The problem with this device is that it doesn't have a keyboard, and you really need a scroll wheel to select songs from a hard drive-based MP3 player.
I recommend the t-mobile sidekick II as a device that can do everything but play music.
I saw a girl today who carried both a mobile phone and an iPod, one on each hip. It looked almost like she had two weapons on her hip, and they were both aimed at whatever hapless person was talking to her at the time.
You're absolutely right about this, and Longhorn might be a step in the right direction, or at least a step away from the pit. Seems a pity they had to copy Apple to get there, but at least they did.
And I laughed at your message, because it was so true.
The way they're setting up the Control Panel looks a lot like Apple's reorganized System Preferences in Panther, only not as elegant.
Maybe I'm insane but to me the new interface looks a few steps back from XP in terms of looks. Back towards the "gloomy gus" look that characterized Windows 2000 and older versions. Not quite the right way to go.
I'm sure that by the time this became a serious problem, Apple will have made the switch as well. Right now, both ATI and nVidia have come up with some very elaborate graphics cards that run with the PowerMac G5, and I think they want some return on their investment before the switch happens.
I agree with your post, however, that we original 2.0ghz dual processor G5 owners are going to need something stronger than this upgrade to make a purchase. I probably would buy a dual core version of the existing machine since that would be an enormous performance improvement.
I'm a little surprised from 'As Seen on TV' that the average Mac user replaces his system every five years. There's a pretty large share of PowerMac owners that would love to replace their machine every year, or as often as a truly major upgrade comes up. I would think Apple would aim at those people and of course grab a healthy share of the rest more or less automatically.
Apple's approach is not going to work for Windows users.
Apple users, such as myself, are enthusiasts. When Tiger comes out, we'll be in line at the Apple store, or waiting at our mailbox for it. But that's because we love Apple products and trust Steve, our deity, to pull something wonderful out of the his hat for us. So much for $129.
Windows' deity is Bill, and frankly Windows users seem to have a love/hate relationship with him. Consider Windows XP Service Pack 2. Nobody's being asked to pay $129 for it, even though it took about the same amount of work to produce as Tiger. It's free. And the Kool-Aid drinkers in major corporations are still rejecting it, because they know it will give them nothing but throbbing migraines for the next month. Such is the reputation of Microsoft and its updates.
So look. If you're having trouble getting people to accept your essential update for free, can you imagine how tough it is to get people to pay for the next version?
So Bill's minions have no choice but to try and make their new system the greatest thing since sliced bread. Frankly, I don't see how they're going to do it because the pain of moving to a new Windows version is just plain huge, and people know this now.
I don't see how taxing the wealthiest and giving the money to the poor has any connection whatsoever with offshore outsourcing. All taxing the wealthy does is drive economic activity out of the US.
Offshore outsourcing is about the greatest good for the greatest number. If you have to pay a programmer $60k in the SF Bay Area for him to survive in a more or less bare sustenance lifestyle, and you could pay a programmer $10k in India and let him live like a pasha, which would you rather do?
The projects I've been involved with have been ones where I can work as a single developer and do everything. In that case, it's most cost-effective to hire an American (namely me) because the overhead of hiring people in India only becomes viable when you need whole teams of people.
With people avoiding the CS major and computing careers in droves, because of its perceived dead end nature, there is likely to be a shortage of programmers over the next few years. Strange but true.
But that's then and this is now. In the mean time, I've shifted my career from programming and software design to multimedia development and entrepreneurial ventures. These are areas where it still makes sense to be here in the US.
I'm pessimistic about US jobs because I know the people in India are good people who need the jobs as much as we do. Slamming the door on them doesn't strike me as the answer. If there is a single answer from the American point of view, I think it's for each of us to become more competitive by working closer to end users and/or changing our careers entirely.
It does seem interesting that they've been shedding features, seemingly backing off from most of the things that were supposed to make Longhorn special. In the mean time, Apple's powering along and giving Mac users exactly what was promised in versions of MacOS X. I think that's a bad sign by any standard.
Another bad sign is that they claimed that it would be finished in mid-2006 and now it's "holiday" 2006. So in theory they might release December 24th now.
As I remember them, betas of MacOS X were feature-complete but very slow, and then speeds improved as the release got closer. I wouldn't expect enough changes in the interface to make it less than disappointing to these reviewers.
Those indications make me feel the Longhorn project is in deep trouble.
