I mean, there are sites on the net that conduct thousands of transactions in very short periods of time. It doesn't seem like this is really that hard.
How can a company like diebold still be in business if they can't take data from some form fields, and put it into a database?
1. "Stranded" refers to the time in transit - NOT on Mars. Over the course of the trip to mars the astronauts will be exposed to moon like conditions.
2. I haven't done the math on the delta V. however - something tells me that it just ain't workin' out. Namely becuase the acceleration of gravity on the moon is significantly less than mars. The total energy expended to get from the surface of the earth and to the surface of mars would need to be higher than the total energy for a trip from earths surface to the moon and back.
3. "At least on Mars you can make your own supplies from Hydrogen feedstock." This is PURE speculation that you can A. create this technology in a reasonable amount of time B. deploy it sucessfully on another planet C. operate it reliably for the duration of the mission. And don't say it's already "built", becuase while we might the technology we still have to engineer it into a package that can be deployed to Mars - most likely in an automated fashion.
4. Clearly you don't understand what I was saying about testing exposure. Of course the moon doesn't have an atmosphere. The ship that carries the astronauts will be exposed to solar radation much in the same way people on the moon will. In fact MUCH of the trip to and from mars will be similar to living on the moon.
I'm not so much concerned about living on Mars really. I don't think that is really the issue. Generally speaking the conditions on Mars would be easier to engineer equipment for than the moon. The real issue, is the trip. The moon offers the opportunity to test new technologies we would eventually deploy on other planets.
To discover the things that we don't know about living in extraterrestrial environments - BEFORE we strand a group of humans 2 years away from earth.
For example, we have little to no data about the effects of radiation on humans beyond the earth's magnetosphere. This is one of the biggest concerns especially considering most of the proposed trips to mars exceed one year of travel each way. Creating a base on the moon will give us a better idea of the concentrations, and the long term effects of solar radiation on humans.
The moon's low gravity also makes it easier to access. Less fuel is needed to land, and take off.
I think though that the biggest reason for going to the moon first is an old saying "walk before you run". In terms of distance the moon is on average 240,000 miles away from the earth. Nothing really, in the grand scheme of things. If for some reason something went horribly wrong, there would at least be a chance to rectify it, or help. A moon base would be a stones throw away, and with the proper planning the crew of that base could be very safe.
From a scientific perspective examining the individuals that do staff the base will provide vital information about what living in the solar environment is like and how if affects the body. Also, the moon has 17% of the earths gravity, with mars at 38% the moon makes a good environment for training for low gravity.
All in all, I think that we cannot afford NOT to go to the moon first. The moon gives us an opportunity to learn about living in space without the risks of being completly isolated from humanity.
Make no mistake - the moon must be the beginning - and not the end of our future in space!
that technology is synonymous with start-up company expansions.
In fact most of the companies hiring are only hiring people for specific roles and responsibilities. The days of hiring "interns" or employees "to have on hand" "just in case we need them" are over.
I watch almost no tv - but, there are about three channels that I will watch. The only show that I watch religiously is stargate. This puts my cost per episode @ about $15 a pop. Kind of rediculous. It'd be nice to get local channels and one or two cable stations.
AAC as a simple encoding format, yes belongs to other groups.
However, DRM AAC is "Apple's DRM technology". AAC is Apple's format of choice, which could be said to be Apple's Music format. I guess if they really wanted to be acurate they'd call it DRM AAC.
It would be nice if slashdot didn't partake in the sensationalisim that tends to pervade the media. The reason I say this is is that the summary reads "Gates' credit card was hacked. After all, they did have his mother's maiden name... " If the moderators had read the article, they would have noted that Gates card number was not USED for anything, but that some stupid kid had it in his posession. And it's linked to a list of names stolen sometime in the past. As a result the kid was picked up by the FBI. Nothing actually happened concerning gates card.
I was surprised to find an ad playing on weather.com last week for air tran airlines. Why? I have Norton Internet Secuity "Suite", which works extremely well, no pop ups, or pop unders, no ads really to speak of. For sure, they are not missed.
The movie playing was low res, full motion video that ran for about 2 minutes. It was rather funny actually. What caught my attention was why the ad was playing in MY browser.
The ad was produced by a company called bluestreak. They specialize in the annoying flash banners that you see. Bluestreak and Unicast have a lot in common.
Unicast uses flash as their primiary execution environment. The new ads go a bit further, and check five things when loaded Your OS, Your Browser, Flash, and what version of a JVM your are using. If any of these fail, the movie will not play! Easy enough to defeat even if you are on a windows machine. Also, it appears that if you use a microsoft JVM, that the movies won't work!
