First of all, yes, this is tragic*, blah blah blah. But you're missing a few things: - death is only sad to those close to the deceased. we all love Linux, but look at all the jokes about Hans R. a few months ago. Or the Challenger accident, or Chernobyl, or any other bad event in history. - it IS OK to make jokes about sad things. it's what we do. there is NOTHING so sacred that you can't have some fun with it. And it helps us deal--have you ever been to a funeral? Plenty of good jokes about dying and the dead. But mainly, - Jack was WRONG but he had the POWER to inflict his wrong thoughts on us and THAT'S why we all FUCKING HATE HIM. He was WRONG about the VCR--which turned out to be the single greatest BOON to the movie industry EVER--and he wrongly tried to keep digital technology down two decades later.
Look at the history of refrigeration. Once upon a time, you kept things cold by paying people to bring ice from the North. Then refrigerators came along and the WORLD got INFINITELY better--forget food storage, what do you think the state of modern medicine would be without a way to keep things cold? But imagine there was a huge ice-industry lobby in place that said to the government "Oh, woe is us; please, government, impose artificial restrictions on the world to keep our shitty, outdated business model afloat forever!" We'd be paying MORE money and having a LOWER quality of life. Would that be a Good Thing?
Basically, he fought against technology, and won, and continued to do so even after being proven 100% wrong (w.r.t VCRs), and that's why we--visitors to a tech-centric site--hate him. Now that he's dead, he can no longer do Bad Things, and we can dream of the day that more enlightened people will lead the MPAA. (Yes, I know, he didn't lead it as of a few years ago.) So yes, we're glad he's dead. A powerful figure of our opposition is gone. Yes, we're happy.
If you want sympathy, go a "we want to make money forever because we recorded one good song once and we want to extend copyright into a zillion years in violation of what the framers intended and use technology to keep people from ever exercising their fair use rights" forum.
* no, not really--he lived 85 years and had a pretty full life. Nothing tragic about that.
Seriously, this is cool in several ways. And given his past with MS, it takes guts to post that in public... or will we read in two hours "Update: Michael Dell's bio on Dell website hacked by Ubuntu fans"?:-)
Seriously, though, look at how often over the years he said he'd make AMD boxes, but always stuck with Intel (after another round of extorted price cuts, one imagines) and now they're finally offering AMD CPUs in several lines. Maybe this really is the start of offering a line of supported Dells with Linux.
C'mon, Mike, you quit making those POSs months ago. Treat yourself right, get an iPod. You know you just look like a tool when you bust that thing out at the airport. Instead of looking like the head of a major computer outfit, you just look like some dork who can't afford or, worse, doesn't know about the iPod.
At least he doesn't have a Zune. Michel Dell and Steve Ballmer squirting in an airport terminal... *shudder*
Wow, very mathy.:-) I think it's simpler--they started with 5 GB increments, then went to 10 GB increments, then 20 GB increments, which is where they are now and where I think they'll stay for two more iterations.
There was also a Compaq desktop with a built-in LCD.
The Presario 3020 and 3060. The 3020 was a P166, the 3060 was a P200. Both had 12.1" LCDs, 800x600; 4-disc 6x CD-ROM changers, 4 or 6 GB HDs, 24 MB RAM, 28.8 or 33.6 modems. (Came with fax software, and you could run a virtual 1024x768 desktop that would slide around as you got the mouse close to the edge. Oh yeah, and really good JBL speakers built-in, and a mic, which worked great with some old PC-phone software I had--GREAT sound quality.) All this in mid-1996, two solid years before the original iMac in late 1998, which came with a 233 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, and a 13.7" CRT.
The problem was, laptops at the time were expensive ($3,000-$5,000) and this thing--with a nice expensive laptop screen, back before you could even really buy an LCD screen if you wanted one--retailed at over $3,000, back when you could buy a conventional computer and 15" CRT for less than $2,000. (A few months later was when the first sub-$1,000 PCs came out.)
I always liked them--we had one at work--and I bought one, used, for a few hundred bucks a few years later. The funny thing is, that thing was staggeringly reliable, with Win950a, Office 97, and MSIE 5.5. (And Winamp, and Napster.:-) ) I finally wrote a bootlogger that basically did 'date >> boot.txt' at each boot and confirmed my suspicions--this thing ROUTINELY clocked a MINIMUM of 30 days uptimes, and that waw my wife's day-to-day, do everything machine.
Re:Terrific. Just what I needed...
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$90,000 103in HDTV
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I mean seriously. You came all the way to an online forum, clicked on a link to a story about TVs, and took the time to post a comment about how you don't watch TV. ?!?!?
Re:i'm looking forward to the day
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$90,000 103in HDTV
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· Score: 3, Funny
He's already dreaming far beyond you--he's talking about getting good products and service at Radio Shack!
1. iTunes Subscription Service - unlikely. Has been discussed ad nauseum. Some people love subscription services, most don't. Look at the numbers. Plus, Apple likes things simple. They wouldn't want to sell music two ways. Plus subscriptions = more complexity and more DRM. Apple's already making a killing. Why double their efforts for 5-10% more sales?
2) UK iTunes Movie Downloads - duh. Eventually, all services will reach all major countries.
