While I will agree that OS X suffers from the the same syndrome WIndows (and DOS before it) does - that is, anyone who can write a line of (Objective) C deserves $20 for their pet project - I don't find it to be a much of a problem. First of all, OS X is far more functional out of the box than Windows, IMO. So I don't need to download (and possibly pay for) all kinds of extra utilities to get up and running comfortably. Of course, I'm coming from a Linux background so maybe I may have a very different idea of "functional." For one thing, you've got the full commandline suite. There's a decent terminal program (although free alternatives exist). There's archive file management. You've got disk image manipulation. PDF reader built in. Etc.
Aside from the initial investment of $1800 for my Mac Book Pro, the only other thing I've paid for is TextMate. Everything else was free. I don't really know why this cost myth keeps perpetuating. The only valid "con" that I think the reviewer has is the hardware lockin/limitations. But what can I say other than that is the price we pay for solid hardware/software integration. I am reminded just how valuable that integration is every time I hear a Windows or Linux user complain about their video or sound drivers. Or every time I see a PC boot that BIOS from the 1980's.
Did you perhaps take the time to note that I said ~700MB "not including cache." Vista makes the distinction between cache memory and used memory.. and it was definitely 700MB used. The bottom line is that the machien was swapping like mad after starting just a browser.
I know that part of the "problem" is Vista using large swaths of RAM as a file cache, meaning that just like with Unix people see all that RAM being used and think it's the system but it's just a cache that will be dropped on the floor as soon as an application needs that memory.
Vista clearly distinguishes between used memory and cache memory. LIke I said, ~700MB (out of 1GB) used didn't include cache. There was technically only 36MB "free" if you included the cache.
don't think it's fair to look at the RAM utilization of an idling box and declare that using x% is bad. What would be the point of the OS not using the RAM that's sitting there? If I were writing an OS and knew I had RAM to spare and was idle, perhaps I'd be pre-loading the most used applications into RAM for faster startup. I think a good OS would almost always be using the RAM available in some way. It saves nothing to let it sit there.
Like I said, the cache wasn't included in that number. There was actually only about 36MB "free" after counting the cache The point was that it was swapping like mad. Something was wrong.
Sure they do, but buying a 3090 to run your billing and payroll apps is no longer the default choice.
So? That just says that large companies like IBM and Microsoft doing go outo f business (or even significantly shrink) just because one product fails or becomes a "niche" product.
It's been well acknowledged here that Vista sales are roughly only equal to XP over the same time measured. OEMs were already standardized on 1GB (not low end of the market) of ram prior to Vista and Vista does run adequately on a GB of ram.
It does? Tell that to my mom. Her new Vista based 1GB RAM laptop uses ~700MB of ram (not including cache) with no major apps running. From what I understand it ran great for teh first couple months but eventually it just started slowing to a crawl... from swapping as far as I can tell. Checked it for viruses and other malware. All clean. It just hasn't been the same. All I can tell her at this point is to get another GB of RAM as I'm now 1,000 miles away. Not that I would be particularly keen on troubleshooting Windows crap even if I were there, but that is something else...
Wasn't this already dealt with in cases like the Pentium fdiv bug? I remember the Linux kernel detecting and "patching" known problems with hardware. Also happened certain accelerted IDE controllers, IIRC.
But you're right, it sounds like a license for hardware manufacturers to be more careless and expect software people pick up the slack. As if software didn't have enough bugs... soon we won't even be able to trust that the hardware is reliable? WTF? In what world is this a good thing?
Hell, with some of the tripe on TV nowadays sometimes the ads are the best part!
But that's the great thing about DVRs. You don't have to watch the "tripe" just because it happens to be showing when you're sitting down to watch TV. You just queue up every episode of only the best shows (and their reruns). The ads should NEVER be the best part. If they seem that way, you either need to watch less TV or be more selective about what you schedule for recording.
When the 'dreaded' live tv appears (ok, we have IPTV, but it has a live tv buffer all the same), we just pause the tv for about 10 minutes and read/browse until we've cached up enough to skip the rest of the ads. If its a movie (= more ads), we might fix a meal, do some chores, or play video games for half an hour so we can skip them later.