With bluestreak, a small applet tag is document.write() to your browser. This applet is essentially a bootloader for the bluestreak player technology. I imagine using reflection and some nicely designed interfaces, the movies is loaded as the class files are downloaded to your browser. Once the engine is downloaded it gets the content and plays it to you. My guess is that the ad blocking software didn't work because of the type of tag being created.
Both technologies are absurdly intrusive, and consume bandwidth that you might otherwise want to use for something else. All is not lost however, a few simple things you can do, or purchase will prevent their delivery to your computer.
Unicasts's technology is based mostly on the notion of poping up a window to show the "content" to the user. Your best defense is a pop-up blocker. If you are a windowz user you can change your JVM to M$ to prevent the execution. Also, most of Unicasts content is flash based and easily found by products such as norton internet security.
Blue streak is a bit more incidious as it's delivered in a rather clandestine fashion. I believe that it is also cross platform given the Java nature of the execution environment. This will require you to either turn java off, or get software that blocks content from the bluestreak domain.
from the article Some think Microsoft has bitten off more than it can chew with Yukon. "This product lacks focus," said Betsy Burton, analyst with the Gartner Group. "They're doing all sorts of stuff with it, first scalability was the issue, then XML support, then.Net activities, and then business intelligence and now security. The gut issue is, what is the purpose of this release? As a team trying to develop a product you have to know where you're going," she said
Betsy clearly has no clue regarding the SQL Server product's evolution, capabilites or how these are going to change with Yukon. In fact she seems to have a very limited grasp of significance of the Yukon's release.
Unlike Oracle, SQL Server has basically hovered in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" pattern for the last 5 years. For the most part it has delivered a decent database platform, that was for a while more cost effective than oracle. Those who have used SQL Server extensively know it's limitations. Betsy's arguments about "product lacking focus" are rediculous. That's primarily becuase Yukon seeks to rectify a large number of the problems and limitations of SQL Server 2k. It's really very difficult to provide a "focused" look at a product that is changing so significantly. In fact, her complaint is very similar to those that were uttered as Microsfot was trying to formalize the definition of.NET, which really has not clarified itself much in the last two years.
It would seem that Betsy is looking for are a few jargon sound bytes that can be displayed on a single powerpoint slide. That slide would then be shown to a bunch of people who nod their head and say, "that's a sound strategic driection". Big idea's aren't sound bytes.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, they are attempting to be ambitious with Yukon. A lot of new plumbing is going in, as well as a refinement and crystalization of the current features such as SQL -> XML queries, DTS, Replication, the integration of a first class programming language among others. These are all features that we've needed for a long time.
Yukon represents a significant change in the world of RDMS's on the Windows platform. It's sad to see that influential groups such as Gartner can't recognize or have the vision to see how much (and for the better) things are going to change for SQL Server 2K shops.
Is this *really* copyrightable? How can you copyright an organization? Perhaps you can patent a method of organizing something, but copyright? I had thought that copyright applies only to a tangible, set of information, such as lines of code, a written document, a work of art.
The first attempts to scare us centered around "infringing code". Now are they trying to say that "Your Linux looks too much like our Unix?" As far as I'm concerend, Looks like and IS are two different things.
The FROM address is almost always forged. The result, the returned spam goes to another e-mail address found in their spam list, YOU for example. When/if you ever get a bunch of return to sender mail responses for no reason, you will have found yourself a victim of this tactic.
This will be vitally important to the development of consumer robotics devices and the mitiuraization of existing devices. One of the big problems now with small robots is that they have limited choices for environmental perception. Ultrasound has a limited range and can easily be interfered with, Infared has the same limitations, and optics which is the ideal solution requires a large amount of processing for shape recognition. Ussing radar, longer range, lower interference sensing devices can/will be incorportated into robotic devices. Also, this is a huge boon for small remote controlled autonomous air vehicales, as it will allow them to have the sensing abilities of their larger cousins such as the predator. Whoo hoo!
Apple uses AAC, their own personal proprietary, format for storing music that needs DRM. It's excellent sound quality though, much like most of their products. iTunes also supports MP3.
It's true too that being a Martyr in the computer world is generally "Unsatisfying" I think though, that there is hope on the horizon. Time will tell!
