Everyone ought to know to not buy first-gen Apple hardware by now - the large majority of first gen hardware have issues that get resolved in the second revision.
I've heard this from several Mac fans for a long time. However, in my opinion, this is completely unacceptable. First of all, to purchase a Mac, you need to plunk down a non-trivial amount of money. Secondly, Apple doesn't keep selling the old generation of products for very long, so if you use your Mac for work, and you suddenly need a new one, then you have no choice but to purchase a first-gen machine.
The _correct_ way to solve the problem is to put more resources into quality control, and don't release something until it is working satisfactory.
I doubt it's going to be released for the PS3 and XBox360 at the same time...isn't the PS3's ship date like Nov. 17? I imagine most people wouldn't buy the game for a console that isn't for sale yet...
Verizon, of course, doesn't use 3G and doesn't use SIM cards
I'm quite certain that EV-DO is considered a 3G technology. However, it is different than the WCDMA technology used by some other providers. It's just that EV-DO (and CDMA in general), seems to be designed to take advantage of the limited frequencies available in the USA/North America. (Namely, the signal needs to fit into a 1.25MHz band). UMTS/WCDMA was designed to use a 5MHz band, which was being opened up in Europe for this technology.
While everybody can argue which techonology is better, from my personal experiences in San Diego, I've received slightly higher data rates on EV-DO (Sprint) than on UMTS (Cingular) YMMV based on where you live and on how many people are using the towers at the same time...
Also, FYI...the CDMA standard does support SIM-like cards (R-UIM). However, the US CDMA carriers don't support them. I believe that they are in heavy use in Asia, and that they are backwards compatible with SIM cards...
I've been hoping for this for awhile. Apple could release it to only run on OS X server, there by giving them an extra hardware/software sales, it also becomes a point where ISPs will begin advertising that they support "OS X Sync Services" or whatever Apple calls it, thus increasing the mind share of potential customers.
Also, I'm sure that there are lots of groups (hospitals, military, etc) where that type of data is considered confidential, and thus can never be transmitted to Apple's servers. By selling the services as part of OS X, these potential customers may be able to use their Macs to the full extent...
I was thinking the same thing. I know that many Mac users have complained about this "feature" of software update and hopefully Apple actually implements this "solution," as it would make updating your software that much more convienent
That being said, there is nothing in OS X that is preventing you from restarting the changed code (well, other than kernel updates) and thus being able to avoid a restart yourself...
The big question (at least in my mind) is this something that she argued for (as MS's paid attorney) or is this one of her core values and what impact this would have on her supreme court voting record. I would hope that during her hearing in the senate that her true beliefs will come out, and we can then decide if this is the person we want for the supreme court...
I know that I have worked in software houses before where I've done stuff that I don't believe in (removing lots of cool features from a cell phone so a provider can sell them back to the consumer comes to mind), but I did that because that is what I was paid to do.
It's non-trivial to get off of CFM and move to Mach-O,
It would also be very non-trivial for Apple to port the CFM ABI from the PowerPC Processor to the Intel processor. The ABI specs assume that there is a PowerPC underneath. With the Mach-O ABI, the entire ABI is optimized for being on a CISC processor. See this blog (from a developer) for more info
Huh? The thing that makes an app "first class" on Mac OS is using the Cocoa API.
IMHO, the Cocoa API makes it easier to design a first class Mac app, but it is very much so possible to design a first class Mac app with Carbon (iTunes is probably the best example)
Be careful about making general statements...one could also say that the only way to make a UI that "feels" fast is to use the Carbon API, not Cocoa. (ie. iTunes vs. iPhoto), but that isn't always the case (ie. Finder)
It seems that the CDMA providers in the US (Verizon/Sprint/etc) use GPS* to determine the location of a 911 call, while the GSM carriers (Cingular/T-Mobile/etc) use triangulation. (I have no idea what iDEN carriers (Nextel) use)
*From what I understand about CDMA phones with GPS, is that the raw GPS signals are sent from the phone to the tower to allow the tower (or something further down the line) to do the GPS calculations and that data is sent to the 911 operator
OS X does not totally take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM. It can address tons of RAM, but each running application is limited to a maximum of 4GB of addressable space in Panther.
When Tiger comes out, non-gui applications will be able to address the full 64 bit address space, however, GUI apps will remain limited to the 32 bit address space. See here for more info.
