No ergonomic feel to the mouse. I don't want my mouse to feel like a travel "soap dish" when I'm using it all day long.
2 AAA batteries? Have we really de-evolved back into the mid-90's again?
Eats a USB port, when my laptop has onboard 802.11x and Bluetooth
Nope, this one will definately not be going into my travel bag. I'll stick with my Logitech MX1000 even though 2/3 of the buttons are useless under Linux.
"The one thing that the PPC->x86 move shows is that Apple Is Not Serious About The Server Market."
Since when do people run servers on iPods and Powerbooks? Sure, Apple has the Xserve, but that's only because they wanted to. Its not their cash cow.
Apple is all about media, all about personal, eye-candy, catchy machines. They're not in the server space... if you want PowerPC-based servers, you get them from IBM... the same company that provides Apple's chipsets.
Running Linux on the Xserve is going to offer you more value and performance (at lower cost), than running OSX on the Xserve.
But Apple isn't moving into the data closet, they're moving into your desktop and kitchen and livingroom.
"Time lost to unexpected problems when installing Linux on diverse hardware or when installing new software also translates into cost for many people."
And how quickly did it take you to get OSX running on "diverse hardware"? Did it detect your 8-year-old video card and bleeding-edge SATA drives?
Did you notice that more than half of that source file is completely unparsed, ignored, because of the undef at the top (the one commentedy by the 'shit')
Looking at the rest of that code, its no wonder they need the community's help. Its a freaking mess. Whomever writes code like that needs to get back to CompSci 101.
Have you watched CNN on the Telescreen lately? They have a section now where the reporters literally read aloud from blogs on websites, for 30 freaking minutes! They report the news, as written by bloggers, not as reported by actual reporters (granted, there's a fine line there with crooked reporters and honest bloggers, but..)
CNN isn't the only channel doing it either. Its increasing more and more in popularity.
Somewhat related to this, in my state (CT/US), hundreds of radio station DJs were fired/laid off, and replaced with... you guessed it... a digital playlist running from... you guessed it again... an iPod device. Basically the stations decided that they get much more airtime and less "chatter" by replacing DJs with iPods.
Which are probably time-limited, very-crippled versions of OSX/Intel, not optimized for actual production use. Its a development platform. Even if it did work if copied off, it wouldn't be very useful (nor would you be able to patch or update it as a "valid" copy of OSX/Intel).
Intel is putting LaGrande into the chips for OSX/Intel, and you can bet it will be hard-locked in silicon to the OS and the hardware.
There was a study a few years ago that asserted that OVER 65% of Microsoft Windows installations were pirated copies. This means that more than half of their market share is due to piracy.
If someone pirates Windows (or OSX) and puts it on their machine, they'll become comfortable with it. They'll use it. They'll tweak it. They'll download tools and applications to make it useful. They may even go upgrade the machine (RAM, vide card, whatever). They may even go PURCHASE applications for it.
The key here is, they're NOT using your competitor's OS on the same machine (in most cases). That gives you an advantage, even if you did lose the $129.00 sale on a Tiger purchase.
But back on track, I documented exactly this last week. Wow, some blogger reads Slashdot, takes our insight, writes up a blog as if he thought of it, and now he's famous?
Nice. This trend about using blogs to report the news, when blogs are nothing but plagarizing, content-recycling engines, is pretty hilarious.
Bugzilla, unfortunately carries the string 'Bug' in its title, and gets branded as a bug-only tool. I much prefer Mantis, and both tools contain a "Feature" item in the dropdown... report your "items" as a feature, and let someone else implement/comment on them. Not everything listed in Bugzilla has to be a "bug" in the system. Lack of a key feature can be seen as a bug by some users.
But my post was actually "bait" to see if the OP had actually mentioned these feature requests anywhere but his rantings on Slashdot. If nobody with the power to implement them sees or hears about them, how does he know anyone wants them?
I see this all the time with bugs that go unreported. It goes something like this:
"How come you didn't fix this bug?"
