What surprised me was that the submitter, the Slashdot editor and all the comments so far have missed the fact that this company was started by Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft in 1976.
Which does go some way to explain the heavy use of the word Microsoft and their associated (tm)(r)(c) lettering in almost every page.
As in, yes we promise that we won't screw Symbian up as badly as we screwed up this whole N-Gage thing...
They won't. Mainly because they can't afford to.
Nokia are shit scared (like every other manufacturer - bar Motorola) that Microsoft are going to muscle into the mobile phone industry and take it over. If that happened, all mobile phone manufacturers would be relegated to producing hardware on flimsy margins and licencing the OS from Microsoft (a la the current PC situation).
The biggest thing that Symbian has in its favour is that the Microsoft Phone OS is truely truely aweful. However it won't be like that forever.
If a company sends people out into your neighborhood to stuff things into your box, bypassing the USPS, then that's a federal crime.
If thats the case, you can get prosecuted for walking around the streets posting your christmas cards into your friends postboxes because you didn't use the USPS.
Of course one huge downside to this "friend of friends" approach is all the virus spam I get that's sent using someone's address book (thanks Outlook!)
Whilst I don't want to look like I'm fighting for Outlook (because when it comes to virus propogation, it certainly does do that job well), I do think it's worth pointing out that its trivially easy to extract the names and numbers out of other email clients' address book.
In fact, if you compaire it to something like, say Pine, it's actually harder to get at the numbers because you have to use the Outlook object. With Pine you can just read a plain text file.
It also means that Microsoft can (and have) written hooks so that if something tries to access the Outlook object, Windows can jump in and stop it from doing so.
I don't believe Linux can stop any application reading a file short of changing its permissions, which means the anything could access the Pine address book and no-one would be any the wiser.
Of course, the problem with viruses (and the issues with Outlook/Windows/IE that helps them) is a whole lot bigger than just getting the addresses, but something i thought I'd mention.
Agreed, it's pretty aweful. However if you use Lynx on Avantslash then it's perfectly readable.
Of course, the main attempt with Avantslash was to produce a decent PDA version of Slashdot for offline viewing, but it works equally well with Lynx and even WAP browsers (using Googles HTML to WML convertor).
I notice that you've altered your email address. Is that the All or Nothing approach?
Its a Slashdot thing. However i accept that if I have an email address i can't stop people from firing up an email, typing my address in and hitting send as long as they stay within the letter of the law (and your can-spam act isn't law outside of the USA which makes it useless).
The fact is, you do have legal recourse if the calls are harrassing
An advert for penis enlargement pills is not harassment unless you are mailbombed.
You're mistaking communication which is of no interest to you with acts that are illegal. The two are very different.
Responding to "market forces" (and God knows I'm an ESR-esque capitalist) doesn't give you the right to invade my privacy.
Your privacy hasn't been invaded. You've set up an email address which is the equivilant of installing a letter box in your house door and inviting people to post stuff through it.
No email address, no entry point. But you have one and now you're upset because the people that are coming through the door aren't people that you want.
Email is all or nothing. You either accept that by having an email account you will receive everyting that is sent that address or you don't have one.
If you want to add filters at your end, then that is your call - but to think that you can dictate who can and can't use your email address to *try* and send you something is laughibly impossible.
Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. Sucks, but thats the way it is.
The thing is that in terms of PDAs palm is probably the main choice on the Mac, whereas on the PC sadly MS PocketPC is now the main choice.
That only came about because Microsofts PIM software (whilst not being the best it possibly could be) kicked the butt of Palms for so long, it was silly that you'd even consider anything else if you used Outlook on the desktop.
Let us not forget the Palm's 4k note limit, no multiple addresses, no alarms on tasks, no decent extendable today screen and forced synchronisation.
Don't blame Microsoft, blame Palm for procrastinating.
They're not doing anything illegal? Can you explain how what trackers (that have infringing material) are legal when they are participating in contributory infringement [chillingeffects.org] as defined by the DMCA? The only way that they can be legal is to if they fall under the safe harbor provisions [chillingeffects.org], but I couldn't find their DMCA agent listed on their site.
If the trackers aren't hosted in the USA then they aren't subject to the DMCA. American laws don't cover the entire world.
It supports continuious hotsyncing in the background. I like the idea that I can take my PDA out of the cradle at any time and it'll be up to date with my PC.
A pretty today screen with the ability to install addition plugins for extra views and functionality. You can get today screens for the Palm but you're locked into what the developer wants you to see and how he/she wants you to see it.
