Is there really a need for supporters since everything can be answered in webforums or otherwise read?
Paied support is like insurance. You pay your yearly premium hoping you will not need to claim, but when you need them they are there. Its simple risk management. What's $120 per PC, per year to your average company anyhow?
Reminds me of company that I worked for, but instead it was for the desktop PC. But then again it was one of those companies that forced everyone to use outlook and explorer. Knowing that I had a perfectly good portable, which was of a better config, at home with Win2K I asked them if I could use it at work. They told me yes, but I wouldn't get any support or have the machine authenticated for the Windows network. So I brought it in and found myself more comfortable doing my work. I really didn't miss not being able to access the windows network, since nobody really shared anything anyhow.
One other thing to mention is that I copied over the development environment, and in any case the support team didn't even support it on their 'supported' machines.
In some companies the support guys support my intiative, but due to company policy have their hand tied when it comes to doing it themselves.
It's obviously a move to gain consumer support and get customers to switch.
They probably also believe that they weren't going to get their way and therefore best put their money towards getting the infrastructure in place by the deadline. Also, they probably realised that by making it easier for customers to switch, then with a good marketing campaign, people probably will.
Since cell phone number are virtual, relative to the phone, the real work is actually on the land based switches. Then again given that the infrastructure had to be in place to allow the calls to be routed to the cell phone networks, then the ability to switch phone numbers is only at maximum a firmware update away.
One of their later arguments is that they claim that anyone who developes a "Unix-like" operating system owes them money.
If this is indeed the case, then I wonder how long it will be before Apple is in their sights? And also, how likley that they also lay claim to Posix and all the OSs out there?
The truth is whether a company brings out SPEC marks made under fair configurations or faked configurations, there will always be those who will accept the figures at face value, those who will contest them no matter what and those who really counldn't care less. I am in the third category, if you're curious;)
Everyone buys a piece of hardware for different reason, some for design, some for brand, some out of faith, some because they have the money and even some because of an application. If you are choosing for the last reason then the question should be whether it is fast enough for you, and does it in they you want.
I would recommend everyone to buy the computer that meets their usage requirements and not for some theoretical and utopic bunch of values that don't really mean much in the real world, unless you are only wanting to gloat over something totally subjective.
As a final word, sometimes the slowest factor in getting a job done, is not necessarily the computer, but the user taking their time, because the application has been so badly implemented, to be difficult to use and understandable.
Computers have the potential to the make the most complicated of applications accessible to a layman of the subject.
Unless IBM writes a mac compiler, apple uses GCC because they do most programing in Obj C which is only supported by GCC not Metroworks.
I would guess that with Linux becoming IBMs main OS, they are likely going to add G5 related optimizations to GCC. Sure this just speculation, but something I believe that would make sense. I am not up to speed on compilers, but don't they normally spit out code which is not quite high level, but not yet assembly, before doing the final assembly language generation?
Re:I'm sadly disapointed this year.
on
Jaguar is Over
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· Score: 1
It was already annouced that there will only be a feed after the presentation. There won't be anything live.
If it is indeed 7 then maybe we need to look to the heavens for a possible suggestion. Many cultures used the stars and other celestial objects for basic measurement and time keeping. For example if a circle has 360 degrees, it is because it is based on the length of Earth's orbit, in days, around the sun. Going on from there 7 is both the length of a week and quarter the length of a lunar month. This is one explanation of why they used 7, but without having a better understanding of their culture it is hard to really understand their perspective and understand how they thought.
Thanks for that link, it was one of the most insightful articles I have read on the subject in a long time. This is the sort of article that I would have like to see as/. story.
I too have moved to Trillian, though 8 months ago international users noticed that it was displaying junk for characters. The problem is that most of the IM services have switched to UTF8 to deal with non-Roman characters and Trillian hasn't followed suit, and this is 8 months since the problem was first brought up. Trillian is closed source, so nobody can correct these bugs, other than the developers of the project. I will Jabber a whirl.