3) Widescreen video iPod - duh. But don't look for it until 6-12 months after the iPhone debuts--not "right around the corner." Anyone who thinks Apple would release a cheap widescreen iPod before the iPhone and let it cannibalize iPhone sales hasn't been watching Apple very long or very closely. Release the expensive, limited product first, let everyone fret and moan and bitch online, watch them sell like mad anyway, add one requested feature, lower the price a bit, lather, rinse, repeat.
4) Wi-Fi enabled video iPod - duh. Might be another year or two, though. It's not that Apple is resting on their laurals, they're just pacing themselves. Apple obviously has the capability to release a widescreen, touchscreen, flash-based, movie-playing iPod with wireless that connects to the iTunes store and syncs wirelessly tomorrow--but then what would they do for the next few years?
5) Flash-based video iPod - possible, but not likely (flash is still much more expensive) and there's not much point--which I think they know, because their whole comment is about how video iPods are better matched with traditional drives. WTF?!?
6) The 100GB video iPod - duh. iPods have gone from 5 GB to 10 to 15 to 20 to 30 to 40 to 60 to 80. And CNet.uk is predicting 100 GB will be next? Wow, they've got a bunch of fucking geniuses working there. Let me be the first to predict that at some point in the future, Apple will release a 120 GB iPod. Possibly followed by a 150 or 160. You heard it here first!!!!!11oneone
First of all, Mr. MadPenguin.Org, why the fuck do you put big bold links to unrelated stories RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of your little rant? Those look like section headings. I was confused the whole time I was reading the article. Since they weren't underlined--like the link that appears in the article is--I didn't know they were links until I moused over them. I couldn't figure out how OLPC and a rant against Linux worked into this web app article. Sure, your nav links aren't underlined either, but they're all grouped in standard places--they don't just unexpectedly pop up in the middle of the article.
Aaaaaanyway, why do we still keep seeing this binary (no pun intended) bullshit? Why does it have to be one or the other? Can't we all just get along? Will web apps ever replace desktop apps? Probably not. But--will desktop apps ever replace all web apps? Gotta give a big 'no' on that one too. So why have a story at all? What's next--"Will cars replace walking?" Web apps do some things well, local apps do other things well--and the definition of 'well' depends on the user. Email, for me, is very simple--a ten-year-old email client does pretty much everything I need, as does nearly every webmail service. And since I have two jobs, I never launch the binary email client I have on my desktop. Even when I'm home, I'm reading webmail with my laptop on the couch. For me, a web-based app has 100% replaced a local app. Since email doesn't work without *some* kind of connection--yeah, I can compose offline, BFD; it's not going anywhere without a live wire--the fact that webmail only works with a working Net connection is moot. So the main thing that people might call a disadvantage, isn't. (For me at least. I'm sure some jet-set business type is going to reply and tell me how much email he composes on a plane. Fine. It's a need of yours, but not of mine.) If I were ever organized enough to maintain a calendar, I'd probably do that online too.
He starts off by complaining that online data storage is risky. Someone should tell him about encryption. If box.net wants to give away the gig of encrypted data I've got stored there, fine. Just means more backups, as far as I'm concerned. Anyone who takes the time to decrypt it will be mighty bored looking at what I've got stored there anyway.
His other big example seems to be that Google's calendar can't sync with a device. Give it time, man. A) it isn't rocket science, and I'm sure the big brains at Google can figure out a way to make that happen, B) as soon as they care to devote some time to the issue. (Look for Apple's iPhone to make this kind of thing much more popular, just like the iMac made USB peripherals popular almost a decade ago.) As he points out, there are third-party apps that make this possible--but his point seems to be that since it isn't a first-party solution, it sucks. OK. Whatever.
I'm in the opposite boat. I hate Tiger--no use for Dashboard; can't stand Spotlight--but there are some features in 10.5 that'll make Spotlight's severe shortcomings worth living with and I've been holding off on buying a Mac Pro until 10.5 comes out. I was hoping to get a Mac Pro this summer with 10.5, iLife 07 (?), and better performance/lower cost/both than the current lineup (I'm thinking 2.66 GHz for less than $2000 with my company's discount) but it looks like I'll have to wait a little longer. Just enough to make the wait annoying--my new home "office" is almost done and I was hoping to replace my G5 and my wife's PC (and a few other computers) with a nice Intel Mac and Parallels. Looks like I'll have to live with a crowded desk a little longer.
And for all those who are saying "Ooh, delayed, ZING! Just like teh Vista!!!!!11" I have only this to say: Compare ~4 months to ~4 years. Leopard is only 1/12 like Vista.:-) And I bet they won't use the delay to strip out half the new features, either. Also, unlike MS, they've got a pretty good track record of making their dates--unlike the comedic farce that was the Longhorn saga. I'm sure El Jobso did the math and figured out they'll make more from a gorgeous $500 phone than a nice-but-not-world-changing $130 OS. What's MS's excuse--they just had to ship two generations of Xboxes first?
