Just to second the suggestion for iChat and point out that iChat has a (command-line enabled) AUTO ANSWER facility. So when you ring your GrandParents they don't even need to click to answer.
I don't find the iChat "Chat Request" panel to be that intuitive (for GrandParents). It just displays a pane with the request annoucement but no buttons. You need to click on the panel to make it expand to show the accept/reject buttons.
Auto-Answer can also help if GrandParents aren't computer literate or have trouble seeing the small on-screen pointer.
Of course, most people don't like the invasion of privacy that this allows but then if you are thinking of video-chatting 24x7 this should not really be a problem.
Is this the first PDA or personal gaming device that use motion sensors for input (control)? I think this is going to be big - all those business-types (me included) playing games, networked games, in the office. I do think they may need need one or two buttons on the device, although perhaps "thumbspots" on the left and right would be enough.
A lot of people don't seem to see that the iPhone is as revolutionary as the original Mac was (wrt the original PC). It's a completely new UI (as the GUI was to the command line DOS) and form factor (as the original Mac was to the desktop PC).
Of course, other phones have touch-screens and some similar form features but *none* of them had Multi-touch and the form factor of the iPhone. It's really eery to see how similar this revolution is to the original Mac and how so many people are missing it (again).
I recall a story about a medical expert system, related to me by the famous AI researcher Donald Michie (from the UK), that was designed to determine whether a patient with particular heart problems needed heart surgery or not. The expert system was proved to do a better job at predicting when heart surgery would increase the quality of the outcome (life) for the patient than specialists doctors (cardiologists?).
IIRC, the hospital chose not to use the system for fear of litigation when the expert systems diagnosis was wrong (which it no doubt would be in a lot of cases, just like the human's would be). Personally, I would - if I was the litigious type - probably sue if the hospital didn't use the method proven to be the most effective (in this case the expert system).
Of course, one could suggest a hybrid system where the specialist considers the output of the expert system, but I am not so sure this really solves the problem.
Cheers, Ashley.
-- Ashley Aitken Perth, Western Australia mrhatken at mac dot com
Personally, I believe that communism (or similar) and capitalism (or similar) may be significant modes (extrema) for a society but that communism is more unstable and capitalism is more stable.
The analogy is a ball on a hill (communism) versus in a trough (captialism). A slight perturbation of the ball resting on the top of the hill causes it to quickly rolls away from the local maxima (the ideal of communism is lost to corruption etc). On the other hand, a slight or even more significant perturbation of the ball resting within a trough will eventually see the ball return to the local minima (the ideal of capitalism is maintained by everyone's self interest).
This, of course, does not mean that capitalism doesn't have its problems and a need for regulation of some kind to ensure the self-interest doesn't get too out of hand. It also doesn't mean there are not situations where communism can work with openness and transparency.
Cheers, Ashley.
-- Ashley Aitken Perth, Western Australia mrhatken at mac dot com
This is a very good reason to keep iPhoto running after you close its main window. iPhoto also acts as a photo server allowing others to access photos on that machine.
I wish iPhoto allowed me to close its Window (freeing up considerable memory, I am sure) so that I could leave it running without the window open on our media server at home.
iTunes does!
Cheers, Ashley.
-- Ashley Aitken Perth, Western Australia mrhatken at mac dot com
Laptops are just a tool like pencil and paper. A student can draw "rude" things or write cheat notes with a pencil and paper just as easily as downloading porn or instant messaging to cheat.
We have to teach how children how to behave appropriately, that downloading porn or pornographic doodling is not appropriate when you are supposed to be learning, and that cheating really doesn't help in the long run.
These are the temptations and pressures they will experience when they leave school and I see no better place (considering students probably spend more time awake at school than at home) for them to learn how to live with them.
Laptops are the pencil and paper of today and the future. With the Internet they can be used to do amazing things, and we should be teaching our children how to use them to do amazing things.
I'm sure there were similar debates when the first pencil and paper were introduced to schools;-)
Cheers, Ashley.