At some point I lost all interest in "live" TV at all and simply queued up a whole bunch of shows and watched them whenever I had time. That way i didnt' have to pause and let the show go "ahead." Once you break free from the often inconvenient TV Guide scheduling, you never want to go back. Now I never miss an episode of a a series that I like and I don't waste my time watching shows that are only "OK" because they just happen to be on at the time I'm sitting down.
Eventually I just gave up on cable all together and just started downloading the shows via bittorrrent. If I'm just going to watch prerecorded shows and skip all the commercials anyway, why bother paying for cable TV? What's the difference?
You seem to have spend days of work and completely realtered your life, just to avoid seeing adds, you are spending your relaxation time to avoid watching adds. You are on a major quest to save the world from something that is not a real threat.
No, I installed MythTV to get DVR capabilities which also happens to have commercial auto-skip as a feature. The time I have saved by skipping ads easily makes up for the time spent setting up the DVR. 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there really adds up quickly.
As for internet ads, I simply intalled AdBlock Plus and subscribed to the standard block lists, et voila, virtual ad-free internet. Couldn't be happier.
And so what if I did spend some relaxation time setting it up? a) That kind of thing interests me. That is, tinkering with Linux and OSS, b) not seeing ads really is that important to me. Maybe it seems strange to you, but I can't stand having my shows interrupted every 5 minutes. It ruins the shows for me. Especially towards the end of the show when commercial breaks get longer and longer because they know they have you "hooked"... You can only go to the bathroom so many times or make so many sandwhiches before you're just stuck there watching that mindless drivel called advertisements.
But come to think of it, I did kind of rearrange my life. But in a totally good way. I stopped sitting down to channel surf for hours at a time. Without ad skipping, I'd switch channels during commercial breaks and look for somethign else to watch. Now I just sit down and watch the few shows that I actually like, skip the ads (saving nearly cutting time spent watching by 33%), and go do something either more productive or more interesting.
Conservatives normally realize that TV Adds do help pay for the cost of the Show we watch.
Everyone realizes that. But we're under no obligation to actually watch them. If you think you are, you're a fool. It has nothing to do with politics.
But don't think I am for Viral Advertisment like SPAM, Billboards, where the only people who benefit are the advertisers and not the general public.
Spam is not viral advertisement. Viral advertisement is when someone makes an ad that people pass on to their friends. Billboards get people to buy stuff and therefore spur the economy. Doesn't tht benefit the general public? Why don't you make a point of looking at every billboard? It might prompt you to buy something and help some business make money and pay employees. Wouldn't that generous of you.
My life is much better since I started indiscrimnately blocking/skipping advertisements. Same thing with SPAM and email. Once I took the time to implement a really good spamassassin filter, my life got better.
. I use the TiVo as a tool to make my life better. Not so I can be an Anial Hyper Liberal and put work and effort to Fast Forward threw comericals just because they are there.
Work and effort? I just download the shows from bittorrent where someone else has already cut out the commercials. And when I was using MythTV to record them myself, Myth automatically skipped the commercials for me. But then, I'm an anal liberal who just wants to block/skip commercials "just because they are there." Though I'm not sure what it is has to do with being "liberal." Do conservatives somehow enjoy selling bits and pieces of their mind/soul to advertisers? Is watching advertisements a "family value?"
Frankly, I'm baffled by anyone who willingly sits through advertisements when skipping them is so easy these days. Is the programming that ya'll watch just so empty and shallow that advertising is just as entertaining? WTF?
It isn't just about idealism, either. You can save a very significant amount of time by skipping ads. 1 hour shows become 40 minute shows. 30 minute shows become 20 minute shows. Not to mention the beneficial effect it has on attention span.
As I read the article TWO-THIRDS of viewers do skip them. Do you suppose ad rates will be reduced proportionately?
It sounds like somebody is putting some serious spin on the numbers. Like they aren't looking at percentages. They're just talking about the raw numbers in their their samples. They take X number of non-DVR watching viewers (traditional Nielsen ratings), assume they're all watching the ads, add in the 1 third of DVR users who *aren't* skipping ads, and call that a net gain for advertisers. WTF? Isn't it obvious that any number of DVR ad skippers means a net ad viewing loss when you apply the percentages to the general population? Or is there something I'm missing? Are they saying that DVRs increase total viewership such that the two thirds of users who do skip ads don't cause a net ad viewing loss?
