Based on very positive experience with the Palm Pre, my s.o. bought HP's 32gb Touchpad when it came out, and loves it. She just wooted another during this weekend's HP sales -- partly for the kids, and partly for experimenting with all the homebrew geekery. From a purely consumer perspective, the Touchpad rocks. On the plus side, the hardware is top-notch, with build quality as good or better than the iPad2. WebOS is truly inspired & makes iOS and Honeycomb look a little crusty. (A game of leapfrog, I know, but currently WebOS is clearly on top in terms of usability and extensibility). On the downside, I do miss having video out and a microSD slot. Iirc only Asus officially offers USB host, but it's been provided on other devices thru their communities -- I trust WebOS community efforts will exploit the MicroUSB port.
Other cool things? Going supernOOb with JustType to have it figure out what app is best for what I need to find. Then in the next breath going supergeek and installing the UbuntuChroot environment, realizing that there are thousands of "apps" available, and firing up a full office suite (OpenOffice) in an Xwindow. My bet is that our second Touchpad will have Backtrack 5 on it within an hour of arrival. I find it interesting that the Touchpad converges both the best un-geeky grandma-friendly UI (besting even the vaunted iOS), while sweeping in vast tracts of uber-geeky tools and capabilities (lands once occupied by Maemo and MeeGo) into one unified experience.
Lack of apps? Not a problem. The as-shipped config is tremendously well-thought-out, and most core apps are there. I find it hilarious when iPad-toting friends show me a "super awesome gottahaveit app" they paid $$ for... and it's essentially a browser bookmark on the desktop. Thanks, I'll take the Touchpad's skinny app catalog over iOS's app store full of thousands of iLighter/joke apps and paid-bookmark suckerware.
HP is taking a note from MSFT, and willing to put some real push behind this. They're in it for the long haul, and about to bring out a speed upgrade across the phones and tablets. Why not have a sale? Did anyone have a reflective moment and notice that this weekend we're all talking about... HP's product? WebOS is nowhere near dead. It's Linux made safe for grandma. On the phone, on the tablet, on all of the most popular printers, and soon to be on the desktop as your instant-on (read: dual-boot) option. HP is serious about this, and they have deep pockets. As for articles like this one... If they're predicting your death, they're still talking about you...:)
Resistive is "far less capable"? Bzzzzzt. Not true. Not even close. You can't do multi-touch on a resistive screen, but the accuracy on a capacitve screen is far lower not because the technology, but because it's limited by design to input from a big smudgy finger. If you want fine-point or pen-style input (e.g., I do floorplan sketches, my friend runs apps in an emulator and needs to click on tiny menu items, and the UPS guy wants my signature), then you gotta have resistive. A capacitive screen totally strikes out. Is resistive as kid-proof as capacitive? No, but then they're just poking at web pages and playing games. Different usage profile.
( Oh, and BTW, blowing thru levels on Angry Birds is WAAYYY easier on a resistive screen...:)
Danger made the popular phones widely but incorrectly known as Sidekicks
Wrong. Why would you start out with an incorrect, inflammatory, weird statement like this? You have some interesting points re how Microsoft made every wrong move conceivable WRT the acquisition of Danger and its products, but credibility==zero hen you start off with some nit-picky undies-too-tight pronouncement. And you make it mildly fun to pick on you.
For the record, Danger's "Hiptop" phone platform was sold under the Hiptop name outside the US for the first three versions. In the US, T-Mobile was the sole provider, and the formal name for the product was "Sidekick" for versions 1,2 & 3. The Hiptop branding was dropped entirely when Danger T-Mobile released the Sharp-mfr'd SIdekick iD, though the name continued to be used by some developers for internal reference designs. Do you still insist on saying "Touchdown" instead of Microsoft Exchange Server? The Sidekick iD was followed by the Sidekick LX, Sidekick Slide (mfr'd by Motorola), Sidekick 2008, and Sidekick LX'09 (aka Mobiflip). Long before the Microsoft's acquisition of Danger, "Sidekick" was the effectively-sole product and branding.
As for MSFT's series of missteps, you largely have the sequence right. I would add, though, that Microsoft's 18-month-late launch pissed of Verizon product managers so badly that Verizon dropped all voice and data plan discounts and rebates at Pink's launch, effectively requiring a $100/month plan for a teen phone. Microsoft may have beaten Pink within an inch of its life, but Verizon put the final nail in the coffin by making it grossly unaffordable to its target market.
Fry's isn't any better than Radio Shack for DIY, at least in Seattle. Seriously. I was appalled at how small the electronics/DIY area is (down to only 3 sparsely-stocked aisle-sides, squished next to the Otterboxen and hard drives). I was helping my sons with their science projects on each of the last four successive weekends, and after repeated visits, it seems like Fry's even less selection in those aisles of pegged bags of components, than a typical radio shack has in that compact cabinet of drawers.
The thing that really pissed me off was magnets, or the lack thereof. Fry's has 3-4 different types of spooled magnet winding wire. Radio Shack has 4-5 different packages, including a multi-pack of different guages, clearly designed for school projects. But Magnets suitable for ANY kind of electronic/electrical project? Radio Shack has a few round fridge magnets, and Fry's has NONE. Nada, Zilch. They've got the wire, so.. what the hell? They seriously sent me to Lowe's Hardware for regular old ceramic bar magnets...
And there was the epiphany: It turns out that Lowes Hardware has a big aisle of those Radio-Shack style component drawers with all kinds of odd machine screws, electrical and RF connectors, project boxes, brass posts, and a dozen different kinds of ceramic and rare-earth magnets. Add in a selection of transistors, LEDs, switches and a couple of timer & STAMP ICs... and that's what Radio Shack SHOULD be.
Hmpf. RS asks the top three things I want? More selection, more inventory, and more doodads. Get it? -J
Instead of bitching and moaning about tfa being incomprehensible to laymen, I give you The Missing Backgrounder(tm) on Alfresco: **Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Alfresco other than having implemented a few revs of the open Community version.
What is Alfresco? What does it do? At its core, Alfresco is an enterprise document management system (EDMS, also sometimes called “content management”). This means it lets multiple users store and share files, using what appears to be a “shared network drive” or “sharepoint-like web site.” It keeps those files organized in folders and controls permissions to folders and content. Unlike file shares or workgroup sharing systems, however, an EDMS does a few important things: - It keeps track of versions of all files (“content”), meaning that if you or someone else overwrites the file with a new version, you can retrieve the old versions in sequential order, unless you specifically delete them. Want to search for and get the version of a file from December 15 last year, that’s been updated a dozen times since? This function is for you. - It can keep track of file configurations (configuration control), which means you can keep “snapshots” of an entire folder structure and the current versions of all the files in the folder at a given time. Want to manage a 500-document corporate SEC filing, or a whole website, and restore its exact configuration -- with all its specific html, css, jpg/png, and linked pdf and doc files -- as of a particular date last June? This function is for you. - It provides workflow functions without programming. For example, if you can draw a flowchart, you can use a Visio-like function in a good EDMS to draw and run a business process that requires actions on documents and decisions by people. These processes can be as simple as approval of a document, or as complex as multi-path quality control review processes with timing requirements, release by voting (i.e. when 51% of reviewers on a list respond, withdraw the requests from the remaining and proceed to the next workflow step). - It stores metadata about each file, folder structure, workflows, and project-like collections of other objects. This metadata can be used and customized for things like RECORDS MANAGEMENT (because your.doc files don’t store data about how long they should be kept and when to be destroyed), compliance and audit (some files have special data or need chain of custody requirements), etc etc. ---------------------->>> HIGHLIGHT PROVIDED FOR PERSPECTIVE ON THE BOOK REVIEW....--------^^^^^^^^.
Is it any good? Can it handle an enterprise-scale implementation? Absolutely. I’m a veteran of multiple mid-size (10k users) implementations of Documentum and Opentext Livelink, and Alfresco is a serious top-tier product. There are all-in-one downloads that include a dedicated DBMS, good for testing, live workgroup setups, and limited pilots of larger implementations. There are also downloadable packages for multiple platforms (win/lin/osx) and dedicated enterprise DB configurations. In my own experience, the difficulty level for installation was on par with other enterprise systems, and in use with a mid-size user base the extensibility and reliability was excellent.