"Did you report it?"
"No, you should know every open bug."
"Please report it so we can track it and be accountable for it."
"You suck."
Unfortunately, that's the reality of the matter. If nobody wants to help by reporting bugs, adding their comments and feature requests, providing testing resources (especially on hardware or software that developers such as myself do not have access to), or by sending in patches... things don't improve.
Many people complain that "Linux usability sucks", but they do nothing to try to solve it. The problem lies in both courts... developer AND user.
"It'll be well under a year after release before the first pre-cracked OS X/x86 torrent is available download, which will mean they could lose quite a bit of business from the geek population."
Except that OSX/Intel (note: not OSX/x86) will be based on the Intel LaGrande chipset, which means you won't be able to do much to the OS, even if you could copy it off of a running system (highly unlikely, unless someone finds a silicon-level workaround for LaGrande).
Also, you wouldn't be able to get any of the updates to the OS from Apple, because LaGrande would prohibit you from being able to pull them down without proper authorization at the silicon level.
"Evolution (as well as Thunderbird and every other foss email client I've tried) doesn't have the option to "remove email from server when emptied from Trash" for pop3 email."
Can you please reference the exact Bugzilla bug number(s) for these issues that you've reported? I'd like to see the details.
Someone wanted to get their hands on the 10.4.1/Intel build because they couldn't afford it (note, not x86, since nobody said that this would be x86 code in the final release). They posted a story on some obscure Mac forum, knowing that it would get syndicated all the way up to Slashdot and other sites.
Their goal was to encourage anyone who DID lease the Developer Transition Kit to pirate their copy and put it on the web, so the original poster could download it and run it for free, like the greedy little bastards that they are.
Note, the Developer Transition Kit is a LEASED machine, by the way. You're leasing the hardware and the OS for the priviledge of having your apps listed as being 100% compatible at Day 1, instead of Day 100. You're not "buying" the machine or the OS, you're renting it for development purposes.
But now that this story is out, and rumors are flying, you can bet that Steve Jobs and the geniuses at Apple are putting in some solid checks for the OS-against-the-hardware (remember, P4 still has the CPUID built into it). Within a couple of days they should have the OS checking the hardware at bootup, and for any copies found floating around the web (which probably won't run anyway), they'll know exactly which Premiere partner leaked it, based on the code in the OS proper.
They have a finite number of Developer Transition Kits going out (and it costs $500 to $1300 to join as a Premiere developer to be allowed to get one, on top of your $999 lease fee). You can bet they'll be locking the OS to the hardware now, even if they weren't going to a week or two ago.
So the original poster just screwed himself, and potentially thousands of other developers who might have wanted to use this platform for development, but couldn't afford the $1,499 to $2,299 to join up and get one.
I think this is great on all sides.. good work everyone!
"Linux doesn't compete against Windows, MacOS X or Solaris. Linux vendors, like Red Hat, compete against Microsoft, Apple and Sun. Linux just is. The fact that it's supported by various companies is great but it's not essential for Linux survival. The fact that the amount of people and companies using Linux is huge and growing is terrific, but it's not essential."
These are all valid points, but you forgot one subtle thing...
Vendors having access to a Free (and free) operating system, Linux in this case, helps them push technology farther and faster, and helps get products out into customer hands more rapidly.
It also allows those customers to hack on it, improve upon it (Linksys WAP/Routers being one great example, TiVo being another) and send fixes and features back to the vendors, who then incorporate them into their next revision of products.
If Linux (or other favorite Free Operating System of choice here) did not exist , vendors would have MUCH more expensive products (to help offset their own licensing costs for embedded operating systems), and products would evolve MUCH more slowly (because fixes to the OS would have to go back to the commercial OS vendor for testing, Q&A, acceptance, and put into their release cycle schedule).
The "death" of Linux wouldn't kill Linux, but it would most-definately dramatically slow down the advance of technology and further increase the costs associated with purchasing the hardware we all enjoy at low costs today.
