I was lucky enough to pick up the last available one in Long Beach, and I have to say that so far I like it.
I came from the iPhone and AT&T, so it looks like I will be able to not only save almost $50/mo but also have a better device.
The good: The screen is much more crisp and vibrant than the iPhone. I'm really happy about that. The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, but anything is better than the on-screen iPhone keyboard, plus I have smaller fingers so it doesn't affect me as much. The screen is smaller than the iPhone, but the lack of on-screen keyboard makes for efficient use of screen real-estate. So far I haven't noticed the lack of larger screen in regular use. Not much to say about battery life, but it seems to be on-par with the iPhone from my current experience, which is fine for me. I don't particularly care about having it last more than one day, since I plug it in nightly anyway. Running multiple applications is extremely helpful, and it seems to be implemented very well. I've not yet had a problem with it. Sprint Navigation is amazing too, by the way, and definitely is on-par with most GPS devices out there; on top of that, it re-routes according to traffic and road speeds, which, unless your GPS is network-connected, you'll be lacking it. So, I'd say it's *better* than most stand-alone GPS devices out there.
The bad: The UI response is a bit sluggish. I think that I may have been spoiled by the iPhone's extremely smooth UI, but I also recall that for a while after the release of iPhone OS 2.0, it was fairly laggy for quite a bit. They did release an update to webOS (1.0.2) that did increase the response time by about 50% (I'm really just ballparking that number, but it was significant enough to notice), so if you haven't ran the updater, do it. I hope that as more updates come out, they'll fix the response time and it will be as smooth as the iPhone. The other problem is more with Sprint than with the Pre -- EV-DO does not support data usage during voice calls. This sucks, as there are times when I'm on the phone and I need to look something up or send an email... however, I had so many problems with the 3G in the iPhone, that more than half the time I had to run with it off anyway, so I don't think I'll miss it too much. Currently, you are not able to send meeting requests using the calendar... I hope they add that functionality soon. That is what iPhone lacked as well, and it is available in the 3.0 update, so hopefully it will be added to webOS quickly, too. Lastly, (not really much bad to say about it... so far) what did end up annoying me a bit was that, while you can specify multiple IM accounts, you can't choose which one you are sending from when you send a message. This is unfortunate, though it is possible that I have no idea how to specify this.
So, all-in-all, I think that I will be very happy with the device. I hope they fix the response time issues quickly, however, as that is the biggest problem that I have encountered so far. It's not a deal-breaker, because the other features of the phone make up for this, but after a while it will become more and more annoying.
Oh yeah, I forgot about one thing. The thing I loved about the iPhone was in both contacts and music, you can jump to a specific alphabet letter by selecting one on the right side of the display. The Pre lacks this, and I have to start typing to find what I want. Not a big deal, but sometimes I don't want to open the keyboard.
Anyway, great work, Palm! 4/5 stars in my book! Fix that UI issue, and you've got yourself a 4.8. Fix everything else I mentioned, and you get yourself a 5:)
Except most of the world will probably forget about this in a few weeks and never speak of it again.
If we want the practice to change, we have to keep bringing it up over and over again. *They* have to keep bringing it up. That's how every discrimination issue was won over. Keep it in the hearts and minds of the people, and eventually they won't forget.
Sometimes (most of the time) users don't know what they want, especially when it comes to IT. Many times they ask for the wrong things, and make the wrong decisions. It's our job, as IT consultants, to let them know what the best solution to the problem would be.
For example, asking, "Why do you want your setup to last fifteen years?" may yield answers like, "I don't want to deal with the costs involved with constantly upgrading" or "I'm familiar with my current system, and I am willing to change, but I don't want to have to refamiliarize myself with it every five years" or maybe even "I don't want to have to pay for someone to upgrade our systems every five years."
