First, if you get rid of the crap on the computer and sleep or hibernate it (like you do your Mac) instead of shutting it down Windows is no slower to start up.
Second, it sounds like your problem is you're comparing a Windows box with a hamster wheel ower supply to a latest-version Mac.
Third, isn't it great that you have a choice between screwing around with cables and screwing around with Windows? I thought people bought Macs because it let them avoid screwing around with stupid make-work like wizards and daemons, and Apple was supposed to be teh company that cared about making the best possible products. If the best defense you can come up with is that "it's not as bad as having to use Windows" that's pretty dire.
You sound like one of those fumbling idiots on TV infomercials that make the simplest of tasks look hard.
And you sound like the kind of fellow who thought an electric refrigerator was a waste of money, because it's not that hard to remember to put fresh ice in every week.
I don't think you actually understood my suggestion, because I'm not suggesting anything that would reduce the effectiveness of compression, nor am I suggesting splitting things into more packets, on average.
It would probably increase latency, but given the existing variation in latency I've seen streaming over the public internet I doubt you'd notice any increment from this.
The differences are in IE. You don't need to make allowances for differences in standards-compliant browsers, if you write your page to conform to the standard.
But that there are enough things that work differently between IE and browsers that are more standards-compliant that you have to make special allowances for them.
I think you have that backwards. You make special allowances for the one that's the exception.
The article seems to be written in Buzzwordian, and while I've got a passing acquaintance with it I'm not at all familiar with the Academentian dialect.
When you buy a laptop you have these there basic choices:
1. Windows. An OS that sucks, on decent hardware. 2. Mac OS X. A decent OS, on hardware that sucks. 3. Other UNIX. A decent OS, on decent hardware, but no applications.
OLPC adds a fourth category:
4. OLPC. An OS that sucks, on hardware that sucks, and no applications.
"function detectBrowserClass(modern)" does stuff like "if (nAgent.indexOf('Netscape') !=-1) { var strIndex = nAgent.indexOf('Netscape'); this.version = nAgent.substring((strIndex + 9), (strIndex + 12)); this.browser = 'netscape';}" and "var detectBrowser = new detectBrowserClass({'opera': 9,'safari': 2,'firefox': 1.5,'ie': 6});".
Why on earth are you even looking at "Netscape" if it's not in your class list?
Your test is going to fail on any non-Firefox Gecko-based browsers, Shiira or other non-Safari Webkit-based browsers, any version of Ubrowser (even the new Webkit-based one under development), and so on. You need to at least base it on the gecko or webkit version, not the distribution name.
But, really, you're better off just going "if it's not IE, or it's IE 5.5 or later, Just Do It".
Using Camino, latest build, no paranoid javascript/ad/cookie blocking, thank you very much.
User Agent is either the original, or one that says I'm using a higher version of Netscape than was ever released (to convince some other asshole website that they ought to let me play).
It's not about me. It's about "grepping the user agent string for specific browsers is just plain stupid".
And plugging in three cables is so much work that it negates the advantages of the Mac?
I'm plugging in 5 cables here, and one of them is the appalling "Magsafe" connector that falls out if you look at it funny... and of course Apple doesn't distinguish between "I just closed the lid while on battery" and "I just knocked the fragile power connector out while the lid was closed".
And of course at least one of the cables always snakes its way down to the floor. So I have to fish around behind the desk, unless I duct-tape the cables into place.
And, really, if I was going to get full docking security I'd have to be attaching a locking cable as well. I don't bother because it's too much of a hassle.
And that's on top of the horrid keyboard, horrid single-button trackpad, and overheating battery pack (replaced under warranty when it burst, and I still have to remove the battery pack when I'm doing a backup or encoding video or it overheats), and all the other "we're Apple Computer, we don't have to care" design flaws. No, all of that wasn't enough to make me stay with Windows, but for someone who isn't convinced of the superiority of the OS it's just one more huge smelly hurdle to get over before finally deciding to drink the White Kool Aid.
Apple got together with IBM to make a laptop once before, and produced a classic. If they're not going to sell generic OS X I can stick on a Thinkpad, they could at least make a laptop that doesn't make me miss my Thinkpad... Windows and all.