There's a lot more to it than just "desktop users" and "market share".
"With Linux, you still have situations where applications work wonderfully with GUI A but have "quirks" if you try using certain features in GUI B, C, or D. Until there's a standard that desktop environment developers agree on and adhere to, you're going to have a fracured desktop experience."
Others would call that CHOICE.
Show me how I can remove that top menubar on OSX... Answer: You can't.
Show me how I can change the windowing/titlebar/menu fonts on OSX to be 6pt fonts, aliased (or not). Answer: You can't.
Show me how I can get application-specific context menus without having to go aaaaaall the way up to the top of the screen to that menubar. Answer: You can't.
OSX, while pretty, severely limits the user experience (not to mention its pitifully slow in the graphics department compared to Linux on the same exact hardware).
I'll continue to choose Linux over OSX every day, until they let me configure it the way I want to use the machine. Heck, even Microsoft Windows lets you change more of the UI than OSX.
What Apple is migrating to will either force PC manufacturers to change their designs (not-likely), or Apple's hardware reference platform for OSX/x86 will not be a "PC" as we know it today.
I saw an interesting science article years ago that basically created (granted, in a lab with huge power consumption) an "elongated figure-8" out of plasma that basically was a fixed-length "beam" when viewed from a slight distance. If you stretch the figure-8 out a bit more, it would probably resemble an actual sabre.
The technology definitely exists, its the handheld power supply that is the problem right now.
"The part that amazes me these days is that people bother to send personal email through their work address when perfectly good webmail clients exist (*cough*gmail*cough*). Yes, your employer can probably see that you're surfing Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo/Home *nix Server. However, your email is not likely to be captured by their system, and remains private."
Don't be so sure... just because we don't hear about it, doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Google is a publically-traded company, and that means they are responsible to their board to remain legal and profitable. If they received a subponea for records or email because someone believed there were laws being broken, you can bet they'd hand it over.
Besides, your mail is on their network for a LONG, loooooooong time... with no expiry specified. It may still exist there even after you're dead. Is that what you want?
Remember, "deleting" mail in Gmail doesn't remove it from their systems, it just removes the pointers to it from YOUR mailbox so you no longer see it.
A lot of keystroke loggers log "process" as well as clicks and clipboard activity. Its a simple matter to see that someone cut some text to the clipboard, it was an 'a', then pasted that 'a' into another application.
Keystroke loggers are a LOT smarter now than commonly known. Any way you can think of to get input into an application, has been covered by a keystroke logger already. They're really activity loggers now...
I was thinking more about the velocity and the "whip" effect potentially cracking the shelf or the Earth's plates..
If this thing is say... 4' in diameter, tapering up to 1' in diameter at the top... and its 6 miles long or more in height... that could be some serious whipping power as it slams into the Earth in one flat *SMACK* (and since the Earth is rotating, it wouldn't just "fall" in a pile like dropping some rope), it would probably be fully extended with maximum velocity at the top end (the smallest diameter, but with the heaviest piece on top of it, the orbiting rock or elevator itself).
Perhaps they could line it with some timed detonation so that it would break into little 5' sections or something along the way down.. though that'd be subject to terrorism or something I'm sure.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here, is what happens when (not if) the upper end of the skylovator breaks off, sending the entire length of the elevator "cable" (carbon nanotubes of millions of tonnes of tensile strength) whipping down on the earth (or sea) at several thousand miles per hour?
Wouldn't that have the velocity to cause some serious damage?
Do you know WHY its "slower" (by your incorrect perception)? Because it doesn't contain the Win32 primitives locally, which rdesktop does. VNC is simply placing pixels across the screen and transmitting x,y coordinates to the remote host.
Remote Desktop (the client) contains almost all of the local draw/vector primitives for Microsoft operating systems locally. That's the main reason you believe it to be "faster".
In reality however, VNC is faster in terms of sending and receiving the bits, its the local translation on both sides that makes it seem "sluggish".