As for the iPhone, it's pretty, and I'm lusting after one, but I have no use at all for it. I've got a 60 GB video iPod that I don't watch movies on, so the widescreen video playing isn't a selling point for me. I don't use coverflow in iTunes so that's another non-point. I don't SMS so much that I need my conversations stored in a pretty manner. I get so little voicemail that the visual aspect will be worthless to me. (I rarely have more than unheard 1 voicemail, and since my phone shows 'missed calls' before 'new messages' I pretty much always know who the new message is from.) I'm interested in the Internet features, but if it doesn't come with a reasonable data plan, I'll never use it when I'm not in 802.11 coverage. The automatic screen rotating is a nice feature but not exactly something I need to shell out five bills for. And while the sliding and two-finger-zooming interface is nice, I'll need to see it in person to see if typing on a virtual keyboard is better than the QWERTY layout on my Nokia 6820. But man, it looks nice. I'll probably get one in late 2008/mid 2009 when they're $249.
So some genius (a name I've forgotten) thought of using tables for layout...
Possibly not invented by, but definitely refined, popularized, and documented by David Siegel, author of the book Killersites, in 1997, along with the single-pixel GIF trick.
Don't tell me I don't need to sort by date. Sometimes I just like to page through email chronologically. And why should I have to type some kind of bizarro query when every other email client from the last DECADE--both desktop and web-based--lets me do this with literally one click? And the same goes for being able to sort by sender, subject, and size. When I sort, it's not always because I'm looking for something and want to pick it out of a sorted list. Sometimes I want to browse all my email at once but have things grouped by one attribute or another. (I tend to let my inbox get pretty full, then I go through it in an orderly fashion and delete things.)
In other words, why does Google insist on leaving out such a common, trivial-to-implement feature? Not everyone wants search results all the time. Some people just like lists. It's not like adding links to the top would take away real estate--the labels are already there, right?--or would make the app horribly bloated. This lack is the single biggest thing keeping me from every using Gmail in a serious fashion. I literally log in once every few weeks to check for email from the couple low-traffic lists I've given that address to, go "huh, they still haven't implemented that feature," and leave.
With multiple monitors, software can be manipulated easily to take up exactly half of the display... I don't believe achieving this is easy with a single large display.
It's easy in Windows. And it works with more than two apps (though more than 4 gets crowded) 1) bring one of your desired apps to the foreground 2) while pressing the 'control' key, click on the taskbar button(s) of the other app(s) you want to see 3) right-click and choose 'tile vertically' or 'tile horizontally' 3) note that with 4 apps, you'll get a grid no matter which you choose (IIRC; don't have a Windows box handy.)
Back (somewhat) on topic, I find people are pretty evenly split as to whether they prefer one large monitor or two small ones. I hate working on multiple displays; a friend of mine loves it. He loves the distinct workspaces; I hate the gap.
Maximizing one app per window works well, but so many other things don't work, or don't work well. You only get one taskbar. On Macs, you only get one menubar and one dock. Potential weird behavior if you have them stacked top-bottom (like when you've got a laptop on a desk in front of a raised monitor) especially on Macs, where you can now drag things through and past the dock and menubar. Sometimes weird things happen, like dialogs and warnings appearing on the wrong screen. On Macs, which don't have a 'containing' window for apps, it might be unpredictable where a new window/document will appear in response to file -> new. God only knows how virtual desktops will behave. Etc etc etc. If I can afford it, I prefer one large display--none of these quirks apply.
My favorite solution of all? Two computers, two identical monitors, and Synergy.
Yeah. My wife manages a rental property in a not-so-good area that is currently empty because the owner is trying to sell it. Just a few days ago some people broke in, partied, then broke things, even going so far as to plug up the sink and leave the water running, ruining all the kitchen cabinetry. (The floor itself is tile.) No computer was involved, though, so it didn't make the front page of Slashdot.
But it shouldn't be news. Anything that can run code, can run malicious code. It's only worth mentioning if there's a chance that a user will a) obtain and b) run the code without knowing it's malicious. If the virus were hidden in a song and could be executed just by being played, that would be news.
Oh, and look: it was discovered by a company that makes antivirus software. Wow, what are the odds that an antivirus company would be the first to discover and publicize a virus that runs on what might be called the least-adopted platform ever in history? I'd bet my next paycheck that somewhere there's a connection between an employee of that company and the author of this "virus"--and not just a six-degrees kind of link, I mean a real, substantial link.
Antivirus exec: "Well, in six years, we haven't been able to convince anyone that OS X is insecure. Despite our efforts, there hasn't been a single in-the-wild, self-replicating virus for that platform. What should we try next?" Underling: "Maybe try spreading FUD about iPods?" Antivirus exec: "Brilliant!"
> So what you're saying basically is that the new macs aren't useful for anything, except for what they are useful for?
Kinda, but not quite. My point is more that 2 cores are very handy--anyone can notice that a 2-core machine is faster than a 1-core machine. 4 cores are very nice and give a solid boost to many apps and workloads. But, that seems to be the start of the point of diminishing returns--early tests seem to show that going from 4 to 8 cores really doesn't gain you very much.
Car analogy time: a car that does 40 mph will get you around town and is quite handy, but isn't even legal to use on the freeway. A car that tops out at 80 mph will do pretty much all the basic stuff you'd need a car for. One that does 160--sure, you might never need the speed, but it means you've also got enough power to tow something comfortably, or take five passengers up a steep hill. One that does 320--unless we change our roads and our laws, that gains you nothing over a car that does 160.
