Android is going to have to be better. And that means hardware and software.
For GSM, the Nexus One appears to be the top of the heap, and I was very close to ordering one but there are a lot of loose ends which Google appears to have given up on. I'm getting an iPhone as a trial, because if it really does "just work" I'll be happy. I'm not convinced (by the information I've read) that Android is there yet. Maybe by the time the Nexus Two hits. Or not.
The pluming I refer to was the act of making or preparing plums for food. The consumption of which would lead - obviously - to the need for plumbing (at least when the fruit is ingested in it's dried state).;-)
I have an Acer Timeline - 11.6" screen, decent keyboard, 3lbs (easily portable, though not iPad light). It is great for surfing, email, reading (I don't play games, though it seems spec'd to do so). It's hard drive carries all my music, all of my personal files and photos, and all of my work files (combined, about 350GB) which automatically sync to their respective networks seamlessly. It last 8 hours on a charge if I'm not actively working (transcoding, light CAD or PDF marking). It runs my word processor of choice, and spreadsheet, and all the technical apps (structural design and analysis) I use at work and in the field. It tethers to my mobile phone for internet access and has internal wireless elsewhere. I can hook it to my projector through the HDMI port for presentations, or movies.
It was $300, I added another $100 for a second battery (the 8 hr cap one, plus I have 6hr it came with) and bluetooth. I suspect if I were careful I might get closer to the 10hrs iPad users are getting - I certainly can with the WiFi off (but that kind of defeats the purpose of a browser device).
There are times I think a slate might be a little more useful - such as using it as an eReader - but I don't use it for that too much.
I think the real reason netbooks have crashed is that the prices are going UP. To get my machine today would cost me $100 more than it did in the fall of '09. I can get a 15" laptop with similar specs (save battery life, but with a faster proc) for less than this costs now. In my mind, i got my portable office machine, with 80-90% of the iPad advantages, and I don't have to carry around a second "consumer" device.
The AG's job regarding legal advice is to provide it in response to requests from state institutions. In this case, I believe, nobody asked him - he just decided that it was in his political interest to create the opinion from his reading of the laws.
He's - if I can borrow the term - legislating from the AG's office. I'd rather he go back to prosecuting people who harm society by breaking the law. (We'll, I'd rather he leave office. Steve Shannon is no great shakes, but I voted for him as a way to vote against this kind of activism).
I suspect the more important thing here is that you're probably using your work email for personal matters, and it's easy to check email in the evening. I'm not complaining, a lot of people do it - don't get too defensive.
One other thing to consider is that while they may be able to "replace you in 24 hours," if their CFO has any business sense at all he or she will know that replacing an employee will cost him 20-50% of that employee's annual compensation in training (actual and downtime). And that, I presume, it quite a lot more than the $1k it would cost to fight over an employer supplied machine. A machine, I might add, over which he could have unlimited, cosmic power.
We all know Apple is incompetent when it comes to actual technology (vs UI and lock in), but even I know that Steve could get CDMA working in a handset. Every other manufacturer in the world does CDMA and GSM phones blindfolded. It's really not that big a deal. It really was all about control.
(1) you can untag (2) you don't have to be using Facebook to be tagged, so staying off won't help (3) What are you doing pulling a NSFW stunt in public, and then complaining about being found out?
I hate to break it to you, but your name, your friends, the groups you associate with, the games you play (on, say, Xbox live or Steam), etc. is no private information. Sure, you'd like to thing so, but as anyone here at/. will tell you, security by obscurity is no security at all.
Now, you may be the person who encrypts all your email, uses only anonymous wifi connections at public places, has a private mail box which was opened with a bogus address, pays for everything with cash, and only plays offline games you buy from second hand stores. In that case, I'll admit you're probably not in the group of people who could get something even marginally useful from FB.
The key here is knowing what information really isn't private at all, and accepting it. Some things in life really don't matter, and you could spend enormous effort trying to conceal them. To me, it's not worth it. Set your limit of comfort and stay there. Assume that everything you do could get printed out and posted on your office door, or mailed to your pastor, wife, mother, divorce lawyer, etc.
My point to the OP was that FB is good, as long as you understand its limitations. And, more importantly, that any social networking site will have essentially the same limitations. You ignore that last part at your own peril.
