I think this shows how important a history of camera making is when it comes to making a quality digital camera.
I had a Sony cybershot 7 years ago (until it was stolen from my hotel room with 2 months worth of travel photos on it). Back then, Sony had the best CCDs due to their video experience, and were putting decent lenses on their cameras too. The low-light performance was fantastic, I've never seen another digital compact come anywhere near it. The traditional camera manufacturers were still way behind on the electronics side, Canon I think got its head start around this time since it was the only company that had been in both the video and still camera market. More recently, Sony have cut their manufacturing costs now that digital cameras are just another consumer electronics item, and their reputation is in the pits, but I'd still rank theirs above some of the Nikon and Kodak cameras at the low end of the market.
Really??? You'd base your choice of an $800+ camera on a list that doesn't give any indication of photo quality or camera usability, but simply indicates the mass volume of pictures taken?
It should be a fairly good indicator. People who take a lot of photos are likely to put a lot of research into choosing their camera. And people who have user-friendly cameras that take good quality pictures are likely to take more photos and post them publically. Both these factors would lead to good cameras being well represented in the stats.
Secondly, I'd be interested to see what information they plan on using.
My guess is that it will look at the profiles the device offers, and either have a database that links combinations of profiles to specific devices, or device types, or more likely it will display certain types of ads when it detects devices offering certain profiles - eg ads for the latest phones for devices that offer headset and modem profiles and not much else, ads for the latest music for devices offering A2DP...
Webstart comes as part of Java 1.4 and later, and was an extra bolt-on for 1.3, at least with the Sun JVM, not so sure about Apple and others.
The webstart application won't be exactly the same as the Applet on the page, as it runs in its own Window, not in a Panel on the webbrowser. It is possible to minimise the differences and write an Applet with a main method to make the jars the same, but at least the startup and shutdown codepaths would be different. In most cases, the developers will write one or the other though. I don't think there is any way other than looking at the webpage source and jnlp file to tell that it is using the same URL for the jar files, and even then the webserver could be checking the Referrer or User-Agent headers to serve different jars from the same URL, so to be sure you'd have to run sha/md5 checks or if the jars are signed, compare the hashes in the signature on the cached jar files.
Webstart applications run in a similar (maybe even identical) sandbox to applets, so to do anything to your system they need to be signed and you'd have to press OK on a signature dialog at startup. If the app is well written, you can still use the bits of it that don't need access outside the sandbox even if you reject the signature.
Altio has right click events. I don't have much experience with others, but I'm surprised you haven't found anything else with them. I've even seen a demo of right click menus in AJAX, though it sometimes popped up the browser's right click menu behind the AJAX one in Firefox.
You click on a link to a jnlp file (basically an XML file that describes what jars make up the application, how to run it, icons, splash screens etc). However this only solves your wanting to run Java web apps outside your browser and putting icons on the desktop/start menu etc. It does not solve any of the other things you'd like to do...
There are cross-platform thin-client network solutions like VNC or Nomachine's NX. They do exactly what the web x.0 wants to do, they do it fast and they do it without all the bloat and packing/unpacking of (essentially very simple) data.
You've got it backwards. VNC and the like send bitmaps across the wire. Bitmaps, even with compression, are more bloated and take more packing and unpacking than simple data. Other reasons to prefer AJAX, Flex, Laszlo, Altio, Nexaweb or other similar frameworks rather than terminal server type products are:
Responsiveness - each mouse click or keystroke and pixel draw does not have to travel the network.
Scalability - the client is doing all the UI work, the server only needs to handle serving and saving the data
Ubiquity - web browsers are everywhere, Flash and Java plugins are nearly everywhere. VNC clients are confined to the IT department's desktops.
Firewalls - most firewalls will let you through on port 80. Many companies clamp down on port 5301 (or whatever)
Also, the article gets it wrong when it states that these frameworks have suddenly started appearing in the last year since AJAX became popular. Aside from Flex, the products I've named above date back to around 2000. They're becoming more visible now that people are starting to see the possibilities of RIAs, but the 6+ year history behind some of these products means they're already stable, quality frameworks with good developer support.
Gambling is still illegal in many states, including mine.
Printing news stories critical of the Government is illegal in China. Both activities are not illegal in many other juristictions. So how is it different?
Will the browser shield require signatures and/or heuristics like virus scanners, and thus get outdated?
