- PowerBooks don't come out of sleep immediately (generally 4-5 seconds on my friend's 12").
Perhaps, I should have said, YMMV, but I know that both my sister's iBOok and my wife's Powerbook go to sleep in less than 2 sec, and the screen shows up in about a second on open. I'm sure this timing probably has a lot to do with what you're doing and how much memory your system has. In general, however, I've found that mactops are much faster at the sleep/wake cycle than windows 'tops.
What I'm wondering is what is broken with the whole directory/folder design?
Simple: the same problems with hierarchical/network databases back in the 70s. When relational concepts came into play, they significantly increased the accessibility of the information. And the beauty of the relational approach is that the old hierarchical structure can be emulated (with some enhancements).
I wasn't aware that there was a problem. And what's the alternative... every file is stored on the hard drive in some arbitrary location, and a query is needed for each and every file access? That seems like a *ton* of overhead to fix a problem that just doesn't exist.
Guess what? You already do this.. do you think the data on the drive is organized into a folder hierarchy? Hint: it's not. You have a set of flat surfaces on which you are mapping a tree structure. It's possible to put a layer on top of this that emulates (and maintains) the tree structure.
Likewise, when you open a smart folder, you are opening a set of files with a predefined query (like "all files relating to project X") then selecting the files that appear. THis would be just like if you created a "project X" folder and maintained the hierarchy yourself.
I think what most people don't like is giving up the control of maintaining the hierarchy. They LIKE creating folders and moving files about.... the very tedium that "smart folders/labels" are designed to eliminate.
There's no Open Firmware on the new machines. The developer docs say that apps requiring it won't be supported, and the developer systems from Apple just have a Phoenix BIOS on board. See http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ for a breakdown.
Wow, talk about a step backwards. Isn't openfirmware the reason powerbooks sleep and come out of standby immediately (unlike my windows laptops... all of them take approx 5-15 seconds to wake up)
Apparently, the machines boot Windows just fine. No hacking required to install it at all, it seems.
Does this mean they can dual-boot also? If so, the developer box sounds VERY interesting (ie, no iLife, but hey).
Can anyone with legal experience enlighten me on this one? Do the bastards have the right to do so, provided that one doesn't sign a document that explicitly states "you can read my email" but instead contains a fine version of "all your bases, off lunch hours, belongs to us?
IANA Lawyer...
but I'm not sure you could afford one to solve this kind of issue for you. It seems to me that question here should not be "what is their legal rights" so much as "what are my technical capabilites". Assuming you have internet access at work, the best answer may not be to challenge their capabilites but to simply use encryption. If you have access to gmail, use it for your personal mail. If you're not into that, setup an SSH tunneling service so that you can pipe your mail out encrypted.
IMHO, I try my very best not to use my work mail for anything that is not directly related to work... that way when I see an alert in Tbird saying I have new mail, I know it;s important, if I have time to burn I browse to gmail (or my personal webmail server)... both of which are encrypted.
The thing about Hypervisor that seems strange is that it was NOT cut from Longhorn while some other, more interesting, bits were.
That says that it is strategically very important to Microsoft.
The thing you have to realize is that because Longhorn keeps getting pushed out, and all those things that got cut will be pushed into XP (reloaded?), this actually implies that Hypervisor is not as important as, say, Avalon/XAML or WinFS.
Note: I agree with most of your points, except these ones:
Second, Apple's switch to Intel really doesn't change all that much unless you're a current Apple developer. Apple's hardware is not going to get significantly cheaper, their OS is not going to run on non-apple machines. There's still going to be just as much proprietary-ness in both their hardware and software as ever. They've been making general strides towards open source with OSX, but I don't think that's going to function any differently now that they're on x86.
It's clear that their supply-chain has significantly improved in the past couple of years to the point where they are now, in fact, on par with Dell. Given this fact, all else being equal, Macs may just end up being cheaper (where they choose to compete)... subsidized by some high-end boxes where their target market will pay the big $$$ because noone else runs OSX.