*
I worked in a job when I had to support mainstream (non-computer people) with Windows systems.
Most of them seemed to like the Windows XP interface better because it was more cheerful. In fact, a few of them even liked Hotbar and didn't appreciate my suggestion to improve their slug-like performance by removing it. It was, after all, pretty.
So don't expect that everyone acts like a geek and removes it. I'm a pretty hardcore geek myself and even I prefer XP's interface to Windows 2000's gray Depression City.
Of course I prefer MacOS X to either, but you get the idea.
There are a lot of them, but none of them have the build quality or design integrity of a ThinkPad. I've seen the Toshibas up close and personal and they just reek of mediocre design and build quality.
I used to think the Tablet idea was just stupid until I met a professor at a major university who uses his to scribble notes on while projecting them on the screen in his large lecture class. He uses Camtasia to record what he's doing and posts the capture files on the class web site for his students to review. It's an extraordinarily effective mode of teaching.
I wish Apple made one of these things so I could enjoy using it more, but a ThinkPad would definitely be the next best thing.
I've never heard of Kiki's Delivery Service and could not find his review of it, so I can't comment on that aspect of your message.
However, I re-read the first paragraph of his review of Mary Poppins, and at the beginning of same, he writes as follows:
Mary Poppins was a delightful romp for children and the young at heart through a make-believe world of frolic and fantasy. There were no instances of offensive material throughout the movie. While there were several occurences of "magic," there was nothing evil or sinister about any of the "magic." Mary could have been angelic. While some might consider the "We won't go to sleep!" from Michael to Mary Poppins to be arrogance and/or impudence, the obstinence was NOT at his parents. All instances of Jane and Michael taking issue with parental authority (e.g., the song) were with respect and even apology. I cannot find in the Bible anywhere God has a problem with children disagreeing with their parents but I can find a LOT of warnings against arrogance toward and rebellion against parents -- a LOT -- and with severe consequences... and even more severe consequences for parents who abuse the authority and position He gave them.
Looks like you got something there. He is clearly making excuses to game his system and give Mary Poppins a perfect score. Reading this is especially interesting in light of his review of Harry Potter.
It is possible, indeed probable, that there is no way to make a movie with a plot or conflict between characters without incidents of impudence or offense to God as described in his model.
I'm guessing that I'll be more likely to remember the Institute for Backup Trauma than FileVault, though. Hopefully they will make sure the Institute's name typed into Google will find them.
Well, I don't know Steve and Steve doesn't know me, and so I really doubt that he cares about me on a personal level.
That being said, what's wrong with loving a company that makes great products?
Should I crawl into the Microsoft Gulag, where I've been, and spend my time hating their stuff, or should I deal with a company that, whatever its faults, makes Great Things?
Is there something wrong with being loyal to a company that treats me well?
I seriously doubt that Gnu's utilities, wonderful as they may be in other respects, support copying of resource forks, because they are an evil, proprietary feature from the Dark Days of MacOS X.
I believe Apple's Unix utilities are part of Darwin, which is open source, so it's likely that you actually can. Jordan Hubbard would be the right guy to ask. He works for Apple now and I'm sure he was very much involved in these changes.
You've gotten some pretty good responses, but if you're not using a Mac I fear they are pretty obscure. So let me take a shot at it.
Before MacOS 10, the Apple file system split files into two segments: A data fork, which looked basically like a conventional DOS/Unix file, and a resource fork, which was a sort of mini-database letting you structure your file contents. This was particularly useful in executable programs; the resource fork would contain icons, menu definitions and the like. It would also contain the program that created the file (the "creator code"). When you double-clicked a file, the system would look at the creator code, find the corresponding application and start it up. This was a much slicker system than file extensions because the file could be called anything you wanted and the association with a program was automatic and unchangeable unless you were familiar with system internals.
A program called ResEdit let you change these definitions and you could do things like define different keyboard shortcuts by playing around with the menu definitions.
This was also used by programs to create data file formats. This was very nice, because if those files contained information in standard Apple formats, it could be easily read and modified by ResEdit and similar programs. So the movie files created by Final Cut Pro, for example, had a lot of the information in the resource fork which made debugging and reading these files a lot easier than the alternatives.
