Hah! Hench.net?! Riiiiiiiight. That site speaks for itself.
Anyway, Gore was the main guy that took ARPANET - which was only for academics, govt/mil, some related contractors and companies - and, while in Congress, pushed legislation that turned it into the INTERNET, which allowed ordinary Joe's dialup access and e-commerce, etc. Without Gore's push, there would probably be no Internet as we know it. So, Gore did take the initiative in creating the Internet and his statement is completely correct.
So climb down off your political elephant and relax. Your neocon buddies - as much as they don't want to admit it - made a lot of money during the Clinton/Gore years. If Gingrich had said this (even if he had nothing to do with it), then your pals would have nothing to bitch about.
Jobs has always been a hardware guy. He sees the value in tight integration and limited configurations. I'd say a lot of the trouble M$ is in with Windows is the fact that there's too much hardware out there. It has to somehow support everything.
Granted, M$ has billions more than Apple, but in the arena of public opinion, Apple is much 'cooler' than M$ because of design. Plus, Apple can also tout that it just works. Something M$ cannot. Apple stands on the shoulders of others like BSD, Apache, Samba, Java - stuff that other people have already figured out and therefore, Apple does not have to reinvent. And some things like BSD have a lot of security time logged, so Apple doesn't have to deal with these issues. M$ is just the opposite - for a recent example of this see the Acrylic image app.
Sure, Apple, like any company, is all about profit. But at the same time, because of Jobs, they have a mission: to make things that don't suck and to really innovate instead of paying it lip service and patch security holes. So for Apple to make (quite) a few billion dollars less and have a better user experience is worth much more to them.
I know this sounds cliche, but if you've ever used a Mac for some time you would know what I'm talking about. When I plug in a new mouse or whatever, there's no windows popping up nagging me to do something and I surely don't have to compile any drivers myself. So to me, even from a programmers point of view, it just works. Why mess with that just for more market share and added complexity?
You're right, there is not much to worry about in Linuxland. Apple poses little threat.
However, I have issue with a few things.
1. Lock their hardware platform how? If you mean you won't be able to buy a mobo from vendor A and install OS X on it, then yah, sure. But so what? Part of the problem with Windows is that it tries to support everything under the sun, which I think is a bad idea. Lower-end hardware dilutes the value of the OS.
2. Too much for accessories. True, but you don't have to buy RAM from Apple. Nor do you have to buy a mouse, keyboard, or even display from them. So besides the replacable parts that come with a Mac, most of the other stuff can be bought at the same price as Windows/Linux stuff. And again, lower end junk might not be supported for that reason - it's junk!
I had slow access times on my network copying files via scp, samba, and nfs. And my ssh logins seemed slow as well. However, my only XP laptop it didn't seem like an issue. I found a post somewhere's while searching for what I thought was an OS X Samba problem and it suggested disabling IPv6 on all interfaces. Hmmm, I thought. I sorta felt OS X having this turned on outta the box was kinda a neat thing. However, when I did turn v6 off, ALL my network traffic sped up dramatically.
I haven't really dove into this, but it would be interesting to find out why this is and because others mentioned the same thing, I know it's not my home network. For those of you experiencing slow network speeds, I recommend giving this a try.
Been on the side of this road for many years (not HD tho). Even trying to get video from a firewire webcam at 15fps (which most biz people, I would think, would like) is a challenge.
Two person isn't too hard, but it get's really difficult when scaling above that. Plus, offices are behind firewalls and so that's always a pain as you have to (usually) piggyback port 80 or (for slower rates) 443 as these are pretty commonly opened ports in the biz world.
I expect Skype to come out with some vidconf tool soon, but prob only face to face.
Man, I am SO with you on this! I was lookin forward to tonight's Alias and also the next ep from Dr. Who. Bums me out.
I refuse to get a tv cuz most of the programming is shit. The net is a great way to get what I want and still not have feel like I'm a mindless blob during the process.
Guess the hunt will go on for more.torrent sites.. Sigh..
Aside from a non-compatible format, I can't stand the thought of all my music going away if I don't want to subscribe anymore.
Exactly. The thing I don't like about these 'leasing' services is they're basically radio, except you can pick the songs. This tends to be fine for those who buy a cd and a month later trade it in (at a loss mind you), but nowadays with digital music, there's no reason to do that anymore. And Yahoo's radio stations are very unappealing to me. I stopped listening to radio years ago because it's just pumped with the same crap that the labels wanna push out the door as quick as possible so they can recoup their 'investment'. Not only that, there are, literally, 1000's of internet radio stations worldwide that do a much better job. Traditional music radio's days of intersting and useful have been over for quite some time.
I want my music for the long term. I want my kids to be able to play it 20 years from now if they want.
That's what JHymn is for. 'Nuff said.
I actually own my music. I'm not worried about its life (aside from making sure I have a backup) and I'll have it 5,10, probably 20 years down the road. There's a great server project for mp3 & m4a files called mt-daapd. I simply copied all my music off to an external firewire hd. Plug that into my fedora server running mt-daapd. Tell mt-daapd where to look for the files and any default playlists to provide to anyone on my network. And that's it. Right now, I'm pretty sure daapd is a iTunes only thing, but you can rest assured that there will be various open source music clients that will support it in the future. Some probably do already.
This coupled with a great lil util called OurTunes allows any friends or relatives who come over to be able to 'borrow' anything from my server. It's a really useful tool.
So you still have options. You just have to consider them and most people don't which is why they complain or stall or whatever. I personally don't give in to the M$ WMA tools as pretty much all of them suck. They're focused more around control and ownership vs. the Apple stuff was about music first and then the DRM stuff second. But then again, that's typical of the M$ way of thinking. Sure, no one likes DRM, but if there's a way around it (which there will probably always be), then fine.
----- Always another way.
