Google and Yahoo have both been offering similar services for awhile now, I believe, and I don't remember hearing either of them having this problem. Not to say it couldn't happen, but I imagine they've thought about this situation and have accounted for it somehow.
This is new, and quite a bit different than the API that has been around for awhile.
Now, instead of just using the API to integrate Facebook with external apps, developers can use the platform to run their apps right inside of Facebook. For example, a Flickr app could be made that would replace the built-in photo tools.
What they really should have done was use the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, or something similar.
I think this would have been a perfect application for cloud computing. If they had the ability to turn on more instances of their processing servers as demand required, they could have met any level of service.
The Gigavox Audio Lite media publishing platform was designed from the ground up using Amazon's web services, including EC2, S3, and SQS. Because of their application architecture, they can scale infinitely without doing anything special. IT Conversations has an excellent Technometria podcast describing how it all works. It's really pretty incredible stuff.
Good for you. Walking away is your choice. Merging accounts is Flickrs/Yahoos. You should thank them for making it easy to pull all of your content out.
I'm completely missing the point of all this outrage toward Yahoo/Flickr here. These same "early adopters" are whining about the exact same thing they complained about almost 1 1/2 years ago (late August 2005).
This Yahoo account requirement is not new news - they let people know about it a long time ago, and have even extended the drop-dead date from "sometime in 2006" to early 2007.
I'm one of the "old-schoolers" and made the change to the Yahoo account last year - it wasn't a big deal. It's just a frickin' web app...
Who the hell cares what your friends think. If it'll get the job done for you, buy one.
By the way: Have you been to a tech conference in the last few years? By my observations, I'd say Apple has already been validated by the geek community. Maybe you just need some new friends.
Are you serious? Either you completely missed the point of that post or I'm missing the humor in yours.
Intel != Pentium. The poster was just saying that because Apple now owns a big chunk of PPC IP, it will simply have another manufacturer (i.e. Intel) supply them with PPC chips. Nothing more, nothing less.
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you." -- Military school Commandant's graduation address, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"
If there's something you know that Apple doesn't, we'd like to know. Looking under the Technology [apple.com] tab in the article it sounds like they have a good web-based solution.
I never claimed to know something Apple doesn't, but I have been working with PowerSchool for almost 2 years, longer than Apple has owned PowerSchool. PowerSchool is not a new program.
What is mentioned under the technlogy section is partialy true. The school administration functions and parent/student function are all web-based. The teacher web app (arguably the most important part), however, is amost completely useless. A companion client program called PowerGrade is installed on the teacher's desktop computer. Almost everything the teacher does has to be done through PowerGrade - all a teacher can really do through the web app is look at a class roster and put in grades for assignments already created. Not very powerful.
Apple DID have a completely web-based PowerSchool application called PowerSchool Enterprise, but was canceled last year due to many issues. For one, performance was aweful, with the website inaccessable with more than five people logged in at one one. Second, the features of PSE were NOWHERE near the features present in PowerSchool Student Information System, the current system Apple is selling.
We really wanted the web-based program to work - it's what PowerSchool originally sold us and is what we bought into. Unfortunately, Apple has canceledany plans for improved versions of PowerSchool.
PowerSchool Student Information System (PSIS) acts in much the same way as Easy Grade Pro. A local database file is stored on the teacher's computer by the client program (called PowerGrade), but data is syncronized with a server every few minutes. The web component allows teachers to log in from another computer (at home for example), and lets them perform some simple tasks, such as entering grades. You are correct in saying that web data entry is clumsy - many of the features of the PowerGrade client, such as auto entry of grades, are not available in the web application. The administration functions as well as the student/parent login features are all available through a web brower.
The initial post was incorrect in saying it was "platform-independent, web-based". The client program for PSIS (PowerGrade) only works on Macintosh computers or Windows computers. The PowerSchool program that was completely web-based, PowerSchool Enterprise, was taken off the market late last year.
Like someone else said above, PowerSchool has been around for awhile - Apple just bought them up in 2001. I have been involved in the statewide implementation of PowerSchool in North Dakota since 2001 and have seen a lot of the side effects of the Apple buyout. Think Secret has also detailed a lot of the fallout.
We (ND) were originally using the brand new in 2001 (and beta quality) PowerSchool Enterprise (PSE), a completely web-based application that used WebObjects on the backend. This application was intended to serve very large districts and small states like ours. Although Apple/PowerSchool put most of their resources into PSE instead of the well established PowerSchool Student Information System (PSIS), the smaller scale client-server application, they continually failed to make deadlines, fix known problems, and even deliver features and performance comparable to PSIS. Problems eventually got so bad that Apple scrapped the PowerSchool Enterprise product and now has just the PSIS product, intended for smaller school districts. North Dakota is now using PSIS, and although teachers are happier and performance is better, you can imagine the cost involved at the state level with a server for each school and at the school level in having to support a desktop client application. At least we have a working product now...
I went with my Fiancée to pick out my wedding band and immediately loved the Ti rings. Being the geek I am, I could think of nothing cooler than a titanium wedding ring. She really liked them too, so that's what I'll be putting on come June. One of her friends thought it was very manly, comparing it to a tractor part...
