And that's what they delivered. They delivered what the W3C says the Web should be coded to. They delivered email following the POP3 and IMAP standards for email.
If the W3C/RFP documents that outline HTML, HTTP, HTTPS don't outline what "web and email" are, then nothing does.
The truth is that the failure of coders to obey standards is the fault of the coders and the sites, not the browsers. And to say otherwise is hypocrisy considering how often Slashdot collectively screams that a site that renders in IE but not in Firefox/Safari/Opera isn't messed up because of the other browsers but because of coding stupidity.
And FTP is a de facto standard for delivering files. Claims to the contrary ignore reality, if we're going to go with the "stick heads in sand and ignore the facts" attitude.
Yet "it's not the whole internet" people don't bitch about FTP.
No, they're just bitching because their pet non-standard wasn't included. Waaaaah.
They don't ban you from getting to the site, do they? They just don't support a non-standard. It's not their fault that people get their panties in a bunch about something not part of the web standard. If it's that important, standardize it and put it in every browser. Or learn to code without it and make a lot of people a lot happier. Especially the blind.
So why is it a problem if it can't use an annoying plugin that is a big hassle for many disabled people, but not a problem if it can't do a simple file retrieval over gopher or ftp? (note: I have never tried to FTP a file with an iphone -- for all I know, it can, but for the sake of this argument let's just say it can't).
You don't need Flash to make a website that works properly. And the phone can access websites that aren't specially formatted for mobile devices. The latter part is the basis of the "whole Internet" advertising -- not the fact that it doesn't have some plugin that, for some inexplicable reason, people seem to think is a necessary crutch. If it were all that necessary, it would be built into browsers, don't you think?
Does Canada have the same rules as the US in which you can get them to stop by saying to put you on their internal do-not-call list? (the federal/state DNC lists in the US don't cover companies that have "existing business relationships" with you). If so, do that... or hang up. You don't have to talk to them, and being rude just makes them petty and vindictive toward you.
You're still paying for it all. In the US you see it coming out of your own pocket so we complain here in the US that we're paying too much for health insurance (if your employer doesn't offer it, etc). We complain about high education costs as universities increase their already insane fees every year. Why? Because we pay for it out of pocket.
In much of Europe, health care is free, education is free or far less expensive than it is here. Why? Because taxes on many things, including gas, are higher.
Where do you think the money comes from for that health care and education? The taxes, of course.
You are still paying for the same things. Yet how you pay for it is different. Yet Europe gets skewered by Americans. Why? It's ridiculous -- the end result is the same (you pay). The only difference is who collects and how.
Don't people think of the whole picture? Apparently, people really are too stupid to keep looking past the obvious.
And what does this have to do with unlimited data wireless plans, anyway?
True, focus often sucks. A tip: autofocus is sometimes based on contrast so look for high-contrast areas to place in your photo, if possible. Some AF algorithms also lock more easily onto vertical lines, like the bars of a fence. Also, there is a minimum focus distance with nearly all lenses -- perhaps you're too close? I've gotten lousy images due to that before.
Not saying phone cameras are perfect -- just useful in a pinch.
You're still not getting what I'm angling at, and insulting my skills is totally uncalled for just because you don't like and/or don't get what I'm saying.
I'm not talking about mythical camera-ified versions of a half-baked phone (where did you get the idea that I was talking about a mythical OpenMoko camera phone? I never said that; you inserted that all on your own). In fact, my example was a phone made by a totally different company that has been making smart phones for a very long time, not the half-baked OpenMoko phone that people here are having fits over in arious forms. My example was a model that is available with and without cameras. And I said that it was pointless to choose the cameraless version of a phone if it doesn't cost any less than the camera-equipped version, which seems to be the case, when both are available.
Don't humanities courses teach you to look at what has been said before and not snatch assumptions out of the air and apply them with no basis that they're the same thing that previous dicussions in the thread have been about? You're the one who randomly applied my comments to a device I wasn't applying them to, and then used your incorrect assumption to slam me based on something I never said.
I've never had my phone accidentally take a picture when I didn't want it to, but then I always set it up so that accidentally pressing one of the buttons couldn't take a photo or do anything else undesired. And the presence of something isn't going to run down the battery unless you use it excessively. I don't think it's fair to blame the feature of the phone for draining the battery with what you admit is excessive use, even if it is accidental -- figure out why it's happening and change whatever you need to change to stop it from happening, that's fair.
As for not getting any good photos -- well, it's not the camera that makes or breaks the photo. It's the skill of the photographer. I'm a photographer by hobby and the same skills that help me get great shots with my full-pro digital SLR helps me get great shots with other cameras I've used -- including the simplistic cameras in cell phones.