Though, I must admit that I hope that the advertisers are getting duped. Not because I have anything against them. It is just that the longer they believe that traditioanl advertising works.... the longer my blocking/skipping will remain effective and legal.
Data can still be recovered. It may only be bits and pieces of files, but it can still be recovered. Clean room data recovery can do some pretty amazing things now.
So in reality, the bloat of Windows actually improves one's chances of getting away with something. That is, if the bits of recoverable data are random, then the higher the proportion of system files to user files, the less chance something incriminating (to you, at least, MS is still in trouble) be found. Yes?
I didn't really "get" Democracy player. I browsed some of the channels and stuff and it seemed like mostly worthless content. I guess it is meant more for managing your own content? i dunno. i wouldn't know where to get it.
I wouldn't call having a file on your desktop (from email, for example) that could potentially infect your system and infection in and of itself. A good AV package will detect and clean the virus BEFORE it infects your system. That is, before you open/exec the file. Though there are other viruses that infect through the network without any user action required. So in that case your are correct.
I'd say AV software is more like having a bouncer at the door... preferably with a rifle.:-)
I wouldn't hire you to mop the floors, let alone work on computers. You've demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the most rudimentary project specifications and clear-cut business decisions. You insist that the company must change to better fit the available calender products, instead of the calender products changing to fit the company.
WTF? This is absolutely ridiculous. I didn't "insist" on anything. I said exactly 3 things: 1) That there are shared, synchronizable calendar solutions out there, 2) that if a service is absolutely critical to remote users, perhaps it shouldn't be hosted on corporate LAN (particularly without an SLA for the 'net connection), and 2) that businesses can often mandate particular software/hardware configurations for employees. Not once did I insist that your business or you in particular do anything. Smoke a joint or something and RELAX. My God, man.
That with devices like Myth Boxes, and the media center boxes. I can imagine people giving up TV completely and just keeping their broadband connection. I know I would.
Already there. No cable. No antenna. Just a Myth box running torrentflux (web front end for Bittorrent).
There's no technical reason for javascript to be any slower than java if you JIT-compile it and cache the compilation results (like how PHP with the zend accelerator is roughly in the same class as java, even though it is not byte-compiled).
But you still have an inferior language and the Java VM is far more mature. If you're going to ditch the browser and go for some kind of standalone internet application framework, why reinvent it? Why not use a language/VM that is already very mature with implementations on most major platforms?
I'm not normally one to defend Java. In fact, I very much dislike most Java GUI apps that are out there, but I'm pretty sure I'd dislike any large application built on Flash/Javascript just as much, if not more. Speed not being a significant issue.
I'm not saying that the world isn't headed to a webbased interface, or whether or not this is a bad thing. Just saying that there is still a very large portion of the world that is a very long ways off from having sufficient internet connectivity and it certainly would be nice if people kept this in mind when they're developing applications/interfaces.
The way I see it, internet applications are an all or nothing sort of thing. You either have internet access or you don't. If you have it, you might chose to utilize online apps such as a word processor because it is convenient. The reason you chose to use a browser based word processor is probably largely based on the fact that you DO have regular and consistent internet access. Being able to use it offline is perhaps a bonus, but certainly not essential. As we know, there are plenty of offline word processors/text editors out there to chose from. People with intermittent or no net access are nto deprived of this application. They just have to use a more "traditional" implementation.
Besides apps like Google Docs, which more or less reinvents (badly, i might add) a desktop app, there is very little reason to make an internet app work offline. The very nature of an internet is that it is a shared resource. It doesn't make much sense, except if very specific circumstances, to work with a shared resource offline. That is a contradiction.
One thing that might be interesting are projects that seek to replicate or cache certain internet resources such as Wikipedia on a local networks that don't not have consistent 'net access. That is the kind of thing that developing countries might need. Who cares if people can edit their MySpace page or Flickr account offline? Most net apps are just superfluous crap when you think about what a developing country might need.
It has to work across multiple platforms because we have multiple platforms in use.
So this is about you and not some general hypothetical case, then?
