How ironic, after going through story after story here with links to sites that use the Vibrant in-text advertising (the latest "we're not really popups" scheme), I finally see one that uses Vibrant ads but has left in the ability to disable the popups.
And it's MSNBC.
Come on, folks, all you supposedly community-friendly sites out there... let people visiting your sites turn off the popups.
Blender's user interface is just bad. It's needlessly complex. It's not simply subjective... people who are familiar with all kinds of user interfaces have similar opinions of Blender's. Hell, I've never used Maya, and the three view non-overlapping windows model in Blender appears superficially similar to the first 3d program I used - Sculpt 3d - so if it was a matter of familiarity I'd be right on top of it, wouldn't I?
And customizable user interfaces has been a non-solution to bad user interfaces forever. That way lies Emacs.
Yeh, I can see Blender becoming the Emacs of 3d UIs. Same complete lack of attention to the basic UI design, same "stockholm syndrome" defensiveness from the fans. Same bad emulations of other programs that completely fail to hide the unnecessary complexity.
What is the actual technique that the patent is being granted for. If this is something like a compressin algorithm or an application of compression to mobile phones, I call shenanigans on the Judge.
if you actually click on the links in the Google search results you'll see they're nothing like the service discussed in the article. they don't allow customers to upload designs and instantly order a print.
You sure about that? There's been companies doing 3d prints of Second Life builds for a couple of years now.
it's like saying consumer CD burners weren't news when they first came out because people could already call up a CD-pressing factory and have a single CD made for them for $100.
This isn't like "consumer CD burners", it's more like "a cheaper service bureau". I used CD bureaux when that was the only way to get them done, and the difference between getting your CDs through a bureau, however cheap and convenient they make it, and burning them yourself... yes, that's a revolutionary change. Doing the same thing a bit cheaper and making the ordering a bit easier isn't.
If it's actually cheaper. I can't find any pricing information on Shapeways site. Apparently you have to sign up and get an account. There's been references elsewhere to prices around 3-4 dollars per cubic centimeter, which seems pretty similar to the competition.
Blender's user interface is so bad that I can't imagine what the designer was thinking. Seriously. It's almost as if he hated end-users and decided that the only way he could express his hate was to make a program that appears superficially usable but caused as much pain and frustration possible when people tried to learn it.
A $450 WinDOS PC running Vista doesn't "blow the doors" off of anything.
Faster CPU, bigger faster hard disk, more RAM, better video, expansion slots, usually two optical drives so they can "backup" videos easier. And it plays games.
And I've seen plenty of people's first reactions to the mini, at my house and when I've talked to them at the store. They go "that's cool" but they don't buy it, because there's just too much uncertainty in a computer they can't upgrade.
1. My comment was about "applications like Windows Update", not JUST "Windows Update".
2. The control panel uses HTML pages and ActiveX controls. I had a user a few years back whose Add/Remove Programs applet stopped working because of a problem with the HTML control. All those control panel applets like Add/Remove Programs that are built on top of the HTML control would ALSO need to be modified if Microsoft fixed the security problems in the HTML control.
Are you unaware that they've already replaced Windows Update in Vista?
Yes, as a matter of fact.
Have they replaced it with an actual application, or with a differently named web-based tool that will have to be rewritten should they fix the "Insecurity Zones" problem?
For values of "shrinking" that translate to "not growing as strongly". Unless you think the US economy isn't ever going to recover, in which case this whole question is irrelevant because nobody will be able to afford a Mac or a PC.
In the "it fits inside the footprint of a VCR or DVD player" category, it's VERY price competitive.
Yeh, there's lots of marginal markets you can make the mini look like a good deal for, but Joe Sixpack is gonna see the "I'm a Mac" ad, decide he's not a PC after all... then walk into Best Buy, and see a Mac mini for $600 across the aisle from an HP Pavilion that blows its doors off for $450.
The "I want something as cheap as dirt" market is heading for $200, not $400.
$400 (and typically more like $500-$700) is a mainstream desktop price, and gets you quite a lot more desktop than the $600 (and typically more like $700-$800) mini.
I'm not talking about Apple competing on price, I'm talking about Apple providing a high quality conventional desktop that someone who's considering an HP or Dell but wants to get away from the Windows toxic ecosystem might be interested in buying.
The biggest security problem in Windows is that the design of the HTML control and ActiveX in conjunction with the "security zone" model is inherently insecure. It provides a huge surface are to remote code execution exploits that simply does not exist in any other web browser... or any other software on any other platform that uses HTML and HTTP. The problem is that it's an explicit and deliberate mechanism for an object that should never be trusted... that is to say, a remote website... to request full local application permissions and run unsandboxed code.