What about someone else for a change??
on
Cars that Can't Crash?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
WHY? Why always Gates trumpeting some new innovation to the press who swallow it down hook line and sinker? Besides the fact that is already mentioned - if your computer isn't reliable, then why let the same company put their insights and innovation into your car? - why does Gates get so much press on this crap?
I've seen the car of the future in countless sci-fi movies and books already! But, hey, if Gates says it, then for sure it must be right around the corner. Ho hum..
God help us all if these are the things to come. In fact, I prefer my technology to
first and foremost: WORK!
second: stay the hell outta my way
Even my first-gen iPod still works! I dunno, I'm past the disliking Gates and his empire and now I'm just sick of him telling everyone what the future's gonna be and the fact that Microsoft's gonna get you there.
First off, no one said it's what we need. And regardless if you or I feel there might be no need for it (I personally use it daily), there are plenty of shops out there that do.
And second, they're addressing a significant issue with Swing which is its pokyness. This is going head on with SWT , a 'feature' that Eclipse people have enjoyed for sometime. This also signifies Sun throwing in the towel on their whole Swing widget abstraction, abstraction, abstraction mantra in favor of using the native OS rendering widget facilities. This has been a major Java gripe for some time; why can't my Windows Java app look like a Windows app and why does it have to be do damned slow?!
Should be interesting to see how these features/additions play out. Also, looks like Swing apps are finally getting native aa font support. This will please many as the text rendering in Java apps is still in the Windwos 2k/GTK 1.x days..
Doubtful. I'm sure C# will get quite popular, but neither that nor will Mono have a foothold on the server like Java does anytime soon. Java's tools and microcosm of open and closed projects are being used by quite a bit by companines and organizations doing real, every day work. Granted, Java on the desktop never took off, but the whole C# vs. Java war is just a myth - there's plenty of room for both to exist.
I'm using Hibernate on my current project and while it's not the be all/end all, it's definitely a better approach (I feel) than EJB entity beans. 99% of my current data layer is Hibernate code/classes and I'm pretty happy with it. Coupled with various plugin caches and you have a fast, reliable data access layer.
Once you get the nuances of Hibernate, it's quite easy and sometimes even fast to plug in an entity and go. Remember, it's not just wrapper for JDBC/Transactions, etc, but a fairly mature and robust ORM solution. And, its HQL (yes, another QL) allows for fined tuning of any entities that might become a bottleneck.
Well, ya know, a smiliar Java app on Solaris will probably match or best a C# app on equivalent Windows machine. Why? Cuz the devloper of the OS can be free to tie in all their optimizations into their VM. Mono is slower, besides being a clean room impl, because it's fricking hard to port VMs to other architectures and they haven't tied all their calls to the low level OS like M$ has! Sun has done an admirable job porting their VM across so many archs, but only from a server perspective.
Which is not how most people think of when they think of.NET/Mono vs. Java, but I do.
I made the jump years ago and think mostly in terms of the server and Weblications - a completely different ball game and, in my view, where things are going and finally back on track..NET/Mono are no where near Java in terms of scalability and performance. I worked on a project - and this was even four years ago - where 75 Java app servers ran across 150 cpus. This company has made billions in transactions across those systems. And that was four years ago! Java's way ahead of.NET/Mono on the server and this is where Sun got it right. If you've ever used Sun hardware, with all their little management niceties and gizmos, you would know they've got their shit together on this. Their experience with building, albiet sometimes complicated or academic, scalable apps is what they're all about and this has all filtered into Java.
Sure, for some desktop app or photo sharing web site, Java's not the way to go. But for medium to big web projects where stuff just has to work, then there's no other game in town. They'll own this space for some time to come. Windows is all about the PC and local client apps. But that door's starting to close and it makes sense for more and more non-Office style programs to be run over the net.
Funny, that reminds me of a company I went to where they gave their Perl programmers a 3 month Java class and I ended up later debugging and re-writing their 2k line JSPs. Unfortunately for me.
The latest.NET release is about as solid as Java was back in, what, '99?!
I make my filthy living doing enterprise Java apps. I love my Linux servers and my Powerbook. But I don't go around preaching the gospel of Java to the unconverted. And that's exactly the point: Linux already has two useful and proven languages for desktop apps - C/C++. Make those better!
I almost feel like Miguel has been living in the corporate world a little too long, thus, like you said, his preaching of something else - a typical thing in the real world is not to fix it, but to re-do it in some other language. I see this stuff all the time and just roll my eyes. Then I spend ridiculous hours helping various teams meet their goal.
This is actually classic if you think about it. At first, KDE, namely Qt, was not open source. So instead of trying to fix it they made an entirely new desktop system. Of course, Qt later dropped those restrictions and now Gnome is the fat dog that can't get off the porch. So the mantra is if it doesn't go our way, we'll re-do it, but make it worse! Deja vu anyone?
Linux does not need sloppy developers porting all their crap from Windows. I mean, I think of all the junk out there on download.com.com.com.com and try to visualize that on my Mac (fortunately that's not possible) and a chill runs up my spine. If you want to program a Linux app, learn C - it's not that hard and it can actually be, dare I say, fun! If you find something you don't like or you see is broken, submit the changes/fixes back to the community. Yay, you're an open source developer now! C aside, sure, people will use Python, Perl, Ruby, nothing wrong with that. But these are languages with a Unix history, not a VB one. So I think the whole premise of wooing developers from a flawed platform design - ergo flawed programming logic - over to something that has much more academic exposure and a very rich history (I'm talking Unix here), is a disaster waiting to happen.
