The real issue here is that the US Patent Office grants stupid patents for obvious and trivial things. Given the broken system, companies have to file for stupid patents to protect themselves, because someone else will file the same stupid patent and then the patent trolls will sue and demand blackmail.
As long as the system, both the filing/review/grant system and the litigation part, companies have to file to patent things they use in their systems, even stupid things.
Google continues to do things that chip away at your privacy. They hope that the "do no evil" mantra and the user's lack of understanding will shield them. Google toolbar and Google desktop already are collecting a huge amount of behavioral data. The recent AOL incident shows that with just keywords from supposedly anonymous searches you can identify a user. Deskbar, toolbar and this, if true, go way beyond that. Throw in your email and chats being indexed and they know:
a) what you are reading b) what you are buying c) who you talk to d) about what
If they ever decide to "do some evil" they are pretty well armed!
Been using today and it seems more responsive than Beta 1 and after a day a bit more reliable. Quick look seems to indicate that it uses less memory. Lots of add ins won't work with this and we should (hopefully) see a bunch of updates soon so that we can get our favorite add ins back!
The new tabs look nicer. I hate the "go" button and haven't figured how to turn it off, but I'm sure someone will create a theme without it.
Japan is a fiercely competitive DSL market. The CEO of Softbank forced the government to open the market in 1999 and came in with a low price and faster service than the incumbent, NTT. Japanese users can get DSL with 50Mbps down and now 12 Mbps up for about $40/month. Because of the DSL competition, companies started rolling out fiber. In Japan, you can get 100Mbps fiber to your house for $50/month.
The interesting thing is that the government there sees the value in having a strong, competitive market for broadband. Here is a link to a MITI presentation on Japan and broadband.
There are too many companies and managers that don't really know how to interview. They look for very narrow and specific skills matches and resumes experience. They think that these "test" will tell you how someone thinks about problems. They sort of do, but they don't tell you about the person's ability to learn, grow and consistly deliver. Too many people think that things like language knowledge are key when anyone with the right experience cna pick up a language they don't know quickly. It isn't knowing syntax it is work ethic, problem solving, and adaptability. What they really want is the best and brightest candidate that they can find with skills that are close and a proven track record of being able to learn new things.
I had someone who worked for me that went on an interview a couple of years ago who had superior skills in C++, knew MS GUI stuff, had learned Java in 4 weeks and built a very fancy applet, etc. He interviewed at a company that said "Well, you don't have 2 years of C#". C# was only 2 years old! The person toook another job, picked up C# in a few weeks and created some incredibly complex and innovative new applications.
Things move fast and change in out business. Just because you are a Java shop today doesn't mean folks won't need to do Rails next week. You want bright and adaptable people. You want a track record of learning and adaptability. Yes, you might pay a few week learning curve, but after that the better person will more than make up for the learning time by producing more and better results.
When you interview have someone with relatively similar level of experience do the interview. An interviewee might present a solution that is beyond the knowledge and skill of some junior person to get. That happened to someone else I know. The junior guy didn't know enough about Java and J2EE to understand the solution and why it was the best way to address a problem. This was in 2003. The interviewer had 2+ years of Java and the person being interviewed starting working in Java, full time in 1995!
Paltalk operates a video chat service and the quality is very good. They started doing it for dial up and had to be very efficient. What is great about the service is that you can do multi-way (6 max I think) video chat and it still looks good.
The Google team does the best PR/image creation in the industry. This article shows us the truth about the Google guys. They make a big fuss about their $1 salaries and get it hyped in the press to create an image. They've been trying to keep the 767 quiet, but their own pettiness and delusions of grandeur have lead to the story leaking out. Note that Bill Gates flew commercial when he was worth more than both of these guys put together and he still doesn't have a 767. Isn't a 767 a bit of overkill??