Secondly, regarding their proprietariness: perhaps you could dual-boot windows on thier boxes. Now what? They eat Dell's lunch, that's what. Or HP or whoever. Why buy a box that can only run windows, when it can
run windows (a nice stable version like win2k)when you want it
and run OSX the rest of the time?
Oh yeah, coming back to linux, why dual boot Lin/Win when you can dual boot OSX/Win? Suddenly Linux loses it's viable alternative appeal... and only keeps it's cheapness appeal (ie, like windows, it will run on less expensive non-mac high-end hardware).
Now that Apple has announced that it is moved to Intel, who is going to buy a G5 now? I am sure as hell not. Apple just killed the sales of its hardware for the rest of the year.
I seriously doubt it. They control their hardware, and sure, next year may yield some nice fast, x86-based solutions, but...
Also does this mean I will be able to buy a Dell PowerEdge 2850 running Mac OSX Server?
Apple has not transitioned from being a hardware company. Given this fact, you will NEVER be able to use your Dell to run OSX server. So the choice you had yesterday is still valid today, and probably even tomorrow:
(non-OSX)Do I buy x86 and run windows or linux or
(OSX) Do I buy a mac today (and go with a G4/5) or wait till next year to upgrade and buy a Mac that runs x86?
As you can see, it's highly unlikely that choosing a non-OSX mahchine today will allow you to run OSX tomorrow... Apple's business model relies on this premise, so assume there will be some hardware that will seriously prevent you from doing so.
Due to the popularity of the MTR/Octopus card, I've heard that some companies are trying to build this into their cellphones as an added benefit feature... the octopus is even better than a cc, since there's no signiature requried (authentication is simpler for user).
It'd be great, esp since you could easily type in your PIN (or better yet, vendor generated one-time tranasaction offset + PIN) and even authenticate more securely.
Other than the "wow neat" factor, and nifty interface, what are some actual uses/features in Keyhole/Google Earth that aren't covered by things like Google Maps.
don't discount the "wow neat" factor... it's great at parties:-)
Real Estate. I use it to look at open homes I am interested in, and to see if there are any things like trailer parks, railroads, cemetaries or other things nearby which might detract from the value/comfort of the potential location.
For example, on-line bill paying. For example, 24/7 customer support.
Large credit unions offer these. You should try really looking for the requirements instead of just assuming that only big banks fit your bill. My credit union's web-banking even allows me to view/download cashed checks... has been very useful to me in proving payment... WellsFargo didn't do that when I decided that their random fees were getting to be too much.
So what kind of media requires 100GB of storage? Or do the MPAA finally feel comfortable enough with onboard DRM to prevent copying? When will the +-RW units be available? Man, that'd be awesome for backups!
According to TFA, there will be a public hearing on Monday, so those of you who can go, please do! (I'm sure the FFII will be there, but the more the merrier).
If this can be implemented so as to disallow pure SW patents, it will probably be good enough to bring some real sanity back into the patent business. Especially when the WTO has to decided between US-spawned stupidity (one-click) and what the EU doesn't allow.
False. I can select any text on a page, right click on it, and
search with any number of engines
look it up in an online dictionary or encyclopedia
send the text to an online translation site (currently translation.lycos.com).
Well, I guess I shouldn't trust everything I hear, then. I'll have to d/l Opera and give it a shot.
To be fair however, aside from AdBlock, I think that Opera and Firefox are pretty much dead even and choosing between them becomes more about personal preference that about technical merit.
I think that's the big kicker, then. Adblock (and newer things like Greasemonkey and Playtpus) are the only criteria where Opera will probably lose out to Firefox... I don't see that changing anytime soon, unless Opera has a extension framework (which would add LOTS of bulk... and reduce their speed win over FF/IE). It's important to me, but I can see how it's not that critical...
It's a frickin *platform*. Especially with everyone and their dog createing "webconsoles" even where it's extremely cumbersome. So it really does matter what you do with your OS^H^H browser. I usually read/., a few other blogs, my corporate webmail, and try to run some work sites on it. Firefox handles this fine, but I'm sure Opera would also. However, Opera does not have adblock or any of the "cool but marginally useful" things like context-menu web search... so I'm a bit hesitant to try it. If you're a web developer, I'm pretty sure Firefox is great (with all the dev tools builtin or avail as exts), but I'm not sure how Opera holds up.