And then you have to send it out for processing, wait for it to come back, etc. etc. No thanks. Turns into an $8 or $10 camera, too. Digital, it's paid for already.
And you missed the point of "having a camera with you at ALL times, since there are times when you won't have a camera with you" since by definition that covers times when you didn't bring it with you, or it's in your car and you aren't, or whatever.
Besides, in my experience those $4 disposables take even crappier pictures than even cellphones do... they're the definition of cheap optics.
On iTunes you get 1 single type of very enforced drm, forced on both the copyright holders and the users.
Are you forgetting the DRM free app store? So no, you don't get one type of DRM. DRM is in fact not shoved on iTunes buyers -- it's only there if, for some reason, the rightsholder is forcing it to be used.
And why do I like OS X? Better security, UNIX based, runs Photoshop (which I need for work -- I've tried GIMP before and it doesn't cut it), consistent UI except in some "rogue" apps that seem to think the UI guidelines are pointless (and some do it well and many don't), and because it works well for what I want to do with it? I'm not a rabid fangirl and it has its faults but honestly it does work best for me. And I've used all three OSes.
I'm going to turn this around and ask why you seem to be forcing me to justify my choice of OS. Why don't I see Windows buyers subjected to quite the same smug "justify" stuff, why don't I see "you're an elitist twit for using that OS", and so on? You wouldn't have the same attitude toward me if I was an ordinary Windows user, or used Linux daily on the desktop (I've tried; it just couldn't do what I wanted and still you can't get vital apps I need for Linux). Would you?
Why should I have to justify? I have sane reasons, just as you do or anyone else does to use what they use, but I can't help but feel that I'm being a victim of bad attitudes (which I don't understand -- why do people hate pretty, safe, secure, AND capable of running mainstreap apps at the same time as stuff like apache, nano, php, etc. in the commandline environment) UNIX-based operating systems? I would think Slashdotters would have geekgasms about it but instead a lot of them spend a ridiculous amount of time bashing it and sneering at people who use it.
What open Linux-based phones that are actually usable exist, period? I don't think there ARE any, and openmoko doesn't count as it's hardly exactly usable.
Yes, I realize that they don't cost the same to make. But when the cost is the same to the end user, what does it matter? One option is "you get more for less" and if there's no cost difference to the end user, why select that one?
See my comment elsewhere in which I looked at camera-less equivalents of given phones that don't seem to cost less than their camera-equipped versions. Why would you pay the same to get less? That makes even less sense.
I have two cameras (a point and shoot and a full pro DSLR) but a lot of the photos on my phone, which has a pretty decent (for a phone) camera, were captured at times when I never thought I'd see something interesting that I'd want to shoot.
There are plenty of phones to be had that can do all three. And do camera-less versions of a phone really cost less? I found one article on a camera-less Treo 680 that makes no mention of a price cut. Of course not; they're going to keep the cost difference for themselves. So you may as well have a camera handy for when something unexpected happens -- I know I've gotten some amusing shots with my phone's camera that I would have otherwise missed.
You do realize you're talking about an unreleased system that will be put on unreleased phones? It's awfully early to draw a conclusion about who will and won't support it, and besides, if you really want one you can buy and activate it yourself.
People don't buy unlocked phones because they don't KNOW about them because the phone makers don't do a very good job advertising them. If that changed and it wasn't the service providers running the ads (which are naturally for their own versions) then people might buy them. But how is the average person going to buy a product when they don't even know about it? There are products that aren't advertised because of word of mouth demand being good enough (like the Honda Fit, right now) and there are those that aren't advertised for other reasons and consequently experience low demand.
If you're going to blame anyone for the failure of a product to sell, why don't you ask the company that makes it why they don't tell anyone they're selling it?
"Hey, why isn't my widget selling?!"
"You make a widget? I didn't know that. Why didn't you tell me when I was in the market?"
Do you mean period or from an existing carrier? If it's sold unlocked there's nothing the GSM carriers at least can do to block it from being used on their networks.
And yet they say "the interests of our guests are protected". So their customers' best interests is the hotel allowing personal and private information to be in the hands of criminals?
I don't like Best Western very much, even in the US, but this means I will never stay with them again if that's their idea of their customers' best interests. My best interests will best be served with... another hotel.
The OpenMoko project has been around for a long time but it's been development only and unusable for the end user. US cellphone companies want to be able to sell something to end users now. They don't want an unfinished piece of junk that they don't know anything about -- they want their existing suppliers to give them USABLE phones.
Once this thing becomes polished and usable, at least as polished and usable as cell phones get, then we might see some interest.