MacOS X attempted to get rid of this entirely, because of a significant problem: Resource forks don't exist in the Windows or Unix world, so copying Mac files to other operating systems was a bit of a non-starter. So in MacOS X, we have file extensions, just like in Windows and Unix, instead of creator codes in the resource fork. You can argue until you're blue in the face by saying resource forks are a much more elegant way to deal with the situation, and you'd be right. But at the same time it hardly matters since most people need to exchange data with Windows computers.
Naturally, MacOS X retained support for the resource fork so that applications such as Final Cut Pro could continue to use it. However, they discouraged use of resource forks in future applications.
The problem was that they didn't tell the Unix utilities like cp about the resource fork. Instead, the utilities would copy all the data fork but not the resources. So if you had a Final Cut Pro file using the resource fork, you could cp it to another folder and the file would not work when you tried opening it.
So in Tiger they have fixed this problem, and the resource forks are now retained, so I can feel free to use cp et al to copy all Mac files, including those with resource forks.
This is, of course, a major victory for people like me who like to use the Unix utilities for file management.
I think Apple has a pretty good claim for this, actually.
It looks like HyperCard was the first scripting language, if that is defined as a programming language designed in such a way that "mere mortals" could use it for serious work.
Then AppleScript was developed as the first system-wide scripting language. It was developed in 1994. Windows Scripting Host was developed and shipped as part of Windows 98.
So it looks like in this direction, Apple was a genuine pioneer and deserves the respect that flows therefrom.
I would probably put in a master AirPort base station and rim it with AirPort Express units. That has flexibility because you can put the Express units only where they are needed, and they will serve as repeaters for the network. I'm an Apple guy, so I don't know if the Express would serve as repeaters for a non-Apple network. It might be worth a try considering the price difference between the Apple gear and cheaper solutions.
Also, the problem may be more inside your house than outside. If you have a large house and thick walls, as I do, the AirPort signal may have a lot of difficulty reaching every nook and cranny.
I think this solution would have the advantage of giving you more control over the signal than a gigantic antenna.
I like your analogy but I don't think it quite works.
An operating system is something that's extremely painful for most people to switch. An operating system also brings with it a universe of third-party products, which are what really makes it difficult to switch.
You can switch web sites by just typing a different URL into your browser or changing your bookmarks or default home page. Web sites do not have a monopoly of use of third-party products; anyone can link to Wikipedia, for example, and if you don't link to it it does not prevent other people from accessing it directly. So it's not like an OS where there is that intensity of control.
Since every search engine has access to the same raw information if it's willing to get the same computing power, I don't see network effects as being a big problem.
If you have good counterarguments to this, though, I'd love to hear them, since your statement did make me think.
I found it interesting that Adobe's FAQ on the merger was in PDF format.
It's ridiculous to think people want to print out a FAQ on a merger and so it's completely bonkers to put it in PDF.
I thought that was a slap in the face to the web developers who use Flash. They don't need to put together a Flash version of such a document, which would be just as absurd, but HTML would have shown respect for the web format and a greater ease of use.
(I really hate having to page through PDFs I read on the screen as though pagination really had any relevence in the web).
Well, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements have the same standing with people who use them. People like the Adobe interface too and are comfortable with it.
I really hate the Flash interface - it's so different from other animation tools and I haven't seen any ways in which it's better. I'd love it to change so it's more similar to After Effects, but I doubt that will happen with the huge installed base.
I think Adobe would have been better off spending their money on a competitor to Flash that also creates SWF files. But didn't they try that before? Does anyone know the story of why it wasn't more successful?
I was under the impression that Framemaker was very expensive (much more so than Office) and forced structure on documents that's incredible overkill for most people.
Unless I'm way out of line here, I don't expect it to take over the world.
Let's say that tomorrow Google says that, in the interest of increasing revenue, they are going to implement GooglePops, their new pop up and pop under advertising service. "Our advertisers have been asking for fresh methods of recovering customer eyeballs in this space," said a Google rep.
The outcry would be immediate. The Slashdot story would get 5,000 comments. There would be people who said that this proved that Google was evil, after all. And there would be people who would defend them, in the context that pop-up ads are effective, and therefore what people really want.
In the end, Google would lose a tremendous amount of credibility. People would start laughing at them. And AltaVista and A9 and MSN would work ever harder, knowing they could knock Google straight off the perch. A lot of people would stop using Google and would never come back. And the Googleplex would no longer attract the very best people, as it does today.