Oh, and btw, the article was pretty lame... it should have compared at least a few use cases like "develop/test web pages" or "read webmail and view flash content" or "glaze your eyes at pr0n" (ok maybe not that one, tho it's probably the widest usecase for browsing there is).
I'm sure this issue with BMW's have been discussed, not to mention the faked computer override problem (in France, don't have link). All I can say is, expect more issues as cars become more automated and software controlled. I mean, hell... my phone (T610... I love it, but it) has it's share of glitches (phone reboots when on call and camera button is invoked... sucks since the genius designers put the camera button too easily available.. I never use teh POS).
My friend has a Merc S500, and he mentions having to go into the shop for a "software update". Sometimes it takes days (tho he gets a loaner). I wonder why he has to... apparently his class of cars comes with a satellite modem to be able to apply patches remotely!
If you look at Nokia's cell phones, about half of them have cameras. A few years ago, a camera phone would've been pretty rare.
Ok... so how has that dented Canon/Minolta/etc's mini-digital camera market? Hmm? Or more appropriately, in a cell/mp3 comparison to an iPod, how have cameraphones impacted the digital SLR sales? I bet not one bit.
If you are already doing this by http://ip/ you may like that bonjour makes it so you don't need to know the IP address, you just bookmark the *.local address. I assume that this also works with bonjour for windows. It's very useful.
Just confirmed that it works in bonjour for windows as well. As an aside, I noticed that it caused all sorts of error messages when I installed and didn't immediately reboot... some path wasn't provided and I consistently got an error message. After reboot all was fine, but why activate your service on install if it really requires a reboot?
I've used thunderbird for a while and get a bit bummed when it loses my bookmarks and profile, which it seems to do about twice a year.
I have no idea how you manage to get tbird/firefox to lose your bookmarks or profile so consistently (only happened once for me... was win2k's fault acutally), but you know, backups are possible. I keep my local folders backed up (esp. useful for POP3, not a big deal for my IMAP stuff) every month or two in tbird, and my whole profile directory in firefox. It's easy, and makes moving my bookmarks/profile to another machine a piece of pie.
Replay attacks, AFAIK require exact positioning. Trust me, I've done test automation using replay software, and window position is a right bitch to deal with... esp. when form elements move inside a page of a browser you might as well forget it.
Plus randomization of relative positioning (ie, is it the left or right one) on each page can further increase this problem for phishers.
This concept of a crypto-turing test is a great idea.
I bet they would trade their broadband for US' democracy.
Gee, I wonder, is this the democracy that we call a "catastropic success", oh, say that Iraq is having right now? Or maybe you're talking about the our wonderfully successful policy of spreading democracy that doesn't work? I'm sure China would love to get some of that action...
How about over time Google learns which sites I trust and modifies the ranking according to that.
But that wouldn't solve the problem of people who just put out shite and are effectively unaccountable for it. Sure, YOU get your news from the sources you want and believe to be true, but I'd also like to be able to see what "TrustRank thinks is valid" as an indicator. Not that I'd trust it alone but it might be a good source among 2 or 3 to determine validity.
TIAA-CREF
CALIFORNIA STATE TEACHERS RET SYS
NEW YORK ST TCHR RTRMT
Ok, why the fuck are educational retirement funds backing a spyware maker? I don't have any relatives or friends who are teachers that pay to these funds, but... wtf? How can we tell these investors to "fuck off" and not invest in borderline criminal companies?
Why sell twice the machines at half the price ? That's double the amount of work for the same profit.
Worse... its more like double the work for the same revenue. With fixed overhead, that means either much less profit or worse: net loss. My wife's MBA class stressed this motto:
When in doubt, raise the price
Apparently, that (generally) works for good reason.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps, I should have said, YMMV, but I know that both my sister's iBOok and my wife's Powerbook go to sleep in less than 2 sec, and the screen shows up in about a second on open. I'm sure this timing probably has a lot to do with what you're doing and how much memory your system has. In general, however, I've found that mactops are much faster at the sleep/wake cycle than windows 'tops.