Better syncing with Outlook. All the fields (a la Chapura KeySuite - but without the need for a different database)
Yes, the PocketPC has them and it's also a little more unstable. But those three features are (for me), the killer things that I (in a non tech job) can't live without.
With Flash getting more and more mainstream, and with the now high volumes being made available, hard drives are becoming less and less necessary for commodity products such as desktops and notebooks. The latter especially will make the switch from HDs to Flash, to lighten up the power and physical load.
I get the impression that Hard Drive manufacturers are heading towards making their drives smaller, lighter and with less power drain (for portable devices, eg. new iPod) than they will making them have a greater capacity.
A tiny compact flash sized HD with very low power drain and good price point would be excellent. Something like the IBM Microdrive - but one that won't drain your PDA batteries after 30 minutes.
Although bear in mind I know as much about Hard Drive technology as I do Russian Line Dancing.
It's easy, it's pretty, you get a grasp of functions and objects and you can do moderatly complex things pretty quickly which means that they'll get instant gratification.
If you want to introduce them to programming, given them something that can make them go "wow!" pretty quickly. Thats what made those Spectrum BASIC books so good - within 10 minutes you had lots of pretty squares up on the screen.
I'm sure a lot of people would shudder at the though and want their kids to start with C++ or Perl - but I think that it might do more damage than good. No one wants to be scared off by pointers or regular expressions.
PocketPC, on the other hand, takes an entirely different approach. You're stuck with MS-imposed limitations like a chunky 320x240 screen size
Have a read up on the Palm screen fiasco. Palm supported only one screen size. Other hardware manufacturers came along (Sony etc.etc) and developed better resolution screens requiring their own API. Then Palm came out with their own. So now you have several different API's for drawing stuff on a resolution greater than the 160x160 it was before. Which one do you support? None, one of them or all? Each one has it's pro's and con's. If you supported all of them, your development time skyrockets. Drop one of them and someone will get a poor user experience.
Have a look at the PocketPC processor fiasco where MS let any manufacturer use any processor. We ended up with different versions of an application for ARM, SH3 and MIPS. Total nightmare if you downloaded the wrong file. Application installers made things better but you had to download a file three times bigger than the size of the installer you want.
I agree that there are issues with restricting the hardware specifications, however the two reasons above show why it was done. If you don't, you end up with a horrible mess of API's, formats, versions and incompatibilites.
I have a PocketPC, despite a few problems with the OS (it locks up occasionally), I really like it.
However, my biggest complaint about the PocketPC, is that 90% of the people who can program for it, are always out for a buck or two. The Palm had a fantasic selection of free and Free applications and tools.
Want something useful? Cough up $10 for it. Need a subtle enhancement? Another $10-$15. Now I don't mind paying for things if they're good - but sometimes the amount the author wants for his little application is stupid.
For example: The Microsoft Theme Switcher is very buggy (it tends to lock up frequently). Want an alternative? All the replacements cost if you want the full functionality.
I want to develop a Free (GPL) product that will allow Visual Basic programmers to create Today plugins. It needs some eVB work (which I can do) and some eVC work (which i can't). I've been advertising for help. Out of the limited responses I've got - people are only interested if there is money to be made.
Anyone got any hints on finding a Today screen programmer willing to work on a GPL project?
After searching for a phone that syncs with my PIM for a few months now, I'm stumped... Are there any phones out there that will sync easily with PIM software, be it Outlook, Evolution, or something else?
Without sounding rude, how hard did you search?
All Nokia series 40 and above support syncing to and from Outlook (provided your phone has at least IR). You can get the software from the CD or their website.
SonyEricsson P800 and P900 support syncing - free software included.
The newer Samsung phones support syncing - free software included.
The list included words such as "Berkshire", "Marriott", "wireless", "touch" and "comment".
Including just one of these words convinced Mr Graham-Cumming's real spam filter that a message was ham rather than spam.
Am I the only one that isn't very surprised by this? Spammers use random words to try and reduce the spamminess score of their email.
Using words that someone has never used before will be assigned a score of 0.4 by default. Given that all the other words will have very high spamminess values, what you actually want are words that give very very very low spamminess scores to combat the words like "viagra" and "loans".
If you really wanted to beat your own spam filter, then just scan through your spam database looking for the top 10 lowest scoring words. Then add them to your spam email and you'll be guaranteed that it'll get through. From the BBC article, Mr Graham-Cumming either lives or spends a lot of time in Berkshire (possibly in a Mariott hotel) and has a particular interest in things which are wireless.
Unfortunately I have no idea how to read the database in spamassassin as i'd be interested to see what my words would be.
I want a phone that has a good adressbook and a calendar that you can sync with your computer.
