This is generally what you get for reinventing the wheel, if you wish. Difference in egislation, picuarities of clearing system, depository/regitrar system -- and yu can't easily put any of the western exchange systems in place. Couple that with distrust/paranoia and there you go -- *all* of Russian major exchanges are indeed very much Microsoft-friendly. It is piculiar in more ways than one -- there's a planty of good talent around, but very little in UNIX area, I would argue. Kids that played with Linux -- yes. Seasoned professionals that grew up on VMS/MVS clones -- yes. Security professionals and math gurus -- yes. Yet when it comes to implementation -- you get tons and tons Microsoft-based soft. You get tons and tons of closed and closely guarded software and protocols...
This is *exactly* the point, though. You *have* picked up a bootleg -- why? Aren't you concerned that this is morally wrong?
As for "actual" movies -- you can pick them up "normal" stores -- not open markets and street stalls (I remember quite well "discount" Rolex watches on sale in NYC just a few blocks away from Bloomingdales -- spread out on a blanket).
As far as expandability goes, the problem probably lies in that earlier models were very much closed. All the recent (including, if I am not mistaken, 7100 you are referring to) are Java-based (and this is the best Java appliance I have seen so far), hence are very much expandable in terms of additional software. There is not too much stuff around (yet), but like with all the good OSS stuff -- you've got an itch, you can now scratch it:)
I would have to agree with you a aon a few other points, though: screen is small and device has limited memory size. Too bad you can't plug an SD or MMC card into it. However, while the screen is smaller, it actually fits in more information than my T5: http://ceesaxp.org/palm/my-48-hours-of-blackberry- life.html...
Terrific interface? Well, I guess this is where opinions and tastes will differ very much.
I never thought (and still don't) that Opera had a great interface. What I used to like Opera for was itse size (remember -- when Netscape and IE were already pushing into 6-8Mb bloats, Opera was fitting on to a single 3.5" floppy) and, maybe, speed. You could use it as a glorified Lynx -- just turn off picture loading witha single click and off you go!
I find it a bit overloaded now -- can't point out why, really, as it is mostly the same, but...
Actually, you *could* open and view PDFs on a IIIx -- Adobe has a Reader version for Palm devices starting from OS 1.1: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrpalmdloa d.html. Now, as pointed out below, you would not really want to -- too slow, too small, and reader itself toakes too much space.
Well, my point was more about the fact that I (personally, hence this is 1000% subjective and irrelevant) am not planning to watch a movie on 2" screen anymore. It's just too darn small, and to *me* it is irrelevant whether we're talking a real movie or just a video -- I like it when this type of a stuff is played out on a 36" screen better.
That said, if I can playback iPod video content on a regular TV -- just like I can show photos stored on an iPod on a TV -- I might consider it. At some later point of time... Just maybe...
Much of what you say is, indeed, spot on. I had a knee-jerk reaction after reading the question posed -- the guy must be kiddin': iPods in the same price range as a decent PDA come with at least (now) 40 gigs of space, not measly 128/256MBs like your standard-issue PDA. Sure, you can expand it by plugging an SD or MMC card -- but not by much, not even into the region of a Nano.
I always find it so very amusing that for its time Palm IIIx was awesome -- with only 8MBs (eight!) it could do everything that my T5 can, sans browse the web (and I could do even that in an off-line mode had I *really* wanted to). But T5 has much more capable CPU (Dragonball 33MHz vs. XScale 416MHz), much more memory, much bigger screen -- why can't I get as much out of it?! And don't even get me started on reliability of IIIx vs. T5.
And then my iPod -- it does not try to do much more than it is designed for -- a music player (ok, now also a video player -- but I think the vPod was a bad move). It does have features to read books, store my phonebook/addresses and a basic calendaring thingy, yet these are there only because there is a spare place on that 80Gb hard drive, not like the case of a T5 with a bloody RealPlayer that sucks up the place I personally would have rather used to put TPCMP on.