Simple: the same problems with hierarchical/network databases back in the 70s. When relational concepts came into play, they significantly increased the accessibility of the information. And the beauty of the relational approach is that the old hierarchical structure can be emulated (with some enhancements).
I wasn't aware that there was a problem. And what's the alternative... every file is stored on the hard drive in some arbitrary location, and a query is needed for each and every file access? That seems like a *ton* of overhead to fix a problem that just doesn't exist.
Guess what? You already do this.. do you think the data on the drive is organized into a folder hierarchy?
Hint: it's not.
You have a set of flat surfaces on which you are mapping a tree structure. It's possible to put a layer on top of this that emulates (and maintains) the tree structure.
Likewise, when you open a smart folder, you are opening a set of files with a predefined query (like "all files relating to project X") then selecting the files that appear. THis would be just like if you created a "project X" folder and maintained the hierarchy yourself.
I think what most people don't like is giving up the control of maintaining the hierarchy. They LIKE creating folders and moving files about.... the very tedium that "smart folders/labels" are designed to eliminate.
IANA Lawyer... but I'm not sure you could afford one to solve this kind of issue for you. It seems to me that question here should not be "what is their legal rights" so much as "what are my technical capabilites". Assuming you have internet access at work, the best answer may not be to challenge their capabilites but to simply use encryption. If you have access to gmail, use it for your personal mail. If you're not into that, setup an SSH tunneling service so that you can pipe your mail out encrypted.
IMHO, I try my very best not to use my work mail for anything that is not directly related to work... that way when I see an alert in Tbird saying I have new mail, I know it;s important, if I have time to burn I browse to gmail (or my personal webmail server)... both of which are encrypted.
That says that it is strategically very important to Microsoft.
The thing you have to realize is that because Longhorn keeps getting pushed out, and all those things that got cut will be pushed into XP (reloaded?), this actually implies that Hypervisor is not as important as, say, Avalon/XAML or WinFS.
Second, Apple's switch to Intel really doesn't change all that much unless you're a current Apple developer. Apple's hardware is not going to get significantly cheaper, their OS is not going to run on non-apple machines. There's still going to be just as much proprietary-ness in both their hardware and software as ever. They've been making general strides towards open source with OSX, but I don't think that's going to function any differently now that they're on x86.
It's clear that their supply-chain has significantly improved in the past couple of years to the point where they are now, in fact, on par with Dell. Given this fact, all else being equal, Macs may just end up being cheaper (where they choose to compete)... subsidized by some high-end boxes where their target market will pay the big $$$ because noone else runs OSX.
Secondly, regarding their proprietariness: perhaps you could dual-boot windows on thier boxes. Now what? They eat Dell's lunch, that's what. Or HP or whoever. Why buy a box that can only run windows, when it can
Oh yeah, coming back to linux, why dual boot Lin/Win when you can dual boot OSX/Win? Suddenly Linux loses it's viable alternative appeal... and only keeps it's cheapness appeal (ie, like windows, it will run on less expensive non-mac high-end hardware).
I seriously doubt it. They control their hardware, and sure, next year may yield some nice fast, x86-based solutions, but...
Also does this mean I will be able to buy a Dell PowerEdge 2850 running Mac OSX Server?
Apple has not transitioned from being a hardware company. Given this fact, you will NEVER be able to use your Dell to run OSX server. So the choice you had yesterday is still valid today, and probably even tomorrow:
or
As you can see, it's highly unlikely that choosing a non-OSX mahchine today will allow you to run OSX tomorrow... Apple's business model relies on this premise, so assume there will be some hardware that will seriously prevent you from doing so.
It'd be great, esp since you could easily type in your PIN (or better yet, vendor generated one-time tranasaction offset + PIN) and even authenticate more securely.
- don't discount the "wow neat" factor... it's great at parties
:-) - Real Estate. I use it to look at open homes I am interested in, and to see if there are any things like trailer parks, railroads, cemetaries or other things nearby which might detract from the value/comfort of the potential location.