Zombies that didn't fight the fire. Did they bother to simulate the effects of actually fighting the fire? Surely, if you are going to report that a fire caused a building to collapse, you have to factor in "the fire department did not respond to the fire" as part of why the building fell. Perhaps the fire would have caused it to collapse anyway, but what was the possibility that, had the fire department responded to the fire and fought it, the building wouldn't have collapsed?
I don't think it's a good idea to sneer at the idea of a standardized UI when that very same standardized UI is often cited as a reason why people like that particular OS.
That "cheap laptop" isn't so cheap when you wind up adding software onto it like antivirus and all the security stuff required to deal with Windows' imperfections and security holes -- problems MacOS and Linux don't have because all the viruses are aimed at Windows. Good AV software isn't free except for a few minority titles that are only free for personal use, not for business use. And don't forget the cost of the IT infrastructure necessary to maintain all that -- business that switch to Mac and Linux have cited the IT-support cost savings as a large benefit of that decision. The $400 price difference isn't worth it (roughly $1000 vs. a cheap $600 econobox that is not all that likely to come with any software, when Macs have word processors available for a very low cost (or you can use OpenOffice), free photo editing/management software included, no need for antivirus, Linux has OpenOffice, no need for antivirus, etc.... the money you save at checkout will come back to bite you later -- yet another example of the all-too-common tendency of people to look at the here and now, a trap that I see has sprung shut yet again. You also have to go out of your way to get the tools for windows where mac/linux COME with the tools.
And the idea of Apple implementing the "right to read" DRM is nuts -- the head of the company has come right out against DRM, only does it because he has to in a few places, and it's the music industry that is forcing that -- why are you blaming OS makers? Microsoft is the one that has been talking about "trusted computing" that would yank control from the hands of the user into the computer. Microsoft also is all too happy to keep pushing windows-only crap like Silverlight and doesn't do much to cross-platform port their products ('we're not cool enough to run on your platform' is bullshit for "we're not going to bother to make it crossplatform because we want you to buy Windows to be able to use it")
Seems like there's pro-Microsoft Kool-Aid, too, and seems like it worked rather well on you.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it displays it properly according to the W3C standards for HTML -- Safari even passes the Acid test.
And that's what they delivered. They delivered what the W3C says the Web should be coded to. They delivered email following the POP3 and IMAP standards for email.
If the W3C/RFP documents that outline HTML, HTTP, HTTPS don't outline what "web and email" are, then nothing does.
The truth is that the failure of coders to obey standards is the fault of the coders and the sites, not the browsers. And to say otherwise is hypocrisy considering how often Slashdot collectively screams that a site that renders in IE but not in Firefox/Safari/Opera isn't messed up because of the other browsers but because of coding stupidity.
And FTP is a de facto standard for delivering files. Claims to the contrary ignore reality, if we're going to go with the "stick heads in sand and ignore the facts" attitude.
Yet "it's not the whole internet" people don't bitch about FTP.
No, they're just bitching because their pet non-standard wasn't included. Waaaaah.
They don't ban you from getting to the site, do they? They just don't support a non-standard. It's not their fault that people get their panties in a bunch about something not part of the web standard. If it's that important, standardize it and put it in every browser. Or learn to code without it and make a lot of people a lot happier. Especially the blind.
So why is it a problem if it can't use an annoying plugin that is a big hassle for many disabled people, but not a problem if it can't do a simple file retrieval over gopher or ftp? (note: I have never tried to FTP a file with an iphone -- for all I know, it can, but for the sake of this argument let's just say it can't).
You don't need Flash to make a website that works properly. And the phone can access websites that aren't specially formatted for mobile devices. The latter part is the basis of the "whole Internet" advertising -- not the fact that it doesn't have some plugin that, for some inexplicable reason, people seem to think is a necessary crutch. If it were all that necessary, it would be built into browsers, don't you think?
Does Canada have the same rules as the US in which you can get them to stop by saying to put you on their internal do-not-call list? (the federal/state DNC lists in the US don't cover companies that have "existing business relationships" with you). If so, do that... or hang up. You don't have to talk to them, and being rude just makes them petty and vindictive toward you.
You're still paying for it all. In the US you see it coming out of your own pocket so we complain here in the US that we're paying too much for health insurance (if your employer doesn't offer it, etc). We complain about high education costs as universities increase their already insane fees every year. Why? Because we pay for it out of pocket.
In much of Europe, health care is free, education is free or far less expensive than it is here. Why? Because taxes on many things, including gas, are higher.
Where do you think the money comes from for that health care and education? The taxes, of course.