All of those answers are perfectly reasonable, but all of them are misinformed. It's our job to let them know that, yes, it may sound expensive at first to upgrade every five years, but putting together a bullet-proof system to last fifteen years is much more expensive. We can also explain how to remain compatible (say, via virtualization, as stated in another post) so they don't have to relearn everything every five years. In fact, the experience remains consistent well into the future. And finally, we can say that, again, the costs incurred with upgrading hardware every five years is much less than designing a system that needs to last at least fifteen years... not to mention, the system still has to be maintained, rigorously, so those costs don't just go away simply because the system has been designed to last a longer period of time.
If, after all of that, they're still set in their ways and aren't willing to take your advice, then I suppose you just have to do what they want... but it would be disingenuous for IT professionals to just do what the user asks on spec, because, as said before, most of the time they don't know or understand what they want. There's a reason why we're the professionals and they're not (i.e., I'm not going to tell an architect that I want a house without a foundation and expect him not to tell me I'm an idiot). Why do people insist on doing that when it comes to IT?
... AT&T and Verizon just cut off service to the DC and sued them? That way the entire datacenter, and innocent customers, wouldn't be taken offline (assuming they had other upstreams) and their servers wouldn't be in an FBI warehouse somewhere getting violated by scanning software.
I still think the FBI took a broad swing at this, unless something else is going on here that we don't know about (which is entirely plausible).
I've worked in three different datacenters in my professional life, and I think I can safely say that this company is done for. Five+ days of all servers being offline... not just offline, but seized and inspected thoroughly... clients are going to cancel in droves once things come back online, if they haven't already called the company and made their intentions clear.
Whether or not this had anything to do with the whole Wolverine leak is unknown to me, but if it is, how is it OK to seize the assets of an entire datacenter? I sincerely doubt that the majority of those customers were engaging in the distribution of pirated material. What justification could you possibly have for affecting not only the longevity of the service provider, but the customers *at* the service provider, just so you can find some sleezy pirate with your movie on his servers. Is it worth hundreds of thousands (perhaps even millions) of dollars in *others' money*? Yeah, I don't think so.
The only time this would be even remotely OK is if the datacenter housed some gigantic criminal operation where the vast majority of its customers were committing crimes, and the DC was in on it.
I really wonder what this says for other datacenters that unknowingly house customers who engage in criminal behavior. Because, statistically, every datacenter that serves the public at large is bound to have at least one. As a provider, how am I to know what's going on in every corner of my DC? Am I to surveil all the traffic, all the servers, everything? And if that's my duty now, isn't that a bit disturbing?
I think this is another attempt by the government to control something that is larger than itself. The Internet is pretty darn scary, especially because it's so huge, spans every corner of the globe (more or less), and is not technically under the supervision of any single government entity (don't say ICANN; say ICANT). I don't think they like the idea that they can't control what goes in and what comes out (unlike, say, immigration or air travel).
This is beyond the government's ability to restrict traffic flow on roads, on the sea, or in the air. This is far greater than that. This affects far more people, all over the globe. Billions. Imagine if the US decided to cut access to its infrastructure; what would happen to traffic worldwide? It would grind to a halt, or at least close to it. People wouldn't be able to use Google, send e-mail to the majority of people on this planet, communicate with friends and loved-ones, get international news, and so on. I'm not going to pretend that the US is the single point-of-failure of the Internet, but we still have the largest percentage of websites of the whole 'net, and how many out-of-country sites and servers are co-located right here for the fastest speeds and highest availability?
I think this should be beyond the purview of the government. Any government, for that matter. The Internet can manage itself fine, and has been proven time and time again. Why screw with it when it works? *Especially* when it works.
Funny... my house has been on Google street view for several years now, and the burglaries at my house went up a drastic 0%.
If you want to take my whole city into account, the crime rate actually went down over the past few years. Hey, I know! Maybe that's due to Google Street View! The more houses there are in GSV, the easier it is for the burglars to see the shotguns hanging from people's mantles.
What, you don't have one? But this is America. Everyone's got one. Right? Right?? Okay, maybe it's not the shotgun. Maybe it's just that your house being on GSV and the local crime rate have no correlation whatsoever. I'm just taking a shot in the dark here, though, so I could be wrong.