Out of curosity could someone tell me which clients are UTF8 compliant on Windows, and also with Linux.
IMO, The fact that ICQ uses numbers to identity users is probably part of the reason that people prefer other instant messenger services. Which would you have a better time remebering: 57544362769 or mynickname? When AOL took much of Compuserve's market it was because people loved the way AOL used names for their users and not numbers, as Compuserve did. The first step in making something user friendly is making what they use, easy to remember.
When it comes to the client I really didn't care much for it, especially the one for MacOS X. When so many friends being spread across services I opted to use multi-messenger clients such as Fire on the Mac and Trillian on the PC.
Clearly, they are talking about the services, but I agree with the above posters, why post this as news if the letter itself is bogus ?
I have noticed a number of things. From what I can tell the stores that usually end up being posted are those are most likely to stir up the hornets nest and create a lot of discussion. If the editor feels that the story is not likely to get much discussion then it is not posted, take the story about GSM finally being selected for Iraq as one.
This story is not different, it generates the expected response and even at the same time manages to reassure that what some might think is an issue isn't really one.
Everything is open to interpretation, how you interpret it is up to you.
First, as can be seen from the following quote, Open Group sued Apple in 2001 and the issue has been on going from then on:
The Open Group, also known as X/Open, sued Apple in December 2001 alleging, among other things, that Apple had infringed on its trademark.
The Open Group also seems to be wanting to get Apple to certify themselves Unix 'compliant':
The Open Group wants Apple to have Mac OS X undergo testing to certify that it complies with its standards for software bearing the Unix name; it also wants Apple to pay a fee. The Open Group says the costs to license the name are reasonable, based on the size of the company and the rough number of copies of the software Apple sells. In any case, no company is required to pay more than $110,000, said Graham Bird, vice president of marketing for The Open Group.
$110,000 isn't much for a company like Apple. I am not really sure whether Apple is counter suing because they want to save face or because there is a real feeling that Unix really has become a generic term. I for one never applied it to any one product and think of it more as a general design philosphy
While thinking about it, I would guess that Apple wants to be to able to use freely the Unix in its marketing, yet also have the freedom to build a system that is based currently on the Unix 'approach' and then branch as they feel necessary. Having to conform to Unix certification would probably prevent the system from evolving as it needs to.
What is going to be interesting is between this and the SCO vs IBM issue, Unix may just as well be in the public domain. There is so much of the basic workings that is public knowledge and has found itself into numerous computer science text books, I wonder whether anybody can lay a claim to Unix, either as intellectual property or as a trademark.
I thought VAT was only applied on new goods, in Europe? If you are trying to sell something that has already been taxed somewhere along the line, then you're not meant to pay a second time. If this is the case we should only be seeing VAT being applied to items on Ebay that are new.
People who understand Bluetooth but are clueless about security?
You're right that Bluetooth lacks any real security, but by being an ultra short range technology the risk of snoopers, and anonymous at that, is reduced greatly. If someone is snooping, then the person snooping is already within an eye-shot or hearing range. Until encryption can be added without adding to the price of the technology, then it is a risk that should be taken into account.
No. It's dead. 802.11x is a far better solutioin for most everything. 802.11x offers better speed, range and availabillity.
As already mentioned, Bluetooth is not intended to be a networking technology. It is one up from I-R and one down from Wi-Fi. Its one up to I-R because it allows simple devices, close together, to communicate together, simply, and not need to be in line of sight. It is one down from Wi-Fi because there is no need to use something this heavy duty to transfer simple data, doing so would simply be cost restrictive and over kill - this would be akin to using 4 ton truck for moving a box's worth of paper in your office.
People who understand Bluetooth are using it for things like wireless keyboards, mice and synching PDAs and mobile phone to PCs. Printers are a special case, since in most cases you would want to use Wi-Fi, but by using Bluetooth you allow a simple PDA to print out a document - I suppose printers are pushing Bluetooth to the limits of what it was designed for.