You are still paying for the same things. Yet how you pay for it is different. Yet Europe gets skewered by Americans. Why? It's ridiculous -- the end result is the same (you pay). The only difference is who collects and how.
Don't people think of the whole picture? Apparently, people really are too stupid to keep looking past the obvious.
And what does this have to do with unlimited data wireless plans, anyway?
True, focus often sucks. A tip: autofocus is sometimes based on contrast so look for high-contrast areas to place in your photo, if possible. Some AF algorithms also lock more easily onto vertical lines, like the bars of a fence. Also, there is a minimum focus distance with nearly all lenses -- perhaps you're too close? I've gotten lousy images due to that before.
Not saying phone cameras are perfect -- just useful in a pinch.
You're still not getting what I'm angling at, and insulting my skills is totally uncalled for just because you don't like and/or don't get what I'm saying.
I'm not talking about mythical camera-ified versions of a half-baked phone (where did you get the idea that I was talking about a mythical OpenMoko camera phone? I never said that; you inserted that all on your own). In fact, my example was a phone made by a totally different company that has been making smart phones for a very long time, not the half-baked OpenMoko phone that people here are having fits over in arious forms. My example was a model that is available with and without cameras. And I said that it was pointless to choose the cameraless version of a phone if it doesn't cost any less than the camera-equipped version, which seems to be the case, when both are available.
Don't humanities courses teach you to look at what has been said before and not snatch assumptions out of the air and apply them with no basis that they're the same thing that previous dicussions in the thread have been about? You're the one who randomly applied my comments to a device I wasn't applying them to, and then used your incorrect assumption to slam me based on something I never said.
I've never had my phone accidentally take a picture when I didn't want it to, but then I always set it up so that accidentally pressing one of the buttons couldn't take a photo or do anything else undesired. And the presence of something isn't going to run down the battery unless you use it excessively. I don't think it's fair to blame the feature of the phone for draining the battery with what you admit is excessive use, even if it is accidental -- figure out why it's happening and change whatever you need to change to stop it from happening, that's fair.
As for not getting any good photos -- well, it's not the camera that makes or breaks the photo. It's the skill of the photographer. I'm a photographer by hobby and the same skills that help me get great shots with my full-pro digital SLR helps me get great shots with other cameras I've used -- including the simplistic cameras in cell phones.
And then you have to send it out for processing, wait for it to come back, etc. etc. No thanks. Turns into an $8 or $10 camera, too. Digital, it's paid for already.
And you missed the point of "having a camera with you at ALL times, since there are times when you won't have a camera with you" since by definition that covers times when you didn't bring it with you, or it's in your car and you aren't, or whatever.
Besides, in my experience those $4 disposables take even crappier pictures than even cellphones do... they're the definition of cheap optics.
DRM free iTunes music store, sorry. I'm still bleary. As judged by another spelling typo or two in there.
On iTunes you get 1 single type of very enforced drm, forced on both the copyright holders and the users.
Are you forgetting the DRM free app store? So no, you don't get one type of DRM. DRM is in fact not shoved on iTunes buyers -- it's only there if, for some reason, the rightsholder is forcing it to be used.
And why do I like OS X? Better security, UNIX based, runs Photoshop (which I need for work -- I've tried GIMP before and it doesn't cut it), consistent UI except in some "rogue" apps that seem to think the UI guidelines are pointless (and some do it well and many don't), and because it works well for what I want to do with it? I'm not a rabid fangirl and it has its faults but honestly it does work best for me. And I've used all three OSes.
I'm going to turn this around and ask why you seem to be forcing me to justify my choice of OS. Why don't I see Windows buyers subjected to quite the same smug "justify" stuff, why don't I see "you're an elitist twit for using that OS", and so on? You wouldn't have the same attitude toward me if I was an ordinary Windows user, or used Linux daily on the desktop (I've tried; it just couldn't do what I wanted and still you can't get vital apps I need for Linux). Would you?
Why should I have to justify? I have sane reasons, just as you do or anyone else does to use what they use, but I can't help but feel that I'm being a victim of bad attitudes (which I don't understand -- why do people hate pretty, safe, secure, AND capable of running mainstreap apps at the same time as stuff like apache, nano, php, etc. in the commandline environment) UNIX-based operating systems? I would think Slashdotters would have geekgasms about it but instead a lot of them spend a ridiculous amount of time bashing it and sneering at people who use it.
What open Linux-based phones that are actually usable exist, period? I don't think there ARE any, and openmoko doesn't count as it's hardly exactly usable.
Then why is it you can buy unlocked phones right now that have 3G?
Yes, I realize that they don't cost the same to make. But when the cost is the same to the end user, what does it matter? One option is "you get more for less" and if there's no cost difference to the end user, why select that one?