This is the beauty of that ever-adjusting system we call the free market. People who don't like Google will go to other search engines if they see it as truly "bad". And enough is now understood about search that it wouldn't be that difficult to create a new search engine with similar quality results.
This is our protection against Google turning "bad". They know that if they do, they lose credibility and customers. The people who run Google are smart and know where the money is: In being the biggest and most respected search company on the planet.
They're not going to give that up for a bunch of pop-up ads. But if they do, we'll desert them in droves, and they'll get exactly what they deserve.
SlamMan (see other reply) is correct. I have the older D30 which came out in 2001 or thereabouts. It's still a great camera except for the start up time. When I bought it it cost over $3,000 including a 1gb Microdrive and a 28-135 lens. Technology marches on!
Thanks for letting me know about the 300D solving that problem. The D20, however, has a sub-1 second startup time which is even better. That's definitely something I'm looking forward to when I upgrade later this year.
I don't know about raw quality, but in the design of controls I definitely prefer Canon. For example, I prefer the control wheel to the pushbuttons Nikon uses; the wheel lets me move around my pictures in a much more fluid way.
What made me consider Nikon is that they made the first low-end Digital SLR with an instant startup. I'd lost a lot of pictures I would have wanted to take because of my Canon EOS D30's sluggish (~30 second) start time.
Now I understand there's almost instant startup in the new D20 and so that solves my problem without giving up my Canon system investment.
When I was growing up, I was a Nikon guy. I liked the all-mechanical purity of their high-end cameras such as the F2. There is a certain satisfaction in seeing shutters CLUNK that just doesn't exist in the fully electronic cameras Canon sold.
But now electronics is vital, and there's little doubt that Canon has the high ground in all things electronic. Their cameras are far superior in design than Nikon's.
However, I still think Nikon lenses are better made and smoother to use, which I appreciate. Of course this might be simply because I haven't seen Canon's more expensive lenses. My D30 has the low-end 28-135 zoom which works great for me but isn't as silkly smooth as Nikon's 17-85 offering.
I almost switched back to Nikon with the D100 but a last minute financial crisis kept me in the Canon camp. In retrospect, that looks like the right decision in view of Canon's newer cameras, and especially now with Nikon trying to pull this on customers.
Pity Canon still doesn't have a low-end HD camcorder to compete with the Sony FX1 and upcoming Panasonic models. That's my next planned purchase and Canon's doesn't even exist in the market... yet.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with this device is that it doesn't have a keyboard, and you really need a scroll wheel to select songs from a hard drive-based MP3 player.
I recommend the t-mobile sidekick II as a device that can do everything but play music.
I saw a girl today who carried both a mobile phone and an iPod, one on each hip. It looked almost like she had two weapons on her hip, and they were both aimed at whatever hapless person was talking to her at the time.
D
I think that's what he meant.
1 Googleplex of money = the valuation of Google at this time.
D
You're absolutely right about this, and Longhorn might be a step in the right direction, or at least a step away from the pit. Seems a pity they had to copy Apple to get there, but at least they did.
And I laughed at your message, because it was so true.
Good job.
D
The way they're setting up the Control Panel looks a lot like Apple's reorganized System Preferences in Panther, only not as elegant.
Maybe I'm insane but to me the new interface looks a few steps back from XP in terms of looks. Back towards the "gloomy gus" look that characterized Windows 2000 and older versions. Not quite the right way to go.
D
I'm sure that by the time this became a serious problem, Apple will have made the switch as well. Right now, both ATI and nVidia have come up with some very elaborate graphics cards that run with the PowerMac G5, and I think they want some return on their investment before the switch happens.
I agree with your post, however, that we original 2.0ghz dual processor G5 owners are going to need something stronger than this upgrade to make a purchase. I probably would buy a dual core version of the existing machine since that would be an enormous performance improvement.
I'm a little surprised from 'As Seen on TV' that the average Mac user replaces his system every five years. There's a pretty large share of PowerMac owners that would love to replace their machine every year, or as often as a truly major upgrade comes up. I would think Apple would aim at those people and of course grab a healthy share of the rest more or less automatically.
D
Apple's approach is not going to work for Windows users.
Apple users, such as myself, are enthusiasts. When Tiger comes out, we'll be in line at the Apple store, or waiting at our mailbox for it. But that's because we love Apple products and trust Steve, our deity, to pull something wonderful out of the his hat for us. So much for $129.