When I first started being interested in programming desktop Linux I didn't go look for Java bindings (altho, I did look for a JDK for server stuff), I used what was out there; in other words, I didn't try to re-invent the wheel! That said, yeah, sure, the C/C++ libs aren't perfect nor are they the holy grail of software development. I dunno, it just strikes me as odd, like some alien invader trying to convince me feverishly to get on board his space ship but won't tell me why(if you can imagine that), that there is so much push for Mono. Does make sense, I suppose from a corporate control point of view. Mono's roots are in the devil and that's enough for me. Yeah, sure, Sun owns Java, but Sun's also a Unix (yes, somehow that DOES make it milimeter better, esp compared to M$!) company and I have a little more faith in their corporate sesspool than Microsoft's. Altho, Schwartz is kinda dorky.
Anyway, the last line of the above post says it all; anyone invoking the name of Mr. Graham in a way that's pure and simple has the last word in my book.
No one said they have a get out of jail card.. Err, yah, whatever..
The DRM is already cracked and can be bypassed.
And I privately enjoy my purchases and stream them over daap just fine.
My iPod works fine and as long as I AGREE to their TOS, then that's a binding contract and they're not stopping me from doing anything. I have choice, I chose the best player and service - simple as that.
This is nonsensical. Most people that hate GPL violators, hate them because the GPL violators are performing the same act as the DRR (Digital Rights Restriction) groups are doing.
C'mon man, there is a CLEAR difference to those tech companies that pilfer the code and fucking Apple who sells its OWN service! Remember, they made iTMS and didn't lift code from RhythmBox or X11Amp or whatever - they fucking made their own deal.
I agree copyright laws are fucked and I don't care for DRM just as much as the next guy. But, hell, just buy the song and fucking run JHymn on it for christsake! It's even cross platform, imagine that (no, I'm not talking about f-ing Mono or.Net). Ya know, if someone was accessing my service/app from something other than what I intended, I'd be pissed! And if they kept fucking with it, then screw them, the gloves come off.
And that's the point of this - DVD Jon is using an unauthorized client - NO purposefully making one. Why not fuck with Walmart or M$ or Napster or Real?! Why Apple?! I mean, they're the only company out of the bunch (cept Real Helix) that actually gives back to the cause and is acutally making some sort of difference in a way that makes people happy?! I'm no zealot or apologist or whatever and I know they're not perfect and f-all big companies, but still, this is like shooting oneself in the foot!
You guys that are all cheerleading for Jon are gonna get the REAL assholes pissed off - the record companies - and then they're gonna pull something and then I and others won't be able to even get songs for.99 anymore! It'll be worse - like $2 a song or fucking DVDs that cost $20 or some crap like it was before!
I believe in the whole society and submitting art and shit like that, but after reading some of these posts - it's ridiculous! No bones against Jon, but fuckin-eh, I DO NOT want to have the Microsft or Walmart music stores the only digital games in town. Think about it!! In this case it is the lesser of the evils.
"..when IE was the only game in town, but now that Firefox is a serious player..."
Uh, so don't get me wrong, I loathe IE like the next guy, but how does - at best - 6% of the browser market already make Firefox a major player?? Apple's got around, what, 2%-3% of the desktop market, yet no one's calling them a major player.
Frankly, we should be blaming all those web 'developers' for their lazy and frankly, filthy, coding. I've worked in quite a few places and only those on the outside or real passionate web programmers care much about anything non-IE.
This will become more and more of an issue in the coming months and years as people start catching on to more of the Google halo effect: the DHTML/xmlrpc sorta 'fat' web client app. Customers and company higher-uppers are going to start saying more and more "why can't we do that like Google Suggest or Google Maps?". Be prepared.
I just have to also say it really pisses me off, as a enterprise developer, that I have to deal with a market like this. I mean, we have standards for a reason. And the fact that you IE only guys out there take quiet joy in your coding lazyness is beyond me. Take a little more pride in your work and look at the bigger picture! Regardless of what Micro$oft may think, the world should not revolve around IE! Hopefully some day, for real, Firefox will change this.
I have to say, after reading this article and Paul Grahm's I have to agree that if you're going to start a tech company - which almost any net company is - then you need tech people.
When we (my partners and I) merged our startup with another leader in our industry, everything at first was rosy. But within a matter of months, the misunderstanding of not just our business but also our tech, ended up being responsible for everyone running for the door. I, the principal technology guy, was out the door in six months. And needless to say, our product was dropped from their system within a year. Today? The VC's pushed everyone out and the company assets and name were transferred (from San Francisco) to east coast ownership.
Not to say I and many friends didn't have a good time during the days. In fact, when I headed off to a tech consulting company after the startup, I and my co-workers probably spent more time at parties than at the office. But, would I do that again? Probably not. While I'm still fond of the fast paced energy that was was it was back then, I look at ideas like Boo (jesus, esp those guys), Pets, and others of the time and think "ugh."
But I'm still hopeful for business on the net only because it has such a global reach now. One of my partners and myself are at round two of our startup lives. We're targeting the same industry, but with completely different tools. And one noticable difference is we're seeking no funding at all - which is good and bad. Like Graham suggests, we're goin lean all the way and tech guys are running the show. However, after almost a year of development on my part, it's starting to wear and the mantra now is persistence.
Everyone has their own story and unlike some I've come across, I'm glad the.com happened - I had a good time. I was probably one of the only ones who never got around to investing in it (in fact, I told companies I worked for I'd rather have cash over stock) so I didn't really lose anything. However, it was a pretty silly time and unless you had a really good idea with some good people behind it, then you probably deserved to fail. Asking if it'll ever happen again is like asking if the gold rush of the 1800's will ever happen again.
Hmmm.. I feel much more 'comfortable' looking at C and Java vs. C#/VB. And while C# is closer to Java, it still has that MS look that I've come to recognize via torturous years, long ago, with VB.
No, C# is not, IMO, nicer looking than Java.
That said, C can be quite fugly too, but there's just something about it; maybe it's because it's sorta the serrogate programming mother of languages I have become fond of.