At least this start to lift the viel. The "do no evil" is merely PR hype. Google is collecting an enormous amount of informaiton about you and what you are searching on, who you email and IM with and about what, about where you go and when (calendar), etc. If the govenrment was doing this we'd have a revolution. Goole is a commercial entity and is a whole lot less accountable. This 767 story should remind us that the Google guys are no better than Ken Lay, the Tyco guy, or Marth Stewart.
Don't trsut them with all this information about yourself. They intend to use it commercailly and there are NO limits on what they can do. They are secretive and don't tell anyone very much, claiming they need to protct their busines ssecrets from competitord. And since their privacy policy says that they can change the policy at any time, without notice and without your further consent, they can use what they've collected in the past in any way they want and share it with whomever it suits them to.
Not worried? Still believe the "no evil" hype. Just look at how fungible their moreals are in China.
I have been using the beta and after even a short time I am not surprised by the delay. Lots of places where performance needs work with Outlook being the biggest.
The focus of this release seemed to be on eye candy (the ribbon) and not on performance and ease of use. Some will say that the ribbon adds to ease of use and maybe it does. But I also find it can be cumbersome some times. If you are an occassional user of an app, it might help you use the apps and discover commands. There was a lot in these apps that epople didn't use because they couldn't find the command or figure out how to use the commands. Maybe the ribbon helps, hard to tell yet.
Using Outlook 2007 is tough because the perfoamnce is terrible. That is saying a lot given the Outlook has always been slow. I know this is a beta, but one expects a beta 2, released just 3-4 months before the expected commercial release to be pretty close to final. There are some nice changes, but too little improvement and lacking needed extra functionality.
Word seems OK, but on the ribbon there is space left over and they make you click the "editting" icon to get to find or replace, which are common operations. Strange choice especially since they give Find a spot on the bar in Powerpoint.
Desktop Search 3, which is supposed to be an integrated element is incomplete and still buggy (yes, beta, but....).
You miss my point. They are investing, but the pace of growth of demand is outstripping what they can afford to do as a company. So we are back to "who pays"? Poeple say they'd pay more to download a DVD, but not everyone does that or does it all the time. The way to get charged when you use the extra bandwidth is to CHARGE THE CONTENT PROVIDER. The content provider cna then decide whether to chare you, add some advertising to help pay, have a subscription plan, etc.
LET THE MARKET DECIDE.
You are rigfht, bandwidth is a commodity, but NOT anybody can provide it becuase of the capital costs and the regulatory hassles (ging to eahc town and getting approvals to dig up the street, etc). Only folks with deep pockets can afford to run the wires for the last mile, etc. And then there is the investment in building out a national backbone with sufficient bandwidth, etc. The investors in the capital to provide us that commodity want a good return. If they can't get it they'll invest elsewhere and we won't get the upgrades we need and want.
you have the problem right. the isp's will have to build out a lot more capacity to be able to deliver these new, rich media services. this debate isn't about neutrality it is about WHO PAYS.
right now the consumer pays but rates are as high as the market will bear. isp's sre not going to be able to raise rates, so they are looking to the beneficiaries of the extra bandwidth to pay for the costs.
gooogle makes more profit than comcast on a much smaller revenue base. the internet content providers get a relatively free ride. they can afford a 10% drop in their profits and absrb it to help pay.
the alternatives are that consumers get socked or that we don't get the networks upgraded aggressively. the whole net neutrality thing is a gambit of the PR agencies, trying to frighten the consumers so that their is political pressure to protect google's profits. don't let anyone convince you otherwise
How many times do we need to go through this before it is clear that the patent system, wrt software, is broken. I am *NOT* necessarily against patents for software, but it is just about impossible to do prior art, becuase there is so much out there for a few years and then gone. Worse, the examiners don't have enough background to do the job, etc.
The peer review system that is being discussed sounds like a step in the right direction. There also needs to be some significantly less costly way to deal with claims of infringement and the ndefense than the Courts. Small companies can't afford to defend their patents or to challenge someone with deep pockets trying to enforce a patently bogus patent!
