Actually, even Macs don't use SCSI anymore. SCSI is strictly a "build-to-order" option on their PowerMac line. Even their Xserve server and storage products use multiple IDE channels instead of a SCSI bus. </nitpicking>
You're right, though. SCSI only really survives in servers because it's just too darn expensive for everything else. Shame.
I think you've confused "easy to use" with "dumbed down". Contrary to popular belief, the two are not the same thing. Your washing machine example proves it. By your own admission, older less functional washing machines were difficult to use and had complex interfaces. Modern washing machines do more, but they're easier to use. Would you prefer a thirty year old washing machine because it had a more complex interface?
Another great example is VCRs. I used to have an old Panasonic with complex push-button controls for setting scheduled recordings. Heck, even setting the clock was a chore. Nowadays, a Tivo does everything that my old Panasonic did (and more!) but it does it with an easy-to-use OSD. Is the old VCR more powerful because it was harder to use? I think not.
I'll second that. For a while I worked for a startup where most of the upper management had come from EDS. A few common threads I saw:
Corporate bafflegab was their native language. Buzzwords like "synergy" and "traction" were used to inspire the troops.
They liked to have an elaborate process for everything. I remember having meetings just to schedule meetings.
They were totally uninterested in creating anything new. All of our tech was "best of breed" technologies bought off the shelf.
Basically they tried to create a tiny little EDS, and it wasn't a very fun place to work. No vision, no drive, and no goal other than collecting contract dollars. That culture's not conducive to quality work, and I worry about the infrastructure that EDS will be laying for our military's future.
Microsoft is attempting to do the impossible -- support every PC and PC peripheral that has ever been shipped.
That's not true, actually. Windows has native support for a very small percentage of PC hardware and peripherals. They leave the majority of driver writing and device support to the hardware manufacturers, just like Apple does. Windows XP needs extra drivers for my scanner, just like OS X.
Even when MS does support hardware, it's not as easy as a Mac. For example, both Windows and OS X include drivers for my HP Deskjet. In order to setup the printer on Windows I have to:
Plug the printer in.
Click "Next" a few times.
Select my printer model.
Tell Windows that I want it to be my default printer.
Tell it I don't want to print a test page.
Click "Finish".
To set up the same printer on a Mac you:
Plug it in.
Macs aren't easier to configure because they support a more limited range of hardware. They're easier to configure because the OS behaves in a much more sensible fashion.
As the receant Linux worm showed, it's bad administrators that are the real problem, not the OS.
Bullshit. That's a straw man argument. Just because Linux isn't invulnerable doesn't mean that Windows isn't a steaming pile. Here's a little experiment for you: Take two boxes, one Windows and one Linux (or OS X or BSD or...). Give them the latest and greatest patches. Run everything you can out of the box using default settings (webservers, mail, filesharing, etc.). Put them on a network like the DOI, with no further administration.
I'll bet you a shiny new nickel that the windows box gets rooted six ways to Sunday first. In fact, I would be shocked if it wasn't a crap-spewing zombie within a few months. Your *nix box, though, has a fair chance of coming through unscathed.
What's the point? The poing is that Windows requires excellent administrators to be reliable and secure. The *nix OSes are a lot more forgiving of lazy administration. I run a lot of OS X, and I am an awful administrator when it comes to my personal boxes. All services are on, patches don't get installed for a month or two, etc. Hell, I run a totally open wireless network too. I've never had a security problem either, and I'll take the Pepsi challenge against any of your uptimes.
A good administrator can make any box secure. In a massive organization like the DOI, you're going to get some not-so-good administrators. Running Windows, constant security problems will eat those people alive.
Good point. "Momentum" is very important in user adoption of a technology. One of the interesting effects of foreign governments/businesses developing GPL software is that it provides other nations with the GPL software that they need to make the switch.
China is developing office software. Venezuela is developing a GPL'd accounting application. Linux needs large "enterprise-ready" applications and it looks like foreign governments may be the ones that finally write them.