Well worth $29/yr.Large credit unions offer these. You should try really looking for the requirements instead of just assuming that only big banks fit your bill. My credit union's web-banking even allows me to view/download cashed checks... has been very useful to me in proving payment... WellsFargo didn't do that when I decided that their random fees were getting to be too much.
So what kind of media requires 100GB of storage? Or do the MPAA finally feel comfortable enough with onboard DRM to prevent copying? When will the +-RW units be available? Man, that'd be awesome for backups!
If this can be implemented so as to disallow pure SW patents, it will probably be good enough to bring some real sanity back into the patent business. Especially when the WTO has to decided between US-spawned stupidity (one-click) and what the EU doesn't allow.
Does Privoxy allow the user to prefvent downloading JS/Flash? (ie, by modifying the HTML to remove the malicious/annoying portions)?
Well, I guess I shouldn't trust everything I hear, then. I'll have to d/l Opera and give it a shot.
To be fair however, aside from AdBlock, I think that Opera and Firefox are pretty much dead even and choosing between them becomes more about personal preference that about technical merit.
I think that's the big kicker, then. Adblock (and newer things like Greasemonkey and Playtpus) are the only criteria where Opera will probably lose out to Firefox... I don't see that changing anytime soon, unless Opera has a extension framework (which would add LOTS of bulk... and reduce their speed win over FF/IE). It's important to me, but I can see how it's not that critical...
Oh, and btw, the article was pretty lame... it should have compared at least a few use cases like "develop/test web pages" or "read webmail and view flash content" or "glaze your eyes at pr0n" (ok maybe not that one, tho it's probably the widest usecase for browsing there is).
My friend has a Merc S500, and he mentions having to go into the shop for a "software update". Sometimes it takes days (tho he gets a loaner). I wonder why he has to... apparently his class of cars comes with a satellite modem to be able to apply patches remotely!
Ok... so how has that dented Canon/Minolta/etc's mini-digital camera market? Hmm? Or more appropriately, in a cell/mp3 comparison to an iPod, how have cameraphones impacted the digital SLR sales? I bet not one bit.
Three syllables: ActiveX. If a "feature" is so bug infested that it's worse than useless, can you consider it a bug?
Just confirmed that it works in bonjour for windows as well. As an aside, I noticed that it caused all sorts of error messages when I installed and didn't immediately reboot... some path wasn't provided and I consistently got an error message. After reboot all was fine, but why activate your service on install if it really requires a reboot?
Otherwise this thing kicks ass.
I have no idea how you manage to get tbird/firefox to lose your bookmarks or profile so consistently (only happened once for me... was win2k's fault acutally), but you know, backups are possible. I keep my local folders backed up (esp. useful for POP3, not a big deal for my IMAP stuff) every month or two in tbird, and my whole profile directory in firefox. It's easy, and makes moving my bookmarks/profile to another machine a piece of pie.
Replay attacks, AFAIK require exact positioning. Trust me, I've done test automation using replay software, and window position is a right bitch to deal with... esp. when form elements move inside a page of a browser you might as well forget it.
Plus randomization of relative positioning (ie, is it the left or right one) on each page can further increase this problem for phishers.
This concept of a crypto-turing test is a great idea.
Gee, I wonder, is this the democracy that we call a "catastropic success", oh, say that Iraq is having right now? Or maybe you're talking about the our wonderfully successful policy of spreading democracy that doesn't work? I'm sure China would love to get some of that action...
But that wouldn't solve the problem of people who just put out shite and are effectively unaccountable for it. Sure, YOU get your news from the sources you want and believe to be true, but I'd also like to be able to see what "TrustRank thinks is valid" as an indicator. Not that I'd trust it alone but it might be a good source among 2 or 3 to determine validity.
CALIFORNIA STATE TEACHERS RET SYS
NEW YORK ST TCHR RTRMT
Ok, why the fuck are educational retirement funds backing a spyware maker? I don't have any relatives or friends who are teachers that pay to these funds, but ... wtf? How can we tell these investors to "fuck off" and not invest in borderline criminal companies?
Worse... its more like double the work for the same revenue. With fixed overhead, that means either much less profit or worse: net loss. My wife's MBA class stressed this motto:
Apparently, that (generally) works for good reason.