I'm actually too lazy to switch them on a regular basis (they were set up with bogus info originally), and half the time I'm using a CC anyway (which throws anonymity out the window).
I still like using my "phone number" sometimes just for the heck of it. I use 867-5309, and it's never been denied. Too many young cashiers these days to even recognize it now.:-)
Actually, I do. Just not on my phone anymore. I used iNav for 3 years on my WM phone, but last winter installed an in-dash 7" nav head unit. It's one of the few things that kept me from iPhone land. Second was PocketInformant - my must have calendar - which is now out for the iPhone. Third was great outlook connectivity - which I dumped when I moved my company to google apps. Fourth is tethering, which I still need. Get AT&T off the dime on tethering (and I don't use more than a couple hundred MB in a crazy-busy tethering month) and all the barriers will be down.
I've got 5 months until AT&T will toss me $300 for a new phone...we'll see what Google and Apple have to offer in the fall.
Yeah, unless Hasselblad (never owned one) has changed the lens mounts on the digital versions, the box itself is really not a huge deal. I'd rather get the integrated camera and sensor.
Personally, I just switched from an old Nikon F4s to a D3. It might have been nice to get a digital back, but there's just not enough space to get all you can with a fully digital body. I've got a truck load of learning to do, too - I've done nothing but point and shoot for a decade, and while I like bokeh as much as the next guy, having a big sensor and a bunch of F/1.8-f/2.8 lenses again means having to remember that wide open means most of the frame is out of focus!
The big key is that all my old AF and MF lenses still work with the new body. Sure, I've got my eye on some better mechanisms (mine are all manually coupled AF) in the new glass, but I'm back in the field with a bag full of fantastic optics and all I had to do was get the new back. Besides, if it lasts me 3-4 years, I can probably make back the cost in film, developing, and scanning - and I'm getting better digital images than the punched version that comes with $10 processing, and stupid-high ISO speed to boot.
Sure, Mark Zuckerberg's a douchebag, but most large corporations are run by douchebags and yet I still buy Cheerios at WalMart and drive a Chrysler.
Here's the thing - and don't tell anybody I told you this - if you don't put anything private on Facebook, then your privacy won't be compromised by it.
I use Facebook. I use it because most of my friends are on it. It's a nice way to stay in touch with people who I know, but most of whom I couldn't finish a single beer with and still have anything to talk about. I like these folks - they're part of my past and present - bu some people I only have very small things in common with. I also know when things are happening (a friend's play, or their kids league championship ball game), and where I have common interests with acquaintances whom I would either not interact with at all, or would take years to become closer.
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search. I never Facebook while drunk (well, I don't get drunk - but you get the idea), and I don't attack people or things. I don't join "causes". I'm not a marketing wasteland, though. I've filled out my "favorite" things sections. BFD. If knowing that I'm in my 40s, like Bowling for Soup and Amadeus, and am married gets Facebook a couple of dollars in ad revenue, go for it. Kroger already knows when I'm on a fucking Diet, and CVS probably informs their spies when the rest of my household has seasonal allergies.
So, that brings me back - unless you really need something else, and are willing and able to migrate your entire friend group to it - quit your whining, be smart with your data, and surf with due caution. You know you can't trust Zuckerberg, and that's 98% of the way to keeping your information safe.
Oh - and whatever you go to will be just as bad eventually. Google can't always not be evil, and even open source projects can have a mole.
Actually, they've been doing this for decades in MD (I had it back in '93) and it's not nearly as severe as you think. In general, it's on par with turning you thermostat up/down a few degrees while you're out of the house. The temperature will shift, but not as much as if the system was allowed to be off for an extended period. If you regularly set your thermostat to 74F, and they turn it down/off for a period, it is likely to drift as high as 80F - possibly 82F. It sounds like your quick cycling unit may be oversized.
Whenever anyone speaks in generalities about offering great things in the future, she always thinks they're talking about her.