Try a Nokia series 40 phone. They're not the cheapest on the market (they are coming down in price though) but can you sync the address book and calendar with Microsoft Outlook. You don't have to get one with a camera either (6100 is good, but no bluetooth).
Slashdot Mirror
Which does go some way to explain the heavy use of the word Microsoft and their associated (tm)(r)(c) lettering in almost every page.
Information here.
They won't. Mainly because they can't afford to.
Nokia are shit scared (like every other manufacturer - bar Motorola) that Microsoft are going to muscle into the mobile phone industry and take it over. If that happened, all mobile phone manufacturers would be relegated to producing hardware on flimsy margins and licencing the OS from Microsoft (a la the current PC situation).
The biggest thing that Symbian has in its favour is that the Microsoft Phone OS is truely truely aweful. However it won't be like that forever.
For example, tell me who wrote the song "E.V.A.". If I use that in Google, I end up with loads of "Eva Cassidy" links.
I've tried quotes and backslashes but still i don't seem to be able to force punctuation. Any ideas?
Actually comments are like sex. Even if they are bad, they're better than nothing.
If thats the case, you can get prosecuted for walking around the streets posting your christmas cards into your friends postboxes because you didn't use the USPS.
Thankfully it doesn't apply outside of the USA.
Whilst I don't want to look like I'm fighting for Outlook (because when it comes to virus propogation, it certainly does do that job well), I do think it's worth pointing out that its trivially easy to extract the names and numbers out of other email clients' address book.
In fact, if you compaire it to something like, say Pine, it's actually harder to get at the numbers because you have to use the Outlook object. With Pine you can just read a plain text file.
It also means that Microsoft can (and have) written hooks so that if something tries to access the Outlook object, Windows can jump in and stop it from doing so.
I don't believe Linux can stop any application reading a file short of changing its permissions, which means the anything could access the Pine address book and no-one would be any the wiser.
Of course, the problem with viruses (and the issues with Outlook/Windows/IE that helps them) is a whole lot bigger than just getting the addresses, but something i thought I'd mention.
Agreed, it's pretty aweful. However if you use Lynx on Avantslash then it's perfectly readable.
Of course, the main attempt with Avantslash was to produce a decent PDA version of Slashdot for offline viewing, but it works equally well with Lynx and even WAP browsers (using Googles HTML to WML convertor).
Give it a go.
It was also used by Pink in the song "Get the party started". If you listen to the track, the metallicy bit was produced using Autotune.
(fact courtsey of the Science Museum, London)
Its a Slashdot thing. However i accept that if I have an email address i can't stop people from firing up an email, typing my address in and hitting send as long as they stay within the letter of the law (and your can-spam act isn't law outside of the USA which makes it useless).
The fact is, you do have legal recourse if the calls are harrassing
An advert for penis enlargement pills is not harassment unless you are mailbombed.
You're mistaking communication which is of no interest to you with acts that are illegal. The two are very different.
They can put post in there though. Whether you want that post or not.
It's like saying, "Hey, your address was in the phone book, so I thought I'd dump my trash there."
No, because trash is not the same as "post which advertises a product". However much we would like it to be.
By your logic letter bombs would be legal.
Letter bombs are illegal. Spam isn't. Not a good analogy.
Sorry, but you haven't even begun to prove that I'm wrong.
No, by that logic, if you have a phone, you should accept the fact that people you don't want to speak to will *try* and contact you.
If you provide a means for the world to get in contact with you, you can't be surprised when they do.
Your privacy hasn't been invaded. You've set up an email address which is the equivilant of installing a letter box in your house door and inviting people to post stuff through it.
No email address, no entry point. But you have one and now you're upset because the people that are coming through the door aren't people that you want.
Email is all or nothing. You either accept that by having an email account you will receive everyting that is sent that address or you don't have one.
If you want to add filters at your end, then that is your call - but to think that you can dictate who can and can't use your email address to *try* and send you something is laughibly impossible.
Sorry, it just doesn't work that way. Sucks, but thats the way it is.
That only came about because Microsofts PIM software (whilst not being the best it possibly could be) kicked the butt of Palms for so long, it was silly that you'd even consider anything else if you used Outlook on the desktop.
Let us not forget the Palm's 4k note limit, no multiple addresses, no alarms on tasks, no decent extendable today screen and forced synchronisation.
Don't blame Microsoft, blame Palm for procrastinating.
If the trackers aren't hosted in the USA then they aren't subject to the DMCA. American laws don't cover the entire world.
- It supports continuious hotsyncing in the background. I like the idea that I can take my PDA out of the cradle at any time and it'll be up to date with my PC.