Where did it come from? How does it compare to other EDMS systems? Alfresco was basically a fork/rewrite of Documentum, one of the major decades-old players in the EDMS field, after a large group of execs and techs split off from Documentum/EMC and decided to go with an open-source model. The other major player is Opentext Livelink. - Documentum is the Mercedes of the field, and has been the largest player in EDMS by revenue for many years. Originally a traditional client-server product, they’ve had a good web interface and stable API for a decade. Their main selling point is rock-solid reliability. Their core market h
----- file system encryption-- Truecrypt for true cross-platform encryption on the phone's non-boot volume
(available by default in the N900's Extras-Testing repository) A nice script to simplify use of TrueCrypt (no screen icon = non-obvious = good)
http://forums.internettablettalk.com/showthread.php?p=597269 Also note that for your pc, you can put the x86 tc.exe on the phone's unencrypted boot volume,...and then mount the phone's encrypted volume from the card, thru 1 usb connection
----- IP encryption Tor is available as a package and works well, tho with caveats
http://www.torproject.org/docs/N900.html.en SSH is also available
----- semi-secure voip Skype support is inbuilt (tho sometimes suspect w/proprietary encryption & whatnot)
configure thru Settings>Connectivity>VoIP and IM. Run your own Asterisk PBX on the n900 with an encrypted config/tunneled
available in the Extras repository
----- alt boot options option to boot alt OS hidden on card
http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Install/Dual_Boot
http://neopwn.com/ (sometime soon, one hopes) option to carry a hidden/alt bootable PC OS in your phone
http://zitstif.no-ip.org/?p=451
The news is sad. I was stunned at what an amazingly powerful-yet-friendly platform Maemo is, and had high hopes for new Nokia N900-like devices running MeeGo in 2011-12. Instead, it looks like Nokia will be shoveling out devices running some zune-based drm-laden insecure crapware from Redmond. They're not getting my money to be sure, but the big picture is sad.
Let's see the sequence: - Nokia picks up some executive deadweight cast off from Microsoft. - He steers Nokia to buying shiny-but-slow crap from his former employer. - He also dumps Nokia's Linux-based collaboration projects. (Maybe Elop's just a mole, and this was his main task?) - Nokia commits to releasing the massively-processor-heavy WinMo7 OS on cheaper hardware for developing markets. (**HTC snickers and says "Good luck with that, sucker!!! **) - Nokia investors recoil. The stock price drops... and keeps dropping. - Customers shrug. - Nokia employees assume this is a tacit admission that the company is going bankrupt. - The employees' Union asks about severance packages. - Nokia runs more ads for Symbian*3 on the N9... as if the higher-end N900 and its OS never existed. - Nokia can't easily retreat, having crossed/burned/blown up it's Linux/Maemo/MeeGo/Android-related bridges.
Summary: Burned bridges, impossible commitments, angry employees, a doofus CEO, declining revenues, bewildered customers, a weak economy, and it just got in bed with a company that eats its partners after mating.
This isn't just a bad decision, it's an implosion.
3.3 Million have a detectable nut/legume allergy. 10 die yearly. I have no idea about the curve plotting out sensitivity from just-detectable to instant-death, nor did I make any inference. But y'all keep referring to this as "your" (my) statistics, and making ad hominem attacks. These are CDC, NIH, and AMA results from years and years of data. Argue all you want, but your opinion means doodley against cold, historical, statistical facts.
*My* statistic? It's not mine, these stats are from the US Centers for Disease Control. If you have a beef with actual research results from actual scientists looking at actual patients in the real world, go argue with them:
So sayeth the CDC: "While 3.3 million Americans are allergic to peanuts or tree nuts, 6.9 million are allergic to seafood. Combined, food allergies cause 30,000 cases of anaphylaxis*, 2,000 hospitalizations, and 150 deaths annually.**" GO READ: http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/foodallergies/
* "cases of anaphalaxis" ranges from just-detectabe-itchy-mouth to fall-down-choking as other commenters have noted. ** Which adds up to about 10 deaths yearly from peanuts or tree nuts, in the entire USA (pop 350M).
Your school *might* have a person with a potentially fatal peanut allergy. However, asserting that there have been 2+ (in all of your 5 years of teaching) is statistically disputed by the CDC, NIH, and AMA. I'm not angry, I'm just disgusted by wild kooks who "feel" that their anecdotal reports carry more weight than serious research involving many thousands of people. You get to have your own opinions, not your own facts.
The cold, hard numbers indicate that most of the "alerts for serious peanut allergies" at your school are either (a) misinterpretation by parents (who foolishly believe "detectable response" == "possible death"), or (b) misdiagnosis by Dr/allergists who would rather overprescribe than miss that 1 in 30M potential death.
What you have in your school, judging by your numbers and CDC data, are 1-3 kids per year whose parents are overprotective or hypochondriacs, or kids prone to panic attacks (which loosely mimics anaphalactic shock) when confronted with unmanaged fear.
Sigh. Great, now the pea-nutty people have more ammo for declaring nut-free zones (from which they do not remove themselves, ironically) in schools, camps, clubs, etc etc.
Meanwhile, in the real world.... Around a hundred people die from all food allergies combined in the US each year. Yet thousands of parents and related busybodies haul children off to alergists, and when they're told a "detectable response" exists, they start shrieking about anaphalactic shock and the deadly threat of peanuts, and buy another box of Epi-Pens.
Nonsense. Complete, utter illogical reality-distorting nonsense. The pea-nutty holocaust has no basis in science. The *only* semi-scientific numbers indicating a spike in peanut allergy incidence was a commercial report sponsored by an Epi-Pen manufacturer several years ago with dubious data sources.
According to the CDC (which employs actual scientists, I'm told), the deadly threat from peanut allergies affects about 1 in 30 Million people. Deadly allergic reactions to fish and fish oils are more than TWICE as prevalent as peanut allergies. Yet fish sticks are served in school cafeterias, hippie daycare providers happily much on boxed sushi with bare hands, and gramma still makes tuna sandwiches... without an epidemic of people dropping dead.
I'm sad that this gets press, not because single real events aren't tragic. I'm sad because my kids have to suffer thru more of the secondary effects: an ongoing flood of hysterical peanut hypochondria.
...because it already has a lot of presence. It's not like we're going to be seeing a lot of clunky nerd-only devices in this space, not after years of trial-error-improvement cycles from major device mfrs (HP, IBM, Sharp, etc etc). And it's a natural evolution from the Kindle, Zaurus, your cable box and routers, etc etc and all those doodads that already run Linux behind the scenes. Admittedly, I'm overly impressed with the Nokia N900 -- particularly because of the Debian connection. The N900 is already a small multifunction tablet with gobs of power, memory, and near-laptop-function in a cellphone. If I could have it larger form with a BT headset, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. It's *exactly* the use case scenarios that Apple has in mind for the iPad, but linux takes away the artificial functional limitations.
Add onto that the idea that I could load any of the thousands of linux apps in deb format. Add to that the momentum from Ubuntu and its ilk, and recent news about consolidation of efforts between players such as Nokia & Intel (Moblin & Maemo). And add to that the subtle threshold that Linux has crossed in terms of ease of use. To wit: Adding software? Permissions are managed far less obtrusively than Win7. Connecting a camera & syncing photos? The experience is eerily OSX-like. Using a audio/video player? Eerily Apple-like, but without the DRM bullsh!t. Adding a scanner to Linux is now a no-click experience (Xsane figures out what drivers/interfaces you need and configures anything available automagically). OOo 3.2 is feature-competitive with Office 2007 (with the exception of the playskool ribbon). Linux has been more flexible & stable for the better part of a decade, and is now easier to use than Win7 or even Apple in many, possibly most, instances. With the cost savings, why in the heck would designers NOT move to Linux?
Why is it that if I butcher a human being, it's possible to get out of prison in a few years if I show that it was done in a mad emotional state or attributable to some psychosis driving me to attack, but if I butcher a book for a page or a CD for a song in a mad emotional state or neurotic urge to share, I'm likely to be fined into bankruptcy, and potentially imprisoned for *longer* than if I'd attacked a person?
Hmm. Trolling from a high-numbered n00b, I see. Phhhhbt!:)
Seriously, there's a nice and very thorough review of the n900 interface at http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-rx51-n900-en.shtml I'd hardly call that a mishmash; it has numerous very well thought-out features in a consistent UI (based on a solid OS & window manager), organized so that the on-screen touch interface doesn't stomp all over the keyboard-oriented shortcuts. That's no small feat. Nokia may be momentarily distracted by shiny things, but from a Symbian big-picture perspective, they've been reasonably persistent about chosen technologies for many years.