I'm pretty sure the government and military also runs Linux/BSD/Unix in certain applications, so it would be silly to assume that they wouldn't write legislation in such a way that such OSes would be included.
I imagine something of a "security certification requirements" that the ruling body of each OS would put forth (i.e., each Linux distro would put forward a list, as well as Microsoft for Windows, Apple for OS X, etc). This list would be submitted to the government/whatever authority, and they would use this list in testing whether or not individual IT installations are complicit. The list, if implemented, would also have to assure that the OS's operation would meet the government's "cyber-security requirements".
In other words, I don't imagine the government would completely ignore Linux to give a leg-up on Microsoft. Not only would that fall in the face of the whole anti-trust suit with MS, but also the government would have to shut down its own systems running non-MS operating systems. That approach doesn't appear to make any sense.
I think this is a good call by AT&T, and to be honest with you, I doubt most, if any of these situations, would have to go to lawsuits.
I was a lucky recipient of said letter, and they do work. I rarely, if ever, download anything. The occasional TV show that I can't find on Hulu, but never any software or music or movies (I know, I actually pay for Windows and Photoshop; amazing). My roommate, however, tends to download with impunity. New game out? He'll be the first to torrent it. New movie in theaters? No doubt our 5 megabit cable line will be saturated with his P2P traffic for the better part of the day.
I've confronted him about this several times, and he's always just shrugged it off and called it fine. He obviously doesn't care about the legal or moral arguments of software piracy, music piracy, etc.
So I received this letter several months ago, telling me I downloaded Mirror's Edge and that I should be ashamed of myself. I don't remember downloading Mirror's Edge, so I gave the letter to him, and he got fairly nervous. He hasn't downloaded anything since.
While he's still fine with software piracy, he realized that he can get caught, have his internet terminated, and possibly even slapped with a lawsuit. I think it finally hit home; people like him assume they'll never get caught. They hear stories of people getting caught, but they never assume it will be them.
So, these letters do work, and they're a great idea.
The real WTF is why are Norton deleting supports requests en-masse rather than simply sending out a press release.
Apparently they're deleting all threads talking about it because the 4chan people started spamming the Symantec forums. It's sort of hard to tell the difference between substance and spam when you mix them all together.
I assume when 4chan gives up, you can actually post threads on their forums again.
You'd have a huge post on Apple support forums, with no official postings by any employee. Attempting to speak to Geniuses or tech support will only yield a, "huh, I've never heard of *that* happening before" as they replace your player for you.
A few weeks later, a firmware update containing many bug-fixes magically happens to fix this one too, and it's never spoken of again.
Microsoft has a lot of problems, but I am *so* glad they actually admit when there's an issue and not just sit on it like Apple in the hopes that it will go away.
Let's also not forget that the beta versions on which the tests were done were probably compiled in debug mode with symbols loaded, and probably has tracing code and other stuff in it that slows it down.
I know many others have said that when they did tests on Vista beta and RTM, there was a significant speed difference between the two.
Plus, I'm sure they'll do some optimization before the OS is released. After all, they just came out of alpha not too long ago... so I find it silly that people would benchmark a beta version of an OS that's not even feature-complete to a release version of another OS.
If you did have it in your office, there's not much danger of it blowing up, but the vacuum pumps would be pretty loud....
Not to mention, the vacuum pumps, the cold trap and the helium storage system would probably take up most of the space in your cubicle anyway.
They're not talking about cooling your computer that way, but about creating the transistors that way. There's nothing in the article that says that they have to be continuously kept at that temperature.
"What they should do is come up with some way that people can put whatever they want on their phones and perhaps allow iPhones apps to be downloaded outside of their store."
There is a way to do it. Or, well, there was. Apple barred developers from doing it a couple of weeks ago.