I'm not being a troll, but the fact is, it takes nearly no time on Linux or OS X. Apple's current "Would you like to bring data over from another computer?" thingie that you see when first launching a new computer or new OS install really does work quite well. Linux, of course, is a matter of copying over your home directory. Apps are too dependant upon the use & user to go into detail on here.
As for Windows, I work with a close to default install. Might take 10 minutes to get all the things I want-- - unlock the taskbar - classic start menu - classic scheme - desktop icons (yes show my computer, no don't show my documents) - turn off effects, animations, and sounds - 3D white mouse pointer, no shadow - open a folder, set it up (classic view, no web content, details), then folder options -> apply to all folders - control panel -> classic view - small apps--Firefox, Acrobat, iTunes, Putty, Crimson Editor, and a few other odds and ends - big apps--Adobe Suite, MS Office, OpenOffice, etc., depending on what I'm doing and who's paying for it all:-)
I don't do this enough to look into automation. I tried RSYNC once because it's great for other stuff but all it did was show me that about half of my settings must be in the registry--after RSYNCing up, what I had was a hybrid of half my stuff and half Windows defaults. The closest I come to automation is keeping the installers for most things on my server.
For a fun read, check out Mark--he got it down to a simple 147 step process.:-)
You know, the old "Find" command from ye olde Mac days isn't gone...
Damn, where's the "-1, Factually Incorrect" mod when you need it? It's too bad people give out "+1, Informative" mods just because something sounds correct.
The thing that comes up when you press Command-F uses Spotlight's engine. Try my 'FordChevyDodge' example--Command-F gives the same results as Command-Space which gives the same results as using the little search box in the top of every finder window.
I might start recomending it to friends and customers soon. I have yet to encounter the DRM boogyman. I am using it to type this post.
From The Simpsons: Marge: Lisa, you got a letter. Lisa: It's from my pen-pal Anya! [reads]
Anya: [voice over] Dear Lisa, as I write this, I am very sad. Our president has been overthrown and
[voice changes to that of a man]
replaced by the benevolent general Krull. All hail Krull and his glorious new regime! Sincerely, Little Girl.
I agree. Apple did this mainly because they have to--so dorks in web forums won't say "Why doesn't Apple do this? Anand (or Ars, whichever) put 8 cores in a Mac Pro months ago!" I'd be very, very curious to see how many of these they sell. I'm sure they'll sell a few--there are plenty of video shops where more cores are always welcome, or maybe VA Tech is going to do another 1100-box monster. The nice thing is, since it's pretty much a drop-in job, it won't cost them much to offer it.
There's a certain logic behind it, sure, but it still FAILS--where "fails" means "it can't do something that OS X 10.3.9 (and 10.2, and 10.1, and 10.0, and OS 9, and 8, and 7) could do." That's why I don't care if it's saving indexing space or not. Why can't they ADD to the old behavior, instead of REPLACING one behavior with another that has almost-but-not-quite all the original features?
If your files AREN'T CamelCase, you're prettymuchscrewed. Back before everything was camel case, everything was all lowercase, all the time. I've got TONS of old files (web stuff, mostly, which I reuse all the time) that are named in such a way that any 'find' system--even `locate`--would find them. And I don't have to remember "did I use a hyphen or an underscore? Is it my-file? my_file?" because the answer is always NO. I could search for 'logo' and find thisclientlogo.psd and thatclientlogo.psd and everything else. Anything regarding Client XYZ is 'clientxyz.' Never in my wildest dreams did I think "maybe someday someone will create a search system that totally borks partial matches."
Yup, the capitalization is key--which SUCKS when you've got years worth of files that aren't CamelCase. "Hmm, where is that old "show search results" file I used to use? Is it getsearchresults.php? showsearchresults.php? displaysearchresults.php?" Searching for 'search' won't find ONE of those files.
It all depends on the user. Like you said, you've used Spotlight for a long time and never come across it. I found that practically my first day on and I trip over it all the time.
But seriously, unless you're gonna keep all 8 cores cooking a lot, or you do a lot of seriously high-end video work or something else where speed above all else matters, they'll be a waste. And they cost $1500 more than the standard (2.66 GHz) model. So, for $4,000, you can get a 3 GHz 8-way Mac Pro. Or, for $4,400, you could get two 2 GHz 4-way Mac Pros. Most people could probably get more done with two good machines than one great one for (roughly) the same money.
Maybe it won't suck ass out loud like Spotlight does? Two cases:
- create a folder named FordChevyDodge. Search for 'Chevy'--it pops right up. Search for 'hevy'--nada. Oops. (That works just fine in 10.3.9, by the way.)
- create a file named 'file.txt' and put the text 'whateveryouwant' in it. Spotlight for 'whateveryouwant' and it pops right up. Change the file name to 'file.php' and Spotlight for 'whateveryouwant' again. No matches. Oops.
There's lots about Spotlight that I hate. I *loved* how search worked in 10.3.9 and still run 10.3.9 on every box that supports it for just that reason--I use Search a lot (though not 'search by content') and for me, 10.3.9 is just so much better in so many ways.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, yes, this is tragic*, blah blah blah. But you're missing a few things:
- death is only sad to those close to the deceased. we all love Linux, but look at all the jokes about Hans R. a few months ago. Or the Challenger accident, or Chernobyl, or any other bad event in history.