The issue with GSM was that Qualcomm 'sponsored' a senator to do its bidding. CDMA is Qualcomm's technology and they have been campaigning to get the US government to implement CDMA is Iraq. If this move does go ahead, it would be a clear indication that the US presence there is only about helping Iraq, if they happen to the US's interests. And in the case of CDMA, it would be only one company's interests. GSM is not owned by any company, but is an independent organisation establish the technology to be used for mobile communication. Also, given the larger world wide coverage of GSM, CDMA would not be Iraq's best interests. If there are only three companies in the US making GSM phones (, it because the rest opt not to. BTW GSM is a technology umbrella, not a single tecnology, there have already been discussions as to including W-CDMA as part of the package.
One interesting link worth visiting, with regards to Iraq, is here.
I know this is rant, though I am not sure its because I back GSM, or whether it is because politics seem to be deciding what the market place should be deciding for itself.
You are running an OS that was written 13 years before you bought your Mac and was updated with more and more features, meaning in many cases unoptimized bloat. I am guessing you are running MacOS 9, and this does not have many of the low-level features of a modern OS. The multi-tasking used by the OS is cooperative, so if one process hogs the CPU no other app gets a chance. Other things to take into account is that the OS has virtual memory (the OS doesn't differentiate between what is real and what isn't, when allocating memory) and not swap space, so this can also affect performance if you are trying to do a lot at once.
Windows NT on the other hand had a lot of new code and was essentially a new OS and was written with many of the modern features you would expect from an OS. I am not so sure Windows 95/98 would be performing as well on this machine. One thing you don't say is how much memory you have on that PC, since memory make a LOT of differnce.
MacOS X is the Apple's new OS and has plenty of modern facilities, which should make it fly. The problem is the eye candy and all the other GUI stuff which adds an extra load to the CPU. The OS is improving and is getting faster. In theory if MacOS X had the same GUI as MacOS 9 (in other words one which requires less processing), I am sure that you find it running fast ion the 8600.
Slashdot Mirror
Just wait 'till Starbucks figures out their "On-line" strategy
Looks like they may have already: Starbucks online shop
Is there really a need for supporters since everything can be answered in webforums or otherwise read?
Paied support is like insurance. You pay your yearly premium hoping you will not need to claim, but when you need them they are there. Its simple risk management. What's $120 per PC, per year to your average company anyhow?
Reminds me of company that I worked for, but instead it was for the desktop PC. But then again it was one of those companies that forced everyone to use outlook and explorer. Knowing that I had a perfectly good portable, which was of a better config, at home with Win2K I asked them if I could use it at work. They told me yes, but I wouldn't get any support or have the machine authenticated for the Windows network. So I brought it in and found myself more comfortable doing my work. I really didn't miss not being able to access the windows network, since nobody really shared anything anyhow.
One other thing to mention is that I copied over the development environment, and in any case the support team didn't even support it on their 'supported' machines.
In some companies the support guys support my intiative, but due to company policy have their hand tied when it comes to doing it themselves.
It's obviously a move to gain consumer support and get customers to switch.
They probably also believe that they weren't going to get their way and therefore best put their money towards getting the infrastructure in place by the deadline. Also, they probably realised that by making it easier for customers to switch, then with a good marketing campaign, people probably will.
Since cell phone number are virtual, relative to the phone, the real work is actually on the land based switches. Then again given that the infrastructure had to be in place to allow the calls to be routed to the cell phone networks, then the ability to switch phone numbers is only at maximum a firmware update away.
One of their later arguments is that they claim that anyone who developes a "Unix-like" operating system owes them money.
If this is indeed the case, then I wonder how long it will be before Apple is in their sights? And also, how likley that they also lay claim to Posix and all the OSs out there?