But that's already been solved years ago by the dozen-or-so VNC clients that do a lot more than just send and receive packets. You should try one of the more-recent VNC clients first, before you admonish them all as "slow".
Not all Windows2000 machines have Windows Terminal Services running (if even installed), and even if they do, most of those will be blocked outside the firewall. VNC by comparison, lets you change the port and runs as a userland program (in some cases) on those machines. The same client also works to administer OSX, Linux, BSD and other machines. Can the same Remote Desktop client do that? No.
In short, VNC is much more useful, faster (if you configure it properly and use a decent VNC client and server combination), and works for every operating system out there.
Slashdot Mirror
I have only a few complaints:
Nope, this one will definately not be going into my travel bag. I'll stick with my Logitech MX1000 even though 2/3 of the buttons are useless under Linux.
Since when do people run servers on iPods and Powerbooks? Sure, Apple has the Xserve, but that's only because they wanted to. Its not their cash cow.
Apple is all about media, all about personal, eye-candy, catchy machines. They're not in the server space... if you want PowerPC-based servers, you get them from IBM... the same company that provides Apple's chipsets.
Running Linux on the Xserve is going to offer you more value and performance (at lower cost), than running OSX on the Xserve.
But Apple isn't moving into the data closet, they're moving into your desktop and kitchen and livingroom.
And how quickly did it take you to get OSX running on "diverse hardware"? Did it detect your 8-year-old video card and bleeding-edge SATA drives?
Oh wait, it can't.
Did you notice that more than half of that source file is completely unparsed, ignored, because of the undef at the top (the one commentedy by the 'shit')
Looking at the rest of that code, its no wonder they need the community's help. Its a freaking mess. Whomever writes code like that needs to get back to CompSci 101.
Have you watched CNN on the Telescreen lately? They have a section now where the reporters literally read aloud from blogs on websites, for 30 freaking minutes! They report the news, as written by bloggers, not as reported by actual reporters (granted, there's a fine line there with crooked reporters and honest bloggers, but..)
CNN isn't the only channel doing it either. Its increasing more and more in popularity.
Somewhat related to this, in my state (CT/US), hundreds of radio station DJs were fired/laid off, and replaced with... you guessed it... a digital playlist running from... you guessed it again... an iPod device. Basically the stations decided that they get much more airtime and less "chatter" by replacing DJs with iPods.
Nice. I love technology.
Which are probably time-limited, very-crippled versions of OSX/Intel, not optimized for actual production use. Its a development platform. Even if it did work if copied off, it wouldn't be very useful (nor would you be able to patch or update it as a "valid" copy of OSX/Intel).
Intel is putting LaGrande into the chips for OSX/Intel, and you can bet it will be hard-locked in silicon to the OS and the hardware.
Not unless you can "clone" their modified, proprietary, non-PC BIOS and supporting chipset also.
There was a study a few years ago that asserted that OVER 65% of Microsoft Windows installations were pirated copies. This means that more than half of their market share is due to piracy.
If someone pirates Windows (or OSX) and puts it on their machine, they'll become comfortable with it. They'll use it. They'll tweak it. They'll download tools and applications to make it useful. They may even go upgrade the machine (RAM, vide card, whatever). They may even go PURCHASE applications for it.
The key here is, they're NOT using your competitor's OS on the same machine (in most cases). That gives you an advantage, even if you did lose the $129.00 sale on a Tiger purchase.
But back on track, I documented exactly this last week. Wow, some blogger reads Slashdot, takes our insight, writes up a blog as if he thought of it, and now he's famous?
Nice. This trend about using blogs to report the news, when blogs are nothing but plagarizing, content-recycling engines, is pretty hilarious.
Bugzilla, unfortunately carries the string 'Bug' in its title, and gets branded as a bug-only tool. I much prefer Mantis, and both tools contain a "Feature" item in the dropdown... report your "items" as a feature, and let someone else implement/comment on them. Not everything listed in Bugzilla has to be a "bug" in the system. Lack of a key feature can be seen as a bug by some users.