And since an on-site solution apparently does not exist (else you would have proposed something, as requested), I submit that you're just arguing for the sake of being difficult.
I didn't realize I was supposed to come up with a solution for your particular situation which meets very specific criteria such as being an on-site application. Tell you what, you pay me $75 an hour and I'll see what I can do.
I submit that you're trying to get free consulting out of a Slashdot thread!
Actually, Sun cooperating with Google to provide an alternative OS to compete with Microsoft wouldn't be such a bad idea.
No really, it kind of would be a bad idea. Yet another OS to support. Or by "OS" do you just mean "virtual machine." Kinda like... Java already is. It has widgets and everything. Who would have thought?
Since Google has already expertise in using online-dynamic content (from Calendar to Spreadsheet among other...) to provide services to end-users, why not combine a platform-independent
Hold on there, are you talking about making something that is platform-independent or something that is a platform in and of itself to compete with Windows directly? You seem to be confusing the two.
programming language like Java with Google's own widgets?
Well, maybe because Google's "widgets" are designed to run in the browser with HTML/JS and the whole point of an internet application VM/OS is to get past the limitations of the browser.
Let's admit it, Linux will never beat Windows. But Google with the right partners has a fair chance...
But Linux already has a Java VM. The whole point is that it wouldn't have to compete with Windows (a losing proposition at this point.. even for Google.. and especially Sun). It would just have to support this internet application framework.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess they didn't install macports? :-)
While I will agree that OS X suffers from the the same syndrome WIndows (and DOS before it) does - that is, anyone who can write a line of (Objective) C deserves $20 for their pet project - I don't find it to be a much of a problem. First of all, OS X is far more functional out of the box than Windows, IMO. So I don't need to download (and possibly pay for) all kinds of extra utilities to get up and running comfortably. Of course, I'm coming from a Linux background so maybe I may have a very different idea of "functional." For one thing, you've got the full commandline suite. There's a decent terminal program (although free alternatives exist). There's archive file management. You've got disk image manipulation. PDF reader built in. Etc.
Aside from the initial investment of $1800 for my Mac Book Pro, the only other thing I've paid for is TextMate. Everything else was free. I don't really know why this cost myth keeps perpetuating. The only valid "con" that I think the reviewer has is the hardware lockin/limitations. But what can I say other than that is the price we pay for solid hardware/software integration. I am reminded just how valuable that integration is every time I hear a Windows or Linux user complain about their video or sound drivers. Or every time I see a PC boot that BIOS from the 1980's.
The number was high. And I dont' think it is the way all Vista installs are. I think there was something wrong. I just don't know what it was.
Did you perhaps take the time to note that I said ~700MB "not including cache." Vista makes the distinction between cache memory and used memory.. and it was definitely 700MB used. The bottom line is that the machien was swapping like mad after starting just a browser.
-matthew
Vista clearly distinguishes between used memory and cache memory. LIke I said, ~700MB (out of 1GB) used didn't include cache. There was technically only 36MB "free" if you included the cache.
-matthew
Like I said, the cache wasn't included in that number. There was actually only about 36MB "free" after counting the cache The point was that it was swapping like mad. Something was wrong.
-matthew
So? That just says that large companies like IBM and Microsoft doing go outo f business (or even significantly shrink) just because one product fails or becomes a "niche" product.
-matthew
It does? Tell that to my mom. Her new Vista based 1GB RAM laptop uses ~700MB of ram (not including cache) with no major apps running. From what I understand it ran great for teh first couple months but eventually it just started slowing to a crawl... from swapping as far as I can tell. Checked it for viruses and other malware. All clean. It just hasn't been the same. All I can tell her at this point is to get another GB of RAM as I'm now 1,000 miles away. Not that I would be particularly keen on troubleshooting Windows crap even if I were there, but that is something else...
-matthew
Um, IBM still has a whole lot of inertia.
-mtthew
Wasn't this already dealt with in cases like the Pentium fdiv bug? I remember the Linux kernel detecting and "patching" known problems with hardware. Also happened certain accelerted IDE controllers, IIRC.
But you're right, it sounds like a license for hardware manufacturers to be more careless and expect software people pick up the slack. As if software didn't have enough bugs... soon we won't even be able to trust that the hardware is reliable? WTF? In what world is this a good thing?