-- Ashley Aitken Perth, Western Australia mrhatken at mac dot com
I'd call myself an integrator - I certainly don't have any clear work - life boundary either way. I have no hesitation to interrupt work to attend to life (mostly family but also interests) and attend to work at all hours of the day and on weekends.
Pros: I feel like my life is very flexible, so I can be where I need to be and do what I most need to do at most times (e.g. help out with the family in the mornings and evenings), not miss being a part of our children's lives.
Cons: It's hectic, I never really know if I am doing too much work or not enough, many things are always happening at once, and it is difficult (but not impossible) to get good stretches of uninterrupted time.
If I was working entirely for myself (I'm only partially at the moment) then I would have less concerns (about being exploited or exploiting). I do mostly work on stuff I am interested in working on anyways, so its not like it is mundane work (that one would want to leave behind).
I find it a difficult question (integrator or segmentor) because I think segmentors must also be losing something as well (e.g. going to work at 8am and returning at 5pm just before the kids go to bed and so missing school events, after school events ).
Yes, thanks, I understand you can get optical drives in ultraportables, although I am not as sure about slot-loading optical drives and we all know what Steve prefers.
My concern though is that they go for an optical drive and flash disk, rather than a hard disk drive and larger (but not large;-) battery without an optical drive.
I believe most people with an ultraportable would also have another Mac (with an optical drive). Installing using TDM is easy.
I'm hoping Apple will go even further and bring out an UltraNotebook!
Black and made out of carbon fibre and without an optical drive.
I'm hoping they will still have a hard disk drive because this would be my ultimate portable for casual browsing, email and productivity and yet still be a fast external firewire drive when I want to use a larger, faster desktop machine with my home and all other personal files accessed from the ultranotebook in Target Disk Mode.
I currently do this with a 15" AlBook but it would be much sweeter with a smaller carbon fibre ultranotebook.
Howver, I'm worried they will use Flash memory and include the optical drive instead.
> Even better, find a way to record those 5 hours of weekly programming actually worth watching, and enjoy them at your leisure.
Yep, I agree and our TiVo does that for us, all from FTA TV.
5 hours of TV is plenty for us, and its all top quality, viewed at our leisure, paused, replayed and commercial skipped.
This is the way TV should be (IMHO).
Cheers, Ashley.
PS In fact, we have trouble watching 5 hours a week, but no problem. That means we have plenty to watch when the rating finish and there's nothing on FTA TV. No need for cable (at least for us).
But what about the general principle of archiving to dots on paper (be they black and white, probably better lasting, or colour for greater density) as a way of getting around the problem of constantly having to translate our archives into the latest technology (less we be left without a reader or, at best, only one in a museum some where).
It seems to me we'll probably always have scanners and the software to extract the information from an image would probably be relatively easy to write (for different image formats). It seems (at least superficially to me) that scanning is sort of independent of the underlying technology in a way that reading from a tape isn't.
I realise there have been (and are now) paper tape storage systems, I am more interested in getting over the problem of technology going out of date.
Although (obviously) this time it is (mostly) pull, there is no (common) archive, and if you're away for a month you (may) lose a lot of "postings." (I'm not sure if some aggregators will keep items indefinitely even if they are removed from the feed, but I am pretty sure that referred content won't always stay around).
Cheers, Ashley.
Forget about the politicians and terrorists!
on
Google Terror Threat
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I want to know to whom I complain about the loss of my privacy.
I don't want anyone being able to peep into my backyard (without a legal search warrant etc.)
No one asked me if they could 1) take a snap of my backyard and, 2) display it publicly.
Lets assume you can get 8 different signals from a rocker like wheel (and although I think you could do it technically, I think the users would have trouble getting the right switch. As I said I have trouble enough with the 4 way rocker on my TiVo remote control).
Unfortunately, that's not good enough because you also need buttons for # and * in addition to 0 (all standard telephone keys). And I don't think there is much chance of Apple adding a row of 3 buttons just to give an iPod the ability to dial telephone numbers.
