Ask Yahoo how that worked out for them. They purchased rights to Community Season 6 for Yahoo Screen, figuring the enthusiastic fan base would bring in lots of viewers, but they lost a lot of money on the endeavor.
The new Macbook is not aimed at the majority of IT professionals and hobbyists that browse Slashdot. Apple is never going to make a laptop that satisfies that crowd, even if they could stomach the idea of purchasing an Apple product.
The new Macbook is the natural evolution of Apple's philosophy: simplicity. They've made a laptop that mirrors the appliance-centric philosophy that their iPad line has. And admittedly, having one multi-port is kind of neat. It's Apple's version of a docking station.
That said, I am not the target audience for this sort of product either, especially when it's the same price as a much more useful Macbook Pro. But I think the laptop market is large enough to serve most peoples' needs, whether your a sysadmin or a desperate housewife.
I used a Surface Pro 3 for about a week before deciding to return it. I took it back because it didn't quite fit my needs, and I found it to be just an awkward device.
I had mostly hoped to replace an aging Macbook Pro and have a mobile sketchpad. The device works well as a laptop, although I found it tiresome to have to extend the kickstand every time as opposed to just opening a laptop lid. I did not find it a good device for sketching; the interface in Photoshop CS5 (my usual painting program) was absolutely tiny and a pain to navigate around in with the stylus. You often have to switch between the brush, zoom, pan, and layers menus while working in Photoshop, and it quickly became clear that this setup wasn't going to work. This isn't a failure on Microsoft's part, just evidence that mobile sketching either needs to be on a dedicated app - such as the included OneNote (not quite up to snuff) - or on some old tried-and-true pen and paper.
That said, it is incredible what sort of power they've managed to pack into such a thin device. I just think the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" schtick is the wrong route to take.
Does anyone else still prefer the 1975 red typographic "worm" logo NASA used to use? I would have loved to see that in white against a black background at the very end of this trailer.
Maybe it's just a generational thing; most movies trailers can't resist throwing in their titles in Bank Gothic near the end.
Scaremongering was the strategy that got the US embroiled in two fruitless wars in the Middle East. To suggest that giving some "atta'boys" to a group of vigilante hackers could result in a nuclear attack on a major US city is... a little far-fetched.
Governments can play their cat-and-mouse games of cyber warfare all they want, but when they begin restricting the freedoms of their citizenry or invading their privacy without warrants, I'd say some vigilante justice is justified. That wouldn't be the case here as LulzSec is simply out to make a name for itself, and the tech community's frustration with government tracking and foreign policy is an easy flash point.
I do not want my tax dollars going to fund abortions. And even if my tax dollars do not go DIRECTLY toward abortions, if they pay the light bill, they are helping to pay for abortions. See, paying the light bill is money that Planned Parenthood doesn't have to spend, meaning the money can go toward abortions.
Well, I do want my tax dollars going to fund abortions. Representative democracy's a bitch, ain't it?
* I don't believe we actually have a representative democracy.
What might be getting conveniently overlooked in these comments is the shifting audience spectrum that the Mozilla team is aiming for. They already had the nerd evangelists, that's done now. Tech circles have been suggesting Firefox over Internet Explorer for so long that now the less tech-oriented people repeat the same mantra by rote (even if they're not technically inclined enough to know there are better options). These aren't your programmers and developers, these are your tech support agents and Geek Squad employees. They have the keys to the public at large, and they still think Firefox is the bee's knees.
With a larger market share comes a shift in your audience's perspective, simply because you are pulling from a larger pool. The average netizen almost certainly uses Facebook and YouTube, might have a Twitter account, and at least knows what a blog is. Tech evangelists can only convert so many, so the Mozilla team needs more reasons to sway those who buy laptops at CostCo to download Firefox after launching the built-in IE browser. Social media is not going anywhere anytime soon, so integration is a likely step forward.
Your average person does not want to have to work to get his or her web content. Adobe FlashPlayer, Adobe Acrobat Reader, these are things that people encounter on a constant basis on the web. The more work Mozilla does behind the scenes, the more seamless an experience the user enjoys. I've encountered people who simply stopped using Firefox (after having it suggested to them) because their videos wouldn't play, and they didn't know any better about the installation of FlashPlayer; it was simply easier to switch back to the familiar IE.
With a growing market share, this sort of thing was inevitable. Nerds who crave a lightweight, extensible browser will latch on to another product... or we'll all just start using Opera. Actually, I'd like to see what comes of Chromium development. There have already been a couple browsers based on Chromium crop up (one in fact has the major selling point of being a "social media browser"), I'd love to see one based on staying lightweight and furthering extensibility.
There are only a very few things Firefox needs to do to take the mantle of King Browser from Chrome.
Be Faster, or at least as fast as Chrome. Having used the Beta sparingly, just on "feel" and appearance alone, it appears to have accomplished this. Javascript runs fast, and images don't have any of the problems that Chrome seems to have (especially animated gifs).