But my post was actually "bait" to see if the OP had actually mentioned these feature requests anywhere but his rantings on Slashdot. If nobody with the power to implement them sees or hears about them, how does he know anyone wants them?
I see this all the time with bugs that go unreported. It goes something like this:
Unfortunately, that's the reality of the matter. If nobody wants to help by reporting bugs, adding their comments and feature requests, providing testing resources (especially on hardware or software that developers such as myself do not have access to), or by sending in patches... things don't improve.
Many people complain that "Linux usability sucks", but they do nothing to try to solve it. The problem lies in both courts... developer AND user.
Except that OSX/Intel (note: not OSX/x86) will be based on the Intel LaGrande chipset, which means you won't be able to do much to the OS, even if you could copy it off of a running system (highly unlikely, unless someone finds a silicon-level workaround for LaGrande).
Also, you wouldn't be able to get any of the updates to the OS from Apple, because LaGrande would prohibit you from being able to pull them down without proper authorization at the silicon level.
Gimp has opened remote images for at least the last 3 years that I can recall trying, through the 1.x series and into the 2.x series.
gimp http://path/to/image/file.png
Can you please reference the exact Bugzilla bug number(s) for these issues that you've reported? I'd like to see the details.
Here's my theory:
Someone wanted to get their hands on the 10.4.1/Intel build because they couldn't afford it (note, not x86, since nobody said that this would be x86 code in the final release). They posted a story on some obscure Mac forum, knowing that it would get syndicated all the way up to Slashdot and other sites.
Their goal was to encourage anyone who DID lease the Developer Transition Kit to pirate their copy and put it on the web, so the original poster could download it and run it for free, like the greedy little bastards that they are.
Note, the Developer Transition Kit is a LEASED machine, by the way. You're leasing the hardware and the OS for the priviledge of having your apps listed as being 100% compatible at Day 1, instead of Day 100. You're not "buying" the machine or the OS, you're renting it for development purposes.
But now that this story is out, and rumors are flying, you can bet that Steve Jobs and the geniuses at Apple are putting in some solid checks for the OS-against-the-hardware (remember, P4 still has the CPUID built into it). Within a couple of days they should have the OS checking the hardware at bootup, and for any copies found floating around the web (which probably won't run anyway), they'll know exactly which Premiere partner leaked it, based on the code in the OS proper.
They have a finite number of Developer Transition Kits going out (and it costs $500 to $1300 to join as a Premiere developer to be allowed to get one, on top of your $999 lease fee). You can bet they'll be locking the OS to the hardware now, even if they weren't going to a week or two ago.
So the original poster just screwed himself, and potentially thousands of other developers who might have wanted to use this platform for development, but couldn't afford the $1,499 to $2,299 to join up and get one.
I think this is great on all sides.. good work everyone!
Where have they said this? Please enlighten me with your citation that backs this up.
These are all valid points, but you forgot one subtle thing...
Vendors having access to a Free (and free) operating system, Linux in this case, helps them push technology farther and faster, and helps get products out into customer hands more rapidly.
It also allows those customers to hack on it, improve upon it (Linksys WAP/Routers being one great example, TiVo being another) and send fixes and features back to the vendors, who then incorporate them into their next revision of products.
If Linux (or other favorite Free Operating System of choice here) did not exist , vendors would have MUCH more expensive products (to help offset their own licensing costs for embedded operating systems), and products would evolve MUCH more slowly (because fixes to the OS would have to go back to the commercial OS vendor for testing, Q&A, acceptance, and put into their release cycle schedule).
The "death" of Linux wouldn't kill Linux, but it would most-definately dramatically slow down the advance of technology and further increase the costs associated with purchasing the hardware we all enjoy at low costs today.
There's a lot more to it than just "desktop users" and "market share".
Others would call that CHOICE.
Show me how I can remove that top menubar on OSX... Answer: You can't.
