Interestingly, Oracle already owns (and occasionally half-heartedly markets) a full-blown Exchange competitor: Corporate Time Server, which they acquired along with its developer, a Canadian company called Steltor.
Circa 1999-2001, CTS was really the only full-blown UNIX-based replacement for Exchange available: you installed a client-side plugin in Outlook 2000, and it made the CTS calendar server plus any conforming IMAP server look like an Exchange server to Outlook. It was neat, but a little flaky on the client end. I had great hopes for it when Oracle acquired them, but the net result ended up being that the price tripled and the product went nowhere. I'd be completely psyched to see Oracle either re-launch CTS or open source it in conjunction with Lightning.
The biggest advantage of Apple's FairPlay over Microsoft's DRM is that FairPlay establishes one set of rules for all items purchased via ITMS...."one" set of rules that can and will change completely at Apple's whim.
I see the suckers all the time on Amtrak. It's the best portable kid-distraction device ever made, and if your little bundle of joy spills cola all over it, you're not out a week's paycheck.
So there's basically zero reason for video to be portable. You're not going to carry it around with you. You're going to watch it at home.
Right, which explains why I've never seen anyone watching a DVD on an airplane, train or bus.
Hey, wait...
The problem isn't that video doesn't benefit from portability, the problem is that the need for portability is, at this point, pretty adequately addressed by the DVD medium itself. You still need a "big" screen, so the iPod can't add much portability to the equation, and there's not much UI challenge in assembling playlists of (at worst) 5 or 6 30-minute TV shows (or more likely, one movie), so there's no value it can bring on the UI side.
And no, I'm not trying to be snarky here, it's just that the real stevej@apple.com does occasionally send emails to people, and they don't look or "sound" like ASoT's postings at all.
What he said. You are being used. In the real world, people get paid $60k a year and up to deal with these kind of nightmares, and they get given the authority to actually solve the problems.
As long as you keep "helping" people kinda-sorta fix the problem, the people who are actually in a position to fix it for real will keep putting off the pain of actually solving it.
Get your own $20/month DSL connection, refuse to answer any more questions, and go concentrate happily on your studies.
And the BBC needs to advertise Dr. Who because...?...because the previous series was cancelled due to miserably low ratings, and the 1999 telemovie tanked for the exact same reason?
With respect, Apple's "typical...nontechnical" userbase and the section of its userbase that buys its $5000 "Pro" software packages (especially Motion for pete's sake) are generally not assumed to be one and the same.
How about releasing a version of the AIM client that is actually more enjoyable to use than the previous one, instead of more annoying?!
Weirdly enough, when people install an instant messenger client on their computers, their first thought doesn't tend to be "Oh boy, I hope this thing gives me a stock ticker and a dozen popup advertisement windows!"
Glad to know that I'm not the only person who found himself thinking "oh thank god."
The middle three seasons of B5 were some of the best storytelling I've seen on TV or for that matter any other medium. But let's face facts: Straczynski burnt himself out writing all the episodes of season 3 and 4 without any help, and by the time S4 ended, he really had nothing more to say. But still the show plodded on through the lackluster final season and the inevitable spinoffs, seemingly more out of a sense of contractual obligation than anything else.
Crusade was bad, and "Legend of the Rangers" was just embarrassing. B5 wasn't supposed to be "some Deep Space Franchise" -- let's be glad that no one seems to be able to turn it into one.
...not to mention a weird fixation on trying to be a father-figure to the Wayward Geek Hordes (including the ones he eventually adopted in the literal sense) that just exuded creepiness.
If you say "J*n K*tz" three times in front of a mirror, he will appear. And then, he'll try to understand your feelings and explain them to the uncaring wide world.
Trust me, you'd rather have the guy with the hook rip out your intestines. It would be comparitively merciful.
Decades is certainly an exaggeration, but 1.5-2 years isn't terribly realistic either. MSFT is a publically traded company: if income falls drastically, they are basically required to adjust the books accordingly. They'll lay off people, sell off physical assets, kill R&D and go into bugfix-only mode on secondary product lines. A ship as big as MSFT won't stop moving for 4-5 years, minimum.
Slashdot Mirror
5-7-5, not 5-5-7. Ahem.
(And should refer to nature, otherwise it's just a senryu.)
Interestingly, Oracle already owns (and occasionally half-heartedly markets) a full-blown Exchange competitor: Corporate Time Server, which they acquired along with its developer, a Canadian company called Steltor.
Circa 1999-2001, CTS was really the only full-blown UNIX-based replacement for Exchange available: you installed a client-side plugin in Outlook 2000, and it made the CTS calendar server plus any conforming IMAP server look like an Exchange server to Outlook. It was neat, but a little flaky on the client end. I had great hopes for it when Oracle acquired them, but the net result ended up being that the price tripled and the product went nowhere. I'd be completely psyched to see Oracle either re-launch CTS or open source it in conjunction with Lightning.
The biggest advantage of Apple's FairPlay over Microsoft's DRM is that FairPlay establishes one set of rules for all items purchased via ITMS. ..."one" set of rules that can and will change completely at Apple's whim.