Microsoft doesn't only include a web browser. It includes a program which recommends a certain ISP, an IM client which can only talk to other Windows users and a media player which doesn't play RealMedia (just for example) but only their proprietary file format. They get people to use Hotmail and MSN portals via their OS. So that's what you call fair competition over there in the US? *sigh*
So what? You don't have to use any of it. That's my point, there are plenty of alternatives. An ISP is suggested, and honestly, that's a good feature for someone who just got a new computer. You and I know better than to sign up for that crap, but at least it will get them where they need to be to start out. When they have bad service or think they are paying to much, they will get new service. Also, you misunderstand what I mean when I say "expect" from an operating system. I expect that at the bare minimum that there are utilities provided to do those functions, I'm *NOT* saying that I expect to use them. They just need to be there. Imagine windows without internet explorer for example... how would you browse the web, to download all of the updates that you need. I don't use outlook, but if i really needed to get to my mail on a new computer, I could at least do that. As for utilities and defrag, I'm not going to debate Microsoft's technical decisions regarding file systems, languages etc. It is what it is.
Bullshit. You know, kid, some people have to actually earn their money. It's called "work", and sometimes they even need software for their "work". Some of that software is very specific to certain businesses and only available for Windows. I have such a case here. Yes, I know, the alternative is being unemployed. Cool.
Yes I have to earn my money too. The fact that some software is only available for Windows is really, not microsoft's fault. It's the vendors fault for not providing you with a more diverse product line, perhaps you should find another vendor. Better yet, write your own and sell it.
Did the term "critical mass" ever occur to you? If 90% of all computer users use WMA, then that is what record companies will offer. We're not at this point yet, because Microsoft made a few mistakes; but have a look at how widespread Word attachments are now. You have a computer? Fine. Nearly everybody subconsciously assumes that you have Word (pirated, of course). That's the direction. Whether a few geeks like that or not is not the point.
Just becuase it has "critical mass" does not mean that you have to adopt it, agian, choice. More importantly I think that we are going to see a change in the DRM world in the next couple of years. Really DRM is about content, not about formats. When DRM starts to shift to a content centric eye, well see that format no longer matters.
Guess what I'm writing this in. But I'm not 90% of the population. I'm not deciding directions here.
-And-
Monopolies don't disappear on their own. At least for the next ten years, Microsoft will stay with us. And if they are clever, much longer than that. That's why governments have to do something about it. In fact, I think they're not doing enough, not even here in Good Old Europe.
Of course, but guess what? In 1996 you would have been writing this on an M$ machine, provided of course you were using an x86. There is a choice now, and up until a few years ago, there wasn't really a choice. Granted Linux is still for those who know, but it will take MUCH less than ten years for it to become viable. In fact I'd say that one or two more years and Linux will finally be mature enough to package with a desktop computer, some would say that it's ready right now but we'd need to check with Aunt Mary about that.
And this is the very reason that I'm starting to feel that M$ has less of a monopoly than they really do. There are now truly viable choices out there. Their grip on the market is slipping and their dominance is truly being challenged. How does
Intel underestimated the marketing pull of 64bit computing, plain and simple.
Intel didn't really underestimate 64-bit computing. They made a gross error. They made a decision that 64 bits would not be a comsumer technology, but a server technology, and one where a brand new architecture would be required. Since it's reasonable to ask businesses to rebuild applications for the sake of ROI, they assumed that the burning of the x86 bridge was a reasonable risk. What they didn't see was that AMD would bring 64 to the consumer desktop, a place where comatibility reigns, becuase there is no ROI, just and endless hole for money there is no tolerance for throwing away old software for the sake of something as abstract as a shiny new system architecture.
The funny thing is, Intel would not be in so much trouble if the AMD chips had not performed so well. Not only can you get a fast chip at a reasonable price, but there is a perceived upside of having the 64 bit computing available, a future promise of performance. Wether it helps, and how much remains to be seen.
Now we will see who can really turn up the heat. AMD has an opportunity to be the "market leader in 64-bit technology", provided of course they don't kill the golden goose.
No really - there is no magic tool that is going to give you good layout automatically. Just as there is an art to the design of the pages there is also an art to the layout.
When building the structure of an HTML page, there are a lot of choices to be made such as when to nest a widget in a table, and when not to.
No program can really understand that context of what you are trying to layout, and how (at least not yet). Until then, use the keyboard.
I find that our designers use Photoshop for the design and layout portion of the design process. As you are designing your layout just keep in mind the constraints of the web, and it's box centric layout methods.