-matthew
So instead of kicking the kitty, nethack teaches kids to send the kitty into stores to steal items.
-matthew
But that's the great thing about DVRs. You don't have to watch the "tripe" just because it happens to be showing when you're sitting down to watch TV. You just queue up every episode of only the best shows (and their reruns). The ads should NEVER be the best part. If they seem that way, you either need to watch less TV or be more selective about what you schedule for recording.
-matthew
At some point I lost all interest in "live" TV at all and simply queued up a whole bunch of shows and watched them whenever I had time. That way i didnt' have to pause and let the show go "ahead." Once you break free from the often inconvenient TV Guide scheduling, you never want to go back. Now I never miss an episode of a a series that I like and I don't waste my time watching shows that are only "OK" because they just happen to be on at the time I'm sitting down.
Eventually I just gave up on cable all together and just started downloading the shows via bittorrrent. If I'm just going to watch prerecorded shows and skip all the commercials anyway, why bother paying for cable TV? What's the difference?
-matthew
No, I installed MythTV to get DVR capabilities which also happens to have commercial auto-skip as a feature. The time I have saved by skipping ads easily makes up for the time spent setting up the DVR. 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there really adds up quickly.
As for internet ads, I simply intalled AdBlock Plus and subscribed to the standard block lists, et voila, virtual ad-free internet. Couldn't be happier.
And so what if I did spend some relaxation time setting it up? a) That kind of thing interests me. That is, tinkering with Linux and OSS, b) not seeing ads really is that important to me. Maybe it seems strange to you, but I can't stand having my shows interrupted every 5 minutes. It ruins the shows for me. Especially towards the end of the show when commercial breaks get longer and longer because they know they have you "hooked"... You can only go to the bathroom so many times or make so many sandwhiches before you're just stuck there watching that mindless drivel called advertisements.
But come to think of it, I did kind of rearrange my life. But in a totally good way. I stopped sitting down to channel surf for hours at a time. Without ad skipping, I'd switch channels during commercial breaks and look for somethign else to watch. Now I just sit down and watch the few shows that I actually like, skip the ads (saving nearly cutting time spent watching by 33%), and go do something either more productive or more interesting.
Everyone realizes that. But we're under no obligation to actually watch them. If you think you are, you're a fool. It has nothing to do with politics.
Spam is not viral advertisement. Viral advertisement is when someone makes an ad that people pass on to their friends. Billboards get people to buy stuff and therefore spur the economy. Doesn't tht benefit the general public? Why don't you make a point of looking at every billboard? It might prompt you to buy something and help some business make money and pay employees. Wouldn't that generous of you.
-matthew
My life is much better since I started indiscrimnately blocking/skipping advertisements. Same thing with SPAM and email. Once I took the time to implement a really good spamassassin filter, my life got better.
Work and effort? I just download the shows from bittorrent where someone else has already cut out the commercials. And when I was using MythTV to record them myself, Myth automatically skipped the commercials for me. But then, I'm an anal liberal who just wants to block/skip commercials "just because they are there." Though I'm not sure what it is has to do with being "liberal." Do conservatives somehow enjoy selling bits and pieces of their mind/soul to advertisers? Is watching advertisements a "family value?"
Frankly, I'm baffled by anyone who willingly sits through advertisements when skipping them is so easy these days. Is the programming that ya'll watch just so empty and shallow that advertising is just as entertaining? WTF?
It isn't just about idealism, either. You can save a very significant amount of time by skipping ads. 1 hour shows become 40 minute shows. 30 minute shows become 20 minute shows. Not to mention the beneficial effect it has on attention span.
-matthew
It sounds like somebody is putting some serious spin on the numbers. Like they aren't looking at percentages. They're just talking about the raw numbers in their their samples. They take X number of non-DVR watching viewers (traditional Nielsen ratings), assume they're all watching the ads, add in the 1 third of DVR users who *aren't* skipping ads, and call that a net gain for advertisers. WTF? Isn't it obvious that any number of DVR ad skippers means a net ad viewing loss when you apply the percentages to the general population? Or is there something I'm missing? Are they saying that DVRs increase total viewership such that the two thirds of users who do skip ads don't cause a net ad viewing loss?