Don't get me wrong, I think an iPod phone is a great idea. I just don't think Apple will go with a UI solution that isn't completey within (or extends in a clear but simple way) the standard iPods UI paradigm.
Remember, they just got rid of an extra line of buttons...
I think this is the real issue (but I think you/we/Apple need to think even harder;-). Apple is not going to make or license a true iPod phone until they can get it working with their scroll wheel input device. And I don't think it is as easy as you suggest.
A scroll wheel and the centre button has lists (and hierarchical menus) well and truly licked (contact lists, missed calls, etc.). However, I can't see a solution for dialing specific numbers (not in your contacts lists etc.).
People want to be able to enter 041 226 8159 as they speed along the highway without looking. So having a scroll wheel to dial the numbers (as they do for the security lock) is really out of the question.
As well, putting the numbers on the scroll wheel (for use in a "dialling mode") won't work because the scroll wheel is touch sensitive (like a trackpad) and it would be very difficult to dial effectively (with no feedback).
Also I don't think you could fit or easily disambiguate ten different physical buttons underneath the scroll wheel (where the current left, right, up, and down buttons are). It's difficult enought getting left and right rather than up and down etc.
It's a tough problem and one I think Apple is definitely working on. I think in the end, something like a touch-sensitive LCD screen that could display a numeric keypad, or really good voice recognition will be the answer.
But there are problems with these solutions as well...
Cheers, Ashley.
-- Ashley Aitken Perth, Western Australia mrhatken at mac dot com
This is better than "TiVo for radio (shows)" removing the clumsy manual browsing to stream or download shows (and keep track of what you have and haven't heard).
And next up - video. Subscribe to your favourite TV series (old or new) and have episodes downloaded (for a fee and with FairPlay) when they become available, to watch at your leisure.
On your desktop, laptop, iPod or iPod connected to a TV.
The WebObjects license with the Xcode development tools is unlimited requests, load-balanced, and multi-threaded. It is a development and deployment license.
The license says you may copy it but it does not explicitly state that it can be used on other platforms. Apparently Apple is going to clear this up (in the affirmative).
There are, however, no longer any Windows development tools (notably EOModeller and WOBuilder) and deployment on other platforms is NOT supported (ie bugs may not be finished).
It is pure Java but, of couse, we all know what write-once-run-anywhere really means.
Trying to find a distinction between hardware, firmware and software information processing systems is a distraction - there is no difference.
What should be patentable is real invention, the creation of a new algorithm for solving some problem. This is where real innovation lies in software (and should be rewarded).
Let the person(s) who first worked out the bubblesort or quicksort algorithms gain from their work (with a patent). Most software doesn't contain interesting or important algorithms.
IIRC, I've read that this isn't allowed because "formulas" (and algorithms are thought of like formulas) are thought to be natural things - not patentable.
I think this is wrong. Some-one usually arrives at a new formula either analytically or through the analysis of experimental data. This is real work and what should be patentable.
Obviously, I'm no lawyer or IP specialists, but what's so difficult about this?
I agree with the description but I am not familiar with the term "animal" (perhaps it's a cultural thing), at least not used in this way. "Animal" to me makes me think of "Animal House," a wild, out of control type. "Animal" is also somewhat of a derogative term - he/she is an "animal." Perhaps persistent but not in a good way.
Slashdot Mirror
Just to second the suggestion for iChat and point out that iChat has a (command-line enabled) AUTO ANSWER facility. So when you ring your GrandParents they don't even need to click to answer.
I don't find the iChat "Chat Request" panel to be that intuitive (for GrandParents). It just displays a pane with the request annoucement but no buttons. You need to click on the panel to make it expand to show the accept/reject buttons.
Auto-Answer can also help if GrandParents aren't computer literate or have trouble seeing the small on-screen pointer.
Of course, most people don't like the invasion of privacy that this allows but then if you are thinking of video-chatting 24x7 this should not really be a problem.
Google for how to do it ...
Cheers,
Ashley.