Sorta like that not so pretty, overweight, mother that lives down the street and, while a little abrasive sometimes, can usually get anything done that you want her to.
C# is that sketchy lawyer chick that just moved into the brownstone across the street that Mr. Smith used to live in (Mr. Smith was the nicest old guy you ever knew). On the contrary, Ms. C#, even tho she sometimes gives cookies to the neighbors and plays a nice game, has the look in the corner of her eye that just says someting is wrong or fake. Like there's something there you just can't trust.
Meanwhile, Mr. Java a few doors down from Ms. C#, was one of those younger guys that just moved in prior to the.com boom and bust. He's had some great partys, but also had his ups and downs with the neighborhood meetings. However, in the end, he's got a pretty good amount of support from the community and you can tell he's in it for the long haul.
I trust the JCP much more than ECMA. They're two fundamentally different organizations of which, one has a voting body made up of many organizations - including open source projects - and the other has no voting process at all. Getting the ECMA standard slapped on your product says nothing to the owned ideas, methodologies and implementations behind it. The Mono guys like to use this all the time, but just because it's a standard does not mean it's patent free and free of legal entanglements and/or threats.
They are including "widgets" in Tiger, which is now accomplished by a 3rd party utility called Konfabulator, who will not be able to sell any more software when Tiger starts shipping.
Hmmm. Yah, I've been using K for quite a while and was a little shocked when the Tiger Widgets debuted. I have to say tho, I looked at the dev kit for Widgets and there is some eye candy there that K could use. Plus, while Apple has ripped off the majority of K, it seems like, speaking out of experience, it's a little easier to develop Tiger Widgets vs. K Widgets. Plus, the K widgets can be a little slow at times.
But, I'll prodbably stick with K widgets as I can have them sitting on the desktop vs. some hot key thing to bring them up, like on Tiger. Maybe this will change after release tho.
You act like no one has the right to charge whatever they want for their products! I'm definitly not an Apple apologist - in fact, I agree with a lot of the issues raised against them - but it's almost like you're saying that there is some mind beam that eminates from all Apple's products, compelling all poor saps to buy, buy, buy.
That's complete bullshit.
First off, the premium charge. I remember wanting my first Apple ][ and it was $2k. My friend got one, but I didn't. My latest Powerbook, while a nice chunk of change, was even more. Am I somehow pissed that I was forced to buy it??? Hell no! I looked at similar PC laptops and they were all shit. And frankly, I'm not very excited about Gnome anymore (and I can't stand KDE), so to pay a little bit more (a little more than a similarly configured Dell brick) for something that all works together AND has a Unix shell?! I have no problem with that. I bought my Powerbook because it was the best for what I needed. Period. And so far, that investment is paying off.
iTunes Music Store. This is the biggest piece of crap argument I ever hear on a regular Slashdot basis! Oh boo hoo, my iPod only works ON LINE with iTMS; the iPod I was forced to buy at gunpoint! Why can't I get a player that doesn't FORCE DRM on me?! Woa is me.. Seriously, let's see what was before this: Piracy, period! I was at an Apple store when iTMS launched and at that time, NO ONE was making any headway with legal downloads. ALL the players on the market, cept for the iPod, were shit! My friend had a Creative 256MB player that took FOREVER to transfer 8 songs (yah, that's what he got to listen to in one sitting) over its slow ass USB 1 link. Later, the Sony one he got forced him to convert everything to AAC before it would transfer from the propreitary Sony player/transfer app. Oh boy, how EVERYONE complained about that..
During the online music dark ages, what was one to do? Either search on the shit P2P networks for mediocre quality tunes, or go to yr local record store, get gouged, and later get labeled a pirate for ripping your music to mp3 or <ghasp!> making a backup in case your cd (which costs pennies to make) got scratched! Now in the 21st century, all kinds of people can go to iTMS - yes with their iPod -, or even the Napster service, or even the Walmart or Microsoft music stores, and get, usually, whatever they want. So somehow, again, saying that Apple has twisted everyone's arm to lock them into their service is a joke. And as far as Firplay goes, it's not an issue. Those that really give a shit about DRM always find ways around it. Always. Those that don't, don't. I'm sure when it comes down to it, Apple has to play good corporate buddy to the music cartel and therefore threaten those DRM stripping commies (who I wholeheartedly support) with various lawsuits so the cartel bosses can make sure they're still able to buy their mistresses whatever diamond gadget is all the rage. But in the end, I have to think they don't care much. Or at least not as much as the RIAA or MPAA do. OR as much as M$ does.
There's a big reason why Microsoft wasn't the first (and usually isn't for anything!) to launch a successful music store: because they're so preoccupied with owning all aspects of information. And when this usually bubbles to the likes of Sony, etc, they usually say "uh, see ya later..". Apple wasn't hampered by this mentality, played their hand and won - so far. Ever walk through Soho on a weekend? It sick. Everyone has white headphones. Sure, it's (the iPod) a total trend, but besides that, it's really a kick ass product. I own a 1st gen iPod and it still works and I love it. And I have a mix of mp3, aac, m4p files on it. So somehow the Microsoft/Real/Napster reality distortion field of "it's not compatible and open" is just that. With their kind of logic, we could equally make the point then that people who only use .
This has nothing to do with blue/red states! It just makes sense that municipalities can offer free wifi access - it's obvious there are many benefits downstream.
For a good taste of how simply ludicrous this whole banning of free access by local and state govt's via the neighborhood telcos, see Lessig's latest article in Wired.
Slashdot Mirror
Hah! Hench.net?! Riiiiiiiight. That site speaks for itself.