I am using Firefox to access and it is terribly slow. Also if you click a time slot you get a pop up for a new item, I think. However, I am not getting a clear display. Images seem missing or somehting. Maybe this should be Alpha not beta
I've been there and also worked for the VC side. Here is my advice:
The CEO role is someone who will be the face of the company. You have to have the ability to articulate the vision, sell the product, sell people on joining, have a strategic and big picture view you are driving the company toward, etc. The CEO needs to have the skills to create organizations to match goals, problems and people. This is very key. Once you get past a small group and swart having an organization the CEO job is not about YOU but about the organization you create and how it works and making that organization succeed. If you talk and say "me" instead of "we" you are not the right person for the job.
But more, the CEO gets to make the final decisions on things, that is he job, because the CEO is the one ultimately held responsible and accountable for success or failure. In the vast majority of cases, the founder management usually are replaced by more professional management as the company grows. Yes, Dell and Gate and the Google guys all stayed at the top of the companies they founded, but this is the exception not the rule. that means whoever is CEO is likely to get replaced *IF* you actually succeed and grow the business significantly.
Finally, as someone else said, your legal agreements are key. The number of partnerships that go bad is huge and the break ups are messy. Assume the worst and get things defined in writing. Also make sure that you and your partner have agreements that say you Will vote each others share to put the other one on the Board. Ands remember that it is likely that if you raise VC you will not be in control of the company because while it is your idea it is there money and if you ask for someone's money they want control.
Windows Mobile User Comments
on
Treo 700w Review
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I've looked at them all and here are a few comments. Note that I moved to a XVT6700 but did look at the Treo.
- I had a Danger, and it was a wonderful device. They have done a terrific job of engineering for ease of use and connectivity. However, it is a closed system so you can not find the applications you might want / need. They also have a terrible sync program from Intellisync. No auto operation, full of bugs, etc.
- I looked at the Treo 700, but the keyboard is just too tiny. After the Danger it is a real step back.
- Got the XVT6700. Pretty good keyboard, EVDO, WiFi, etc.
- I've used various Windows CE devices for 5 years. Windows Mobile 5 is better, but still needs work. Not ready for one handed operation and they should definitely improve the apps for phone, today screen, etc. It is amazing how slow MS moves this OS and how slow the OEMs are to get updates out. MS really needs to get a group of users in a room and LISTEN to them. Having said that, I understand that such devices will always represent a large number of compromises between size, battery life, etc. In the end, I find it is pretty good, has great Exchange/Outlook integration, lets me work on Excel, Word docs and view presentations. I have gripes but am OK with the device.
- MS doesn't have a JVM, but there is one from IBM and it provides a MIDP2 environment. I am running Google Local Mobile using it.
- EVDO is awesome. I am actually on my laptop connected to the Internet using my 6700 as a modem. Can not tell the difference between this and most hotel "high speed" connections. On the device, I am not afraid to download 4 Mb files, because they get there quickly. I typically see 400Kbps - 600Kbps.
- These devices are NOT for everyone, but if you are a business user and travel a lot, they can be a life saver. I can now make many trips without a laptop.
I tried Virtual Earth and switched. I liked the images, the scratchpad and the driving directions are MUCH better. Overall, it just feels mor polished, evne though it is quite a bit newer. I tried the Yahoo beta but hate the use of Flash and find it slightly awkward and cluttered.
I know that a lot of folks on/. will hate and reject anything MS does, but MS is on the right path here. In any case, competition benefits us all, no mater which one you choose.
The part of the argument and world view that others share have been accepted. What Stallman has a problem with is that *everyone* doesn't share his world view, his license ideas and the like. Don't mistake an ideologue for a prophet!