- it IS OK to make jokes about sad things. it's what we do. there is NOTHING so sacred that you can't have some fun with it. And it helps us deal--have you ever been to a funeral? Plenty of good jokes about dying and the dead. But mainly,
- Jack was WRONG but he had the POWER to inflict his wrong thoughts on us and THAT'S why we all FUCKING HATE HIM. He was WRONG about the VCR--which turned out to be the single greatest BOON to the movie industry EVER--and he wrongly tried to keep digital technology down two decades later.
Look at the history of refrigeration. Once upon a time, you kept things cold by paying people to bring ice from the North. Then refrigerators came along and the WORLD got INFINITELY better--forget food storage, what do you think the state of modern medicine would be without a way to keep things cold? But imagine there was a huge ice-industry lobby in place that said to the government "Oh, woe is us; please, government, impose artificial restrictions on the world to keep our shitty, outdated business model afloat forever!" We'd be paying MORE money and having a LOWER quality of life. Would that be a Good Thing?
Basically, he fought against technology, and won, and continued to do so even after being proven 100% wrong (w.r.t VCRs), and that's why we--visitors to a tech-centric site--hate him. Now that he's dead, he can no longer do Bad Things, and we can dream of the day that more enlightened people will lead the MPAA. (Yes, I know, he didn't lead it as of a few years ago.) So yes, we're glad he's dead. A powerful figure of our opposition is gone. Yes, we're happy.
If you want sympathy, go a "we want to make money forever because we recorded one good song once and we want to extend copyright into a zillion years in violation of what the framers intended and use technology to keep people from ever exercising their fair use rights" forum.
* no, not really--he lived 85 years and had a pretty full life. Nothing tragic about that.
Seriously, this is cool in several ways. And given his past with MS, it takes guts to post that in public... or will we read in two hours "Update: Michael Dell's bio on Dell website hacked by Ubuntu fans"? :-)
Seriously, though, look at how often over the years he said he'd make AMD boxes, but always stuck with Intel (after another round of extorted price cuts, one imagines) and now they're finally offering AMD CPUs in several lines. Maybe this really is the start of offering a line of supported Dells with Linux.
C'mon, Mike, you quit making those POSs months ago. Treat yourself right, get an iPod. You know you just look like a tool when you bust that thing out at the airport. Instead of looking like the head of a major computer outfit, you just look like some dork who can't afford or, worse, doesn't know about the iPod.
At least he doesn't have a Zune. Michel Dell and Steve Ballmer squirting in an airport terminal... *shudder*
Wow, very mathy. :-) I think it's simpler--they started with 5 GB increments, then went to 10 GB increments, then 20 GB increments, which is where they are now and where I think they'll stay for two more iterations.
There was also a Compaq desktop with a built-in LCD.
:-) ) I finally wrote a bootlogger that basically did 'date >> boot.txt' at each boot and confirmed my suspicions--this thing ROUTINELY clocked a MINIMUM of 30 days uptimes, and that waw my wife's day-to-day, do everything machine.
The Presario 3020 and 3060. The 3020 was a P166, the 3060 was a P200. Both had 12.1" LCDs, 800x600; 4-disc 6x CD-ROM changers, 4 or 6 GB HDs, 24 MB RAM, 28.8 or 33.6 modems. (Came with fax software, and you could run a virtual 1024x768 desktop that would slide around as you got the mouse close to the edge. Oh yeah, and really good JBL speakers built-in, and a mic, which worked great with some old PC-phone software I had--GREAT sound quality.) All this in mid-1996, two solid years before the original iMac in late 1998, which came with a 233 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, and a 13.7" CRT.
The problem was, laptops at the time were expensive ($3,000-$5,000) and this thing--with a nice expensive laptop screen, back before you could even really buy an LCD screen if you wanted one--retailed at over $3,000, back when you could buy a conventional computer and 15" CRT for less than $2,000. (A few months later was when the first sub-$1,000 PCs came out.)
I always liked them--we had one at work--and I bought one, used, for a few hundred bucks a few years later. The funny thing is, that thing was staggeringly reliable, with Win950a, Office 97, and MSIE 5.5. (And Winamp, and Napster.
Area Man, is that you?
I mean seriously. You came all the way to an online forum, clicked on a link to a story about TVs, and took the time to post a comment about how you don't watch TV. ?!?!?
He's already dreaming far beyond you--he's talking about getting good products and service at Radio Shack!
1. iTunes Subscription Service - unlikely. Has been discussed ad nauseum. Some people love subscription services, most don't. Look at the numbers. Plus, Apple likes things simple. They wouldn't want to sell music two ways. Plus subscriptions = more complexity and more DRM. Apple's already making a killing. Why double their efforts for 5-10% more sales?
2) UK iTunes Movie Downloads - duh. Eventually, all services will reach all major countries.