- A pretty today screen with the ability to install addition plugins for extra views and functionality. You can get today screens for the Palm but you're locked into what the developer wants you to see and how he/she wants you to see it.
- Better syncing with Outlook. All the fields (a la Chapura KeySuite - but without the need for a different database)
Yes, the PocketPC has them and it's also a little more unstable. But those three features are (for me), the killer things that I (in a non tech job) can't live without.You don't always have to edit the registry. Sometimes its a simple point and click job. Details are here.
I get the impression that Hard Drive manufacturers are heading towards making their drives smaller, lighter and with less power drain (for portable devices, eg. new iPod) than they will making them have a greater capacity.
A tiny compact flash sized HD with very low power drain and good price point would be excellent. Something like the IBM Microdrive - but one that won't drain your PDA batteries after 30 minutes.
Although bear in mind I know as much about Hard Drive technology as I do Russian Line Dancing.
No seriously.
It's easy, it's pretty, you get a grasp of functions and objects and you can do moderatly complex things pretty quickly which means that they'll get instant gratification.
If you want to introduce them to programming, given them something that can make them go "wow!" pretty quickly. Thats what made those Spectrum BASIC books so good - within 10 minutes you had lots of pretty squares up on the screen.
I'm sure a lot of people would shudder at the though and want their kids to start with C++ or Perl - but I think that it might do more damage than good. No one wants to be scared off by pointers or regular expressions.
Have a read up on the Palm screen fiasco. Palm supported only one screen size. Other hardware manufacturers came along (Sony etc.etc) and developed better resolution screens requiring their own API. Then Palm came out with their own. So now you have several different API's for drawing stuff on a resolution greater than the 160x160 it was before. Which one do you support? None, one of them or all? Each one has it's pro's and con's. If you supported all of them, your development time skyrockets. Drop one of them and someone will get a poor user experience.
Have a look at the PocketPC processor fiasco where MS let any manufacturer use any processor. We ended up with different versions of an application for ARM, SH3 and MIPS. Total nightmare if you downloaded the wrong file. Application installers made things better but you had to download a file three times bigger than the size of the installer you want.
I agree that there are issues with restricting the hardware specifications, however the two reasons above show why it was done. If you don't, you end up with a horrible mess of API's, formats, versions and incompatibilites.
However, my biggest complaint about the PocketPC, is that 90% of the people who can program for it, are always out for a buck or two. The Palm had a fantasic selection of free and Free applications and tools.
Want something useful? Cough up $10 for it. Need a subtle enhancement? Another $10-$15. Now I don't mind paying for things if they're good - but sometimes the amount the author wants for his little application is stupid.
For example: The Microsoft Theme Switcher is very buggy (it tends to lock up frequently). Want an alternative? All the replacements cost if you want the full functionality.
I want to develop a Free (GPL) product that will allow Visual Basic programmers to create Today plugins. It needs some eVB work (which I can do) and some eVC work (which i can't). I've been advertising for help. Out of the limited responses I've got - people are only interested if there is money to be made.
Anyone got any hints on finding a Today screen programmer willing to work on a GPL project?
Without sounding rude, how hard did you search?
All Nokia series 40 and above support syncing to and from Outlook (provided your phone has at least IR). You can get the software from the CD or their website.
SonyEricsson P800 and P900 support syncing - free software included.
The newer Samsung phones support syncing - free software included.
Try checking out the manufacturers websites.
Including just one of these words convinced Mr Graham-Cumming's real spam filter that a message was ham rather than spam.
Am I the only one that isn't very surprised by this? Spammers use random words to try and reduce the spamminess score of their email.
Using words that someone has never used before will be assigned a score of 0.4 by default. Given that all the other words will have very high spamminess values, what you actually want are words that give very very very low spamminess scores to combat the words like "viagra" and "loans".
If you really wanted to beat your own spam filter, then just scan through your spam database looking for the top 10 lowest scoring words. Then add them to your spam email and you'll be guaranteed that it'll get through. From the BBC article, Mr Graham-Cumming either lives or spends a lot of time in Berkshire (possibly in a Mariott hotel) and has a particular interest in things which are wireless.
Unfortunately I have no idea how to read the database in spamassassin as i'd be interested to see what my words would be.
I'm not sure what I'm more impressed by - the fact that an email virus can talk, or that it's speaking at Harvard on behalf of Darl.
Try a Nokia series 40 phone. They're not the cheapest on the market (they are coming down in price though) but can you sync the address book and calendar with Microsoft Outlook. You don't have to get one with a camera either (6100 is good, but no bluetooth).
It's by no means perfect, but give it a go.