I hope someone sues their pants off for monopolistic practices. This is basically equivalent to Toyota or Ford barring third-parties from independently distributing modifications or parts for their vehicles.
Imagine what a shitstorm that would cause, if Ford magically announced that it would ban every manufacturer that tries to sell parts for their vehicles outside of Ford's approved "FordStore(tm)".
Of course they can't get away with doing that, because third parties will still do it, and they (Ford) would have to sue the companies to stop them, but the suit would never get past the first day since there are laws in place that prevent just this from happening.
In the case of Apple, it's easier for them. They can actually physically restrict developers from distributing their apps through any other means because this is software, and they (Apple) can restrict whatever they want with little effort. So in order for developers to gain their rights back, they would have to initiate suit against Apple. And that's both costly, and difficult.
I really hope someone does it though... I really do.
As Google continues to provide more and more things we use in our daily lives, I'm beginning to fear when this level of integration with the average user is going to begin a cycle of privacy violations.
Google is much more of a fearsome machine than even the behemoth Microsoft. Their web assets and datastores account for way more information they have on people's searching (via their search engine) and browsing habits (via Google Analytics and ads). Not to mention, the ability to link that lot up to personal information (Gmail, calendars, documents). I wonder what they could possibly use their browser for to further their information collection. Maybe browser history being stored online? Seamless favorites integration with their systems?
Seems benign, but I think on a large scale, disturbing.
Unlimited data plans are usually around $20/mo. With it, you can do a lot more. If you have an iPhone, it keeps a constant connection to a push server that pushes notifications to your phone... so now you can just use instant messaging instead of text messaging. It's a lot cheaper, too.
Maybe that's what they're trying to force people to do.
Linux and whatever distro is the best choice. How many 'edutainment' applications are on Windows by default? 0! None, I agree. But how much concern would it be if Microsoft shipped a set of those kind of applications with Windows? That would definitely add to their abuse of power as a monopoly.
The idea is that you could get third-party software licensed (or heck, even donated) for the OLPC. That's what independent developers are doing already.
Does Microsoft promote open source development? No! They have 'Express' editions of Visual Studio, but that is exactly it. They are 'Express' editions. They are begging for people to stick with Windows when they do things like this. And now they have.NET claiming it is the way of the future, mainly because C# is easier to learn than C or C++ (in my experience). Well, they *do* promote open-source development, albeit one can argue that they only do it in order to obtain marketshare. Whether or not that's true, they do have open source licenses that developers can use, and yes, they do have Express versions of Visual Studio. As of yet, I've been hard-pressed to find an IDE better than Visual Studio, and while the Express editions don't support things like source control, they are free, and they do everything you would want as an independent developer. It supports C#, C++, VB.Net, and J#, so if you still want to program in C++, you can.
Personally, I believe in C#'s future as a programming language, and the fact that it's an open standard is even better. I came from C++ which I programmed for over a decade, and I was happy to be able to focus on getting things done than worrying about being distracted by things that the VM can take care of. But again, largely this is a personal preference, and I know plenty of programmers who consider my words heresy. I don't think C++ can be eliminated completely; not at this point anyway.
You make a lot of good points, and they're well-taken.
My counter-argument would be that just because you use Windows or develop on Windows doesn't mean that you don't support open-source or openness in general.
There are educational tools, graphics editing applications, and any number of things that can be included with Windows for the OLPC, and the solutions can be open source. Kids can still grow up using the world's most popular operating system, and understand how it works, while still being exposed to open-source software.
Additionally, since dual-booting appears to be an option, kids can have the best of both worlds.
I understand that XP doesn't come with these tools preinstalled, but I believe that would be more cause for concern over Microsoft's monopolistic power. Even if they endorsed GIMP and distributed it as part of their OS, Adobe would go bonkers.
Finally someone on Slashdot who understands that. You win this discussion, my friend:) Thanks, though I guess for some (predictable) reason, I still lost posting score because someone inherently disagrees with me.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, it does not have Flash. Conceivably they will be adding it. Hopefully. At some point.