With the comment in the article that AJAX applications can be supported by add-ons (as yet undeveloped), I got the impression that the base product needs just one signature - "<script.*(/>|</script>)"
You're misunderstanding the terms of the GPL as they relate to various linking technologies. There are many armchair lawyers on slashdot who like to claim that the GPL only applies to static linking, or that using TCP sockets gets around it etc. But the GPL does not contain any mention of linking technologies or what is and isn't covered, it just talks about "derived works", which is up to the courts to define. In a case where the defendant approached the plaintif about licensing their work commercially then suddenly changed their mind and wrote some dynamic linking or socket based code specifically to "get around" the GPL, I would expect the court to side with the plaintif, since the defendant has shown that they understood from the start that what they wanted to do was not allowed under the GPL, and their intention is plainly to try to circumvent copyright law through technicalities, which the judge is unlikely to approve of.
This may be an issue with the GPL wording though, which leaves this loophole that can be exploited by proprietary developers.
Given that only the GPL gives them the right to exploit this loophole, and that a copyright holder can choose to license their software to whomever they want, can the author just terminate their right to license the code under the GPL? It's not like they've paid for it, so the author is not under any contractual obligation to allow them to exploit loopholes in the license.
Isn't this like me releasing... isn't it similar if I write...
No, because in those cases you are the original author, so you can license the code how you wish. The GPL includes a specific exception for OS libraries that covers the second of these already, BTW.
The problem with this is that it means that mobile users will be less likely to restart their computers - or power them up, for that matter - in meetings, etc., where you don't want to draw attention to yourself with an annoying startup sound.
This is a problem? What are those people doing at the meeting if they have more important things to do (like playing solitaire).
It's a stupid question though, so I you can't blame him for dodging it. The question has as manuy answers as there are people using free software. It doesn't even define whether its talking about developers or end user's building a business on using or selling free software, for example.
I'm probably not a typical user, since I do development on web applications so I'm constantly typing the same URL - the login page for the application I'm currently working on. I find it very convenient to be able to type two letters then hit the down arrow and return, but if the feature wasn't there, I guess I could just bookmark the page. As it is, I don't find the need for bookmarks because autocompletion does the job. Autocompletions for the search box on the other hand, I;ve never really found a use for. Most times when I search, its for something new - things I want all the time I tend to know the URL for, which is one step less than searching and clicking - especially since some search terms I need to go to the second page to get past the search optimization spam.
Address lines are for addressing physical RAM. Virtual memory is not limited by the availability of address lines. Many older (386, 486) cpus could address 4Gb of virtual memory, but only had 26 or 28bit address lines for example, so were limited to 64Mb or 256Mb RAM, which was far more than most people could imagine using.
It's the price we pay for the system of "innoccent until proven guilty", and, at least in my view, is a fair one.
Except if its the case I think it is, the accused are pretty much guilty until proven innocent in the UK, and much of what is being leaked to the media in the US is pointing towards another cock-up by the UK police in response to evidence gained under torture in Pakistan from a murderer on the run who has been released by the Pakistani authorities now that his purpose in the propaganda war has been served. There may be some valid concerns about some of the accused, but it is more likely to turn out like the "ricin plot" from a few years ago - one delusional madman acting alone in concocting a plan that was never going to work - than another 9/11 in planning.
When I've travelled on business, there has been free WiFi in the hotel lobby, but $9.95 per day from the room for wired or wireless access (long term subscriptions are available if you are a frequent traveller, which brings the cost down a lot).
Neither Paris nor Brussels is in Amsterdam though. Travelling to Amsterdam by train you end up spending about an hour in Brussels due to the lack of convenient connections between the Eurostar and the trains to Amsterdam, and a further 3 hours on the train from Brussels to Amsterdam.
if XUL catches on as a means for rich interfaces for remote applications, Microsoft will just write their own implementation
They did, it's called XAML and has about the same rate of adoption as XUL. The problem with both of these languages is that they are markup languages targetted at programmers. Programmers don't want markup languages, they want programming languages. UI Designers want markup languages, but they are not programmers so languages like XUL with its reliance on Javascript to do anything useful, and XAML which is basically the Win32 API written in XML, are not useful for them.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this shows how important a history of camera making is when it comes to making a quality digital camera.
