably the least compelling of your arguments. A) If you want it you can get it for free if you take a little time. B) If it doesn't exist, I can write it myself. Sure in a few months there will be a reasonable way to get 3rd party apps onto the device, but it isn't here now. * Not sure how, if your boss buys your phone, whether it is iPhone or WM, your boss wouldn't be able to terminate it, or ask for it back or whatever if you get fired. * Most people don't juggle SD cards. And at least with most other phones you can add do that. I can go out and buy my 8GB SD card for 60$ today. A year from now, I will be able to buy a 16GB for the same price, and a year after that, 32GB. Meanwhile, the iPhone will be stuck at 8GB or whatever for the length of the contract, and however longer I want to use the device. * Newer devices have some of the features of iPhone touch screen, like the HTC Touchflo. I won't say it's the same or as good, but it is there. * Cant run anything besides WM: WM has its warts, I agree, but it is far from a joke IMO. It has been around for 8+ years. I think it is awesome the Apple is doing what it is doing, shaking up UI design, but where was Apple for the last few years? Things I like to do with my PDA, that I can't do on an iPhone currently (without hacking it): * ssh to servers * VNC to my main home system * Play Worms, Galaga, etc. * Read ebooks. I really think the iPhone is great, and probably the best PDA out there for the functions that it provides, but it isn't if you want anything outside of the box. I look forward to more improvements in all PDA software because of the innovations Apple is bringing to the table.
I'm of the complete opposite camp. I read all of my books on my PDA (HTC 6700). It is perfectly readable and easy to use. Furthermore, once you get used to your eyes not having to travel across the pages, it actually is noticeable when you read a large hardcover or printed sheet, in tracking the line changes when your eyes 'carriage return'.
Bookmarking is great depending on your product ( I use uBook), as well as highlighting, notes, strike thru, dictionary lookup with 2 taps. I have the Oxford English Dictionary on my PDA with 250,000 definitions, weighing in at 25MB. Reading a David Foster Wallace book without it would be unthinkable.
The book isn't available in ebook form? You would be surprised how easy it is to find tons of the newest release sci-fi/fantasy/bestsellers/computer books/etc. in the darker corners of USENET and IRC. It only takes about an hour of effort to have a standard 300 page paperback scanned, ocr'd and ready to be read.
For me, the 'light' came in the form of RSS(wrist not feed), and trying to hold a 5 pound tome in my hands for a few hours at a stretch. Holding a 4-5oz pda is a lot nicer on the pain.
My main concern with the iPhone would be reading with one hand. If I have to reach up and touch my screen even 20 seconds to turn a page, then it just isn't usable. I currenlty use my XV6700 (uBook) for all of my reading needs, and I have most of the buttons on the side of the device converted to 'Turn page' as I read all of my books on it. When most 300 page novels translate into 1000 pages on a PDA sized ebook reader, turning the page quickly and easily becomes VERY important.
Yea at 60$ for the SD just to store wikipedia, I think the access fee looks a lot more compelling.
Pretty sure that like most other dedicated ereaders out there, it has a screen at least the size of a tradeback (5x7 ish?).
The issue is not about the device. The issue is about the restictive service. I would go out and buy an iPhone tomorrow if Verizon carried it, as Verizon is the ONLY carrier in NYC that I get reception from in my apartment. All coverage/service is not created equal, and in my case there is literally only one provider I can use. Don't get me wrong, Verizon is a pos as well as far as their phone selection. I'm using an XV6700 that's 2 years old, and that is still the most recent model they carry in a full sized PDA phone. God forbid the HTC Touch or XV6800 be available. And of course you can't just go out and buy a compatible phone and bring it into the network.
What I want to know is why I can't by a simple 100$ DVD Burner changer/kit the just picks up a disk, puts it in the tray and popus it out when done. The cheapest ones around cost at least 600$. This seems like it would be ripe for a DIY kit. And the nice thing about DIY kits: No patents to worry about.
No one is saying you can't have patents. The point is patents shouldn't give you exclusive rights to be the only one to make something with those patents. You are *supposed* to license your patents at reasonable rates, not try to litigate people out of the market. Business method and software patents are the obvious exception here, as they should never have been allowed to begin with. Now you may ask what 'reasonable' rates are. The benefit of patents is that if you make the product yourself, you don't have to license your own patents to yourself, which should give you an advantage over your competitors, other things being equal. SANdisk's problem is that they probably couldn't compete on price even if they did license their patents at reasonable rates, so they try to charge unreasonable rates and/or force competitors out of business. IMO anyway
On RCN in NYC I get all digital tier 1 channels unecrypted (ie Discovery, but not Discovery Wings) including Comedy/ScfFi etc. I get nbs,cbs,abs,fox,pbshd, tnt, tbs & National Geeographic channel as far as HD goes, all on QAM. Plus the digital music channels and I can snoop on all the PPV porn I want, though it is annoying when they fast forward through the good parts :P
Just get an HDHomeRun which will decode unencrypted QAM signals on most cable and stream it to any system on the network.
"It is a conventional meteorite that, when it struck, produced gases by fusing with elements of the terrain," he said. He also ruled out that the object was a satellite. "
When Windows E13v3n comes out, I'm sure I will still be waiting for a real tabbed cmd prompt like Konsole. And the SF 'Console' project, and the pay one from Lighthouse or whatever don't count since they use IO redirection and have serious flushing issues.
You mean dwarf priest...TT sucks :P Damn alliance.
Yep, THAT's exactly the problem :P
How this got modded interesting, I don't know, especially when you proceed to troll your own thread, lol. First off, your title already indicates a bias against your so-called necessary proof. Most people discussing this call it 'Global Climate Change' these days, if they are doing it seriously, because of the various factors involved in 'Greenhouse Gases' and particulate matter causing 'Global Dimming'. Also the use of cult is obviously meant to be used in a derogatory way, that you somehow have an enlightened view over the brainwashed 'cult' members. Calling people 'chicken littles' is insulting and disingenuous as well. The overwhelming majority of scientists (including most climatologists) agree that the increase in weather variability will have a negative impact on plant and animal species including humans, IN 50 to 100 YEARS. Saying, 'Hey Mom, new stop sign at this intersection,' when you are 100 yards away from it isn't being hysterical. It saying 'take your foot off the gas so we don't blow through it without noticing'. And speaking again of 'chicken littles': Quote: "This is more government micromanagement that will do nothing but further bring us down." Pot, meet the kettle. Kettle, Pot. And then my favorite debate tactic you used: [paraphrased] Assuming it is true, we are screwed anyway so why bother? What are you in 4th grade?
like Ab Initio's Co>Operating System. It uses distributed file systems as well for distributed Extraction Transaction & Loading of data warehouse type applications. But it's as expensive as hell, like $5-10k per processor licensing fee. Be interesting if something like that was built on top of this.
I think one of the main reasons this isnt happening is because of the wacky licensing for Ventrilo for example....they only sell 1000 slot servers or you have to use an outside vendor for that. What's more, the terms say they can pull your contract at pretty much any time if you arent using more and more slots over time. Ventrilo is totally missing boat on this one. Teamspeak does have commercial use terms which arent too bad...~$1 per user per year.