While it's true that IBM has been pushing "services" really hard, they've still got their fingers in a lot of pies. IBM has annual revenues of over 85 billion dollars, and makes around two billion dollars in profit every three months. When you're running a ship that big, you don't put all of your eggs in one basket. You stay in as many profitable markets as you can without losing focus.
Because they've been out of the limelight for a while, people seem to forget just how huge and diversified IBM really is. IBM successfully competes with Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Sun, HP, and EDS all at once. Occasionally they'll ditch a division (like storage) because there's no longer any profit in it. However if there's money to be made in a tech market, you can bet that IBM will be there.
Most of the comments posted so far seem to be of the Counterstrike sux/Atmosphere sux/etc. variety. Where's the imagination? The interesting thing about DustCity is not the implementation, it's the idea. News about a persistent CounterStrike-themed world is a good jumping off point for discussions about other possible implementations and 3D worlds in general. Why are we so quick to say "It sucks." or "It will never work."? Are we really that pessimistic?
If you don't like DustCity, talk about CrystalSpace. Talk about WorldForge. Talk about extending the Quake III engine to have similar functionality (and better graphics). There's plenty of interesting work going on in persistent 3D worlds. Why doesn't this article provoke that kind of discussion?
Frankly, it sounds like Andreesson's not really interested in browsers anymore. All that he seems to care about in that arena is marketshare. I think that he gave up the browser as dead and made a concious decision to move on with his life.
I can't really blame the guy. He put a lot of time and energy into creating Netscape, only to see his company get maliciously crushed by Microsoft. That's an emotionally grueling experience, and I'm not surprised that he's not as enthusiastic about browsers as he used to be. I'd much rather hear his take on the future of web services and what Loudcloud's doing these days.
The big difference between Microsoft and the other closed-source software companies is that Microsoft actively tries to destroy the healthy software ecosystem that open-source creates. Oracle has not released press statements saying that the GPL is "viral" and "dangerous". Adobe has never tried to cut off the gimp's air supply. Even historical control freaks like AOL, Apple, and even IBM have embraced open-souce for parts of their flagship products. Microsoft is the only company I can think of that's actively trying to destroy open-source software through bullying OEMs, illegal bundling, and generally spreading FUD.
Adobe's also on my shitlist for the Sklyarov arrest, but nobody is fighting open-source the way that Microsoft is. That's why they get so much attention and garner so much hostility here on Slashdot.
Linux for the masses is great, but lets not let the masses over-simplify it or take it to the lowest commom demononator.
Why not? You wouldn't have to use it! I would love to see a Linux distro that is brain-dead simple to install and oversimplifies everything. I want a distro that automagically detects my hardware and installs a few basic tools, X, GNOME (no flames please), Mozilla, and OpenOffice. I want a distro with as few config options as possible. I want a distro that's simple, dammit.
Would I ever use such a distribution? No, but I wouldn't be the target market. My Mom would be the target. My roommate would be the target. My grandparents would be the target. Most people don't want a lot of choices in their computing life. They just want something that they can use with as few headaches as possible. Why are we so reluctant to provide that?
Heck, it's not like Debian would go away if we made an OS that played to the "lowest common denominator". What are you so afraid of?
People seem to be missing the point here. While the remote viewing portion of this is cool, it's not why this is the cat's pajamas. Combine this tool with AppleScript and NetInfo, and you could administrate a monstrous Apple network from your desk with ease. This is not designed for fixing a friend's box remotely, although it will do that like a champ. This seems to be built for enterprise installations.
I'm doing a huge MS Office (on windows) rollout for 8,000 machines for the City of San Diego. If we were running Macs with Remote Desktop, it could save us over a million dollars in planning and labor. Think about it. All you would have to do is write an AppleScript that would:
Select all of your clients.
Copy the Office folder into a pre-determined spot on the clients.
Create an alias on the desktop of the clients.