I want to like this thing too. I'll hold my verdict until it's in my hands. Otoh, the iPhone killed its credibility when the smudgy no-keyboard-havin' design made it through to production. iPhone is a cool personal device with whiz-bangery? Check. Useful tool for business email/forms/web apps/admin/docs? Bzzzzzzt. God no, I know it's fun to use, but have you ever been on the *receiving* end of messages/emails from iPhone users? I don't recall receiving *any* message from an iPhone user that *didn't* have weird characters or inexplicable word replacement errors. Gawd.
Bollocks. I've had T-Mo for years, and never had a problem with coverage except in the wilds of rural Nebraska (where AT&T has no signal, and even Sprint is roaming on some local podunk telco). Oh, yeah. I also have no signal in the basement parking garage three levels down.
Please. With T-mo and a decent phone**, I had good usable signal just about everywhere I travel... every US metro area, every town big enough to have a McDonalds, all up and down both coasts, fercrissakes my phone even rings when inflight between Seattle & Portland when I've forgotten to turn it off because the coverage on the i-5 corridor is so strong. I got clear signal all cross India and a dozen other countries, roamed seamlessly between Israel and Syria (a diplomatic feat), and my father rang me up when I was on Grimsey above the Arctic circle on the north side of Iceland... and he thought I was at home because the signal was crystal clear.
Sooo..... exactly where is it you commute from? And why do you travel by tunnel-boring machine?
That said, my smartphone has better reception than most. I truly dig the **Sony Ericsson P1i. It doesn't have a catchy name, but it does have the smallest full-qwerty keyboard in any smartphone, and the usual field of email/unified msg, web, office/doc, mapping, wifi/voip, photo/video stuff. Sadly, with the demise of SymbianUIQ and lack of updates, I'll be in the market for a new device (and because I travel a lot, CDMA is a non-starter). I paid $500+ for an unlocked P1i when it came out, and if the N900's reception is as good as the P1i, I'll be buying it too. I might even consider getting off my soapbox and getting a locked one if it saves me a few hundred. Maybe.
Just a minute of running powertop (sudo apt-get install powertop; sudo powertop) reveals a couple of other things: - Apparently the polling for a CD/DVD in the drive (the thing that opens a new window when you insert a disk) also disables SATA power saving. (hal-disable-polling --device/dev/cdrom) - Reduce the background disk activity mentioned above (echo 1500 >/proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs)
I'm surprised, my experience with Ubuntu 9.04 is very good on similar Thinkpad hardware. After upgrading from a decrepit IBM T42p to a Lenovo T61p (UXGA->WUXGA = similar screen size/power demands to the hi-res W500), I still get ~4:00 out of the Thinkpad extended battery.
Some ideas; perhaps these will be useful: - There is a bios setting on the Lenovo-era Thinkpads where you can force the screen to high brightness. My Ubuntu install manages this correctly (i.e. turns it on when on line power, off when on battery). However if yours does not kick the brightness to the normal range off line power, it'll kill the battery faster than any other factor. On high display brightness, you will be lucky to get more than 90min on battery. - Hard drive power consumption does make a significant difference, and for that, Windows does tend to spin down the drive more frequently. With a high-load drive the difference can be pretty dramatic, but a more efficient drive closes the performance gap even if Linux isn't as aggressive with drive power management. For example, with the last upgrade to the T42, I replaced the old 1.1A IBM drive with a.45A Seagate, and my experience was dramatic: 30-45min more battery time from that change alone. When I upgraded the recent hdd, I made sure to select one with less than.5A consumption. - Check your display drivers. On the T61 with the default Ubuntu installation, the CPU load increased with the open-source video driver, because it's compensating for certain unknowns in the GPU by offloading to the CPU/being more inefficient. Loading the Nvidia driver not only increased performance (a lot), but (again) noticeably reduced power consumption.
In short, optimize, optimize, optimize.... and sometimes that means installing the right driver, not stripping things down.
I have a completely different problem with the "modern" Parkeon(tm) parking meters installed in Seattle and Portland. Let's suppose they are installed at a reasonable distance (mostly true), that they work consistently (connection failures about 1 time in 5 during busy hours, and machine failures about 1/20). It's nice having the convenience of credit payment, but not nice when the city claims previously free parking areas. Lots of pro and con; sometimes it's nice to have a receipt. But those receipts got me thinking.
The problem is... waste. Permit some geek musing: You're supposed to buy a 2in x 3in sticker for every 2hrs of parking. Assuming the city installs meters in places where the spaces are occupied 90% of the time (vacant no more than an hour a day), this means 4.5 stickers a day for each space, which is 4.5x12sq in (of non-degrading sticker paper or plasticized backing paper) = 54sq in (.375sqft) of trash per day. Each parking space is, on average, SMC 23.54.030 says a medium space is 8x16ft, which is 128sqft. So it would take 341 active days of one space to cover itself with its own waste. The meters are active 6 days a week, which means in real time, the introduction of the Parkeon system means every parking space in the city is entirely covered with NEW non-recyclable paper trash every 56 weeks.
I started out with this as an idle musing, but now I'm pissed. SDOT claims they manage more than 12000 street parking spaces, which means about 1.4 million square feet of new litter in the city each year. What f*ing moron thought this was a good idea? We were far, far better off with the inconvenience of having to carry a roll of quarters. I know we just threw out our overtly car-hostile incumbent mayor (garnered 25% in the primary; buh bye Nickels), but I still want to put my foot up someone's ass for creating a constant rain of garbage all over my city.
Someone called the ribbon the "most reviled feature" of Office 2007 and was challenged for it. I call BS on the challenge; There's no academically-sound research but evidence is all around you; Software tools for restoring some semblance of the standard Windows menuing system are wildly popular (half a dozen different highly-rated options at various software review sites, both freeware and commercial); Searching for "Office 2007 ribbon" turns up about 5 million hits, and among the first few hundred, about HALF are devoted to turning off the ribbon, recovering the "classic UI" or complaints about usability.
The feedback is clearly polar -- people either love the interface or hate it. There *IS* a large segment of the population that is well-served by the ribbon. It also means that a very large portion of the user base, possibly a majority, is quite unhappy with the PlaySkool-looking ribbon interface. In reviews and IT management testimonials, you can't swing a stick without hitting operations & management claims of lost productivity over many months or the past year+. Why would MS do something that so obviously and publicly has an inverted bell curve for user satisfaction?
I think the question about the interface is really a deeper question about the user base. Imagine if MS decided how best to arrange tools for working on a car. If you're a shop class student, having someone hand you the tool you need for the next scripted task might be very well received in usability tests. However, if you tried that in a professional's shop â" moving tools from where they absolutely always must be without fail â" you would be fired or provoke a physical fight in very short order. The ribbon, or any other adaptive interface driven by tasks/wizards/paths and not tools, is for novices (or those that have far-below-average learning skills). And I'll cite years of research at MIT's Media Lab to back up that assertion, along with acres of evidence from Edward Tufte at Yale (widely-recognized eminent expert in UI design) for starters.
By choosing the adaptive UI model (and abandoning the consistent UI model), MS clearly chose to serve the novice audience. That's OK! But to REMOVE the existing, proven, consistent UI interface as an unabashed fuck-you to professional office workers and anyone with more than a few years of computer experience. The latter are stuck with the PlaySkool interface. Some get used to it and even grow to like it. Many, many do not, find it a huge waste of time, a loss of important screen real estate or at best a visual distraction, and unnecessary change for the sake of novelty. It's ironic bordering on doublespeak that the official name for the ribbon is the "Fluent User Interface" given that "fluent" users are the ones most screwed by it.
Why? When has MS ever made a decision not based on monetary demands? I'll posit this: Microsoft is unconcerned with the productivity, perception or reaction of office workers, because they don't select or buy their own software. What MS wants is for novice, young, and timid users - but those who have individual purchasing power - to buy retail versions of MS Office. The ribbon interface suits them best, and MS wants their business so badly there's no option to turn it off. Screw the addicts, they'll take what they're given. Everything's packaged in dime bags now.