Show me how I can change the windowing/titlebar/menu fonts on OSX to be 6pt fonts, aliased (or not). Answer: You can't.
Show me how I can get application-specific context menus without having to go aaaaaall the way up to the top of the screen to that menubar. Answer: You can't.
OSX, while pretty, severely limits the user experience (not to mention its pitifully slow in the graphics department compared to Linux on the same exact hardware).
I'll continue to choose Linux over OSX every day, until they let me configure it the way I want to use the machine. Heck, even Microsoft Windows lets you change more of the UI than OSX.
One word: OpenFirmware.
PCs use a BIOS, OSX cannot.
OSX uses OpenFirmware, PCs cannot.
What Apple is migrating to will either force PC manufacturers to change their designs (not-likely), or Apple's hardware reference platform for OSX/x86 will not be a "PC" as we know it today.
(said to Bill Gates) "...people don't hate you because you're successful or rich, people hate you because you're an asshole."
I saw an interesting science article years ago that basically created (granted, in a lab with huge power consumption) an "elongated figure-8" out of plasma that basically was a fixed-length "beam" when viewed from a slight distance. If you stretch the figure-8 out a bit more, it would probably resemble an actual sabre.
The technology definitely exists, its the handheld power supply that is the problem right now.
Don't be so sure... just because we don't hear about it, doesn't mean it isn't happening.
Google is a publically-traded company, and that means they are responsible to their board to remain legal and profitable. If they received a subponea for records or email because someone believed there were laws being broken, you can bet they'd hand it over.
Besides, your mail is on their network for a LONG, loooooooong time... with no expiry specified. It may still exist there even after you're dead. Is that what you want?
Remember, "deleting" mail in Gmail doesn't remove it from their systems, it just removes the pointers to it from YOUR mailbox so you no longer see it.
A lot of keystroke loggers log "process" as well as clicks and clipboard activity. Its a simple matter to see that someone cut some text to the clipboard, it was an 'a', then pasted that 'a' into another application.
Keystroke loggers are a LOT smarter now than commonly known. Any way you can think of to get input into an application, has been covered by a keystroke logger already. They're really activity loggers now...
I was thinking more about the velocity and the "whip" effect potentially cracking the shelf or the Earth's plates..
If this thing is say... 4' in diameter, tapering up to 1' in diameter at the top... and its 6 miles long or more in height... that could be some serious whipping power as it slams into the Earth in one flat *SMACK* (and since the Earth is rotating, it wouldn't just "fall" in a pile like dropping some rope), it would probably be fully extended with maximum velocity at the top end (the smallest diameter, but with the heaviest piece on top of it, the orbiting rock or elevator itself).
Perhaps they could line it with some timed detonation so that it would break into little 5' sections or something along the way down.. though that'd be subject to terrorism or something I'm sure.
Wouldn't that have the velocity to cause some serious damage?
Do you know WHY its "slower" (by your incorrect perception)? Because it doesn't contain the Win32 primitives locally, which rdesktop does. VNC is simply placing pixels across the screen and transmitting x,y coordinates to the remote host.
Remote Desktop (the client) contains almost all of the local draw/vector primitives for Microsoft operating systems locally. That's the main reason you believe it to be "faster".
In reality however, VNC is faster in terms of sending and receiving the bits, its the local translation on both sides that makes it seem "sluggish".
But that's already been solved years ago by the dozen-or-so VNC clients that do a lot more than just send and receive packets. You should try one of the more-recent VNC clients first, before you admonish them all as "slow".
Not all Windows2000 machines have Windows Terminal Services running (if even installed), and even if they do, most of those will be blocked outside the firewall. VNC by comparison, lets you change the port and runs as a userland program (in some cases) on those machines. The same client also works to administer OSX, Linux, BSD and other machines. Can the same Remote Desktop client do that? No.
In short, VNC is much more useful, faster (if you configure it properly and use a decent VNC client and server combination), and works for every operating system out there.