Windows' deity is Bill, and frankly Windows users seem to have a love/hate relationship with him. Consider Windows XP Service Pack 2. Nobody's being asked to pay $129 for it, even though it took about the same amount of work to produce as Tiger. It's free. And the Kool-Aid drinkers in major corporations are still rejecting it, because they know it will give them nothing but throbbing migraines for the next month. Such is the reputation of Microsoft and its updates.
So look. If you're having trouble getting people to accept your essential update for free, can you imagine how tough it is to get people to pay for the next version?
So Bill's minions have no choice but to try and make their new system the greatest thing since sliced bread. Frankly, I don't see how they're going to do it because the pain of moving to a new Windows version is just plain huge, and people know this now.
D
I don't see how taxing the wealthiest and giving the money to the poor has any connection whatsoever with offshore outsourcing. All taxing the wealthy does is drive economic activity out of the US.
Offshore outsourcing is about the greatest good for the greatest number. If you have to pay a programmer $60k in the SF Bay Area for him to survive in a more or less bare sustenance lifestyle, and you could pay a programmer $10k in India and let him live like a pasha, which would you rather do?
The projects I've been involved with have been ones where I can work as a single developer and do everything. In that case, it's most cost-effective to hire an American (namely me) because the overhead of hiring people in India only becomes viable when you need whole teams of people.
With people avoiding the CS major and computing careers in droves, because of its perceived dead end nature, there is likely to be a shortage of programmers over the next few years. Strange but true.
But that's then and this is now. In the mean time, I've shifted my career from programming and software design to multimedia development and entrepreneurial ventures. These are areas where it still makes sense to be here in the US.
I'm pessimistic about US jobs because I know the people in India are good people who need the jobs as much as we do. Slamming the door on them doesn't strike me as the answer. If there is a single answer from the American point of view, I think it's for each of us to become more competitive by working closer to end users and/or changing our careers entirely.
D
It does seem interesting that they've been shedding features, seemingly backing off from most of the things that were supposed to make Longhorn special. In the mean time, Apple's powering along and giving Mac users exactly what was promised in versions of MacOS X. I think that's a bad sign by any standard.
Another bad sign is that they claimed that it would be finished in mid-2006 and now it's "holiday" 2006. So in theory they might release December 24th now.
As I remember them, betas of MacOS X were feature-complete but very slow, and then speeds improved as the release got closer. I wouldn't expect enough changes in the interface to make it less than disappointing to these reviewers.
Those indications make me feel the Longhorn project is in deep trouble.
*
I worked in a job when I had to support mainstream (non-computer people) with Windows systems.
Most of them seemed to like the Windows XP interface better because it was more cheerful. In fact, a few of them even liked Hotbar and didn't appreciate my suggestion to improve their slug-like performance by removing it. It was, after all, pretty.
So don't expect that everyone acts like a geek and removes it. I'm a pretty hardcore geek myself and even I prefer XP's interface to Windows 2000's gray Depression City.
Of course I prefer MacOS X to either, but you get the idea.
D
There are a lot of them, but none of them have the build quality or design integrity of a ThinkPad. I've seen the Toshibas up close and personal and they just reek of mediocre design and build quality.
I used to think the Tablet idea was just stupid until I met a professor at a major university who uses his to scribble notes on while projecting them on the screen in his large lecture class. He uses Camtasia to record what he's doing and posts the capture files on the class web site for his students to review. It's an extraordinarily effective mode of teaching.
I wish Apple made one of these things so I could enjoy using it more, but a ThinkPad would definitely be the next best thing.
D
I've never heard of Kiki's Delivery Service and could not find his review of it, so I can't comment on that aspect of your message.
However, I re-read the first paragraph of his review of Mary Poppins, and at the beginning of same, he writes as follows:
Looks like you got something there. He is clearly making excuses to game his system and give Mary Poppins a perfect score. Reading this is especially interesting in light of his review of Harry Potter.
It is possible, indeed probable, that there is no way to make a movie with a plot or conflict between characters without incidents of impudence or offense to God as described in his model.
D
I'm guessing that I'll be more likely to remember the Institute for Backup Trauma than FileVault, though. Hopefully they will make sure the Institute's name typed into Google will find them.
D
Well, I don't know Steve and Steve doesn't know me, and so I really doubt that he cares about me on a personal level.
That being said, what's wrong with loving a company that makes great products?