It seems that this would be possible if there was a universally-supported framework. Off the top of my head:
First, some sort of a general-framework applescript would need to be written and attached to the trash as a "Folder Action", which is run everytime the folder is modified. This script would need to do nothing for most filetypes, but when it detects the "App" bundle, it should offer to remove preferences
Secondly, each app would need a script (or other executable program) that the Folder Action in the trash calls on each App Bundle. That script would be responsible for removing the preference files that the app creates
However, this solution won't remove all of the preferences it creates for each user on the system. (Especially those not logged on using a File-Vault Home Directory)
(Note: I'm typing this on my Powerbook) If you have ever used Quicken on the Mac and Quicken on Windows, then you would be familiar with how cut-rate Quicken Mac is. Quicken Mac does not support features that the Windows version has supported for years, the same bugs have been popping up since 2000 and is pretty much just a glorified calculator...
The/. moderators really don't have any control over what appears on/. or not...you should be ticked off at the Editors!
Re:Welcome to capitalism
on
HIV Vaccine
·
· Score: 1
In addition, Drug company profit margins average around 18%, an unheard-of profit level in any other industry.
Where did you get that number, and why is that an unheard of number in any other industry? It seems to me that there are quite a few industries that have a higher profit margin? (such as computer software, computer support services, etc)
Re:Now the real question
on
Hacking Vodka
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· Score: 1
Where I live, it costs about $18 for a 750mL bottle of Finlandia, Stoli or Absolut. However, it costs about $10 for 1.75L of cheap Vodka. So, you get twice as much "good" stuff for the same price!
That being said, my Vokda of choice is still Chopin
Ummmm...the Governator didn't propose this idea. A comission (that he appointed) to look into the California Taxes & how they are being spent came up with this suggestion
Re:This Article is riddled with inaccuracies.
on
NeXTSTEP To Mac OS X
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· Score: 1
You're post has lots of interesting points. One implied point of yours is that Adobe, Macromedia, etc would have been able to get thier software out faster and better by using Cocoa.
I disagree with this, as MS, Adobe, Quark, etc all have invested thousands of dollars in Classic technologies (which later became Carbon). Their "widgets" have all been created with this technology, and verified that they work well.
With Cocoa, not only do they have to reimplement everything, but then they have to retest everything to verify that the functionality hasn't changed.
Plus, how many experienced Cocoa programmers are there? I'm guessing it is significantly less than MacOS Classic/Carbon programmers. These new "Cocoa" programmers would likely charge a premium over the "Carbon" programmers due to the increase in demand. (...Or the companies could take the time/money to retrain their developers)
PS--The one program I would _really_ like to see Apple replace is Quicken. It seems that the only difference between the 2005 and 2000 versions are slightly different icons. Talk about a company that doesn't "see the light"
Microsoft could dust off the code from NT4/PPC, add some code from Virtual PC to get Windows/x86 compatibility, and have it up and running in about the same amount of time it would take Apple to get Mac OS X running on common Intel hardware."
Isn't this what.NET has been created to solve? Same OS & Apps running on different platforms?
The speculation is that there was not a bidding war between XM & Sirius. XM is (partly) owned by Clear Channel Communications, who kicked Stern off the air in 6 markets shortly after the whole Janet Jackson/Superbowl thing.
To put it mildly, Stern was less than enthusatic about being removed from those Clear Channel Stations, and mentioned that more than once on the air.
Agreed. This article should be on the Politics only page, and not the main Slashdot page. The ONLY thing political that Slashdot should have on it's front page is something that is Tech/Science/"News for Nerds" stuff. If I want to discuss politics, I'll do it at a more appropriate place!
In a perfect world, I would agree with you, and for many science subjects, there are no politics and and preconceived notions.
However, it seems that science is just as bad as religion in many ways. Scientists are people too, and they may have a political adgenda, like any religious fanatic.
For example, evolution. There are still lots of unanswered problems with this theory. In a few years, there will likely be a few changes to this theory, as the data improves. Yet, it seems to me that the people pushing to teach "evolution" as a 100% truth are those that most strongly label themselves as athiests.
Like you said above, the religious fanatics are the same way! I personally think that _all_ science should be taught in such a manner of "this is a commonly held theory about $TOPIC, however, there may be errors in this line of thought. Speak up if you have a better idea"
I agree that Digital TV doesn't "solve" any problems we as consumers have. However, it does provide a nicer form of entertainment (higher quality picture, progressive scan options (60fps), 5.1 digital sound, etc). IMHO, HDTVs are not catching on because of their high price, not due to consumer demand. (How many people do you know that want a nice plasma tv?)
That being said, this article is about digital transmissions, and that _does_ solve a problem that people have. With the digital transmission, you either get a picture, or you don't. The picture is 100% clear, and the digital transmissions actually travel further than the old analog ones.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone ought to know to not buy first-gen Apple hardware by now - the large majority of first gen hardware have issues that get resolved in the second revision.
