Microsoft did one really smart thing in the Windows Mobile / Pocket PC arena, back in 2000. They invited a bunch of Palm loyalists to Redmond, gave them Pocket PCs, and spent two years doing followups. AND they actually paid attention to the results. I was one of the "Palm Enthusiasts" they picked and I was absolutely amazed how much of our input went into Pocket PC 2002.
Palm responded by inviting us to join the "Palm Influencers" mailing list. Boy was that list mis-named If Palm had actually been listening to their customers for those two years, instead of flushing the company and product line down the drain in an attempt to come up with a Palm OS on steroids that was similar to Windows CE (and failing, twice) they would STILL own the handheld market.
On the other hand, we have Windows Vista and Windows 7 and more and more restrictions on what users can do on their own computers. Does ANYONE go to Microsoft and say "hey, I want you to lock me out of my computer"? No, it's just like Palm's vision of Garnet or Mudstone or whatever they were calling their new OS.
Ballmer: you need to go back and find Beth Goza and Derek Brown, the people who ran that event, and pay them WHATEVER IT TAKES to get them to take over from whoever you have dealing with your Windows customers now. Seriously.
This isn't any different from the Second Life client where third party packagers have to leave out certain closed-source components that Linden Lab uses. When you use them, you take the SL client downloaded from Linden Lab, and add the updated open source components. Most open source clients include an installer now that copies the closed source components from your original SL directory into the new application.
The whole friend thing is kind of an obvious privacy hole, isn't it? I have only used Facebook a little, because I only joined at the request of my brother, and most of my "friends" on Facebook are professional and semi-professional connections. Also, because I only use it to keep up with my brother, I haven't bothered digging into its capabilities... but I certainly would have expected that there was an option to hide your friends list. Even if I was interested in using it more broadly the lack of such a feature would be a deal-killer for me.
It's still a good story, it just takes place in a slightly alternate universe.
Since Vermont was supposed to have passed the first organ bank laws in 1993 (The Jigsaw Man) and the first Mars landing was in 1996 (Eye of an Octopus) I think that's a given.
Pity, really. I was looking forward to learning what Hard and Soft Plith was.
On the other hand, it's probably a good thing that we've gotten past the attitudes displayed in How the Heroes Die.
Back when we though Mercury was tidally locked to the Sun (instead of being tidally locked to the Sun and Venus) Larry Niven wrote a short story "The Coldest Place", in which the backside of Mercury, always facing away from the Sun, was the coldest place in the solar system.
Good guess, Larry. Not quite right, but... good going.
Windows Mobile definitely does the fullscreen-only thing, and that seems to be one of the key differences from the bare CE.Net shell.
Goes all the way back to '98. The Cassiopeia E-10 I inherited from my disgruntled (at Casio, not me) boss at Ferranti had no way to switch apps from full screen to windowed mode. Seems to be a standard thing with the QVGA "Palm[-Sized] PC" devices.
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They share ugly genes.
It was based on a Z80 and ran CP/M, had a vertical case and a pivoting CRT attached to the side.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Oh cool, now I can finally create the signature virus!
And not just in the Windows Mobile arena.
Microsoft did one really smart thing in the Windows Mobile / Pocket PC arena, back in 2000. They invited a bunch of Palm loyalists to Redmond, gave them Pocket PCs, and spent two years doing followups. AND they actually paid attention to the results. I was one of the "Palm Enthusiasts" they picked and I was absolutely amazed how much of our input went into Pocket PC 2002.
Palm responded by inviting us to join the "Palm Influencers" mailing list. Boy was that list mis-named If Palm had actually been listening to their customers for those two years, instead of flushing the company and product line down the drain in an attempt to come up with a Palm OS on steroids that was similar to Windows CE (and failing, twice) they would STILL own the handheld market.
On the other hand, we have Windows Vista and Windows 7 and more and more restrictions on what users can do on their own computers. Does ANYONE go to Microsoft and say "hey, I want you to lock me out of my computer"? No, it's just like Palm's vision of Garnet or Mudstone or whatever they were calling their new OS.
Ballmer: you need to go back and find Beth Goza and Derek Brown, the people who ran that event, and pay them WHATEVER IT TAKES to get them to take over from whoever you have dealing with your Windows customers now. Seriously.
I just want to say <AOL>Me Too</AOL>.
This isn't any different from the Second Life client where third party packagers have to leave out certain closed-source components that Linden Lab uses. When you use them, you take the SL client downloaded from Linden Lab, and add the updated open source components. Most open source clients include an installer now that copies the closed source components from your original SL directory into the new application.
Um, the Microsoft HTML control has been the biggest security hole on the Internet since 1997.
They have big brass ones to complain about anyone else's.
Funny, that's what I do with Windows boxes. Wipe the disk and install free UNIX.
What's the alternative, on Windows? Is there an equivalent to Camino on the Mac with a standard native UI and the Gecko rendering engine?
After Guinan left 10 Forward they couldn't get another Trek endorsement and it collapsed.
I just kept walking and the "Å" climbed up it.
You don't need the portal for the first level at all... it's a "here's how you move and stuff" level.
"Go to any open source software conference and all you see is a sea of MacBook Pro's running Darwin... based on the open source BSD and Mach kernels."
Download the source here.
Maybe the newspapers could start charging Linden Dollars for stories? :)
This is not a joke.
Yes, server side scripting in interpreted COBOL.
Wait, didn't Kirk die?
When I was in college, we weren't even allowed to use calculators with memory, and in some exams we had to use slide rules only.
Someone could be sneaking in exam answers in a ROM that didn't show up until you entered 1337 and hit "=" five times to hide it from the proctors...
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind if I'm ever tempted to use Facebook more seriously.
I kind of prefer the LinkedIn approach where you can't follow the social network at all without getting contacts to link you in step by step.
The whole friend thing is kind of an obvious privacy hole, isn't it? I have only used Facebook a little, because I only joined at the request of my brother, and most of my "friends" on Facebook are professional and semi-professional connections. Also, because I only use it to keep up with my brother, I haven't bothered digging into its capabilities... but I certainly would have expected that there was an option to hide your friends list. Even if I was interested in using it more broadly the lack of such a feature would be a deal-killer for me.
It's still a good story, it just takes place in a slightly alternate universe.
Since Vermont was supposed to have passed the first organ bank laws in 1993 (The Jigsaw Man) and the first Mars landing was in 1996 (Eye of an Octopus) I think that's a given.
Pity, really. I was looking forward to learning what Hard and Soft Plith was.
On the other hand, it's probably a good thing that we've gotten past the attitudes displayed in How the Heroes Die.
Back when we though Mercury was tidally locked to the Sun (instead of being tidally locked to the Sun and Venus) Larry Niven wrote a short story "The Coldest Place", in which the backside of Mercury, always facing away from the Sun, was the coldest place in the solar system.
Good guess, Larry. Not quite right, but ... good going.
at what point did a vibrating nanomushroom become a classical object?
Well, if you don't call it "classical" people are going to think it's porn!
Is there anything they CAN'T do with carbon nanotubes?
But does it run Linux?
DuPont may soon have trouble shooting it down.
Evil. Evil.
Windows Mobile definitely does the fullscreen-only thing, and that seems to be one of the key differences from the bare CE.Net shell.
Goes all the way back to '98. The Cassiopeia E-10 I inherited from my disgruntled (at Casio, not me) boss at Ferranti had no way to switch apps from full screen to windowed mode. Seems to be a standard thing with the QVGA "Palm[-Sized] PC" devices.