Should I crawl into the Microsoft Gulag, where I've been, and spend my time hating their stuff, or should I deal with a company that, whatever its faults, makes Great Things?
Is there something wrong with being loyal to a company that treats me well?
D
I seriously doubt that Gnu's utilities, wonderful as they may be in other respects, support copying of resource forks, because they are an evil, proprietary feature from the Dark Days of MacOS X.
I believe Apple's Unix utilities are part of Darwin, which is open source, so it's likely that you actually can. Jordan Hubbard would be the right guy to ask. He works for Apple now and I'm sure he was very much involved in these changes.
D
You've gotten some pretty good responses, but if you're not using a Mac I fear they are pretty obscure. So let me take a shot at it.
Before MacOS 10, the Apple file system split files into two segments: A data fork, which looked basically like a conventional DOS/Unix file, and a resource fork, which was a sort of mini-database letting you structure your file contents. This was particularly useful in executable programs; the resource fork would contain icons, menu definitions and the like. It would also contain the program that created the file (the "creator code"). When you double-clicked a file, the system would look at the creator code, find the corresponding application and start it up. This was a much slicker system than file extensions because the file could be called anything you wanted and the association with a program was automatic and unchangeable unless you were familiar with system internals.
A program called ResEdit let you change these definitions and you could do things like define different keyboard shortcuts by playing around with the menu definitions.
This was also used by programs to create data file formats. This was very nice, because if those files contained information in standard Apple formats, it could be easily read and modified by ResEdit and similar programs. So the movie files created by Final Cut Pro, for example, had a lot of the information in the resource fork which made debugging and reading these files a lot easier than the alternatives.
MacOS X attempted to get rid of this entirely, because of a significant problem: Resource forks don't exist in the Windows or Unix world, so copying Mac files to other operating systems was a bit of a non-starter. So in MacOS X, we have file extensions, just like in Windows and Unix, instead of creator codes in the resource fork. You can argue until you're blue in the face by saying resource forks are a much more elegant way to deal with the situation, and you'd be right. But at the same time it hardly matters since most people need to exchange data with Windows computers.
Naturally, MacOS X retained support for the resource fork so that applications such as Final Cut Pro could continue to use it. However, they discouraged use of resource forks in future applications.
The problem was that they didn't tell the Unix utilities like cp about the resource fork. Instead, the utilities would copy all the data fork but not the resources. So if you had a Final Cut Pro file using the resource fork, you could cp it to another folder and the file would not work when you tried opening it.
So in Tiger they have fixed this problem, and the resource forks are now retained, so I can feel free to use cp et al to copy all Mac files, including those with resource forks.
This is, of course, a major victory for people like me who like to use the Unix utilities for file management.
D
I think Apple has a pretty good claim for this, actually.
It looks like HyperCard was the first scripting language, if that is defined as a programming language designed in such a way that "mere mortals" could use it for serious work.
Then AppleScript was developed as the first system-wide scripting language. It was developed in 1994. Windows Scripting Host was developed and shipped as part of Windows 98.
So it looks like in this direction, Apple was a genuine pioneer and deserves the respect that flows therefrom.
D
I would probably put in a master AirPort base station and rim it with AirPort Express units. That has flexibility because you can put the Express units only where they are needed, and they will serve as repeaters for the network. I'm an Apple guy, so I don't know if the Express would serve as repeaters for a non-Apple network. It might be worth a try considering the price difference between the Apple gear and cheaper solutions.
Also, the problem may be more inside your house than outside. If you have a large house and thick walls, as I do, the AirPort signal may have a lot of difficulty reaching every nook and cranny.
I think this solution would have the advantage of giving you more control over the signal than a gigantic antenna.
D
Don't miss her interview with a bulk emailer, from The Register.
Side-splitting stuff. If the book's half as good, it's a must-read.
D
I like your analogy but I don't think it quite works.
An operating system is something that's extremely painful for most people to switch. An operating system also brings with it a universe of third-party products, which are what really makes it difficult to switch.
You can switch web sites by just typing a different URL into your browser or changing your bookmarks or default home page. Web sites do not have a monopoly of use of third-party products; anyone can link to Wikipedia, for example, and if you don't link to it it does not prevent other people from accessing it directly. So it's not like an OS where there is that intensity of control.
Since every search engine has access to the same raw information if it's willing to get the same computing power, I don't see network effects as being a big problem.