Is this the first PDA or personal gaming device that use motion sensors for input (control)? I think this is going to be big - all those business-types (me included) playing games, networked games, in the office. I do think they may need need one or two buttons on the device, although perhaps "thumbspots" on the left and right would be enough.
Cheers,
Ashley.
A lot of people don't seem to see that the iPhone is as revolutionary as the original Mac was (wrt the original PC). It's a completely new UI (as the GUI was to the command line DOS) and form factor (as the original Mac was to the desktop PC).
Of course, other phones have touch-screens and some similar form features but *none* of them had Multi-touch and the form factor of the iPhone. It's really eery to see how similar this revolution is to the original Mac and how so many people are missing it (again).
Cheers,
Ashley.
Unfortunately, no Bluetooth on the iPod touch.
Cheers,
Ashley.
I recall a story about a medical expert system, related to me by the famous AI researcher Donald Michie (from the UK), that was designed to determine whether a patient with particular heart problems needed heart surgery or not. The expert system was proved to do a better job at predicting when heart surgery would increase the quality of the outcome (life) for the patient than specialists doctors (cardiologists?).
IIRC, the hospital chose not to use the system for fear of litigation when the expert systems diagnosis was wrong (which it no doubt would be in a lot of cases, just like the human's would be). Personally, I would - if I was the litigious type - probably sue if the hospital didn't use the method proven to be the most effective (in this case the expert system).
Of course, one could suggest a hybrid system where the specialist considers the output of the expert system, but I am not so sure this really solves the problem.
Cheers,
Ashley.
--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
Personally, I believe that communism (or similar) and capitalism (or similar) may be significant modes (extrema) for a society but that communism is more unstable and capitalism is more stable.
The analogy is a ball on a hill (communism) versus in a trough (captialism). A slight perturbation of the ball resting on the top of the hill causes it to quickly rolls away from the local maxima (the ideal of communism is lost to corruption etc). On the other hand, a slight or even more significant perturbation of the ball resting within a trough will eventually see the ball return to the local minima (the ideal of capitalism is maintained by everyone's self interest).
This, of course, does not mean that capitalism doesn't have its problems and a need for regulation of some kind to ensure the self-interest doesn't get too out of hand. It also doesn't mean there are not situations where communism can work with openness and transparency.
Cheers,
Ashley.
--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
WRONG!
This is a very good reason to keep iPhoto running after you close its main window. iPhoto also acts as a photo server allowing others to access photos on that machine.
I wish iPhoto allowed me to close its Window (freeing up considerable memory, I am sure) so that I could leave it running without the window open on our media server at home.
iTunes does!
Cheers,
Ashley.
--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
Laptops are just a tool like pencil and paper. A student can draw "rude" things or write cheat notes with a pencil and paper just as easily as downloading porn or instant messaging to cheat.
;-)
We have to teach how children how to behave appropriately, that downloading porn or pornographic doodling is not appropriate when you are supposed to be learning, and that cheating really doesn't help in the long run.
These are the temptations and pressures they will experience when they leave school and I see no better place (considering students probably spend more time awake at school than at home) for them to learn how to live with them.
Laptops are the pencil and paper of today and the future. With the Internet they can be used to do amazing things, and we should be teaching our children how to use them to do amazing things.
I'm sure there were similar debates when the first pencil and paper were introduced to schools
Cheers,
Ashley.
--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
would that be nano?
Look out for these to be in the upcoming MacBook mini/nano (carbon fibre black)!
If only I could get my apps and files down to 64GB
Cheers,
Ashley.
Howdy All,
I'd call myself an integrator - I certainly don't have any clear work - life boundary either way. I have no hesitation to interrupt work to attend to life (mostly family but also interests) and attend to work at all hours of the day and on weekends.
Pros: I feel like my life is very flexible, so I can be where I need to be and do what I most need to do at most times (e.g. help out with the family in the mornings and evenings), not miss being a part of our children's lives.
Cons: It's hectic, I never really know if I am doing too much work or not enough, many things are always happening at once, and it is difficult (but not impossible) to get good stretches of uninterrupted time.