I've heard this from several Mac fans for a long time. However, in my opinion, this is completely unacceptable. First of all, to purchase a Mac, you need to plunk down a non-trivial amount of money. Secondly, Apple doesn't keep selling the old generation of products for very long, so if you use your Mac for work, and you suddenly need a new one, then you have no choice but to purchase a first-gen machine.
The _correct_ way to solve the problem is to put more resources into quality control, and don't release something until it is working satisfactory.
Whoops...wrong year. 2007. I can read well...
I doubt it's going to be released for the PS3 and XBox360 at the same time...isn't the PS3's ship date like Nov. 17? I imagine most people wouldn't buy the game for a console that isn't for sale yet...
Verizon, of course, doesn't use 3G and doesn't use SIM cards
I'm quite certain that EV-DO is considered a 3G technology. However, it is different than the WCDMA technology used by some other providers. It's just that EV-DO (and CDMA in general), seems to be designed to take advantage of the limited frequencies available in the USA/North America. (Namely, the signal needs to fit into a 1.25MHz band). UMTS/WCDMA was designed to use a 5MHz band, which was being opened up in Europe for this technology.
While everybody can argue which techonology is better, from my personal experiences in San Diego, I've received slightly higher data rates on EV-DO (Sprint) than on UMTS (Cingular) YMMV based on where you live and on how many people are using the towers at the same time...
Also, FYI...the CDMA standard does support SIM-like cards (R-UIM). However, the US CDMA carriers don't support them. I believe that they are in heavy use in Asia, and that they are backwards compatible with SIM cards...
I've been hoping for this for awhile. Apple could release it to only run on OS X server, there by giving them an extra hardware/software sales, it also becomes a point where ISPs will begin advertising that they support "OS X Sync Services" or whatever Apple calls it, thus increasing the mind share of potential customers.
Also, I'm sure that there are lots of groups (hospitals, military, etc) where that type of data is considered confidential, and thus can never be transmitted to Apple's servers. By selling the services as part of OS X, these potential customers may be able to use their Macs to the full extent...
I was thinking the same thing. I know that many Mac users have complained about this "feature" of software update and hopefully Apple actually implements this "solution," as it would make updating your software that much more convienent
That being said, there is nothing in OS X that is preventing you from restarting the changed code (well, other than kernel updates) and thus being able to avoid a restart yourself...
The big question (at least in my mind) is this something that she argued for (as MS's paid attorney) or is this one of her core values and what impact this would have on her supreme court voting record. I would hope that during her hearing in the senate that her true beliefs will come out, and we can then decide if this is the person we want for the supreme court...
I know that I have worked in software houses before where I've done stuff that I don't believe in (removing lots of cool features from a cell phone so a provider can sell them back to the consumer comes to mind), but I did that because that is what I was paid to do.
It's non-trivial to get off of CFM and move to Mach-O,
It would also be very non-trivial for Apple to port the CFM ABI from the PowerPC Processor to the Intel processor. The ABI specs assume that there is a PowerPC underneath. With the Mach-O ABI, the entire ABI is optimized for being on a CISC processor. See this blog (from a developer) for more info
Huh? The thing that makes an app "first class" on Mac OS is using the Cocoa API.
IMHO, the Cocoa API makes it easier to design a first class Mac app, but it is very much so possible to design a first class Mac app with Carbon (iTunes is probably the best example)
Be careful about making general statements...one could also say that the only way to make a UI that "feels" fast is to use the Carbon API, not Cocoa. (ie. iTunes vs. iPhoto), but that isn't always the case (ie. Finder)
It seems that the CDMA providers in the US (Verizon/Sprint/etc) use GPS* to determine the location of a 911 call, while the GSM carriers (Cingular/T-Mobile/etc) use triangulation. (I have no idea what iDEN carriers (Nextel) use) *From what I understand about CDMA phones with GPS, is that the raw GPS signals are sent from the phone to the tower to allow the tower (or something further down the line) to do the GPS calculations and that data is sent to the 911 operator
OS X does not totally take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM. It can address tons of RAM, but each running application is limited to a maximum of 4GB of addressable space in Panther.
When Tiger comes out, non-gui applications will be able to address the full 64 bit address space, however, GUI apps will remain limited to the 32 bit address space. See here for more info.
