The only thing missing from Camino and Safari (or any browser, for that matter) is the filtering power of iCab.
Use iCab for a week, and use the filtering power.
Want to always save cookies from Slashdot, refuse cookies from Doubleclick.net, and expire others at the end of the session? Done.
Want to identify to your bank as Netscape 7.0 and all other sites as iCab 2.9? Done.
Want to filter out images coming from a server named *.ads.*, or images that link to *.sponsor.*? Done.
Want to allow your favorite anime site to open new windows on opening, allow a pictures site to open pictures in new windows on clicking, and refuse pop-ups from everyone else? Done.
Yes, I realize that Mozilla can do a lot of this, but iCab provides a relatively easy to use graphical interface to all of this.
I think the world would be a much better place if people took a look at iCab's Filter Manager.
[I still use iCab for about 60% of my browsing, with Safari taking up the rest. iCab is just getting too slow and is not compatible with enough stuff]
As I listed in a previous post, what I want is a personal network. I want everything to work (via BlueTooth, 802.11x, whatever) so that everything on me works together.
A storage device that holds songs for my MP3 player, data for my Palm device, and stores photos taken with my digital camera.
The ability then to display pictures from my digital camera onto my Palm device.
Being able to not only sync my cell phone and Palm device, but have them actually use the same information saved on the storage device (or on each other if I am not carrying around the storage device at the moment)
I cannot imagine this is that hard to do. I would like to see speeds faster than BlueTooth for a lot of these things, though. What would the advantage of having my Palm device talk to a 3G cell phone vie BlueTooth? You would lose a good amount of speed right there.
The other big thing would be the ability to not have the central server/storage and still have all of the devices speak to each other.
I also use Pair.com and have been very happy with the service. I have been using them for about 1.5 years. A few weeks back I started following the pair.* newsgroups on their nntp server and found them very helpful in those forums.
About the only problem I have had with them is thier attempt at Spam filtering on incoming mail. It is set up so that it will use their Qmail system. Trying to get procmail up and running has been difficult.
I have a strange arragenment - my job provides my housing, my food, my utilities, and my Internet access. I also get pretty good benifits since I am a government employee.
So here is a question: Suppose you were getting two paychecks a month ($1400 a month take-home) - What would you spend your money on?
Currently I pay $40/month on cell phone, $50/month on student loans, and put away $100/month in retirement (401k equivilent). I should kick the retirement fund up, and will do so in the next few weeks. I spend about $100/month on food (going out, snacks, so on...) I spend two weeks each summer in the Virgin Islands. I do some travelling, but I am pretty good about finding fares, so that is not a major cost on the year. That leaves me about $1000/month with almost no more bills.
I buy my share of tech gizmos and other toys, but feel like I could be doing more with the money.
So any suggestions?
(Oh, and to make you feel even better about my job - I have two weeks at Christmas, a week for spring break, and two months off every summer).
People here are saying that you could get a normal SOHO router and get that set up (which will work). The other option, for less money, would be to pick up an ethernet card (assuming you have a PCI Mac with a free slot).
Run the cable modem into one ethernet port (on-board, for example) and run out to the hub off the other ethernet port. Using Internet Sharing, you can even allow the other computers on the network to use the cable modem as their Internet access (and set up the Mac to act as a firewall).
Total cost will be about $20 for the card, as opposed to about $80 for the router.
I remember running VisiCalc on my Apple//c (128k RAM, integrated 5.25" drive).
VisiCalc came in a green and white small binder, if I remember correctly. It help me learn some of the basics of spreadsheet software. I imagine I still have the binder and disk(s?) around somewhere.
From the license agreement: 1) use the Program for your personal use, not commercially,
So much for basing my business on VisiCalc these days...
I also recently downloaded a DOS game, TankWars (before Scorched Earth, for anyone that played that) and have been playing it frequently on my office computer.
There's no way Apple would allow it, because God forbid they'd actually have to do something competitive.
You have to be kidding me! Apple was what, about a 3-5% market share in a field dominated by a convicted monopoly? They are in one of the most cut-throat industries out there.
Apple competes daily against people like Dell and Gateway. When you are selling your product at $1200 (iMac) against other products that are about $600 for basically the same hardware feature, you better believe you are competing with something. Otherwise you are going to go out of business really quickly.
And I doubt we'll see any increase in their marketshare, no matter how deserved it may be, until they get off their freaking high horse and start actually trying to compete in the open market.
Yeah, maybe if they would build a better laptop or get a 1U product out there they would be doing better. Oh wait...
Like I said - Apple is competing. They are not competing against other PPC manufacturers, they are competing against the Wintel monopoly.
Apple stopped the clone business for a reason - Apple ended up trying to compete with the clone makers. As a result, they were ignoring their real competitors (the ones that could drive them out of business) - Dell, Compaq, Gateway, and others.
The clone business did not expand their 5%, it just split up that 5% among the clone manufacturers and Apple, meaning that Apple was not getting near as much revenue.
You will not see a major increase in Apple marketshare because it is competing against a monopoly in software and a very cut-throat industry in hardware.
So Apple is happy with billions sitting around in cash, making machines for people that are willing to pay a premium.
On the original Slashdot article, people pointed out that the number of songs was unreasonable - it was more songs than Amazon carrys, by several factors of ten.
So my question - I suppose that the "list of files" contained multiple duplicates. Can you imagine how many individual copies of a given Eminem song MP3 there would be on a college campus?