I had a Sony cybershot 7 years ago (until it was stolen from my hotel room with 2 months worth of travel photos on it). Back then, Sony had the best CCDs due to their video experience, and were putting decent lenses on their cameras too. The low-light performance was fantastic, I've never seen another digital compact come anywhere near it. The traditional camera manufacturers were still way behind on the electronics side, Canon I think got its head start around this time since it was the only company that had been in both the video and still camera market. More recently, Sony have cut their manufacturing costs now that digital cameras are just another consumer electronics item, and their reputation is in the pits, but I'd still rank theirs above some of the Nikon and Kodak cameras at the low end of the market.
Really??? You'd base your choice of an $800+ camera on a list that doesn't give any indication of photo quality or camera usability, but simply indicates the mass volume of pictures taken?
It should be a fairly good indicator. People who take a lot of photos are likely to put a lot of research into choosing their camera. And people who have user-friendly cameras that take good quality pictures are likely to take more photos and post them publically. Both these factors would lead to good cameras being well represented in the stats.
Secondly, I'd be interested to see what information they plan on using.
My guess is that it will look at the profiles the device offers, and either have a database that links combinations of profiles to specific devices, or device types, or more likely it will display certain types of ads when it detects devices offering certain profiles - eg ads for the latest phones for devices that offer headset and modem profiles and not much else, ads for the latest music for devices offering A2DP...
Or better yet, Heroin(TM)
Webstart comes as part of Java 1.4 and later, and was an extra bolt-on for 1.3, at least with the Sun JVM, not so sure about Apple and others.
The webstart application won't be exactly the same as the Applet on the page, as it runs in its own Window, not in a Panel on the webbrowser. It is possible to minimise the differences and write an Applet with a main method to make the jars the same, but at least the startup and shutdown codepaths would be different. In most cases, the developers will write one or the other though. I don't think there is any way other than looking at the webpage source and jnlp file to tell that it is using the same URL for the jar files, and even then the webserver could be checking the Referrer or User-Agent headers to serve different jars from the same URL, so to be sure you'd have to run sha/md5 checks or if the jars are signed, compare the hashes in the signature on the cached jar files.
Webstart applications run in a similar (maybe even identical) sandbox to applets, so to do anything to your system they need to be signed and you'd have to press OK on a signature dialog at startup. If the app is well written, you can still use the bits of it that don't need access outside the sandbox even if you reject the signature.
Altio has right click events. I don't have much experience with others, but I'm surprised you haven't found anything else with them. I've even seen a demo of right click menus in AJAX, though it sometimes popped up the browser's right click menu behind the AJAX one in Firefox.
You click on a link to a jnlp file (basically an XML file that describes what jars make up the application, how to run it, icons, splash screens etc). However this only solves your wanting to run Java web apps outside your browser and putting icons on the desktop/start menu etc. It does not solve any of the other things you'd like to do...
There are cross-platform thin-client network solutions like VNC or Nomachine's NX. They do exactly what the web x.0 wants to do, they do it fast and they do it without all the bloat and packing/unpacking of (essentially very simple) data.
You've got it backwards. VNC and the like send bitmaps across the wire. Bitmaps, even with compression, are more bloated and take more packing and unpacking than simple data. Other reasons to prefer AJAX, Flex, Laszlo, Altio, Nexaweb or other similar frameworks rather than terminal server type products are:
Also, the article gets it wrong when it states that these frameworks have suddenly started appearing in the last year since AJAX became popular. Aside from Flex, the products I've named above date back to around 2000. They're becoming more visible now that people are starting to see the possibilities of RIAs, but the 6+ year history behind some of these products means they're already stable, quality frameworks with good developer support.
Gambling is still illegal in many states, including mine.
Printing news stories critical of the Government is illegal in China. Both activities are not illegal in many other juristictions. So how is it different?
Will the browser shield require signatures and/or heuristics like virus scanners, and thus get outdated?
With the comment in the article that AJAX applications can be supported by add-ons (as yet undeveloped), I got the impression that the base product needs just one signature - "<script.*(/>|</script>)"
You're misunderstanding the terms of the GPL as they relate to various linking technologies. There are many armchair lawyers on slashdot who like to claim that the GPL only applies to static linking, or that using TCP sockets gets around it etc. But the GPL does not contain any mention of linking technologies or what is and isn't covered, it just talks about "derived works", which is up to the courts to define. In a case where the defendant approached the plaintif about licensing their work commercially then suddenly changed their mind and wrote some dynamic linking or socket based code specifically to "get around" the GPL, I would expect the court to side with the plaintif, since the defendant has shown that they understood from the start that what they wanted to do was not allowed under the GPL, and their intention is plainly to try to circumvent copyright law through technicalities, which the judge is unlikely to approve of.