"Other platforms" really doesn't mean many options if you're talking about the smart phone market, but it also is not synonymous with "iPhone." I would not be surprised to see Google start to hold back a little on the iPhone development in order to bolster the desirability of the Android platform. They've been giving Redmond the finger practically since the beginning*. Plus, with King Steve talking trash about Android, I wouldn't be surprised if they put a hold on some of their development as a little bit of petty revenge. It's not like there's another turn by turn package that's even close to free for the iPhone.
*Yes, I own a WM phone and, yes, I'm a little disappointed that several features in the GoogleApps world have not been ported to the WM system (the ability to see multiple calendars - even if only by using tags - is at the forefront; I couldn't care less about turn by turn).
Four fully enclosed offices with doors which open to a central conference area (just a 3x8 table and half a dozen chairs), which in turn opens onto the corridor accessing the rest of the office. Bonus points if you can parley a space for a sink, a mini-fridge, and a coffee machine on a small kitchenette at one end of the common area.
You should always be close, but there are times when you need to collaborate and times when you need to close the door and concentrate on what you're doing without distraction (coding, of course).
I have actually worked in an environment like this and it is pretty darned productive. We had 6 offices that opened onto a common area. No coffee mess, but life isn't perfect. I think we were much more in sync as a team than the folks who were lined up in offices along a corridor, and much less distracted than being in a cube farm (I've been in both of those environments, too).
Does nobody own a loupe these days? Mark lines a mm apart (or get a damned scale), stick a loupe on in the face, and count the pixels. It's really not that hard.
Honestly, though, for the iPhone the hardware means very little. It's the software that makes the device what it is, and if you can't fix the software to work the way you want it to, it may as well be a deck of cards.
C'mon. If we don't get the pink OMGPonies theme (best yet 4/1 joke), at least throw us a bone with an article about SCO offering new software products.
Slashdot Mirror
Before creating a Facebook account, please consider this:
Everything that you put into Facebook is public. If you don't want people to know, don't post it.
Android is going to have to be better. And that means hardware and software.
For GSM, the Nexus One appears to be the top of the heap, and I was very close to ordering one but there are a lot of loose ends which Google appears to have given up on. I'm getting an iPhone as a trial, because if it really does "just work" I'll be happy. I'm not convinced (by the information I've read) that Android is there yet. Maybe by the time the Nexus Two hits. Or not.
That would be plumage.
The pluming I refer to was the act of making or preparing plums for food. The consumption of which would lead - obviously - to the need for plumbing (at least when the fruit is ingested in it's dried state). ;-)
I think you may have tried the wrong netbook.
I have an Acer Timeline - 11.6" screen, decent keyboard, 3lbs (easily portable, though not iPad light). It is great for surfing, email, reading (I don't play games, though it seems spec'd to do so). It's hard drive carries all my music, all of my personal files and photos, and all of my work files (combined, about 350GB) which automatically sync to their respective networks seamlessly. It last 8 hours on a charge if I'm not actively working (transcoding, light CAD or PDF marking). It runs my word processor of choice, and spreadsheet, and all the technical apps (structural design and analysis) I use at work and in the field. It tethers to my mobile phone for internet access and has internal wireless elsewhere. I can hook it to my projector through the HDMI port for presentations, or movies.
It was $300, I added another $100 for a second battery (the 8 hr cap one, plus I have 6hr it came with) and bluetooth. I suspect if I were careful I might get closer to the 10hrs iPad users are getting - I certainly can with the WiFi off (but that kind of defeats the purpose of a browser device).
There are times I think a slate might be a little more useful - such as using it as an eReader - but I don't use it for that too much.
I think the real reason netbooks have crashed is that the prices are going UP. To get my machine today would cost me $100 more than it did in the fall of '09. I can get a 15" laptop with similar specs (save battery life, but with a faster proc) for less than this costs now. In my mind, i got my portable office machine, with 80-90% of the iPad advantages, and I don't have to carry around a second "consumer" device.
The advantage I see to the book
If the aliens gave pluming to the Egyptians, why not the Mayans?
I'd rather correct you:
The AG's job regarding legal advice is to provide it in response to requests from state institutions. In this case, I believe, nobody asked him - he just decided that it was in his political interest to create the opinion from his reading of the laws.
He's - if I can borrow the term - legislating from the AG's office. I'd rather he go back to prosecuting people who harm society by breaking the law. (We'll, I'd rather he leave office. Steve Shannon is no great shakes, but I voted for him as a way to vote against this kind of activism).