It would be a wonderful thing for OOo to adapt the experience with Office 2007 and ADD a simplified novice user interface. But to remove the experienced user UI would be truly tragic mistake. The beauty of being open source is the ability to absorb the best ideas: follow and adapt what works, innovate where wanted or necessary, but avoid following in the footsteps of people who have wandered into quicksand.
So much of life was captured eloquently by Smythe's Andy Capp cartoons -- most of which are too impolitic to run in today's newspapers. (Smoking, drinking, thumping and getting thumped by your wife... oh my.)
In one of the classics, Andy sums up the entire public's reaction to DRM; After being berated by Flo for the transgression of having some unauthorized fun, he says to her: "Treat me like I'm a dog, and I'll treat you like I'm a dog."...And proceeds to bite her waggling finger.
Playing commercial DVDs is a particular licensing issue -- and the sole hassle for non-tech users on Ubuntu -- but still, it's a 3-line installation affair, and not hard to find. Installing DVD playback support is fully documented on a single Ubuntu page. Finding and installing those wierd Windows codecs is hard? Codec installation is on the same page, and it's a one command line. Sure, I wish there was a big red button on the middle of the screen to help the helpless, but four command lines to gobble up and recreate the media experience of an entirely separate operating system and dozens of media formats ain't bad, especially given the legal prohibitions surrounding it.
Not sure what your URL issues was -- dvd:// is about as standard as donutandcoffee:// (IANA says the proper URI for what you want is file://)-- if you want a particular shortcut or alias to have an os-specific or personal name, then you need to take care of that yourself. While you're at it, why not rename "Trash" to "Recycle Bin"? Makes about as much sense.
Look, I know I'm teetering on the edge of becoming an Ubuntu evangelist, but not without good reason. Someone already commented above that the Lenovo wonk saying "Linux, even if you've got a great distribution and you can argue which one is better or not, still requires a lot more hands-on than somebody who is using Windows" is dope-smoking nonsense. Many (5+) years ago that was so, but now you run into this only if you're using particularly weird hardware, and even then, chances of long-tail support are better with Linux. I recently picked up a top-end Lenovo Thinkpad, a laptop with the latest high-end graphics, and oddities like a built-in card reader, and it all worked *flawlessly* in the default installation. Nothing on Windows even comes close to the Linux experience using Sane for my high-speed scanner: I plugged in the USB cable, and the app figured it out and gave me a read-to-scan interface without a single keystroke or mouse click. With the same installation, I walked into my brother's house, plugged in his scanner to continue working... and I didn't have to download a 260MB driver package from HP as all Windows users must. This is the kind of Windows hassle that literally makes novice users cry, and in Linux.. it just works.
That said, XP ain't bad, and I don't recommend people change things that ain't too broken. But I'm not seeing any compelling reason to use newer versions of Windows, other than an overarching phobia of minor changes and nonexistent problems.
Oh really? If that's so, someone should ask "Lenovo's Worldwide Competitive Analyst" why they're gutting support for Windows on the Thinkpad line. For years, one of the biggest competitive advantages for the Thinkpad line has been the Thinkvantage software that checks the hardware and downloads+installs the latest drivers and updates. This is a tremendous boon for mid-size enterprises and soho market.
About a month ago, and with less than 24 hrs notice, Lenovo announced the discontinuation the whole Windows update system and archive, instead recommending that Windows users should look up their systems using the PN/FRU, check the date and release of each update and driver against the product matricies (about 30-40 distinct drivers and updates per machine) and download what they need and manually install it. (I feel bad for those with custom-built Thinkpads which have different configs using the same PN/FRU.) Sounds like Lenovo is hell-bent on trying to make the Windows experience like Linux 10 years ago.
This is a far cry from "[Windows] just makes more sense: you just take it out of the box and it's ready to go. No. Really, not. Not even close.
But this may be academic in the near term, with Windows 7 spitting on customers with things like an auto-shutdown feature on one side, and reviews on the other saying that the Linux experience is trumping even OS X at this point. (CNet says Ubuntu 9.04 as slick as Windows 7, Mac OS X.) Lenovo's right hand not knowing that its left is chopping down support for Windows to the bare minimums is... curious.
Look, the problem with today's tech interviews is the high level of bullshit and lying. I'm constantly astounded by the stream of supposedly-experienced geeks who come in for an interview, only to prove they're unable to use basic logic, are unfamiliar with common best practices or standards, and completely unable to write or speak coherently. Too many people are lying their way from one high-paid 6-month gig to the next.
Some concrete examples: I had an impressive CISSP/CISA/CISM/QSA resume in front of me, with the corresponding gentleman trying to BS his way out of a simple network architecture review question. (He didn't see anything wrong with multiple unprotected connections in parallel to an external firewall, or a DB system-of-record sitting in a high-exposure dmz.) Another person came in for an interview and made it through the technical questions handily. However, when we asked her to sit down and write up a sample report given some examples and data, we got back a garbled word salad that contained innumerable spelling and grammatical errors.
Both of these would have been serious hiring mistakes, yet the resumes and initial interviews went swimmingly. Interestingly enough, I hear some similar noises out of my friends in the legal profession. I.e there are innumerable lawyers who have somehow managed to pass the bar, yet are completely incompetent when it comes to real world situations. They simply don't have the mental flexibility to handle interesting work.
I think the idea here is that we're talking about tests of *applied* knowledge. I'm happy to accept a tech certification (or a bar exam for that matter) for the purpose of asserting what amount of discrete knowledge a person has, but as to the question of what they can do with those building blocks... I can't think of any other way to sort through the noise of BS candidates than some form of situational testing, writing exercises, and impromptu presentations. If a candidate can *show* me how they can do the job, then I'll give 'em a hard job. But assertions of competency and experience are sadly inadequate. -J
That's rather patronizing; I've more than skimmed the content, I've culled through the bug db for years. I know it's hard to fix this; it's a serious feature request, not a trivial bug.
HOWEVER, at the top of the OOo 3 beta, there are new features, including note-taking, multi-page editing, and workbook sharing and several others that are low-value high-effort feature additions. No matter how many people click on the "request" button on the "outline mode" bug report, this one seems to keep getting de-prioritized. Every time another request/bug report for outlining gets merged, the votes for the merged one get zeroed out as if it's an edge case or rarely-used feature.
Oh well, OOo spreadsheet and presentation editing is stellar, but for text documents, Word and FrameMaker still work acceptably under Wine...
Ugh. I sound like a broken record: Every OOo update, I hope that the OOo developers will add an outline mode to Writer. And every release I'm disappointed. I really like OOo, but this one missing feature keeps me from using it for serious work becuase it makes large document planning and writing production in Writer sloooooow. It's been requested of the OOo team quite a few times over the past 4-5 years. ODF intuitively matches this concept, but implementing it apparently requires some nontrivial change to the Writer codebase. And a little more enthusiasm by those who could code it (wish I could). If I could direct my OOo donation to this one feature, I'd give $XXX instead of my paltry $XX donation. There's some background available here: http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/category/writing
And to quote myself (http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=322381&cid=20912291): "...before some n00b who's never written a 200-page document jumps all over me: No, the OOo "Navigator" does not provide an outline mode. It provides something akin to a re-organizable TOC in a floating window, but it doesn't provide the productivity enhancements afforded by inline hierarchical control within the editing window. This is one function that MS Word got right. For example, in Word I can start typing and make a list in normal text, click into "outline mode" and either use a key shortcut or a single click-drag to promote/demote some text to headings (while leaving other items as content), or re-order paragraphs of text or headings. To do the same thing in OOo's Navigator, I need to switch to a different window to reorganize headings, but switch back to the editing window to resume editing content. I also need to switch between two windows to split a heading into two sections, switch back to move it, and switch again to resume composing content -- something I can do with a CR and single mouse-drag in Word.
Come on guys, suck up the Not-Invented-Here pride and adopt this one feature that MS got right! Or do it one-better and improve on the similar inline hierarchical editing from FrameMaker+SGML. Or innovate some collapsible tag interface from something like the old HotMeTaL from SoftQuad. (But don't trash the Navigator; it *is* useful for final proofing, just not composition)
Slashdot Mirror
Based on very positive experience with the Palm Pre, my s.o. bought HP's 32gb Touchpad when it came out, and loves it. She just wooted another during this weekend's HP sales -- partly for the kids, and partly for experimenting with all the homebrew geekery. From a purely consumer perspective, the Touchpad rocks. On the plus side, the hardware is top-notch, with build quality as good or better than the iPad2. WebOS is truly inspired & makes iOS and Honeycomb look a little crusty. (A game of leapfrog, I know, but currently WebOS is clearly on top in terms of usability and extensibility). On the downside, I do miss having video out and a microSD slot. Iirc only Asus officially offers USB host, but it's been provided on other devices thru their communities -- I trust WebOS community efforts will exploit the MicroUSB port.