Given that he mantained a list of networked files, and there were bound to be duplicates, how can the RIAA sue for (the number of songs in the list) x $150,000 (the maximum per song)?
if there were three copies of Dave Matthews Band's "Crash", would that not be suing for $450,000 for one song?
What are you talking about?
on
LCD Price Fixing?
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· Score: 2, Informative
I was just shopping this week for a third LCD screen. I already have a 17" Apple and a 15" NEC.
I found a Mag 14" for $150 after rebate at Best Buy!
Also at Best Buy: A off-name 17" LCD for $350. I paid close to $900 for my 17" LCD only a year ago. You can now pick up a 17" Samsung for $400!
I had an Apple//gs in high school, and was using GS/OS for some of that work (a lot of the other stuff was in ProDOS). I still have manuals from the gs. I still have the gs, but need to find a 3.5" drive for it to get it working.
A couple of years ago I picked up an entire box for Windows 1.0 The screen shots are amazing when you compare it against the//gs screen shots in that manual. You can see how Apple sued Microsoft.
The problem with all of these combination devices is that no device is going to do everything well. I have a somewhat small wrist and larger watches seem huge. At the same time, I want a large color display for my PDA.
These two things work against each other.
The display on my phone is not important (especially if I can use it as a simple modem for my PDA), but the button size is. I do not want a combination PDA and phone (think Treo and others) since I want a small phone (since I carry that on me at all times) and will take a somewhat larger PDA since I can choose to carry that or not.
So I want a small display phone with non-small buttons. I want a PDA with a large color display (I currently have at Clie 665c to give an example). I want a small watch with small buttons (I have a Nike Triax 42) I want a small camera with a decent display and good optics (I have a Canon S200) I want a MP3 player with a decent display and small size (I have an iPod)
One thing I really want is a Bluetooth-like personal network. If I pull out my PDA, I want it to sense my cell phone in my pocket and use it to connect to the internet. I want my PDA to recognize my camera and download pictures from that. if I have a laptop with me, I want it to do the same thing.
So available wireless internet is one thing, but I would rather have workable, wireless personal networks (meaning on my body).
Even better would be the ability to have a neetworked storage device somewhere (wallet, etc) that could work as a networked storage device for everything else I am carrying at once. No more carrying a 10gig iPod, a PDA with a 128meg MemoryStick and a camera with a 128meg CompacFlash card. Ideally the iPod would simply be used as storage by all devices without wires.
This would allow easy modularity without trying to pack everything into once device.
[If someone tries to patent this idea in the future, I suppose my idea cannot be used as prior art. I think I have to actually implement the idea, right? Any non-lawyers out there want to comment?]
If you are near Chicago or Milwalkee, check out American Science & Surplus for all of your unneeded science surplus stuff.
I have been to the Chicago store and wandered around for a good couple of hours. I need to get to the smaller store near Fermilab (although I have heard it is not as big)
As more and more employees are using products like AIM to communicate, there is a definte need for some accountability with this communication, especially with security and logging.
If I call someone else in the company, the PBX system (or whatever else is in use) can be set up to log the call. Email is very easily tracked and logged.
AIM conversations, however, use a third-party for most of the communication. Logging is not great in most clients.
The article mentions an enterprise solution developed by IBM to help with that, and I think that there is a market for AOL to get into. Provide a plug-and-play either hardware or software solution that allows internal AIM traffic to remain encrypted on the internal network (internal Buddy Lists and so on) and completely logged. There would also have to be a way for the system to work with other AIM users not on the internal network.
The nice thing about a solution like that would be that the logging and traffic could be completely internal, and the company could place restrictions on outside traffic (no file transfers from the outside, for example).
I bought the full version of BBEdit back when they were having specils for upgrades from BBEditLite for something like $69. This was under OS 8, so it was a version or so ago.
When I moved to OS X Bare Bones was requiring me to purchase another (discounted) full version, so I stuck with BBEditLite under OS X.
Lite was doing about 95% of what I wanted. I missed some of the features of the full version, but definitely not enough to pay $100+ to get them. The few features I was looking for could be replaced by other methods (Although admittedly not nearly as well as having them integrated into BBEdit). I kept wondering why I saw the full version being updated regularly and BBEditLite not getting updates (In the past BareBones was good about releasing bug fixes for the Lite version within a day or two of the full version).
Now I am not sure if I am going to shell out $50 for TextWrangler. That would mean that I would be paying a total of over $100 to BareBones in the past few years and getting fewer features than their full product.
I am leaning towards doing it, though, since I know the BareBones people to be good people. It is often I will see one of their developers posting on comp.sys.mac.* to answer questions about BBEdit and MailSmith (their mail client).
They also sent me a nice T-shirt many years ago for building my web site with BBEdit...
You are missing what the original poster wanted, though. He is referring not to the "Open in new Window" menu command, but rather the JavaScript command. Suppose I am working in a tabbed browser, and I have all my open pages in one window, under five tabs.
I click on a link that has a JavaScript command to open in a new window. Note that I never wanted it to open in a new window, the web designer decided that. So now I am suck with two open windows, one with five tabs, and one with one tab.
I would rather have the JavaScript command instead open the new page in a new tab, meaning I would have one open window with six tabs.
That is the choice the original poster was talking about. I want to decide where the link goes, and not have the web designer decide for me.