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Hey, NASA, my User-Agent string is telling you I'm using a browser version that hasn't been released yet. How about you quit trying to guess what browser I'm using and assume that if it's not Internet Explorer it's Just Going To Work?
(If you actually need Internet Explorer, now, then you've got an even bigger problem)
It doesn't matter how good the cryptosystem you use to call the Pizza Hut nearest the Pentagon is, if you just need to count the trucks leaving the Pizza Hut to tell when there's a burst of late night activity so you can tell the invasion is about to start.
So don't use the same CPU for the cellphone functions and the general purpose computing platform.
It's the same solution they need for DRM. Don't use the general purpose CPU as anything but a channel between the encrypted CD or streaming website and the codec sealed in epoxy on the audiovisual card. That way you can run ANYTHING on the general purpose computer and the MAFIAA won't care.
I think you understand exactly what I'm talking about.
The message I was responding to was talking about having different kinds of input devices on laptops being good because it gives you a choice.
An operating system is not just bucket seats and woodgrain steering wheels. Windows is not an option (don't even think about arguing with that one) and until I can get the same variety of commercial desktop software for Linux as I can for OS X then Linux is not an option (don't even start on running Windows in a VM under Linux, or dual booting, I did that stuff for more years than most of the people reading this have been alive, I've had it with that), so there is no choice.
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First, if you get rid of the crap on the computer and sleep or hibernate it (like you do your Mac) instead of shutting it down Windows is no slower to start up.
Second, it sounds like your problem is you're comparing a Windows box with a hamster wheel ower supply to a latest-version Mac.
Third, isn't it great that you have a choice between screwing around with cables and screwing around with Windows? I thought people bought Macs because it let them avoid screwing around with stupid make-work like wizards and daemons, and Apple was supposed to be teh company that cared about making the best possible products. If the best defense you can come up with is that "it's not as bad as having to use Windows" that's pretty dire.
You sound like one of those fumbling idiots on TV infomercials that make the simplest of tasks look hard.
And you sound like the kind of fellow who thought an electric refrigerator was a waste of money, because it's not that hard to remember to put fresh ice in every week.
I don't think you actually understood my suggestion, because I'm not suggesting anything that would reduce the effectiveness of compression, nor am I suggesting splitting things into more packets, on average.
It would probably increase latency, but given the existing variation in latency I've seen streaming over the public internet I doubt you'd notice any increment from this.
Since you seem to hate everything Apple [...]
But I don't. It would be so much easier if I did.
Of course, it needs to run Linux.
Decent hardware, decent OS, no applications.
I sincerely cannot get use to it because I know already the tricks around Windows, and for me is good enough.
I know the tricks, and even using them all, and with Interix and Cygwin and the rest of the tools, Windows is still a lousy OS.
The Macbook Air is just a stripped down Macbook, for more money. It's the "decent OS, lousy hardware" solution.
All the options are made of fail, though it took the OLPC people to come up with the hat trick of lousy hardware, lousy software, and no applications.
The differences are in IE. You don't need to make allowances for differences in standards-compliant browsers, if you write your page to conform to the standard.
But that there are enough things that work differently between IE and browsers that are more standards-compliant that you have to make special allowances for them.
I think you have that backwards. You make special allowances for the one that's the exception.
The article seems to be written in Buzzwordian, and while I've got a passing acquaintance with it I'm not at all familiar with the Academentian dialect.
Seriously, what the hell do they mean?
All laptops suck.
When you buy a laptop you have these there basic choices:
1. Windows. An OS that sucks, on decent hardware.
2. Mac OS X. A decent OS, on hardware that sucks.
3. Other UNIX. A decent OS, on decent hardware, but no applications.
OLPC adds a fourth category:
4. OLPC. An OS that sucks, on hardware that sucks, and no applications.
It's a hat trick!
"function detectBrowserClass(modern)" does stuff like "if (nAgent.indexOf('Netscape') !=-1) { var strIndex = nAgent.indexOf('Netscape'); this.version = nAgent.substring((strIndex + 9), (strIndex + 12)); this.browser = 'netscape';}" and "var detectBrowser = new detectBrowserClass({'opera': 9,'safari': 2,'firefox': 1.5,'ie': 6});".