Until this model is changed and only explicitly installed applications can run outside the browser's sandbox, Windows is going to remain the poster boy for "insecure systems".
Being able to prevent an already compromised application from performing system administration tasks is laudable, but it's not really all that important to the user. Everything on their computer that they care about isn't owned by the administrator, it's owned by their regular user account. And there's plenty of places owned by the end user that malware can hide to keep being restarted after the computer is rebooted. UAC is a partial sandbox, at best.
Being able to restrict what the web browser can do after it;s been compromised is laudable, but since the browser has to be able to save files for the user, it can still inject an exploit into the users account. So the reduced privilege mode on Vista (and the much touted sandboxes on OS X) are leaky protection at best.
And leaky sandboxes, and partial sandboxes, are more useful in providing a false sense of security to the user than actually keeping malware out.
Getting rid of the "security zones" model and replacing it with hard impermeable sandboxes will cause some disruption. Programs like Windows Update will have to be rewritten to use plugins. ActiveX games will have to be rewritten as flash or modified to run in a full sandbox using something like.NET or a JVM. But this WOULD be a matter of trading off convenience for security. UAC is trading off convenience for the illusion of security. That's not the same thing at all.
If you could stick a decent video card and a 5.25" hard drive in the mini, it might be worth $600. With Intel Integrated Graphics Disaster and a laptop drive, it's not. With a 16x PCI-E slot and a larger hard drive it'd be a bit less "mini", but not by much, and it'd paper over the gap in the product line nicely.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple is starting to value form OVER function
"starting to"?
I wonder how many other people who argue that it doesn't matter whether a program is "good" or "bad" can't spell even with a spelling checker?
How ironic, after going through story after story here with links to sites that use the Vibrant in-text advertising (the latest "we're not really popups" scheme), I finally see one that uses Vibrant ads but has left in the ability to disable the popups.
And it's MSNBC.
Come on, folks, all you supposedly community-friendly sites out there... let people visiting your sites turn off the popups.
Intuitive for *anything* is [...]
I didn't say one word about "intuitive".
Blender's user interface is just bad. It's needlessly complex. It's not simply subjective... people who are familiar with all kinds of user interfaces have similar opinions of Blender's. Hell, I've never used Maya, and the three view non-overlapping windows model in Blender appears superficially similar to the first 3d program I used - Sculpt 3d - so if it was a matter of familiarity I'd be right on top of it, wouldn't I?
And customizable user interfaces has been a non-solution to bad user interfaces forever. That way lies Emacs.
Yeh, I can see Blender becoming the Emacs of 3d UIs. Same complete lack of attention to the basic UI design, same "stockholm syndrome" defensiveness from the fans. Same bad emulations of other programs that completely fail to hide the unnecessary complexity.
You mean like the way classic vector-based libraries worked all the way back to BCPL in the '60s?
Sounds like this one's got prior art oozing out of all its orifices.
What is the actual technique that the patent is being granted for. If this is something like a compressin algorithm or an application of compression to mobile phones, I call shenanigans on the Judge.
if you actually click on the links in the Google search results you'll see they're nothing like the service discussed in the article. they don't allow customers to upload designs and instantly order a print.
You sure about that? There's been companies doing 3d prints of Second Life builds for a couple of years now.
it's like saying consumer CD burners weren't news when they first came out because people could already call up a CD-pressing factory and have a single CD made for them for $100.
This isn't like "consumer CD burners", it's more like "a cheaper service bureau". I used CD bureaux when that was the only way to get them done, and the difference between getting your CDs through a bureau, however cheap and convenient they make it, and burning them yourself... yes, that's a revolutionary change. Doing the same thing a bit cheaper and making the ordering a bit easier isn't.
If it's actually cheaper. I can't find any pricing information on Shapeways site. Apparently you have to sign up and get an account. There's been references elsewhere to prices around 3-4 dollars per cubic centimeter, which seems pretty similar to the competition.
Does it count as a troll if it's true?
Have you accounted for croumlent verbogeny derising from the panjandrum effect?
Blender rocks?
Blender's user interface is so bad that I can't imagine what the designer was thinking. Seriously. It's almost as if he hated end-users and decided that the only way he could express his hate was to make a program that appears superficially usable but caused as much pain and frustration possible when people tried to learn it.
This isn't even vaguely news. There's been 3d printing services like this for years. Just google for them...
A $450 WinDOS PC running Vista doesn't "blow the doors" off of anything.