For the most part, photoshop, or fireworks has everything you need to "design" a web site. Some people have recommended Illustrator and the such. I think photoshop is better becuase it is is less exact. You'll find that your design does not always translate pixel for pixel to the web. Browser differences and whack user font settings can easily destroy a nicely crafted layout. For that reason, it's better to use photoshop, or fireworks (watch out for rampant spacer gifs).
As far as storyboarding, it really depends on what you are presenting.
If it's a microsite, just make a few nice looking html pages as a "presentation template" that contain JPEGS of your photoshop design. In the presentation you can just link one page to the next and explain the ideas as you go along.
A full web site is a bit different, you'll need to present templates, with some images and and copy in them. This is usually better done with a menu so you can say click on "Template A" to see what the layout would look like. This is style presentation is usaully accompanied by a site map that has the Information Architecture of the site with references to your templates. The site map can be done nicely in Illustrator or Quark.
You are absolutly right that "mockups" should not be done in html. The html and a style sheet should be the output of the design process. You might need to test a layout to see how much text it can hold, but for the most part there is no reason to code a single line of HTML until the design flat are approved by your client/team.
We are talking about a Consumer desktop operating system, not business, or server.
Also, I'm wondering a little what you consider essential features.
In a consumer desktop operating system I expect the following features to be included with the OS.
Basic System Utilities such as defrag, a robust set of drivers for hardware and an easy way to find ones not shipped, a text editing program, a web browser, a mail client, the ability to share files and network my computer with others, a reasonably robust media player, cd burning utilities.
cars crashing and windows crash has nothing to do with the feature set comparison that i stated.
There's no monopoly in the car market. Face it. For some applications, there is NO ALTERNATIVE to using a M$ OS.
There is ALWAYS and alternative. People CHOOSE to use Microsoft, it's a CHOICE. It's also a choice whether you want to use WMA or MP3 or AAC or ATRAC3 or OGG or... insert more codecs here.
Your media player is a choice as well, last time I checked Real player was able to play all of the media types that Windows media player can play. The reaons I harp on media player is that it seems to be an issue for the EU.
No one is making you use WMA. You don't have to.
I don't have to use M$'s crap if I don't want to, neither do you. The problem is that people use the OS, and they complain that they are dissatisfied with it. If that's the case. Get OS X, or install Linux on your pc. For the brave, take your chances with Solaris, emacs, pine, and lynx.
Microsoft has a monopoly because people perpetuate the monopoly. It's not as if there are not alternatives out there - it's that people don't want to use the alternatives or can't because of lack of knowledge.
It is in the operating system manufacturers (or OSS project) users BEST INTERESTS for the manufacturer (managing group) to ship all of the necessary tools to make their OS the most productive and useable out of the box and with out spending more money.
In this day and age of multimedia content, word processing, e-mail, and the Internet, all Desktop Operating Systems now come with some for of:
Browser, E-Mail Client, Media Player, and Word Processor
Why? becuase they have to.
It's a litte crazy to say that since M$ has such a large share of the market that they are no longer allowed to ship the essential components of a modern day operating system. In many ways this could be analogus to dominant car manufactureres being prohibited from selling their cars with certain "features" and forcing the car buyer to get the parts after purchase, from the manufacturer or a third party.
Do you REALLY want to download a media player simply to play a video/music file? Are you still going to download the player you want?
Do most players now support almost all music and video formats? Yes.
Monopoly aside, stripping core, arguably essential features out of an end user's desktop operating system is not the correct response to this sort of thing.
Thank you sooooo much for completely ruining it for everyone else who was watching the show.
If they were watching the show... then they would know what happened.
Dear Mr. Clown - the guy who posted the parent asked what happened. Instead of just replying to his post, I added *spolier* so that you wouldn't read it. No one made you read my words...
And really dude, it's a damn T.V. show.
Wishing that I get hit by a truck is not very nice, and probably reflects poorly on your Karma.
I mean, really Stargate isn't all that "good" as far as TV goes, but for some reason, I too love Stargate.
I did watch it last night, it was a little disappointing. It was way too sappy for this Geeks taste. They made it *seem* like jack was dead, but he is alive. Dr. Frasier died. Too bad really, she was a good charachter.
Does this mean that AT&T wireless users MUST become Cingular users? I.e. some of us have signed one or two year contracts with AT+T wireless, are they still in force? What if someone has AT+T because they left Cingular b/c of a bad experience? SOL?
Slashdot Mirror
How hard is it REALLY to count and store votes?
I mean, there are sites on the net that conduct thousands of transactions in very short periods of time. It doesn't seem like this is really that hard.