3) Widescreen video iPod - duh. But don't look for it until 6-12 months after the iPhone debuts--not "right around the corner." Anyone who thinks Apple would release a cheap widescreen iPod before the iPhone and let it cannibalize iPhone sales hasn't been watching Apple very long or very closely. Release the expensive, limited product first, let everyone fret and moan and bitch online, watch them sell like mad anyway, add one requested feature, lower the price a bit, lather, rinse, repeat.
4) Wi-Fi enabled video iPod - duh. Might be another year or two, though. It's not that Apple is resting on their laurals, they're just pacing themselves. Apple obviously has the capability to release a widescreen, touchscreen, flash-based, movie-playing iPod with wireless that connects to the iTunes store and syncs wirelessly tomorrow--but then what would they do for the next few years?
5) Flash-based video iPod - possible, but not likely (flash is still much more expensive) and there's not much point--which I think they know, because their whole comment is about how video iPods are better matched with traditional drives. WTF?!?
6) The 100GB video iPod - duh. iPods have gone from 5 GB to 10 to 15 to 20 to 30 to 40 to 60 to 80. And CNet.uk is predicting 100 GB will be next? Wow, they've got a bunch of fucking geniuses working there. Let me be the first to predict that at some point in the future, Apple will release a 120 GB iPod. Possibly followed by a 150 or 160. You heard it here first!!!!!11oneone
First of all, Mr. MadPenguin.Org, why the fuck do you put big bold links to unrelated stories RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of your little rant? Those look like section headings. I was confused the whole time I was reading the article. Since they weren't underlined--like the link that appears in the article is--I didn't know they were links until I moused over them. I couldn't figure out how OLPC and a rant against Linux worked into this web app article. Sure, your nav links aren't underlined either, but they're all grouped in standard places--they don't just unexpectedly pop up in the middle of the article.
Apple Delays Leopard to October.
Aaaaaanyway, why do we still keep seeing this binary (no pun intended) bullshit? Why does it have to be one or the other? Can't we all just get along? Will web apps ever replace desktop apps? Probably not. But--will desktop apps ever replace all web apps? Gotta give a big 'no' on that one too. So why have a story at all? What's next--"Will cars replace walking?" Web apps do some things well, local apps do other things well--and the definition of 'well' depends on the user. Email, for me, is very simple--a ten-year-old email client does pretty much everything I need, as does nearly every webmail service. And since I have two jobs, I never launch the binary email client I have on my desktop. Even when I'm home, I'm reading webmail with my laptop on the couch. For me, a web-based app has 100% replaced a local app. Since email doesn't work without *some* kind of connection--yeah, I can compose offline, BFD; it's not going anywhere without a live wire--the fact that webmail only works with a working Net connection is moot. So the main thing that people might call a disadvantage, isn't. (For me at least. I'm sure some jet-set business type is going to reply and tell me how much email he composes on a plane. Fine. It's a need of yours, but not of mine.) If I were ever organized enough to maintain a calendar, I'd probably do that online too.
He starts off by complaining that online data storage is risky. Someone should tell him about encryption. If box.net wants to give away the gig of encrypted data I've got stored there, fine. Just means more backups, as far as I'm concerned. Anyone who takes the time to decrypt it will be mighty bored looking at what I've got stored there anyway.
His other big example seems to be that Google's calendar can't sync with a device. Give it time, man. A) it isn't rocket science, and I'm sure the big brains at Google can figure out a way to make that happen, B) as soon as they care to devote some time to the issue. (Look for Apple's iPhone to make this kind of thing much more popular, just like the iMac made USB peripherals popular almost a decade ago.) As he points out, there are third-party apps that make this possible--but his point seems to be that since it isn't a first-party solution, it sucks. OK. Whatever.
I'm in the opposite boat. I hate Tiger--no use for Dashboard; can't stand Spotlight--but there are some features in 10.5 that'll make Spotlight's severe shortcomings worth living with and I've been holding off on buying a Mac Pro until 10.5 comes out. I was hoping to get a Mac Pro this summer with 10.5, iLife 07 (?), and better performance/lower cost/both than the current lineup (I'm thinking 2.66 GHz for less than $2000 with my company's discount) but it looks like I'll have to wait a little longer. Just enough to make the wait annoying--my new home "office" is almost done and I was hoping to replace my G5 and my wife's PC (and a few other computers) with a nice Intel Mac and Parallels. Looks like I'll have to live with a crowded desk a little longer.
:-) And I bet they won't use the delay to strip out half the new features, either. Also, unlike MS, they've got a pretty good track record of making their dates--unlike the comedic farce that was the Longhorn saga. I'm sure El Jobso did the math and figured out they'll make more from a gorgeous $500 phone than a nice-but-not-world-changing $130 OS. What's MS's excuse--they just had to ship two generations of Xboxes first?
And for all those who are saying "Ooh, delayed, ZING! Just like teh Vista!!!!!11" I have only this to say: Compare ~4 months to ~4 years. Leopard is only 1/12 like Vista.