Anyway, Gore was the main guy that took ARPANET - which was only for academics, govt/mil, some related contractors and companies - and, while in Congress, pushed legislation that turned it into the INTERNET, which allowed ordinary Joe's dialup access and e-commerce, etc. Without Gore's push, there would probably be no Internet as we know it. So, Gore did take the initiative in creating the Internet and his statement is completely correct.
So climb down off your political elephant and relax. Your neocon buddies - as much as they don't want to admit it - made a lot of money during the Clinton/Gore years. If Gingrich had said this (even if he had nothing to do with it), then your pals would have nothing to bitch about.
Jobs has always been a hardware guy. He sees the value in tight integration and limited configurations. I'd say a lot of the trouble M$ is in with Windows is the fact that there's too much hardware out there. It has to somehow support everything.
Granted, M$ has billions more than Apple, but in the arena of public opinion, Apple is much 'cooler' than M$ because of design. Plus, Apple can also tout that it just works. Something M$ cannot. Apple stands on the shoulders of others like BSD, Apache, Samba, Java - stuff that other people have already figured out and therefore, Apple does not have to reinvent. And some things like BSD have a lot of security time logged, so Apple doesn't have to deal with these issues. M$ is just the opposite - for a recent example of this see the Acrylic image app.
Sure, Apple, like any company, is all about profit. But at the same time, because of Jobs, they have a mission: to make things that don't suck and to really innovate instead of paying it lip service and patch security holes. So for Apple to make (quite) a few billion dollars less and have a better user experience is worth much more to them.
I know this sounds cliche, but if you've ever used a Mac for some time you would know what I'm talking about. When I plug in a new mouse or whatever, there's no windows popping up nagging me to do something and I surely don't have to compile any drivers myself. So to me, even from a programmers point of view, it just works. Why mess with that just for more market share and added complexity?
Hardly. Two strikes against it in my book.
* Horrible non-aa fonts - this is 10+ year old tech!
* KDE leftover Aqua wannabe icons
Yuk.
You're right, there is not much to worry about in Linuxland. Apple poses little threat.
However, I have issue with a few things.
1. Lock their hardware platform how? If you mean you won't be able to buy a mobo from vendor A and install OS X on it, then yah, sure. But so what? Part of the problem with Windows is that it tries to support everything under the sun, which I think is a bad idea. Lower-end hardware dilutes the value of the OS.
2. Too much for accessories. True, but you don't have to buy RAM from Apple. Nor do you have to buy a mouse, keyboard, or even display from them. So besides the replacable parts that come with a Mac, most of the other stuff can be bought at the same price as Windows/Linux stuff. And again, lower end junk might not be supported for that reason - it's junk!
3. 2 button mouse. Ho hum...
I had slow access times on my network copying files via scp, samba, and nfs. And my ssh logins seemed slow as well. However, my only XP laptop it didn't seem like an issue. I found a post somewhere's while searching for what I thought was an OS X Samba problem and it suggested disabling IPv6 on all interfaces. Hmmm, I thought. I sorta felt OS X having this turned on outta the box was kinda a neat thing. However, when I did turn v6 off, ALL my network traffic sped up dramatically.
I haven't really dove into this, but it would be interesting to find out why this is and because others mentioned the same thing, I know it's not my home network. For those of you experiencing slow network speeds, I recommend giving this a try.
Forget HD videoconf for a while.
Been on the side of this road for many years (not HD tho). Even trying to get video from a firewire webcam at 15fps (which most biz people, I would think, would like) is a challenge.
Two person isn't too hard, but it get's really difficult when scaling above that. Plus, offices are behind firewalls and so that's always a pain as you have to (usually) piggyback port 80 or (for slower rates) 443 as these are pretty commonly opened ports in the biz world.
I expect Skype to come out with some vidconf tool soon, but prob only face to face.
Man, I am SO with you on this! I was lookin forward to tonight's Alias and also the next ep from Dr. Who. Bums me out.
.torrent sites.. Sigh..
I refuse to get a tv cuz most of the programming is shit. The net is a great way to get what I want and still not have feel like I'm a mindless blob during the process.
Guess the hunt will go on for more
Aside from a non-compatible format, I can't stand the thought of all my music going away if I don't want to subscribe anymore.
Exactly. The thing I don't like about these 'leasing' services is they're basically radio, except you can pick the songs. This tends to be fine for those who buy a cd and a month later trade it in (at a loss mind you), but nowadays with digital music, there's no reason to do that anymore. And Yahoo's radio stations are very unappealing to me. I stopped listening to radio years ago because it's just pumped with the same crap that the labels wanna push out the door as quick as possible so they can recoup their 'investment'. Not only that, there are, literally, 1000's of internet radio stations worldwide that do a much better job. Traditional music radio's days of intersting and useful have been over for quite some time.
I want my music for the long term. I want my kids to be able to play it 20 years from now if they want.
That's what JHymn is for. 'Nuff said.
I actually own my music. I'm not worried about its life (aside from making sure I have a backup) and I'll have it 5,10, probably 20 years down the road. There's a great server project for mp3 & m4a files called mt-daapd. I simply copied all my music off to an external firewire hd. Plug that into my fedora server running mt-daapd. Tell mt-daapd where to look for the files and any default playlists to provide to anyone on my network. And that's it. Right now, I'm pretty sure daapd is a iTunes only thing, but you can rest assured that there will be various open source music clients that will support it in the future. Some probably do already.
This coupled with a great lil util called OurTunes allows any friends or relatives who come over to be able to 'borrow' anything from my server. It's a really useful tool.
So you still have options. You just have to consider them and most people don't which is why they complain or stall or whatever. I personally don't give in to the M$ WMA tools as pretty much all of them suck. They're focused more around control and ownership vs. the Apple stuff was about music first and then the DRM stuff second. But then again, that's typical of the M$ way of thinking. Sure, no one likes DRM, but if there's a way around it (which there will probably always be), then fine.
-----
Always another way.