Stallman is just too religious and full of himself. He can not see and understand other points of view. Different people have different goals and desires, and we should let the creators of content, ANY content, decide the terms and conditions that they choose to use. After all, it is the authors who have put in the work, it is their property and they should get to choose, especially if they are giving away their work for FREE.
Imagine that I built a boat but I could only give it away after seeking permission of someone I didn't know and subject to restrictions that they decided were "good for me"! We'd all be signing up for the revolution.
The whole "Do No Evil" thing is nothing more than a brilliant piece of marketing. Just think about this: who defines what "evil" means? Answer: Google! Think for a minute about the amount of personal information that Google is collecting about you. It is as much or more than what is collected by the most hated spyware companies. If the spyware folks are evil for doing this, why isn't Google.
Google said they wouldn't monitor you email and now they do. Yeah they changed the TOS, but quietly. Did you get an email clearly explaining the change and asking if you wanted to opt out? Google knows people are very reluctant to change email addresses. They get you hooked on an email address and service, give you lots of features and promise to be nice. After you are hooked and that is where all your correspondence goes, surprise, the TOS change.
A recent survey showed that something like 75% of the people had no idea about he personal data Google collects and what they do with it. They currently promise only to use it for their business purposes. But they also reserve the right to change their minds about this.
Do not evil is simple the best marketing program in years. Google is a commercial enterprise like all the others. They are no better and may or may not be worse. They do a lot of cute stuff to fool you. The founders take salaries of $1. Gee, if you are worth 10 billion it is a real hardship. But the press reports this and they look like good guys. These guys are the best PR guys out there.
But, despite how good they are at the hype game, just remember: You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time! Eventually, the public catches on and sees through the hype. The Chine stuff is the first crack in the wall of brilliant PR.
The reason Google wants to do this is that they get paid a LOT more when someone clicks a call link. Advertisers pay several dollars per click. Google isn't an innovator here. Other have done it before. Google is just going to kill the others becuase of their reach with advertisers.
The article says that the limits on use are 1 CPU, 1 Gb of memory and a 4 Gb database. In a year it will be hard to even find a single CPU system becuase of the move to dual cores. And a 4 Gb database isn't much if you are using it to store media elements and not just text or data.
Seems that Oracle wants the press release but doesn't want to deliver a real, usable product. And, btw, previous verisons of this engine have not been 100% compatible with Oracle's main commercial database.
Try MySQL, Postgress or even MS's free version of SQL Server
Others have pointed out that the iPod is a dedicated device and Apple has made it easy to use. It goes beyond the device. Apple provides, through iTunes and the iPod, a fully integrated experience. Since they control all aspects, from the client to the store to the device and the DRM, they can provide a seamless and simple experience.
They also are not religuous about the Web and browser and recognized what we all know: rich media is inherently a desktop experience and desktop clients can be far richer than web apps (Yes, AJAX is great, but...). So iTunes is your portal. It uses the web as a data source, may display some stuff in HTML, but it is a desktop client that is quick and simple and totally integrated with the device.
The other options all involve multiple parties using some kind of standard (even is a proprietary standard like MS). This means that different people do different things and the integraiton isn't as good, the pieces can not count on each other, etc.
It is all about the end ot end integraiton of the experience.
The Attorney General of Massachussets, who has been fighting Microsoft when all others settled, is running for Govenor. He is pushing this iniative and you can e sure that there is politics on another level involved in this.
The other thing to consider is that the so-called standard being discussed was started and pushed as an anti-Microsoft standard. This is not to say that it isn't a good start or even a good standard, but let's be honest about this.
GPL is a business model, not freedom. It says that instead of paying license fees to use somehting, I must pay in labor and nothing I do, short of starting from scratch, even if I add 99% of the future value, changes this. How is this "free"? There is an ongoing payment, just labor instead of money.
Apache or BSD say "Take it and do what you want". Now that sounds like free to me.