That's a hell of a lot simpler than trying to monkey around with login scripts and automated installations in the Windows world. Admittedly, there are Windows products that offer the same functionality (SMS and Altiris come to mind), but the license fees for 8000 clients would be... staggering. With this product you only need to spend a few thousand for a large IT department. Sweet Jesus, I think Apple might be ready for the enterprise.
P.S. I know that the *nixes have similar capability, but somehow I suspect that the Apple solution is a little friendlier.
Totally. The now-defunct Psion series of PDAs had a clamshell design with a more traditional keyboard. The keys aren't full-sized, but the horizontal layout allows you to use your hard earned typing skills. Let me assure you that it's a heck of a lot better than one of those thumb-boards.
I love my Psion Revo, and I'm keeping my eye open for a replacement when it finally goes tits-up. While this Sony is an intriguing design, I see it as being more awkward than practical.
I'm not sure I understand you. The whole point of having a copyright period is that it ends at some point and then whatever was copyrighted goes into the public domain. The public domain belongs to the public (duh) so therefore I have full rights to anything that has an elapsed copyright. That's the way it works.
Of course, if someone 'ceases to exist' before their copyright is up, why shouldn't the same thing happen? We're not depriving the copyright holder of their rights because they don't exist anymore. If there was a sale or transfer of intellectual property then the copyright went to whoever the new owner is and this scenario doesn't apply. All this FAA/EAA move does is ensure that things pass into the public domain as they should.
What, exactly, are you proposing? Keeping things in the public domain a secret? Banning all copying of information? Leaving orphaned information out there to die? I'm not sure what you're arguing for.
While case mods are cool, they're just modifications of boring old PC cases. What's super-cool about this cube is that it was built from scratch and doesn't look like a traditional computer.
Besides, how many case modders use CAD and laser-cut aluminum? That's just nifty.
While the hard-core tech community may understand the value of 'free', the rest of the world often believes "You get what you pay for".
By way of example, my folks once tried to get rid of an old refrigerator. They put a classified ad in the paper that said, "Refrigerator w/ freezer. Works well. Free." Nobody even called. They ran a second ad that read, "Refrigerator w/ freezer. Works well. $20"
I suffered the same fate with my G4 cube 450. The GUI just froze up (although I could still telnet in and gracefully shut it down). To tie up any loose ends I downloaded the 10.1.3 package from the Apple support site and ran the update again. Different fix, same end result.
I'm kind of disappointed that there are problems with this update. Software update has been nothing but solid in the past and it's a shame to see that reputation tarnished. Still, it's a testament to the stability of OS X that it could suffer such a crash and still be totally accessible via ssh or telnet. Much better than the old MacOS.
Unless you can get rootless X on top of Aqua and you can make amor md2 run in rootless X, the answer is no.
True, but you can run rootless X alongside Aqua and they coexist quite peacefully. Heck, I'm doing it right now. I don't know about porting amor md2, but since OS X is an honest-to-god BSD it shouldn't be that hard. One of OS X's big selling points is the easy porting of *nix software.
If you're interested in running X11 apps on OS X, check out the XDarwin project. Here's some screenshots. Very cool stuff.
I'm not saying that the *nix community doesn't have the technology to match Windows Update. My complaint is that to a newbie the freebsd/linux methods are non-intuitive and difficult in comparison. Both OS X and Windows have very easy update tools that apply the latest patches in three or four mouse clicks. While the ports or apt-get systems may be techically better, the ease of use still isn't there.
C'mon guys. Show a little open-mindedness. One of the things I really missed from the Windows world when I switched to Linux was the "Windows Update" feature. Want to install the latest security or feature patches? Click a check box and hit "install". No dependencies, no patch conflicts, no esoteric config options, it just worked. Admittedly Ximian's Red Carpet comes close, but it's still a little quirky sometimes.
I know there will always be those people who want to manually tweak their kernel (god bless 'em!). There's a lot of us, though, that don't want to deal with it. I'd rather have one-click shopping for all of my patch needs so that I can spend more time writing code or playing Quake. MS understands this. Apple understands this. Why doesn't the Linux community understand?