I was lucky enough to pick up the last available one in Long Beach, and I have to say that so far I like it.
:)
I came from the iPhone and AT&T, so it looks like I will be able to not only save almost $50/mo but also have a better device.
The good: The screen is much more crisp and vibrant than the iPhone. I'm really happy about that. The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, but anything is better than the on-screen iPhone keyboard, plus I have smaller fingers so it doesn't affect me as much. The screen is smaller than the iPhone, but the lack of on-screen keyboard makes for efficient use of screen real-estate. So far I haven't noticed the lack of larger screen in regular use. Not much to say about battery life, but it seems to be on-par with the iPhone from my current experience, which is fine for me. I don't particularly care about having it last more than one day, since I plug it in nightly anyway. Running multiple applications is extremely helpful, and it seems to be implemented very well. I've not yet had a problem with it. Sprint Navigation is amazing too, by the way, and definitely is on-par with most GPS devices out there; on top of that, it re-routes according to traffic and road speeds, which, unless your GPS is network-connected, you'll be lacking it. So, I'd say it's *better* than most stand-alone GPS devices out there.
The bad: The UI response is a bit sluggish. I think that I may have been spoiled by the iPhone's extremely smooth UI, but I also recall that for a while after the release of iPhone OS 2.0, it was fairly laggy for quite a bit. They did release an update to webOS (1.0.2) that did increase the response time by about 50% (I'm really just ballparking that number, but it was significant enough to notice), so if you haven't ran the updater, do it. I hope that as more updates come out, they'll fix the response time and it will be as smooth as the iPhone. The other problem is more with Sprint than with the Pre -- EV-DO does not support data usage during voice calls. This sucks, as there are times when I'm on the phone and I need to look something up or send an email... however, I had so many problems with the 3G in the iPhone, that more than half the time I had to run with it off anyway, so I don't think I'll miss it too much. Currently, you are not able to send meeting requests using the calendar... I hope they add that functionality soon. That is what iPhone lacked as well, and it is available in the 3.0 update, so hopefully it will be added to webOS quickly, too. Lastly, (not really much bad to say about it... so far) what did end up annoying me a bit was that, while you can specify multiple IM accounts, you can't choose which one you are sending from when you send a message. This is unfortunate, though it is possible that I have no idea how to specify this.
So, all-in-all, I think that I will be very happy with the device. I hope they fix the response time issues quickly, however, as that is the biggest problem that I have encountered so far. It's not a deal-breaker, because the other features of the phone make up for this, but after a while it will become more and more annoying.
Oh yeah, I forgot about one thing. The thing I loved about the iPhone was in both contacts and music, you can jump to a specific alphabet letter by selecting one on the right side of the display. The Pre lacks this, and I have to start typing to find what I want. Not a big deal, but sometimes I don't want to open the keyboard.
Anyway, great work, Palm! 4/5 stars in my book! Fix that UI issue, and you've got yourself a 4.8. Fix everything else I mentioned, and you get yourself a 5
Except most of the world will probably forget about this in a few weeks and never speak of it again.
If we want the practice to change, we have to keep bringing it up over and over again. *They* have to keep bringing it up. That's how every discrimination issue was won over. Keep it in the hearts and minds of the people, and eventually they won't forget.
Sometimes (most of the time) users don't know what they want, especially when it comes to IT. Many times they ask for the wrong things, and make the wrong decisions. It's our job, as IT consultants, to let them know what the best solution to the problem would be.
For example, asking, "Why do you want your setup to last fifteen years?" may yield answers like, "I don't want to deal with the costs involved with constantly upgrading" or "I'm familiar with my current system, and I am willing to change, but I don't want to have to refamiliarize myself with it every five years" or maybe even "I don't want to have to pay for someone to upgrade our systems every five years."