This may be an issue with the GPL wording though, which leaves this loophole that can be exploited by proprietary developers.
Given that only the GPL gives them the right to exploit this loophole, and that a copyright holder can choose to license their software to whomever they want, can the author just terminate their right to license the code under the GPL? It's not like they've paid for it, so the author is not under any contractual obligation to allow them to exploit loopholes in the license.
Isn't this like me releasing ... isn't it similar if I write ...
No, because in those cases you are the original author, so you can license the code how you wish. The GPL includes a specific exception for OS libraries that covers the second of these already, BTW.
Inexpensive service that should work well.
That should work well... if your intention is to make your potential customers think you are stalking them!
The problem with this is that it means that mobile users will be less likely to restart their computers - or power them up, for that matter - in meetings, etc., where you don't want to draw attention to yourself with an annoying startup sound.
This is a problem? What are those people doing at the meeting if they have more important things to do (like playing solitaire).
It's a stupid question though, so I you can't blame him for dodging it. The question has as manuy answers as there are people using free software. It doesn't even define whether its talking about developers or end user's building a business on using or selling free software, for example.
I'm probably not a typical user, since I do development on web applications so I'm constantly typing the same URL - the login page for the application I'm currently working on. I find it very convenient to be able to type two letters then hit the down arrow and return, but if the feature wasn't there, I guess I could just bookmark the page. As it is, I don't find the need for bookmarks because autocompletion does the job. Autocompletions for the search box on the other hand, I;ve never really found a use for. Most times when I search, its for something new - things I want all the time I tend to know the URL for, which is one step less than searching and clicking - especially since some search terms I need to go to the second page to get past the search optimization spam.
Address lines are for addressing physical RAM. Virtual memory is not limited by the availability of address lines. Many older (386, 486) cpus could address 4Gb of virtual memory, but only had 26 or 28bit address lines for example, so were limited to 64Mb or 256Mb RAM, which was far more than most people could imagine using.
It's the price we pay for the system of "innoccent until proven guilty", and, at least in my view, is a fair one.
Except if its the case I think it is, the accused are pretty much guilty until proven innocent in the UK, and much of what is being leaked to the media in the US is pointing towards another cock-up by the UK police in response to evidence gained under torture in Pakistan from a murderer on the run who has been released by the Pakistani authorities now that his purpose in the propaganda war has been served. There may be some valid concerns about some of the accused, but it is more likely to turn out like the "ricin plot" from a few years ago - one delusional madman acting alone in concocting a plan that was never going to work - than another 9/11 in planning.
When I've travelled on business, there has been free WiFi in the hotel lobby, but $9.95 per day from the room for wired or wireless access (long term subscriptions are available if you are a frequent traveller, which brings the cost down a lot).
Neither Paris nor Brussels is in Amsterdam though. Travelling to Amsterdam by train you end up spending about an hour in Brussels due to the lack of convenient connections between the Eurostar and the trains to Amsterdam, and a further 3 hours on the train from Brussels to Amsterdam.
The train from London to Amsterdam takes all day. Business travellers like you are not taking it in droves.
Yes, but can emacs tell you what it's like to kiss a girl?
I tried and it answered my question with another question, which is pretty much what girls are like isn't it? (so I hear).
Secondly, if a Mac OS X machine is on long enough, time will cease to progress becuase of the 2nd statement above!
Oh shit! You mean in 58 million years my Mac will stop functioning?!!! Damn those stupid programmers, why didn't they think of that?
if XUL catches on as a means for rich interfaces for remote applications, Microsoft will just write their own implementation
They did, it's called XAML and has about the same rate of adoption as XUL. The problem with both of these languages is that they are markup languages targetted at programmers. Programmers don't want markup languages, they want programming languages. UI Designers want markup languages, but they are not programmers so languages like XUL with its reliance on Javascript to do anything useful, and XAML which is basically the Win32 API written in XML, are not useful for them.