Take another specially targetted device: BlackBerry. I used to think they were a fad -- who needs that tiny little box with tiny buttons and a barely readable screen to look at the emails in the wee hour of the night? I still think that people punching BB keys any time they have at least 30 seconds look ridiculous. However, now that I used one I can concede -- for the task it was designed for (instant email wherever you go) it is *very* capable. Much more so than Palm or PocketPC -- that tiny little keyboard makes a lot of difference. Starngely enough I would feel much more inclined to write a longer piece out on my Palm with a stilos, rather than on a Blackberry, yet it is mostly because longer piece is likely to be written somewhere wher I can sit and hold a Palm with *two* hands, while a brief reply to a business email on a BlackBerry can be done on the run and with just one hand.
And then -- all singing, all dancing cell phones. All these jokes of uber appliance that in many cases can't do their main task right... Why building in an MP3 player with some cool visual effects on a tiny 1" screen? To ensure that your little pocket monster that barely lasts a day without a recharge drains itself of all the juice by the time you get to work?
Does not work -- tried it some time ago. It might be that.wav assignments are casched by Windows, hence simple rotation of a file is not reflected until you reassign...
The key here is "if you're bound for engineering or physical [sic] sciences" -- in Russia and in Europe (as it appears from the parent) this is part of *general* curriculum. If, indeed, you're bound to study physics and such -- there are specialised schools that generally start around 15 and take you to a much more advanced stage by the time of your graduation and college admission exams.
your points are very valid, except i'd wager it is always easier to say that ne should learn from mistakes of others. i can't say i like much of what is happeniing in my homeland (there, now you can see i *am* biased), but from prosperity POV things *are* better than what they were just a few years back.
As for the subject of the thread, Russians do have better average math knowledge than, say US counterparts. And this i speak from experience: what is a part of 8th year at school in russia is taught, at best, the freshmen (if not sphomre) year at college in US. That's at least 3 years ahead!
As for ACM that was mentioned elsewhere on this thread, let's keep ih mind that China is, possibly, even much farther from "democratic ideals" of western society, than Russia. At least KGB is ngt filtering internet traffic the way Chinese equivalent does...
And, btw, in quite a few cases it is THE right thing to do as well -- I've had some experience with various third party "compatible" phones for my Nokia 6230 -- while these might work ok on a PC, my PowerBook won't even see a device attached (while with a stock Nokia DKU-2 it is not a problem).
Cables have become somewhat cheaper these days -- I remember 3-4 years ago Nokia DataSuite + a cable to connect your phone to a PC would set you back almost half of what the phone costs. Not so anymore -- DS is a free download and a native cable can be bought for under $50.
My point was not to force the rest of the world speak/type using Latin characters, but to point out numerous other potential issues that IDN brings on top of the a.m. spoofing. I fully understand your point(s) above -- and I had to deal with a very similar issue for *my* native language which is not English and is not using Latin character set. I am just not convinced, still, that IDN *is* the solution.
Pulling in China's population into this argument is wrong -- I'd venture that a vast majority of Chinese, the ones living in rural areas, are not likely to be much interested in Internet and domain naming at all (off hand, about 700-900 million people at least). That alone tilts the the balance more towards a wider-spread of latin characters.
Lastly, my statement was made in the context of security vulnerability (or rather "possibility to mislead a user" -- IMO it is not a browser issue), and in *that* context I do think that IDN is a really-really Bad Idea (TM).
I, honestly, fail to understand how this is a "bug" -- domain name may look like it is valid, having characters embedded in it that are from a different code page. I believe there was a story a year or more ago about spoofing of microsoft.com with first 'c' actually being Russian letter 's' that looks like latin 'c'.
Quite frankly, I always thought that IDNs is a Bad Idea: it will create more ambiguity and benefits (domain names in your own language!) are very much questionable... Do tell me how am I going to have to type in a Chinese or Japanese domain name if I don't have keyboard layout (not to mention that I amy not even know *how* to input all these gliphs...).
I'll second that -- having a *theme* at least that makes a little *effort* to make it less of an alien on Mac desktop -- that would be very good and much appreciated by Mac crowd, I'd gather.
iWork (at least now) lacks a spreadsheet (if Apple makes one, will they call it `Grid?':)). Not to mention a light-weight database (but I guess this maybe unnecessary, since FileMaker has been there for ages).
I thought for a while that Apple should have put some effort behind supporting Aqua port of OOo, but this may not really fit all that well with their strategy. It may still make sense for them to work with either Gnumeric or Kspread team to get at least the engine (the way KHTML become a part of WebKit).