All of those answers are perfectly reasonable, but all of them are misinformed. It's our job to let them know that, yes, it may sound expensive at first to upgrade every five years, but putting together a bullet-proof system to last fifteen years is much more expensive. We can also explain how to remain compatible (say, via virtualization, as stated in another post) so they don't have to relearn everything every five years. In fact, the experience remains consistent well into the future. And finally, we can say that, again, the costs incurred with upgrading hardware every five years is much less than designing a system that needs to last at least fifteen years... not to mention, the system still has to be maintained, rigorously, so those costs don't just go away simply because the system has been designed to last a longer period of time.
If, after all of that, they're still set in their ways and aren't willing to take your advice, then I suppose you just have to do what they want... but it would be disingenuous for IT professionals to just do what the user asks on spec, because, as said before, most of the time they don't know or understand what they want. There's a reason why we're the professionals and they're not (i.e., I'm not going to tell an architect that I want a house without a foundation and expect him not to tell me I'm an idiot). Why do people insist on doing that when it comes to IT?
... AT&T and Verizon just cut off service to the DC and sued them? That way the entire datacenter, and innocent customers, wouldn't be taken offline (assuming they had other upstreams) and their servers wouldn't be in an FBI warehouse somewhere getting violated by scanning software.
I still think the FBI took a broad swing at this, unless something else is going on here that we don't know about (which is entirely plausible).
Unbelievable.
I've worked in three different datacenters in my professional life, and I think I can safely say that this company is done for. Five+ days of all servers being offline... not just offline, but seized and inspected thoroughly... clients are going to cancel in droves once things come back online, if they haven't already called the company and made their intentions clear.
Whether or not this had anything to do with the whole Wolverine leak is unknown to me, but if it is, how is it OK to seize the assets of an entire datacenter? I sincerely doubt that the majority of those customers were engaging in the distribution of pirated material. What justification could you possibly have for affecting not only the longevity of the service provider, but the customers *at* the service provider, just so you can find some sleezy pirate with your movie on his servers. Is it worth hundreds of thousands (perhaps even millions) of dollars in *others' money*? Yeah, I don't think so.
The only time this would be even remotely OK is if the datacenter housed some gigantic criminal operation where the vast majority of its customers were committing crimes, and the DC was in on it.
I really wonder what this says for other datacenters that unknowingly house customers who engage in criminal behavior. Because, statistically, every datacenter that serves the public at large is bound to have at least one. As a provider, how am I to know what's going on in every corner of my DC? Am I to surveil all the traffic, all the servers, everything? And if that's my duty now, isn't that a bit disturbing?
I think this is another attempt by the government to control something that is larger than itself. The Internet is pretty darn scary, especially because it's so huge, spans every corner of the globe (more or less), and is not technically under the supervision of any single government entity (don't say ICANN; say ICANT). I don't think they like the idea that they can't control what goes in and what comes out (unlike, say, immigration or air travel).
This is beyond the government's ability to restrict traffic flow on roads, on the sea, or in the air. This is far greater than that. This affects far more people, all over the globe. Billions. Imagine if the US decided to cut access to its infrastructure; what would happen to traffic worldwide? It would grind to a halt, or at least close to it. People wouldn't be able to use Google, send e-mail to the majority of people on this planet, communicate with friends and loved-ones, get international news, and so on. I'm not going to pretend that the US is the single point-of-failure of the Internet, but we still have the largest percentage of websites of the whole 'net, and how many out-of-country sites and servers are co-located right here for the fastest speeds and highest availability?
I think this should be beyond the purview of the government. Any government, for that matter. The Internet can manage itself fine, and has been proven time and time again. Why screw with it when it works? *Especially* when it works.
Funny... my house has been on Google street view for several years now, and the burglaries at my house went up a drastic 0%.
If you want to take my whole city into account, the crime rate actually went down over the past few years. Hey, I know! Maybe that's due to Google Street View! The more houses there are in GSV, the easier it is for the burglars to see the shotguns hanging from people's mantles.