Now some would say the problem with my Palm software is an issue for Palm Inc., not Apple. In fact the buggy Palm software demonstrates an important issue that is currently facing Apple -- third party manufacturers have stopped caring about Mac users. Software developed for the Macintosh platform is often a last-minute consideration, or worse, not even considered at all.
As the owner of a Sony Clie, I do agree that sometimes hardware manufacturers forget about Mac owners. Of course, then someone steps in and creates the excelent program like TheMissingSync, which allows mac users to sync with their unsupported Clies.
Apple, in the meantime, realizes there is a problem with Palm support on the Mac, and creates iCal and iSync.
Imagine that - I have choices when syncing my Clie. I can use Palm Desktop (which I rather like) or I can use iCal/iSync.
Choices are good!
The problem with lacklustre third party development has prompted Apple to create its own browser, which it calls Safari. Some industry watchers feel the development and release of Safari is an indication that Apple is being forced to become more actively involved in software development.
Some argue this is a result of Apple trying to ween itself off of its reliance on Microsoft. Imaging that - Apple big enough that it is willing to start taking on Microsoft. Keynote, which he ignores, can also be seen as a shot across Microsoft's bow. If nothing else, it can at least be seen as Jobs telling Bill to make sure and continue development on the Mac platform.
The Mac platform is a huge money-maker for Microsoft. Safari and Keynote are a win-or-win idea for Apple. Either it provokes competition from Microsoft and others in the field (competition being good for the consumer) or it eliminates some of the reliance Apple has on Microsoft right now. Both of these outcomes are good for Apple.
In its latest numbers released in January for its fiscal first quarter of 2003, revenue fell from a year earlier and all of the company's major computer lines saw diminished numbers. PowerMac sales were down 20%, while iBook sales fell 8%.
I notice that he conviniently neglected to give sales figures for all Macintoshes, and ignored Xserve and the Powerbook line, both of which are doing well for Apple. The computers he mentions are also nearing the end of their life cycle. The iBook is in need of an update, and the PowerMac line has not seen a huge jump since the first Quicksilver machines (yes, they have done things like dual optical drives and faster memory, but when it comes down to it, they are very similar). Only recently were the PowerMacs updated with Firewire800 and Bluetooth.
He also neglects to mention that, according to most analysts, Apple is weathering the recession a lot better than most other tech firms.
Point 1: CD speed (both reading and writing) is measured in data/time. In this case it is measured in chunks of 150kb/s. That is to say that a 2x CD-ROM drive could read 300kilobytes per second.
Point 2: You make reference to this - angular velocity and linear velocity are going to be different based on where you are on the CD.
The outer tracks obviously hold more data - the track length is longer ("track length" probably not the technical term, but I am using it to mean how far it is around at a certain spot on the CD). Using our familiar Circumference = (2 * r * pi) formula, we can see that as the radius increases (the distance away from the center of the CD), the length of the track length increases, as well.
CDs store data as digital data stored in non-reflective pits on an otherwise reflective surface. These pits are a certain distance apart. This distance does not change as you get father out, and the size of the pits is a constant, as well.
Think about cars parked in a spiral pattern. The farther you get out from the middle, the more cars are in each loop.
So what does this mean for our CD-RW? Toward the middle of the CD, the CD is spinning at a certain constant rate. However, only so many pits are going by each second. For a 52x CD-RW, there are about (24) x (150kb) each second. As the laser moves out (since CDs burn from inside to the outside), the CD RPM stays the same, but now there are more pits flying by each second. Towards the outside, there are (52) x (150kb) each second.
So the angular velocity (RPMs) does not change that much while burning. The linear velocity, however (how many pits are going by) changes greatly, more than twice as much.
This is actually somewhat of an over-simplification, since modern CD-RWs use a mix of both CAV and CLV technologies.
Two (or three) interesting side notes: DVDs work using several more technologies, but the end result is the same. For one thing, the pits used in DVDs are much smaller, as are the tracks. This allows a lot more information to be stored on a single DVD. In addition, DVDs are capable of using multiple layers using different laser wavelengths. So when the DVD player changes layers, the laser changes wavelengths, allowing it to "ignore" the pits on the first layer and instead read the pits on the second layer.
In addition, DVD drives are measured using a different unit than CDs. At 150kb/s, a DVD would be an extremely fast CD drive reading off a DVD. A single layer DVD read at 1x is about 1.321 MB/s. More information about the speeds between CDs and DVDs can be found on the DVD FAQ
An interesting historical note: Laserdiscs could be found in both CLV and CAV formats. CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) discs came first, and had one frame per revolution (or maybe more, but there was a ratio between frames and revolutions). CLV (Constanst Linear Velocity) discs came later, and used a technology closer to CDs - allowing multiple frames per revolution, with the rate being based more on location on the disk. This allows for more information per disc (thus Laserdisc being called "CAV Standard" and "CLV Extended Play"
And hopefully this has been "more than you ever wanted to know about angular and linear velocity of optical discs."
I posted a journal article about the "AlBook as a pimped out iBook" idea when they first come out. Some thoughts:
My first reaction when hearing about the new 12 ince PowerBook is the effects that would have on high-end iBooks. Some Slashdot comments were dead on the money with their question.