I've seen the car of the future in countless sci-fi movies and books already! But, hey, if Gates says it, then for sure it must be right around the corner. Ho hum..
God help us all if these are the things to come. In fact, I prefer my technology to
Even my first-gen iPod still works! I dunno, I'm past the disliking Gates and his empire and now I'm just sick of him telling everyone what the future's gonna be and the fact that Microsoft's gonna get you there.
Hang it up man, hang it up.
Gee, my Powerbook circa 2001 could do this.
And lo and behold, what's that in the System Preferences?
Why it's a optical disc icon that says
CDs & DVDs
And when I click on that there's a selection (mind you it's in plain english, of course, and not in engineer speak) that says:
When you insert a video DVD: [select drop down choice]
boggles the mind...
First off, no one said it's what we need. And regardless if you or I feel there might be no need for it (I personally use it daily), there are plenty of shops out there that do.
And second, they're addressing a significant issue with Swing which is its pokyness. This is going head on with SWT , a 'feature' that Eclipse people have enjoyed for sometime. This also signifies Sun throwing in the towel on their whole Swing widget abstraction, abstraction, abstraction mantra in favor of using the native OS rendering widget facilities. This has been a major Java gripe for some time; why can't my Windows Java app look like a Windows app and why does it have to be do damned slow?!
Should be interesting to see how these features/additions play out. Also, looks like Swing apps are finally getting native aa font support. This will please many as the text rendering in Java apps is still in the Windwos 2k/GTK 1.x days..
Is it going to be replaced by C#? Perhaps,...
Doubtful. I'm sure C# will get quite popular, but neither that nor will Mono have a foothold on the server like Java does anytime soon. Java's tools and microcosm of open and closed projects are being used by quite a bit by companines and organizations doing real, every day work. Granted, Java on the desktop never took off, but the whole C# vs. Java war is just a myth - there's plenty of room for both to exist.
I'm using Hibernate on my current project and while it's not the be all/end all, it's definitely a better approach (I feel) than EJB entity beans. 99% of my current data layer is Hibernate code/classes and I'm pretty happy with it. Coupled with various plugin caches and you have a fast, reliable data access layer.
Once you get the nuances of Hibernate, it's quite easy and sometimes even fast to plug in an entity and go. Remember, it's not just wrapper for JDBC/Transactions, etc, but a fairly mature and robust ORM solution. And, its HQL (yes, another QL) allows for fined tuning of any entities that might become a bottleneck.
For med to big sized projects, I'd recommend it.
God I HATE /. on Apr. 1. Argh!
Apple-P -> Save as PDF :)
Well, ya know, a smiliar Java app on Solaris will probably match or best a C# app on equivalent Windows machine. Why? Cuz the devloper of the OS can be free to tie in all their optimizations into their VM. Mono is slower, besides being a clean room impl, because it's fricking hard to port VMs to other architectures and they haven't tied all their calls to the low level OS like M$ has!
.NET/Mono vs. Java, but I do.
.NET/Mono are no where near Java in terms of scalability and performance. I worked on a project - and this was even four years ago - where 75 Java app servers ran across 150 cpus. This company has made billions in transactions across those systems. And that was four years ago! .NET/Mono on the server and this is where Sun got it right. If you've ever used Sun hardware, with all their little management niceties and gizmos, you would know they've got their shit together on this. Their experience with building, albiet sometimes complicated or academic, scalable apps is what they're all about and this has all filtered into Java.
Sun has done an admirable job porting their VM across so many archs, but only from a server perspective.
Which is not how most people think of when they think of
I made the jump years ago and think mostly in terms of the server and Weblications - a completely different ball game and, in my view, where things are going and finally back on track.
Java's way ahead of
Sure, for some desktop app or photo sharing web site, Java's not the way to go. But for medium to big web projects where stuff just has to work, then there's no other game in town. They'll own this space for some time to come. Windows is all about the PC and local client apps. But that door's starting to close and it makes sense for more and more non-Office style programs to be run over the net.
Funny, that reminds me of a company I went to where they gave their Perl programmers a 3 month Java class and I ended up later debugging and re-writing their 2k line JSPs. Unfortunately for me.
.NET release is about as solid as Java was back in, what, '99?!
The latest
Serious!
I make my filthy living doing enterprise Java apps. I love my Linux servers and my Powerbook. But I don't go around preaching the gospel of Java to the unconverted. And that's exactly the point: Linux already has two useful and proven languages for desktop apps - C/C++. Make those better!
I almost feel like Miguel has been living in the corporate world a little too long, thus, like you said, his preaching of something else - a typical thing in the real world is not to fix it, but to re-do it in some other language. I see this stuff all the time and just roll my eyes. Then I spend ridiculous hours helping various teams meet their goal.
This is actually classic if you think about it. At first, KDE, namely Qt, was not open source. So instead of trying to fix it they made an entirely new desktop system. Of course, Qt later dropped those restrictions and now Gnome is the fat dog that can't get off the porch. So the mantra is if it doesn't go our way, we'll re-do it, but make it worse! Deja vu anyone?
Linux does not need sloppy developers porting all their crap from Windows. I mean, I think of all the junk out there on download.com.com.com.com and try to visualize that on my Mac (fortunately that's not possible) and a chill runs up my spine.
If you want to program a Linux app, learn C - it's not that hard and it can actually be, dare I say, fun! If you find something you don't like or you see is broken, submit the changes/fixes back to the community. Yay, you're an open source developer now!
C aside, sure, people will use Python, Perl, Ruby, nothing wrong with that. But these are languages with a Unix history, not a VB one. So I think the whole premise of wooing developers from a flawed platform design - ergo flawed programming logic - over to something that has much more academic exposure and a very rich history (I'm talking Unix here), is a disaster waiting to happen.