See my comment elsewhere in which I looked at camera-less equivalents of given phones that don't seem to cost less than their camera-equipped versions. Why would you pay the same to get less? That makes even less sense.
I have two cameras (a point and shoot and a full pro DSLR) but a lot of the photos on my phone, which has a pretty decent (for a phone) camera, were captured at times when I never thought I'd see something interesting that I'd want to shoot.
There are plenty of phones to be had that can do all three. And do camera-less versions of a phone really cost less? I found one article on a camera-less Treo 680 that makes no mention of a price cut. Of course not; they're going to keep the cost difference for themselves. So you may as well have a camera handy for when something unexpected happens -- I know I've gotten some amusing shots with my phone's camera that I would have otherwise missed.
You do realize you're talking about an unreleased system that will be put on unreleased phones? It's awfully early to draw a conclusion about who will and won't support it, and besides, if you really want one you can buy and activate it yourself.
People don't buy unlocked phones because they don't KNOW about them because the phone makers don't do a very good job advertising them. If that changed and it wasn't the service providers running the ads (which are naturally for their own versions) then people might buy them. But how is the average person going to buy a product when they don't even know about it? There are products that aren't advertised because of word of mouth demand being good enough (like the Honda Fit, right now) and there are those that aren't advertised for other reasons and consequently experience low demand.
If you're going to blame anyone for the failure of a product to sell, why don't you ask the company that makes it why they don't tell anyone they're selling it?
"Hey, why isn't my widget selling?!"
"You make a widget? I didn't know that. Why didn't you tell me when I was in the market?"
"Well, uh ..."
Who is forcing you to use the camera? Nobody. If you don't like the camera, just don't use it. It's that simple.
Do you mean period or from an existing carrier? If it's sold unlocked there's nothing the GSM carriers at least can do to block it from being used on their networks.
And yet they say "the interests of our guests are protected". So their customers' best interests is the hotel allowing personal and private information to be in the hands of criminals?
I don't like Best Western very much, even in the US, but this means I will never stay with them again if that's their idea of their customers' best interests. My best interests will best be served with ... another hotel.
The OpenMoko project has been around for a long time but it's been development only and unusable for the end user. US cellphone companies want to be able to sell something to end users now. They don't want an unfinished piece of junk that they don't know anything about -- they want their existing suppliers to give them USABLE phones.
Once this thing becomes polished and usable, at least as polished and usable as cell phones get, then we might see some interest.
Zombies that didn't fight the fire. Did they bother to simulate the effects of actually fighting the fire? Surely, if you are going to report that a fire caused a building to collapse, you have to factor in "the fire department did not respond to the fire" as part of why the building fell. Perhaps the fire would have caused it to collapse anyway, but what was the possibility that, had the fire department responded to the fire and fought it, the building wouldn't have collapsed?
No, I don't feel like watching the video.
I don't think it's a good idea to sneer at the idea of a standardized UI when that very same standardized UI is often cited as a reason why people like that particular OS.
That "cheap laptop" isn't so cheap when you wind up adding software onto it like antivirus and all the security stuff required to deal with Windows' imperfections and security holes -- problems MacOS and Linux don't have because all the viruses are aimed at Windows. Good AV software isn't free except for a few minority titles that are only free for personal use, not for business use. And don't forget the cost of the IT infrastructure necessary to maintain all that -- business that switch to Mac and Linux have cited the IT-support cost savings as a large benefit of that decision. The $400 price difference isn't worth it (roughly $1000 vs. a cheap $600 econobox that is not all that likely to come with any software, when Macs have word processors available for a very low cost (or you can use OpenOffice), free photo editing/management software included, no need for antivirus, Linux has OpenOffice, no need for antivirus, etc. ... the money you save at checkout will come back to bite you later -- yet another example of the all-too-common tendency of people to look at the here and now, a trap that I see has sprung shut yet again. You also have to go out of your way to get the tools for windows where mac/linux COME with the tools.
And the idea of Apple implementing the "right to read" DRM is nuts -- the head of the company has come right out against DRM, only does it because he has to in a few places, and it's the music industry that is forcing that -- why are you blaming OS makers? Microsoft is the one that has been talking about "trusted computing" that would yank control from the hands of the user into the computer. Microsoft also is all too happy to keep pushing windows-only crap like Silverlight and doesn't do much to cross-platform port their products ('we're not cool enough to run on your platform' is bullshit for "we're not going to bother to make it crossplatform because we want you to buy Windows to be able to use it")
Seems like there's pro-Microsoft Kool-Aid, too, and seems like it worked rather well on you.