Faster CPU, bigger faster hard disk, more RAM, better video, expansion slots, usually two optical drives so they can "backup" videos easier. And it plays games.
And I've seen plenty of people's first reactions to the mini, at my house and when I've talked to them at the store. They go "that's cool" but they don't buy it, because there's just too much uncertainty in a computer they can't upgrade.
Even if they never do, they always plan to.
I can have both cores of a mini busting it's balls transcoding and I still can't detect this "wind tunnel effect" so many people like whine about.
I think you misunderstood the kind of fans I'm talking about.
See, Apple's Fans make enough wind noise on Slashdot to make up for it.
1. My comment was about "applications like Windows Update", not JUST "Windows Update".
2. The control panel uses HTML pages and ActiveX controls. I had a user a few years back whose Add/Remove Programs applet stopped working because of a problem with the HTML control. All those control panel applets like Add/Remove Programs that are built on top of the HTML control would ALSO need to be modified if Microsoft fixed the security problems in the HTML control.
I didn't think any computer company had more powerful fans than Apple.
Are you unaware that they've already replaced Windows Update in Vista?
Yes, as a matter of fact.
Have they replaced it with an actual application, or with a differently named web-based tool that will have to be rewritten should they fix the "Insecurity Zones" problem?
That's crazy talk.
If Ballmer appreciated the fact that end users appreciate what they damn well want to [...]
If Ballmer appreciated the fact that end users appreciate what they damn well want to they'd still be selling XP.
For values of "shrinking" that translate to "not growing as strongly". Unless you think the US economy isn't ever going to recover, in which case this whole question is irrelevant because nobody will be able to afford a Mac or a PC.
In the "it fits inside the footprint of a VCR or DVD player" category, it's VERY price competitive.
Yeh, there's lots of marginal markets you can make the mini look like a good deal for, but Joe Sixpack is gonna see the "I'm a Mac" ad, decide he's not a PC after all... then walk into Best Buy, and see a Mac mini for $600 across the aisle from an HP Pavilion that blows its doors off for $450.
The "I want something as cheap as dirt" market is heading for $200, not $400.
$400 (and typically more like $500-$700) is a mainstream desktop price, and gets you quite a lot more desktop than the $600 (and typically more like $700-$800) mini.
I'm not talking about Apple competing on price, I'm talking about Apple providing a high quality conventional desktop that someone who's considering an HP or Dell but wants to get away from the Windows toxic ecosystem might be interested in buying.
A lot of people are using them as servers.
I suspect that's what mine's going to end up as, eventually.
But it cost more than my mini-ITX box, and it's not as good a server.
And that's sure as hell not the desktop market.
Who the hell uses 5.25" hard drives these days?
Ah, sorry, I meant 3.5". Flashback to 1985. Sorry.
The biggest security problem in Windows is that the design of the HTML control and ActiveX in conjunction with the "security zone" model is inherently insecure. It provides a huge surface are to remote code execution exploits that simply does not exist in any other web browser... or any other software on any other platform that uses HTML and HTTP. The problem is that it's an explicit and deliberate mechanism for an object that should never be trusted... that is to say, a remote website... to request full local application permissions and run unsandboxed code.
Until this model is changed and only explicitly installed applications can run outside the browser's sandbox, Windows is going to remain the poster boy for "insecure systems".
Being able to prevent an already compromised application from performing system administration tasks is laudable, but it's not really all that important to the user. Everything on their computer that they care about isn't owned by the administrator, it's owned by their regular user account. And there's plenty of places owned by the end user that malware can hide to keep being restarted after the computer is rebooted. UAC is a partial sandbox, at best.
Being able to restrict what the web browser can do after it;s been compromised is laudable, but since the browser has to be able to save files for the user, it can still inject an exploit into the users account. So the reduced privilege mode on Vista (and the much touted sandboxes on OS X) are leaky protection at best.
And leaky sandboxes, and partial sandboxes, are more useful in providing a false sense of security to the user than actually keeping malware out.
Getting rid of the "security zones" model and replacing it with hard impermeable sandboxes will cause some disruption. Programs like Windows Update will have to be rewritten to use plugins. ActiveX games will have to be rewritten as flash or modified to run in a full sandbox using something like .NET or a JVM. But this WOULD be a matter of trading off convenience for security. UAC is trading off convenience for the illusion of security. That's not the same thing at all.
If you could stick a decent video card and a 5.25" hard drive in the mini, it might be worth $600. With Intel Integrated Graphics Disaster and a laptop drive, it's not. With a 16x PCI-E slot and a larger hard drive it'd be a bit less "mini", but not by much, and it'd paper over the gap in the product line nicely.