If you have good counterarguments to this, though, I'd love to hear them, since your statement did make me think.
D
I found it interesting that Adobe's FAQ on the merger was in PDF format.
It's ridiculous to think people want to print out a FAQ on a merger and so it's completely bonkers to put it in PDF.
I thought that was a slap in the face to the web developers who use Flash. They don't need to put together a Flash version of such a document, which would be just as absurd, but HTML would have shown respect for the web format and a greater ease of use.
(I really hate having to page through PDFs I read on the screen as though pagination really had any relevence in the web).
D
Well, Photoshop and Photoshop Elements have the same standing with people who use them. People like the Adobe interface too and are comfortable with it.
I really hate the Flash interface - it's so different from other animation tools and I haven't seen any ways in which it's better. I'd love it to change so it's more similar to After Effects, but I doubt that will happen with the huge installed base.
I think Adobe would have been better off spending their money on a competitor to Flash that also creates SWF files. But didn't they try that before? Does anyone know the story of why it wasn't more successful?
D
I was under the impression that Framemaker was very expensive (much more so than Office) and forced structure on documents that's incredible overkill for most people.
Unless I'm way out of line here, I don't expect it to take over the world.
D
Let's say that tomorrow Google says that, in the interest of increasing revenue, they are going to implement GooglePops, their new pop up and pop under advertising service. "Our advertisers have been asking for fresh methods of recovering customer eyeballs in this space," said a Google rep.
The outcry would be immediate. The Slashdot story would get 5,000 comments. There would be people who said that this proved that Google was evil, after all. And there would be people who would defend them, in the context that pop-up ads are effective, and therefore what people really want.
In the end, Google would lose a tremendous amount of credibility. People would start laughing at them. And AltaVista and A9 and MSN would work ever harder, knowing they could knock Google straight off the perch. A lot of people would stop using Google and would never come back. And the Googleplex would no longer attract the very best people, as it does today.
This is the beauty of that ever-adjusting system we call the free market. People who don't like Google will go to other search engines if they see it as truly "bad". And enough is now understood about search that it wouldn't be that difficult to create a new search engine with similar quality results.
This is our protection against Google turning "bad". They know that if they do, they lose credibility and customers. The people who run Google are smart and know where the money is: In being the biggest and most respected search company on the planet.
They're not going to give that up for a bunch of pop-up ads. But if they do, we'll desert them in droves, and they'll get exactly what they deserve.
Hope that helped.
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SlamMan (see other reply) is correct. I have the older D30 which came out in 2001 or thereabouts. It's still a great camera except for the start up time. When I bought it it cost over $3,000 including a 1gb Microdrive and a 28-135 lens. Technology marches on!
Thanks for letting me know about the 300D solving that problem. The D20, however, has a sub-1 second startup time which is even better. That's definitely something I'm looking forward to when I upgrade later this year.
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I don't know about raw quality, but in the design of controls I definitely prefer Canon. For example, I prefer the control wheel to the pushbuttons Nikon uses; the wheel lets me move around my pictures in a much more fluid way.
What made me consider Nikon is that they made the first low-end Digital SLR with an instant startup. I'd lost a lot of pictures I would have wanted to take because of my Canon EOS D30's sluggish (~30 second) start time.
Now I understand there's almost instant startup in the new D20 and so that solves my problem without giving up my Canon system investment.
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When I was growing up, I was a Nikon guy. I liked the all-mechanical purity of their high-end cameras such as the F2. There is a certain satisfaction in seeing shutters CLUNK that just doesn't exist in the fully electronic cameras Canon sold.
... yet.
But now electronics is vital, and there's little doubt that Canon has the high ground in all things electronic. Their cameras are far superior in design than Nikon's.
However, I still think Nikon lenses are better made and smoother to use, which I appreciate. Of course this might be simply because I haven't seen Canon's more expensive lenses. My D30 has the low-end 28-135 zoom which works great for me but isn't as silkly smooth as Nikon's 17-85 offering.
I almost switched back to Nikon with the D100 but a last minute financial crisis kept me in the Canon camp. In retrospect, that looks like the right decision in view of Canon's newer cameras, and especially now with Nikon trying to pull this on customers.
Pity Canon still doesn't have a low-end HD camcorder to compete with the Sony FX1 and upcoming Panasonic models. That's my next planned purchase and Canon's doesn't even exist in the market
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