As for the iPhone, it's pretty, and I'm lusting after one, but I have no use at all for it. I've got a 60 GB video iPod that I don't watch movies on, so the widescreen video playing isn't a selling point for me. I don't use coverflow in iTunes so that's another non-point. I don't SMS so much that I need my conversations stored in a pretty manner. I get so little voicemail that the visual aspect will be worthless to me. (I rarely have more than unheard 1 voicemail, and since my phone shows 'missed calls' before 'new messages' I pretty much always know who the new message is from.) I'm interested in the Internet features, but if it doesn't come with a reasonable data plan, I'll never use it when I'm not in 802.11 coverage. The automatic screen rotating is a nice feature but not exactly something I need to shell out five bills for. And while the sliding and two-finger-zooming interface is nice, I'll need to see it in person to see if typing on a virtual keyboard is better than the QWERTY layout on my Nokia 6820. But man, it looks nice. I'll probably get one in late 2008/mid 2009 when they're $249.
Those "powers" will be in place for the next White House occupant.
.sig's is along the lines of "will you still be happy with _________ (the patriot act, etc etc etc) when Hillary is president?"
One of my favorite
So some genius (a name I've forgotten) thought of using tables for layout...
Possibly not invented by, but definitely refined, popularized, and documented by David Siegel, author of the book Killersites, in 1997, along with the single-pixel GIF trick.
Don't tell me I don't need to sort by date. Sometimes I just like to page through email chronologically. And why should I have to type some kind of bizarro query when every other email client from the last DECADE--both desktop and web-based--lets me do this with literally one click? And the same goes for being able to sort by sender, subject, and size. When I sort, it's not always because I'm looking for something and want to pick it out of a sorted list. Sometimes I want to browse all my email at once but have things grouped by one attribute or another. (I tend to let my inbox get pretty full, then I go through it in an orderly fashion and delete things.)
In other words, why does Google insist on leaving out such a common, trivial-to-implement feature? Not everyone wants search results all the time. Some people just like lists. It's not like adding links to the top would take away real estate--the labels are already there, right?--or would make the app horribly bloated. This lack is the single biggest thing keeping me from every using Gmail in a serious fashion. I literally log in once every few weeks to check for email from the couple low-traffic lists I've given that address to, go "huh, they still haven't implemented that feature," and leave.
With multiple monitors, software can be manipulated easily to take up exactly half of the display... I don't believe achieving this is easy with a single large display.
It's easy in Windows. And it works with more than two apps (though more than 4 gets crowded)
1) bring one of your desired apps to the foreground
2) while pressing the 'control' key, click on the taskbar button(s) of the other app(s) you want to see
3) right-click and choose 'tile vertically' or 'tile horizontally'
3) note that with 4 apps, you'll get a grid no matter which you choose (IIRC; don't have a Windows box handy.)
Back (somewhat) on topic, I find people are pretty evenly split as to whether they prefer one large monitor or two small ones. I hate working on multiple displays; a friend of mine loves it. He loves the distinct workspaces; I hate the gap.
Maximizing one app per window works well, but so many other things don't work, or don't work well. You only get one taskbar. On Macs, you only get one menubar and one dock. Potential weird behavior if you have them stacked top-bottom (like when you've got a laptop on a desk in front of a raised monitor) especially on Macs, where you can now drag things through and past the dock and menubar. Sometimes weird things happen, like dialogs and warnings appearing on the wrong screen. On Macs, which don't have a 'containing' window for apps, it might be unpredictable where a new window/document will appear in response to file -> new. God only knows how virtual desktops will behave. Etc etc etc. If I can afford it, I prefer one large display--none of these quirks apply.
My favorite solution of all? Two computers, two identical monitors, and Synergy.
Yeah. My wife manages a rental property in a not-so-good area that is currently empty because the owner is trying to sell it. Just a few days ago some people broke in, partied, then broke things, even going so far as to plug up the sink and leave the water running, ruining all the kitchen cabinetry. (The floor itself is tile.) No computer was involved, though, so it didn't make the front page of Slashdot.
But it shouldn't be news. Anything that can run code, can run malicious code. It's only worth mentioning if there's a chance that a user will a) obtain and b) run the code without knowing it's malicious. If the virus were hidden in a song and could be executed just by being played, that would be news.
Oh, and look: it was discovered by a company that makes antivirus software. Wow, what are the odds that an antivirus company would be the first to discover and publicize a virus that runs on what might be called the least-adopted platform ever in history? I'd bet my next paycheck that somewhere there's a connection between an employee of that company and the author of this "virus"--and not just a six-degrees kind of link, I mean a real, substantial link.
Antivirus exec: "Well, in six years, we haven't been able to convince anyone that OS X is insecure. Despite our efforts, there hasn't been a single in-the-wild, self-replicating virus for that platform. What should we try next?"
Underling: "Maybe try spreading FUD about iPods?"
Antivirus exec: "Brilliant!"
> So what you're saying basically is that the new macs aren't useful for anything, except for what they are useful for?
Kinda, but not quite. My point is more that 2 cores are very handy--anyone can notice that a 2-core machine is faster than a 1-core machine. 4 cores are very nice and give a solid boost to many apps and workloads. But, that seems to be the start of the point of diminishing returns--early tests seem to show that going from 4 to 8 cores really doesn't gain you very much.
Car analogy time: a car that does 40 mph will get you around town and is quite handy, but isn't even legal to use on the freeway. A car that tops out at 80 mph will do pretty much all the basic stuff you'd need a car for. One that does 160--sure, you might never need the speed, but it means you've also got enough power to tow something comfortably, or take five passengers up a steep hill. One that does 320--unless we change our roads and our laws, that gains you nothing over a car that does 160.