Then I read the specs. I have been looking for a computer to replace my aging PowerBook Duo 2300c. I want something small and useful. I have a full desktop that I will be using 90% of the time, the laptop would be a stop-gap between times when the Clie 665C is too little and moving my desktop is way too much. The laptop would supplement the desktop, and not come close to replacing it.
I do quite a bit of flying, so a DVD player was a requirement. Size was also an issue. I would rather have a smaller laptop that I can bring more places.
I had been seriously looking at the iBooks, mostly around the middle of the line. The size advantage they had on the full PowerBooks was nice, as was the price. In the end, with DVD player and an Airport card, I was looking at spending about $1500 on the iBook. I decided that when I got the money together, I would buy one.
I am glad I waited. The features that the new 12 inch PowerBook has over the iBook is enough that I want to get it instead. The size difference is also very nice.
What does this mean? This means that I am going to be buying on the the smaller PowerBooks (at a cost of about $2000) instead of the $1500 iBook. So Apple ends up with about $500 more of my money - money I am glad to give them because of the new product.
I know in Japan and in a lot of fields there is a large demand for smaller sub-notebooks. I think that the 12 inch PowerBook fills that nicely. I think that Apple will have a hit on their hand, even more so than the 17 inch model.
I do have to say that the price-drops on the 14 inch iBooks are nice, as well, and make them all the more tempting.
Ahh, the joys of having too many choices. Apple is doing well, I think.
Since that time a student of mine showed me his new 12" AlBook. I only held it for a minute - any longer and I fear that I would just run off with it. The form factor is perfect, the weight is perfect. It is a wonderful machine.
My conclusion? Who cares if it could be described as n iBook on steroids? It is a wonderful second computer to compliment (not replace) a full dektop machine.
The original iMac "announced 1998.05.06; North American release on 1998.08.15 at $1,299; replaced by Revision B in mid-October 1998"
So it has been a little under five years.
The Blue & White G3, the first professional line Mac without a floppy:
"G3/300 introduced 1999.01.05 at US$1,599; discontinued 1999.06."
So that was only about four years ago.
For a while I was looking to build a FreeBSD box. Being a big Mac fan, I did not see a need for a floppy. It is difficult to find cases that do not basically require a 3.5" floppy drive. I was trying to go legacy-free, but the selection of motherboards was lacking.
I have seen way too many floppies fail over the year. They are good for basic SneakerNets, but can never be relied on for things like archival and for rescue disks.
I take exception to the idea that no other web browser does the cookie management similar to OmniWeb. iCab, also available for Mac OS X does exactly this.
I paid for one about one year ago today. I did not even have to pay for it.
iCab, for the Mac, is still in Preview release form. Eventually they hope to start charging for the final release. When they opened up an optional payment system, I grabbed my credit card the first hour I heard about it.
Why? I like iCab. It does what I want it to. It has feature integration unlike any other browser I have seen. It was one of the first to block pop-ups. Its built-in ad filtering is still next to none, and it had that years ago. The level of control over the browser is simply amazing in a fairly easy to use preferences dialog box (instead of entering information into a text window a la Mozilla and others).
As a point of comparison, I have used Mozilla, IE, K-Meleon, Chimera, Safari, and others.
iCab has its drawbacks, for certain (CSS rendering), but it is good enough to warrant me giving money for its continued development.
Among its contentions: Municipal telecoms hurt a town's tax base and may violate the First Amendment by placing the distribution of media content under government ownership.
Huh?
"You are destroying the tax base! I mean, instead of us getting the money and you, the governemnt, getting a percentage in taxes, you get it all! That is not good economics for the government!"
Does that make any sense?
In addition, how much tax base does a huge corporation like BellSouth or AOL/TW really create in a small town like Glasgow?
Also, I am guessing that the residents of Glasgow have the opportunity to get cable or at least satellite television from elsewhere, meaning that the government provides media distribution, but only as one of many choices.
As a resident of Kentucky, I am glad to see things like this going on in the state.
There is a difference, though. When people hand money over to Microsoft in exchange for a product, that is not only an economic transaction, that is a legal transaction, as well.
A lot of states require, for example, a minimum amount of time for a customer to be able to return defective merchandise. When the company sells you a product, the company is agreeing to several legal responsibilities.
When I give you a gift, I am not held legally responsible for that gift (unless the gift is illegal or stolen in the first place).
With OSS software, there is no exchange of money with the author, so there is a lot less legal groundwork to work with.
Places like RedHat, though, would be in a difficult situation, since they are selling a product.
Your point about fixing the bug is an interesting one. Suppose Ford had discovered that there was a problem with the interaction between their tires and their vehicles, and then announced that they would replace the tires in a minor PR release somewhere. Suppose they required you to drive the vehicle to its originating factory (most likely Louisville, KY for Explorers) to be replaced.
I think the government could argue that Ford did not do the appropriate thing to rectify a known problem.
I am not too familiar with the MS SQL fix, but apparently it was not only difficult to install, but it was also broken by a later patch. That moves some of the responsibility from the sysadmin back onto Microsoft at that point, I would think.
So in the end, I think it would be best to hold companies accountable for mistakes they knowingly should have fixed, and made those fixes easy to work with (within reason).
(And, for factual clarification - most later simulations of the Ford/Firestone tire incidents leads to the conclusion that while the tires blew out more often than normal, and that the Explorer, like almost any SUV, tends to roll over more often than a car, most of the incidents were probably a result of driver error in correcting from a blown tire. Most drivers apparently slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel, which will cause an SUV to roll even without a blown tire).