Be idiot-proof enough to continue taking users away from IE, yet remain moddable enough for power users and their extensions. Needless additions like Panorama tend to ruin this perception.
Support HTML5. The beta doesn't test as well as Chrome currently, but it remains to be seen whether that matters. Both are using WebM now, so video support is a wash. http://html5test.com/
Have a nice, streamlined interface. Fails so far due to: Awkward tabs (unnecessary repetition of Page title in Menu bar and Tab bar) and terrible placement of url hover. I don't mind the removal of the status bar, but it's been established that URL previews should be at the bottom-left of the screen, where we've become accustomed to seeing them with status bars and Safari/Chrome. That being said, Tab management with lots of tabs in Firefox (having the scroll-function) is superior to Chrome's "make every tab tiny so they all fit in the same window" approach.
Honestly it doesn't have to be a perfect browser, as I'm getting ready to ditch Chrome just on the basis of poor image support and the fact that Firefox is FOSS, through-and-through. Scrolling in Firefox is also much nicer than in Chrome. It's all in the details, and since Firefox is nigh-endlessly customizable through extensions, most of those details can be taken care of. It's just a matter of how soon all those extensions get updated for Firefox 4, and how much drag they're going to put on the browser once everything is just the way you want it.
I'd like to propose a defense budget of $0 for 2011. We can negotiate the costs of bringing troops in Afghanistan and all of our other unnecessary worldwide bases back home.
1. It's not just a problem with acting. Hayden Christensen is a perfectly capable actor, but when coupled with George Lucas' stunted writing/directing and an army of Yes-Men, it's near-impossible to pull off a convincing scene. And Anakin was never meant to be a huge dick, he was supposed to be a tragic figure who fell from grace. The way Lucas wrote it, we as an audience never could connect with him to begin with. And you say Natalie Portman did a great job? Did you even WATCH the scene in episode 2 where she delivers the most unprepared, unconvincing "I love you" of cinematography ever? I'm not going to say that Han and Leia's relationship was the epitome of love stories, but at least it occurred naturally over the course of three films.
2. We must have been watching different movies. Anakin's fall to the dark side was as contrived as any other part of the prequels. The scene where Anakin bows to the Emperor? What motivation did he have for doing so? The lack of visuals of Palpatine training Anakin in between the second and third movies also provided little credence to the two's relationship.
Coffee shops aren't your only option for WiFi access these days. My local public library offers it, and I can sit there all goddamn day without spending even the $2 on coffee if I please. If businesses are tired of the WiFi road warriors, we'll go someplace else.
That said, not all coffee shops are as busy as some of the comments here make them out to be. My regular place always has tables open, and admittedly, I'm one of those "bastards" who will buy a cup of coffee and sit for a couple hours net-browsing. Is my regular patronage and positive comments toward the business worth seeing a few less laptop lids open? If it is, I can certainly take my business elsewhere.
All that said, I see nothing wrong with coffee shops taking out their WiFi. But they better be prepared with a customer base that can do without it.
Slashdot Mirror
Ask Yahoo how that worked out for them. They purchased rights to Community Season 6 for Yahoo Screen, figuring the enthusiastic fan base would bring in lots of viewers, but they lost a lot of money on the endeavor.
The new Macbook is not aimed at the majority of IT professionals and hobbyists that browse Slashdot. Apple is never going to make a laptop that satisfies that crowd, even if they could stomach the idea of purchasing an Apple product.
The new Macbook is the natural evolution of Apple's philosophy: simplicity. They've made a laptop that mirrors the appliance-centric philosophy that their iPad line has. And admittedly, having one multi-port is kind of neat. It's Apple's version of a docking station.
That said, I am not the target audience for this sort of product either, especially when it's the same price as a much more useful Macbook Pro. But I think the laptop market is large enough to serve most peoples' needs, whether your a sysadmin or a desperate housewife.
I used a Surface Pro 3 for about a week before deciding to return it. I took it back because it didn't quite fit my needs, and I found it to be just an awkward device.
I had mostly hoped to replace an aging Macbook Pro and have a mobile sketchpad. The device works well as a laptop, although I found it tiresome to have to extend the kickstand every time as opposed to just opening a laptop lid. I did not find it a good device for sketching; the interface in Photoshop CS5 (my usual painting program) was absolutely tiny and a pain to navigate around in with the stylus. You often have to switch between the brush, zoom, pan, and layers menus while working in Photoshop, and it quickly became clear that this setup wasn't going to work. This isn't a failure on Microsoft's part, just evidence that mobile sketching either needs to be on a dedicated app - such as the included OneNote (not quite up to snuff) - or on some old tried-and-true pen and paper.
That said, it is incredible what sort of power they've managed to pack into such a thin device. I just think the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" schtick is the wrong route to take.
Does anyone else still prefer the 1975 red typographic "worm" logo NASA used to use? I would have loved to see that in white against a black background at the very end of this trailer. Maybe it's just a generational thing; most movies trailers can't resist throwing in their titles in Bank Gothic near the end.