When I first started being interested in programming desktop Linux I didn't go look for Java bindings (altho, I did look for a JDK for server stuff), I used what was out there; in other words, I didn't try to re-invent the wheel! That said, yeah, sure, the C/C++ libs aren't perfect nor are they the holy grail of software development. I dunno, it just strikes me as odd, like some alien invader trying to convince me feverishly to get on board his space ship but won't tell me why(if you can imagine that), that there is so much push for Mono. Does make sense, I suppose from a corporate control point of view. Mono's roots are in the devil and that's enough for me. Yeah, sure, Sun owns Java, but Sun's also a Unix (yes, somehow that DOES make it milimeter better, esp compared to M$!) company and I have a little more faith in their corporate sesspool than Microsoft's. Altho, Schwartz is kinda dorky.
Anyway, the last line of the above post says it all; anyone invoking the name of Mr. Graham in a way that's pure and simple has the last word in my book.
No one said they have a get out of jail card.. Err, yah, whatever..
The DRM is already cracked and can be bypassed.
And I privately enjoy my purchases and stream them over daap just fine.
My iPod works fine and as long as I AGREE to their TOS, then that's a binding contract and they're not stopping me from doing anything. I have choice, I chose the best player and service - simple as that.
Sorry, yr post has been cracked..
This is nonsensical. Most people that hate GPL violators, hate them because the GPL violators are performing the same act as the DRR (Digital Rights Restriction) groups are doing.
.Net). Ya know, if someone was accessing my service/app from something other than what I intended, I'd be pissed! And if they kept fucking with it, then screw them, the gloves come off.
.99 anymore! It'll be worse - like $2 a song or fucking DVDs that cost $20 or some crap like it was before!
C'mon man, there is a CLEAR difference to those tech companies that pilfer the code and fucking Apple who sells its OWN service! Remember, they made iTMS and didn't lift code from RhythmBox or X11Amp or whatever - they fucking made their own deal.
I agree copyright laws are fucked and I don't care for DRM just as much as the next guy. But, hell, just buy the song and fucking run JHymn on it for christsake! It's even cross platform, imagine that (no, I'm not talking about f-ing Mono or
And that's the point of this - DVD Jon is using an unauthorized client - NO purposefully making one. Why not fuck with Walmart or M$ or Napster or Real?! Why Apple?! I mean, they're the only company out of the bunch (cept Real Helix) that actually gives back to the cause and is acutally making some sort of difference in a way that makes people happy?! I'm no zealot or apologist or whatever and I know they're not perfect and f-all big companies, but still, this is like shooting oneself in the foot!
You guys that are all cheerleading for Jon are gonna get the REAL assholes pissed off - the record companies - and then they're gonna pull something and then I and others won't be able to even get songs for
I believe in the whole society and submitting art and shit like that, but after reading some of these posts - it's ridiculous! No bones against Jon, but fuckin-eh, I DO NOT want to have the Microsft or Walmart music stores the only digital games in town. Think about it!! In this case it is the lesser of the evils.
"..when IE was the only game in town, but now that Firefox is a serious player..."
Uh, so don't get me wrong, I loathe IE like the next guy, but how does - at best - 6% of the browser market already make Firefox a major player?? Apple's got around, what, 2%-3% of the desktop market, yet no one's calling them a major player.
Frankly, we should be blaming all those web 'developers' for their lazy and frankly, filthy, coding. I've worked in quite a few places and only those on the outside or real passionate web programmers care much about anything non-IE.
This will become more and more of an issue in the coming months and years as people start catching on to more of the Google halo effect: the DHTML/xmlrpc sorta 'fat' web client app. Customers and company higher-uppers are going to start saying more and more "why can't we do that like Google Suggest or Google Maps?". Be prepared.
I just have to also say it really pisses me off, as a enterprise developer, that I have to deal with a market like this. I mean, we have standards for a reason. And the fact that you IE only guys out there take quiet joy in your coding lazyness is beyond me.
Take a little more pride in your work and look at the bigger picture! Regardless of what Micro$oft may think, the world should not revolve around IE! Hopefully some day, for real, Firefox will change this.
I have to say, after reading this article and Paul Grahm's I have to agree that if you're going to start a tech company - which almost any net company is - then you need tech people.
.com happened - I had a good time. I was probably one of the only ones who never got around to investing in it (in fact, I told companies I worked for I'd rather have cash over stock) so I didn't really lose anything. However, it was a pretty silly time and unless you had a really good idea with some good people behind it, then you probably deserved to fail. Asking if it'll ever happen again is like asking if the gold rush of the 1800's will ever happen again.
When we (my partners and I) merged our startup with another leader in our industry, everything at first was rosy. But within a matter of months, the misunderstanding of not just our business but also our tech, ended up being responsible for everyone running for the door. I, the principal technology guy, was out the door in six months. And needless to say, our product was dropped from their system within a year. Today? The VC's pushed everyone out and the company assets and name were transferred (from San Francisco) to east coast ownership.
Not to say I and many friends didn't have a good time during the days. In fact, when I headed off to a tech consulting company after the startup, I and my co-workers probably spent more time at parties than at the office. But, would I do that again? Probably not. While I'm still fond of the fast paced energy that was was it was back then, I look at ideas like Boo (jesus, esp those guys), Pets, and others of the time and think "ugh."
But I'm still hopeful for business on the net only because it has such a global reach now. One of my partners and myself are at round two of our startup lives. We're targeting the same industry, but with completely different tools. And one noticable difference is we're seeking no funding at all - which is good and bad. Like Graham suggests, we're goin lean all the way and tech guys are running the show. However, after almost a year of development on my part, it's starting to wear and the mantra now is persistence.
Everyone has their own story and unlike some I've come across, I'm glad the
Hmmm.. I feel much more 'comfortable' looking at C and Java vs. C#/VB. And while C# is closer to Java, it still has that MS look that I've come to recognize via torturous years, long ago, with VB.