It seems that this would be possible if there was a universally-supported framework. Off the top of my head:
First, some sort of a general-framework applescript would need to be written and attached to the trash as a "Folder Action", which is run everytime the folder is modified. This script would need to do nothing for most filetypes, but when it detects the "App" bundle, it should offer to remove preferences
Secondly, each app would need a script (or other executable program) that the Folder Action in the trash calls on each App Bundle. That script would be responsible for removing the preference files that the app creates
However, this solution won't remove all of the preferences it creates for each user on the system. (Especially those not logged on using a File-Vault Home Directory)
(Note: I'm typing this on my Powerbook) If you have ever used Quicken on the Mac and Quicken on Windows, then you would be familiar with how cut-rate Quicken Mac is. Quicken Mac does not support features that the Windows version has supported for years, the same bugs have been popping up since 2000 and is pretty much just a glorified calculator...
(IMHO, of course)
The /. moderators really don't have any control over what appears on /. or not...you should be ticked off at the Editors!
In addition, Drug company profit margins average around 18%, an unheard-of profit level in any other industry.
Where did you get that number, and why is that an unheard of number in any other industry? It seems to me that there are quite a few industries that have a higher profit margin? (such as computer software, computer support services, etc)
Where I live, it costs about $18 for a 750mL bottle of Finlandia, Stoli or Absolut. However, it costs about $10 for 1.75L of cheap Vodka. So, you get twice as much "good" stuff for the same price!
That being said, my Vokda of choice is still Chopin
Ummmm...the Governator didn't propose this idea. A comission (that he appointed) to look into the California Taxes & how they are being spent came up with this suggestion
You're post has lots of interesting points. One implied point of yours is that Adobe, Macromedia, etc would have been able to get thier software out faster and better by using Cocoa.
I disagree with this, as MS, Adobe, Quark, etc all have invested thousands of dollars in Classic technologies (which later became Carbon). Their "widgets" have all been created with this technology, and verified that they work well.
With Cocoa, not only do they have to reimplement everything, but then they have to retest everything to verify that the functionality hasn't changed.
Plus, how many experienced Cocoa programmers are there? I'm guessing it is significantly less than MacOS Classic/Carbon programmers. These new "Cocoa" programmers would likely charge a premium over the "Carbon" programmers due to the increase in demand. (...Or the companies could take the time/money to retrain their developers)
PS--The one program I would _really_ like to see Apple replace is Quicken. It seems that the only difference between the 2005 and 2000 versions are slightly different icons. Talk about a company that doesn't "see the light"
In other news, hits to geek website http://slashdot.org is down 80% on the day...
Ummm...if you can see the moon during the "total" eclipse time, then it's a total eclipse.
Microsoft could dust off the code from NT4/PPC, add some code from Virtual PC to get Windows/x86 compatibility, and have it up and running in about the same amount of time it would take Apple to get Mac OS X running on common Intel hardware."
.NET has been created to solve? Same OS & Apps running on different platforms?
Isn't this what
The speculation is that there was not a bidding war between XM & Sirius. XM is (partly) owned by Clear Channel Communications, who kicked Stern off the air in 6 markets shortly after the whole Janet Jackson/Superbowl thing.
To put it mildly, Stern was less than enthusatic about being removed from those Clear Channel Stations, and mentioned that more than once on the air.
Agreed. This article should be on the Politics only page, and not the main Slashdot page. The ONLY thing political that Slashdot should have on it's front page is something that is Tech/Science/"News for Nerds" stuff. If I want to discuss politics, I'll do it at a more appropriate place!
In a perfect world, I would agree with you, and for many science subjects, there are no politics and and preconceived notions.
However, it seems that science is just as bad as religion in many ways. Scientists are people too, and they may have a political adgenda, like any religious fanatic.
For example, evolution. There are still lots of unanswered problems with this theory. In a few years, there will likely be a few changes to this theory, as the data improves. Yet, it seems to me that the people pushing to teach "evolution" as a 100% truth are those that most strongly label themselves as athiests.
Like you said above, the religious fanatics are the same way! I personally think that _all_ science should be taught in such a manner of "this is a commonly held theory about $TOPIC, however, there may be errors in this line of thought. Speak up if you have a better idea"
I agree that Digital TV doesn't "solve" any problems we as consumers have. However, it does provide a nicer form of entertainment (higher quality picture, progressive scan options (60fps), 5.1 digital sound, etc). IMHO, HDTVs are not catching on because of their high price, not due to consumer demand. (How many people do you know that want a nice plasma tv?)
That being said, this article is about digital transmissions, and that _does_ solve a problem that people have. With the digital transmission, you either get a picture, or you don't. The picture is 100% clear, and the digital transmissions actually travel further than the old analog ones.