Slashdot Mirror
The real issue here is that the US Patent Office grants stupid patents for obvious and trivial things. Given the broken system, companies have to file for stupid patents to protect themselves, because someone else will file the same stupid patent and then the patent trolls will sue and demand blackmail.
As long as the system, both the filing/review/grant system and the litigation part, companies have to file to patent things they use in their systems, even stupid things.
Google continues to do things that chip away at your privacy. They hope that the "do no evil" mantra and the user's lack of understanding will shield them. Google toolbar and Google desktop already are collecting a huge amount of behavioral data. The recent AOL incident shows that with just keywords from supposedly anonymous searches you can identify a user. Deskbar, toolbar and this, if true, go way beyond that. Throw in your email and chats being indexed and they know:
a) what you are reading
b) what you are buying
c) who you talk to
d) about what
If they ever decide to "do some evil" they are pretty well armed!
Did that but it completely screwed up the toolbar, added an empty box next to the menus. Had to reset to defaults.
Been using today and it seems more responsive than Beta 1 and after a day a bit more reliable. Quick look seems to indicate that it uses less memory. Lots of add ins won't work with this and we should (hopefully) see a bunch of updates soon so that we can get our favorite add ins back!
The new tabs look nicer. I hate the "go" button and haven't figured how to turn it off, but I'm sure someone will create a theme without it.
Japan is a fiercely competitive DSL market. The CEO of Softbank forced the government to open the market in 1999 and came in with a low price and faster service than the incumbent, NTT. Japanese users can get DSL with 50Mbps down and now 12 Mbps up for about $40/month. Because of the DSL competition, companies started rolling out fiber. In Japan, you can get 100Mbps fiber to your house for $50/month.
w ww.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/POL0610A.pps +japanese+p2p+traffic+statistics&hl=en&gl=us&ct=cl nk&cd=14
The interesting thing is that the government there sees the value in having a strong, competitive market for broadband. Here is a link to a MITI presentation on Japan and broadband.
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:fs0SbhXsEj0J:
Gee, one could think of karma and moderator points as things that might match the description here. Slashdot is prior art!
I think this one is yet another example of the USPTO granting patents for things that are obvious.
There are too many companies and managers that don't really know how to interview. They look for very narrow and specific skills matches and resumes experience. They think that these "test" will tell you how someone thinks about problems. They sort of do, but they don't tell you about the person's ability to learn, grow and consistly deliver. Too many people think that things like language knowledge are key when anyone with the right experience cna pick up a language they don't know quickly. It isn't knowing syntax it is work ethic, problem solving, and adaptability. What they really want is the best and brightest candidate that they can find with skills that are close and a proven track record of being able to learn new things.
I had someone who worked for me that went on an interview a couple of years ago who had superior skills in C++, knew MS GUI stuff, had learned Java in 4 weeks and built a very fancy applet, etc. He interviewed at a company that said "Well, you don't have 2 years of C#". C# was only 2 years old! The person toook another job, picked up C# in a few weeks and created some incredibly complex and innovative new applications.
Things move fast and change in out business. Just because you are a Java shop today doesn't mean folks won't need to do Rails next week. You want bright and adaptable people. You want a track record of learning and adaptability. Yes, you might pay a few week learning curve, but after that the better person will more than make up for the learning time by producing more and better results.
When you interview have someone with relatively similar level of experience do the interview. An interviewee might present a solution that is beyond the knowledge and skill of some junior person to get. That happened to someone else I know. The junior guy didn't know enough about Java and J2EE to understand the solution and why it was the best way to address a problem. This was in 2003. The interviewer had 2+ years of Java and the person being interviewed starting working in Java, full time in 1995!
Paltalk operates a video chat service and the quality is very good. They started doing it for dial up and had to be very efficient. What is great about the service is that you can do multi-way (6 max I think) video chat and it still looks good.
www.paltalk.com
The Google team does the best PR/image creation in the industry. This article shows us the truth about the Google guys. They make a big fuss about their $1 salaries and get it hyped in the press to create an image. They've been trying to keep the 767 quiet, but their own pettiness and delusions of grandeur have lead to the story leaking out. Note that Bill Gates flew commercial when he was worth more than both of these guys put together and he still doesn't have a 767. Isn't a 767 a bit of overkill??