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Actually, even Macs don't use SCSI anymore. SCSI is strictly a "build-to-order" option on their PowerMac line. Even their Xserve server and storage products use multiple IDE channels instead of a SCSI bus.
</nitpicking>
You're right, though. SCSI only really survives in servers because it's just too darn expensive for everything else. Shame.
I think you've confused "easy to use" with "dumbed down". Contrary to popular belief, the two are not the same thing. Your washing machine example proves it. By your own admission, older less functional washing machines were difficult to use and had complex interfaces. Modern washing machines do more, but they're easier to use. Would you prefer a thirty year old washing machine because it had a more complex interface?
Another great example is VCRs. I used to have an old Panasonic with complex push-button controls for setting scheduled recordings. Heck, even setting the clock was a chore. Nowadays, a Tivo does everything that my old Panasonic did (and more!) but it does it with an easy-to-use OSD. Is the old VCR more powerful because it was harder to use? I think not.
I'll second that. For a while I worked for a startup where most of the upper management had come from EDS. A few common threads I saw:
Basically they tried to create a tiny little EDS, and it wasn't a very fun place to work. No vision, no drive, and no goal other than collecting contract dollars. That culture's not conducive to quality work, and I worry about the infrastructure that EDS will be laying for our military's future.
Damn, I tried to mod "funny" and it entered it as "overrated". Stupid wheel mice.
Microsoft is attempting to do the impossible -- support every PC and PC peripheral that has ever been shipped.
That's not true, actually. Windows has native support for a very small percentage of PC hardware and peripherals. They leave the majority of driver writing and device support to the hardware manufacturers, just like Apple does. Windows XP needs extra drivers for my scanner, just like OS X.
Even when MS does support hardware, it's not as easy as a Mac. For example, both Windows and OS X include drivers for my HP Deskjet. In order to setup the printer on Windows I have to:
To set up the same printer on a Mac you:
Macs aren't easier to configure because they support a more limited range of hardware. They're easier to configure because the OS behaves in a much more sensible fashion.
As the receant Linux worm showed, it's bad administrators that are the real problem, not the OS.
Bullshit. That's a straw man argument. Just because Linux isn't invulnerable doesn't mean that Windows isn't a steaming pile. Here's a little experiment for you: Take two boxes, one Windows and one Linux (or OS X or BSD or...). Give them the latest and greatest patches. Run everything you can out of the box using default settings (webservers, mail, filesharing, etc.). Put them on a network like the DOI, with no further administration.
I'll bet you a shiny new nickel that the windows box gets rooted six ways to Sunday first. In fact, I would be shocked if it wasn't a crap-spewing zombie within a few months. Your *nix box, though, has a fair chance of coming through unscathed.
What's the point? The poing is that Windows requires excellent administrators to be reliable and secure. The *nix OSes are a lot more forgiving of lazy administration. I run a lot of OS X, and I am an awful administrator when it comes to my personal boxes. All services are on, patches don't get installed for a month or two, etc. Hell, I run a totally open wireless network too. I've never had a security problem either, and I'll take the Pepsi challenge against any of your uptimes.
A good administrator can make any box secure. In a massive organization like the DOI, you're going to get some not-so-good administrators. Running Windows, constant security problems will eat those people alive.
Good point. "Momentum" is very important in user adoption of a technology. One of the interesting effects of foreign governments/businesses developing GPL software is that it provides other nations with the GPL software that they need to make the switch.
China is developing office software. Venezuela is developing a GPL'd accounting application. Linux needs large "enterprise-ready" applications and it looks like foreign governments may be the ones that finally write them.
I'm just tickled by this.
While it's true that IBM has been pushing "services" really hard, they've still got their fingers in a lot of pies. IBM has annual revenues of over 85 billion dollars, and makes around two billion dollars in profit every three months. When you're running a ship that big, you don't put all of your eggs in one basket. You stay in as many profitable markets as you can without losing focus.