So go buy a cheap computer to keep your job.
I suspect the more important thing here is that you're probably using your work email for personal matters, and it's easy to check email in the evening. I'm not complaining, a lot of people do it - don't get too defensive.
One other thing to consider is that while they may be able to "replace you in 24 hours," if their CFO has any business sense at all he or she will know that replacing an employee will cost him 20-50% of that employee's annual compensation in training (actual and downtime). And that, I presume, it quite a lot more than the $1k it would cost to fight over an employer supplied machine. A machine, I might add, over which he could have unlimited, cosmic power.
...he's still a little bitter about the fallout from that whole "Nomad" comment a few years back. ;-)
1. Apple makes Kurt from Glee look straight.
2. I suspect that, based on their approach to their users, Apple would be more likely to pitch than catch.
We all know Apple is incompetent when it comes to actual technology (vs UI and lock in), but even I know that Steve could get CDMA working in a handset. Every other manufacturer in the world does CDMA and GSM phones blindfolded. It's really not that big a deal. It really was all about control.
(1) you can untag
(2) you don't have to be using Facebook to be tagged, so staying off won't help
(3) What are you doing pulling a NSFW stunt in public, and then complaining about being found out?
I hate to break it to you, but your name, your friends, the groups you associate with, the games you play (on, say, Xbox live or Steam), etc. is no private information. Sure, you'd like to thing so, but as anyone here at /. will tell you, security by obscurity is no security at all.
Now, you may be the person who encrypts all your email, uses only anonymous wifi connections at public places, has a private mail box which was opened with a bogus address, pays for everything with cash, and only plays offline games you buy from second hand stores. In that case, I'll admit you're probably not in the group of people who could get something even marginally useful from FB.
The key here is knowing what information really isn't private at all, and accepting it. Some things in life really don't matter, and you could spend enormous effort trying to conceal them. To me, it's not worth it. Set your limit of comfort and stay there. Assume that everything you do could get printed out and posted on your office door, or mailed to your pastor, wife, mother, divorce lawyer, etc.
My point to the OP was that FB is good, as long as you understand its limitations. And, more importantly, that any social networking site will have essentially the same limitations. You ignore that last part at your own peril.
I'm actually too lazy to switch them on a regular basis (they were set up with bogus info originally), and half the time I'm using a CC anyway (which throws anonymity out the window).
I still like using my "phone number" sometimes just for the heck of it. I use 867-5309, and it's never been denied. Too many young cashiers these days to even recognize it now. :-)
Actually, I do. Just not on my phone anymore. I used iNav for 3 years on my WM phone, but last winter installed an in-dash 7" nav head unit. It's one of the few things that kept me from iPhone land. Second was PocketInformant - my must have calendar - which is now out for the iPhone. Third was great outlook connectivity - which I dumped when I moved my company to google apps. Fourth is tethering, which I still need. Get AT&T off the dime on tethering (and I don't use more than a couple hundred MB in a crazy-busy tethering month) and all the barriers will be down.
I've got 5 months until AT&T will toss me $300 for a new phone...we'll see what Google and Apple have to offer in the fall.
Yeah, unless Hasselblad (never owned one) has changed the lens mounts on the digital versions, the box itself is really not a huge deal. I'd rather get the integrated camera and sensor.
Personally, I just switched from an old Nikon F4s to a D3. It might have been nice to get a digital back, but there's just not enough space to get all you can with a fully digital body. I've got a truck load of learning to do, too - I've done nothing but point and shoot for a decade, and while I like bokeh as much as the next guy, having a big sensor and a bunch of F/1.8-f/2.8 lenses again means having to remember that wide open means most of the frame is out of focus!
The big key is that all my old AF and MF lenses still work with the new body. Sure, I've got my eye on some better mechanisms (mine are all manually coupled AF) in the new glass, but I'm back in the field with a bag full of fantastic optics and all I had to do was get the new back. Besides, if it lasts me 3-4 years, I can probably make back the cost in film, developing, and scanning - and I'm getting better digital images than the punched version that comes with $10 processing, and stupid-high ISO speed to boot.