At least this start to lift the viel. The "do no evil" is merely PR hype. Google is collecting an enormous amount of informaiton about you and what you are searching on, who you email and IM with and about what, about where you go and when (calendar), etc. If the govenrment was doing this we'd have a revolution. Goole is a commercial entity and is a whole lot less accountable. This 767 story should remind us that the Google guys are no better than Ken Lay, the Tyco guy, or Marth Stewart.
Don't trsut them with all this information about yourself. They intend to use it commercailly and there are NO limits on what they can do. They are secretive and don't tell anyone very much, claiming they need to protct their busines ssecrets from competitord. And since their privacy policy says that they can change the policy at any time, without notice and without your further consent, they can use what they've collected in the past in any way they want and share it with whomever it suits them to.
Not worried? Still believe the "no evil" hype. Just look at how fungible their moreals are in China.
I have been using the beta and after even a short time I am not surprised by the delay. Lots of places where performance needs work with Outlook being the biggest.
The focus of this release seemed to be on eye candy (the ribbon) and not on performance and ease of use. Some will say that the ribbon adds to ease of use and maybe it does. But I also find it can be cumbersome some times. If you are an occassional user of an app, it might help you use the apps and discover commands. There was a lot in these apps that epople didn't use because they couldn't find the command or figure out how to use the commands. Maybe the ribbon helps, hard to tell yet.
Using Outlook 2007 is tough because the perfoamnce is terrible. That is saying a lot given the Outlook has always been slow. I know this is a beta, but one expects a beta 2, released just 3-4 months before the expected commercial release to be pretty close to final. There are some nice changes, but too little improvement and lacking needed extra functionality.
Word seems OK, but on the ribbon there is space left over and they make you click the "editting" icon to get to find or replace, which are common operations. Strange choice especially since they give Find a spot on the bar in Powerpoint.
Desktop Search 3, which is supposed to be an integrated element is incomplete and still buggy (yes, beta, but....).
Powerpoint and Excel seem about the same.
Lots of work in integrating with Sharepoint.
You miss my point. They are investing, but the pace of growth of demand is outstripping what they can afford to do as a company. So we are back to "who pays"? Poeple say they'd pay more to download a DVD, but not everyone does that or does it all the time. The way to get charged when you use the extra bandwidth is to CHARGE THE CONTENT PROVIDER. The content provider cna then decide whether to chare you, add some advertising to help pay, have a subscription plan, etc.
LET THE MARKET DECIDE.
You are rigfht, bandwidth is a commodity, but NOT anybody can provide it becuase of the capital costs and the regulatory hassles (ging to eahc town and getting approvals to dig up the street, etc). Only folks with deep pockets can afford to run the wires for the last mile, etc. And then there is the investment in building out a national backbone with sufficient bandwidth, etc. The investors in the capital to provide us that commodity want a good return. If they can't get it they'll invest elsewhere and we won't get the upgrades we need and want.
you have the problem right. the isp's will have to build out a lot more capacity to be able to deliver these new, rich media services. this debate isn't about neutrality it is about WHO PAYS.
right now the consumer pays but rates are as high as the market will bear. isp's sre not going to be able to raise rates, so they are looking to the beneficiaries of the extra bandwidth to pay for the costs.
gooogle makes more profit than comcast on a much smaller revenue base. the internet content providers get a relatively free ride. they can afford a 10% drop in their profits and absrb it to help pay.
the alternatives are that consumers get socked or that we don't get the networks upgraded aggressively. the whole net neutrality thing is a gambit of the PR agencies, trying to frighten the consumers so that their is political pressure to protect google's profits. don't let anyone convince you otherwise
How many times do we need to go through this before it is clear that the patent system, wrt software, is broken. I am *NOT* necessarily against patents for software, but it is just about impossible to do prior art, becuase there is so much out there for a few years and then gone. Worse, the examiners don't have enough background to do the job, etc.