How can a company like diebold still be in business if they can't take data from some form fields, and put it into a database?
1. "Stranded" refers to the time in transit - NOT on Mars. Over the course of the trip to mars the astronauts will be exposed to moon like conditions.
2. I haven't done the math on the delta V. however - something tells me that it just ain't workin' out. Namely becuase the acceleration of gravity on the moon is significantly less than mars. The total energy expended to get from the surface of the earth and to the surface of mars would need to be higher than the total energy for a trip from earths surface to the moon and back.
3. "At least on Mars you can make your own supplies from Hydrogen feedstock." This is PURE speculation that you can A. create this technology in a reasonable amount of time B. deploy it sucessfully on another planet C. operate it reliably for the duration of the mission. And don't say it's already "built", becuase while we might the technology we still have to engineer it into a package that can be deployed to Mars - most likely in an automated fashion.
4. Clearly you don't understand what I was saying about testing exposure. Of course the moon doesn't have an atmosphere. The ship that carries the astronauts will be exposed to solar radation much in the same way people on the moon will. In fact MUCH of the trip to and from mars will be similar to living on the moon.
I'm not so much concerned about living on Mars really. I don't think that is really the issue. Generally speaking the conditions on Mars would be easier to engineer equipment for than the moon. The real issue, is the trip. The moon offers the opportunity to test new technologies we would eventually deploy on other planets.
Why?
To discover the things that we don't know about living in extraterrestrial environments - BEFORE we strand a group of humans 2 years away from earth.
For example, we have little to no data about the effects of radiation on humans beyond the earth's magnetosphere. This is one of the biggest concerns especially considering most of the proposed trips to mars exceed one year of travel each way. Creating a base on the moon will give us a better idea of the concentrations, and the long term effects of solar radiation on humans.
The moon's low gravity also makes it easier to access. Less fuel is needed to land, and take off.
I think though that the biggest reason for going to the moon first is an old saying "walk before you run". In terms of distance the moon is on average 240,000 miles away from the earth. Nothing really, in the grand scheme of things. If for some reason something went horribly wrong, there would at least be a chance to rectify it, or help. A moon base would be a stones throw away, and with the proper planning the crew of that base could be very safe.
From a scientific perspective examining the individuals that do staff the base will provide vital information about what living in the solar environment is like and how if affects the body. Also, the moon has 17% of the earths gravity, with mars at 38% the moon makes a good environment for training for low gravity.
All in all, I think that we cannot afford NOT to go to the moon first. The moon gives us an opportunity to learn about living in space without the risks of being completly isolated from humanity.
Make no mistake - the moon must be the beginning - and not the end of our future in space!
that technology is synonymous with start-up company expansions.
In fact most of the companies hiring are only hiring people for specific roles and responsibilities. The days of hiring "interns" or employees "to have on hand" "just in case we need them" are over.
I watch almost no tv - but, there are about three channels that I will watch. The only show that I watch religiously is stargate. This puts my cost per episode @ about $15 a pop. Kind of rediculous. It'd be nice to get local channels and one or two cable stations.
AAC as a simple encoding format, yes belongs to other groups.
However, DRM AAC is "Apple's DRM technology". AAC is Apple's format of choice, which could be said to be Apple's Music format. I guess if they really wanted to be acurate they'd call it DRM AAC.
BUT WHO REALLY CARES???
It would be nice if slashdot didn't partake in the sensationalisim that tends to pervade the media. The reason I say this is is that the summary reads "Gates' credit card was hacked. After all, they did have his mother's maiden name... "
If the moderators had read the article, they would have noted that Gates card number was not USED for anything, but that some stupid kid had it in his posession. And it's linked to a list of names stolen sometime in the past. As a result the kid was picked up by the FBI. Nothing actually happened concerning gates card.
Bah.
I was surprised to find an ad playing on weather.com last week for air tran airlines. Why? I have Norton Internet Secuity "Suite", which works extremely well, no pop ups, or pop unders, no ads really to speak of. For sure, they are not missed.
The movie playing was low res, full motion video that ran for about 2 minutes. It was rather funny actually. What caught my attention was why the ad was playing in MY browser.
The ad was produced by a company called bluestreak. They specialize in the annoying flash banners that you see. Bluestreak and Unicast have a lot in common.
Unicast uses flash as their primiary execution environment. The new ads go a bit further, and check five things when loaded Your OS, Your Browser, Flash, and what version of a JVM your are using. If any of these fail, the movie will not play! Easy enough to defeat even if you are on a windows machine. Also, it appears that if you use a microsoft JVM, that the movies won't work!