You might want to check out Deepfreeze (http://www.deepfreezeusa.com/). It allows you to set up an image and let the kids mess around all they want. As soon as the computer reboots though, it will revert back to the original image. The pro version also allows you to "unfreeze" the system for a specified time period in which you can download virus definitions, etc. This could probably save you A LOT of time. It's worth checking out!
Slashdot Mirror
Google and Yahoo have both been offering similar services for awhile now, I believe, and I don't remember hearing either of them having this problem. Not to say it couldn't happen, but I imagine they've thought about this situation and have accounted for it somehow.
This is new, and quite a bit different than the API that has been around for awhile.
Now, instead of just using the API to integrate Facebook with external apps, developers can use the platform to run their apps right inside of Facebook. For example, a Flickr app could be made that would replace the built-in photo tools.
There are already 30 or so apps available to add.
What they really should have done was use the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, or something similar.
I think this would have been a perfect application for cloud computing. If they had the ability to turn on more instances of their processing servers as demand required, they could have met any level of service.
The Gigavox Audio Lite media publishing platform was designed from the ground up using Amazon's web services, including EC2, S3, and SQS. Because of their application architecture, they can scale infinitely without doing anything special. IT Conversations has an excellent Technometria podcast describing how it all works. It's really pretty incredible stuff.
Good for you. Walking away is your choice. Merging accounts is Flickrs/Yahoos. You should thank them for making it easy to pull all of your content out.
I'm completely missing the point of all this outrage toward Yahoo/Flickr here. These same "early adopters" are whining about the exact same thing they complained about almost 1 1/2 years ago (late August 2005).
This Yahoo account requirement is not new news - they let people know about it a long time ago, and have even extended the drop-dead date from "sometime in 2006" to early 2007.
I'm one of the "old-schoolers" and made the change to the Yahoo account last year - it wasn't a big deal. It's just a frickin' web app...
It's got one Firewire 400 port, so it's not completely gone. Is there a lack of Firewire 800 devices that would have lead them to make this move?
Who the hell cares what your friends think. If it'll get the job done for you, buy one.
By the way: Have you been to a tech conference in the last few years? By my observations, I'd say Apple has already been validated by the geek community. Maybe you just need some new friends.
Are you serious? Either you completely missed the point of that post or I'm missing the humor in yours.
Intel != Pentium. The poster was just saying that because Apple now owns a big chunk of PPC IP, it will simply have another manufacturer (i.e. Intel) supply them with PPC chips. Nothing more, nothing less.
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you."
-- Military school Commandant's graduation address, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson"
I never claimed to know something Apple doesn't, but I have been working with PowerSchool for almost 2 years, longer than Apple has owned PowerSchool. PowerSchool is not a new program.
What is mentioned under the technlogy section is partialy true. The school administration functions and parent/student function are all web-based. The teacher web app (arguably the most important part), however, is amost completely useless. A companion client program called PowerGrade is installed on the teacher's desktop computer. Almost everything the teacher does has to be done through PowerGrade - all a teacher can really do through the web app is look at a class roster and put in grades for assignments already created. Not very powerful.
Apple DID have a completely web-based PowerSchool application called PowerSchool Enterprise, but was canceled last year due to many issues. For one, performance was aweful, with the website inaccessable with more than five people logged in at one one. Second, the features of PSE were NOWHERE near the features present in PowerSchool Student Information System, the current system Apple is selling.
We really wanted the web-based program to work - it's what PowerSchool originally sold us and is what we bought into. Unfortunately, Apple has canceledany plans for improved versions of PowerSchool.
The initial post was incorrect in saying it was "platform-independent, web-based". The client program for PSIS (PowerGrade) only works on Macintosh computers or Windows computers. The PowerSchool program that was completely web-based, PowerSchool Enterprise, was taken off the market late last year.
Think Secret has also detailed a lot of the fallout.
We (ND) were originally using the brand new in 2001 (and beta quality) PowerSchool Enterprise (PSE), a completely web-based application that used WebObjects on the backend. This application was intended to serve very large districts and small states like ours. Although Apple/PowerSchool put most of their resources into PSE instead of the well established PowerSchool Student Information System (PSIS), the smaller scale client-server application, they continually failed to make deadlines, fix known problems, and even deliver features and performance comparable to PSIS. Problems eventually got so bad that Apple scrapped the PowerSchool Enterprise product and now has just the PSIS product, intended for smaller school districts. North Dakota is now using PSIS, and although teachers are happier and performance is better, you can imagine the cost involved at the state level with a server for each school and at the school level in having to support a desktop client application. At least we have a working product now...
I went with my Fiancée to pick out my wedding band and immediately loved the Ti rings. Being the geek I am, I could think of nothing cooler than a titanium wedding ring. She really liked them too, so that's what I'll be putting on come June. One of her friends thought it was very manly, comparing it to a tractor part...
You might want to check out Deepfreeze (http://www.deepfreezeusa.com/). It allows you to set up an image and let the kids mess around all they want. As soon as the computer reboots though, it will revert back to the original image. The pro version also allows you to "unfreeze" the system for a specified time period in which you can download virus definitions, etc. This could probably save you A LOT of time. It's worth checking out!