Because they've been out of the limelight for a while, people seem to forget just how huge and diversified IBM really is. IBM successfully competes with Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Sun, HP, and EDS all at once. Occasionally they'll ditch a division (like storage) because there's no longer any profit in it. However if there's money to be made in a tech market, you can bet that IBM will be there.
Most of the comments posted so far seem to be of the Counterstrike sux/Atmosphere sux/etc. variety. Where's the imagination? The interesting thing about DustCity is not the implementation, it's the idea. News about a persistent CounterStrike-themed world is a good jumping off point for discussions about other possible implementations and 3D worlds in general. Why are we so quick to say "It sucks." or "It will never work."? Are we really that pessimistic?
If you don't like DustCity, talk about CrystalSpace. Talk about WorldForge. Talk about extending the Quake III engine to have similar functionality (and better graphics). There's plenty of interesting work going on in persistent 3D worlds. Why doesn't this article provoke that kind of discussion?
Frankly, it sounds like Andreesson's not really interested in browsers anymore. All that he seems to care about in that arena is marketshare. I think that he gave up the browser as dead and made a concious decision to move on with his life.
I can't really blame the guy. He put a lot of time and energy into creating Netscape, only to see his company get maliciously crushed by Microsoft. That's an emotionally grueling experience, and I'm not surprised that he's not as enthusiastic about browsers as he used to be. I'd much rather hear his take on the future of web services and what Loudcloud's doing these days.
MCSEs less useful? Nonsense! I have my MCSE and I've been unemployed twice as long as my compatriots with college degrees!
The big difference between Microsoft and the other closed-source software companies is that Microsoft actively tries to destroy the healthy software ecosystem that open-source creates. Oracle has not released press statements saying that the GPL is "viral" and "dangerous". Adobe has never tried to cut off the gimp's air supply. Even historical control freaks like AOL, Apple, and even IBM have embraced open-souce for parts of their flagship products. Microsoft is the only company I can think of that's actively trying to destroy open-source software through bullying OEMs, illegal bundling, and generally spreading FUD.
Adobe's also on my shitlist for the Sklyarov arrest, but nobody is fighting open-source the way that Microsoft is. That's why they get so much attention and garner so much hostility here on Slashdot.
Linux for the masses is great, but lets not let the masses over-simplify it or take it to the lowest commom demononator.
Why not? You wouldn't have to use it! I would love to see a Linux distro that is brain-dead simple to install and oversimplifies everything. I want a distro that automagically detects my hardware and installs a few basic tools, X, GNOME (no flames please), Mozilla, and OpenOffice. I want a distro with as few config options as possible. I want a distro that's simple, dammit.
Would I ever use such a distribution? No, but I wouldn't be the target market. My Mom would be the target. My roommate would be the target. My grandparents would be the target. Most people don't want a lot of choices in their computing life. They just want something that they can use with as few headaches as possible. Why are we so reluctant to provide that?
Heck, it's not like Debian would go away if we made an OS that played to the "lowest common denominator". What are you so afraid of?
People seem to be missing the point here. While the remote viewing portion of this is cool, it's not why this is the cat's pajamas. Combine this tool with AppleScript and NetInfo, and you could administrate a monstrous Apple network from your desk with ease. This is not designed for fixing a friend's box remotely, although it will do that like a champ. This seems to be built for enterprise installations.
I'm doing a huge MS Office (on windows) rollout for 8,000 machines for the City of San Diego. If we were running Macs with Remote Desktop, it could save us over a million dollars in planning and labor. Think about it. All you would have to do is write an AppleScript that would:
That's a hell of a lot simpler than trying to monkey around with login scripts and automated installations in the Windows world. Admittedly, there are Windows products that offer the same functionality (SMS and Altiris come to mind), but the license fees for 8000 clients would be... staggering. With this product you only need to spend a few thousand for a large IT department. Sweet Jesus, I think Apple might be ready for the enterprise.
P.S. I know that the *nixes have similar capability, but somehow I suspect that the Apple solution is a little friendlier.