Sure, Mark Zuckerberg's a douchebag, but most large corporations are run by douchebags and yet I still buy Cheerios at WalMart and drive a Chrysler.
Here's the thing - and don't tell anybody I told you this - if you don't put anything private on Facebook, then your privacy won't be compromised by it.
I use Facebook. I use it because most of my friends are on it. It's a nice way to stay in touch with people who I know, but most of whom I couldn't finish a single beer with and still have anything to talk about. I like these folks - they're part of my past and present - bu some people I only have very small things in common with. I also know when things are happening (a friend's play, or their kids league championship ball game), and where I have common interests with acquaintances whom I would either not interact with at all, or would take years to become closer.
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search. I never Facebook while drunk (well, I don't get drunk - but you get the idea), and I don't attack people or things. I don't join "causes". I'm not a marketing wasteland, though. I've filled out my "favorite" things sections. BFD. If knowing that I'm in my 40s, like Bowling for Soup and Amadeus, and am married gets Facebook a couple of dollars in ad revenue, go for it. Kroger already knows when I'm on a fucking Diet, and CVS probably informs their spies when the rest of my household has seasonal allergies.
So, that brings me back - unless you really need something else, and are willing and able to migrate your entire friend group to it - quit your whining, be smart with your data, and surf with due caution. You know you can't trust Zuckerberg, and that's 98% of the way to keeping your information safe.
Oh - and whatever you go to will be just as bad eventually. Google can't always not be evil, and even open source projects can have a mole.
Actually, they've been doing this for decades in MD (I had it back in '93) and it's not nearly as severe as you think. In general, it's on par with turning you thermostat up/down a few degrees while you're out of the house. The temperature will shift, but not as much as if the system was allowed to be off for an extended period. If you regularly set your thermostat to 74F, and they turn it down/off for a period, it is likely to drift as high as 80F - possibly 82F. It sounds like your quick cycling unit may be oversized.
Whenever anyone speaks in generalities about offering great things in the future, she always thinks they're talking about her.
"Other platforms" really doesn't mean many options if you're talking about the smart phone market, but it also is not synonymous with "iPhone." I would not be surprised to see Google start to hold back a little on the iPhone development in order to bolster the desirability of the Android platform. They've been giving Redmond the finger practically since the beginning*. Plus, with King Steve talking trash about Android, I wouldn't be surprised if they put a hold on some of their development as a little bit of petty revenge. It's not like there's another turn by turn package that's even close to free for the iPhone.
*Yes, I own a WM phone and, yes, I'm a little disappointed that several features in the GoogleApps world have not been ported to the WM system (the ability to see multiple calendars - even if only by using tags - is at the forefront; I couldn't care less about turn by turn).
Four fully enclosed offices with doors which open to a central conference area (just a 3x8 table and half a dozen chairs), which in turn opens onto the corridor accessing the rest of the office. Bonus points if you can parley a space for a sink, a mini-fridge, and a coffee machine on a small kitchenette at one end of the common area.
You should always be close, but there are times when you need to collaborate and times when you need to close the door and concentrate on what you're doing without distraction (coding, of course).
I have actually worked in an environment like this and it is pretty darned productive. We had 6 offices that opened onto a common area. No coffee mess, but life isn't perfect. I think we were much more in sync as a team than the folks who were lined up in offices along a corridor, and much less distracted than being in a cube farm (I've been in both of those environments, too).
Does nobody own a loupe these days? Mark lines a mm apart (or get a damned scale), stick a loupe on in the face, and count the pixels. It's really not that hard.
Honestly, though, for the iPhone the hardware means very little. It's the software that makes the device what it is, and if you can't fix the software to work the way you want it to, it may as well be a deck of cards.
...but they haven't been discarvard!
I'm presuming, of course, that the t is still silent.
*golf clap* Well played. Always good to see a Lehrer reference here.
C'mon. If we don't get the pink OMGPonies theme (best yet 4/1 joke), at least throw us a bone with an article about SCO offering new software products.
So we're inferring a 4th spatial dimension in a game which uses our perception of a 3 dimensional construct on a 2 dimensional screen.
I'm still waiting for the "wow" moment, and I suspect it's not going to happen here.