How is that any different than the OS X interface on top of a *BSD?
On my OS X machine I get uptimes in the 20+ days range, with the only reason for downtimes are upgrades.
I have had three kernel panics in the 10 months I have had it. I trashed the application that was causing them and have not had one in seven months.
So stability is definitely there in OS X as it is.
The price point of Linux? Suppose someone came out with a truly great GUI for Linux, one that allowed you to run MS Office and Photoshop on it natively. Suppose they also made sure that DRM was not an issue. Would you pay $130 for that GUI, even if it was closed source?
I would say that with OS X as it is now there is no reason for buying Microsoft ever again.
And, as a disclaimer, I run Fink on my OS X box with X11 and Gnome. In addition, I have had LinuxPPC installed on some of my older boxes, and I am getting a FreeBSD/x86 machine up and running soon.
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing missing from Camino and Safari (or any browser, for that matter) is the filtering power of iCab.
Use iCab for a week, and use the filtering power.
Want to always save cookies from Slashdot, refuse cookies from Doubleclick.net, and expire others at the end of the session? Done.
Want to identify to your bank as Netscape 7.0 and all other sites as iCab 2.9? Done.
Want to filter out images coming from a server named *.ads.*, or images that link to *.sponsor.*? Done.
Want to allow your favorite anime site to open new windows on opening, allow a pictures site to open pictures in new windows on clicking, and refuse pop-ups from everyone else? Done.
Yes, I realize that Mozilla can do a lot of this, but iCab provides a relatively easy to use graphical interface to all of this.
I think the world would be a much better place if people took a look at iCab's Filter Manager.
[I still use iCab for about 60% of my browsing, with Safari taking up the rest. iCab is just getting too slow and is not compatible with enough stuff]
As I listed in a previous post, what I want is a personal network. I want everything to work (via BlueTooth, 802.11x, whatever) so that everything on me works together.
A storage device that holds songs for my MP3 player, data for my Palm device, and stores photos taken with my digital camera.
The ability then to display pictures from my digital camera onto my Palm device.
Being able to not only sync my cell phone and Palm device, but have them actually use the same information saved on the storage device (or on each other if I am not carrying around the storage device at the moment)
I cannot imagine this is that hard to do. I would like to see speeds faster than BlueTooth for a lot of these things, though. What would the advantage of having my Palm device talk to a 3G cell phone vie BlueTooth? You would lose a good amount of speed right there.
The other big thing would be the ability to not have the central server/storage and still have all of the devices speak to each other.
I also use Pair.com and have been very happy with the service. I have been using them for about 1.5 years. A few weeks back I started following the pair.* newsgroups on their nntp server and found them very helpful in those forums.
About the only problem I have had with them is thier attempt at Spam filtering on incoming mail. It is set up so that it will use their Qmail system. Trying to get procmail up and running has been difficult.
I have a strange arragenment - my job provides my housing, my food, my utilities, and my Internet access. I also get pretty good benifits since I am a government employee.
So here is a question: Suppose you were getting two paychecks a month ($1400 a month take-home) - What would you spend your money on?
Currently I pay $40/month on cell phone, $50/month on student loans, and put away $100/month in retirement (401k equivilent). I should kick the retirement fund up, and will do so in the next few weeks. I spend about $100/month on food (going out, snacks, so on...) I spend two weeks each summer in the Virgin Islands. I do some travelling, but I am pretty good about finding fares, so that is not a major cost on the year. That leaves me about $1000/month with almost no more bills.
I buy my share of tech gizmos and other toys, but feel like I could be doing more with the money.
So any suggestions?
(Oh, and to make you feel even better about my job - I have two weeks at Christmas, a week for spring break, and two months off every summer).
People here are saying that you could get a normal SOHO router and get that set up (which will work). The other option, for less money, would be to pick up an ethernet card (assuming you have a PCI Mac with a free slot).
Run the cable modem into one ethernet port (on-board, for example) and run out to the hub off the other ethernet port. Using Internet Sharing, you can even allow the other computers on the network to use the cable modem as their Internet access (and set up the Mac to act as a firewall).
Total cost will be about $20 for the card, as opposed to about $80 for the router.
Either one will work.
I remember running VisiCalc on my Apple //c (128k RAM, integrated 5.25" drive).
VisiCalc came in a green and white small binder, if I remember correctly. It help me learn some of the basics of spreadsheet software. I imagine I still have the binder and disk(s?) around somewhere.
From the license agreement:
1) use the Program for your personal use, not commercially,
So much for basing my business on VisiCalc these days...
I also recently downloaded a DOS game, TankWars (before Scorched Earth, for anyone that played that) and have been playing it frequently on my office computer.
There's no way Apple would allow it, because God forbid they'd actually have to do something competitive.
You have to be kidding me! Apple was what, about a 3-5% market share in a field dominated by a convicted monopoly? They are in one of the most cut-throat industries out there.
Apple competes daily against people like Dell and Gateway. When you are selling your product at $1200 (iMac) against other products that are about $600 for basically the same hardware feature, you better believe you are competing with something. Otherwise you are going to go out of business really quickly.
And I doubt we'll see any increase in their marketshare, no matter how deserved it may be, until they get off their freaking high horse and start actually trying to compete in the open market.