Other cool things? Going supernOOb with JustType to have it figure out what app is best for what I need to find. Then in the next breath going supergeek and installing the UbuntuChroot environment, realizing that there are thousands of "apps" available, and firing up a full office suite (OpenOffice) in an Xwindow. My bet is that our second Touchpad will have Backtrack 5 on it within an hour of arrival. I find it interesting that the Touchpad converges both the best un-geeky grandma-friendly UI (besting even the vaunted iOS), while sweeping in vast tracts of uber-geeky tools and capabilities (lands once occupied by Maemo and MeeGo) into one unified experience.
Lack of apps? Not a problem. The as-shipped config is tremendously well-thought-out, and most core apps are there. I find it hilarious when iPad-toting friends show me a "super awesome gottahaveit app" they paid $$ for... and it's essentially a browser bookmark on the desktop. Thanks, I'll take the Touchpad's skinny app catalog over iOS's app store full of thousands of iLighter/joke apps and paid-bookmark suckerware.
This rocks. Go, HP, Go!
Mod parent up!
HP is taking a note from MSFT, and willing to put some real push behind this. They're in it for the long haul, and about to bring out a speed upgrade across the phones and tablets. Why not have a sale? Did anyone have a reflective moment and notice that this weekend we're all talking about... HP's product? WebOS is nowhere near dead. It's Linux made safe for grandma. On the phone, on the tablet, on all of the most popular printers, and soon to be on the desktop as your instant-on (read: dual-boot) option. HP is serious about this, and they have deep pockets. As for articles like this one... :)
If they're predicting your death, they're still talking about you...
Resistive is "far less capable"? Bzzzzzt. Not true. Not even close. You can't do multi-touch on a resistive screen, but the accuracy on a capacitve screen is far lower not because the technology, but because it's limited by design to input from a big smudgy finger. If you want fine-point or pen-style input (e.g., I do floorplan sketches, my friend runs apps in an emulator and needs to click on tiny menu items, and the UPS guy wants my signature), then you gotta have resistive. A capacitive screen totally strikes out. Is resistive as kid-proof as capacitive? No, but then they're just poking at web pages and playing games. Different usage profile.
( Oh, and BTW, blowing thru levels on Angry Birds is WAAYYY easier on a resistive screen... :)
Danger made the popular phones widely but incorrectly known as Sidekicks
Wrong. Why would you start out with an incorrect, inflammatory, weird statement like this? You have some interesting points re how Microsoft made every wrong move conceivable WRT the acquisition of Danger and its products, but credibility==zero hen you start off with some nit-picky undies-too-tight pronouncement. And you make it mildly fun to pick on you.
For the record, Danger's "Hiptop" phone platform was sold under the Hiptop name outside the US for the first three versions. In the US, T-Mobile was the sole provider, and the formal name for the product was "Sidekick" for versions 1,2 & 3. The Hiptop branding was dropped entirely when Danger T-Mobile released the Sharp-mfr'd SIdekick iD, though the name continued to be used by some developers for internal reference designs. Do you still insist on saying "Touchdown" instead of Microsoft Exchange Server? The Sidekick iD was followed by the Sidekick LX, Sidekick Slide (mfr'd by Motorola), Sidekick 2008, and Sidekick LX'09 (aka Mobiflip). Long before the Microsoft's acquisition of Danger, "Sidekick" was the effectively-sole product and branding.
As for MSFT's series of missteps, you largely have the sequence right. I would add, though, that Microsoft's 18-month-late launch pissed of Verizon product managers so badly that Verizon dropped all voice and data plan discounts and rebates at Pink's launch, effectively requiring a $100/month plan for a teen phone. Microsoft may have beaten Pink within an inch of its life, but Verizon put the final nail in the coffin by making it grossly unaffordable to its target market.
Fry's isn't any better than Radio Shack for DIY, at least in Seattle. Seriously. I was appalled at how small the electronics/DIY area is (down to only 3 sparsely-stocked aisle-sides, squished next to the Otterboxen and hard drives). I was helping my sons with their science projects on each of the last four successive weekends, and after repeated visits, it seems like Fry's even less selection in those aisles of pegged bags of components, than a typical radio shack has in that compact cabinet of drawers.
The thing that really pissed me off was magnets, or the lack thereof. Fry's has 3-4 different types of spooled magnet winding wire. Radio Shack has 4-5 different packages, including a multi-pack of different guages, clearly designed for school projects. But Magnets suitable for ANY kind of electronic/electrical project? Radio Shack has a few round fridge magnets, and Fry's has NONE. Nada, Zilch. They've got the wire, so.. what the hell? They seriously sent me to Lowe's Hardware for regular old ceramic bar magnets...
And there was the epiphany: It turns out that Lowes Hardware has a big aisle of those Radio-Shack style component drawers with all kinds of odd machine screws, electrical and RF connectors, project boxes, brass posts, and a dozen different kinds of ceramic and rare-earth magnets. Add in a selection of transistors, LEDs, switches and a couple of timer & STAMP ICs... and that's what Radio Shack SHOULD be.
Hmpf. RS asks the top three things I want? More selection, more inventory, and more doodads. Get it?
-J
Instead of bitching and moaning about tfa being incomprehensible to laymen, I give you The Missing Backgrounder(tm) on Alfresco:
**Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Alfresco other than having implemented a few revs of the open Community version.
What is Alfresco? What does it do? .doc files don’t store data about how long they should be kept and when to be destroyed), compliance and audit (some files have special data or need chain of custody requirements), etc etc.
At its core, Alfresco is an enterprise document management system (EDMS, also sometimes called “content management”). This means it lets multiple users store and share files, using what appears to be a “shared network drive” or “sharepoint-like web site.” It keeps those files organized in folders and controls permissions to folders and content. Unlike file shares or workgroup sharing systems, however, an EDMS does a few important things:
- It keeps track of versions of all files (“content”), meaning that if you or someone else overwrites the file with a new version, you can retrieve the old versions in sequential order, unless you specifically delete them. Want to search for and get the version of a file from December 15 last year, that’s been updated a dozen times since? This function is for you.
- It can keep track of file configurations (configuration control), which means you can keep “snapshots” of an entire folder structure and the current versions of all the files in the folder at a given time. Want to manage a 500-document corporate SEC filing, or a whole website, and restore its exact configuration -- with all its specific html, css, jpg/png, and linked pdf and doc files -- as of a particular date last June? This function is for you.
- It provides workflow functions without programming. For example, if you can draw a flowchart, you can use a Visio-like function in a good EDMS to draw and run a business process that requires actions on documents and decisions by people. These processes can be as simple as approval of a document, or as complex as multi-path quality control review processes with timing requirements, release by voting (i.e. when 51% of reviewers on a list respond, withdraw the requests from the remaining and proceed to the next workflow step).
- It stores metadata about each file, folder structure, workflows, and project-like collections of other objects. This metadata can be used and customized for things like RECORDS MANAGEMENT (because your
---------------------->>> HIGHLIGHT PROVIDED FOR PERSPECTIVE ON THE BOOK REVIEW....--------^^^^^^^^.
Is it any good? Can it handle an enterprise-scale implementation?
Absolutely. I’m a veteran of multiple mid-size (10k users) implementations of Documentum and Opentext Livelink, and Alfresco is a serious top-tier product. There are all-in-one downloads that include a dedicated DBMS, good for testing, live workgroup setups, and limited pilots of larger implementations. There are also downloadable packages for multiple platforms (win/lin/osx) and dedicated enterprise DB configurations. In my own experience, the difficulty level for installation was on par with other enterprise systems, and in use with a mid-size user base the extensibility and reliability was excellent.
Where did it come from? How does it compare to other EDMS systems?
Alfresco was basically a fork/rewrite of Documentum, one of the major decades-old players in the EDMS field, after a large group of execs and techs split off from Documentum/EMC and decided to go with an open-source model. The other major player is Opentext Livelink.