What, you don't have one? But this is America. Everyone's got one. Right? Right?? Okay, maybe it's not the shotgun. Maybe it's just that your house being on GSV and the local crime rate have no correlation whatsoever. I'm just taking a shot in the dark here, though, so I could be wrong.
I'm pretty sure the government and military also runs Linux/BSD/Unix in certain applications, so it would be silly to assume that they wouldn't write legislation in such a way that such OSes would be included.
I imagine something of a "security certification requirements" that the ruling body of each OS would put forth (i.e., each Linux distro would put forward a list, as well as Microsoft for Windows, Apple for OS X, etc). This list would be submitted to the government/whatever authority, and they would use this list in testing whether or not individual IT installations are complicit. The list, if implemented, would also have to assure that the OS's operation would meet the government's "cyber-security requirements".
In other words, I don't imagine the government would completely ignore Linux to give a leg-up on Microsoft. Not only would that fall in the face of the whole anti-trust suit with MS, but also the government would have to shut down its own systems running non-MS operating systems. That approach doesn't appear to make any sense.
I think this is a good call by AT&T, and to be honest with you, I doubt most, if any of these situations, would have to go to lawsuits.
I was a lucky recipient of said letter, and they do work. I rarely, if ever, download anything. The occasional TV show that I can't find on Hulu, but never any software or music or movies (I know, I actually pay for Windows and Photoshop; amazing). My roommate, however, tends to download with impunity. New game out? He'll be the first to torrent it. New movie in theaters? No doubt our 5 megabit cable line will be saturated with his P2P traffic for the better part of the day.
I've confronted him about this several times, and he's always just shrugged it off and called it fine. He obviously doesn't care about the legal or moral arguments of software piracy, music piracy, etc.
So I received this letter several months ago, telling me I downloaded Mirror's Edge and that I should be ashamed of myself. I don't remember downloading Mirror's Edge, so I gave the letter to him, and he got fairly nervous. He hasn't downloaded anything since.
While he's still fine with software piracy, he realized that he can get caught, have his internet terminated, and possibly even slapped with a lawsuit. I think it finally hit home; people like him assume they'll never get caught. They hear stories of people getting caught, but they never assume it will be them.
So, these letters do work, and they're a great idea.
I like how there are no demos, screenshots, pictures, etc. Just words.
Haven't we seen this before? Like, we totally discovered cold fusion in 1989. It was announced as true, so it must be!
So this year we'll have fully-raytraced high-def images at 30-60fps. Obviously it'll happen. They told me so.
The real WTF is why are Norton deleting supports requests en-masse rather than simply sending out a press release.
Apparently they're deleting all threads talking about it because the 4chan people started spamming the Symantec forums. It's sort of hard to tell the difference between substance and spam when you mix them all together.
I assume when 4chan gives up, you can actually post threads on their forums again.
Mario Kart??
Next year's list will definitely have to include Peggle Extreme.
I, for one, welcome our new cyborg overlords.
You'd have a huge post on Apple support forums, with no official postings by any employee. Attempting to speak to Geniuses or tech support will only yield a, "huh, I've never heard of *that* happening before" as they replace your player for you.
A few weeks later, a firmware update containing many bug-fixes magically happens to fix this one too, and it's never spoken of again.
Microsoft has a lot of problems, but I am *so* glad they actually admit when there's an issue and not just sit on it like Apple in the hopes that it will go away.
Really? I only assumed it was because I believe the latest build they released to partners (not sure on MSDN though) was their first beta build.
Did they do it on the alpha?
That's a bit irresponsible, if I may say. There's no way you can accurately benchmark an alpha build of something, even if it's just a modified Vista.
Let's also not forget that the beta versions on which the tests were done were probably compiled in debug mode with symbols loaded, and probably has tracing code and other stuff in it that slows it down.
I know many others have said that when they did tests on Vista beta and RTM, there was a significant speed difference between the two.
Plus, I'm sure they'll do some optimization before the OS is released. After all, they just came out of alpha not too long ago... so I find it silly that people would benchmark a beta version of an OS that's not even feature-complete to a release version of another OS.