Yeah, maybe if they would build a better laptop or get a 1U product out there they would be doing better. Oh wait...
Like I said - Apple is competing. They are not competing against other PPC manufacturers, they are competing against the Wintel monopoly.
Apple stopped the clone business for a reason - Apple ended up trying to compete with the clone makers. As a result, they were ignoring their real competitors (the ones that could drive them out of business) - Dell, Compaq, Gateway, and others.
The clone business did not expand their 5%, it just split up that 5% among the clone manufacturers and Apple, meaning that Apple was not getting near as much revenue.
You will not see a major increase in Apple marketshare because it is competing against a monopoly in software and a very cut-throat industry in hardware.
So Apple is happy with billions sitting around in cash, making machines for people that are willing to pay a premium.
(Disclaimer: I own three Macs and one clone)
On the original Slashdot article, people pointed out that the number of songs was unreasonable - it was more songs than Amazon carrys, by several factors of ten.
So my question - I suppose that the "list of files" contained multiple duplicates. Can you imagine how many individual copies of a given Eminem song MP3 there would be on a college campus?
Given that he mantained a list of networked files, and there were bound to be duplicates, how can the RIAA sue for (the number of songs in the list) x $150,000 (the maximum per song)?
if there were three copies of Dave Matthews Band's "Crash", would that not be suing for $450,000 for one song?
I was just shopping this week for a third LCD screen. I already have a 17" Apple and a 15" NEC.
I found a Mag 14" for $150 after rebate at Best Buy!
Also at Best Buy: A off-name 17" LCD for $350. I paid close to $900 for my 17" LCD only a year ago. You can now pick up a 17" Samsung for $400!
Prices are definitely falling.
I had an Apple //gs in high school, and was using GS/OS for some of that work (a lot of the other stuff was in ProDOS). I still have manuals from the gs. I still have the gs, but need to find a 3.5" drive for it to get it working.
//gs screen shots in that manual. You can see how Apple sued Microsoft.
A couple of years ago I picked up an entire box for Windows 1.0 The screen shots are amazing when you compare it against the
I posted a picture of three manuals next to each other.
The problem with all of these combination devices is that no device is going to do everything well. I have a somewhat small wrist and larger watches seem huge. At the same time, I want a large color display for my PDA.
These two things work against each other.
The display on my phone is not important (especially if I can use it as a simple modem for my PDA), but the button size is. I do not want a combination PDA and phone (think Treo and others) since I want a small phone (since I carry that on me at all times) and will take a somewhat larger PDA since I can choose to carry that or not.
So I want a small display phone with non-small buttons.
I want a PDA with a large color display (I currently have at Clie 665c to give an example).
I want a small watch with small buttons (I have a Nike Triax 42)
I want a small camera with a decent display and good optics (I have a Canon S200)
I want a MP3 player with a decent display and small size (I have an iPod)
One thing I really want is a Bluetooth-like personal network. If I pull out my PDA, I want it to sense my cell phone in my pocket and use it to connect to the internet. I want my PDA to recognize my camera and download pictures from that. if I have a laptop with me, I want it to do the same thing.
So available wireless internet is one thing, but I would rather have workable, wireless personal networks (meaning on my body).
Even better would be the ability to have a neetworked storage device somewhere (wallet, etc) that could work as a networked storage device for everything else I am carrying at once. No more carrying a 10gig iPod, a PDA with a 128meg MemoryStick and a camera with a 128meg CompacFlash card. Ideally the iPod would simply be used as storage by all devices without wires.
This would allow easy modularity without trying to pack everything into once device.
[If someone tries to patent this idea in the future, I suppose my idea cannot be used as prior art. I think I have to actually implement the idea, right? Any non-lawyers out there want to comment?]
If you are near Chicago or Milwalkee, check out American Science & Surplus for all of your unneeded science surplus stuff.
I have been to the Chicago store and wandered around for a good couple of hours. I need to get to the smaller store near Fermilab (although I have heard it is not as big)
As more and more employees are using products like AIM to communicate, there is a definte need for some accountability with this communication, especially with security and logging.
If I call someone else in the company, the PBX system (or whatever else is in use) can be set up to log the call. Email is very easily tracked and logged.
AIM conversations, however, use a third-party for most of the communication. Logging is not great in most clients.
The article mentions an enterprise solution developed by IBM to help with that, and I think that there is a market for AOL to get into. Provide a plug-and-play either hardware or software solution that allows internal AIM traffic to remain encrypted on the internal network (internal Buddy Lists and so on) and completely logged. There would also have to be a way for the system to work with other AIM users not on the internal network.
The nice thing about a solution like that would be that the logging and traffic could be completely internal, and the company could place restrictions on outside traffic (no file transfers from the outside, for example).
I bought the full version of BBEdit back when they were having specils for upgrades from BBEditLite for something like $69. This was under OS 8, so it was a version or so ago.
When I moved to OS X Bare Bones was requiring me to purchase another (discounted) full version, so I stuck with BBEditLite under OS X.
Lite was doing about 95% of what I wanted. I missed some of the features of the full version, but definitely not enough to pay $100+ to get them. The few features I was looking for could be replaced by other methods (Although admittedly not nearly as well as having them integrated into BBEdit). I kept wondering why I saw the full version being updated regularly and BBEditLite not getting updates (In the past BareBones was good about releasing bug fixes for the Lite version within a day or two of the full version).