- Documentum is the Mercedes of the field, and has been the largest player in EDMS by revenue for many years. Originally a traditional client-server product, they’ve had a good web interface and stable API for a decade. Their main selling point is rock-solid reliability. Their core market h
Some resources for the n900:
----- file system encryption-- ...and then mount the phone's encrypted volume from the card, thru 1 usb connection
Truecrypt for true cross-platform encryption on the phone's non-boot volume
(available by default in the N900's Extras-Testing repository)
A nice script to simplify use of TrueCrypt (no screen icon = non-obvious = good)
http://forums.internettablettalk.com/showthread.php?p=597269
Also note that for your pc, you can put the x86 tc.exe on the phone's unencrypted boot volume,
----- IP encryption
Tor is available as a package and works well, tho with caveats
http://www.torproject.org/docs/N900.html.en
SSH is also available
----- semi-secure voip
Skype support is inbuilt (tho sometimes suspect w/proprietary encryption & whatnot)
configure thru Settings>Connectivity>VoIP and IM.
Run your own Asterisk PBX on the n900 with an encrypted config/tunneled
available in the Extras repository
----- alt boot options
option to boot alt OS hidden on card
http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Install/Dual_Boot
http://neopwn.com/ (sometime soon, one hopes)
option to carry a hidden/alt bootable PC OS in your phone
http://zitstif.no-ip.org/?p=451
The news is sad. I was stunned at what an amazingly powerful-yet-friendly platform Maemo is, and had high hopes for new Nokia N900-like devices running MeeGo in 2011-12. Instead, it looks like Nokia will be shoveling out devices running some zune-based drm-laden insecure crapware from Redmond. They're not getting my money to be sure, but the big picture is sad.
Let's see the sequence:
- Nokia picks up some executive deadweight cast off from Microsoft.
- He steers Nokia to buying shiny-but-slow crap from his former employer.
- He also dumps Nokia's Linux-based collaboration projects. (Maybe Elop's just a mole, and this was his main task?)
- Nokia commits to releasing the massively-processor-heavy WinMo7 OS on cheaper hardware for developing markets. (**HTC snickers and says "Good luck with that, sucker!!! **)
- Nokia investors recoil. The stock price drops... and keeps dropping.
- Customers shrug.
- Nokia employees assume this is a tacit admission that the company is going bankrupt.
- The employees' Union asks about severance packages.
- Nokia runs more ads for Symbian*3 on the N9... as if the higher-end N900 and its OS never existed.
- Nokia can't easily retreat, having crossed/burned/blown up it's Linux/Maemo/MeeGo/Android-related bridges.
Summary: Burned bridges, impossible commitments, angry employees, a doofus CEO, declining revenues, bewildered customers, a weak economy, and it just got in bed with a company that eats its partners after mating.
This isn't just a bad decision, it's an implosion.
-x
3.3 Million have a detectable nut/legume allergy. 10 die yearly. I have no idea about the curve plotting out sensitivity from just-detectable to instant-death, nor did I make any inference. But y'all keep referring to this as "your" (my) statistics, and making ad hominem attacks. These are CDC, NIH, and AMA results from years and years of data. Argue all you want, but your opinion means doodley against cold, historical, statistical facts.
Math, bitches. Learn it.
*My* statistic? It's not mine, these stats are from the US Centers for Disease Control. If you have a beef with actual research results from actual scientists looking at actual patients in the real world, go argue with them:
So sayeth the CDC: "While 3.3 million Americans are allergic to peanuts or tree nuts, 6.9 million are allergic to seafood. Combined, food allergies cause 30,000 cases of anaphylaxis*, 2,000 hospitalizations, and 150 deaths annually.**"
GO READ: http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/foodallergies/
* "cases of anaphalaxis" ranges from just-detectabe-itchy-mouth to fall-down-choking as other commenters have noted.
** Which adds up to about 10 deaths yearly from peanuts or tree nuts, in the entire USA (pop 350M).
The CDC references NIH work: "Report on the Expert Panel on Food Allergy Research, June 30 and July 1, 2003, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health." [PDF 190K]
GO READ MORE: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/organization/dait/documents/june30_2003.pdf
Your school *might* have a person with a potentially fatal peanut allergy. However, asserting that there have been 2+ (in all of your 5 years of teaching) is statistically disputed by the CDC, NIH, and AMA. I'm not angry, I'm just disgusted by wild kooks who "feel" that their anecdotal reports carry more weight than serious research involving many thousands of people. You get to have your own opinions, not your own facts.
The cold, hard numbers indicate that most of the "alerts for serious peanut allergies" at your school are either (a) misinterpretation by parents (who foolishly believe "detectable response" == "possible death"), or (b) misdiagnosis by Dr/allergists who would rather overprescribe than miss that 1 in 30M potential death.
What you have in your school, judging by your numbers and CDC data, are 1-3 kids per year whose parents are overprotective or hypochondriacs, or kids prone to panic attacks (which loosely mimics anaphalactic shock) when confronted with unmanaged fear.
Sigh. Great, now the pea-nutty people have more ammo for declaring nut-free zones (from which they do not remove themselves, ironically) in schools, camps, clubs, etc etc.
Meanwhile, in the real world.... Around a hundred people die from all food allergies combined in the US each year. Yet thousands of parents and related busybodies haul children off to alergists, and when they're told a "detectable response" exists, they start shrieking about anaphalactic shock and the deadly threat of peanuts, and buy another box of Epi-Pens.
Nonsense. Complete, utter illogical reality-distorting nonsense. The pea-nutty holocaust has no basis in science. The *only* semi-scientific numbers indicating a spike in peanut allergy incidence was a commercial report sponsored by an Epi-Pen manufacturer several years ago with dubious data sources.
According to the CDC (which employs actual scientists, I'm told), the deadly threat from peanut allergies affects about 1 in 30 Million people. Deadly allergic reactions to fish and fish oils are more than TWICE as prevalent as peanut allergies. Yet fish sticks are served in school cafeterias, hippie daycare providers happily much on boxed sushi with bare hands, and gramma still makes tuna sandwiches... without an epidemic of people dropping dead.
I'm sad that this gets press, not because single real events aren't tragic. I'm sad because my kids have to suffer thru more of the secondary effects: an ongoing flood of hysterical peanut hypochondria.
...because it already has a lot of presence. It's not like we're going to be seeing a lot of clunky nerd-only devices in this space, not after years of trial-error-improvement cycles from major device mfrs (HP, IBM, Sharp, etc etc). And it's a natural evolution from the Kindle, Zaurus, your cable box and routers, etc etc and all those doodads that already run Linux behind the scenes. Admittedly, I'm overly impressed with the Nokia N900 -- particularly because of the Debian connection. The N900 is already a small multifunction tablet with gobs of power, memory, and near-laptop-function in a cellphone. If I could have it larger form with a BT headset, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. It's *exactly* the use case scenarios that Apple has in mind for the iPad, but linux takes away the artificial functional limitations.
Add onto that the idea that I could load any of the thousands of linux apps in deb format. Add to that the momentum from Ubuntu and its ilk, and recent news about consolidation of efforts between players such as Nokia & Intel (Moblin & Maemo). And add to that the subtle threshold that Linux has crossed in terms of ease of use. To wit: Adding software? Permissions are managed far less obtrusively than Win7. Connecting a camera & syncing photos? The experience is eerily OSX-like. Using a audio/video player? Eerily Apple-like, but without the DRM bullsh!t. Adding a scanner to Linux is now a no-click experience (Xsane figures out what drivers/interfaces you need and configures anything available automagically). OOo 3.2 is feature-competitive with Office 2007 (with the exception of the playskool ribbon). Linux has been more flexible & stable for the better part of a decade, and is now easier to use than Win7 or even Apple in many, possibly most, instances. With the cost savings, why in the heck would designers NOT move to Linux?
Why is it that if I butcher a human being, it's possible to get out of prison in a few years if I show that it was done in a mad emotional state or attributable to some psychosis driving me to attack, but if I butcher a book for a page or a CD for a song in a mad emotional state or neurotic urge to share, I'm likely to be fined into bankruptcy, and potentially imprisoned for *longer* than if I'd attacked a person?
Oh. Money. That's why.
Silly me.
Hmm. Trolling from a high-numbered n00b, I see. Phhhhbt! :)
Seriously, there's a nice and very thorough review of the n900 interface at
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-rx51-n900-en.shtml
I'd hardly call that a mishmash; it has numerous very well thought-out features in a consistent UI (based on a solid OS & window manager), organized so that the on-screen touch interface doesn't stomp all over the keyboard-oriented shortcuts. That's no small feat.