If I was working entirely for myself (I'm only partially at the moment) then I would have less concerns (about being exploited or exploiting). I do mostly work on stuff I am interested in working on anyways, so its not like it is mundane work (that one would want to leave behind).
I find it a difficult question (integrator or segmentor) because I think segmentors must also be losing something as well (e.g. going to work at 8am and returning at 5pm just before the kids go to bed and so missing school events, after school events ).
Interesting discussion.
Cheers,
Ashley.
Yes, thanks, I understand you can get optical drives in ultraportables, although I am not as sure about slot-loading optical drives and we all know what Steve prefers.
;-) battery without an optical drive.
My concern though is that they go for an optical drive and flash disk, rather than a hard disk drive and larger (but not large
I believe most people with an ultraportable would also have another Mac (with an optical drive). Installing using TDM is easy.
Or even a usb2/firewire external optical drive.
Cheers,
Ashley.
I'm hoping Apple will go even further and bring out an UltraNotebook!
Black and made out of carbon fibre and without an optical drive.
I'm hoping they will still have a hard disk drive because this would be my ultimate portable for casual browsing, email and productivity and yet still be a fast external firewire drive when I want to use a larger, faster desktop machine with my home and all other personal files accessed from the ultranotebook in Target Disk Mode.
I currently do this with a 15" AlBook but it would be much sweeter with a smaller carbon fibre ultranotebook.
Howver, I'm worried they will use Flash memory and include the optical drive instead.
Cheers,
Ashley.
> Even better, find a way to record those 5 hours of weekly programming actually worth watching, and enjoy them at your leisure.
Yep, I agree and our TiVo does that for us, all from FTA TV.
5 hours of TV is plenty for us, and its all top quality, viewed at our leisure, paused, replayed and commercial skipped.
This is the way TV should be (IMHO).
Cheers,
Ashley.
PS In fact, we have trouble watching 5 hours a week, but no problem. That means we have plenty to watch when the rating finish and there's nothing on FTA TV. No need for cable (at least for us).
Ok, I agree this is most likely a scam or a fake.
But what about the general principle of archiving to dots on paper (be they black and white, probably better lasting, or colour for greater density) as a way of getting around the problem of constantly having to translate our archives into the latest technology (less we be left without a reader or, at best, only one in a museum some where).
It seems to me we'll probably always have scanners and the software to extract the information from an image would probably be relatively easy to write (for different image formats). It seems (at least superficially to me) that scanning is sort of independent of the underlying technology in a way that reading from a tape isn't.
I realise there have been (and are now) paper tape storage systems, I am more interested in getting over the problem of technology going out of date.
Cheers,
Ashley.
Good point.
Although (obviously) this time it is (mostly) pull, there is no (common) archive, and if you're away for a month you (may) lose a lot of "postings." (I'm not sure if some aggregators will keep items indefinitely even if they are removed from the feed, but I am pretty sure that referred content won't always stay around).
Cheers,
Ashley.
I want to know to whom I complain about the loss of my privacy.
I don't want anyone being able to peep into my backyard (without a legal search warrant etc.)
No one asked me if they could 1) take a snap of my backyard and, 2) display it publicly.
They should have.
Cheers,
Ashley
Lets assume you can get 8 different signals from a rocker like wheel (and although I think you could do it technically, I think the users would have trouble getting the right switch. As I said I have trouble enough with the 4 way rocker on my TiVo remote control).
...
Unfortunately, that's not good enough because you also need buttons for # and * in addition to 0 (all standard telephone keys). And I don't think there is much chance of Apple adding a row of 3 buttons just to give an iPod the ability to dial telephone numbers.
Don't get me wrong, I think an iPod phone is a great idea. I just don't think Apple will go with a UI solution that isn't completey within (or extends in a clear but simple way) the standard iPods UI paradigm.
Remember, they just got rid of an extra line of buttons
Cheers,
Ashley.