Now I am not sure if I am going to shell out $50 for TextWrangler. That would mean that I would be paying a total of over $100 to BareBones in the past few years and getting fewer features than their full product.
I am leaning towards doing it, though, since I know the BareBones people to be good people. It is often I will see one of their developers posting on comp.sys.mac.* to answer questions about BBEdit and MailSmith (their mail client).
They also sent me a nice T-shirt many years ago for building my web site with BBEdit...
Ahh, the joys of the dot.bomb age...
You are missing what the original poster wanted, though. He is referring not to the "Open in new Window" menu command, but rather the JavaScript command. Suppose I am working in a tabbed browser, and I have all my open pages in one window, under five tabs.
I click on a link that has a JavaScript command to open in a new window. Note that I never wanted it to open in a new window, the web designer decided that. So now I am suck with two open windows, one with five tabs, and one with one tab.
I would rather have the JavaScript command instead open the new page in a new tab, meaning I would have one open window with six tabs.
That is the choice the original poster was talking about. I want to decide where the link goes, and not have the web designer decide for me.
As the owner of a Sony Clie, I do agree that sometimes hardware manufacturers forget about Mac owners. Of course, then someone steps in and creates the excelent program like TheMissingSync, which allows mac users to sync with their unsupported Clies.
Apple, in the meantime, realizes there is a problem with Palm support on the Mac, and creates iCal and iSync.
Imagine that - I have choices when syncing my Clie. I can use Palm Desktop (which I rather like) or I can use iCal/iSync.
Choices are good!
Some argue this is a result of Apple trying to ween itself off of its reliance on Microsoft. Imaging that - Apple big enough that it is willing to start taking on Microsoft. Keynote, which he ignores, can also be seen as a shot across Microsoft's bow. If nothing else, it can at least be seen as Jobs telling Bill to make sure and continue development on the Mac platform.
The Mac platform is a huge money-maker for Microsoft. Safari and Keynote are a win-or-win idea for Apple. Either it provokes competition from Microsoft and others in the field (competition being good for the consumer) or it eliminates some of the reliance Apple has on Microsoft right now. Both of these outcomes are good for Apple.
I notice that he conviniently neglected to give sales figures for all Macintoshes, and ignored Xserve and the Powerbook line, both of which are doing well for Apple. The computers he mentions are also nearing the end of their life cycle. The iBook is in need of an update, and the PowerMac line has not seen a huge jump since the first Quicksilver machines (yes, they have done things like dual optical drives and faster memory, but when it comes down to it, they are very similar). Only recently were the PowerMacs updated with Firewire800 and Bluetooth.
He also neglects to mention that, according to most analysts, Apple is weathering the recession a lot better than most other tech firms.
Point 1: CD speed (both reading and writing) is measured in data/time. In this case it is measured in chunks of 150kb/s. That is to say that a 2x CD-ROM drive could read 300kilobytes per second.
Point 2: You make reference to this - angular velocity and linear velocity are going to be different based on where you are on the CD.
The outer tracks obviously hold more data - the track length is longer ("track length" probably not the technical term, but I am using it to mean how far it is around at a certain spot on the CD). Using our familiar Circumference = (2 * r * pi) formula, we can see that as the radius increases (the distance away from the center of the CD), the length of the track length increases, as well.
CDs store data as digital data stored in non-reflective pits on an otherwise reflective surface. These pits are a certain distance apart. This distance does not change as you get father out, and the size of the pits is a constant, as well.
Think about cars parked in a spiral pattern. The farther you get out from the middle, the more cars are in each loop.
So what does this mean for our CD-RW? Toward the middle of the CD, the CD is spinning at a certain constant rate. However, only so many pits are going by each second. For a 52x CD-RW, there are about (24) x (150kb) each second. As the laser moves out (since CDs burn from inside to the outside), the CD RPM stays the same, but now there are more pits flying by each second. Towards the outside, there are (52) x (150kb) each second.
So the angular velocity (RPMs) does not change that much while burning. The linear velocity, however (how many pits are going by) changes greatly, more than twice as much.
This is actually somewhat of an over-simplification, since modern CD-RWs use a mix of both CAV and CLV technologies.
Two (or three) interesting side notes: DVDs work using several more technologies, but the end result is the same. For one thing, the pits used in DVDs are much smaller, as are the tracks. This allows a lot more information to be stored on a single DVD. In addition, DVDs are capable of using multiple layers using different laser wavelengths. So when the DVD player changes layers, the laser changes wavelengths, allowing it to "ignore" the pits on the first layer and instead read the pits on the second layer.
In addition, DVD drives are measured using a different unit than CDs. At 150kb/s, a DVD would be an extremely fast CD drive reading off a DVD. A single layer DVD read at 1x is about 1.321 MB/s. More information about the speeds between CDs and DVDs can be found on the DVD FAQ
An interesting historical note: Laserdiscs could be found in both CLV and CAV formats. CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) discs came first, and had one frame per revolution (or maybe more, but there was a ratio between frames and revolutions). CLV (Constanst Linear Velocity) discs came later, and used a technology closer to CDs - allowing multiple frames per revolution, with the rate being based more on location on the disk. This allows for more information per disc (thus Laserdisc being called "CAV Standard" and "CLV Extended Play"
And hopefully this has been "more than you ever wanted to know about angular and linear velocity of optical discs."