How many people who watch movies away from home do it on single-use portable DVD players and how many do it with their laptops?
Rather a lot more of the former than the latter.
Base iBook: $1000
Portable DVD: $250
I see the suckers all the time on Amtrak. It's the best portable kid-distraction device ever made, and if your little bundle of joy spills cola all over it, you're not out a week's paycheck.
I wouldn't sweat it. The sjobs@pixar address is known, and has been quoted on (at least) Macintouch a few times.
So there's basically zero reason for video to be portable. You're not going to carry it around with you. You're going to watch it at home.
Right, which explains why I've never seen anyone watching a DVD on an airplane, train or bus.
Hey, wait...
The problem isn't that video doesn't benefit from portability, the problem is that the need for portability is, at this point, pretty adequately addressed by the DVD medium itself. You still need a "big" screen, so the iPod can't add much portability to the equation, and there's not much UI challenge in assembling playlists of (at worst) 5 or 6 30-minute TV shows (or more likely, one movie), so there's no value it can bring on the UI side.
Actual facts appear to be enclosed. Refreshing.
Spelling. Grammar. Punctuation.
Okay, so that's actually 3 reasons.
And no, I'm not trying to be snarky here, it's just that the real stevej@apple.com does occasionally send emails to people, and they don't look or "sound" like ASoT's postings at all.
"This time, Lucas decided to spend some of the budget on review plants and astroturf."
...non-DRM mp3s that you get from any other source. Ahem.
What he said. You are being used. In the real world, people get paid $60k a year and up to deal with these kind of nightmares, and they get given the authority to actually solve the problems.
As long as you keep "helping" people kinda-sorta fix the problem, the people who are actually in a position to fix it for real will keep putting off the pain of actually solving it.
Get your own $20/month DSL connection, refuse to answer any more questions, and go concentrate happily on your studies.
...the scripts mostly sucked. Seriously, after 6 seasons of Buffy and 4 of Angel, Whendon needed a vacation, not a third project.
Pfft. There's another mile (and change) of Manhattan north of the cloisters.
Either that, or my apartment is actually in Yonkers and I should be paying a lot less rent.
The official word from Russell Davies has always been that the processions was McCoy -> McGann -> Eccleston.
Oddly enough, your cell phone and your 2ghz desktop computer have very little in common other than both being Turing-complete.
And the BBC needs to advertise Dr. Who because...? ...because the previous series was cancelled due to miserably low ratings, and the 1999 telemovie tanked for the exact same reason?
(Well okay, the movie also sucked.)
With respect, Apple's "typical...nontechnical" userbase and the section of its userbase that buys its $5000 "Pro" software packages (especially Motion for pete's sake) are generally not assumed to be one and the same.
How about releasing a version of the AIM client that is actually more enjoyable to use than the previous one, instead of more annoying?!
Weirdly enough, when people install an instant messenger client on their computers, their first thought doesn't tend to be "Oh boy, I hope this thing gives me a stock ticker and a dozen popup advertisement windows!"
Glad to know that I'm not the only person who found himself thinking "oh thank god."
The middle three seasons of B5 were some of the best storytelling I've seen on TV or for that matter any other medium. But let's face facts: Straczynski burnt himself out writing all the episodes of season 3 and 4 without any help, and by the time S4 ended, he really had nothing more to say. But still the show plodded on through the lackluster final season and the inevitable spinoffs, seemingly more out of a sense of contractual obligation than anything else.
Crusade was bad, and "Legend of the Rangers" was just embarrassing. B5 wasn't supposed to be "some Deep Space Franchise" -- let's be glad that no one seems to be able to turn it into one.
...not to mention a weird fixation on trying to be a father-figure to the Wayward Geek Hordes (including the ones he eventually adopted in the literal sense) that just exuded creepiness.
If you say "J*n K*tz" three times in front of a mirror, he will appear. And then, he'll try to understand your feelings and explain them to the uncaring wide world.
Trust me, you'd rather have the guy with the hook rip out your intestines. It would be comparitively merciful.
Decades is certainly an exaggeration, but 1.5-2 years isn't terribly realistic either. MSFT is a publically traded company: if income falls drastically, they are basically required to adjust the books accordingly. They'll lay off people, sell off physical assets, kill R&D and go into bugfix-only mode on secondary product lines. A ship as big as MSFT won't stop moving for 4-5 years, minimum.
(I'm pretty sure that it was this Elektro that Meat Beat Manifesto sampled on the "Original Fire" album.)
..."John Barlow Pushes Open Source, Drugs, In Brazil"
You should be sympathetic.
m l
No, no I should not.
The thumb keyboard isn't a software patent, it's not a submarine patent
Duh.
and it's not obvious.
Wrong.
Nobody thought to just build a tiny keyboard optimized for thumb typing.
Nobody, that is, except for Motorola, in 1996, two years before RIM filed their patent:
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/perl/story/12414.ht
That's spelled "Prior Art", and it took me about 20 seconds of searching to find the picture.
Full disclosure: I work for RIM
No shit. Your regard for the facts is right in line with that of every other employee of your company I've ever had the misfortune of encountering.