Scaremongering was the strategy that got the US embroiled in two fruitless wars in the Middle East. To suggest that giving some "atta'boys" to a group of vigilante hackers could result in a nuclear attack on a major US city is... a little far-fetched.
Governments can play their cat-and-mouse games of cyber warfare all they want, but when they begin restricting the freedoms of their citizenry or invading their privacy without warrants, I'd say some vigilante justice is justified. That wouldn't be the case here as LulzSec is simply out to make a name for itself, and the tech community's frustration with government tracking and foreign policy is an easy flash point.
I do not want my tax dollars going to fund abortions. And even if my tax dollars do not go DIRECTLY toward abortions, if they pay the light bill, they are helping to pay for abortions. See, paying the light bill is money that Planned Parenthood doesn't have to spend, meaning the money can go toward abortions.
Well, I do want my tax dollars going to fund abortions. Representative democracy's a bitch, ain't it?
* I don't believe we actually have a representative democracy.
What might be getting conveniently overlooked in these comments is the shifting audience spectrum that the Mozilla team is aiming for. They already had the nerd evangelists, that's done now. Tech circles have been suggesting Firefox over Internet Explorer for so long that now the less tech-oriented people repeat the same mantra by rote (even if they're not technically inclined enough to know there are better options). These aren't your programmers and developers, these are your tech support agents and Geek Squad employees. They have the keys to the public at large, and they still think Firefox is the bee's knees.
With a larger market share comes a shift in your audience's perspective, simply because you are pulling from a larger pool. The average netizen almost certainly uses Facebook and YouTube, might have a Twitter account, and at least knows what a blog is. Tech evangelists can only convert so many, so the Mozilla team needs more reasons to sway those who buy laptops at CostCo to download Firefox after launching the built-in IE browser. Social media is not going anywhere anytime soon, so integration is a likely step forward.
Your average person does not want to have to work to get his or her web content. Adobe FlashPlayer, Adobe Acrobat Reader, these are things that people encounter on a constant basis on the web. The more work Mozilla does behind the scenes, the more seamless an experience the user enjoys. I've encountered people who simply stopped using Firefox (after having it suggested to them) because their videos wouldn't play, and they didn't know any better about the installation of FlashPlayer; it was simply easier to switch back to the familiar IE.
With a growing market share, this sort of thing was inevitable. Nerds who crave a lightweight, extensible browser will latch on to another product... or we'll all just start using Opera. Actually, I'd like to see what comes of Chromium development. There have already been a couple browsers based on Chromium crop up (one in fact has the major selling point of being a "social media browser"), I'd love to see one based on staying lightweight and furthering extensibility.
Honestly it doesn't have to be a perfect browser, as I'm getting ready to ditch Chrome just on the basis of poor image support and the fact that Firefox is FOSS, through-and-through. Scrolling in Firefox is also much nicer than in Chrome. It's all in the details, and since Firefox is nigh-endlessly customizable through extensions, most of those details can be taken care of. It's just a matter of how soon all those extensions get updated for Firefox 4, and how much drag they're going to put on the browser once everything is just the way you want it.
I'd like to propose a defense budget of $0 for 2011. We can negotiate the costs of bringing troops in Afghanistan and all of our other unnecessary worldwide bases back home.
Finally, someone has discovered a use for 4chan.
My wife didn't see it coming either. Guess that's why I'm sleeping on the couch tonight.
1. It's not just a problem with acting. Hayden Christensen is a perfectly capable actor, but when coupled with George Lucas' stunted writing/directing and an army of Yes-Men, it's near-impossible to pull off a convincing scene. And Anakin was never meant to be a huge dick, he was supposed to be a tragic figure who fell from grace. The way Lucas wrote it, we as an audience never could connect with him to begin with. And you say Natalie Portman did a great job? Did you even WATCH the scene in episode 2 where she delivers the most unprepared, unconvincing "I love you" of cinematography ever? I'm not going to say that Han and Leia's relationship was the epitome of love stories, but at least it occurred naturally over the course of three films.
2. We must have been watching different movies. Anakin's fall to the dark side was as contrived as any other part of the prequels. The scene where Anakin bows to the Emperor? What motivation did he have for doing so? The lack of visuals of Palpatine training Anakin in between the second and third movies also provided little credence to the two's relationship.
Coffee shops aren't your only option for WiFi access these days. My local public library offers it, and I can sit there all goddamn day without spending even the $2 on coffee if I please. If businesses are tired of the WiFi road warriors, we'll go someplace else.
That said, not all coffee shops are as busy as some of the comments here make them out to be. My regular place always has tables open, and admittedly, I'm one of those "bastards" who will buy a cup of coffee and sit for a couple hours net-browsing. Is my regular patronage and positive comments toward the business worth seeing a few less laptop lids open? If it is, I can certainly take my business elsewhere.
All that said, I see nothing wrong with coffee shops taking out their WiFi. But they better be prepared with a customer base that can do without it.
So how many updates until Chrome stops using most of my Mac's CPU and making it sound like a jet engine? Is that Chrome 7? I hope it's 6.