With bluestreak, a small applet tag is document.write() to your browser. This applet is essentially a bootloader for the bluestreak player technology. I imagine using reflection and some nicely designed interfaces, the movies is loaded as the class files are downloaded to your browser. Once the engine is downloaded it gets the content and plays it to you. My guess is that the ad blocking software didn't work because of the type of tag being created.
Both technologies are absurdly intrusive, and consume bandwidth that you might otherwise want to use for something else. All is not lost however, a few simple things you can do, or purchase will prevent their delivery to your computer.
Unicasts's technology is based mostly on the notion of poping up a window to show the "content" to the user. Your best defense is a pop-up blocker. If you are a windowz user you can change your JVM to M$ to prevent the execution. Also, most of Unicasts content is flash based and easily found by products such as norton internet security.
Blue streak is a bit more incidious as it's delivered in a rather clandestine fashion. I believe that it is also cross platform given the Java nature of the execution environment. This will require you to either turn java off, or get software that blocks content from the bluestreak domain.
Good luck.
from the article Some think Microsoft has bitten off more than it can chew with Yukon. "This product lacks focus," said Betsy Burton, analyst with the Gartner Group. "They're doing all sorts of stuff with it, first scalability was the issue, then XML support, then .Net activities, and then business intelligence and now security. The gut issue is, what is the purpose of this release? As a team trying to develop a product you have to know where you're going," she said
.NET, which really has not clarified itself much in the last two years.
Betsy clearly has no clue regarding the SQL Server product's evolution, capabilites or how these are going to change with Yukon. In fact she seems to have a very limited grasp of significance of the Yukon's release.
Unlike Oracle, SQL Server has basically hovered in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" pattern for the last 5 years. For the most part it has delivered a decent database platform, that was for a while more cost effective than oracle. Those who have used SQL Server extensively know it's limitations. Betsy's arguments about "product lacking focus" are rediculous. That's primarily becuase Yukon seeks to rectify a large number of the problems and limitations of SQL Server 2k. It's really very difficult to provide a "focused" look at a product that is changing so significantly. In fact, her complaint is very similar to those that were uttered as Microsfot was trying to formalize the definition of
It would seem that Betsy is looking for are a few jargon sound bytes that can be displayed on a single powerpoint slide. That slide would then be shown to a bunch of people who nod their head and say, "that's a sound strategic driection". Big idea's aren't sound bytes.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, they are attempting to be ambitious with Yukon. A lot of new plumbing is going in, as well as a refinement and crystalization of the current features such as SQL -> XML queries, DTS, Replication, the integration of a first class programming language among others. These are all features that we've needed for a long time.
Yukon represents a significant change in the world of RDMS's on the Windows platform. It's sad to see that influential groups such as Gartner can't recognize or have the vision to see how much (and for the better) things are going to change for SQL Server 2K shops.
slated to be released until the last quarter this year. 2005 "sounds bad", but it's only a few months.
contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization
Is this *really* copyrightable? How can you copyright an organization? Perhaps you can patent a method of organizing something, but copyright? I had thought that copyright applies only to a tangible, set of information, such as lines of code, a written document, a work of art.
The first attempts to scare us centered around "infringing code". Now are they trying to say that "Your Linux looks too much like our Unix?" As far as I'm concerend, Looks like and IS are two different things.
This will make an awsome Haxering platform. If you get run up on by the feds, just pull the battery out of your laptop.
The FROM address is almost always forged. The result, the returned spam goes to another e-mail address found in their spam list, YOU for example. When/if you ever get a bunch of return to sender mail responses for no reason, you will have found yourself a victim of this tactic.
This will be vitally important to the development of consumer robotics devices and the mitiuraization of existing devices. One of the big problems now with small robots is that they have limited choices for environmental perception. Ultrasound has a limited range and can easily be interfered with, Infared has the same limitations, and optics which is the ideal solution requires a large amount of processing for shape recognition. Ussing radar, longer range, lower interference sensing devices can/will be incorportated into robotic devices. Also, this is a huge boon for small remote controlled autonomous air vehicales, as it will allow them to have the sensing abilities of their larger cousins such as the predator. Whoo hoo!
Well put :-)
Apple uses AAC, their own personal proprietary, format for storing music that needs DRM. It's excellent sound quality though, much like most of their products. iTunes also supports MP3.
It's true too that being a Martyr in the computer world is generally "Unsatisfying" I think though, that there is hope on the horizon. Time will tell!