Though, I must admit that I hope that the advertisers are getting duped. Not because I have anything against them. It is just that the longer they believe that traditioanl advertising works.... the longer my blocking/skipping will remain effective and legal.
-matthew
So in reality, the bloat of Windows actually improves one's chances of getting away with something. That is, if the bits of recoverable data are random, then the higher the proportion of system files to user files, the less chance something incriminating (to you, at least, MS is still in trouble) be found. Yes?
-matthew
I didn't really "get" Democracy player. I browsed some of the channels and stuff and it seemed like mostly worthless content. I guess it is meant more for managing your own content? i dunno. i wouldn't know where to get it.
-matthew
I wouldn't call having a file on your desktop (from email, for example) that could potentially infect your system and infection in and of itself. A good AV package will detect and clean the virus BEFORE it infects your system. That is, before you open/exec the file. Though there are other viruses that infect through the network without any user action required. So in that case your are correct.
:-)
I'd say AV software is more like having a bouncer at the door... preferably with a rifle.
-matthew
WTF? This is absolutely ridiculous. I didn't "insist" on anything. I said exactly 3 things: 1) That there are shared, synchronizable calendar solutions out there, 2) that if a service is absolutely critical to remote users, perhaps it shouldn't be hosted on corporate LAN (particularly without an SLA for the 'net connection), and 2) that businesses can often mandate particular software/hardware configurations for employees. Not once did I insist that your business or you in particular do anything. Smoke a joint or something and RELAX. My God, man.
Already there. No cable. No antenna. Just a Myth box running torrentflux (web front end for Bittorrent).
-matthew
Maybe it would help to narrow the scope. How about "...on slashdot."
-matthew
But you still have an inferior language and the Java VM is far more mature. If you're going to ditch the browser and go for some kind of standalone internet application framework, why reinvent it? Why not use a language/VM that is already very mature with implementations on most major platforms?
I'm not normally one to defend Java. In fact, I very much dislike most Java GUI apps that are out there, but I'm pretty sure I'd dislike any large application built on Flash/Javascript just as much, if not more. Speed not being a significant issue.
-matthew
The way I see it, internet applications are an all or nothing sort of thing. You either have internet access or you don't. If you have it, you might chose to utilize online apps such as a word processor because it is convenient. The reason you chose to use a browser based word processor is probably largely based on the fact that you DO have regular and consistent internet access. Being able to use it offline is perhaps a bonus, but certainly not essential. As we know, there are plenty of offline word processors/text editors out there to chose from. People with intermittent or no net access are nto deprived of this application. They just have to use a more "traditional" implementation.
Besides apps like Google Docs, which more or less reinvents (badly, i might add) a desktop app, there is very little reason to make an internet app work offline. The very nature of an internet is that it is a shared resource. It doesn't make much sense, except if very specific circumstances, to work with a shared resource offline. That is a contradiction.
One thing that might be interesting are projects that seek to replicate or cache certain internet resources such as Wikipedia on a local networks that don't not have consistent 'net access. That is the kind of thing that developing countries might need. Who cares if people can edit their MySpace page or Flickr account offline? Most net apps are just superfluous crap when you think about what a developing country might need.
-matthew
So this is about you and not some general hypothetical case, then?
I didn't realize I was supposed to come up with a solution for your particular situation which meets very specific criteria such as being an on-site application. Tell you what, you pay me $75 an hour and I'll see what I can do.
I submit that you're trying to get free consulting out of a Slashdot thread!
-matthew
No really, it kind of would be a bad idea. Yet another OS to support. Or by "OS" do you just mean "virtual machine." Kinda like... Java already is. It has widgets and everything. Who would have thought?
Hold on there, are you talking about making something that is platform-independent or something that is a platform in and of itself to compete with Windows directly? You seem to be confusing the two.
Well, maybe because Google's "widgets" are designed to run in the browser with HTML/JS and the whole point of an internet application VM/OS is to get past the limitations of the browser.
But Linux already has a Java VM. The whole point is that it wouldn't have to compete with Windows (a losing proposition at this point.. even for Google.. and especially Sun). It would just have to support this internet application framework.
-matthew