I think this is the real issue (but I think you/we/Apple need to think even harder ;-). Apple is not going to make or license a true iPod phone until they can get it working with their scroll wheel input device. And I don't think it is as easy as you suggest.
...
A scroll wheel and the centre button has lists (and hierarchical menus) well and truly licked (contact lists, missed calls, etc.). However, I can't see a solution for dialing specific numbers (not in your contacts lists etc.).
People want to be able to enter 041 226 8159 as they speed along the highway without looking. So having a scroll wheel to dial the numbers (as they do for the security lock) is really out of the question.
As well, putting the numbers on the scroll wheel (for use in a "dialling mode") won't work because the scroll wheel is touch sensitive (like a trackpad) and it would be very difficult to dial effectively (with no feedback).
Also I don't think you could fit or easily disambiguate ten different physical buttons underneath the scroll wheel (where the current left, right, up, and down buttons are). It's difficult enought getting left and right rather than up and down etc.
It's a tough problem and one I think Apple is definitely working on. I think in the end, something like a touch-sensitive LCD screen that could display a numeric keypad, or really good voice recognition will be the answer.
But there are problems with these solutions as well
Cheers,
Ashley.
--
Ashley Aitken
Perth, Western Australia
mrhatken at mac dot com
iTunes Podcasting support is amazing!
This is better than "TiVo for radio (shows)" removing the clumsy manual browsing to stream or download shows (and keep track of what you have and haven't heard).
And next up - video. Subscribe to your favourite TV series (old or new) and have episodes downloaded (for a fee and with FairPlay) when they become available, to watch at your leisure.
On your desktop, laptop, iPod or iPod connected to a TV.
Then, eventually, movies.
Go Apple!
Cheers,
Ashley.
The WebObjects license with the Xcode development tools is unlimited requests, load-balanced, and multi-threaded. It is a development and deployment license.
The license says you may copy it but it does not explicitly state that it can be used on other platforms. Apparently Apple is going to clear this up (in the affirmative).
There are, however, no longer any Windows development tools (notably EOModeller and WOBuilder) and deployment on other platforms is NOT supported (ie bugs may not be finished).
It is pure Java but, of couse, we all know what write-once-run-anywhere really means.
Cheers,
Ashley.
Howdy All,
Trying to find a distinction between hardware, firmware and software information processing systems is a distraction - there is no difference.
What should be patentable is real invention, the creation of a new algorithm for solving some problem. This is where real innovation lies in software (and should be rewarded).
Let the person(s) who first worked out the bubblesort or quicksort algorithms gain from their work (with a patent). Most software doesn't contain interesting or important algorithms.
IIRC, I've read that this isn't allowed because "formulas" (and algorithms are thought of like formulas) are thought to be natural things - not patentable.
I think this is wrong. Some-one usually arrives at a new formula either analytically or through the analysis of experimental data. This is real work and what should be patentable.
Obviously, I'm no lawyer or IP specialists, but what's so difficult about this?
Cheers,
Ashley.
Great post, and I agree.
FInder File menus should be:
New Browser
New Folder
Open
Double clicking on a disk or folder should open a folder window (and only a folder window, not a Brower).
Heck, the Browser could even be a separate application. Spatial folder windows plus Browser application.
Now, I think a single-window Browser could benefit from split-window capability, but that's another story.
Cheers,
Ashley.
Will we ever get to the point of pay-per-use for our music?
Of course, it would have to be something small.
Cheers,
Ashley.
Thanks for the explanation.
I guess it is a cultural thing - I wouldn't say that understanding is common in Australia.
We'd probably call someone like that "fanatical" - and I guess that would have a different interpretation in the US
As I said, "animal" is more like John Belushi in "Animal House."
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Ashley.
I agree with the description but I am not familiar with the term "animal" (perhaps it's a cultural thing), at least not used in this way. "Animal" to me makes me think of "Animal House," a wild, out of control type. "Animal" is also somewhat of a derogative term - he/she is an "animal." Perhaps persistent but not in a good way.
What's the US interpretation?
Cheers,
Ashley.