Why on earth are you even looking at "Netscape" if it's not in your class list?
Your test is going to fail on any non-Firefox Gecko-based browsers, Shiira or other non-Safari Webkit-based browsers, any version of Ubrowser (even the new Webkit-based one under development), and so on. You need to at least base it on the gecko or webkit version, not the distribution name.
But, really, you're better off just going "if it's not IE, or it's IE 5.5 or later, Just Do It".
Using Camino, latest build, no paranoid javascript/ad/cookie blocking, thank you very much.
User Agent is either the original, or one that says I'm using a higher version of Netscape than was ever released (to convince some other asshole website that they ought to let me play).
It's not about me. It's about "grepping the user agent string for specific browsers is just plain stupid".
Unfortunately, Windows is too much of a compromise for me to accept a Thinkpad as a "no compromise" portable.
Here are the laptop options, today:
* Lousy hardware, great software.
* Lousy software, decent hardware.
* Decent software, decent hardware, but no applications.
Heads you lose, tails you lose, edge you lose.
And plugging in three cables is so much work that it negates the advantages of the Mac?
I'm plugging in 5 cables here, and one of them is the appalling "Magsafe" connector that falls out if you look at it funny... and of course Apple doesn't distinguish between "I just closed the lid while on battery" and "I just knocked the fragile power connector out while the lid was closed".
And of course at least one of the cables always snakes its way down to the floor. So I have to fish around behind the desk, unless I duct-tape the cables into place.
And, really, if I was going to get full docking security I'd have to be attaching a locking cable as well. I don't bother because it's too much of a hassle.
And that's on top of the horrid keyboard, horrid single-button trackpad, and overheating battery pack (replaced under warranty when it burst, and I still have to remove the battery pack when I'm doing a backup or encoding video or it overheats), and all the other "we're Apple Computer, we don't have to care" design flaws. No, all of that wasn't enough to make me stay with Windows, but for someone who isn't convinced of the superiority of the OS it's just one more huge smelly hurdle to get over before finally deciding to drink the White Kool Aid.
Apple got together with IBM to make a laptop once before, and produced a classic. If they're not going to sell generic OS X I can stick on a Thinkpad, they could at least make a laptop that doesn't make me miss my Thinkpad... Windows and all.
(If you actually need Internet Explorer, now, then you've got an even bigger problem)
It's a traffic monitoring problem.
It doesn't matter how good the cryptosystem you use to call the Pizza Hut nearest the Pentagon is, if you just need to count the trucks leaving the Pizza Hut to tell when there's a burst of late night activity so you can tell the invasion is about to start.
Send fixed size packets, splitting longer syllables into more packets and packing multiple short syllables into single packets.
So don't use the same CPU for the cellphone functions and the general purpose computing platform.
It's the same solution they need for DRM. Don't use the general purpose CPU as anything but a channel between the encrypted CD or streaming website and the codec sealed in epoxy on the audiovisual card. That way you can run ANYTHING on the general purpose computer and the MAFIAA won't care.
Those haven't been digested by the Beast yet, they haven't truly become part of the Yahoo collective and can still be rescued.
Konfabulator, too, please.
Easy promise to keep. Artists don't sign deals with the RIAA. :)
Sure, they gotta keep their hand in now the Sheriff's on the run!
Oh yes, Microsoft is welcome to Yahoo Search.
Please, Google, don't incorporate anything from Yahoo. Please. I'm beggin' you.
We should find out what is the most efficient, and steer our needs toward that.
That's what the market does, if you let it.
Instead of sending troops to control countries that are threatening cheap oil, let the price rise.
If you trust the market, the market will find a cheaper solution than government.
Right-click on the plane and select "edit".
I think you understand exactly what I'm talking about.
The message I was responding to was talking about having different kinds of input devices on laptops being good because it gives you a choice.
An operating system is not just bucket seats and woodgrain steering wheels. Windows is not an option (don't even think about arguing with that one) and until I can get the same variety of commercial desktop software for Linux as I can for OS X then Linux is not an option (don't even start on running Windows in a VM under Linux, or dual booting, I did that stuff for more years than most of the people reading this have been alive, I've had it with that), so there is no choice.