The peer review system that is being discussed sounds like a step in the right direction. There also needs to be some significantly less costly way to deal with claims of infringement and the ndefense than the Courts. Small companies can't afford to defend their patents or to challenge someone with deep pockets trying to enforce a patently bogus patent!
I am using Firefox to access and it is terribly slow. Also if you click a time slot you get a pop up for a new item, I think. However, I am not getting a clear display. Images seem missing or somehting. Maybe this should be Alpha not beta
I've been there and also worked for the VC side. Here is my advice:
The CEO role is someone who will be the face of the company. You have to have the ability to articulate the vision, sell the product, sell people on joining, have a strategic and big picture view you are driving the company toward, etc. The CEO needs to have the skills to create organizations to match goals, problems and people. This is very key. Once you get past a small group and swart having an organization the CEO job is not about YOU but about the organization you create and how it works and making that organization succeed. If you talk and say "me" instead of "we" you are not the right person for the job.
But more, the CEO gets to make the final decisions on things, that is he job, because the CEO is the one ultimately held responsible and accountable for success or failure. In the vast majority of cases, the founder management usually are replaced by more professional management as the company grows. Yes, Dell and Gate and the Google guys all stayed at the top of the companies they founded, but this is the exception not the rule. that means whoever is CEO is likely to get replaced *IF* you actually succeed and grow the business significantly.
Finally, as someone else said, your legal agreements are key. The number of partnerships that go bad is huge and the break ups are messy. Assume the worst and get things defined in writing. Also make sure that you and your partner have agreements that say you Will vote each others share to put the other one on the Board. Ands remember that it is likely that if you raise VC you will not be in control of the company because while it is your idea it is there money and if you ask for someone's money they want control.
I've looked at them all and here are a few comments. Note that I moved to a XVT6700 but did look at the Treo.
- I had a Danger, and it was a wonderful device. They have done a terrific job of engineering for ease of use and connectivity. However, it is a closed system so you can not find the applications you might want / need. They also have a terrible sync program from Intellisync. No auto operation, full of bugs, etc.
- I looked at the Treo 700, but the keyboard is just too tiny. After the Danger it is a real step back.
- Got the XVT6700. Pretty good keyboard, EVDO, WiFi, etc.
- I've used various Windows CE devices for 5 years. Windows Mobile 5 is better, but still needs work. Not ready for one handed operation and they should definitely improve the apps for phone, today screen, etc. It is amazing how slow MS moves this OS and how slow the OEMs are to get updates out. MS really needs to get a group of users in a room and LISTEN to them. Having said that, I understand that such devices will always represent a large number of compromises between size, battery life, etc. In the end, I find it is pretty good, has great Exchange/Outlook integration, lets me work on Excel, Word docs and view presentations. I have gripes but am OK with the device.
- MS doesn't have a JVM, but there is one from IBM and it provides a MIDP2 environment. I am running Google Local Mobile using it.
- EVDO is awesome. I am actually on my laptop connected to the Internet using my 6700 as a modem. Can not tell the difference between this and most hotel "high speed" connections. On the device, I am not afraid to download 4 Mb files, because they get there quickly. I typically see 400Kbps - 600Kbps.
- These devices are NOT for everyone, but if you are a business user and travel a lot, they can be a life saver. I can now make many trips without a laptop.
I tried Virtual Earth and switched. I liked the images, the scratchpad and the driving directions are MUCH better. Overall, it just feels mor polished, evne though it is quite a bit newer. I tried the Yahoo beta but hate the use of Flash and find it slightly awkward and cluttered.