The truth is whether a company brings out SPEC marks made under fair configurations or faked configurations, there will always be those who will accept the figures at face value, those who will contest them no matter what and those who really counldn't care less. I am in the third category, if you're curious ;)
Everyone buys a piece of hardware for different reason, some for design, some for brand, some out of faith, some because they have the money and even some because of an application. If you are choosing for the last reason then the question should be whether it is fast enough for you, and does it in they you want.
I would recommend everyone to buy the computer that meets their usage requirements and not for some theoretical and utopic bunch of values that don't really mean much in the real world, unless you are only wanting to gloat over something totally subjective.
As a final word, sometimes the slowest factor in getting a job done, is not necessarily the computer, but the user taking their time, because the application has been so badly implemented, to be difficult to use and understandable.
Computers have the potential to the make the most complicated of applications accessible to a layman of the subject.
Unless IBM writes a mac compiler, apple uses GCC because they do most programing in Obj C which is only supported by GCC not Metroworks.
I would guess that with Linux becoming IBMs main OS, they are likely going to add G5 related optimizations to GCC. Sure this just speculation, but something I believe that would make sense. I am not up to speed on compilers, but don't they normally spit out code which is not quite high level, but not yet assembly, before doing the final assembly language generation?
It was already annouced that there will only be a feed after the presentation. There won't be anything live.
If it is indeed 7 then maybe we need to look to the heavens for a possible suggestion. Many cultures used the stars and other celestial objects for basic measurement and time keeping. For example if a circle has 360 degrees, it is because it is based on the length of Earth's orbit, in days, around the sun. Going on from there 7 is both the length of a week and quarter the length of a lunar month. This is one explanation of why they used 7, but without having a better understanding of their culture it is hard to really understand their perspective and understand how they thought.
According to one of the best articles written on the subject, it's a big step up.
/. story.
Thanks for that link, it was one of the most insightful articles I have read on the subject in a long time. This is the sort of article that I would have like to see as
Instead, we want to use words more in tune with American psyche.
;)
So we got it wrong with the versioning system. In future I will make sure that it is USB 2'0".
Smile, things are too serious as it is
Sounds like the new penguins brought in a new religion and the rest were converted - the Penguin sect anyone?
Yeah, but that assumes that the company who reqired this schedule is willing to honor the vacation time...
It does, so the employees should get it in writing. And the employees should be allowed to take it when they want.
You could always share the name of the company, anonymously, so we know who this is.
One other thing is that you make sure that you spend no more time at work than your boss does, and make sure that everyone in the department agrees.
I too have moved to Trillian, though 8 months ago international users noticed that it was displaying junk for characters. The problem is that most of the IM services have switched to UTF8 to deal with non-Roman characters and Trillian hasn't followed suit, and this is 8 months since the problem was first brought up. Trillian is closed source, so nobody can correct these bugs, other than the developers of the project. I will Jabber a whirl.
Out of curosity could someone tell me which clients are UTF8 compliant on Windows, and also with Linux.
IMO, The fact that ICQ uses numbers to identity users is probably part of the reason that people prefer other instant messenger services. Which would you have a better time remebering: 57544362769 or mynickname? When AOL took much of Compuserve's market it was because people loved the way AOL used names for their users and not numbers, as Compuserve did. The first step in making something user friendly is making what they use, easy to remember.
When it comes to the client I really didn't care much for it, especially the one for MacOS X. When so many friends being spread across services I opted to use multi-messenger clients such as Fire on the Mac and Trillian on the PC.
Clearly, they are talking about the services, but I agree with the above posters, why post this as news if the letter itself is bogus ?
I have noticed a number of things. From what I can tell the stores that usually end up being posted are those are most likely to stir up the hornets nest and create a lot of discussion. If the editor feels that the story is not likely to get much discussion then it is not posted, take the story about GSM finally being selected for Iraq as one.
This story is not different, it generates the expected response and even at the same time manages to reassure that what some might think is an issue isn't really one.
Everything is open to interpretation, how you interpret it is up to you.