Microsoft doesn't only include a web browser. It includes a program which recommends a certain ISP, an IM client which can only talk to other Windows users and a media player which doesn't play RealMedia (just for example) but only their proprietary file format. They get people to use Hotmail and MSN portals via their OS. So that's what you call fair competition over there in the US? *sigh*
So what? You don't have to use any of it. That's my point, there are plenty of alternatives. An ISP is suggested, and honestly, that's a good feature for someone who just got a new computer. You and I know better than to sign up for that crap, but at least it will get them where they need to be to start out. When they have bad service or think they are paying to much, they will get new service. Also, you misunderstand what I mean when I say "expect" from an operating system. I expect that at the bare minimum that there are utilities provided to do those functions, I'm *NOT* saying that I expect to use them. They just need to be there. Imagine windows without internet explorer for example... how would you browse the web, to download all of the updates that you need. I don't use outlook, but if i really needed to get to my mail on a new computer, I could at least do that. As for utilities and defrag, I'm not going to debate Microsoft's technical decisions regarding file systems, languages etc. It is what it is.
Bullshit. You know, kid, some people have to actually earn their money. It's called "work", and sometimes they even need software for their "work". Some of that software is very specific to certain businesses and only available for Windows. I have such a case here. Yes, I know, the alternative is being unemployed. Cool.
Yes I have to earn my money too. The fact that some software is only available for Windows is really, not microsoft's fault. It's the vendors fault for not providing you with a more diverse product line, perhaps you should find another vendor. Better yet, write your own and sell it.
Did the term "critical mass" ever occur to you? If 90% of all computer users use WMA, then that is what record companies will offer. We're not at this point yet, because Microsoft made a few mistakes; but have a look at how widespread Word attachments are now. You have a computer? Fine. Nearly everybody subconsciously assumes that you have Word (pirated, of course). That's the direction. Whether a few geeks like that or not is not the point.
Just becuase it has "critical mass" does not mean that you have to adopt it, agian, choice. More importantly I think that we are going to see a change in the DRM world in the next couple of years. Really DRM is about content, not about formats. When DRM starts to shift to a content centric eye, well see that format no longer matters.
Guess what I'm writing this in. But I'm not 90% of the population. I'm not deciding directions here.
-And-
Monopolies don't disappear on their own. At least for the next ten years, Microsoft will stay with us. And if they are clever, much longer than that. That's why governments have to do something about it. In fact, I think they're not doing enough, not even here in Good Old Europe.
Of course, but guess what? In 1996 you would have been writing this on an M$ machine, provided of course you were using an x86. There is a choice now, and up until a few years ago, there wasn't really a choice. Granted Linux is still for those who know, but it will take MUCH less than ten years for it to become viable. In fact I'd say that one or two more years and Linux will finally be mature enough to package with a desktop computer, some would say that it's ready right now but we'd need to check with Aunt Mary about that.
And this is the very reason that I'm starting to feel that M$ has less of a monopoly than they really do. There are now truly viable choices out there. Their grip on the market is slipping and their dominance is truly being challenged. How does
Intel underestimated the marketing pull of 64bit computing, plain and simple.
Intel didn't really underestimate 64-bit computing. They made a gross error. They made a decision that 64 bits would not be a comsumer technology, but a server technology, and one where a brand new architecture would be required. Since it's reasonable to ask businesses to rebuild applications for the sake of ROI, they assumed that the burning of the x86 bridge was a reasonable risk. What they didn't see was that AMD would bring 64 to the consumer desktop, a place where comatibility reigns, becuase there is no ROI, just and endless hole for money there is no tolerance for throwing away old software for the sake of something as abstract as a shiny new system architecture.
The funny thing is, Intel would not be in so much trouble if the AMD chips had not performed so well. Not only can you get a fast chip at a reasonable price, but there is a perceived upside of having the 64 bit computing available, a future promise of performance. Wether it helps, and how much remains to be seen.
Now we will see who can really turn up the heat. AMD has an opportunity to be the "market leader in 64-bit technology", provided of course they don't kill the golden goose.
Wordpad, BBEdit
No really - there is no magic tool that is going to give you good layout automatically. Just as there is an art to the design of the pages there is also an art to the layout.
When building the structure of an HTML page, there are a lot of choices to be made such as when to nest a widget in a table, and when not to.
No program can really understand that context of what you are trying to layout, and how (at least not yet). Until then, use the keyboard.
I find that our designers use Photoshop for the design and layout portion of the design process. As you are designing your layout just keep in mind the constraints of the web, and it's box centric layout methods.