I dunno, maybe you're just trolling (and a number of replies that follow would qualify you as a good troll), but I'd say that installing FreeBSD is not any more difficult than, say, Slackware or Debian. It is more challenging than your Mandrake or RH install, I think (have not had a chance in the last 3-4 years to try either).
That said, with enough preparation and a chapter from the Handbook printed out and within a reach installing stock FreeBSD should not be a problem at all.
The question you should, however, ask yourself is Why do I want to try FreeBSD? If it is just because you've heard it's cool -- you may be much better off trying a http://www.freesbie.org/ instead. It's a live FreeBSD ssytem, sort of like Knoppix.
If you want to give FreeBSD a spin because you want to understand UNIX-land better or have needs for the stability of the platform, then rough starts should not be anything to discourage you.
You may want to look at NeoOffice guys posting on earlier thread (mentioned in parent story) -- they're explicit enough as to what are J vs C issues. Basically, Sun (sponsor of OOo) has neither interest nor experiance in MacOS X software writing.
I dunno, but in my experience both TOAD and PL/SQL Developer offer much better Oracle development/administration environment (and the latter does not cost you an arm and a leg of the former).
As far as TOra'a PostgreSQL support -- that was, agian IMHO, was always lagging far behind PgAdmin or plain psql...
There were massive rumors that (then called) a T4 (looks like palmOne decided on odd numbering of production models: T3, T5...) would have 2 SD slots -- this ould have allowed to use SD and SDIO cards at the same time (in particular, the just-released WiFi card). Does not look like this is what happened....
This baby has got quite some storage, that is true -- this might compensate for the missing dual-slot option...
Another rumor was that the next Tx were to use 6.x PalmOS, not the 5.x -- I guess another one not to come true.
Slashdot Mirror
This is generally what you get for reinventing the wheel, if you wish. Difference in egislation, picuarities of clearing system, depository/regitrar system -- and yu can't easily put any of the western exchange systems in place. Couple that with distrust/paranoia and there you go -- *all* of Russian major exchanges are indeed very much Microsoft-friendly. It is piculiar in more ways than one -- there's a planty of good talent around, but very little in UNIX area, I would argue. Kids that played with Linux -- yes. Seasoned professionals that grew up on VMS/MVS clones -- yes. Security professionals and math gurus -- yes. Yet when it comes to implementation -- you get tons and tons Microsoft-based soft. You get tons and tons of closed and closely guarded software and protocols...
This is *exactly* the point, though. You *have* picked up a bootleg -- why? Aren't you concerned that this is morally wrong?
As for "actual" movies -- you can pick them up "normal" stores -- not open markets and street stalls (I remember quite well "discount" Rolex watches on sale in NYC just a few blocks away from Bloomingdales -- spread out on a blanket).
And when was the last time you were to Russia? Or is this "second-hand" experience that Western media likes to recite so much?
As far as expandability goes, the problem probably lies in that earlier models were very much closed. All the recent (including, if I am not mistaken, 7100 you are referring to) are Java-based (and this is the best Java appliance I have seen so far), hence are very much expandable in terms of additional software. There is not too much stuff around (yet), but like with all the good OSS stuff -- you've got an itch, you can now scratch it :)
- life.html...
I would have to agree with you a aon a few other points, though: screen is small and device has limited memory size. Too bad you can't plug an SD or MMC card into it. However, while the screen is smaller, it actually fits in more information than my T5: http://ceesaxp.org/palm/my-48-hours-of-blackberry
Terrific interface? Well, I guess this is where opinions and tastes will differ very much.
I never thought (and still don't) that Opera had a great interface. What I used to like Opera for was itse size (remember -- when Netscape and IE were already pushing into 6-8Mb bloats, Opera was fitting on to a single 3.5" floppy) and, maybe, speed. You could use it as a glorified Lynx -- just turn off picture loading witha single click and off you go!
I find it a bit overloaded now -- can't point out why, really, as it is mostly the same, but...
Yeah, I remember that there was a modem for III's, but I never had/considered having one. But thanks for pointing that out.