If you did have it in your office, there's not much danger of it blowing up, but the vacuum pumps would be pretty loud. ...
Not to mention, the vacuum pumps, the cold trap and the helium storage system would probably take up most of the space in your cubicle anyway.
They're not talking about cooling your computer that way, but about creating the transistors that way. There's nothing in the article that says that they have to be continuously kept at that temperature.
I'm pretty sure once it's done, it's done.
And also, I suppose, much like an airplane, is that when something happens, there's statistically a greater chance of a disaster.
So, I suppose, in this case a full day of downtime is pretty disastrous.
Go airplanes. And Gmail.
"What they should do is come up with some way that people can put whatever they want on their phones and perhaps allow iPhones apps to be downloaded outside of their store."
There is a way to do it. Or, well, there was. Apple barred developers from doing it a couple of weeks ago.
I hope someone sues their pants off for monopolistic practices. This is basically equivalent to Toyota or Ford barring third-parties from independently distributing modifications or parts for their vehicles.
Imagine what a shitstorm that would cause, if Ford magically announced that it would ban every manufacturer that tries to sell parts for their vehicles outside of Ford's approved "FordStore(tm)".
Of course they can't get away with doing that, because third parties will still do it, and they (Ford) would have to sue the companies to stop them, but the suit would never get past the first day since there are laws in place that prevent just this from happening.
In the case of Apple, it's easier for them. They can actually physically restrict developers from distributing their apps through any other means because this is software, and they (Apple) can restrict whatever they want with little effort. So in order for developers to gain their rights back, they would have to initiate suit against Apple. And that's both costly, and difficult.
I really hope someone does it though... I really do.
As Google continues to provide more and more things we use in our daily lives, I'm beginning to fear when this level of integration with the average user is going to begin a cycle of privacy violations.
Google is much more of a fearsome machine than even the behemoth Microsoft. Their web assets and datastores account for way more information they have on people's searching (via their search engine) and browsing habits (via Google Analytics and ads). Not to mention, the ability to link that lot up to personal information (Gmail, calendars, documents). I wonder what they could possibly use their browser for to further their information collection. Maybe browser history being stored online? Seamless favorites integration with their systems?
Seems benign, but I think on a large scale, disturbing.
Just something to think about.
Unlimited data plans are usually around $20/mo. With it, you can do a lot more. If you have an iPhone, it keeps a constant connection to a push server that pushes notifications to your phone... so now you can just use instant messaging instead of text messaging. It's a lot cheaper, too.
Maybe that's what they're trying to force people to do.
Or maybe not.
The idea is that you could get third-party software licensed (or heck, even donated) for the OLPC. That's what independent developers are doing already. Does Microsoft promote open source development? No! They have 'Express' editions of Visual Studio, but that is exactly it. They are 'Express' editions. They are begging for people to stick with Windows when they do things like this. And now they have
Personally, I believe in C#'s future as a programming language, and the fact that it's an open standard is even better. I came from C++ which I programmed for over a decade, and I was happy to be able to focus on getting things done than worrying about being distracted by things that the VM can take care of. But again, largely this is a personal preference, and I know plenty of programmers who consider my words heresy. I don't think C++ can be eliminated completely; not at this point anyway.
You make a lot of good points, and they're well-taken.
My counter-argument would be that just because you use Windows or develop on Windows doesn't mean that you don't support open-source or openness in general.
There are educational tools, graphics editing applications, and any number of things that can be included with Windows for the OLPC, and the solutions can be open source. Kids can still grow up using the world's most popular operating system, and understand how it works, while still being exposed to open-source software.
Additionally, since dual-booting appears to be an option, kids can have the best of both worlds.
I understand that XP doesn't come with these tools preinstalled, but I believe that would be more cause for concern over Microsoft's monopolistic power. Even if they endorsed GIMP and distributed it as part of their OS, Adobe would go bonkers.
Oh well. Can't appease everyone.