I'm not being a troll, but the fact is, it takes nearly no time on Linux or OS X. Apple's current "Would you like to bring data over from another computer?" thingie that you see when first launching a new computer or new OS install really does work quite well. Linux, of course, is a matter of copying over your home directory. Apps are too dependant upon the use & user to go into detail on here.
:-)
:-)
As for Windows, I work with a close to default install. Might take 10 minutes to get all the things I want--
- unlock the taskbar
- classic start menu
- classic scheme
- desktop icons (yes show my computer, no don't show my documents)
- turn off effects, animations, and sounds
- 3D white mouse pointer, no shadow
- open a folder, set it up (classic view, no web content, details), then folder options -> apply to all folders
- control panel -> classic view
- small apps--Firefox, Acrobat, iTunes, Putty, Crimson Editor, and a few other odds and ends
- big apps--Adobe Suite, MS Office, OpenOffice, etc., depending on what I'm doing and who's paying for it all
I don't do this enough to look into automation. I tried RSYNC once because it's great for other stuff but all it did was show me that about half of my settings must be in the registry--after RSYNCing up, what I had was a hybrid of half my stuff and half Windows defaults. The closest I come to automation is keeping the installers for most things on my server.
For a fun read, check out Mark--he got it down to a simple 147 step process.
You know, the old "Find" command from ye olde Mac days isn't gone...
Damn, where's the "-1, Factually Incorrect" mod when you need it? It's too bad people give out "+1, Informative" mods just because something sounds correct.
The thing that comes up when you press Command-F uses Spotlight's engine. Try my 'FordChevyDodge' example--Command-F gives the same results as Command-Space which gives the same results as using the little search box in the top of every finder window.
I might start recomending it to friends and customers soon. I have yet to encounter the DRM boogyman. I am using it to type this post.
From The Simpsons:
Marge: Lisa, you got a letter.
Lisa: It's from my pen-pal Anya! [reads]
Anya: [voice over] Dear Lisa, as I write this, I am very sad. Our president has been overthrown and
[voice changes to that of a man]
replaced by the benevolent general Krull. All hail Krull and his glorious new regime! Sincerely, Little Girl.
I agree. Apple did this mainly because they have to--so dorks in web forums won't say "Why doesn't Apple do this? Anand (or Ars, whichever) put 8 cores in a Mac Pro months ago!" I'd be very, very curious to see how many of these they sell. I'm sure they'll sell a few--there are plenty of video shops where more cores are always welcome, or maybe VA Tech is going to do another 1100-box monster. The nice thing is, since it's pretty much a drop-in job, it won't cost them much to offer it.
There's a certain logic behind it, sure, but it still FAILS--where "fails" means "it can't do something that OS X 10.3.9 (and 10.2, and 10.1, and 10.0, and OS 9, and 8, and 7) could do." That's why I don't care if it's saving indexing space or not. Why can't they ADD to the old behavior, instead of REPLACING one behavior with another that has almost-but-not-quite all the original features?
If your files AREN'T CamelCase, you're prettymuchscrewed. Back before everything was camel case, everything was all lowercase, all the time. I've got TONS of old files (web stuff, mostly, which I reuse all the time) that are named in such a way that any 'find' system--even `locate`--would find them. And I don't have to remember "did I use a hyphen or an underscore? Is it my-file? my_file?" because the answer is always NO. I could search for 'logo' and find thisclientlogo.psd and thatclientlogo.psd and everything else. Anything regarding Client XYZ is 'clientxyz.' Never in my wildest dreams did I think "maybe someday someone will create a search system that totally borks partial matches."
Yup, the capitalization is key--which SUCKS when you've got years worth of files that aren't CamelCase. "Hmm, where is that old "show search results" file I used to use? Is it getsearchresults.php? showsearchresults.php? displaysearchresults.php?" Searching for 'search' won't find ONE of those files.
It all depends on the user. Like you said, you've used Spotlight for a long time and never come across it. I found that practically my first day on and I trip over it all the time.
But seriously, unless you're gonna keep all 8 cores cooking a lot, or you do a lot of seriously high-end video work or something else where speed above all else matters, they'll be a waste. And they cost $1500 more than the standard (2.66 GHz) model. So, for $4,000, you can get a 3 GHz 8-way Mac Pro. Or, for $4,400, you could get two 2 GHz 4-way Mac Pros. Most people could probably get more done with two good machines than one great one for (roughly) the same money.
Maybe it won't suck ass out loud like Spotlight does? Two cases:
- create a folder named FordChevyDodge. Search for 'Chevy'--it pops right up. Search for 'hevy'--nada. Oops. (That works just fine in 10.3.9, by the way.)
- create a file named 'file.txt' and put the text 'whateveryouwant' in it. Spotlight for 'whateveryouwant' and it pops right up. Change the file name to 'file.php' and Spotlight for 'whateveryouwant' again. No matches. Oops.
There's lots about Spotlight that I hate. I *loved* how search worked in 10.3.9 and still run 10.3.9 on every box that supports it for just that reason--I use Search a lot (though not 'search by content') and for me, 10.3.9 is just so much better in so many ways.