While thinking about it, I would guess that Apple wants to be to able to use freely the Unix in its marketing, yet also have the freedom to build a system that is based currently on the Unix 'approach' and then branch as they feel necessary. Having to conform to Unix certification would probably prevent the system from evolving as it needs to.
What is going to be interesting is between this and the SCO vs IBM issue, Unix may just as well be in the public domain. There is so much of the basic workings that is public knowledge and has found itself into numerous computer science text books, I wonder whether anybody can lay a claim to Unix, either as intellectual property or as a trademark.
I thought VAT was only applied on new goods, in Europe? If you are trying to sell something that has already been taxed somewhere along the line, then you're not meant to pay a second time. If this is the case we should only be seeing VAT being applied to items on Ebay that are new.
Thanks for heads up on that, I hadn't realised.
People who understand Bluetooth but are clueless about security?
You're right that Bluetooth lacks any real security, but by being an ultra short range technology the risk of snoopers, and anonymous at that, is reduced greatly. If someone is snooping, then the person snooping is already within an eye-shot or hearing range. Until encryption can be added without adding to the price of the technology, then it is a risk that should be taken into account.
No. It's dead. 802.11x is a far better solutioin for most everything. 802.11x offers better speed, range and availabillity.
As already mentioned, Bluetooth is not intended to be a networking technology. It is one up from I-R and one down from Wi-Fi. Its one up to I-R because it allows simple devices, close together, to communicate together, simply, and not need to be in line of sight. It is one down from Wi-Fi because there is no need to use something this heavy duty to transfer simple data, doing so would simply be cost restrictive and over kill - this would be akin to using 4 ton truck for moving a box's worth of paper in your office.
People who understand Bluetooth are using it for things like wireless keyboards, mice and synching PDAs and mobile phone to PCs. Printers are a special case, since in most cases you would want to use Wi-Fi, but by using Bluetooth you allow a simple PDA to print out a document - I suppose printers are pushing Bluetooth to the limits of what it was designed for.
By the way, had I finished reading the article I linked to, it appears that GSM was chosen, over CDMA.
The issue with GSM was that Qualcomm 'sponsored' a senator to do its bidding. CDMA is Qualcomm's technology and they have been campaigning to get the US government to implement CDMA is Iraq. If this move does go ahead, it would be a clear indication that the US presence there is only about helping Iraq, if they happen to the US's interests. And in the case of CDMA, it would be only one company's interests. GSM is not owned by any company, but is an independent organisation establish the technology to be used for mobile communication. Also, given the larger world wide coverage of GSM, CDMA would not be Iraq's best interests. If there are only three companies in the US making GSM phones (, it because the rest opt not to. BTW GSM is a technology umbrella, not a single tecnology, there have already been discussions as to including W-CDMA as part of the package.
One interesting link worth visiting, with regards to Iraq, is here.
I know this is rant, though I am not sure its because I back GSM, or whether it is because politics seem to be deciding what the market place should be deciding for itself.
Okay I take the bait:
You are running an OS that was written 13 years before you bought your Mac and was updated with more and more features, meaning in many cases unoptimized bloat. I am guessing you are running MacOS 9, and this does not have many of the low-level features of a modern OS. The multi-tasking used by the OS is cooperative, so if one process hogs the CPU no other app gets a chance. Other things to take into account is that the OS has virtual memory (the OS doesn't differentiate between what is real and what isn't, when allocating memory) and not swap space, so this can also affect performance if you are trying to do a lot at once.
Windows NT on the other hand had a lot of new code and was essentially a new OS and was written with many of the modern features you would expect from an OS. I am not so sure Windows 95/98 would be performing as well on this machine. One thing you don't say is how much memory you have on that PC, since memory make a LOT of differnce.
MacOS X is the Apple's new OS and has plenty of modern facilities, which should make it fly. The problem is the eye candy and all the other GUI stuff which adds an extra load to the CPU. The OS is improving and is getting faster. In theory if MacOS X had the same GUI as MacOS 9 (in other words one which requires less processing), I am sure that you find it running fast ion the 8600.