Nokia may be momentarily distracted by shiny things, but from a Symbian big-picture perspective, they've been reasonably persistent about chosen technologies for many years.
I want to like this thing too. I'll hold my verdict until it's in my hands. Otoh, the iPhone killed its credibility when the smudgy no-keyboard-havin' design made it through to production. iPhone is a cool personal device with whiz-bangery? Check. Useful tool for business email/forms/web apps/admin/docs? Bzzzzzzt. God no, I know it's fun to use, but have you ever been on the *receiving* end of messages/emails from iPhone users? I don't recall receiving *any* message from an iPhone user that *didn't* have weird characters or inexplicable word replacement errors. Gawd.
Bollocks. I've had T-Mo for years, and never had a problem with coverage except in the wilds of rural Nebraska (where AT&T has no signal, and even Sprint is roaming on some local podunk telco). Oh, yeah. I also have no signal in the basement parking garage three levels down.
Please. With T-mo and a decent phone**, I had good usable signal just about everywhere I travel... every US metro area, every town big enough to have a McDonalds, all up and down both coasts, fercrissakes my phone even rings when inflight between Seattle & Portland when I've forgotten to turn it off because the coverage on the i-5 corridor is so strong. I got clear signal all cross India and a dozen other countries, roamed seamlessly between Israel and Syria (a diplomatic feat), and my father rang me up when I was on Grimsey above the Arctic circle on the north side of Iceland... and he thought I was at home because the signal was crystal clear.
Sooo..... exactly where is it you commute from? And why do you travel by tunnel-boring machine?
That said, my smartphone has better reception than most. I truly dig the **Sony Ericsson P1i. It doesn't have a catchy name, but it does have the smallest full-qwerty keyboard in any smartphone, and the usual field of email/unified msg, web, office/doc, mapping, wifi/voip, photo/video stuff. Sadly, with the demise of SymbianUIQ and lack of updates, I'll be in the market for a new device (and because I travel a lot, CDMA is a non-starter). I paid $500+ for an unlocked P1i when it came out, and if the N900's reception is as good as the P1i, I'll be buying it too. I might even consider getting off my soapbox and getting a locked one if it saves me a few hundred. Maybe.
Just a minute of running powertop (sudo apt-get install powertop; sudo powertop) reveals a couple of other things: /dev/cdrom) /proc/sys/vm/dirty_writeback_centisecs)
- Apparently the polling for a CD/DVD in the drive (the thing that opens a new window when you insert a disk) also disables SATA power saving. (hal-disable-polling --device
- Reduce the background disk activity mentioned above (echo 1500 >
I'm surprised, my experience with Ubuntu 9.04 is very good on similar Thinkpad hardware. After upgrading from a decrepit IBM T42p to a Lenovo T61p (UXGA->WUXGA = similar screen size/power demands to the hi-res W500), I still get ~4:00 out of the Thinkpad extended battery.
Some ideas; perhaps these will be useful: .45A Seagate, and my experience was dramatic: 30-45min more battery time from that change alone. When I upgraded the recent hdd, I made sure to select one with less than .5A consumption.
- There is a bios setting on the Lenovo-era Thinkpads where you can force the screen to high brightness. My Ubuntu install manages this correctly (i.e. turns it on when on line power, off when on battery). However if yours does not kick the brightness to the normal range off line power, it'll kill the battery faster than any other factor. On high display brightness, you will be lucky to get more than 90min on battery.
- Hard drive power consumption does make a significant difference, and for that, Windows does tend to spin down the drive more frequently. With a high-load drive the difference can be pretty dramatic, but a more efficient drive closes the performance gap even if Linux isn't as aggressive with drive power management. For example, with the last upgrade to the T42, I replaced the old 1.1A IBM drive with a
- Check your display drivers. On the T61 with the default Ubuntu installation, the CPU load increased with the open-source video driver, because it's compensating for certain unknowns in the GPU by offloading to the CPU/being more inefficient. Loading the Nvidia driver not only increased performance (a lot), but (again) noticeably reduced power consumption.
In short, optimize, optimize, optimize.... and sometimes that means installing the right driver, not stripping things down.
I have a completely different problem with the "modern" Parkeon(tm) parking meters installed in Seattle and Portland. Let's suppose they are installed at a reasonable distance (mostly true), that they work consistently (connection failures about 1 time in 5 during busy hours, and machine failures about 1/20). It's nice having the convenience of credit payment, but not nice when the city claims previously free parking areas. Lots of pro and con; sometimes it's nice to have a receipt. But those receipts got me thinking.
The problem is... waste. Permit some geek musing: You're supposed to buy a 2in x 3in sticker for every 2hrs of parking. Assuming the city installs meters in places where the spaces are occupied 90% of the time (vacant no more than an hour a day), this means 4.5 stickers a day for each space, which is 4.5x12sq in (of non-degrading sticker paper or plasticized backing paper) = 54sq in (.375sqft) of trash per day. Each parking space is, on average, SMC 23.54.030 says a medium space is 8x16ft, which is 128sqft. So it would take 341 active days of one space to cover itself with its own waste. The meters are active 6 days a week, which means in real time, the introduction of the Parkeon system means every parking space in the city is entirely covered with NEW non-recyclable paper trash every 56 weeks.
I started out with this as an idle musing, but now I'm pissed. SDOT claims they manage more than 12000 street parking spaces, which means about 1.4 million square feet of new litter in the city each year. What f*ing moron thought this was a good idea? We were far, far better off with the inconvenience of having to carry a roll of quarters. I know we just threw out our overtly car-hostile incumbent mayor (garnered 25% in the primary; buh bye Nickels), but I still want to put my foot up someone's ass for creating a constant rain of garbage all over my city.
Someone called the ribbon the "most reviled feature" of Office 2007 and was challenged for it. I call BS on the challenge; There's no academically-sound research but evidence is all around you; Software tools for restoring some semblance of the standard Windows menuing system are wildly popular (half a dozen different highly-rated options at various software review sites, both freeware and commercial); Searching for "Office 2007 ribbon" turns up about 5 million hits, and among the first few hundred, about HALF are devoted to turning off the ribbon, recovering the "classic UI" or complaints about usability.
The feedback is clearly polar -- people either love the interface or hate it. There *IS* a large segment of the population that is well-served by the ribbon. It also means that a very large portion of the user base, possibly a majority, is quite unhappy with the PlaySkool-looking ribbon interface. In reviews and IT management testimonials, you can't swing a stick without hitting operations & management claims of lost productivity over many months or the past year+. Why would MS do something that so obviously and publicly has an inverted bell curve for user satisfaction?
I think the question about the interface is really a deeper question about the user base. Imagine if MS decided how best to arrange tools for working on a car. If you're a shop class student, having someone hand you the tool you need for the next scripted task might be very well received in usability tests. However, if you tried that in a professional's shop â" moving tools from where they absolutely always must be without fail â" you would be fired or provoke a physical fight in very short order. The ribbon, or any other adaptive interface driven by tasks/wizards/paths and not tools, is for novices (or those that have far-below-average learning skills). And I'll cite years of research at MIT's Media Lab to back up that assertion, along with acres of evidence from Edward Tufte at Yale (widely-recognized eminent expert in UI design) for starters.
By choosing the adaptive UI model (and abandoning the consistent UI model), MS clearly chose to serve the novice audience. That's OK! But to REMOVE the existing, proven, consistent UI interface as an unabashed fuck-you to professional office workers and anyone with more than a few years of computer experience. The latter are stuck with the PlaySkool interface. Some get used to it and even grow to like it. Many, many do not, find it a huge waste of time, a loss of important screen real estate or at best a visual distraction, and unnecessary change for the sake of novelty. It's ironic bordering on doublespeak that the official name for the ribbon is the "Fluent User Interface" given that "fluent" users are the ones most screwed by it.
Why? When has MS ever made a decision not based on monetary demands? I'll posit this: Microsoft is unconcerned with the productivity, perception or reaction of office workers, because they don't select or buy their own software. What MS wants is for novice, young, and timid users - but those who have individual purchasing power - to buy retail versions of MS Office. The ribbon interface suits them best, and MS wants their business so badly there's no option to turn it off. Screw the addicts, they'll take what they're given. Everything's packaged in dime bags now.