Actually, you *could* open and view PDFs on a IIIx -- Adobe has a Reader version for Palm devices starting from OS 1.1: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrpalmdloa d.html. Now, as pointed out below, you would not really want to -- too slow, too small, and reader itself toakes too much space.
Well, my point was more about the fact that I (personally, hence this is 1000% subjective and irrelevant) am not planning to watch a movie on 2" screen anymore. It's just too darn small, and to *me* it is irrelevant whether we're talking a real movie or just a video -- I like it when this type of a stuff is played out on a 36" screen better.
That said, if I can playback iPod video content on a regular TV -- just like I can show photos stored on an iPod on a TV -- I might consider it. At some later point of time... Just maybe...
Much of what you say is, indeed, spot on. I had a knee-jerk reaction after reading the question posed -- the guy must be kiddin': iPods in the same price range as a decent PDA come with at least (now) 40 gigs of space, not measly 128/256MBs like your standard-issue PDA. Sure, you can expand it by plugging an SD or MMC card -- but not by much, not even into the region of a Nano.
I always find it so very amusing that for its time Palm IIIx was awesome -- with only 8MBs (eight!) it could do everything that my T5 can, sans browse the web (and I could do even that in an off-line mode had I *really* wanted to). But T5 has much more capable CPU (Dragonball 33MHz vs. XScale 416MHz), much more memory, much bigger screen -- why can't I get as much out of it?! And don't even get me started on reliability of IIIx vs. T5.
And then my iPod -- it does not try to do much more than it is designed for -- a music player (ok, now also a video player -- but I think the vPod was a bad move). It does have features to read books, store my phonebook/addresses and a basic calendaring thingy, yet these are there only because there is a spare place on that 80Gb hard drive, not like the case of a T5 with a bloody RealPlayer that sucks up the place I personally would have rather used to put TPCMP on.
Take another specially targetted device: BlackBerry. I used to think they were a fad -- who needs that tiny little box with tiny buttons and a barely readable screen to look at the emails in the wee hour of the night? I still think that people punching BB keys any time they have at least 30 seconds look ridiculous. However, now that I used one I can concede -- for the task it was designed for (instant email wherever you go) it is *very* capable. Much more so than Palm or PocketPC -- that tiny little keyboard makes a lot of difference. Starngely enough I would feel much more inclined to write a longer piece out on my Palm with a stilos, rather than on a Blackberry, yet it is mostly because longer piece is likely to be written somewhere wher I can sit and hold a Palm with *two* hands, while a brief reply to a business email on a BlackBerry can be done on the run and with just one hand.
And then -- all singing, all dancing cell phones. All these jokes of uber appliance that in many cases can't do their main task right... Why building in an MP3 player with some cool visual effects on a tiny 1" screen? To ensure that your little pocket monster that barely lasts a day without a recharge drains itself of all the juice by the time you get to work?
I would venture a guess, that had it been coded in proper XHTML DOCTYPE *and* proper wrapping of JS inside something like:
it would have no problem validating
That's a BIG if, woudn't you think?
Does not work -- tried it some time ago. It might be that .wav assignments are casched by Windows, hence simple rotation of a file is not reflected until you reassign...
The key here is "if you're bound for engineering or physical [sic] sciences" -- in Russia and in Europe (as it appears from the parent) this is part of *general* curriculum. If, indeed, you're bound to study physics and such -- there are specialised schools that generally start around 15 and take you to a much more advanced stage by the time of your graduation and college admission exams.
And what exactly were you doing on that "one ssh server"?
your points are very valid, except i'd wager it is always easier to say that ne should learn from mistakes of others. i can't say i like much of what is happeniing in my homeland (there, now you can see i *am* biased), but from prosperity POV things *are* better than what they were just a few years back.
As for the subject of the thread, Russians do have better average math knowledge than, say US counterparts. And this i speak from experience: what is a part of 8th year at school in russia is taught, at best, the freshmen (if not sphomre) year at college in US. That's at least 3 years ahead!
As for ACM that was mentioned elsewhere on this thread, let's keep ih mind that China is, possibly, even much farther from "democratic ideals" of western society, than Russia. At least KGB is ngt filtering internet traffic the way Chinese equivalent does...