I am a big fan of "Open Link in Background Window/Tab" offered by a lot of smaller web browsers.
I currently use K-Meleon while on the PC, and iCab on the Mac.
One thing I wish the "Back" button could do is remember the page that sent me to the page in quesiton, even if it was in another window or tab.
Try this: Right click on a link. Select "Open in new window" (or tab). In that new window 9or tab), try using the Back button.
The browser *should* be able to remember where you were coming from. iCab used to do this (going on my memory here), but no longer does.
Since that time a student of mine showed me his new 12" AlBook. I only held it for a minute - any longer and I fear that I would just run off with it. The form factor is perfect, the weight is perfect. It is a wonderful machine.
My conclusion? Who cares if it could be described as n iBook on steroids? It is a wonderful second computer to compliment (not replace) a full dektop machine.
Five years it was. According to LowEndMac:
The original iMac "announced 1998.05.06; North American release on 1998.08.15 at $1,299; replaced by Revision B in mid-October 1998"
So it has been a little under five years.
The Blue & White G3, the first professional line Mac without a floppy:
"G3/300 introduced 1999.01.05 at US$1,599; discontinued 1999.06."
So that was only about four years ago.
For a while I was looking to build a FreeBSD box. Being a big Mac fan, I did not see a need for a floppy. It is difficult to find cases that do not basically require a 3.5" floppy drive. I was trying to go legacy-free, but the selection of motherboards was lacking.
I have seen way too many floppies fail over the year. They are good for basic SneakerNets, but can never be relied on for things like archival and for rescue disks.
I take exception to the idea that no other web browser does the cookie management similar to OmniWeb. iCab, also available for Mac OS X does exactly this.
I paid for one about one year ago today. I did not even have to pay for it.
iCab, for the Mac, is still in Preview release form. Eventually they hope to start charging for the final release. When they opened up an optional payment system, I grabbed my credit card the first hour I heard about it.
Why? I like iCab. It does what I want it to. It has feature integration unlike any other browser I have seen. It was one of the first to block pop-ups. Its built-in ad filtering is still next to none, and it had that years ago. The level of control over the browser is simply amazing in a fairly easy to use preferences dialog box (instead of entering information into a text window a la Mozilla and others).
As a point of comparison, I have used Mozilla, IE, K-Meleon, Chimera, Safari, and others.
iCab has its drawbacks, for certain (CSS rendering), but it is good enough to warrant me giving money for its continued development.
I suppose I am just willing to pay for quality.
Huh?
"You are destroying the tax base! I mean, instead of us getting the money and you, the governemnt, getting a percentage in taxes, you get it all! That is not good economics for the government!"
Does that make any sense?
In addition, how much tax base does a huge corporation like BellSouth or AOL/TW really create in a small town like Glasgow?
Also, I am guessing that the residents of Glasgow have the opportunity to get cable or at least satellite television from elsewhere, meaning that the government provides media distribution, but only as one of many choices.
As a resident of Kentucky, I am glad to see things like this going on in the state.
There is a difference, though. When people hand money over to Microsoft in exchange for a product, that is not only an economic transaction, that is a legal transaction, as well.
A lot of states require, for example, a minimum amount of time for a customer to be able to return defective merchandise. When the company sells you a product, the company is agreeing to several legal responsibilities.
When I give you a gift, I am not held legally responsible for that gift (unless the gift is illegal or stolen in the first place).
With OSS software, there is no exchange of money with the author, so there is a lot less legal groundwork to work with.
Places like RedHat, though, would be in a difficult situation, since they are selling a product.
Your point about fixing the bug is an interesting one. Suppose Ford had discovered that there was a problem with the interaction between their tires and their vehicles, and then announced that they would replace the tires in a minor PR release somewhere. Suppose they required you to drive the vehicle to its originating factory (most likely Louisville, KY for Explorers) to be replaced.
I think the government could argue that Ford did not do the appropriate thing to rectify a known problem.
I am not too familiar with the MS SQL fix, but apparently it was not only difficult to install, but it was also broken by a later patch. That moves some of the responsibility from the sysadmin back onto Microsoft at that point, I would think.
So in the end, I think it would be best to hold companies accountable for mistakes they knowingly should have fixed, and made those fixes easy to work with (within reason).
(And, for factual clarification - most later simulations of the Ford/Firestone tire incidents leads to the conclusion that while the tires blew out more often than normal, and that the Explorer, like almost any SUV, tends to roll over more often than a car, most of the incidents were probably a result of driver error in correcting from a blown tire. Most drivers apparently slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel, which will cause an SUV to roll even without a blown tire).
How is that any different than the OS X interface on top of a *BSD?
On my OS X machine I get uptimes in the 20+ days range, with the only reason for downtimes are upgrades.
I have had three kernel panics in the 10 months I have had it. I trashed the application that was causing them and have not had one in seven months.
So stability is definitely there in OS X as it is.
The price point of Linux? Suppose someone came out with a truly great GUI for Linux, one that allowed you to run MS Office and Photoshop on it natively. Suppose they also made sure that DRM was not an issue. Would you pay $130 for that GUI, even if it was closed source?
I would say that with OS X as it is now there is no reason for buying Microsoft ever again.
And, as a disclaimer, I run Fink on my OS X box with X11 and Gnome. In addition, I have had LinuxPPC installed on some of my older boxes, and I am getting a FreeBSD/x86 machine up and running soon.