It would be a wonderful thing for OOo to adapt the experience with Office 2007 and ADD a simplified novice user interface. But to remove the experienced user UI would be truly tragic mistake. The beauty of being open source is the ability to absorb the best ideas: follow and adapt what works, innovate where wanted or necessary, but avoid following in the footsteps of people who have wandered into quicksand.
-J
So much of life was captured eloquently by Smythe's Andy Capp cartoons -- most of which are too impolitic to run in today's newspapers. (Smoking, drinking, thumping and getting thumped by your wife... oh my.)
In one of the classics, Andy sums up the entire public's reaction to DRM; After being berated by Flo for the transgression of having some unauthorized fun, he says to her: "Treat me like I'm a dog, and I'll treat you like I'm a dog." ...And proceeds to bite her waggling finger.
Ain't that the damn truth.
Playing commercial DVDs is a particular licensing issue -- and the sole hassle for non-tech users on Ubuntu -- but still, it's a 3-line installation affair, and not hard to find. Installing DVD playback support is fully documented on a single Ubuntu page. Finding and installing those wierd Windows codecs is hard? Codec installation is on the same page, and it's a one command line. Sure, I wish there was a big red button on the middle of the screen to help the helpless, but four command lines to gobble up and recreate the media experience of an entirely separate operating system and dozens of media formats ain't bad, especially given the legal prohibitions surrounding it.
Not sure what your URL issues was -- dvd:// is about as standard as donutandcoffee:// (IANA says the proper URI for what you want is file://)-- if you want a particular shortcut or alias to have an os-specific or personal name, then you need to take care of that yourself. While you're at it, why not rename "Trash" to "Recycle Bin"? Makes about as much sense.
Look, I know I'm teetering on the edge of becoming an Ubuntu evangelist, but not without good reason. Someone already commented above that the Lenovo wonk saying "Linux, even if you've got a great distribution and you can argue which one is better or not, still requires a lot more hands-on than somebody who is using Windows" is dope-smoking nonsense. Many (5+) years ago that was so, but now you run into this only if you're using particularly weird hardware, and even then, chances of long-tail support are better with Linux. I recently picked up a top-end Lenovo Thinkpad, a laptop with the latest high-end graphics, and oddities like a built-in card reader, and it all worked *flawlessly* in the default installation. Nothing on Windows even comes close to the Linux experience using Sane for my high-speed scanner: I plugged in the USB cable, and the app figured it out and gave me a read-to-scan interface without a single keystroke or mouse click. With the same installation, I walked into my brother's house, plugged in his scanner to continue working... and I didn't have to download a 260MB driver package from HP as all Windows users must. This is the kind of Windows hassle that literally makes novice users cry, and in Linux.. it just works.
That said, XP ain't bad, and I don't recommend people change things that ain't too broken. But I'm not seeing any compelling reason to use newer versions of Windows, other than an overarching phobia of minor changes and nonexistent problems.
Oh really? If that's so, someone should ask "Lenovo's Worldwide Competitive Analyst" why they're gutting support for Windows on the Thinkpad line. For years, one of the biggest competitive advantages for the Thinkpad line has been the Thinkvantage software that checks the hardware and downloads+installs the latest drivers and updates. This is a tremendous boon for mid-size enterprises and soho market.
About a month ago, and with less than 24 hrs notice, Lenovo announced the discontinuation the whole Windows update system and archive, instead recommending that Windows users should look up their systems using the PN/FRU, check the date and release of each update and driver against the product matricies (about 30-40 distinct drivers and updates per machine) and download what they need and manually install it. (I feel bad for those with custom-built Thinkpads which have different configs using the same PN/FRU.) Sounds like Lenovo is hell-bent on trying to make the Windows experience like Linux 10 years ago.
This is a far cry from "[Windows] just makes more sense: you just take it out of the box and it's ready to go. No. Really, not. Not even close.
But this may be academic in the near term, with Windows 7 spitting on customers with things like an auto-shutdown feature on one side, and reviews on the other saying that the Linux experience is trumping even OS X at this point. (CNet says Ubuntu 9.04 as slick as Windows 7, Mac OS X .) Lenovo's right hand not knowing that its left is chopping down support for Windows to the bare minimums is... curious.
Look, the problem with today's tech interviews is the high level of bullshit and lying. I'm constantly astounded by the stream of supposedly-experienced geeks who come in for an interview, only to prove they're unable to use basic logic, are unfamiliar with common best practices or standards, and completely unable to write or speak coherently. Too many people are lying their way from one high-paid 6-month gig to the next.
Some concrete examples: I had an impressive CISSP/CISA/CISM/QSA resume in front of me, with the corresponding gentleman trying to BS his way out of a simple network architecture review question. (He didn't see anything wrong with multiple unprotected connections in parallel to an external firewall, or a DB system-of-record sitting in a high-exposure dmz.) Another person came in for an interview and made it through the technical questions handily. However, when we asked her to sit down and write up a sample report given some examples and data, we got back a garbled word salad that contained innumerable spelling and grammatical errors.
Both of these would have been serious hiring mistakes, yet the resumes and initial interviews went swimmingly. Interestingly enough, I hear some similar noises out of my friends in the legal profession. I.e there are innumerable lawyers who have somehow managed to pass the bar, yet are completely incompetent when it comes to real world situations. They simply don't have the mental flexibility to handle interesting work.
I think the idea here is that we're talking about tests of *applied* knowledge. I'm happy to accept a tech certification (or a bar exam for that matter) for the purpose of asserting what amount of discrete knowledge a person has, but as to the question of what they can do with those building blocks...
I can't think of any other way to sort through the noise of BS candidates than some form of situational testing, writing exercises, and impromptu presentations. If a candidate can *show* me how they can do the job, then I'll give 'em a hard job. But assertions of competency and experience are sadly inadequate.
-J
That's rather patronizing; I've more than skimmed the content, I've culled through the bug db for years. I know it's hard to fix this; it's a serious feature request, not a trivial bug.
HOWEVER, at the top of the OOo 3 beta, there are new features, including note-taking, multi-page editing, and workbook sharing and several others that are low-value high-effort feature additions. No matter how many people click on the "request" button on the "outline mode" bug report, this one seems to keep getting de-prioritized. Every time another request/bug report for outlining gets merged, the votes for the merged one get zeroed out as if it's an edge case or rarely-used feature.
Oh well, OOo spreadsheet and presentation editing is stellar, but for text documents, Word and FrameMaker still work acceptably under Wine...
Ugh. I sound like a broken record: Every OOo update, I hope that the OOo developers will add an outline mode to Writer. And every release I'm disappointed. I really like OOo, but this one missing feature keeps me from using it for serious work becuase it makes large document planning and writing production in Writer sloooooow. It's been requested of the OOo team quite a few times over the past 4-5 years. ODF intuitively matches this concept, but implementing it apparently requires some nontrivial change to the Writer codebase. And a little more enthusiasm by those who could code it (wish I could). If I could direct my OOo donation to this one feature, I'd give $XXX instead of my paltry $XX donation. There's some background available here: http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/category/writing
And to quote myself (http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=322381&cid=20912291): "...before some n00b who's never written a 200-page document jumps all over me: No, the OOo "Navigator" does not provide an outline mode. It provides something akin to a re-organizable TOC in a floating window, but it doesn't provide the productivity enhancements afforded by inline hierarchical control within the editing window. This is one function that MS Word got right. For example, in Word I can start typing and make a list in normal text, click into "outline mode" and either use a key shortcut or a single click-drag to promote/demote some text to headings (while leaving other items as content), or re-order paragraphs of text or headings. To do the same thing in OOo's Navigator, I need to switch to a different window to reorganize headings, but switch back to the editing window to resume editing content. I also need to switch between two windows to split a heading into two sections, switch back to move it, and switch again to resume composing content -- something I can do with a CR and single mouse-drag in Word.
Word: type, type, drag, type, type, [enter], key-combo, type.
OOo: type, type, switch-window, drag, switch-window, type, type, re-style, switch-window, drag, switch-window, type.
Come on guys, suck up the Not-Invented-Here pride and adopt this one feature that MS got right! Or do it one-better and improve on the similar inline hierarchical editing from FrameMaker+SGML. Or innovate some collapsible tag interface from something like the old HotMeTaL from SoftQuad. (But don't trash the Navigator; it *is* useful for final proofing, just not composition)