.com boom and bust. He's had some great partys, but also had his ups and downs with the neighborhood meetings. However, in the end, he's got a pretty good amount of support from the community and you can tell he's in it for the long haul.
No, C# is not, IMO, nicer looking than Java.
That said, C can be quite fugly too, but there's just something about it; maybe it's because it's sorta the serrogate programming mother of languages I have become fond of.
Sorta like that not so pretty, overweight, mother that lives down the street and, while a little abrasive sometimes, can usually get anything done that you want her to.
C# is that sketchy lawyer chick that just moved into the brownstone across the street that Mr. Smith used to live in (Mr. Smith was the nicest old guy you ever knew). On the contrary, Ms. C#, even tho she sometimes gives cookies to the neighbors and plays a nice game, has the look in the corner of her eye that just says someting is wrong or fake. Like there's something there you just can't trust.
Meanwhile, Mr. Java a few doors down from Ms. C#, was one of those younger guys that just moved in prior to the
I trust the JCP much more than ECMA. They're two fundamentally different organizations of which, one has a voting body made up of many organizations - including open source projects - and the other has no voting process at all. Getting the ECMA standard slapped on your product says nothing to the owned ideas, methodologies and implementations behind it. The Mono guys like to use this all the time, but just because it's a standard does not mean it's patent free and free of legal entanglements and/or threats.
They are including "widgets" in Tiger, which is now accomplished by a 3rd party utility called Konfabulator, who will not be able to sell any more software when Tiger starts shipping.
Hmmm. Yah, I've been using K for quite a while and was a little shocked when the Tiger Widgets debuted. I have to say tho, I looked at the dev kit for Widgets and there is some eye candy there that K could use. Plus, while Apple has ripped off the majority of K, it seems like, speaking out of experience, it's a little easier to develop Tiger Widgets vs. K Widgets. Plus, the K widgets can be a little slow at times.
But, I'll prodbably stick with K widgets as I can have them sitting on the desktop vs. some hot key thing to bring them up, like on Tiger. Maybe this will change after release tho.
You act like no one has the right to charge whatever they want for their products! I'm definitly not an Apple apologist - in fact, I agree with a lot of the issues raised against them - but it's almost like you're saying that there is some mind beam that eminates from all Apple's products, compelling all poor saps to buy, buy, buy.
That's complete bullshit.
First off, the premium charge.
I remember wanting my first Apple ][ and it was $2k. My friend got one, but I didn't. My latest Powerbook, while a nice chunk of change, was even more. Am I somehow pissed that I was forced to buy it??? Hell no! I looked at similar PC laptops and they were all shit. And frankly, I'm not very excited about Gnome anymore (and I can't stand KDE), so to pay a little bit more (a little more than a similarly configured Dell brick) for something that all works together AND has a Unix shell?! I have no problem with that. I bought my Powerbook because it was the best for what I needed. Period. And so far, that investment is paying off.
iTunes Music Store.
This is the biggest piece of crap argument I ever hear on a regular Slashdot basis! Oh boo hoo, my iPod only works ON LINE with iTMS; the iPod I was forced to buy at gunpoint! Why can't I get a player that doesn't FORCE DRM on me?! Woa is me..
Seriously, let's see what was before this: Piracy, period! I was at an Apple store when iTMS launched and at that time, NO ONE was making any headway with legal downloads. ALL the players on the market, cept for the iPod, were shit! My friend had a Creative 256MB player that took FOREVER to transfer 8 songs (yah, that's what he got to listen to in one sitting) over its slow ass USB 1 link. Later, the Sony one he got forced him to convert everything to AAC before it would transfer from the propreitary Sony player/transfer app. Oh boy, how EVERYONE complained about that..
During the online music dark ages, what was one to do? Either search on the shit P2P networks for mediocre quality tunes, or go to yr local record store, get gouged, and later get labeled a pirate for ripping your music to mp3 or <ghasp!> making a backup in case your cd (which costs pennies to make) got scratched!
Now in the 21st century, all kinds of people can go to iTMS - yes with their iPod -, or even the Napster service, or even the Walmart or Microsoft music stores, and get, usually, whatever they want. So somehow, again, saying that Apple has twisted everyone's arm to lock them into their service is a joke. And as far as Firplay goes, it's not an issue. Those that really give a shit about DRM always find ways around it. Always. Those that don't, don't. I'm sure when it comes down to it, Apple has to play good corporate buddy to the music cartel and therefore threaten those DRM stripping commies (who I wholeheartedly support) with various lawsuits so the cartel bosses can make sure they're still able to buy their mistresses whatever diamond gadget is all the rage. But in the end, I have to think they don't care much. Or at least not as much as the RIAA or MPAA do. OR as much as M$ does.
There's a big reason why Microsoft wasn't the first (and usually isn't for anything!) to launch a successful music store: because they're so preoccupied with owning all aspects of information. And when this usually bubbles to the likes of Sony, etc, they usually say "uh, see ya later..". Apple wasn't hampered by this mentality, played their hand and won - so far.
Ever walk through Soho on a weekend? It sick. Everyone has white headphones. Sure, it's (the iPod) a total trend, but besides that, it's really a kick ass product. I own a 1st gen iPod and it still works and I love it. And I have a mix of mp3, aac, m4p files on it. So somehow the Microsoft/Real/Napster reality distortion field of "it's not compatible and open" is just that. With their kind of logic, we could equally make the point then that people who only use .
This has nothing to do with blue/red states! It just makes sense that municipalities can offer free wifi access - it's obvious there are many benefits downstream.
For a good taste of how simply ludicrous this whole banning of free access by local and state govt's via the neighborhood telcos, see Lessig's latest article in Wired.