/. will hate and reject anything MS does, but MS is on the right path here. In any case, competition benefits us all, no mater which one you choose.
I know that a lot of folks on
The part of the argument and world view that others share have been accepted. What Stallman has a problem with is that *everyone* doesn't share his world view, his license ideas and the like. Don't mistake an ideologue for a prophet!
Stallman is just too religious and full of himself. He can not see and understand other points of view. Different people have different goals and desires, and we should let the creators of content, ANY content, decide the terms and conditions that they choose to use. After all, it is the authors who have put in the work, it is their property and they should get to choose, especially if they are giving away their work for FREE.
Imagine that I built a boat but I could only give it away after seeking permission of someone I didn't know and subject to restrictions that they decided were "good for me"! We'd all be signing up for the revolution.
Google said they wouldn't monitor you email and now they do. Yeah they changed the TOS, but quietly. Did you get an email clearly explaining the change and asking if you wanted to opt out? Google knows people are very reluctant to change email addresses. They get you hooked on an email address and service, give you lots of features and promise to be nice. After you are hooked and that is where all your correspondence goes, surprise, the TOS change.
A recent survey showed that something like 75% of the people had no idea about he personal data Google collects and what they do with it. They currently promise only to use it for their business purposes. But they also reserve the right to change their minds about this.
Do not evil is simple the best marketing program in years. Google is a commercial enterprise like all the others. They are no better and may or may not be worse. They do a lot of cute stuff to fool you. The founders take salaries of $1. Gee, if you are worth 10 billion it is a real hardship. But the press reports this and they look like good guys. These guys are the best PR guys out there.
But, despite how good they are at the hype game, just remember: You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time! Eventually, the public catches on and sees through the hype. The Chine stuff is the first crack in the wall of brilliant PR.
The reason Google wants to do this is that they get paid a LOT more when someone clicks a call link. Advertisers pay several dollars per click. Google isn't an innovator here. Other have done it before. Google is just going to kill the others becuase of their reach with advertisers.
The article says that the limits on use are 1 CPU, 1 Gb of memory and a 4 Gb database. In a year it will be hard to even find a single CPU system becuase of the move to dual cores. And a 4 Gb database isn't much if you are using it to store media elements and not just text or data.
Seems that Oracle wants the press release but doesn't want to deliver a real, usable product. And, btw, previous verisons of this engine have not been 100% compatible with Oracle's main commercial database.
Try MySQL, Postgress or even MS's free version of SQL Server
Others have pointed out that the iPod is a dedicated device and Apple has made it easy to use. It goes beyond the device. Apple provides, through iTunes and the iPod, a fully integrated experience. Since they control all aspects, from the client to the store to the device and the DRM, they can provide a seamless and simple experience.
They also are not religuous about the Web and browser and recognized what we all know: rich media is inherently a desktop experience and desktop clients can be far richer than web apps (Yes, AJAX is great, but...). So iTunes is your portal. It uses the web as a data source, may display some stuff in HTML, but it is a desktop client that is quick and simple and totally integrated with the device.
The other options all involve multiple parties using some kind of standard (even is a proprietary standard like MS). This means that different people do different things and the integraiton isn't as good, the pieces can not count on each other, etc.
It is all about the end ot end integraiton of the experience.
The Attorney General of Massachussets, who has been fighting Microsoft when all others settled, is running for Govenor. He is pushing this iniative and you can e sure that there is politics on another level involved in this.
The other thing to consider is that the so-called standard being discussed was started and pushed as an anti-Microsoft standard. This is not to say that it isn't a good start or even a good standard, but let's be honest about this.
GPL is a business model, not freedom. It says that instead of paying license fees to use somehting, I must pay in labor and nothing I do, short of starting from scratch, even if I add 99% of the future value, changes this. How is this "free"? There is an ongoing payment, just labor instead of money.
Apache or BSD say "Take it and do what you want". Now that sounds like free to me.