Totally. The now-defunct Psion series of PDAs had a clamshell design with a more traditional keyboard. The keys aren't full-sized, but the horizontal layout allows you to use your hard earned typing skills. Let me assure you that it's a heck of a lot better than one of those thumb-boards.
I love my Psion Revo, and I'm keeping my eye open for a replacement when it finally goes tits-up. While this Sony is an intriguing design, I see it as being more awkward than practical.
I'm not sure I understand you. The whole point of having a copyright period is that it ends at some point and then whatever was copyrighted goes into the public domain. The public domain belongs to the public (duh) so therefore I have full rights to anything that has an elapsed copyright. That's the way it works.
Of course, if someone 'ceases to exist' before their copyright is up, why shouldn't the same thing happen? We're not depriving the copyright holder of their rights because they don't exist anymore. If there was a sale or transfer of intellectual property then the copyright went to whoever the new owner is and this scenario doesn't apply. All this FAA/EAA move does is ensure that things pass into the public domain as they should.
What, exactly, are you proposing? Keeping things in the public domain a secret? Banning all copying of information? Leaving orphaned information out there to die? I'm not sure what you're arguing for.
$5 for something you check twice a day...
Twice a day? Dear sir, you are a model of self-restraint.
Remembering to make the case itself a subwoofer?
Call me crazy, but I'm not wild about having a huge throbbing magnet next to my drives.
While case mods are cool, they're just modifications of boring old PC cases. What's super-cool about this cube is that it was built from scratch and doesn't look like a traditional computer.
Besides, how many case modders use CAD and laser-cut aluminum? That's just nifty.
While the hard-core tech community may understand the value of 'free', the rest of the world often believes "You get what you pay for".
By way of example, my folks once tried to get rid of an old refrigerator. They put a classified ad in the paper that said, "Refrigerator w/ freezer. Works well. Free." Nobody even called. They ran a second ad that read, "Refrigerator w/ freezer. Works well. $20"
It was gone the next day.
...is the sound of a hundred thousand three-button-mouse-owning Mac users grinding their teeth.
You know, most of us have the decency to NOT make beowulf jokes. Taco, could you lay off the three-button thing in return? It's kind of old and stale.
I suffered the same fate with my G4 cube 450. The GUI just froze up (although I could still telnet in and gracefully shut it down). To tie up any loose ends I downloaded the 10.1.3 package from the Apple support site and ran the update again. Different fix, same end result.
I'm kind of disappointed that there are problems with this update. Software update has been nothing but solid in the past and it's a shame to see that reputation tarnished. Still, it's a testament to the stability of OS X that it could suffer such a crash and still be totally accessible via ssh or telnet. Much better than the old MacOS.
Unless you can get rootless X on top of Aqua and you can make amor md2 run in rootless X, the answer is no.
True, but you can run rootless X alongside Aqua and they coexist quite peacefully. Heck, I'm doing it right now. I don't know about porting amor md2, but since OS X is an honest-to-god BSD it shouldn't be that hard. One of OS X's big selling points is the easy porting of *nix software.
If you're interested in running X11 apps on OS X, check out the XDarwin project. Here's some screenshots. Very cool stuff.
I'm not saying that the *nix community doesn't have the technology to match Windows Update. My complaint is that to a newbie the freebsd/linux methods are non-intuitive and difficult in comparison. Both OS X and Windows have very easy update tools that apply the latest patches in three or four mouse clicks. While the ports or apt-get systems may be techically better, the ease of use still isn't there.
C'mon guys. Show a little open-mindedness. One of the things I really missed from the Windows world when I switched to Linux was the "Windows Update" feature. Want to install the latest security or feature patches? Click a check box and hit "install". No dependencies, no patch conflicts, no esoteric config options, it just worked. Admittedly Ximian's Red Carpet comes close, but it's still a little quirky sometimes.
I know there will always be those people who want to manually tweak their kernel (god bless 'em!). There's a lot of us, though, that don't want to deal with it. I'd rather have one-click shopping for all of my patch needs so that I can spend more time writing code or playing Quake. MS understands this. Apple understands this. Why doesn't the Linux community understand?