For the most part, photoshop, or fireworks has everything you need to "design" a web site. Some people have recommended Illustrator and the such. I think photoshop is better becuase it is is less exact. You'll find that your design does not always translate pixel for pixel to the web. Browser differences and whack user font settings can easily destroy a nicely crafted layout. For that reason, it's better to use photoshop, or fireworks (watch out for rampant spacer gifs).
As far as storyboarding, it really depends on what you are presenting.
If it's a microsite, just make a few nice looking html pages as a "presentation template" that contain JPEGS of your photoshop design. In the presentation you can just link one page to the next and explain the ideas as you go along.
A full web site is a bit different, you'll need to present templates, with some images and and copy in them. This is usually better done with a menu so you can say click on "Template A" to see what the layout would look like. This is style presentation is usaully accompanied by a site map that has the Information Architecture of the site with references to your templates. The site map can be done nicely in Illustrator or Quark.
You are absolutly right that "mockups" should not be done in html. The html and a style sheet should be the output of the design process. You might need to test a layout to see how much text it can hold, but for the most part there is no reason to code a single line of HTML until the design flat are approved by your client/team.
We are talking about a Consumer desktop operating system, not business, or server.
... insert more codecs here.
Also, I'm wondering a little what you consider essential features.
In a consumer desktop operating system I expect the following features to be included with the OS.
Basic System Utilities such as defrag, a robust set of drivers for hardware and an easy way to find ones not shipped, a text editing program, a web browser, a mail client, the ability to share files and network my computer with others, a reasonably robust media player, cd burning utilities.
cars crashing and windows crash has nothing to do with the feature set comparison that i stated.
There's no monopoly in the car market. Face it. For some applications, there is NO ALTERNATIVE to using a M$ OS.
There is ALWAYS and alternative. People CHOOSE to use Microsoft, it's a CHOICE. It's also a choice whether you want to use WMA or MP3 or AAC or ATRAC3 or OGG or
Your media player is a choice as well, last time I checked Real player was able to play all of the media types that Windows media player can play. The reaons I harp on media player is that it seems to be an issue for the EU.
No one is making you use WMA. You don't have to.
I don't have to use M$'s crap if I don't want to, neither do you. The problem is that people use the OS, and they complain that they are dissatisfied with it. If that's the case. Get OS X, or install Linux on your pc. For the brave, take your chances with Solaris, emacs, pine, and lynx.
Microsoft has a monopoly because people perpetuate the monopoly. It's not as if there are not alternatives out there - it's that people don't want to use the alternatives or can't because of lack of knowledge.
It is in the operating system manufacturers (or OSS project) users BEST INTERESTS for the manufacturer (managing group) to ship all of the necessary tools to make their OS the most productive and useable out of the box and with out spending more money.
In this day and age of multimedia content, word processing, e-mail, and the Internet, all Desktop Operating Systems now come with some for of:
Browser, E-Mail Client, Media Player, and Word Processor
Why? becuase they have to.
It's a litte crazy to say that since M$ has such a large share of the market that they are no longer allowed to ship the essential components of a modern day operating system. In many ways this could be analogus to dominant car manufactureres being prohibited from selling their cars with certain "features" and forcing the car buyer to get the parts after purchase, from the manufacturer or a third party.
Do you REALLY want to download a media player simply to play a video/music file? Are you still going to download the player you want?
Do most players now support almost all music and video formats? Yes.
Monopoly aside, stripping core, arguably essential features out of an end user's desktop operating system is not the correct response to this sort of thing.
My post did not have a score of 5, it has a score of zero.
Thank you sooooo much for completely ruining it for everyone else who was watching the show.
If they were watching the show... then they would know what happened.
Dear Mr. Clown - the guy who posted the parent asked what happened. Instead of just replying to his post, I added *spolier* so that you wouldn't read it. No one made you read my words...
And really dude, it's a damn T.V. show.
Wishing that I get hit by a truck is not very nice, and probably reflects poorly on your Karma.
I mean, really Stargate isn't all that "good" as far as TV goes, but for some reason, I too love Stargate.
I did watch it last night, it was a little disappointing. It was way too sappy for this Geeks taste. They made it *seem* like jack was dead, but he is alive. Dr. Frasier died. Too bad really, she was a good charachter.
Does this mean that AT&T wireless users MUST become Cingular users? I.e. some of us have signed one or two year contracts with AT+T wireless, are they still in force? What if someone has AT+T because they left Cingular b/c of a bad experience? SOL?