And, btw, in quite a few cases it is THE right thing to do as well -- I've had some experience with various third party "compatible" phones for my Nokia 6230 -- while these might work ok on a PC, my PowerBook won't even see a device attached (while with a stock Nokia DKU-2 it is not a problem).
Cables have become somewhat cheaper these days -- I remember 3-4 years ago Nokia DataSuite + a cable to connect your phone to a PC would set you back almost half of what the phone costs. Not so anymore -- DS is a free download and a native cable can be bought for under $50.
My point was not to force the rest of the world speak/type using Latin characters, but to point out numerous other potential issues that IDN brings on top of the a.m. spoofing. I fully understand your point(s) above -- and I had to deal with a very similar issue for *my* native language which is not English and is not using Latin character set. I am just not convinced, still, that IDN *is* the solution.
Pulling in China's population into this argument is wrong -- I'd venture that a vast majority of Chinese, the ones living in rural areas, are not likely to be much interested in Internet and domain naming at all (off hand, about 700-900 million people at least). That alone tilts the the balance more towards a wider-spread of latin characters.
Lastly, my statement was made in the context of security vulnerability (or rather "possibility to mislead a user" -- IMO it is not a browser issue), and in *that* context I do think that IDN is a really-really Bad Idea (TM).
I, honestly, fail to understand how this is a "bug" -- domain name may look like it is valid, having characters embedded in it that are from a different code page. I believe there was a story a year or more ago about spoofing of microsoft.com with first 'c' actually being Russian letter 's' that looks like latin 'c'.
Quite frankly, I always thought that IDNs is a Bad Idea: it will create more ambiguity and benefits (domain names in your own language!) are very much questionable... Do tell me how am I going to have to type in a Chinese or Japanese domain name if I don't have keyboard layout (not to mention that I amy not even know *how* to input all these gliphs...).
I'll second that -- having a *theme* at least that makes a little *effort* to make it less of an alien on Mac desktop -- that would be very good and much appreciated by Mac crowd, I'd gather.
iWork (at least now) lacks a spreadsheet (if Apple makes one, will they call it `Grid?' :)). Not to mention a light-weight database (but I guess this maybe unnecessary, since FileMaker has been there for ages).
I thought for a while that Apple should have put some effort behind supporting Aqua port of OOo, but this may not really fit all that well with their strategy. It may still make sense for them to work with either Gnumeric or Kspread team to get at least the engine (the way KHTML become a part of WebKit).
I dunno, maybe you're just trolling (and a number of replies that follow would qualify you as a good troll), but I'd say that installing FreeBSD is not any more difficult than, say, Slackware or Debian. It is more challenging than your Mandrake or RH install, I think (have not had a chance in the last 3-4 years to try either).
That said, with enough preparation and a chapter from the Handbook printed out and within a reach installing stock FreeBSD should not be a problem at all.
The question you should, however, ask yourself is Why do I want to try FreeBSD? If it is just because you've heard it's cool -- you may be much better off trying a http://www.freesbie.org/ instead. It's a live FreeBSD ssytem, sort of like Knoppix.
If you want to give FreeBSD a spin because you want to understand UNIX-land better or have needs for the stability of the platform, then rough starts should not be anything to discourage you.
In either case -- all the best and have fun!
You may want to look at NeoOffice guys posting on earlier thread (mentioned in parent story) -- they're explicit enough as to what are J vs C issues. Basically, Sun (sponsor of OOo) has neither interest nor experiance in MacOS X software writing.
I dunno, but in my experience both TOAD and PL/SQL Developer offer much better Oracle development/administration environment (and the latter does not cost you an arm and a leg of the former).
As far as TOra'a PostgreSQL support -- that was, agian IMHO, was always lagging far behind PgAdmin or plain psql...
Google and you will find: http://opensource.ca.com/projects/ingres/forum/30/ 671168450779
There were massive rumors that (then called) a T4 (looks like palmOne decided on odd numbering of production models: T3, T5...) would have 2 SD slots -- this ould have allowed to use SD and SDIO cards at the same time (in particular, the just-released WiFi card). Does not look like this is what happened....
This baby has got quite some storage, that is true -- this might compensate for the missing dual-slot option...
Another rumor was that the next Tx were to use 6.x PalmOS, not the 5.x -- I guess another one not to come true.